BURNED VILLAGES - Part 02

It began with the signing of the Lebanon Agreement to form a coalition government with other Greek civilian parties, including the political right parties it was fighting against. The Agreement also called for disarming the Macedonian people as a means of destroying the Macedonian national liberation movement which had been building since the start of the triple occupation.

It then signed the Caserta Agreement, requiring all resistance forces in Greece to be placed under English command. After this ELAS was placed under the command of the English supported Greek government in exile which brought into the forefront the question of what to do with the Macedonian forces.

The political right, being in direct command of ELAS, did not want Macedonian forces to exist because that would provide undeniable proof that a Macedonian population existed in Greece. Also, the Macedonians posed a danger to Greece’s sovereignty.

Then, after Stalin and Churchill divided the Balkans at Yalta, and Stalin accepted the idea that no socialist system would be implemented in Greece, the so-called “December events” began. Violent acts were staged in Athens in order to vilify ELAS and have it disbanded and give the English reason to enter Greece legally.

After that the Varkiza Agreement was signed which called for EAM to disband ELAS and hold a referendum on the return of the monarchy in Greece. By signing the Varkiza Agreement the CPG basically surrendered power to the political right and the English.

This should give you an idea of how events were developing in Greece during World War Two and the direction the CPG was taking.

But as WW II was winding down communists still existed in Greece, who at the time were a majority, and so were Macedonians who were promised self-determination by the Atlantic Charter and other consessions by the CPG.

When WW II ended the communists were still there and so were the Macedonians looking for the promised concessions they earned by fighting on the side of the Allies. These unfortunately for the Greek government and for England were unresolved matters which had to be resolved. So once again the CPG’s help was needed. But before anything could be resolved the Greek government in Athens had to be legitimized and take root.

After England installed its agent Zahariadis as general secretary of the CPG, the English turned to the CPG to help them elect the liberal party which, in turn, opened the door for the political right to take power.

All Zahariadis had to do was encourage the democratic forces to support the liberals. He told the people to support the liberals in

order to keep the “Monarcho-Fascists” from taking power. But then when the liberals took office they opened the door for the “Monarcho-Fascists” to take over.

After the “Monarcho-Fascists” took control of the security forces in Greece they began to torment the democratic forces and terrorize the Macedonian population. They demanded that the Macedonians leave Greece.

Unfortunately their tactics did not work because the Macedonians were not going anywhere. So a new plan had to be put in place. If they were not going to leave under duress they would be removed by other means. For example if the Macedonians were to pick up guns and begin to fight against the Greek government, say to carve out Greek territory, then the Greek government would have no choice but to fight back. Greece’s actions would also be supported by its allies England and the United States because their intervention would be deemed of “legal” character because they were there to help the “legally elected Geek government” and the “lawful regime in Greece” against “subversive elements”.

Here again the English and their Western partners turned to the CPY and CPG for help. While the rightists in Greece were tormenting the democratic forces and terrorizing the Macedonian population, the CPY was creating a new people’s liberation movement for Greek occupied Macedonia (NOF). Zahariadis in the meantime was preparing the democratic forces inside Greece for a new armed struggle. Both Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union agreed to support the CPG in this.

NOF arrived in Greek occupied Macedonia before the new armed struggle had started, later termed the Greek Civil War, and began preparations to arm the Macedonian people. But by then WW II had ended and the Macedonian people did not want to fight and refused to join NOF. To make them fight the political right (“Monarcho-Fascists”) began to escalate its terror activities against the Macedonians to unprecedented levels, forcing many Macedonians to run to the mountains and join NOF in order to save themselves.

After NOF established itself on the ground and was ready, the CPY subordinated NOF to the CPG and the CPG used it as an instrument to rally the Macedonian people and initiated the armed struggle.

And, as I said earlier, first the Macedonian people were told they were fighting to save themselves from the Greek terror, later they were told they were fighting for equality and human rights in Greece, after that they were told they were fighting for a united Macedonia and for independence from Greece. Eventually, as the war became very hot, they were told they were fighting for their survival.

In the meantime, while the English were telling the world a civil war was being fought in Greece - communist Greeks fighting against capitalist Greeks, the Greek population was told that the Greek government was fighting against Slav bandits who, with help from the Greek communists, were trying to steal their Macedonia from them.

There are patterns that show that when the Greek government needed to “do something” against the communists or against the Macedonians in Greece the CPG was there to help. When the Greek government needed to pass an anti-Macedonian law or rally the Greek people to fight in the war against the Macedonian people, the CPG was there to make it happen.

In order to upset the Greek people the CPG often offered the Macedonian people concessions like recognition, rights, independence and so on. It was then up to the Greek press to declare these concessions treacherous.

These CPG tactics had a dual effect; they rallied both the Greek and Macedonian people to fight against one another. On the one hand they rallied the Greek people behind their government to fight against the Slavic bandits who wanted to steal their Macedonia from them. On the other hand they rallied the Macedonian people behind the democratic forces which promised rights and self-determination.

All the Macedonians had to do was fight and win the war and these concessions would be theirs. All the Greeks had to do was fight and win the war and Macedonia would remain Greek.

On the surface it seemed like the CPG was doing “goods things” for the Macedonian people like allowing them to speak Macedonian, opening Macedonian schools, offering them equal rights, offering them the right to self-determination, etc. But if we dig deeper we will find that all these things were done for ulterior and sinister motives.

As history has shown all these concessions were temporary and later withdrawn. In other words, the CPG made these concessions not for the benefit of the Macedonian people but for the benefit of Greece and its patrons England and the United States.

What is interesting here is that the CPG made sure all these offers were made to a phantom people the “Slavo-Macedonians”, who were defined as Slavic speaking Greeks who lived in Greek occupied Macedonia and who had nothing to do with Macedonians in Tito’s Yugoslavia.

But that was not all the CPG did to help the Greek government and its patrons England and the US win the war.

Before Zahariadis started the armed uprising in Greece, later termed the Greek Civil War, he did a few things to make sure the Greek government won.

First, he agreed to England coming to Greece, in fact he insisted on it.

Second, he agreed to form a coalition “unity” government with the rightists, the CPG’s enemy.

Third, he refused to expand DAG and turn it into a powerful army when he could have, when the Greek government was weak and when the CPG could have taken power.

Fourth, he refused to take part in the March 31, 1946 elections, allowing a rightist government to win and take hold of power.

Fifth, he refused to allow independent Macedonian organizations and military formations to exist, which could have helped him win the war.

Sixth, he and his top people hand-picked the battles DAG fought making sure the opponent was prepared to fight and win, like in Konitsa.

Seventh, he turned DAG from a successful hit and run mobile army into an unsuccessful stationary army fighting at fronts giving its opponent the ability to target it with its heavy artillery and aviation.

Eight, he brought the war north into Greek occupied Macedonia where he had set up free zones and liberated territories. As a result the war brought death and destruction forcing the Macedonian people to leave their homes en masse and head north across the border to save themselves.

Nine, he made sure every capable Macedonian was involved in the war effort and as a result became an enemy of the Greek government.

Ten, he gave the Greek military enough time to prepare before he ordered the attack on Lerin.

Eleven, when the war was escalating and coming to a conclusion he made sure that every Macedonian village was emptied of its people and they were sent over the border into Albania.

Twelve, he made no attempt to sign a surrender agreement with the Greek government and safeguard the return of the fighters and refugees. In fact he made sure the refugees were out of Greece, enabling the Greek government to close its borders and permanently exile them with no hope of ever returning.

The Greek Civil War was rigged from the start and was designed to destroy the communists in Greece and get rid of the Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia.

This is what England and later the United States wanted and this is why they supported the Greek government and the top CPG leadership.

The Greek government made it no secret that it wanted the communists destroyed and the entire Macedonian population expelled from Greece. It made that very clear through its newspapers, the Greek media, and by condoning and secretly supporting terrorist activities against the Macedonians and against the democratic people in general.

Control of how this was going to be done was left up to the CPG top leaders. For all this to be legal the Greek government had to take a defensive position and only react, that is, fight back to protect Greece’s sovereignty. The CPG had to do the rest.

So, to make sure the Greek government met its objectives, the CPG set the conditions as stated above and appointed the “right people” to lead the war. The top CPG leadership made sure these leaders had the most to lose if the communists or the Macedonians won.

The English made sure the CPG top leadership was infiltrated by loyal Greeks the likes of Zahariadis and Vafiadis who had most to lose. Zahariadis and Vafiadis were both Christian Turkish colonists from Asia Minor deposited in Greek occupied Macedonia in the 1920’s and given Macedonian lands and homes for free.

These people were told that if the Macedonians won the war they and all the colonists and settlers the Greek government deposited in Macedonia would be thrown out. At the same time, even though the majority of the fighting force in this war was Macedonian, no Macedonians were allowed to lead independently.

If the CPG truly wanted to help the Macedonian people it would have allowed the Macedonians to independently create and lead their own organizations and military.

After receiving reports of how badly the communists and Macedonians were treated in Greece with English support, the Soviet Union saw an opportunity to intervene by asking the United Nations to remove the English military from Greece. The UN declined. Like it is today, the United Nations at that time was dominated by Western influence which tended to support England’s interests more than care for the Macedonians or the communists in Greece.

As a counter to this, Greece then sent its own delegation to the United Nations claiming that the war inside Greece was brought from the outside, particularly by the communist parties of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania and supported by the Soviet Union.

Greece and its patrons England and the United States, needed to make this war look like it was brought into Greece by outsiders otherwise it would have been difficult to explain why Slav-speaking Greeks would want to carve out Greek territory and give it to Yugoslavia.

Also, it would later make it easier to explain why Greece exiled all the DAG fighters and would not accept them back. This also explains why the CPG did not negotiate DAG’s surrender and the return of the fighters to their homes in Greece. If the war could be blamed on outsiders then there would be no reason to explain anything.

The United Nations did send an investigative team which conducted an internal and external investigation but its findings were inconclusive. Greece made sure the “right” people were interviewed who gave the investigators false information.

Unfortunately the fact that NOF, AFZH and the Peoples’ Liberation Youth Organization (NOMS) were created in Yugoslavia and sent to Greece to start a war did not help the situation.

Eventually the United Nations voted in favour of Greece and ordered Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania not to recognize the

communists in Greece or to support the war effort. Nothing was done about the Macedonian condition.

Sometime later, realizing that things could get a lot worse in the Balkans, the Soviet Union ordered Yugoslavia to stop supporting the war effort in Greece. Stalin began to worry when there was word that the Greek government was asking the United States to think about using atomic weapons against DAG in the Macedonian mountains. “Look what they did in Japan, thousands of kilometers away… Imagine what they would do here if we continue to interfere in their affairs…” said Stalin to Tito.

Unfortunately Tito refused to comply which started the Stalin-Tito feud turning the entire communist block, including the CPG, against the CPY.

This was very bad for the Macedonian people who were caught in the middle. The feud left no middle ground; the Macedonian people were forced to decide if they were “for Tito” or “for Stalin”. And if they were for the one that meant that they were against the other.

The Macedonian people were split in two and began their own feud calling each other traitors. In fact Stalin was so upset, after attempting to assassinate Tito several times and failing, that he threatened to dismantle Yugoslavia. He told Tito he was going to assemble an army from the Macedonian fighters and send it to carve out the Yugoslav part of Macedonia and create an independent Macedonian state. And that is the reason why the Soviet Union took all the exiled DAG fighters to Tashkent, USSR after the Greek Civil War ended.

Years later, when the fighters began to return to their homeland, not being welcome in Greece, they landed in the Republic of Macedonia. Upon their entry they were sent to a prison for interrogation and asked if they were “for Tito” or “for Stalin”… and God help those who said they were for Stalin.

The Macedonian fighters who fled the Greek Civil War and went to the Republic of Macedonia before the war was over succumbed to

CPY propaganda and began to accuse the Macedonians still fighting in the war of being traitors; fighting for the Greek cause.

The Macedonian fighters who fought in the Greek Civil War to the end and were sent to Tashkent succumbed to CPG propaganda and began to accuse the fighters who left during the war of being traitors, deserters and of abandoning their families and homeland.

There were no Macedonian heroes in this war on either side, only villains, blaming each other for losing the war. History took the side of the architects who started this war and placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Macedonian people. They started a feud, Macedonian accusing Macedonian of wrong-doing, which is still ongoing to this day, to cover up the truth. Yugoslavia was very much a part of the conspiracy to get rid of the Macedonians from Greece as much as Greece, England and the United States were.

It was estimated that thousands of Macedonian civilians and combatants were killed during the Greek Civil War and thousands more were displaced including the refugee children. There are no exact statistics on this but in total close to about 120,000 Macedonians were displaced from their homeland just like Mr. Leeper suggested in his dispatch to Mr. Eden.

But that was not the most tragic part.

In the years following none of the Macedonians that were exiled from their homeland were allowed to return home, not even the innocent children which had nothing to do with the war.

The Greeks butchered the Macedonian people and drove their families apart all around the world! They took the Macedonian people’s properties and refuse to allow them to return to their homes, claiming that they don’t belong there because they are not Greeks by birth. They destroyed the Macedonian habitat, changed the names of Macedonian toponyms and personal names and all this was done in front of Europe. And thus Europe and the rest of the world are well aware of the Greek genocides committed against the Macedonian people and to this day, have done nothing!