CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH THE TREATY OF BUCHAREST WAS DRAFTED - Part 08

the initial attacks there was a period of calm but also of intensive preparation for further battles. Prespa was divided into two Regions: Resen (Upper Prespa) and Prespa (Lower Prespa). Prespa was well organized throughout, which made it easier to form a larger number of detachments. One of the major actions of the uprising was the attack on Resen, which was aimed at throwing the enemy into panic and confusion. Most of Resen Region and Lower Prespa were liberated by mid-August and lay in the hands of the rebels. On the morning of August 2nd the people of Ohrid woke up to street posters, written in the Ottoman language, advising Ottoman inhabitants to remain neutral because the battle which had just begun was not directed against them but against the intolerable Ottoman regime. The Ilinden Uprising in the Ohrid Region was supported by a well-prepared plan and well-organized stocks of supplies. Arrangements were made to stockpile food, build secret bakeries and bullet-casting workshops, as well as a medical aid service and a hospital. Ohrid Region was divided into several sub-regions and the fiercest action took place in Malesia, Upper and Lower Debar and in Ortakol. For the first ten days after the start of the Uprising battles were fought more or less regularly around Ohrid. Ottoman troops were constantly coming in from Albania and Debar and destroying the villages which the local detachments bravely defended. The Ottoman authorities were given support by bands of Albanian professional brigands who spread terror throughout the Macedonian villages. In spite of this, however, the mountain lords stayed with the rebels. On Ilinden about five thousand Ottoman troops attacked Kichevo, captured it and then left it to its own accord. The bloodiest battles fought that day in Kichevo Region, as mentioned earlier, were in the village Karbunitsa. Instead of guns, knives and bayonets the two sides fought hand-to-hand combat leaving thirty rebels and over one hundred Ottoman soldiers dead. After this bloody debacle the Ottoman troops no longer used their strength to attack and most of the Kichevo Region was left free until the beginning of September. Through its revolutionary vigour, its dynamic energy and concentration of power, and through the results achieved, the Kostur Revolutionary District fought the hardest in the Ilinden Uprising. Kostur Region was divided into several military centers with their own village detachments, commands and flags. In addition to its central detachments, the Kostur Region Revolutionary District also had two regional detachments with one hundred and fifty insurgents each and a special detachment. The detachments were commanded by Lazar Poptrajkov, Vasil Chakalarov,

Pando Kliashev and others. The proclamation of the General Staff announcing the start of the Uprising was received by the people of Kostur on the very day the Ilinden Uprising began. The regional command announced this historic event as follows: “The Uprising begins today. Macedonia has declared war on tyranny...We call on all of you who bear arms and are capable of fighting to join the ranks of our fighters. Long live Macedonia. Let us fight for freedom, liberty and autonomy...” The Uprising began with a number of attacks all throughout Kostur Region and on August 5th, 1903 more than 600 insurgents began a concentrated attack on the Ottoman stronghold in the town of Klisura. Within a few hours the Ottoman force was annihilated and the town fell into rebel hands. Klisura’s liberation was marked as a great occasion and its liberators were welcomed with open arms by the local inhabitants. The commanders made speeches explaining that war was waged in the interests of all the oppressed, and for the autonomy of Macedonia. Klisura remained in the hands of the insurgents until August 27th, 1903 during which time a revolutionary government was formed and people enjoyed their short lived freedom. The Kostur Region detachments, unlike those from other Regions, were in constant movement, always pursuing and attacking the enemy. On August 25th, 1903 the Kostur Revolutionary District joined forces with detachments from the Lerin Region Revolutionary District and attacked and liberated the town of Neveska. The Uprising in Kostur Region was carried out on a massive scale with the entire population, particularly in the northern region, taking part and risking life and property. From the start the Kostur Region leadership kept up the offensive, acting swiftly, almost always in large units, and scoring great successes in battle. Of all the Revolutionary Districts that took part around the Bitola Uprising only Lerin Region fought in the offensive Partisan style. While the people did not abandon their villages and stayed home, more than 500 insurgents took up arms and attacked Ottoman garrisons, cut telephone lines, destroyed rail and road bridges and took over Ottoman Bey strongholds. The August 2nd, 1903 Uprising was not limited to Bitola and surrounding Regions but also spread throughout most of Macedonia as well. But in some Districts like the Solun Vilayet (Solun and Seres Revolutionary District) there was no mass participation mainly due to lack of arms and ammunition. The districts were poorly supplied with arms and often fiercely clashed with the pro-Bulgarian Vrhovists (Supremacists) which severely depleted their ammunition and energy.

The Solun assassinations too had serious consequences for the Solun Revolutionary District. The rebel action in the Solun Revolutionary District coincided with that of the Bitola District provoking a number of armed clashes in the Kukush, Enidzhevardar, Voden and Tikvesh Boroughs and spread the rebel force thin. In addition to battling the enemy, the insurgents also employed sabotage tactics using dynamite and blowing up various parts of the railway lines between Solun and Bitola and Solun and Skopje. The Uprising in the Skopje Revolutionary District unfortunately was also not a mass movement and only fifteen skirmishes took place mainly in the Kratovo, Kochani, Skopje and Shtip Boroughs and in Maleshevo and Preshevo. Part of the railway line between Skopje and Solun, together with thirty-two railway trucks, was blown up and other acts of sabotage were carried out. The rebel action in the Solun and Skopje Revolutionary Districts forced the Ottoman authorities to maintain a strong military force in these parts of the country and this to some extent eased the situation in the Bitola Revolutionary District, particularly in the beginning of the Uprising. At the beginning of September, while the Bitola District was already full of Ottoman troops spreading terror throughout the Macedonian villages in their attempt to quell the Uprising, the Seres Revolutionary District held a congress at which it was decided to begin action in this part of Macedonia. The Uprising in this District began on September 27th, 1903 on Krstovden (Holy Cross Day) without the participation of the people. At the congress a commanding body was elected and a plan of action was drawn up. After considerable negotiations the District Command decided to allow the Supremacist detachments to join the Uprising. Unfortunately the distrust between the revolutionaries of Seres, led by Yane Sandanski, and the Supremacists was so great that closer co-operation was not possible. Sandanski, as one writer put it, “received the supremacist detachments, which were entering an unfamiliar region, not only without warmth and friendliness but also without the courtesy to be expected”. One of the detachments had come from Bulgaria wearing Bulgarian military uniforms and the insignia of the Bulgarian army; Sandanski ordered these men to strip off their insignia. Most of them complied but some refused which brought more tension between the two groups. There were several battles fought in this district – in Nevrokop, in the Melnik region, in Gorna Dzhumaja, Seres, Drama and Demirhisar. The Region actively covered by this Revolutionary Organization also included the Odrin District which did not belong to Macedonia. The uprising in Odrin began on August 19th, 1903 and was met with great

success. In addition to the local inhabitants of this District, a number of Macedonians also took part in the Uprising. The Ottoman authorities were not aware of the starting date of the Uprising, although they were already in possession of information, indicating the likelihood of an uprising in the near future. Ottoman officials in positions of responsibility did not pay sufficient heed to these warnings and did not want to believe that such an explosive situation might occur. This is why the Ilinden Uprising caught them by surprise. Shortly after the outbreak of the Uprising the Grande Porte (the Ottoman Supreme Command) correctly concluded that the uprising in the Bitola Revolutionary District could only be stamped out with a far larger force than what was locally available at that time. But a fair amount of time would be needed to concentrate such a military force, and, until this was done, the initiative lay with the rebels who had liberated not only three towns but also great stretches of mountain territory together with many mountain settlements. Ottoman preparations for a general offensive against the rebels were completed by August 25th, 1903. In addition to equipping the regular army, the Ottomans also armed a great number of Muslim civilians (Bashi-bazouks) in order to assist the military operations. The primary objective of the Ottoman Command was to take Krushevo. But in spite of all efforts Krushevo still remained in rebel hands despite the fact that Rudzhi Pasha, the Ottoman Commander in Chief, employed fifty thousand Ottoman soldiers. Dissatisfied with Rudzhi Pasha’s performance, the Ottoman government had him removed and appointed Nazir Pasha in his place. At the end of August the Ottoman troops under his command started the general offensive. The difference in strength between Ottoman forces and those of the rebels, in both men and arms, was so vast that it was incalculable. Demirhisar alone was attacked by twenty thousand Ottoman soldiers. On August 26th, 1903, with the assistance of Karavangelis the Greek Metropolitan in Kostur, the Ottomans set out to crush the uprising in Kostur Region. Over five thousand soldiers were dispatched from inside the city and more were recruited from the surrounding areas and by the start of September the enemy force was numbering over 15,000. Fierce battles broke out everywhere and were fought with ferocity. The bloodiest battles were fought in Grmeshina, Ohrid Region, near a camp where 1,700 women, children and old people were hiding. Unfortunately the rebels were unable to withstand the pressure as the Ottoman soldiers stormed the camp and massacred many of the women and children, leaving 160 dead.

By the second half of October the uprising in the Bitola Revolutionary District, as it was in most of Macedonia, had been brutally crushed and was followed by reprisals and torture. With the Macedonian people, however, these reprisals went far beyond the “normal” bounds and turned into genocide. It is impossible to describe all the horrors that were committed both by the regular army and by the Bashi-bazouks, not just against the insurgents but also against the non-combatant population. Here is what the Serbian envoy to Bitola had to say: “Every conceivable form of torture, murder, hanging, cutting children out of their mothers' wombs and flinging them to the dogs, seizing women and girls, breaking into homes and burning them – all this, I think, is every bit as terrible as the violence and bestiality to which the Ottoman lords and governors resorted, as the book describes, before our first and Second Uprisings...” He continues: “The facts we have at hand indicate that the plan used in pursuing is not only to crush the uprising, nor to destroy the guerilla detachments – for such as they are they cannot be put down – but to wipe out the entire population that was in hiding...” Describing the massacre in the village Armensko, Lerin Region, the Austro-Hungarian consul to Bitola wrote: “It is quite impossible to describe in detail the acts of bestiality. Women have had their wombs ripped open, their eyes torn out or their breasts cut off, the heads and bodies of small children have been brutally stabbed with ordinary pocket-knives, infants have been torn apart and flung to the dogs, nineteen women have been hung and three girls savagely butchered.” The well-known von Gaben, then advisor to the Ottoman authorities in Macedonia, alleges that an Ottoman colonel told him: “The rebel detachments fight like the Boers and we should follow the example of the English in putting them down. We shall burn their villages and their estates, and when they no longer have anywhere to hide they will be forced to scatter or give themselves up.” Despite instructions from the insurgent Revolutionary Command to conduct the Uprising along partisan lines, in practice the Uprising took the character of a mass Uprising particularly in the Bitola Revolutionary District. It was a peoples’ uprising because the Macedonian masses took part in it, determined to make the highest sacrifices to win their freedom. The Liberation Movement was led by the Macedonian intelligentsia, who mostly belonged to the petite bourgeoisie, but it was the peasant masses that were the striking force behind the Ilinden Uprising. In essence, the Uprising was a bourgeois-democratic revolution. At the beginning of the Uprising the tactics of the General Staff varied from those of the people who had risen in revolt. The instigators

of the Uprising and the General Staff believed that the object should be to force the European states to intervene and oblige the Ottomans to grant autonomy to Macedonia. The people, however, took up arms and set out to fight in order to free themselves and their country by themselves. They liberated several towns and established their own authority, driving Ottoman troops and government organs out, acts which were unplanned and unforeseen by the High Command. There were undoubtedly several basic reasons for the failure of the Uprising. It was not properly prepared and therefore could not have covered all of Macedonia. Even in the district of Bitola, which was somewhat better equipped, there were not enough arms and those available were extremely primitive. Also it did not take long, after the start of the Uprising, for the Ottomans to realize that the main rebel force was in the district of Bitola and that this was where the bulk of the Ottoman troops should be sent; and this they would certainly not have been able to do if the Uprising had been carried out with the same intensity throughout all of Macedonia. On the other hand, the Macedonian people were placed in a situation in which they themselves had to fight against the Ottoman Empire. It is well known that the Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians, when fighting against Ottoman rule, won their freedom largely due to the military and diplomatic aid from foreign powers, chiefly from Tsarist Russia. When the Macedonians rebelled, Tsarist Russia and the other great powers were on the side of the Ottomans and advised the Ottoman Empire to use all its strength to establish “order” in Macedonia. Morally backed by the governments of the Great European Powers, the Sultan was able to mobilize an enormous army with which it overran Macedonia, particularly the district of Bitola, and put a bloody end to the Uprising. The attitude of the neighbouring Balkan states towards the Ilinden Uprising was also hostile. Since they were interested in partitioning Macedonia, the ruling circles in Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia regarded the Uprising as an act directed against their artificially conceived interests. Hence they were not interested in a victorious outcome for the Macedonian people. Indeed Greece openly sided with the Sultan. No sooner had the Uprising begun than an Ottoman-Greek front was created to discredit the Uprising in the eyes of Europe. Protest meetings were organized in Greece against the Uprising and aid was offered to the Sultan to crush it. Inside Macedonia the Greek factions consisting of Greek teachers, priests, metropolitans and others began a propaganda campaign to discredit the Uprising and stood in support behind the Ottoman regime. It was precisely this kind of attitude, expounded through Greek

propaganda that prompted the Serbian consul in Bitola to write to his government: “There is an aspect of the Krushevo question which stands out clearly, and I mention it with the feeling of great satisfaction which I have as a Slav. For I join the other Slav groups here in their delight that the Krushevo rebels have lasted out longer in their battles against the Ottoman troops than the Greek soldiers did in the last Ottoman-Greek war (1897). My satisfaction is all the greater since the Greeks are growing more and more despicable through their mercenary services to the Ottomans...” The struggle to win their freedom was, of course, dearly paid for with the loss of many lives. In Macedonia alone nearly 150 villages, or 9,850 homes, were either totally or partially burnt and about 58,000 people were left homeless. Over 2,000 innocent people were killed and about 10,000 people left Macedonia altogether. The Ilinden Uprising was the most important revolutionary event in the recent history of the Macedonian people right up to the Second World War. It was “a glorious expression of the Macedonian peoples’ desire for freedom”. The Ilinden Uprising was also an epic struggle to create a free and independent Macedonian state which marked a turning-point in the historical development of the Macedonian nation. The traditions inherited from this Uprising will have a powerful influence on future Macedonian generations and on the development of future Macedonian revolutionaries.

Happy Ilinden to all Macedonians worldwide!

And now I leave you with this; “It was during the eighth century that Slav influence became greatest in Greece. In 746 a great plague breaking out in the near East reached Monemvasia in the Peloponnese, and, from there, spread over the whole Empire. The population of Greece suffered heavily, and was then further reduced by the migration of many skilled workmen to Constantinople; whose families left both the mainland and islands. Empty districts were thus left free to be colonized by Slavs who now pressed southwards in greater numbers than ever. In the words of the imperial historian, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, ‘all open country was Slavonized and became barbarous, when the plague was devouring the whole world’. According to W. Miller, this is the real explanation of the Slav colonization of Greece. Whatever be the truth, the Slavs had by now spread widely over the Greek lands. So widespread were their settlements that in the eighth century the southern Balkans lands and mainland Greece were known as ‘Sclavinia’.” (“A Short History of Greece” by W. A. Heurtley, page 20).

Essay 40 - Why Greece can’t have minorities!

We often speak of Greece refusing to recognize its various national minorities living on its soil but we rarely speak about why that is. Now, I think, is a good time to examine the issue more closely. Greece cannot have minorities because Greece is built on the premise that it is populated by 98% pure Greeks and 2% Muslim Greeks. The reason Greece “accepted” that there was a 2% Muslim Greek population living in Greece in the first place is because of an agreement it made with Turkey in the 1920’s. In exchange for accepting the 2% Muslim population in Greece, Turkey recognized the Christian minority in Istanbul and allowed the so-called “Patriarchy” to exist and function. Now if we extrapolate the meaning of the words “98% pure Greeks and 2% Muslim Greeks”, we identify a couple of facts. (1) Greece is populated by 100% Greeks and (2) given that 2% of those Greeks are Muslims implies that the other 98% are some “other” religion or religions. Without saying so Greece has used “religion” (and NOT ethnicity) by which to identify its population. By claiming “98% pure Greeks and 2% Muslim Greeks”, Greece has left no doubt that it is populated by 100% Greeks of at least two religions “Christian Orthodox” and “Muslim”! These statistics were released and made public by Greece after its population exchanges with Turkey and after Greece imported 1.1 million Turkish Christian settlers from Asia Minor. The only thing we can be sure about the identity of these 1.1 million Turks is that they were Christians. This again reinforces the fact that Greece was dealing not with “ethnicities” but with “religion” when it released its demographic statistics regarding its population in the late 1920’s. Since then Greece has claimed its population to be “homogeneous” consisting of “pure Greeks, descendents of the so-called ancient Greeks”. There are two problems with Greece’s approach to its demography, compared to universal standards. (1) It utilized “religion” (2% Muslims and 98% others) or “religious affiliation” to represent the “ethnic identity” of its population and (2) it claims everyone in Greece is Greek without explaining what “Greek” really means. Greece has left itself “wide open” in the way it came to identify its people because there was no “realistic” way to identify who “qualified” to be called Greek and who did not given that there was “no such thing” as a “Greek” before the idea of “Greece”, based on a pagan place, was invented by the Philhellenes. Ironically, affiliation to

“Orthodoxy” or being a “Christian Orthodox” was the closest method by which one could identify with being “Greek”. Greece used “religious affiliation” to identify the people in Macedonia before Macedonia’s partition classifying them as Turks (Muslim), Greeks, Serbians and Bulgarians. By using “church affiliation” Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria managed to not only divide and call the Christian Orthodox Macedonian population “Greek”, “Serbian” and “Bulgarian” but in the absence of a Macedonian church they managed to “eliminate” the entire Macedonian element from Macedonia. In other words, in the eyes of Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and their patrons, every Macedonian who was affiliated with the “Greek” church was “seen” as Greek, every Macedonian who was affiliated with the Serbian church was “seen” as “Serbian” and every Macedonian who was affiliated with the Bulgarian church was “seen” as “Bulgarian”. And since there was no Macedonian church in Macedonia, in their logic, it naturally followed that there were no Macedonians living in Macedonia, a claim that Greece and Bulgaria make to this day. As a continuation, after Macedonia was brutally invaded, occupied and partitioned in 1912, 1913 by Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, the three continued to use “religious affiliation” to identify the people of Macedonia. And since Macedonia was not exactly divided along “religious affiliated” lines in 1913, Greece expelled all Macedonians who supposedly would not affiliate themselves with the “Greek church”. In other words, Greece “cleansed” all Macedonians who refused to become parishioners of the Greek church by expelling them from their native soil. This included all Muslim Macedonians as well as those Macedonians affiliated with the Bulgarian church. After all the expulsions and “forced” population exchanges with Bulgaria and Turkey, Greece declared itself “pure” and “homogeneous”, populated by “pure Greeks”, which in reality meant that Greece was populated only with “people affiliated with the Greek church”. As per the examples given above, what then is “Greek”? Is Greek a “religious affiliation” with the Greek church? Obviously “Greek” cannot possibly be an “ethnic identifier” because “ethnicity” is much more than just “religious affiliation”! When we speak of “minorities” we usually mean “ethnic minorities” or groups of people who have a common culture, customs, traditions, language, etc. But being affiliated with the Greek church has nothing to do with “Macedonian customs, culture, traditions and language”, Macedonian elements which are alien to Greece. So how can Greece justify calling the Macedonians, who ended up under Greek control after Greece annexed Macedonian territories in 1913, “pure

Greeks, descendents of the ancient Greeks” when they had nothing to do with the Greeks or with their alleged Greek ancestors? But by claiming that Greece was populated by “98% pure Greeks and 2% Muslim Greeks”, Greece in fact has not only included the Macedonian population in this census report, but has made claims that the Macedonians were “pure Greeks, descendents of the ancient Greeks”. You see the trick here is that Greece has “never” defined what “Greek” means nor has it justified how a Balkan people with a 2,000 year old “open border”, invaded dozens of times, can be “pure Greeks” in any manner never mind being the “descendents” from a people that became extinct 2,000 years ago! There are many questions that Greece and its patrons would like to remain unanswered and by keeping the lid tight on “things” Greece would very much like the whole situation to be forgotten. If Greece admits that even a “single” minority exists on its soil it will have to explain how that minority got there. But how is Greece going to do that after it has been lying to the world for almost a century now. How is Greece going to do that without opening a “Pandora’s box”? If Greece admits to the existence of one minority it will have to admit to the existence of others. You see it’s not easy for Greece to do anything because, through its lies and deceit, it has painted itself into a corner from which it cannot escape. The only way out is to either admit to the truth or keep the truth bottled up. If Greece does recognize even one of its minorities it will face difficulties from the others and will eventually have to recognize them all. In my estimation Greece has four major minorities; the Macedonians, the Turks, the Albanians and the Vlachs. Greece has oppressed and poorly treated the Macedonians and the Turks and if it does recognize them and afford them their human rights, it will also “have to” make major amends. If it doesn’t it will face problems in the future, even desires for separation. Both the Macedonians and Turks living inside Greece have a strong national consciousness and a strong desire to be independent and manage their own affairs. They both also have Macedonian and Turks as their neighbours (Republic of Macedonia and Turkey). If the Macedonians and Turks show such desires then so will the Albanians, leaving only the much smaller Vlach minority as the only Greeks in Greece. If the minorities in Greece gain their rights and independence, given their past experiences under Greek rule, there can never be a strong enough “glue” to hold them together even as republics of a federal

Greece. Greece then, like Yugoslavia, will come apart at the seams. Greece knows this, which is why it is keeping a strong hold on its populations and will never willingly recognize its minorities nor allow them to peacefully self declare. Which brings us to my next point; how long can and will Greece hold out? Greece cannot and will not afford its minorities human rights because of fear that it will lose control. Greece needs to not only maintain internal control but feels it needs to protect itself from outside influence mainly from its Macedonian, Turkish and Albanian neighbours. By being belligerent and keeping its neighbours on the defensive, Greece hopes to avoid being asked or forced to “recognize its minorities”. Greece, by being belligerent to its own citizens, also hopes that their true “ethnic consciousness” will never be awakened. Greece feels it needs to “threaten” its neighbours in order to keep them on the defensive. In fact Greece has done and will do whatever is necessary to minimize, even eliminate if possible, any and all outside threats to its integrity, at any cost. To protect itself from the Turkish threat, Greece has amassed an immense amount of military arsenal, much more than it can afford. To protect itself against the “Macedonia menace” Greece has managed to put Macedonia on the defensive by “inventing” the “name game”. Through the bogus “name negotiations” Greece believes it can convince the world that Macedonians don’t really exist and reverse the Macedonian threat. Unfortunately since Macedonia decided to “negotiate” with Greece over its own legitimate name, it has strengthened and legitimized Greece’s bogus position. If Greece, by threats and blackmail, succeeds in changing Macedonia’s name then Greece’s next step will be to attack Macedonian ethnic identity, language and everything that is Macedonian, just like it did to the Macedonians living “inside” Greece after 1913. The next stage will be the annexation of the Republic of Macedonia. The only way that Greece will free itself from the “Macedonian menace” is by permanently eliminating the Macedonian identity not only inside Greece but in the Republic of Macedonia as well. This has been Greece’s plan since before Macedonia’s annexation in 1913. Greece would have attacked Macedonia by military means if not for its fear of Turkey. And by the way it was former Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis (Dora’s father) who initiated a plan to invade and partition the Republic of Macedonia between Greece and Serbia in the mid-1990’s and not Milosovich as we have been led to believe. Think about it, why would Milosovich want to invade Macedonia and partition it with Greece when Macedonia was already in Milsovich’s hands? Who in the world would have objected if Milosovich had decided to leave its

Serbian army inside Macedonia and declare Macedonia Serbian? Never believe what the Greeks tell you! Here I presented you with two scenarios; (1) Greece believing that if it affords its ethnic minorities human rights it will experience Yugoslavia’s fate and (2) Greece believing that it needs to be tough on its citizens and belligerent to its neighbours in order to survive. I have drawn this conclusion from my own observations over the years which not only explain Greece’s actions but also Greece’s irrational and illogical behaviour. Greece is trying hard to protect itself from its very own lies that it surrounded itself with. By claiming that minorities do not exist it also hopes to hide the atrocities it has committed against them over the years. By its military build-up and by being belligerent Greece had reached a balance in its problems with Turkey. Greece’s problems however began to escalate with the independence of the Republic of Macedonia in 1991 and especially with Europe’s desire to afford minorities their human rights. By claiming that “Macedonians do not exist” and that “everything Macedonian belongs to Greece”, Greece challenged Macedonia’s legitimacy to the very core. Being unable to attack Macedonia militarily and having nothing of “substance” to hold over it, Greece “invented” a number of bogus issues; one being “Macedonia having territorial pretensions against Greece’s northern province” also called Macedonia. With this in mind and “grabbing at straws” Greece blackmailed Macedonia into entering “name negotiations” over Macedonia’s own legitimate name. The Greek ploy worked very well and not only put Macedonia on the defensive having to justify everything it said and did, but, because of Macedonia’s willingness to “negotiate over its own name” with Greece, it legitimized Greece’s position. It is not too late for the Macedonian side to see these “negotiations” for what they truly are and break them off! So, what to do with Greece? Like Yugoslavia which was created for “political reasons” and served some purpose which is no longer required, so Greece too has reached the end of its usefulness and is no longer required. And if Greece can’t evolve and solve its own problems by living a civilized life in a civilized world, then Greece too must and will go Yugoslavia’s way. Like Kissinger once said, “If you want to end the problems in the Balkans just get rid of Greece.” The alternative is to put up with human rights violations, blockades, belligerence, threats, blackmail, vetoes and even war. Greece has demonstrated that it is unable to exist “problem free” and needs “problems” in order to survive!

Feedback from Dr. P. Ph.D. who would like to remain anonymous;

First allow me to say that the information you used in an earlier article (Ancient versus Slav Controversy) was provided to me by Dr. J. Rant. My contribution was the immediate forwarding of his message. Of course, you couldn't possibly have known that so I apologize. Second, I am not entirely happy with your formulations of the “Slavicity” of the Macedonians. As far as I am concerned you have taken a far too cautious approach. If I were you I would have taken a different and more courageous approach. I would have said “Yes, we the Macedonians are Slav speakers like the Russians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, etc, who all speak Slavic but the Russians speak Russian Slavic, the Poles speak Polish Slavic, etc., and we the Macedonians speak Macedonian Slavic. This is similar to Germans speaking German Germanic, Swedes speaking Swedish Germanic, the English speaking English Germanic, etc. Or in the case of Romance language, the French speaking French Romance, the Spaniards speaking Spanish Romance, the Portuguese speaking Portuguese Romance, the Italians speaking Italian Romance, etc.” And like all those other people’s ancestors your Macedonian ancestors spoke a Macedonian Slavic language. If I were you I would have emphasized, without reservations, that “the Modern Macedonians are the descendents of the Slav speaking Ancient Macedonians”. However, I am in my own situation, like you are in yours, and it is really up to you to decide what to say. Perhaps in the future you may want to be a bit more courageous and tell it exactly the way you see it. I also want to tell you a bit more about the Ice Age and the Macedonians: According to Douglass W. Bailey, Balkan Prehistory, Routledge, London, New York, 2000, the Balkan Peninsula, particularly Aegean Macedonia, was “inhabited” with people during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The average temperature in the Balkans was about 5°C warmer than the temperature in Western Europe. So, even the northern parts of present day Bulgaria were inhabited. Only the mountain chains were covered with permanent ice. After the LGM, the same people who lived there before continued to live there and to expand their cultures. So, the Macedonians did not settle Macedonia after the LGM, they were there all the time and lived uninterrupted. Perhaps this is hard to accept so I will repeat it again; the Macedonians lived in Macedonia uninterrupted for at least 40,000 if not 70,000 or even 100,000 years!

Essay 41 - Greece is not the Cradle of Democracy

Hardly any time passes before I receive an e-mail from a Greek claiming to have intimate knowledge of the ancient people of the Balkan Peninsula and insisting that they were Greek. “Go to a museum and look at the writing on ancient coins! You see it is all Greek! If the ancient Macedonians did not speak Greek then what language did they speak? Slavic? Hahaha! The ancient Macedonians spoke Greek and worshiped the Greek gods so what else could they have been but Greek? Right?” Well I don’t want to bore you any further with the usual pre-programmed Greek response that never deviates from the Greek norm and always ends with everything being “Greek”. My question, however, is what does this have to do with you Modern Greeks? Every time I say something, whether it belongs to ancient times or not, the Greek response is always the same “the ancient Macedonians were Greek” because they spoke Greek and worshiped the Greek gods”! Greeks, why don’t you just one time respond to a direct question? What do the “ancient Greeks” have to do with you? Contrary to existing historical evidence that proves otherwise you continue to claim that the ancient Macedonians were Greek! Why? Who cares? Allow me to say it again! So what! What do the ancient Macedonians being Greek or not have to do with you the Modern Greeks who today pretend to be who you are not and in practice have proven to be barbarians of the worst kind. Greece has shamelessly promoted itself as “the cradle of democracy” while practicing the worst kind of barbarism and cultural genocide the world has ever seen! What kind of democracy refuses to recognize its minorities and strips them of all their human rights? Greece does! There are people living in Greece today who are Macedonians, Albanians, Vlachs, Turks, Roma and others who Greece adamantly claims don’t exist. What kind of democracy embraces fantasy and rejects reality? Greece does! We all know that the so-called “Greek ethnic identity” is not real but a fabrication of the 19th century Philhellenes. Yet today we have 11 million “pure Greeks, descendents of the ancient Greeks” living in Greece. These claims are so fantastic that they boggle the mind! But every time I feel that I have made some headway, getting away from this nonsense, another Greek writes me to tell me how “Greek” he or she is and “how Greek the ancient Macedonians were” and, on top of that, throws another insult at me by calling me a “Slav”, a “Fyromian”, a “Bulgarian”, or a number of other labels that are unfit

for print. By the way I am not complaining, please keep the insults coming because they directly reflect on you and continue to remind me why I must write. But once in a while I have to wonder what kind of “democratically friendly people” coming from the “cradle of democracy” would do that to a fellow person for simply stating that he is a Macedonian? So let us examine what “this cradle of democracy” is all about. The world has been bamboozled into believing that “Greece” is somehow the cradle of democracy. But which Greece, the so-called “Ancient Greece” or the “Modern Greece” because the two, despite Modern Greek claims, are not the same and are mutually exclusive. So, is “ancient Greece” the so-called “cradle of democracy”? Let us examine the facts, but first let us define the word democracy; Democracy: “government by all the people, direct or representative: State having this; form of society ignoring hereditary class distinction and tolerating minority views.” (Page 193, The Oxford Dictionary of Current English, 1991) If I recall correctly “ancient Athens” the modern 19th century Albanian village was the most democratic of all City States during ancient times. Then ancient Athens must be the “cradle of democracy”. But wasn’t ancient Athens also the city where over 60% of the population was slaves owned by a bunch of white guys? Wasn’t ancient Athens the city where women had absolutely no rights? Wasn’t it Ancient Athens where women were considered to be “less than human”? Is this your “cradle of democracy” on which the foundation of our modern democracy is built and on which the entire modern western civilization rests? Well not according to the definition of what democracy should be as quoted above directly from the Oxford dictionary! The political system in Athens employed during ancient times is more like a model for Fascism and Nazism than it is a model for our modern democracy; a democracy, a system which respects all people equally including women and minorities. Could it be then that Modern Greece is the so-called “cradle of democracy”? If it is then let me be the first to say “God help us all”! But all joking aside Modern Greece cannot be “the cradle of democracy” because it is the least tolerant nation in the world when it comes to diversity, human rights and respecting the rights of minorities. Although Greece asserts its principled compliance with many international human rights conventions and covenants, to which it is signatory, the reality is unfortunately entirely different. Ever since 1912 and 1913 when Macedonia was illegally invaded, occupied and partitioned by Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, the Macedonian people who found themselves under Greek control had to deal with a concerted

program of assimilation and eradication. The Macedonians unfortunately were not the only ones. Greek oppression extended equally to all other minorities living there including the Albanians, Vlachs, Turks, Roma and others. The Macedonians and Turks however were abused by far the most, an abuse that continues to this day. No country that does this to its own people can call itself democratic let alone purport to be “the cradle of democracy”. What amazes me and my Macedonian readers the most is the audacity of some arrogant Greeks who come out full force and with great confidence accusing Macedonians of “cultural theft”, “identity theft”, “misappropriation of history, acts of which they themselves are guilty. What amazes me even more is the way these Greeks react to my articles, my refutations to their accusations, especially when I point to where the blame should lie. It is easy for them to look us in the face and say we don’t exist but difficult to accept criticism especially about their own fake identity. I will name no names but one such person, a high ranking Greek politician, who during a public speech, while visiting the Republic of Macedonia, had the audacity to say to the Macedonian people that “Macedonians don’t exist”. This person is lucky because the Macedonian people are peaceful. Had this happened anywhere else in the Balkans they would have been stoned to death! Now what does one do when this happens to them, I mean a Greek telling a Macedonian they don’t exist? I personally write about it and rightfully point to where the fault lies with a counter argument pointing directly back at them. If a Greek says Macedonians don’t exist, I say Greeks don’t exist and prove it with evidence. There is ample evidence to prove it and Greeks know it but don’t like it a bit. Even if there was absolutely no evidence to prove the Greeks are fakes, the Greeks themselves by their absurd claims provide all the evidence one needs. For example, Greeks claim that “everyone in Greece is a pure Greek, descendent from the ancient Greeks”. At the same time Greeks maintain that while some Albanians, Vlachs, Turks and others may exist in the Republic of Macedonia, the majority of the people living there are “Slavs” who have descended from somewhere behind the Carpathian Mountains? Given that the entire Balkan Region was borderless for over two millenniums and open to every invader, settler and conqueror who ever ventured into that region, how can Greeks make the claim that everyone south of an artificial modern border is a pure Greek and everyone, with some exceptions, north of the same border is a “Slav”? How can such claims be made when Greeks know very well, or should know, that the 1913 borders of Macedonia’s division were arbitrarily