IMPORTANT ISSUES

IMPORTANT ISSUES

There are many issues the Macedonian people deem “important”, which Greece “needs to deal with” but so far has refused to address. Some are listed as follows;

1. Greece refuses to recognize that it illegally occupied Macedonian territories in 1912 without the Macedonian people’s consent. Macedonians were lead to believe that Greece was entering the conflict in 1912 to liberate the

Macedonian people from the Ottoman yoke but through deception and intrigue Greece along with its partners, Serbia and Bulgaria, forcibly occupied and subjugated Macedonia. 2. Greece refuses to recognize that Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria under the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest partitioned Macedonia into three pieces without the Macedonian people’s consent. Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria in 1913 occupied and partitioned Macedonian lands creating artificial borders that have divided families to this day. What Greece calls liberation, the Macedonian people call occupation. Having one exiled from his or her ancestral home, having his or her lands confiscated, having his or her name changed, being forced to speak a foreign language, being publicly humiliated by being forced to denounce one’s own identity and being forced to publicly pledge allegiance to a tyrannical occupier is no “liberation”. It is subjugation. 3. Greece refuses to accept the fact that its army committed atrocities and genocide against the Macedonian people during the two Balkan Wars of 1912, 1913 as documented by the 1913 Carnegie Endowment Inquiry. 4. Greece refuses to repatriate the thousands of Macedonians who it evicted from their homes and forcibly exiled after 1913 simply because they were affiliated with the Bulgarian and Serbian Churches. Greece exiled tens of thousands of Macedonians and had their homes and properties confiscated simply because they, during the last years of the Ottoman occupation, attended liturgy in the Bulgarian and Serbian churches; not in the Greek Church. 5. Greece refuses to allow the return of the tens of thousands of Macedonians who it expelled to Turkey during the 1920’s and had their homes and properties confiscated simply because they were of the Muslim faith. 6. Greece refuses to provide compensation to those Macedonians who’s lands and homes it confiscated in the 1920’s to accommodate the imported Christian colonists from Asia Minor and other places. During the 1920’s Greece imported 1.1 million colonists from Turkey and settled most of them in Macedonia. 7. Greece refuses to reverse the imposed name changes the Greek State forced on the Macedonian people. During the

1920’s Greece introduced assimilation policies in Macedonia to “Hellenize” every person by changing their first and last names so that they would sound Greek. Greece did this without the consent of those whose names were changed. 8. Greece refuses to reverse the imposed toponym changes the Greek State forced on the Macedonian people during and subsequent to the 1920’s to “Hellenize” the region. Greece changed all Macedonian toponyms including cities, towns, villages, lakes, rivers, mountains, roads, etc. from Macedonian to Greek without the Macedonian people’s consent. 9. Greece refuses to reverse the illegal abolition of the Macedonian language. During the 1930’s the Greek state introduced anti-Macedonian laws banning the Macedonian language and ordering the destruction of every Macedonian inscription found on buildings, monuments, gravestones and religious icons that contained Macedonian writing. People, even those who spoke no other language, were heavily fined and forced to drink castor oil when caught speaking Macedonian. The Macedonian language is illegal in Greece to this day. 10. Greece refuses to abolish anti-Macedonian laws and discriminatory practices against the Macedonian people. Greece over the years has punished Macedonians for having Macedonian sentiments by public humiliation, beatings, imprisonment and murder. 11. Greece refuses to repatriate and return the properties and citizenships to those Macedonians expelled from Greece without a trial for being suspected of aiding the losing side in the Greek Civil War. Greece expelled tens of thousands of Macedonians and confiscated their properties and citizenship simply because they were suspected of aiding the losing side in the Greek Civil War. 12. Greece refuses to repatriate the 28,000 refugee children it expelled in 1948 whose citizenship and ancestral properties it confiscated. 13. Greece refuses to scrap the 1982 anti-Macedonian discriminatory law. Greece passed law 106841 in 1982 allowing Greeks by birth to return to Greece but excluded

Macedonians, even though these Macedonians were born in Greece and in fact were all Greek citizens. 14. Greece refuses to end systemic discrimination against the Macedonian people which is ingrained in the Greek government, church, media, schools and other institutions. 15. Greece refuses to recognize the Macedonian minority living inside Greece today even though it is required to do so in accordance with international agreements to which Greece is signatory.

In view of the above, which the Greek State refuses to deal with, past Greek governments have concocted less damaging issues such as the name dispute to:

a. Lead the Macedonian people away from important issues and bog them down with nonsensical ones. b. Give the world the impression that the Greek-Macedonian dispute is really about unimportant “nonsensical issues” such as ancient history. By doing this Greece hopes to cover its misdeeds against the Macedonian people.