KING CONSTANTINE’S TELEGRAM - Part 03

5. When NOF was unable to motivate the Macedonian people to re-arm themselves and go to the mountains, the Greek political right escalated the so-called “white terror” campaign and began to torment the Macedonian population to no end.

The war (WWII) was over, so why was there a need to torment the population? Most people after World War II wanted to end all hostilities, to rest and live in peace. They were craving peace. The Macedonian people were craving peace. They had had enough of wars. That is why the Macedonian people were reluctant to pick up arms and go to the mountains. When NOF failed to motivate the Macedonian people to rise and fight, the Greek reactionaries stepped in and resorted to using Metaxas’s tactics to terrorize the people and get them to fight back or leave their homes and run off over the border. This was the expected reaction.

[“The idea here was to have the Macedonian people raise arms against Greece so that Greece would have ‘no other choice but to defend itself against an aggressor who wants to carve out parts of its territory’! Yugoslavia, for the sake of having good relations with the West, naturally prepared the groundwork through the creation and indoctrination of NOF and AFZH (Women’s Anti-Fascist Front) with aims at starting an armed uprising in Greek occupied Macedonia. The Macedonian people, however, did not want to fight and initially refused to participate. To get them motivated the Greek right, the Fascists, pitched in and initiated what was later termed the “white terror”. Greeks indiscriminately began to kill people and burn properties and homes. Fearing for their lives many Macedonians fled to the mountains (Vicho and Gramos) where they were armed and trained by NOF to protect themselves. And this is how the conflict was started. This was a war that would be fatal to the Macedonian people; it had to be an ideological war in order to involve the international factor (US and Britain); a war that Greece would have no choice but to fight in order to save its territory. This was going to be a legal genocide because these ‘Slavs’ were prepared to carve out Greek territory! The Macedonians were told they needed the guns to protect themselves but as soon as the shooting started they were told they were fighting to ‘re-unite their Macedonia’ and after Yugoslavia abandoned them they were told they were fighting for their human rights to gain equality with the Greeks. Then, when the war became very hot, they were told to fight for their lives; ‘to fight or die!’…”] (Stoian Kochov a fighter in the Greek Civil War.)

There was not a single Macedonian in those days that not only publicly proclaimed that he or she was fighting to re-unite Macedonia, but many Macedonians were made to believe that it was possible to do that! And why do you suppose they believed that? Because the architects of this war, through NOF and AFZH, told them so…, naturally through lies and deception!

Again, there was no reason for starting the Greek Civil War because it had been decided by the Great Powers that Greek occupied Macedonia was staying with Greece. The most likely reason for starting the Greek Civil War, as I said before, which actually makes

sense, was to eradicate the communist menace and exterminate the Macedonian population like the English wanted and supported.

6. During the Greek Civil War: (a) the Macedonian people were led to believe that they were fighting to re-unite Macedonia and to gain their human rights, even though they were robbed of their rights afforded to them by the Atlantic Charter, (b) the Greek people were led to believe that the Partisans were actually “Slav bandits” and, with the help of the “communists”, were attempting to carve out Greek territory and give it to Tito’s Yugoslavia, and (c) the outside world was led to believe that this was a Civil War - Greeks fighting against Greeks.

There is not a single word in Western history that “Macedonians” were actually involved in the so-called Greek Civil War and that they were fighting for their human rights. Why the three different narratives about one and the same war?

The English and the Americans were the “overseers” and “architects” of this war; couldn’t they tell who was involved and what the war was about? According to declassified documents from that time, and I have hundreds of them, the English and Americans knew exactly what was going on and who was fighting against whom. Why then call it a Greek Civil War? Why cover up the truth?!

Even though, proportionally, the Macedonian people were a larger factor in this war, they were never mentioned. Why? Was it done to cover the English plans to get rid of them? To cover up the fact that genocide was perpetrated against them at the hands of the English and Americans? The English and Americans insisted that the so-called Greek Civil War was about Greek communists fighting against Greek capitalists and that the Greek communists were in the wrong and were working against the Yalta Agreement. Therefore this gave England and the United States the right to support their ally Greece to help it defend itself.

[“What do the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia remember about the Greek Civil War and how do they interpret what they remember? Many I have spoken with remember what they

had done and the events that took place around them. It was an intense moment in time. Human life did not matter much and hardly anyone cared to pay attention outside of trying to survive. A giant wave hit them and swept them away. In their struggle to survive they listened to the guiding voices coming from above and did what they were told! They remember these times as an era of brutal propaganda with destructive goals calling out on the people and wanting more of their blood… After the war ended it was followed by a half a century of fear and silence… no matter where these people were… at home or exiled abroad. This fear and silence kept them from talking about what happened during the war… about the genocide they experienced… a forgotten genocide… an unreported genocide… an un-registered genocide with world institutions and with the international community… a guilt free genocide for those who had committed it!”] (Stoian Kochov).

7. The so-called Greek Civil War was a controlled war that was concentrated in Greek occupied Macedonia and in the rural areas where Macedonians were the majority. But apart from that, what qualified it to be called a “controlled war” was the fact that this war was guided strictly by Greek hands and their English and American handlers.

It would be no exaggeration to say that of the 25,000 fighters mobilized into the ranks of the Democratic Army of Greece (DAG), 50% were Macedonians, most of whom were forcibly mobilized.

Looking at this in proportion, it means that half of the fighters came from the Greek population of 6 million and the other half came from the Macedonian population of no more than 300 thousand people.

So in terms of percentages, the Greek population contributed 0.21% of its total population while the Macedonian population contributed 4.17 %, that ratio being 20 to 1. In the long term, throughout the entire Greek Civil War, the total Greek contribution amounted to 18-20 thousand fighters while the Macedonian contribution amounted to 15-20 thousand fighters. The sum of the armed forces possessed by the Athens regime, on the other hand, was more than 300,000 soldiers belonging to all branches and armed by the English and later by the Americans, with the latest weapons.

Let us also not forget that on March 1, 1947 - U.S. President Harry Truman announced the decision to proclaim the “Truman Doctrine” for engaging the U.S. in Greece. Greece was granted credit and advanced military equipment to equip its government army. At the same time Van Fleet, an American General anti-guerrilla specialist, was made available to the Greek government. (See: Todor Chepreganov, 1997/178.)

“... Immediately after the ‘Truman Doctrine’ was proclaimed, information services were established in Greece by FBI and OSS agents. An American military mission was also sent to Greece. Invited by the Greek government, representatives of the United States began to arrive in Greece in order to assist in the preservation and sovereignty of Greece as a nation. They were there unarmed with aims at regulating material assistance and providing advisory functions. Upon its arrival in Greece however, the American mission took over the most important headquarter functions in the army, navy and aviation as well as the organization and management of military operations, which were established to fight against the rebels...” In other words, the Americans led and ran the Greek government and Greek military that fought in the Greek Civil War.

Given the number of Macedonian fighters involved, the lack of Macedonian leadership both in DAG (Democratic Army of Greece) and the CPG, the organizational tactics, the number of governments involved, the location where the war took place, do you still think this was a grass roots “Civil War”?

Also, given the numbers and proportion of Macedonian fighters involved, don’t you think the Macedonian fighters deserved their own leaders? Why were Macedonians not allowed to lead their own people in battle and in the political field? Why was every aspect of this conflict strictly controlled by Greeks on both sides, with the English and Americans pulling the strings… also on both sides? Why were the Macedonians not allowed to fight freely and for Macedonian interests? Why did the Macedonians have to be tightly controlled by Greeks on all sides? The entire top DAG and CPG leaderships, the people who actually made all the decisions, were all Greek. The Greek leadership determined what battles were going to

be fought and where. The Greeks then led those battles. The Greek leadership determined and controlled the composition of fighters in the units and what units to deploy where. The Greek leadership determined how many Macedonians could be recruited and armed; who and how many could join DAG, and so on. In other words, the Greeks controlled this war by keeping a tight leash on the Macedonians and the English and Americans controlled the Greeks. Why?

Because this was a “controlled war” especially designed so that the Macedonians would fail and be driven out of their homeland.

One more thing…

“It is well-known that in 1947 DAG had not resolved either the issue of military supplies or the issue of arming its fighters with ordinary battle machine guns and other battle assets, as well as ammunition. It also remains to be explained why, on the one hand, Zahariadis gave Markos orders to increase the number of fighters in DAG to 60,000 while Ioannidis gave Markos orders to acquire arms for only 4,500 fighters. It is also well-known that Markos, in 1947, ended up sending home thousands of Macedonian fighters who wanted to voluntarily enter the ranks of DAG.” (See: “DAG-strategic issues and management tactics,” G. Maltezos Dzhumerkiotis, p. 354.)

The question here is: If this was not a war aimed at getting rid of the Macedonians, then why did General Markos conduct mobilization only in Macedonia, mobilizing young and old alike? If this was not a controlled war then why did Markos send home thousands of Macedonian fighters who wanted to voluntarily enter the ranks of DAG and fight for their homeland?

8. Speaking of the Greek leadership, let us examine who were the top leaders in Greece who led the Macedonian and Greek partisan forces. Who were the top leaders who led the Communist Party of Greece and the Democratic Army of Greece?

The two top leaders who led the resistance on the communist side were Nikos Zahariadis, CPG Secretary General, whom I mentioned earlier, and General Markos Vafiadis, supreme commander of the

democratic (Partisan) forces. They were the leaders of the political and military pillars of the rebellion on the one side of the Greek Civil War. Both Zahariadis and Vafiadis were Asia Minor colonists from Turkey who were deposited in Greek occupied Macedonia in the 1920’s by the Greek government and were given free Macedonian homes and lands. So, why would Asia Minor colonists, who owed everything to the Greek government, turn against the very same people who helped them? Putting it another way, why would these colonists help the Macedonian people when they knew that they were occupying Macedonian homes and lands confiscated from the Macedonian people? Didn’t they know that if the Macedonians won the war they would try to reclaim those lands? The answer is, and should be obvious, that they were not helping the Macedonians win; they were helping the Greeks and English control the war to make sure the Macedonians lost so that they could drive them out and eventually take over all their lands. And this is exactly what happened.

Nikos Zahariadis was born on April 27, 1903 in Edirne, Eastern Thrace. His father was employed as a clerk at “Razim”, a French commercial tobacco company based in Tsari Grad (Constantinople). From 1911 to 1912 Nikos Zahariadis lived and attended school in the “Ibin Paiko” settlement in Skopje, where his father worked as a representative of the “Razim” Company. In 1913 he moved to Solun. In 1922 and 1923 he worked as a sailor, a job which took him to the Soviet Union where he became a member of the Communist Party. In 1924, with the exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece, Zahariadis’s family was moved to Greece. In 1924 he visited the famous Communist University of Eastern European nations, KUTVE in Moscow. Nikos Zahariadis was leader of the Greek communist movement and secretary general of the CPG from 1936 to 1956. Zahariadis treated the CPG like a cult and had absolute confidence in Stalin and his Communist Party, which he believed to be infallible. He himself admitted to this.

Now let us have a look at what Zahariadis’s contemporaries had to say about him: Elevteros Stavridis was one of the most remarkable CPG leaders who led the CPG before Zahariadis entered the scene. He was a famous renegade and a provocateur who later told us that Zahariadis, early on, had fallen into the hands of the Gligaburg-

Metaxas August 4 dictatorial regime, but settled down nicely in his new position. Stavridis told us this in his anti-party articles published in the “Ethnos” Athens newspaper. (There were a series of articles published in the newspaper “Ethnos” which appeared from May 14, 1951 until April 12, 1952, and which in 1953 appeared as a book entitled “Behind the CPG scenes”.) Namely, Maniadakis, then a Greek Minister of the Interior, discreetly arranged “special evenings” during which he invited his most prominent agents… hunters of the communists. Zahariadis also participated in these “special evenings”, and after the feasts gave lectures on how the CPG works and how effective the struggle with communism in Greece can be.

When the Nazi Germans occupied Greece the Greek Asfalia (police) handed him over to the Gestapo and Zahariadis was then taken to the infamous Nazi camp Dachau. According to Stavridis, there too “Zahariadis lived and worked perfectly”. Namely, he “worked” at the Nazi camp headquarters as an interpreter.

After Nazi Germany was defeated the Nazis surrendered him to the Western allies, and they returned him to Greece on a special English airplane, where he immediately became the head of the CPG as CPG Secretary General.

Because Stavridis was a renegade and a provocateur it appears that no one was obliged to take the information about CPG Secretary General Zahariadis seriously. However, a person has to wonder, with admiration, about the fact that this CPG Secretary General, a well-known communist, survived for years in a Nazi camp and managed to return to office? This becomes even more bizarre when one considers the fact that the Nazis, the Gestapo and the SS furiously pursued all communists and shot them on the spot. What Zahariadis accomplished is indeed a feat worthy of a genius (according to some) and a traitor (according to others).

One cannot write something about this and keep quiet and not talk about the unusual man behind it. His work proved to be significant and far-reaching both to the Greek people, the people’s revolution, as well as to the Macedonian people and the Macedonian

revolutionary movement in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia. (Pavle Rakovski)

Zahariadis committed suicide in 1973 while serving a prison sentence in Sorgun, Siberia.

General Markos Vafiadis was born in the village Tosi near Ankara, in Asia Minor, and was planted as a colonist in Greek occupied Macedonia in 1922, a man who we, again and again, meet throughout our history, who for some reason that escapes me, we see as some sort of “great legend”, when it is well-known what he told the magazine “Epikera” about us Macedonians when he returned to Athens. Markos, at best, was an ordinary person; he was no General let alone the great general who headed the army with more than 50% of the soldiers being Macedonians. He was also not a Greek… he was a pseudo-Greek at best, just like Zahariadis.

And to add insult to our injuries, when Markos returned to Greece, after the Greek Civil War had ended, he was welcomed with hugs by the Athens press in the Athens airport, as the Chief of Staff of the armed forces of Greece who fought in the Civil War. At that point a journalist from the weekly “Epikera” asked him a question alluding to the “struggle” and if it was worth it. Markos replied: “The sense was that the Slavo-Macedonians were driven out of the northern parts of Greece and that Macedonia remains Greek.” (See “Nova Makedonija”, February 25, 1992.) In other words, he told the truth that the Greek Civil War was nothing more than a perpetrated war to drive the Macedonian people out of their homeland.

This was said by Markos Vafiadis, the main culprit who led DAG during the so-called Greek Civil War and who contributed to this disaster in which so many lives were lost. He was a colonist from Asia Minor brought to Greek occupied Macedonia. His role in the war was to lead DAG as a General and, as he said “he fought to preserve Greece by driving the Macedonians out of their homeland”… This has been our fate so that the Christian Turkish colonists could have more of our lands and Greece could live in the glory of knowing that Greek occupied Macedonia was only populated by “pure Greeks and Greeks by genus”… even though

none of them are Greeks… But that does not matter! What matters to the Greeks is that there are less Macedonians in Greece today!!

“And this is how this colonist dog, General Markos, was prepared to solve the Macedonian National Question. And we, the Macedonian army, gave ourselves to him to lead us to our death.” (Stoian Kochov, a partisan under Markos’s leadership.)

During the Second NOF Congress, held on March 25, 1949, just prior to DAG’s liquidation, Zahariadis said: “You Macedonians have a right to secession, within a Balkan federation…” But this was not what Russia and Stalin supported.

As mentioned earlier, Stalin had already given Greek occupied Macedonia to Greece and to the English. Stalin gave away Greek occupied Macedonia at Yalta. This was decided between Stalin and Churchill in Yalta and in Moscow from October 5th to the 20th 1944, during the division of spheres of influence in the Balkans. Stalin was clear on this and was very upset when Zahariadis announced during the CPG Central Committee 5th Plenum that he was going to create a “United and Independent Macedonian state within a Balkan Federation”.

Was Zahariadis not aware that the Iron Curtain had already been drawn and that ran right through Macedonia dividing Greek occupied Macedonia from the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgarian occupied Macedonia? How then was Zahriadis with his rag-tag partisans going to take on both Russia and England to breach the Iron Curtain? Clearly Zahariadis was well-aware of the Yalta decision but what he said was for internal consumption only. He made this commitment on paper only to fool the Macedonian people, who did not know any better, and got them involved in the war so that he could destroy them all!

This should give you an idea of what kind of people Zahariadis and Vafiadis were and their role working as pawns for the Greek fascist regime and the English.

Stalin may or may have not known about this, that Zahariadis was an English pawn, but he made his dislike of it very clear in the

correspondence files between the USSR leadership and Chernishov, Soviet Ambassador to Athens. Basically Stalin was against the communist movement in Greece because he had already committed himself to giving Greece up along with Greek occupied Macedonia, when he made the Yalta Agreement with Churchill.

Stalin, however, was more upset with Tito than he was with Zahariadis. He repeatedly told Tito to stop aiding the communist movement in Greece not only because he gave Greece away to the English at Yalta, but also because he saw what the Americans did in Japan with the atomic bombs. Whether it was true or not, Stalin knew that eventually he would be accused of helping the communists in Greece which would have been a breach of the Yalta Agreement. That is why he ordered Tito to stop helping the communist movement in Greece. But Tito, for the longest part, refused to obey! Why? Why would Tito prefer to endure Stalin’s wrath than stop helping the partisans in Greece? Was it because he “cared” so much for the partisans or because he had made a deal with England to commit genocide against the Macedonian population in Greek occupied Macedonia? We will never know for sure but actions taken at the time tend to point to the “genocide” direction. Tito eventually did stop helping the communist movement in Greece and also closed the Yugoslav border on them, but for different reasons. More on this later.

Tito turning his back on the communist movement in Greece prompted Zahariadis to say the following in a speech he made during the 6th Plenum: “... And here we need to openly say that, if provocateur Tito’s role was known in 1946 the CPG would not have taken a resolution to take up arms and enter the War. It would have been assigned to another time and by a different method of struggle...” (See “I trihroni epope tu DAG, 1946-1949”, p. 422.) In other words, if Tito was not prepared to help the Greek Civil War, Zahariadis would not have started it.

Zahariadis here not only put the blame on Tito for his own failure but also identified Tito as one of the culprits in the disaster called the Greek Civil War.

“They should stop telling us that we need to respect Zahariadis’s Testament otherwise known as the ‘Communist Pledge’ for a ‘United Macedonia’, which was nothing more than a ruse to draw us into the communist camp so that we would be wiped out to the last one! The Greeks understand why Zahariadis did this! Why can’t some Macedonians? Why are they still beating the communist drum and asking us to respect someone who tried to destroy us… to the last one?” (Stoian Kochov)

So at this point I need to ask one more time. Why would Zahariadis and Vafiadis, two Christian Turkish colonists deposited in Greek occupied Macedonia, who were given illegally confiscated Macedonian lands to live on, want to help the Macedonian people liberate themselves? The Christian Turkish colonists were the very so-called Greeks who had occupied Macedonia and lived on confiscated Macedonian lands. What did they and their kind think would happen to them if Macedonia was free of them? Wouldn’t they be thrown out of Macedonia? So why do we think they were “helping” the Macedonians and not “hurting” them? Who can we blame but ourselves if we allowed our enemies, the very people who replaced us in our native lands, to lead us?

About the only thing that makes sense in this scenario is that the Christian Turkish colonists and settlers led us to our destruction in order for them to acquire more of our homes and lands, which is exactly what happened! The Macedonian people were driven out of their homes and native lands during the so-called Greek Civil War and replaced by colonists, the likes of Zahariadis and Vafiadis.

9. The February 12, 1949 battle for Lerin was one of the bloodiest battles in the so-called Greek Civil War, which was unnecessary because the partisans were already losing the war. But Zahariadis insisted on capturing Lerin because, as he said, if the Partisans won this battle and captured a city then they would be taken seriously by the outside world. So the Macedonian people granted Zahariadis his wish… they fought…

The available forces for that battle were as follows: In its composition DAG had brigades 13, 103, 14 and 107. It also had the school of officers, one mining battalion, one sanitation battalion and

one battalion for transferring the wounded. DAG had approximately 5,354 soldiers at its disposal. The government forces stationed in Lerin numbered about 4,000 soldiers. After about eight hours of fighting DAG suffered devastating losses: 334 dead, 1500 heavily wounded and 199 missing.

But that’s not the whole story. A lot of the partisans who fought in that battle were local and untrained young Macedonian boys and girls, some of whom I interviewed for my books.

In part here is one of those stories:

“Her final mission before the war was over was the attack on Lerin. After spending a couple of weeks in Karadzhova they were told to prepare for battle at an undisclosed time and location. When they arrived at Bigla, they saw that the artillery and machine guns were set up to face the city Lerin but still they were not told when the battle was going to take place. They expected the attack to be a surprise ambush carried out at night. When the order to attack was given, however, it was already dawn and the Partisan frontline was in full view. After the initial contact, the response from the Royalist (Greek government) side was quick, fierce, and decisive. No sooner had the battle started than the Partisans were in retreat. Those like Leffa, in support of the frontlines, were trapped. They had two choices, surrender and face the consequences or run and take their chances dodging machine gun fire. Those brave enough ran and lost their lives in the process. Most, however, were too afraid to run and waited for a rescue attempt which never materialized. By the time it was over, many young Macedonian men and women died, cut down by machine gun fire and buried in a mass grave. Among them was Leffa’s friend Trena Boglevska, from Oshchima. It seemed like moments ago that Leffa and Trena hugged and wished each other good luck before they parted company. Trena was working on the opposite side of the frontline from Leffa. She was dead now, cut down in her prime by a Greek bullet. To this day, Leffa still mourns her loss.

In a few hours the battle was over and huddled together with two male officers, thirty Partisan women were trapped in a school awaiting their fate. Leffa ripped off the pins and symbols from her

uniform and threw them away. Soon after, the Greek soldiers came accompanied by an old General. The General went from girl to girl as they sat on the floor, patting each on the head and whispering to them in a soft voice, “You saved your life by surrendering.” The women were expecting the worst, but no harm came to them. After their capture each woman was sprayed with pesticide to kill the lice and was placed under arrest in the Lerin prisons. Six days later, Leffa was transferred to Kozheni, a larger prison camp that looked like a town of tents. There, Leffa endured three months of daily interrogations being asked the same questions day after day after day. Leffa insisted that she was drafted by force by the Partisans and stuck to her story. Leffa is grateful to her brother Naso for his frequent visitations to the prison and for making life a little more bearable.

Thanks to UNDRA, Leffa was given a change of clothing that was a welcome contribution in prison. While Leffa was in prison, her family was working on her immigration papers to Canada. With her record there was no future for her at home. Leffa’s father came to Canada in 1947 and wanted to give his daughter a better life away from the conflict. Leffa arrived in Toronto on August 15th, 1949, and soon after took a job in a Laundromat where she worked for two years.” (Stefov/Oshchima, 2003.)

Today there are no graves or markers to commemorate the sacrifice of our fighters who fought to take Lerin, but certainly there are graves and markers for the soldiers of the government army. There is no trace of our people anywhere in Lerin because they were buried in a ditch, in a mass grave; both dead and heavily wounded -but still alive, were buried together in a common grave. This, however, is only one part of our whole tragedy; “Those who were buried we buried everywhere, wherever they fell, most without markers on their graves. Many we left where they had fallen, for nature to take care… we ran for cover to save our own lives… What is most tragic about all this is that we were victims of someone else’s doing… victims of someone who wanted to start a war… the Greek Civil War… in order to turn us into casualties… for their own interests…” said Leffa.

This problem may look complicated but it is very simple… if we open our eyes, set our prejudices aside and look impartially at it, we will discover the truth. We don’t need to look at how historiography reflects the facts, because history is written by those who won and who want to change the past to reflect the present; history is written by those who want to put the blame elsewhere... All we need to look at is exactly what happened and ask ourselves “why did it happen the way it did?”

First we were not ready or able as a people to seek justice with fire and sword. But we did anyway… Following the lead of strangers… Second, we were led by Greek generals, the likes of Markos, whose interest was not for us to win the war. In other words, the Greeks who led us had a lot more to gain if we lost the war and were driven out than if we won and stayed in our homes. Looking at this from a different angle, if the Greeks wanted us to “win” like they said they did, then they would have allowed us to have our own generals! And why did we not have our own generals? Why did we need “permission” from the Greeks to have our own generals? Because, as I said earlier, “we were not ready or able as a people to seek justice with fire and sword” on our own! And thus we not only relied on strangers to lead us, we believed their lies until it was too late and we all became sacrificial casualties… for foreign interests.

The end result? Many of the fighters who fought in the Lerin battle were young people from the neighbouring Lerin Region villages. They died for nothing. They were taken and told the fight would be over in hours, they did not need to be prepared… but then they were left outside, all night long… in the cold; they were not allowed to light fires. By morning they were all frozen and demoralized. Most of them were 17 to 19 year-old girls. There was snow on the ground. They were visible as they ran towards the Greek front line. By the time the battle was over the snow had been painted red with blood…

10. One of the most devastating acts in this so-called Greek Civil War, which leads me to believe it was a perpetrated war, is the fact that there was no negotiation for surrender and no exit strategy for the partisans and for the refugees, except to leave the country. There was no plan B, no “what happens if we lose the war”. It was always assumed that the partisans would win the war and anyone who

thought differently was a coward and a traitor. Even when the partisans lost the war, Zahariadis spun it and told the fighters to go to Albania to regroup; the war was not over… and they were going to win it. All the fighters left their positions and went to Albania believing they would regroup and return to fight.

Many Macedonian fighters still believed Zahariadis when he told them that DAG was going to win the war and that it was only a matter of time! They only stopped believing after Zahariadis accused the NOF leaders of losing the war, of being traitors and Tito’s agents and after Zahariadis sentenced them to live out the rest of their lives in the Siberian camps… Initially Zahariadis wanted the NOF leaders executed but because they were on Albanian soil, the Albanian authorities would not allow it.

The Macedonian people, including the majority of NOF leaders, were completely taken by this change of events and surprised and confused by the development of them being guilty of losing a war they did not lead? They were well-aware of their duty which was to urge the Macedonian people to fight; i.e. to do as they were commanded by the Greek leadership, especially Zahariadis; and they did exactly what they were told! And now they were being accused of losing the war; especially after Zahariadis kept telling them that they were winning it? If they did not trust the Greeks, then they surely trusted the Yugoslavs who, only a short time ago, had passed them on to the CPG and told them to follow the CPG’s lead because the CPG would look after their interests? Surely the Yugoslav’s would not put them in such a harmful position… at least not intentionally?

Well, no! Or perhaps yes! But the fact of the matter is that DAG was ordered to go to Albania, outside the Greek border and was never allowed to return and fight… and win the war, as promised. Once the fighters and the Macedonian civilian population, driven out by the war, were outside the Greek border, Greece closed its borders. The partisans were completely confused as to what had happened and did not know what to do…

Here is what Vera Foteva, leader of AFZH, had to say about the last moments of that dreaded war:

[From August 10th to the 15th, 1949 the Monarcho-Fascists carried out a violent, hellish attack against DAG with unprecedented air support supplied by the United States. The poet Atso Shopov was right when he wrote the poem “Gramos” telling us that “no bird can fly in Vicho from the hail of bombs and grenades”. This struggle has been objectively presented in two volumes by Greek historian Giorgos Margaritis, a professor at the University of Crete. Margaritis has relied on the memoirs of prominent anti-Fascists for his source material. The information presented is the best example I have read that describes why DAG aborted Vicho and pulled out of Gramos, leaving the population unprotected and running for its life.

One hundred and thirty bombing runs were made on August 10th, 1949 by the American supplied air support using “Dakota” and “Spitfire” military aircraft to bomb units of DAG and columns of fleeing refugees. The next few days the military aircraft did the same, at the same pace, providing air support for the Monarcho-Fascist artillery and infantry. There was not a square foot of space that had not been bombed on Mount Vicho, on Lisets, on Mount Malimadi and in Prespa along the Albanian and Yugoslav border. The entire area had been bombed with aerial bombs, grenades, napalm bombs and rockets and was garnished with machine gun fire by the dive-bombing aircraft. This clearly indicates the conditions under which DAG was placed and the kind of pot its fighters were put in to boil. There was an insurmountable amount of pressure and worry placed on the fighters not only for saving their own lives but also for caring for the wounded and for saving the huge columns of fleeing refugees. DAG was again attacked in Gramos with the same vigour. It was under these circumstances, created mainly by foreign intervention, that the “freedom-loving democrats” of Gramos dropped the “last flag”.

DAG was defeated by the Monarcho-Fascists on Mount Gramos on August 30th, 1949 with Anglo-American support. After Vicho fell to enemy hands, Nikos Zahariadis, General Secretary of the CPG Central Committee, said: “Gramos will be the tomb of the Monarcho-Fascists.” But that did not turn out to be the case. DAG suffered numerous casualties but had it not backed down and fled to Albania, the opposite would have been true. Gramos would have

been the tomb for DAG. For the longest part, after removing General Markos Vafiadis from his command and after abandoning the proven military strategies of the so-called “Supreme War Council Law”, Zahariadis worked personally with his Politburo installing new “military strategists” who had absolutely no relevant experience. Units of DAG from Gramos and from other places withdrew to Albanian territory.

The main culprits for DAG’s defeat naturally were Nikos Zahariadis, General Secretary of the CPG Central Committee and his Politburo. But that’s not who they found guilty. Instead of laying blame where it squarely belonged, Zahariadis and his clique pointed their fingers at the Macedonians, specifically at the NOF and AFZH leadership and at the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece. In Bureli, a town in Albania, Zahariadis staged a fake political trial, similar to those staged by Informburo countries. He had the last word.

On October 2nd, 1949 we were camped in a meadow under some olive trees beside a creek outside Elbasan. There was a beautiful white building on top of the hill. It had been converted into a hospital for the sick and wounded DAG fighters, cared for by doctors and nurses who were also members of DAG. There were both Macedonian and Greek patients and caregivers in the hospital, they were people who had fought shoulder to shoulder in the struggle and who had suffered and celebrated together. All the anti-Fascists were united as one people then and had the same goal.

From earlier on, October 2nd was designated International Day of Peace in honour of the International Congress which was held in Prague on April 20th, 1949 as well as in Paris and Tokyo. A delegation from Greece also attended the Congress including representatives from Macedonian organizations. We, the cadres of NOF, AFZH, DAG, Ministers of the Interim Government of Greece and members of the CPG Central Committee were planning and making preparations for that extra-special occasion to mark this day with an appropriate program followed by speeches from several leading cadres, including some from the Macedonian side.

Even before the celebrations began many fighters and civilians began to gather and fill the hospital courtyard. Around 8 o’clock a jeep arrived carrying an officer from DAG Headquarters, whom I did not recognize. As soon as he got off the jeep the officer came in the direction where we were standing: Mihail Maliov, Urania Iurukova, Tashko Hadzhiianov, Gora Petrichevski, my (not yet married) spouse Mincho Fotev and I. The officer knew me. When he came close to me he said: “Comrade Vera, this letter (he handed me a blue envelope) is for you from Comrade Bardzhotas, he wants to meet with you at his place.” Vasilis Bardzhotas was a political commissar of the DAG General Staff and a member of the CPG Politburo inner circle. I quickly opened the envelope. In it was a short letter with the following text: “Comrade Vera, You, Mincho, Urania and Hadzhiianov, the moment you receive this letter, are to immediately get in the jeep and come to Bureli” signed “Vasilis Bardzhotas”. When I read the letter I was stunned, I froze like lightning had just struck me. I looked at my friends all around me. I had the feeling that something bad was going to happen and I could not get that feeling out of my head; an evil feeling that had been hovering in my head for a while now.

My friends looked at me strangely as I was eager to tell them what the letter said. Mincho became impatient and grabbed the letter out of my hand. I quietly squeezed my words out of my mouth and said: “Us four: Mincho, Urania, Hadzhiianov and I are being called to immediately take the jeep and go to Bureli, to DAG’s General Headquarters”. There was silence. The message was worrisome to everyone and we all kept silent. A group of civilian men and women traveling with DAG units from the free territory, with whom we had camped together in that place, surrounded us and wondered what was going on.

We told our friend Gogo Petrushevski, a seasoned NOF fighter, that “we were sure that they would arrest us. If you can, leave now because you will suffer the same fate.” I also told some of my fellow villagers, my aunts and a first cousin that I was sure they would arrest us. This kind of threat against the central NOF leadership had been “circulating” for a long time and now they were putting it into practice in order to hide the real culprits for DAG’s defeat. Despite the threats that we would be liquidated, taken by some provocateurs,

we were and remained to the end faithful to the people whom we organized, fought with, died with and rejoiced with.]

Vera was one of Zahariadis’s staunchest followers and she truly believed they were going to win the war, like Zahariadis had told them.

There are volumes of history books written by Macedonian authors, among them eye witnesses who survived the dreaded Greek Civil War, who say that the Macedonians were nothing more than pawns in a war whose aims they did not understand and whose goals were fluid and changed with time. But they all agree on one point; the Greek Civil was proved to be disastrous for the Macedonian people. This again reinforces the idea that the Greek Civil War was a perpetrated war to get rid of the Macedonians from Greece, just like the English wanted. But, I believe, the 10 points listed above are sufficient evidence to give credence to my theory and to also confirm the behaviour of the players in this war which otherwise would seem illogical.

One of the events that lacks clarity in our history books is why Tito closed the Greek-Yugoslav border at the most critical time of the war when DAG was about to lose the war. If Tito was all for saving the communist movement in Greece then he should have allowed the DAG fighters to enter Yugoslav territory and from there go to Albania to regroup. Many Macedonians fighters who arrived at the Yugoslav border were turned back. Some, in an attempt to get to Albania faster, and perhaps safer, decided to swim across Lake Prespa. Many drowned and many more were cut down by machine gun fire and bombs dropped from the English and American military aircraft flying above them. The Macedonian partisans would have been allowed to enter Yugoslav territory if they were willing to surrender their weapons, which they couldn’t because if they did they would be charged with desertion. They still believed they would regroup in Albania and return to Greek occupied Macedonia to fight because those were Zahariadis’s orders.

So, after aiding the partisan movement in Greece all those years, why did Yugoslavia suddenly close its borders on the Macedonian fighters?