Macedonians ... You don't have to live like a refugee!

By David Edenden,

Someone should translate this into Macedonian and record it and post it on Youtube!

Here is the Youtube song by Tom Petty at Live Aid"

Here is information about Macedonian refugees from WW2, still not allowed t return to Greece (a Nato and EU member ... whose values Greece embodies!)

Refugee lyrics | LyricsMode.com:
Tom Petty

We don't talk too much about it
Yeah it ain't no real big secret all the same
Somehow we get around it
Listen it don't really matter to me baby
You believe what you want to believe
You see you don't have to live like a refugee

Somewhere, somehow somebody
Must have kicked you around some
Tell me why you wanna lay there
And revel in your abandon
Listen it don't make no difference to me baby
Everybody's had to fight to be free
You see you don't have to live like a refugee
Now baby you don't have to live like a refugee

Baby we ain't the first
I'm sure a lot of other lover's been burned
Right now this seems real to you
But it's one of those things
You gotta feel to be true

Somewhere, somehow somebody
Must have kicked you around some
Who knows, maybe you were kidnapped
Tied up, taken away and held for ransom
It don't really matter to me
Everybody's had to fight to be free
You see you don't have to live like a refugee
I said you don't have to live like a refugee

European Free Alliance CondemnsGreece

EFA strongly condemns Greece's continual destabilising and unfriendly behaviour (07/04/2008)

Greece's decision to veto an initiation to the Republic of Macedonia to join NATO is an irresponsible act motivated by its refusal to recognise the existence of a distinct Macedonian ethnic identity in the Republic of Macedonia as well as in Greece

The European Free Alliance (EFA) strongly condemns Greece's decision last week to veto an invitation to the Republic of Macedonia to join NATO. While EFA is appalled at Greece's decision, it is hardly surprising. Yesterday's shameful decision to veto the Republic of Macedonia is a continuation of Greece's destabilising behaviour in South Eastern Europe. Greece's decision was an irresponsible act motivated by its refusal to recognise the existence of a distinct Macedonian ethnic identity in the Republic of Macedonia and well as in Greece.

This reckless and unfriendly act by Greece is not in accordance with the principles that a European country is supposed to espouse. The decision of the Karamanlis government to deny a country entry into Euro-Atlantic structures because of an absurd objection to the country's rightful name is highly irresponsible and an anti-European act.

It is common knowledge that the source of Greece's behaviour on this issue is its continual and blatant refusal to recognise Macedonian identity, both in Greece and beyond. Indeed, Greece's aggressive behaviour on this issue is something not new to EFA. EFA was a witness to Greece's deplorable policy of rejecting the existence of ethnic Macedonian identity in Greece during a fact-finding visit to the country in 2006.

EFA continues to monitor the situation in Greece closely and is very familiar with the fundamentally anti-democratic behaviour of the Greek state in relation to EFA's member party, the European Free Alliance – Rainbow. EFA would like to ask, when Greece declares that there are no Macedonian and Turkish minorities in Greece, is this is accordance with the "spirit and principles of democracy, fundamental freedoms and respect for human rights and dignity" which Greece has pledged to respect?

When over the last decade, when Greek courts on multiple occasions have refused and continue to refuse to register cultural associations with the word "Macedonian" or "Turkish" in their names, are these acts in accordance with the European Convention for the Protection of Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, to which Greece is a Party?

When Greece continues to legally prevent ethnic Macedonian political refugees from the Greek Civil War from returning to Greece (see Law 106841 which allowed all those who were "Greeks by genus" to reclaim citizenship and Law 1540 of 1985 which allowed in those who were "Greeks by genus" to reclaim property), is this in accordance with the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, to which Greece is a Party?

It is time for the EU to do more on these issues. Being "UNITED in DIVERSITY" must not be simply declarative. The EU must be "UNITED in recognising DIVERSITY". A good start would be to demands that Greece acts like 21st century European country and end its shameful and destabilising policies on the Macedonian issue.

In practice, this means recognising the name of the Republic of Macedonia and recognising the Macedonian and other minorities in Greece.

Stylus Magazine Reviews "Shadows"

Movie Review
By: Nancy Keefe Rhodes
Stylus Magazine, 2007-10-09

Shadows (Senki) (2007)
Director: Milcho Manchevski

Cast: Borce Nacev, Vesna Stanojevska, Sabina Ajrula-Tozija

n the 2003 introduction to the published screenplay of his first feature-length fiction film, Before the Rain (1994)—which appeared actually a few months after that of the screenplay for his second feature, Dust (2001)—Milcho Manchevski expressed his frustration with widespread assumptions about that film as literal historical account. “In almost all interviews I gave for newspapers and television in dozens of countries over the final years of the last century,” he writes, “I kept repeating that Before the Rain is not a documentary about former Yugoslavia, nor about Macedonia, nor is it a documentary at all. I would say: ‘You can see this from the aesthetic approach: it’s shot like a fairytale; look at the camera work, or the editing, or the music. I am using actors. It’s scripted, for Heaven’s sake.’ Who got it—got it.”

Now we have Manchevski’s third feature and again there should be no doubt about aesthetic approach. Shadows premiered in early September at the Toronto International Film Festival and was quickly tapped as Macedonia’s official 2008 Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film. Already scheduled for theatrical release in ten European nations, this lovely and moving film is just now making the rounds of US distributors. The other two features, with their extended historical elements and fractured, multiple and overlapping narratives—what Manchevski calls “Cubist storytelling”—are widely rentable in the US. Watching the three features close together is extremely rewarding. Manchevski is building a body of work that will shine in retrospective programs—for shared, reverberating landscapes, elaborated images, and a cadre of supporting actors whose reappearance in successive film makes his work subliminally familiar and easy to enter—and now, for the clarity of his turn into newly personal territory and straightforward narrative.

“Return what’s not yours. Have respect,” says the old woman Kalina (Ratka Radmanovic), murmuring urgently in an ancient dialect that no one speaks anymore. She appears matter-of-factly, in her head scarf and heavy skirts and shawl, a small cross tattooed between her eyebrows in the old way, waiting in the dark on the living room couch of a young doctor. Lazar Perkov (Borce Nacev) has just returned to his apartment in the Macedonian capital of Skopje from his parents’ villa in the lakes district after a year convalescing from a near-fatal car crash. Trying to return to work at the hospital, he misses his already straying wife and little son, who have remained at the lake. He has nightmares, forgets things, fears his recovery isn’t stable, speaks in odd images that cause the unnerved family chauffeur to roll his eyes, and has now had his first visit from the unsettled souls of the dead.

That Lazar doesn’t know what’s stolen or how to put it back doesn’t get him a pass. Preoccupied with his young man’s struggle to emerge from the shadow of his mother’s overbearing ambition, herself a physician (the formidable Sabina Ajrula-Tozija)—impossible not to recall with the film’s final shot of blinding light—Lazar encounters one woman after another who teaches him that ignorance and personal innocence are no excuses, and who invite his wary, steadily growing search. In a land overrun for centuries by intruders, these women are preoccupied with theft and its attendant glaring debt. Manchevski’s images are earthy, specific, free of arid abstraction. For example, one day Lazar searches out the crowded ramshackle home of his mother’s chauffeur, Blagojce (Petar Mircevski), wanting a ride to the country. With his trained scientist’s eye he diagnoses a burn on the driver’s wife’s arm. She patiently explains the birthmark resulted from her mother eating stolen grapes while pregnant.

Manchevski tinkered for several years with the nuances of his film’s title, beginning with the Ghosts and detouring to Bones before settling on the immensely resonant possibilities of Shadows. The word’s added visual dimension encourages our attention toward DP Fabio Cianchetti’s use of reflections, doubling, broken space, and Menka’s propensity for suddenly dropping out of the frame mid-stride and then abruptly reappearing. Cities in Manchevski’s films have always been claustrophobic and disorienting. There’s a similar handling in that maze-like Paris apartment where Bertolucci’s The Dreamers occurs, a film Cianchetti also shot.


Kalina is the first “shadow” who appears to Lazar, identified by her dialect as one of the displaced Aegean Macedonians. A linguist whom the young man seeks out to translate her message also remarks on Lazar’s own name’s Biblical reference to resurrection. Seeking that professor, Lazar meets the lovely Menka, a suicide by hanging (luminously played by harpist Vesna Stanojevska). On a hospital gurney, then waiting for the elevator, Lazar meets the cross, craggy-faced Gerasim, a refugee whose brother nailed a spike into his heel at burial in hopes of magically halting his wandering in the afterlife (Salaetin Bilal, the Turkish Major in Dust). There is an unbaptized infant whom Gerasim awkwardly but tenderly carries instead of abandoning, and Kalina’s sometime companion wolf.

These walking dead may invite Lazar’s curiosity and compassion—and in Menka’s case his intimacy—but they cannot explain their repeated violent deaths or their connection with the cardboard box of old bones that his mother scavenged for her own 1973 anatomy class from beyond the consecrated ground of the cemetery—“not a real grave,” she snorts indignantly—in her home village of Gluvovo. Or what he must do. In the pivotal showdown, slugging each other, sprawling on her office floor, Lazar forcibly takes the bones from his mother in this fight over laying the past to rest or making it “useful” to one’s own ambitions.

That fight over a box of bones has room to contain a parable about the past these shadows more broadly represent, though one of the film’s more courageous qualities is Manchevski’s insistence that Lazar’s own journey carry the film emotionally and dramatically rather than resort to expose. Kalina’s dialect reveals she is from Aegean Macedonia—the eastern territory annexed by Greece in 1913—but the film says little else about her people except that their fate was “exodus.” Manchevski says audiences outside that culture don’t need the specific history to connect with these characters’ pain and longing for relief as abandoned and forsaken peoples.

For those inside that culture, even that slightest reference to Kalina’s extinct dialect evokes the following specifics. In 1912 Greece allied with Serbia, Bulgaria and Montenegro, declaring war on Turkey. While this ended the Ottoman Empire’s occupation of Macedonia, it led directly to Macedonia’s partition among its neighbors. In Aegean Macedonia, Greece embarked upon a decades-long campaign to change the population’s ethnic composition, forcibly expelling hundreds of thousands, confiscating lands, forbidding languages, renaming places, plundering and destroying villages, and re-colonizing the area with ethnic Greeks from nations to the east. During the Greek Civil War of the late 1940s this campaign accelerated anew. 60,000 were expelled in 1948. Some internments from the mid-40s continued until 1974—the year of Lazar’s mother’s anatomy class—and as late as 1985 Greek laws governing that area excluded Aegean Macedonian descendants from reclaiming confiscated land. In 1991, the modern Republic of Macedonia emerged from the upheaval of Yugoslavia’s disintegration by referendum.

Lazar’s journey is also the artist’s journey and a parable for the work of cinema. It becomes his job because he is the one who is there to see. Let us hope this film is available on US screens, and quickly.

Welcome to Rainbow (Vinozhito) - Political Party of the ethnic Macedonians in Greece

November 5 2007
Letter to Matthew Nimetz
United Nations Special Envoy on the Name Dispute between Greece and Republic of Macedonia. click to read more »
read more in Macedonian
read more in Greek

October 31 2007
Press release
A new case of an ethnic Macedonian being refused entry into Greece. Greek authorities took away his Greek citizenship and placed him on the well known Greek "black list". The reason? He is a member of the Macedonian minority in Greece . click to read more »

October 25 2007
Press release - The misinformation on the so called "Macedonian issue" by the Greek Mass Media.
In the recent period (as it was systematically happened in the decade of 90s) a part of the greek mass media misinforms the Greek citizens regarding the (new) "Macedonian issue" and particularly regarding the relationships between our country Greece and the Republic of Macedonia. click to read more »

October 23 2007
Bitola or Monastiri?...Florina or Lerin?...Istanbul or Constantinopole?
Finally when, will we understand that the toponyms, the difference of language, the cultural variety is richness for a place, for a country? click to read more »
read more in Greek

October 19 2007
Press Release - A policeman controlled a mother with her son because they seemed to be "suspicious". The reason? They were talking all the time not in Greek but in Macedonian.
click to read more »
read more in Greek

October 17 2007
Press Release : Second respond to the article of Mr. Nikos Rousis, Correspondent of the Daily Newspaper Eletherotypia in Strasburg.
click to read more »

October 15 2007
Press Release : EFA - Rainbow's reply to the article of Mr. Nikos Rousis, Correspondent of the Daily Newspaper Eletherotypia in Strasburg.
The article of Mr. Rousis is referred in the discussion of the Commission of the Permanent Representatives (Committee of Ministers) in the Council of Europe, regarding the issue of the Macedonian political refugees of the civil war in Greece (1956-1949). Unfortunately there is still in force a racistic law in Greece which doesn't allow them to repatriate in Greece. click to read more »

October 11 2007
Article by Pavlos Filipov Voskopoulos : The impasse of the Greek policy in the "Macedonian issue".
...It's time to start a procedure for an ideological reform in our country regarding the said national issues... for the benefit of the Greek society and the benefit of their citizens, in order our county to move forward in the 21st century, without stereotypes and the complexes that characterize it. click to read more »

October 10 2007
Press Release - THE STATE SECURITY DECIDES FOR THE ETHNIC MACEDONIANS....
In 21st century Greece, a member-state of the European Union, the Council of Europe, a state in which its politicians "trumpet" that there is no discrimination, that all citizens are equal, that minorities do not exist, that the ethnic Macedonians do not exist, the State Security Administration needs to decide for a simple matter such as the issuing of birth certificate - and to in the end to issue a negative opinion for that request.click to read more »
read more in Greek

October 8 2007
Press Release - DISCRIMINATIONS AGAINST ETHNIC MACEDONIANS CONTINUES...
Another case of discrimination against a Macedonian political refugee, this time a citizen of a member-state of the European Union... click to read more »
read more in Greek

September 7 2007
EFA Rainbow's Announcement regarding the upcoming National Elections on 16th of September 2007
read more in Greek

August 20 2007
Press release - The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the governmental party "Nea Dimokratia" is claiming that Greeks should remember the unredeemed Greek territories in Turkey
read more in Greek

August 19 2007
A very important trial will take place in 5th of September in Athens. EFA-RAINBOW fully support the initiative of Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) which in a joined action with the Anti-nazi Initiative of Greece and the KIS - The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece brings the neonazi lawyer Kostas Plevris in Front of Justice. The xenofobic, and chauvinistic political party of LAOS through his spokesperson Mr. Adonis Georgiadis is supporting the neonazi lawyer

» Press release from the GHM about the trial.

» Open letter from the Anti-nazi Initiative about the trial.

» Press release from the Anti-nazi Movement about the trial.

» Related links on the issue of antisemitism in Greece: The speech of the
representative of Rainbow at the 2005 Human Dimension Implementation
Meeting (Warsaw, September 29), Working Session: Anti-Semitism,
Tolerance and Non-Discrimination.

August 13 2007
Its still very "difficult" for the majority of Greek mass-media to face the reality about the existence of the Macedonian minority in north Greece - The recent "correspondence" between the daily newspaper "Elevtherotipia" and the NGO "Minority Rights Group-Greece" (MRGG).... click to read more »

August 11 2007
Catholics live civilly but without recognition and discriminated against in Orthodox Greece
Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) highlights the following article on the problems Catholics continue to face in contemporary Greece... click to read more »

July 31 2007
Consul General of the United States of America visited Florina / Lerin
On 24th of July 2007 the Consul General of the United States of America in Thessaloniki made a ceremonial visit in the city of Florina / Lerin. click to read more »
read more in Macedonian
read more in Greek

July 31 2007
Greek Helsinki Monitor Press Release - Based on information provided to the International Press Institute (IPI) and its affiliate, the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), the proposed media law titled, "Concentration and Licensing of Media Enterprises and other Provisions" was passed by the Greek parliament on 5 July... click to read more »
read more in Macedonian

July 30 2007
The hypocrisy and the totalitarian perception of the Greek political establishment and the Greek mass media regarding so called “national issues” in Greece. There are similarities with the policy implemented in the former eastern block countries during the "Cold War"
Article by Taki Mixa - in the daily newspaper Elevtherotipia
read more in Greek

July 28 2007
Magic picture …by Dionisio Gouseti
An open falsification of a photo – documentation regarding the Cyprus issue from the daily newspaper “Kathimerini”. Massive graves of innocents Turkish Cypriots, victims of the terroristic Greek Cypriot Organigation EOKA B’ before 1974 (see photo dated 14/08/74) were presented in the daily newspaper “Kathimerini” (edition 22/07/07) as a massive grave of Greek Cypriots “victims” of the Turkish army during its intervention in 1974
read more in Greek

July 26 2007
Article about the visa’s status between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia
read more in Greek

July 25 2007
The question submitted by Mr Lambert has been officially published
The Civil War in Greece witnessed the plight of thousands of political refugees, both ethnic Macedonian and others, including Greeks. At least 28,000 child refugees, mostly ethnic Macedonians, were also evacuated from areas of heavy fighting and relocated in countries like Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania... click to read more »

July 24 2007
The Abecedar with “cyrillic alphabet” edited in Thessaloniki in 1926 by the Greek Government
read more in Greek

July 23 2007
Press Release about the presentation of the second edition of the Abecedar in Ovcharani / Meliti on 20th of July 2007 by EFA – Rainbow
read more in Greek

July 16 2007
Ntora Mpakogiannis and the Macedonian issue... article by Takis Mihas
read more in Greek

July 13 2007
IPI-SEEMO deeply concerned at a proposed draft media law containing provisions damaging to press freedom in Greece
The International Press Institute (IPI), a global press freedom organisation representing editors, publishers and leading journalists in over 110 countries, together with its affiliate organisation the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), is deeply concerned at a proposed draft media law containing provisions damaging to press freedom in Greece... click to read more »

July 10 2007
South East Europe Media Organisation protests Greece - part II
Based on information provided to the International Press Institute (IPI) and its affiliate, the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), the proposed media law titled, "Concentration and Licensing of Media Enterprises and other Provisions" was passed by the Greek parliament on 5 July... click to read more »

July 9 2007
Press Release - Discussion at the General Assembly of the Council of Europe about the Macedonian Political Refugees of Greece
click to read more »
read more in Greek

July 6 2007
Greek irredentism and expansionism exposed officially from the Greek Parliament... click to read more »
read more in Greek
read more in Macedonian

July 3 2007
Press release by EFA – Rainbow regarding the resent meetings with: Mr. Tomas Hammarberg - Commissioner for Human Rights, Officials from the Council of Europe and with the Greek delegation during the General Asembly. (Strasburg, 26&27 June 2007)
read more in Greek

July 2 2007
Parliamentary question to the Commission tabled by Mr. Mikel Irujo - MEP of European Free Alliance - European Political Party
The EC's point of view on the name issue FYROM in European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR)... click to read more »

June 15 2007
Decision by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe about the case of OMO Ilinden of Pirin
1. Took note of the continuing commitment of the Bulgarian authorities to ensure without further delay full implementation of these judgments of the Court, with a view to preventing any new violation of the freedom of association of the applicant organisations and their members... click to read more »
read more in Macedonian

June 14 2007
Vlach activist wins another case in Greek courts
Sotiris Bletsas, President of the Aromanian Cultural Society and a leading Vlach activist in Greece, has won his lawsuit against Dimitris Rizos, owner of the nationalist right-wing daily newspaper “Adesmeftos Typos”... click to read more »
read more in Greek
read more in Macedonian

June 9 2007
Press Release by the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe regards the removal of the word “Turk” from a street sign in Komotini
read more in Greek

June 7 2007
EP backs Macedonia in name dispute with Greece
Following the adoption of a report on Macedonia's progress towards EU membership by the EP Foreign Affairs Committee today, which included a Green amendment (1) underlining that Macedonia should be recognised by its constitutional name, German Green MEP Angelika Beer said... click to read more »
read more in Macedonian

May 21 2007
Press Release by the Greek Helsinki Monitor on 25 April 2007 - Discussion on human and minority rights in Greece in the Council of Europe was once again suppressed by the “conscripted” Greek Mass Media...
read more in Greek

May 17 2007
On 28-29 of April took place the first Congress of the political party “Liberal Alliance” in Anabisso (Attiki). Please click here to see Rainbow’s presentation...
Source: http://www.greekliberals.net/civilaction/

May 7 2007
Rainbow’s answer to the daily paper “Ethnos” - The "conscripted" journalism … and the games of the “journalists” with Rainbow...
read more in Greek

May 3 2007
Macedonian national minority envoy in US and Canada to seek support
Representatives of Macedonian national minority organizations from Greece, Bulgaria and Albania are concluding their first joint visit to the US and Canada, aiming to inform government officials, diplomats and members of the Congress about the violations of human rights against Macedonians in all three countries ... click to read more »
read more in Macedonian

April 30 2007
Representatives from EFA – Rainbow (Greece), OMO Ilinden Pirin (Bulgaria) and Macedonian Alliance for European Integration (Albania) visited Canada and the USA - Meetings have been realized with Macedonian Organizations as well as with Governmental Officers.
read more in Greek

April 24 2007
EFA-Rainbow participated at the General Assembly of the European Free Alliance - European Political Party (Bilbao / 20 - 21 April 2007)
read more in Greek

April 24 2007
Dimitras interview to Macedonian daily newspaper “Dnevnik” on human rights in Greece - Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) disseminates the interview of its Spokesperson Panayote Dimitras to the Macedonian daily newspaper “Dnevnik” published on 17 April 2007. He gave answers to several questions of journalist Zana P. Bozinovska. The full text follows in English... click to read more »
read more in Macedonian

April 23 2007
Representativies from EFA - Rainbow meet Officials from the Council of Europe (Strasburg, 18/04/2007)
read more in Greek

April 23 2007
Motion for a resolution in the Council of Europe regarding the status of the Macedonian ethnic minority in Greece... click to read more »
read more in Greek
read more in Macedonian

April 6 2007
Interview with Dr. Nakratzas Georgios - (writter and publisher) for the greek newspaper "Epohi" (Sunday 26th November 2006) about greek nationalisam, macedonian language and the macedonian primer ABECEDAR ...
read more in Greek

April 5 2007
The Macedonian primer ABECEDAR and the comments in the blog DONCAT of
the famous writer Mr. Nikos Dimou.
click to view »

March 7 2007
A new book on national minorities in Europe ranks both France and Greece as having worse national minority rights than Russia.
The book, written by Christoph Pan and Beate Sibylle Pfeil, was launched on Wednesday (14th February) at the joint Sud Tirol, Trentino, and Tyrol office in Brussels. The authors compiled the ranking by comparing the performance of European states in their implementation of national minority rights, based on data drawn from the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM)... click to read more »
read more in Macedonian

March 5 2007
Recent decision from the International Court of Justice on the Genocide in Srebrenitsa bring our memory back to the "ethnic cleansing" of the Macedonians of Kilkis/Kukush committed by the Greek Army in 1913. Read Rainbow’s answer to Mr. George Nakratza on the above issue. (The article was published in Info Zora N.19)
read more in Greek

February 21 2007
EFA urges to promote cultural diversity and multilingualism in EU
Today in 2007, the celebration of the International Mother Language day* remains necessary to highlight the threats to cultural diversity that this International Day embraces. In Europe particularly the problems of many languages and minorized cultures are completely absent on the political agenda. In some cases regions and stateless nations face serious threats and even struggle for the survival of their culture as distinct manifestation of the European cultural and linguistic diversity... click to read more »

February 14 2007
An Interview of Mr. Dimitri Lithoxoou - in the Macedonian Political Magazine FOCUS, N. 516 (Skopie - Republic of Macedonia, 20/5/2005)
read more in Greek

February 12 2007
Press Release by the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF)
Confiscation Scenarios in Western Thrace. Western Thrace Turkish Minority members, majority of whom are engaged in farming, are apprehensive that their land will be confiscated by the Greek authorities ... click to read more »
read more in Greek

February 9 2007
“The Land of the Indians”
Some days ago, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece visited the "Land of the Indians".… in this “strange country” the minorities neither can name themselves as Turks nor can give a Turkish name to their associations … sometimes … the Greek government and the majority of the Greek people do them a favour by calling them "Greek Muslims".
read more in Greek

February 7 2007
Answer to Mr. Kofos’ article by Mr. Pavlos Voskopoulos
When will the political leadership in our country stop being a hostage to a policy which "turns a deaf ear" to the "realistic" Europe? When will our political leadership understand that "historians" and "advisers" of the likes of the honourable Kofos are already out of date in the modern era, so that the Prime Minister of the country is not exposed, as well as Greek policy, at international level?
read more in Greek
read more in Macedonian

February 3 2007
“The airports of Skopje, the statues and the Bible” - aticle by Mr. Evagelos Kofos - Counselor at the Greek Institution on European & Foreign Policy on Balkan issues.
read more in Greek
read more in Macedonian

January 17 2007
“The myth for the unity of the Greek language” - By Theodori Markopoulo
From the very interesting blog “Anorthografies”, in the Indymedia, a text that shows that the babbles about the “united and indivisible language of 3000 years” is an invention, and indeed an invention that have only the Greek nationalists and no other nation in the world.
read more in Greek

January 11 2007
STATEMENT by Dr. G. Nakratza - "THE EMBARGO ON NORTHERN CYPRUS MUST STOP"
Finally we are beginning to hear in the Greek press the voices of honourable figures on the left raised against the wretched embargo inflicted on the Turkish Cypriots of Northern Cyprus. Here and there, the crushing silence of the left is being broken ... click to read more »
read more in Greek

Chuck Sudetic on the "Real Macedonian Issue" Circa 1994

By David Edenden

Chuck, it's about human rights, not real estate.

It is painful to read this 1994 article on the Macedonians in Greece by New York Times journalist Chuck Sudetic, who is of Croatian ancestry, and should know better since he could easily communicate with the Macedonians in Greece.

When the Serbs were trying to ethnically cleanse Bosnia, they were using Greece's treatment of ethnic Macedonians as a model. Too bad Sudetic did not realize this at the time. He might have written more sympathetically about Macedonians. Did it even occur to him to ask why 50,000 Macedonians in Greece were not aggressively pursuing their rights? Why didn't they have any rights to begin with?Did it ever occur to him that, Greece's values regarding Macedonian rights were Nato values. Maybe he could have bought a clue and use that to report on why Nato failed in Bosnia.

Later on he wrote Blood And Vengeance about his war time experiences in Yugoslavia. I wonder if a more hard headed analysis of Greek minority rights policy, instead of this puff piece, would have made a difference.

I really don't know.

Real 'Macedonia' Issue Is Real Estate -
Edessa Journal;
New York Times:

By CHUCK SUDETIC,

Published: March 12, 1994

To the rest of the world, the fight between Greece and its neighboring former Yugoslav republic over the name Macedonia may make little sense. But to Metropolitan Chrysostomos, who lives on one side of the border, and to Risto Yatchev, who lives on the other side, it comes down to a battle for land.

When Yugoslavia's southernmost republic declared itself the independent state of Macedonia in September 1991, Greece slapped a trade blockade on it. Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Greece to protest the use of the name.

Contending that the former Yugoslav republic's leaders have pilfered part of the essentially Greek legacy of the Macedon of Alexander the Great, including his sun symbol on their flag, Greeks have whipped up their nationalist passions to a frenzy.

Outsiders ask why a name or a 2,300-year-old symbol on a flag could make a difference, and what threat a rundown, landlocked country with three rusty tanks could pose to Greece, a member of NATO and the European Union.

For northern Greeks, however, the Macedonian Republic's actions represent a threat to their land. Over a million of them belong to families that were torn from their homes in Turkey and Bulgaria between the two world wars and ended up resettling here. 'A Question of Property'

And for thousands of Macedonian Slavs driven from Greece into the Yugoslav republic 45 years ago, the real issue is also real estate: the return of land Athens confiscated from them during the 1946-49 Greek civil war.

"It isn't just a question of the name or the flag," said Mr. Yatchev, a Macedonian Slav writer who was born in Greece but now lives in Skopje, capital of the Macedonian republic. "It's a question of the property."

"I had a house, 14 fields, a couple of vineyards and a chestnut grove," Mr. Yatchev said, referring to land just outside Edessa that the Greek Government confiscated because his family members fought with the defeated Communist forces in the civil war. "It was my family's property for 300 years, and I want it back."

"It belongs to future generations," he said, expressing the almost mystical link to ancestral lands that is felt strongly by both Greeks and Slavs.

Western analysts fear that Macedonia could produce the next chapter in the long and bloody history of demographic shifts in the Balkans.

Macedonia is a mostly mountainous region divided among Greece, Bulgaria and the Macedonian Republic. The population of the new country is mostly Macedonian-speaking Slavs, with Albanian, Greek, Turkish, Serbo-Croatian-speaking Slavic, Romanian-speaking Vlah and Gypsy minorities. On the Greek side of the border, the United States State Department estimates, there are anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 Slavs, a few of whom are fighting for official recognition as Macedonian Slavs.

Greeks have denied for decades that Slavs are Macedonians.

The Skopje Government asserts that Greece is conspiring with Serbia to spark unrest that could lead to civil war and partitioning of the new country among Serbia, Albania and perhaps even Bulgaria.

But Greece says the Skopje Government's choice of a name and a flag reveals territorial pretensions on the richest of the region's land.

"All this history, all these wars, all these exchanges of population have taught the Greeks here to fear that these threats to our territory are real," said Metropolitan Chrysostomos, the Greek Orthodox prelate in Edessa, whose parents were among the Greek refugees from Turkey who moved into the homes of Turks driven from here seven decades ago. "So many Greeks here have in their personal memory the loss of their homes in Asia Minor." Wave of Greek Settlers

After 500 years of Ottoman rule, which ended in 1912, Greeks were a minority in Greece's swath of Macedonia. The influx of Greek refugees from Turkey in the 1920's altered the ethnic makeup, and by 1928, censuses say, almost half of Macedonia's residents were resettled Greek refugees.

Drawn by promises of autonomy, Slavic Macedonians constituted about 40 percent of the Communist-led insurgency during the closing stages of the Greek civil war.

During and after the war, about 200,000 people, Greeks and Slavs alike, fled to Yugoslavia and elsewhere in the Soviet bloc. Greeks loyal to Athens were rewarded with the property of those who fled.

"This land is ours," said Nikolaos Karamanavis, a Greek journalist. "When they steal our name, it is a clear sign that they want to steal our land."

Macedonian Slavs ridicule the idea that they could be any threat to Greece. But some concede that Greek recognition of the Macedonian Republic would constitute recognition of the Slavic minority in Greece as well as property rights of the Slavs whose land was confiscated.

In 1982, the Greek Government decreed that all ethnic Greeks who fled after the civil war could return, and a 1985 decree permitted them to claim compensation for their property. Macedonian Slavs who fled were not allowed to return or to reclaim property.

Kole Mangov, a Skopje-based lawyer, said Macedonia's Government already had the names of some 5,000 Macedonian Slavs who have appealed for the return of land in Greece.

"You can't ethnically cleanse property rights," said Slobodan Casule, one the new country's journalists. "Imagine all the businesses over there that have been operating on land to which the owners do not really hold clear title. And imagine that one day, all of a sudden, the real title-holder shows up."

Athanasios Parisis, a Macedonian Slav living in Greece, says he sees the conflict getting worse. "Our Macedonian Slavs tell the Greeks to go back to Turkey," he said. "The Greeks tell us that there is only room for Greeks here. I am afraid this place will become a little Bosnia -- again."

Greek Helsinki Monitor: On Macedonians in Greece

By David Edenden

The people at the Greek Helsinki Monitor are on the side of the angels. The devil lives here, here, here, and here!

Macedonians in Greece

Greece: New radio licensing law restricts minority media, says OSCE media freedom watchdog
Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM)
29 July 2007

Greece: Dimitras interview to Macedonian daily 'Dnevnik' on human rights in Greece
Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM)
23 April 2007

Restructuring of the Balkan and Greek Human Rights Lists and Web Pages from February 2007
Greek Heslinki Monitor
February 2007

Macedonia urges Bulgaria to positively resolve Macedonian minority issue
MILS
28 December 2006

Bulgaria: OMO Ilinden PIRIN open letter to the President of Bulgaria on massive member intimidation
OMO “Ilinden”-PIRIN
18 December 2006

Greece: Program and abstracts from KEMO conference on minority and migration phenomena
KEMO
8 December 2006

Bulgaria/Macedonia: Developments following Macedonian minority party ban
MILS
7 December 2006

Bulgaria: Police pressures Macedonian party "OMO Ilinden Pirin" members
MILS
6 December 2006

Bulgaria: EFA-Rainbow urges European Union to end discrimination of Macedonians in Bulgaria
EFA-Rainbow
5 December 2006

Bulgaria/Croatia/Cyprus/Greece/Macedonia/Romania/Slovenia/Turkey: On ECHR judgments' execution
Council of Europe
5 December 2006

Bulgaria: OMO Ilinden PIRIN condemns human rights violations against Macedonian minority
OMO Ilinden PIRIN
4 December 2006

Bulgaria: European Parliament rejects amendment on rights of Macedonians in Bulgaria
MILS
1 December 2006

Bulgaria: Right to self-determination - Only Macedonians can define themselves as minority
European Free Alliance (EFA)
29 November 2006

Bulgaria: Helsinki Committees denounce anti-minority rhetoric and discrimination in Bulgaria
International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF)
21 November 2006

Greece: Harassment of rights defenders, minorities, HR Commissioner and judges upholding Roma rights
Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM)
16 November 2006

Bulgaria rejects charges of discrimination against Macedonian party
MILS
16 November 2006

Greece: Macedonian primer promoted in Thessaloniki
MILS
15 November 2006

Bulgaria: European Parliament Greens condemn non-registration of Macedonian party
MILS
15 November 2006

Greece: Harassment and prosecution of human rights defenders – institutions – judges
Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM)
13 November 2006

Greece: Promotion of Macedonian language primer in Athens
MILS
8 November 2006

Albania to publish election information in Macedonian
MILS
6 November 2006

Bulgaria insists on non-registration of Macedonian party 'OMO Ilinden Pirin'
MILS
6 November 2006

Bulgaria rejects registration of Macedonian party 'OMO Ilinden Pirin'
MILS
1 November 2006

Bulgaria: Sofia City Court refuses to register Macedonian political party OMO Ilinden ­ Pirin
FOCUS News Agency
31 October 2006

Macedonia's Foreign Ministry answer to Bulgaria and Greece: Minorities are not only internal issues
MILS
31 October 2006

Bulgaria/Greece: EU fails national minorities in Bulgaria and Greece
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International
30 October 2006

Greek news agency and media distort State Department position on Macedonian language and ethnicity
Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM)
23 October 2006

Bulgaria: Appeal to international community to intervene on behalf of oppressed Macedonian minority
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International
22 October 2006

Greece & Bulgaria fail to comply on minority rights says Catalan MEP on Macedonian minorities
European Free Alliance/Eurolang
20 September 2006

Bulgarian media sets new low for publicly sanctioned racism against Macedonians
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International
19 September 2006

Bulgaria: MHRMI condemns defamation of ethnic Macedonians by Bulgarian media
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International
14 September 2006

Balkans: New book on media and minorities in South East Europe
South East Europe Media Organisation
6 September 2006

Bulgaria: Bulgarian authorities must respect freedom of assembly for Macedonian commemoration
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International
21 July 2006

Greece/Macedonia/Australia: Makedonska Iskra project well advanced
Pollitecon Publications
4 July 2006

Bulgaria: MHRMI condemns Bulgaria's racist coverage of Macedonian party congress
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International
28 June 2006

Bulgaria: Macedonian party holds inaugural meeting
MILS
26 June 2006

Greece: President denies existence of Macedonian minority in Greece
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International
21 May 2006

Greece/Macedonia: Presidents Papoulias and Crvenkovski on Macedonina minority in Greece
MILS
19 May 2006

Greece/Bulgaria: EFA - Rainbow participated in the 25th Anniversary of European Free Alliance
European Free Alliance - Rainbow
15 May 2006

Europe: Internet Bibliography on National Minorities (prepared by CoE FCNM Secretariat)
Secretariat of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
21 April 2006

Bulgaria: UMO “Ilinden” PIRIN protests harassment of Macedonians
UMO “Ilinden” PIRIN
19 April 2006

Bulgaria/Macedonia: Macedonians' rights in Bulgaria violated for a considerable period of time
MILS
19 April 2006

Bulgaria/Macedonia: Tensions in Sadanski's grave - Macedonians stopped by Bulgarian nationalists
MILS
17 April 2006

Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, and Croatia IHF 2006 Annual Report chapters posted
International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF)
7 April 2006

Bulgaria: Committee of Minister resolution on FCNM implementation
Council of Europe
5 April 2006

Bulgaria: Bulgarian Helsinki Committee Annual Report for 2005
Bulgarian Helsinki Committee
5 April 2006

Greece: The Macedonian minority in Greece - MHRMI 2006 annual report
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International (MHRMI)
2 April 2006

Greece: Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner report on human rights in Greece
Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM)
30 March 2006

Greece: Human Rights Commissioner report on Greece
Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights
29 March 2006

Greece: Human rights defenders’ harassment in 2005 – The Observatory report
Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) - Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
28 March 2006

Greece: European Free Alliance Youth Coordinator visits EFA-RAINBOW
European Free Alliance - Rainbow
22 March 2006

Greece: Regarding the recent US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices in Greece
European Free Alliance - Rainbow
16 March 2006

Greece: US State Department continues to misrepresent the Macedonian minority in Greece
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International (MHRMI)
10 March 2006

Greece: Macedonian minority party EFA-Rainbow brings Greek Foreign Ministry slanderers to justice
European Free Alliance- Rainbow
21 February 2006

Greece's Macedonians ask Macedonian governments not to interfere in defense of minority rights
MILS
1 February 2006

Macedonia/Greece: Macedonia must back banished Macedonians from Greece
MILS
24 January 2006

Macedonia/Greece: US legislative bodies on Macedonia's name and culture
MILS
26 December 2005

Greece: New Articles on Pollitecon.com web site on Macedonians
Pollitecon Publications
18 December 2005

Macedonia/Greece: Relations between Macedonian and Greek Orthodox Church get warmer?
MILS
16 December 2005

Greece/Turkey: There should be no allowance for Reciprocity in Greek-Turkish minorities
Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF)
13 December 2005

Macedonia/Greece: Greek ambassador walks out when EU representative uses the 'M' word
MILS
12 December 2005

Greece: Macedonian party to file complaint against Greek officials for distorting its positions
European Free Alliance - Rainbow
5 December 2005

Greece/Macedonia: Another act in the theater of the absurd
MILS
2 December 2005

Greece: Macedonian minority party in UN conference & excluded from meeting with Greek diplomat
European Free Alliance- Rainbow
2 December 2005

Greek-Turkish entente against minority rights – Greece attacks CoE CM, FCNM, and NGOs
Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM)/Minority Rights Group-Greece (MRG-G)
28 November 2005

Balkans: US State Department 2005 report on religious freedom
US Department of State
10 November 2005

Greece: Ministry refuses to meet Macedonian minority at linguistic diversity meeting
Eurolang
9 November 2005

Bulgaria/Greece: Landmark ECHR judgments on freedom of association and assembly of Macedonians
Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM)/Minority Rights Group-Greece (MRG-G)
23 October 2005

Greece: Brief dialog between Macedonian minority representative and Greek ambassador at OSCE
Rainbow
21 October 2005

Greece/Bulgaria: ECHR to publish judgments on applications by Macedonians on 20 October 2005
European Court of Human Rights
14 October 2005

Greece: Rainbow's presentations in the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting of the OSCE
European Free Alliance - Rainbow
7 October 2005

Greece: Human rights of foreigners and minorities violated on the margins of society
Amnesty International
5 October 2005

Greece: Statements to OSCE meeting on minorities in Greece
Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF)
1 October 2005

Greece: National Minorities - Greek NGO statement to the OSCE HDIM 2005 meeting
Greek Helsinki Monitor/Minority Rights Group-Greece
28 September 2005

Serbia: Obstruction to new Macedonian and Montenegrin Orthodox churches
Forum 18
15 September 2005

Greece: Condemnation of Greece's continued blacklisting of ethnic Macedonians
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International (MHRMI)
2 September 2005

Greece/Hungary: Exhibition on life of Greek children refugees in Hungary during Greek civil war
Office for National and Ethnic Minorities
30 August 2005

Greece: Reactions to censorship of article on Macedonian minority & language by daily «Makedonia»
Greek Helsinki Monitor
30 August 2005

Greece: Greek EBLUL on censorship by Greek daily of article on Macedonian minority and language
Greek Member State Committee of the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages
17 August 2005

Greece: Newspaper censors article on Macedonian minority and language
IFEX/Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM)
15 August 2005

Greece/Macedonia: Greece-born Macedonians allowed to visit birthplace in Florina (Lerin) area
MILS
15 August 2005

Serbia/Macedonia: Condemnation of Minister's statement on construction of Macedonian churches
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International
13 August 2005

Greece: NGO-state exchange on Turkish and Macedonian minorities in Greece at the UN
Western Thrace Minority University Graduates Association/Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs
30 May 2005 (posted 9 July 2005)

Bulgaria: Macedonian minority in Bulgaria launch EU campaign
Eurolang
30 June 2005

Albania: Helsinki Committee comments on the ECRI report on Albania
Albanian Helsinki Committee (AHC)
15 June 2005

Albania/Croatia/Poland/Sweden/United Kingdom: ECRI releases reports
Council of Europe
14 June 2005

Greece: Macedonian TV journalists refused accreditation to film in northern Greece
IFEX/Reporters sans frontières (RSF)
9 June 2005

Greek authorities refuse to issue visas to three Macedonian journalists
IFEX/International Press Institute (IPI)
6 June 2005

Macedonian diaspora leaders met UN envoy Matthew Nimetz
Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada
20 May 2005

Albania/Bosnia/Denmark: Opinions and conclusions on minority rights by Council of Europe
Council of Europe
11 May 2005 (posted 19 May 2005)

Greece: On Prime Minister Karamanlis statement on minority rights and respect of ECHR rulings
Greek Member State Committee of EBLUL
17 May 2005

Greece: Inhuman refusal of entry and denaturalization of ethnic Macedonians in Greece
European Free Alliance - Rainbow
16 May 2005

Greece: 50th FUEN-Congress of Nationalities on Macedonian minority
European Free Alliance - Rainbow
9 May 2005

Greece: UN recommendations on discrimination towards minorities and concerns on forms of violence
Greek Helsinki Monitor/Minority Rights Group-Greece
18 April 2005 (posted 7 May 2005)

Albania: Macedonians formed political party
MILS
4 May 2005

Greece/Macedonia/Australia: AMHRC calls on Australian PM to clarify pro-Greek statement
Australian Macedonian Human Rights Committee (AMHRC)
28 April 2005

Bulgarian authorities interfere with Macedonian commemoration
Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada
27 April 2005

Bulgaria: Report on the Macedonian minority
Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada (MHRMC)
14 April 2005

Albania: Report on the Macedonian minority
Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada (MHRMC)
14 April 2005

Bulgarian authorities hinder upcoming Macedonian commemoration
Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada
8 April 2005

Greek state TV airs previously banned program exposing persecution of Macedonian minority
EBLUL-Greece (with GHM & MRG-G note)
28 March 2005

Greece: UN HRC list of issues taken up during consideration of Greek state initial report
UN Human Rights Committee
December 2004 (posted 28 March 2005)

Greece: Initial state report to the UN Human Rights Committee
UN Human Rights Committee (Greek state submission)
April 2004 (posted 28 March 2005)

Greece: Note to the UN HRC on developments on previously censored state TV program
Greek Helsinki Monitor/Minority Rights Group-Greece
28 March 2005

Greece: UN HRC, in reviewing report by Greece, voices concerns over rights of minorities, foreigners
United Nations
22 & 23 March 2005

Greek state television bans program that exposes persecution of Macedonian minority
Greek Member State Committee of EBLUL
23 March 2005

IPI World Press Freedom Review on Greece 1998 - 2004
International Press Institute (IPI)
22 March 2005

Greece: Note to UN HRC on EBLUL-Greece statement on Greek state TV censorship
EBLUL-Greece (distributed to UN HRC by Greek Helsinki Monitor/Minority Rights Group-Greece)
23 March 2005

Greece: Presentation to the UN HRC on Greece’s compliance with the ICCPR
Greek Helsinki Monitor/Minority Rights Group-Greece
22 March 2005

Greece: Alternative NGO Report to the UN Human Rights Comittee
Greek Helsinki Monitor/Minority Rights Group-Greece
February 2005 (posted 15 March 2005)

Greece/Macedonia: Rainbow letter to EU Council of Foreign Ministers on Macedonian minority
European Free Alliance - Rainbow
26 April 2005

EBLUL-Greece on the Nimitz proposal on the name of the Republic of Macedonia
Greek Member State Committee of EBLUL
17 April 2005

Greece: Report on the Macedonian minority
Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada (MHRMC)
14 April 2005