Greek Plea to Barack Obama to Reverse Recognition of Macedonia - Based on 2,000 Year Old "Facts"

Macedonian Human Rights Movement International and Australian Macedonian Human Rights Committee – Press Release

Toronto, Canada and Melbourne, Australia, May 25, 2009 - "Greece is in no position to dictate anything based on history. More to the point, should we be governed today based on arbitrary interpretations of ancient history?" (MHRMI Letter to Hill Times - http://www.hilltimes.com/html/cover_ind ... tter5/&c=1)

In an ever-increasing move of desperation, so-called "scholars of Graeco-Roman antiquity" (the Greek Diaspora and “supporters”) sent a letter to Barack Obama on May 18, 2009, pleading for him to "intervene to clean up some of the historical debris left in southeast Europe by the previous U.S. administration." In other words, reverse US recognition of the Republic of Macedonia.

Laughable. Childish. Surely the scholars of Graeco-Roman antiquity can come up with a few adjectives of their own. While they're at it, maybe some thoughts on why a President would conduct his foreign policy based on the "fact" that "Alexander’s father, Philip, won several equestrian victories at Olympia and Delphi, the two most Hellenic of all the sanctuaries in ancient Greece..."

Furthermore, many of the non-Greek scholars that “co-signed” the letter had their names added without permission. A new low in Greece’s war on reason.

Not surprisingly, over 120 countries have ignored Greece's irrational stance on the "name issue" and have recognized Macedonia under its constitutional name. Greece initiated the nonsensical name dispute in order to continue its policy of non-recognition and persecution of its large Macedonian minority.

Because of the name dispute, Greece vetoed Macedonia's entry into NATO, it persecutes its Macedonian minority and receives worldwide condemnation, it is continuously convicted of human rights abuses against its minorities by the European Court of Human Rights, and a recent United Nations report slammed Greece for its blatant disregard of minority rights and calls for immediate recognition of its Macedonian and Turkish minorities.

No wonder Greece focuses on ancient history.

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Macedonian Human Rights Movement International (MHRMI) has been active on human and national rights issues for Macedonians and other oppressed peoples since 1986. For more information, please visit http://www.mhrmi.org, or contact MHRMI at 416-850-7125, or info@mhrmi.org.

Founded in 1984, the Australian Macedonian Human Rights Committee (AMHRC) has been working towards achieving human rights for Macedonians and other oppressed minorities. For more information, please visit http://www.macedonianhr.org.au, or contact AMHRC at +61 3 9460 2910, or mail@macedonianhr.org.au.

Great stuff!

What proof do you have that

a) an official Greek government or Diaspora organization has conspired with the 200+ international academics to put forth this letter and signatures

b) that some of the signatures were doctored? There was a "rumor" floating around last week that Prof Mittag did not sign the letter, but it was shown that the supposed email from Mittag was doctored because no such mail list or domain that the email was supposedly sent to actually exists. Your compatriots over at macedoniantruth promptly realized this and deleted the post by one "Bratot" who doctored the email.

You should realize that your government has made a tactical blunder, a huge one at that, once they started overtly promoting a national history that is not accepted anywhere by mainstream academia. You can make whatever arguments you wish about the accuracy of the mainstream history espoused by mainstream international academia, the point is that your politicians were not sophisticated enough to realize that promoting a genetic/cultural link between ancient and modern Macedonia would be viewed as outlandish and paint an irrational picture of your nation. One need not look further than that "Hunza at the airport" fiasco that made your nation look extremist to say the least. Your nationalist government, scholars who are pushing positions not substantiated anywhere else, and diaspora organisations have opened up a flank that cannot be defended and this has diminished the weight of your cause, as you view it, in the international arena.

Unfortunately for you, Miller's letter, along with it's sanctioning by a wide variety of world class scholars, will weigh heavily in the eyes of outside observers with the resulting effect that they will not take many things you say seriously from this point forward.

Instead of attacking Miller and the credentials of those who signed the letter you should be distancing yourselves from the national history that Gruevski and company are pushing. It is obvious that nobody, outside of your circles, believes it.

Thanks

What does ANY of that have to do with the right to self determine and MANY other human rights violations?

Was Alexander bi-sexual? If I had proof would he be Greek or just one who thinks it?

This is about NOW not 3,000 years ago when your dedo was there to see it happen. Oh, back then no such thing as G'rkomani - that all started in the 20th century.

MHRMI somehow thinks that Miller's letter is tied to these issues so you should ask them. Your so called human rights organizations should distance themselves from the history being pushed by Gruevski and company because it only diminishes their credibility. When an objective observer sees the 200+ signatures of the international scholarly community and then reads the mostly unsubstantiated diatribe by MHRMI attacking the letter and trying to discredit the scholars do you think that outsiders will view any credence in their cause? I do not think so.

The causal chain of tactical errors continues....

What letter - has anyone ever seen it?