Macedonian Alliance Condemns Adoption of Racist Resolutions by American State Legislatures

Cc: Illinois Senate Governor George H. Ryan
      Senator Theodore Gatsas
      Senator Lou D'Allesandro
      Speaker of the House: Gene Chandler
      Governor of New Hampshire: Craig Benson

The Macedonian Alliance condemns a number of US state legislatures that have adopted resolutions that quite contentiously and shamefully proclaim "... that the ancient Macedonians are Hellenes and that the inhabitants of the northern province of Greece, Macedonia, are their Hellenic Descendants."

In June 2002, the Illinois state legislature adopted resolution 92_SR0446 and in August 2002, the California state legislature adopted a similar resolution, bill ACR 241. Now the Texas and New Hampshire legislatures are reviewing the same resolution. This is obviously pandering to an organisation of racists who has usurped the Macedonian name and calls itself the Pan-Macedonian association, an organisation of Greeks that is backed heavily by radical nationalist elements within the Greek Community.

The Macedonian Alliance is an organisation of people with an ethnic Macedonian background from all parts of the divided land of Macedonia and sees this as a blatant attempt to cover up a century of human rights abuses by Greek authorities. In addition, the resolutions conveniently bypass the fact that up to one million Christian refugees were resettled from Asia Minor into Aegean Macedonia in the 1920s to Hellenize the area.

The Macedonian Alliance is insulted and angry. We are angry that a Greek organisation is using the honorary resolution system of US states as a propaganda tool. This is an international community matter and is therefore not an appropriate subject for US States to comment on through simplistic resolutions. It is not an issue that concerns these state legislatures. Moreover, resolutions have been passed with no consideration or debate about the subject matter. In Missouri, the resolution was "passed" on December 11, 2002, a date that the legislature was not even in session.

To quote a concerned US citizen, "It is reminiscent of the actions of Representative Tom Moore who sponsored a resolution in the Texas House of Representatives calling on the House to commend Albert de Salvo for his unselfish service to his country, his state and his community. The resolution was passed unanimously. Representative Moore then revealed that he had only proposed the motion to show how the legislature passes bills and resolutions often without reading them or understanding what they say. Albert de Salvo was the Boston Strangler."

We demand that US State legislatures reverse and stop passing contentious and irrelevant resolutions. Further, we denounce the Pan Macedonian Association and ask that it be restrained from using US State Legislature's honorary resolution processes for reprehensible propaganda purposes.

Yours Faithfully

Zak Milenkovski
Chairman, Macedonian Alliance
mail@macedonianalliance.com

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