Macedonia News - Letter to the US Secretary of State by Angel Shopov

The Pan-Macedonian Association derogatorily refers to ethnic Macedonians as FYROMians and TITOic Educated Communist Yugoslavians.

Most Macedonians living abroad to which they refer as FYROMians originate from Aegean Macedonia. None of them are Communists. Most have never lived in or visited the Republic of Macedonia or Yugoslavia. Therefore, they did NOT go to TITOic Communist schools. These Macedonians have been bitten, jailed, tortured, forcefully exiled and many of their relatives killed and others died in Greek jails because they were/are Macedonians.

Here is how the true Greeks describe Macedonia, its people and history:

FIELDS OF WHEAT AND HILLS OF BLOOD, by Anastasia Karakasidou:
a) The common popular perception, with which I too had been enculturated as I grew up, was that Greek Macedonia was inhabited by two groups: locals Macedonians (dopyi) and refugees (prosfiges) from the 1922 Greco-Turkish War who had settled among them.
b) The public attention directed at my work has not always been welcome or comfortable. Some Greek critics, emotionalized by a sense of patriotism, have denounced both me and my work, accusing me of everything from stupidity and cannibalism to being a secret agent of the FYROM.
c) As a native Greek writing critically on the Macedonian issue, I have felt at times like a woman who unwittingly violated taboos by peering behind the veils and revealing the sacred flutes of Greek national ideology.
d) The Treaty of Bucharest, signed on to August 1913, marked the end of the Second Balkan War. Under its terms, the region of Macedonia was partitioned between the kingdoms of Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia. Greece received roughly half (51 percent) of the region, Serbia obtained just over one-third (34 percent), and Bulgaria a little less than 15 percent.

THESSALONIKI MUSEUM: Professor of Archaeology at the University of Thessaloniki, Manolis Andronicos, and his associates produced a film under the title The Glory of Macedonia. Andronicos said: The Macedonians Produced Alexander and he was not Greek at all. Macedonia was ruled by kings, it was a kingdom. Whereas, Athens had a democracy, a great achievement of the Greek civilization. Furthermore: Greeks after all lived in city-states, where Greeks though proper civilized people should live. Whereas, Macedonians lived under what the Greeks considered to be primitive and a highly authoritative Monarchy.

In 1991/2, when Yugoslavia disintegrated and Macedonia got its independence and became Republic of Macedonia, Athens introduced a blockade against the Republic of Macedonia. At that time the entire world condemned Athens. Here is how some of the world press reacted:

1. LA STAMPA -The Vampires from 1914 are returning to the Balkans.
2. NEUE ZURICHER ZEITUNG - Athens is playing with fire,
3. DIE WELT - Greek act should be punished.
4. FINANCIAL TIMES - The shame of Greece.
5. LONDON TIMES - Greece is itself facing complete isolation and sharp criticism from all 11 members of the EU.
6. GUARDIAN - Announces the possibility that Greece might be faced with charges before the European court.
7. The TIMES editorial focuses on the GREEK STUPIDITY, The Greek obsession with the Macedonian name, its flag and symbols, cannot be legitimate from a legal, moral and political aspect, The TIMES concludes.
8. BRAUNSWEIRGERE ZEITUNG - Athens Provocation,
9. TORONTO STAR editorial focuses on the GREEK BULLYING,

At that time, Greece, the self-proclaimed godmother, suggested the following names: Dardania, Paeonia, Illirya, Central Balkan Republic, South Slavia, South Serbia, Macedonian Republic of Skopje, Skopian Macedonia, Central Macedonia, Vardar Macedonia, Upper Macedonia, Northern Macedonia, New Macedonia. Republic of Skopje and Macedonians, regardless where they live in this planet are called Skopyans.

Skopyans is a term used to denigrate Greek citizens who declare themselves as ethnic Macedonians. Skopyans is laced with hatred and racism.

Today, the latest names suggested by the Pan-Macedonian Association are VARDARSKA REPUBLIKA or REPUBLIKA VARDAR.

The State of Greece has/had many names: Hellas, Ellas, Ellada, Greco, etc. Also, some individuals have many names; as the head of this group, Nina Peropoulos Nina Gatzoulis, Nina Controdina-Peropoulos etc.

Whereas, Macedonia, in its entire history, had/has only two names, Kingdom of Macedonia, during Philip II of Macedon and Republic of Macedonia, today.

In March 2002, Mr. Richard Holbrooke, former U.S Ambassador to the U.N. delivered a lecture at Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C. regarding the situation in the Balkans. Below is an excerpt from that lecture:

Question: How Macedonians should call themselves?
Answer: "Macedonians"
Question: Their Country?
Answer: "Macedonia"
Question: Their language?
Answer: "Macedonian"
Question: How to solve the problem with Greeks?
Answer: "Greeks must learn to Adjust"

Below is a list of some of the atrocities inflicted upon Macedonians by Greece:

LEAGUE OF NATIONS pressures Greece to extend rights to Macedonian minority.
ABECEDAR Primer printed in Athens for use by Macedonian school children in the Aegean Macedonia. Written in Latin alphabet and reflect the Macedonian spoken in Lerin district in western Aegean Macedonia.
Serbs and Bulgarians protest to League of Nations. Primer undermines their claim that Macedonians are Serbs and Bulgarians respectively.
Greece counters with last minute cable to League: the population.....knows neither the Serbian nor the Bulgarian language and speaks nothing but a Macedonian idiom.
Greece retreats so as to preserve Balkan alliances. Primer is destroyed after League of Nations delegates leave Solun.
Thereafter, Greece denies existence of Macedonians. Refers to Macedonians as Slavophone Greeks, Old Bulgarians (Palyo Vulgary in Greek) and many other appellations but not as Macedonians.
1926. Legislative Orders in Government Gazette #331 orders Macedonians names of towns, villages, mountains changed to Greek names.
1927. Cyrillic inscriptions destroyed or overwritten from churches, tombstones, and icons. Church services in the Macedonian language are outlawed.
Macedonians Ordered To Abandon Personal Names And Under Duress Adopt Greek Names Assigned To Them By The Greek State.
1928. 1,497 Macedonian place-names in the Aegean Macedonia Hellenized since 1926.
English Journalist V. Hild reveals, The Greeks do not only persecute living Macedonians, but they even persecute dead ones. They do not leave them in peace even in the graves. They erase the Cyrillic inscriptions on the headstones, remove the bones and burn them.
1929. Greek government enacts law where any demands for national rights by Macedonians are regarded as high treason.
LAW 4096 directive on renaming Macedonians place-names.
1936. REIGN OF TERROR by fascist dictator General Metaxas, 1936-40. Macedonians suffer state errorism and pogroms.
Thousands of Macedonians jailed, sent to internal exile (EXORIA) on arid, inhospitable Greek islands, where many perish. Their crime? Being ethnic Macedonian by birth.
LAW 6429 reinforces Law 4096 on Hellenization of toponyms.
DECREE 87 accelerates denationalization of Macedonians.
Greek ministry of Education sends Specially trained instructors to accelerate conversion to Greek language.
1938. LAW 23666 bans the use of the Macedonian language and strives to erase every trace of the Macedonian identity.
Macedonians fined, beaten, jailed for speaking Macedonian. Adults and school children further humiliated by being forced to drink castor oil when caught speaking Macedonian.
LAW 1418 reinforces previous laws on renaming.
1940. 39 more place-names Hellenized since 1929.
1945 LAW 697 more regulations on renaming toponyms in the Aegean Macedonia.
1947 LAW L-2 citizens suspected of opposing Greek government in civil War stripped of their citizenship, including relatives, arbitrarily and without due process.
1948. LAW M properties confiscated from citizens who fought against government and those accused of assisting.
28,000 CHILD REFUGEES, mostly Macedonians, from areas of heavy fighting evacuated to Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. Greece denies their right of return to this day.
RESOLUTION 193C (III) United Nations Resolution calls for repatriation to Greece of Child Refugees.

U.N. UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS ARTICLE 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive an impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
`DECREE 504 continues property confiscations of exiles and colonization of the Aegean Macedonia with people from Turkey, Egypt and other parts of Greece. Parcels of land given to colonists along with financial incentives.
1959. LAW 3958 allows confiscation of property of those who left Greece and did not return within five years.
Several villages in the Aegean Macedonia forced to swear LANGUAGE OATHS to speak only Greek and renounce their mother tongue (MACEDONIAN).
1962. DECREE 4234 reinforces past laws regarding confiscated properties of political exiles and denies them right to return.
1968. EUROPEAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS accuses Greece of human rights abuses.
1969. COUNCIL OF EUROPE declares Greece undemocratic, illiberal, authoritarian, and oppressive. Greece forced to resign from Council of Europe under threat of expulsion.
Military Junta continues the policy of colonizing the confiscated lands in the Aegean Macedonia. Land handled over to persons with a proven patriotism for Greece.

EUROPEAN CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS signed by Greece states: ARTICLE 10(1) everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
1976. DECREE 233 suspends about 150 past decrees, government decisions and laws since 1913. Regulations for the confiscation of properties belonging to Macedonian political exiles not affected.
1979. 135 places renamed in the Aegean Macedonia since 1940. The Greek vigil regarding names is an indicator of the Macedonian ethnic identity in the Aegean Macedonia.
1982. Greek internal security police urges intensive campaign to wipe out remaining Macedonian language and consciousness in the Aegean Macedonia.
LAW 106841 political exiles who fled during the Civil War and were stripped of their citizenship are allowed to return providing they are Greek by ethnic origin. The same rights are denied to Macedonian political exiles born in the Aegean Macedonia.

U.N. UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS ARTICLE 17, No one can be deprived of his own property against his will.
1985. DECREE 1540, Political exiles who fled during Civil War allowed to reclaim confiscated lands provided they are Greeks by ethnic origin. Same rights denied to Macedonian exiles born in the Aegean Macedonia.

U.N. UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS ARTICLE 13. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, as well as to return to his own country.
1986. International writers' organization, PEN, condemns Greece's denial of the existence of Macedonians and their language.
Greece escalates climate of fear in the Aegean Macedonia.

Your Excellency, on January 10, 2003, Mr. George Ryan governor of the state of Illinois delivered a speech at Northwestern University in Chicago regarding the judicious system in the state of Illinois.

In Mr. Ryan's words:

The legislature couldn't reform it. Lawmakers won't repeal it. But I will not stand for it.
Seventeen exonerated Death Row inmates are nothing short of catastrophic failure.
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart has said that the imposition of the death penalty on defendants in this country is as freakish and arbitrary as who gets hit by a bolt of lightning.
I had also had to watch in frustration as members of the Illinois General Assembly failed to pass even one substantive death penalty reform. Not one. They couldn't even agree on one.
Our own study showed that juries were more likely to sentence to death if the victim were white than if the victim were black3-1/2 times more likely, to be exact.

The Lawmakers of the State of Illinois MADE and are still making terrible mistakes. Thirteen out of Twenty five hung prisoners were found to be innocent. Unfortunately, those thirteen hung prisoners cannot be brought back to life. However, it is not too late for these two bills to be cancelled. Therefore, your Excellency, you have the power and authority to withdraw the resolution 92_SR0446 and Bill ACR 241.

Sincerely Yours,

A.B. Shopoff, P. Eng.

Cc: Hon. George Bush, President of the United States of America
Hon. Boris Trajkovski, President of the Republic of Macedonia
Hon. Branko Crvenkovski, president of the Government of Macedonia
Hon. Ilinka Mitreva, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Macedonia

Top