[ALBSA-Info] Fwd: The Scotsman: Macedonian Exiles Bring Greek Guilt Home

[AAlibali]

--- In balkanhr at yahoogroups.com, Greek Helsinki Monitor <office at g...> wrote:

"The Scotsman"

http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=985302003

Sun 7 Sep 2003

Exiles bring Greek guilt home

MATTHEW BRUNWASSER IN THESSALONIKI


THEY were sent into exile and scattered to every corner of the world. For
more than half a century the Macedonian Diaspora cast out of Greece during
the country's bloody civil war have been barred from returning to their
homeland.

Now the army of elderly refugees has been granted a temporary homecoming, if
not the return of the money and property seized during the savage conflict
that pitted them against their fellow countrymen.

Greece is finally facing up to its history of 'ethnic cleansing' and
beginning the process of extending full rights to its minorities, who faced
decades of persecution and discrimination under successive oppressive
regimes and right-wing dictatorships.

The move comes as the pro-European government of Prime Minister Costas
Simitis pushes Greece gingerly toward a more diverse, tolerant, and some
might say European and democratic society. Nevertheless, it will be a hard
task to shake off the pervasive belief in the ethnic 'purity' of 'true
Greeks'.

Even the return of the Macedonian community is temporary. The concession,
announced by the Greek deputy foreign minister Andreas Loverdos in July,
only allows them to enter Greece between August 10 and October 30 and limits
their stay to a maximum of 20 days.

For many the homecoming itself is a slap in the face. Macedonian political
activists were refused at the border and there were rumours of a blacklist.
Those whose passports contained the old Macedonian-language names of their
villages were turned away and told to get new passports listing the new
Greek names.

Only 300 of the 100,000 Macedonians banished from Greece have returned. One
hundred and fifty were turned away and many more cancelled their travel
plans when they heard about the border problems.

For those Macedonians who have managed to cross the border in recent weeks,
there have been emotional reunions with family members, and visits to
villages and former homes. For others, however, there has been only
heartache. Former residents of the ethnic Macedonian village formerly known
as D'mbeni discovered the Greek army had not only changed the name, but
bulldozed all the buildings, including the graveyard, where their relatives
and ancestors were buried.

During the Nazi occupation of Greece, more than 10,000 Macedonians, who were
Greek citizens, became resistance fighters in the communist-controlled
National Popular Liberation Army (ELAS). Following liberation, they found
themselves embroiled in a civil war against the pro-royalist Greek
Democratic National Army (EDES). In 1949 ELAS finally surrendered, bringing
the war, which had lasted nearly five years, to an end.



'Laws still prevent Pomaks living outside their traditional villages'


Greece's collective memory of the civil war remains keen; strong enough that
this army of elderly immigrants is still considered a threat to the security
of the Greek Republic. The returning Macedonians have also made Greece aware
of another uncomfortable reality: not all Greeks speak Greek and are Greek
Orthodox Christian.

Panayote Dimitras, spokesman for the Greek branch of Helsinki Monitor, a
human rights group, said: "Greek society has been educated to believe that
if you are not Greek-speaking and a Greek Orthodox Christian then you are
not a good Greek or a real Greek. They have nothing to fear from these
people. They might have come and said strong words against Greece. So what?
We are a strong democracy. It was about time for these people to return."

Pavlos Voskopulos, of the Rainbow political party of ethnic Macedonians in
Greece, adds: "Anyone expressing a different ethnic, national or linguistic
identity is often stigmatised in the public and in the media. They are
accused of being anti-Greek."

According to the US State Department's 2002 Human Rights report on Greece:
"Laws restrictive of freedom of speech remained in force, and some legal
restrictions and administrative obstacles on freedom of religion
persisted..."

According to researchers, minorities in Greece number between 5% and 10% of
the population, or between 500,000 and one million people. These include not
only ethnic Macedonians, but Gypsies, Turks, Romanian-speaking Vlachs,
indigenous Albanians, and Pomaks: Muslims with Koranic names and traditions,
who speak an archaic dialect of Bulgarian.

Officially, however, only a 'Muslim minority' is recognised, created by the
1923 Treaty of Lausanne which ended war with Turkey. Because it makes no
distinction between Turkish, Gypsy and Pomak Muslims, the Greek state has
been able to manipulate the Muslims' identities according to country's
political interest.

The restrictions on Pomaks' movement, for example, continued until 1995. The
Simitis government finally struck down Article 19 of the constitution in
1998, which allowed the state to revoke the citizenship of "non-ethnic
Greeks" who travelled abroad without permission.

But there are still laws on the books which prevent Pomaks from living
outside their traditional villages, although they are not enforced.

Voskopulos, of the Rainbow party, said: "We are talking about a united
Europe, a European identity. Everyone knows how important it is to respect
diversity. Today to discriminate against people at such a broad level is
completely unacceptable."


SCARS OF CIVIL WAR

THE Greek Civil War, which broke out in 1946, was fought between British and
American-backed government forces and communist guerrillas.

The two main forces that had resisted the Nazi occupation - the
communist-controlled National Liberation Front-National Popular Liberation
Army (EAM-ELAS) and the Greek Democratic National Army (EDES) - came into
conflict after EAM-ELAS set up a provisional government that rejected the
Greek king Constantine (right) and his government-in-exile.

Ethnic Slav-speaking Macedonians, related to kin in socialist Yugoslavia to
the north, fought for autonomy and aligned with the leftist insurgents. To
deny the communists local support, more than 700,000 villagers were forcibly
evacuated from mountains and dumped into miserable camps near towns.

In total, around 3,000 government executions were recorded during the
conflict.

By the time the civil war ended in 1949, with the surrender of the communist
guerrillas, some 100,000 people were dead and one million displaced.

Ethnic Macedonians were singled out for reprisals because of their support
for the leftists. About 60,000 Macedonians fled, including 28,000 children,
across the border to Yugoslavia, the Republic of Macedonia and the new
People's Republic of Bulgaria. Others went as far as Australia, Canada and
the US. A 1982 law allowed war refugees to return to Greece, but only the
ethnic Greeks.

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