Newsgroups: bit.listserv.hellas
Date:         Mon, 9 Nov 1992 14:37:09 EST
Reply-To:     "(Efstratios N. Kontogiannis)" <enkontog@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU>
From:         "(Efstratios N. Kontogiannis)" <enkontog@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU>
Subject:      DON'T RECOGNIZE SKOPJE-23 REASONS

The following are twenty-three reasons why the US should not recognize the
Skopje regime under the Greek name of Macedonia.

1- There is no qualified universally accepted rule of international law that
authorizes a state to name itself anything it wants.

2- The current Macedonia issue stems from secessionist Skopje's regime maning
itself in the most provocative was possible as the so-called "Republic of
Macedonia" and requesting world-wide recognition.

3- It is not proper for a country which is part of a region to degine itself
in an official manner as representing the whole region. Macedonia, like the
Americas, Europe, Scandanavia, and the Balkans, is a region. Just as in
no country in North and South America would call itself the "American
Republic," and no European country would call itself the "Republic of
Europe," the Skopje regime in naming itself cannot assume the mantle of all
Macedonia.

4- Tito changed the name of the Skopjein 1944 fron Vardar Banovina to
Macedonia.

5- PRESIDENT GLIGOROV OF SKOPJE, TITO'S PROTEGE, CAN END THE PROBLEM
OVERNIGHT BY REINSTATING THE NAME THE SKOPJE AREA HAD IN 1944--VARDAR
BANOVINA--BEFORE TITO CHANGED IT.

6- Macedonia is a Greek name in origin. Its use in Ancient Greece as the
Kingdom of Macedonia of Philip II and Alexander the Great, even then denoted
a region, not a nationality. Macedonians, like Athenians, Spartans, Cypriots and
 the Cretans were Greeks.

7- The northern province of Greece, which borders the Skopje regime, is
Macedonia.

8- The usage of Macedonian as a nationality was Tito's invention in 1944.
Tito, the communist c
dictator created a false ethnic consciousness among his south Slavic citizens
for a number of reasons, including the campaign against Greece to gain control
of Greece's province of Macedonia and the main prize of the major port city
of Salonika.

9- Skopje's actions and Greece's reactions must also be seen in the context of
Moscow's and Tito's support of the Greek communists in Greece's civil war in
1946-49. Tito supplied arms, equipment and food to the Greek communists and
gave them bases in the Skopje region of Yugoslavia with the full support
of Stalin.

10- Tito's and Stalin's actions resulted in the death of over 50,000 Greeks
and 685,000 were left homeless and 25,000 Greek children were kidnapped. The
Skopje regime and its communist leadership were in the forefront of Tito's
efforts against Greece.

11- The US opposed the use of the mane Macedonia by Tito in 1944 and we
should oppose it now. In a circular Airgram (Dec. 26, 1944) Secretary of
State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. stated:

              This government considers talk of Macedonian "nation"
              , Macedonian "fatherland", or Macedonian "national
              consciousness" to be unjustified demagoguery representing
              no ethnic nor political reality, and sees in its present
              revival a possible cloak for aggressive intentions against
              Greece. The approved policy of this government is to oppose
              any revival of the Macedonian issue as related to Greece.

12- Stettinus airgram was prophetic because Tito and Stalin did iniatiate
aggressive action against Greece. Macedonia was the key issue at the time
of the Truman Doctrine in 1947. US policy was to protect the territorial
integrity of Greece from a communist takeover which would have resulted
in the creation by Yugoslavia of a Macedonian state in Yugoslavia from
Greece's northern province of Macedonia and the control by the communists
of the Aegean Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean and the encirclement of the
Persian Gulf oil area.

13- Greece's defeat of the communists insurgencies in Greek Civil War
(1946-49) with Greek blood and US aid was a major turning point in the
post WW II Cold War history in the containment of communism. It prevented
the communists' takeover of Greece, and thereby preventing the communist
domination of the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean and the strategic
encirclement of the oil reserves in the Middle East, including the
Persian Gulf area.

14- Since 1945, Skopje has mounted a propaganda campaign against Greece
claiming all of Macedonia for the so-called "Macedonian people." However,
there is no such separate ethnic group. These are people speking a Slav
dialect living in parts of Macedonia controlled by Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.
Serbs say these people are Serbs, Bulgarians say they are Bulgarians. The
ancient Macedonians were Greeks, as all historical and archaelogical
evidence demonstrates.

15- The US must not by swayed by conciliatory statements of President
Kiro Gligorov, former communist party apparatuchik and Tito protege,
during his visits to the US, which are carefully state-managed by Hill
and Knowlton, the public relations and lobbying firm which is also the
registered foreign agent of Turkey.

16- Paragraph 49 of the Skoje Constitution regime cites the status of "
Macedonian" people in neighboring countries. Reuters reported (May 4, 1992)
that Bulgaria, one of two states to recognize the "Republic of Macedonia"
(the other was Turkey) has announced it will not establish diplomatic
relations until the European Community conditions are met. The Bulgarian
Foreign Minister specifically cited para. 49 of the Skopje constitution
which says  that Macedonia "cares for the status of persons belonging to
the Macedonian people in neighboring countries...and promotes link with
them."

17- Names have a powerful significance. They are used for territorial claims and
 interference in the internal affairs of one's neighbors.

18- Greece has no territorial claim to the territory of the Skopje regime and
welcomes trade ties with good neighboe relations, if the regime change its name.

19- Recognition of the Skopje regime as "Macedonia" will prove destabilizing
for the region and harmful to US interests. It is better to prevent a crisis
than to respond to one.

20- On June 27, 1992, the EC unanimously accepted the Greek position that the
Skopje regime should only be granted recognition ONLY if the word "Macedonia"
was not included. The EC stated:

     1- to adopt constitutional and political guarantees ensuring that no
territorial claims are made towardsa neighboring community state;

     2- that it will conduct no hostile propaganda activities versus a
neighboring community state; and

     3- that it will not make use of a denomination which implies territorial
claim

                     (Dec. 16, 1991 EC Declaration)

21- Greece is a major US ally in the Persian Gulf War and in this century.
(WW I, WW II, Korea). The US in its own interest should:

      1- make it clear to Skoje that the US will not recognize them based
on the name Macedonia regardless what the EC does;

      2- not base its position on what the EC does because the EC could
change its position;

      3- that there will be no declaration of the new state without a
formal written declaration from Skopje that it recognoze's Greece's borders
and has no territorial claims against Greece;

      4- get a commitment from Skopje to cease the propaganda campaign
against Greece waged from them since 1945.;

      5- press the EC to get Skopje to change its name;

      6- publicly state that the US will oppose the application of the
Skopje regime to the UN for membership;

      7- not put on an equal footing the new nation, with the republic of
Greece, its long-time ally.

                          (NY Times, June 12, 1992- Leslie H. Gelb at A25)

see also The Washington Times 4-22-92, B.J. Cuttler who is a foreign
affairs columnist for Scripps Howard News Service.


This is all for now. This information was furnished by the American-Hellenic
Institute Public Affairs Committee.

STRATOS KONTOGIANNIS
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY, MAXWELL SCHOOL