From: gd8f@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Gregory  Dandulakis)
Subject: Re: Skopjian Recognition after US elections.
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 18:42:11 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.010403.7462@informix.com> rika@informix.com (Rika Tsitsinia) writes:
>
>	Greece has a lot to lose for that 10% of land and foreign
>    people who don't want to be Greek citizens. If Vardaria does not
>    split, Greece in effect gets the whole 100% of the best part
>    (the market) without the trouble.
>
>	By splitting Vardaria up, Greece would lose, Bulgaria would
>    win. I have nothing against Bulgaria winning, I have a lot against
>    Greece losing. Actually, in the worst case scenario of Vardaria
>    splitting up, I would make the bargain to give the "greek" 10%
>    to Albania in exchange for equal amount southern Albania, which
>    is mostly greek.
>
>
>	Georgios


     Georgios expresses an alternative senario which he thinks is
     the best.

     Since only history (THE REAL EXPERIMENT) can prove which of the
     many analysis is right, I want just to counter-argue for some
     of his thoughts.

     Georgios, did you see that SAS reacted to my posting about splitting
     the Scopja by arguing a similar treatment for last century's Greece.
     But everybody knows that last century's Greece survived the Ottomans
     by skillfully manouvering her Geopolitical importance with the
     great powers, and by selling internally the "megali idea", to
     liberate the ottoman christians. Can you imagine a similar
     manouvering from the Scopjan government where will lead?
     The great powers soon or later through their competition in the
     region will promote the irredentist muthology. The political
     history has proven this again and again and again and NEVER
     disproved it.

     Now the argument that economically can be absorbed by Greece,
    this is very weak. The power center in Skopja will never give up
    its powers (that's the natural reaction from all the power thirsty
    (covered by idealism) competing political feagures; the power
    is like the living organisms, it continuousely wants to be 
    self-replicated).

    Now the argument that the people there don't want Greece. Wrong!
    Even though they are tought so, the reality is different. There
    are still Vlachs (100,000) there who have still live connections with the
    Greek Vlachs who left Monastir (Bitola) after the Balkan Wars,
    and live in northern Greece. These people easily can distinguish
    the myth and disaster from the facts and potential.
    An other group is the slavophones refugees and their descendents (100,000)
    from the greek civil war (they used to be the famous Grecomaniacs just
    in 1910-20's). Those people even though they were
    severly alianated from Greece during the Cold war, still they are
    missing their ancestral ethnical affiliation, and for that reason
    even the Scopjan regime never permitted them to acquire high rank
    administrative positions: they are notoriousely suspicious of them.
    Those two groups of people can almost immediately be assimilated
    within the greek society. (After all, my great-grand father was
    a turkish-mother tongue christian cretan).

    Now, why not Bulgaria to take a piece of it. They had once strong
    connections with them. A stable, viable Bulgarian state is immensely
    preferable than a power-keg neo-invented "macedonian-ethnicity" which
     doesn't have to lose anything even if all the Balkans explode, since
     itsown people are big losers.

   The split between Serbia-Bulgaria-Albania-Greece would have become
   reality if the americans didn't strongly react already two years
   ago; for that reason I reckon that a brave political alliance of these
   4 states, in defiance of the outsiders, in accord to the 1st Balkan
   war, seems to me the best.

   As far as Albania is concerned, I personally see as best solution,
   to become the only solid muslim country in the Balkans, taking one
   third of the Scopja, half of Kosovo, and giving the fourth orthodox
   south to Greece, since the northern-epirots so much want it.

   This arrangement will finally resolve the Ottoman legacy from the
   balkans and the intrabalkan friction can finally go away (slowly we
   can start looking like western europeans). All the rest are half-solutions
   which will destroy us again in the near future. It seems that Serbia does
   what Kemal did in Anatolia in 1910-20's and Venizelos agreed upon
   later. Maybe it's time to finish it now.

   Do the Balkan politicians have the mental abilities to see this?
   We need smart and brave men.


   Just my thoughts,

   Gr

   PS: Ofcourse and these solutions can last, let's say, only few centuries.
       History never stops. And history is played with arms too. Whoever
       is not ready to fight, then soon will be dissapeared (physically or
       culturally).
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