From: osstlm@eua.ericsson.se (Tomas Lundstrom)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia,soc.culture.greek
Subject: Re: Greece's Defense Seems Just Silly [Macedoni
Date: 12 Oct 92 15:51:08 GMT
Reply-To: osstlm@eua.ericsson.se
Organization: Ellemtel Telecom Systems Labs, Stockholm, Sweden

In article 21736@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU, sachz@montebello.ecom.unimelb.EDU.AU (SAS) writes:
> 
>                 "Greece's Defense Seems Just Silly"
>                          by Strobe Talbott
>                       TIME, October 12, 1992
> [lots deleted]
> Last week the Greek Foreign Minister Michaelo Papaconstantinou was 
> in Washington, and I had a chance to ask him about this whole 
> business.  He maintains that for Macedonia to "adopt a Greek name" 
> is a "provocation" that "implies territorial claims against us".  
> 
Well, I've seen postings from Macedonijans which certainly implies
territorial claims ...

Anyway, I can conclude (from net traffic) that greeks are afraid to
be robbed on their territory and history ...

> Never mind that Macedonia's constitution explicitly disavows any 
> such claim.  Or that its army consists of about 6,000 ragtag 
> troops armed with pistols and rifles, while Greece's is more than 
> 25 times larger and is equipped with tanks, heavy artillery and 
> jet fighters.  Or that there is neither precedent nor 
> justification in international law for one country to tell another 
> what it can call itself. 
> 
> Partly because the Greek position is so preposterous, the 
> suspicion persists that the complaint about the name camouflages a 
> revival of Greece's own age-old expansionistic ambitions.  Several 
> European governments have relayed to Washington reports that 
> Mitsotakis has secretly discussed the partition of Macedonia with 
> Serbia and perhaps with Albanis and Bulgaria as well. 
> 
> Papaconstantinou denies this charge "categorically:  I have never 
> seen any document or heard anything of this sort.  We want them 
> [the Macedonians] top exist [as a separate state]; we want them as 
> a buffer zone" between Greece and Serbia.  "The authorities in 
> Skipje [the Macedonian capital] can change their name to anything 
> except Macedonia," and that will remove "a point of friction in 
> the Balkans." 
> 
> Another recent visitor to Washington -- Jane Miljovski, a minister 
> in the Macedonian government -- offers a persuasive rebuttal:  "As 
> citizens of a newborn, almost defenseless nation, we are afraid 
> that if we can be bullied into changing our name, we will next 
> come under pressure to change our borders." 

Thanks, at last an argument why Macedonija couldn't call itself
"Slavic Republic of Macedonija", "Vardar Macedonija" or something
similar. I thought it would be a nice compromise, but I'm not
from the Balkan, maybe I'm naive ...

Anyway, I can conclude that Macedonijans are afraid to
be robbed on their territory and history ...


> 
> Meanwhile, under the pretext of complying with international 
> sanctions against Serbia, Greece is blockading fuel shipments to 
> Macedonia.  As a result, factories there have had to shut down; 
> crops are rotting in the fields; ambulances are sitting useless in 
> hospital parking lots.  "It's murder without bullets," says 
> Miljovski. 
> 
> Economic strangulation will soon lead to social unrest, which in 
> turn could ignite an ethnic conflagration worse than the one in 
> Bosnia.  Because Macedonia has large Muslim minorities, civil war 
> within that republic is more likely than anywhere else to escalate 
> into a religious and regional war that could end up pitting Greece 
> against any number of its neighbors, including Turkey.  Where will 
> the overriding interests of the US, the EC, and NATO be then? 

I still have a hard time understanding that the Macedonijans are willing
to take all this sufferings and risks just because they want to call
their country "Republic of Macedonija" instead of "Slavic Republic of Macedonija".

I mean, many countries have quite compilicated official names, but are
in daily speech referred to with the "de facto" name, i.e. Macedonija
would still be Macedonija, and the "Slavic" would keep the greeks
happy, distinguishing territory and history.


Tomas