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>From: pavlovic-milan@yale.edu (Milan Pavlovic)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia,soc.culture.greek
Subject: Efharisto Ellada.
Date: 1 Nov 1992 18:23:07 -0500
Organization: Yale University Science & Engineering UNIX(tm), New Haven, CT
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  From "The Times", published in London on Oct. 3, 1992.  Reprinted without
permission, for "fair use" only.
===============================================================================
		Greeks fearful of Kosovo explosion


>From Michael Binyon in Athens


     Greece will urge its European Community partners at the Birmingham summit
to do more to prevent an explosion in Kosovo,the predominantly Albanian enclave
in the former Yugoslavia, which could start a second Balkan war, Constantine
Mitsotakis, the prime minister, said.

    He said that tensions were rising. It was urgent to force a compromise on
the Serbs and the Albanians, or hostilities could spill over and draw in
surrounding countries.  Greece  would not intervene, he said. But ''two wars
at the same time in our region we cannnot stand''.

    In an interview with The Times,Mr Mitsotakis said he was more worried about
the Albanians than the Serbs in Kosovo. On no account should they be encouraged
to seek self-determination; that could lead to an independence movement and
 Greece  opposed all border changes in the region. He would speak forcefully on
that in Birmingham a week next Friday.

    With cultural and historic ties to Serbia,  Greece  has insisted on
maintaining a dialogue with Belgrade and has come close to being an apologist
for the government of Slobodan Milosevic. But Mr Mitsotakis said he had urged
the Serbian leader to restore autonomy to Kosovo.

   He saw no room for compromise with the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia
over its name. It was an insuperable obstacle to good relations.  Greece  could
live with a double name, under which the republic would use the name Macedonia
only internally and not in its formal title. But he believed that President
Gligorov would resist that compromise.

    Some policy advisers here criticise EC members for making known their
objections to the Lisbon declaration withholding recognition of Macedonia under
that name. They say such mixed signals only encourage resistance in  Skopje
and undermine  Greece's  position.

    He again offered Macedonia economic and political support if it changed its
name, saying the republic would always have to depend on  Greece,  but ''ten
million Greeks justifiably reject the use of the name Macedonia''.
===============================================================================


Regards,
Milan Pavlovic
===============================================================================
		M A C E D O N I A  =  H E L L A S
===============================================================================



  From the editorial page of "The Times", published in London on Oct. 13, 1992.
Reprinted without permisson, for "fair use" only.
===============================================================================
	        Macedonia and  Greece  must both give ground

   President Gligorov arrives in London this week to lobby the European
Community to recognise his poor,landlocked and fragile former Yugoslav republic
under the name it wants to adopt: Macedonia. Balkan policy will be one of the
few non-Maastricht subjects raised at the Birmingham summit, and he deserves a
sympathetic hearing.

   For nine months his country has been in a legal limbo, no longer part of the
old Yugoslavia but unrecognised by all but Turkey, Bulgaria and Russia.  The
reason is the implacable hostility of  Greece,  which insists that Macedonia is
Greek and only Greek, and will not allow the name to be usurped.

   Much ridicule has been poured on Athens. Critics accuse the Greeks of trying
to patent the glory of Alexander the Great, risking conflict in the Balkan
tinderbox over an alleged slight to a culture that flourished 2,300 years ago.
The Greek government has handled the matter clumsily.  Greece  has been accused
of attempting to bully its northern neighbour, while blackmailing its EC
partners.

    The Greeks nevertheless have a point, and one that has not been properly
understood by northern Europeans no longer versed in the classics. Their
argument is that by adopting the name arbitrarily assigned to southern
Yugoslavia by Tito, the Slav immigrants to the area steal another nation's
history, identity and all the myths, glory and territorial implications that go
with it. Schoolchildren will be taught that every historical reference to
Macedonia applies to their country. Over years the seeds of irredentism will be
sown. Already nationalists are producing maps of Greater Macedonia, calling for
the unity of lands stretching from Serbia to Thessaloniki, from Bulgaria to
Albania.

   But for two things, the issue might seem a foolish Balkan spat. The first is
the crucial role of Macedonia in the enforcement of sanctions against Serbia,
and the second is the threat that the Yugoslav conflict will spread south with
an explosion in Kosovo, Macedonia or both.  Greece  has cut off all oil going
north, in response to international complaints that it was being sent on by
Macedonia to Serbia; but as a result, Athens is accused of trying to strangle
the new republic.  Skopje  needs to create a sense of identity in an area where
the inhabitants are a mixture of Albanians, Bulgarians, Serbs, gypsies and
others; already nationalist pressures are threatening the coherence of the
state. If Albanians rise up in Kosovo, their kinsmen in Macedonia and Albania
may swiftly be drawn in. Even a pragmatic Greek government will find it hard to
remain uninvolved.

    Britain, holding the EC presidency, has sent a diplomat to search for a
compromise.The Greeks have already said they will accept a two-names formula: a
formal name for external use, and the word Macedonia for internal use.President
Gligorov should accept this.In the long run common usage is likely to bring him
victory. In the short run, with his bankrupt economy depending on the goodwill
of Athens, he would be foolish to inflame Greek passions further.
===============================================================================

Regards,
Milan Pavlovic
===============================================================================
		M A C E D O N I A  =  H E L L A S
===============================================================================



  From "The Christian Science Monitor", published on October 28, 1992.
Reprinted without permission, for "fair use" only.
===============================================================================
		 Recognizing 'Macedonia' Defies History


By: C. M. Woodhouse

	      C. M. Woodhouse, a British historian and former member
              of Parliament, served Britain in  Greece  during and
	      after World War II. He writes on Greek history and politics.


   Commentators on international politics do not like being taken by surprise,
so they tend to foresee the worst. Few thought Yugoslavia would stay together,
in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet empire. But few if any foresaw the
horrifying brutality and scale of the consequences in Croatia and Bosnia. The
experts do not want to be caught napping again, so they are already identifying
the scene of the next catastrophe. We are now being warned that the most
likely candidate is the ex-Yugoslav republic that Tito called Makedonija. The
people being blamed for a prospective catastrophe are the Greeks.

   The Greek government is regularly accused in the Western press of being
tiresome and obstructive over the recognition of this small, land-locked
territory on its northern borders, which has declared itself independent of
Yugoslavia.

   The de facto government of the ex-Yugoslav republic, with its capital at
Skopje, sought international recognition as the Republic of Macedonia. After a
cursory discussion in the Council of Ministers of the European Community (EC),
11 members were initially persuaded to agree, but  Greece  dissented. From the
first, the Greeks made it clear that their objection was not to recognition but
only to the name of Macedonia.

   Some weeks later, at a meeting of heads of government, the Greek prime
minister explained the grounds of the objection. The other members accepted his
arguments and agreed that the new state could be recognized, but only under a
different name.Given that the decision was finally unanimous and was reached by
a process of reasoned argument, what was tiresome, difficult, or obstructive
about  Greece's  conduct?

   What was the Greeks' case? Simply, it was that the former Yugoslav republic
of Makedonija was nothing but an invention of Tito's as a bridgehead for the
penetration and annexation of  Greece's  northern province, which is the real
Macedonia with its capital at Salonika. Tito's Makedonija did not ever exist as
a name on any map 50 years ago. But after 1945 Tito began openly talking of a
Greater Macedonia that would include not only his small,artificial province but
also the major Greek province that he called Aegean Macedonia. He pursued this
policy not only by state-controlled propaganda but also by semi-clandestine
warfare.

   During the Greek civil war of 1946-49, the communist-led Democratic Army was
supported from Tito's territory by military supplies, training, and recruits,
and by safe harbors north of the Greek frontier, which the Greek National Army
was debarred from crossing. By the end of the civil war, half the manpower of
the Democratic Army were Slavs recruited either from Tito's Makedonija or from
the Slav-Macedonian minority in  Greece.  The rebel government set up by the
Greek communists contained two Slav-Macedonians.

   There is no doubt that if Tito had had his way, Greater Macedonia would have
been established with its capital as Salonika, the port on the Mediterranean
that Stalin also desired.The republic of Makedonija would have sunk back to its
minor status, and its nominal capital of  Skopje  would have remained an
insignificant country town.  Skopje  as a capital would have been absurd, for
when Macedonia was last geographically united, under the Ottoman Empire,
 Skopje  was not even in Macedonia; it was the capital of the neighboring
Turkish vilayet of Kossove.

   If one consults a map of southeast Europe before the Balkan wars (the
Harmsworth Atlas of 1910),the boundaries of Macedonia in the Ottoman Empire are
clear. Those boundaries were breached by two Balkan wars and reconstituted on
the lines that the original anti-Turkish alliance ( Greece, Montenegro, Serbia,
and Bulgaria) had reached by force of arms.No final settlement of the frontiers
could go unchallenged on ethnic grounds; not for nothing did the French adopt
the word macedonie for fruit salad.

   But the frontiers have not been substantially changed since 1913, despite
several efforts. The outcome is unmistakable on the map of southeast Europe:
Only a very small segment of historic Macedonia now lies within the borders of
Tito's Makedonija, and an even smaller one in Bulgaria.

   The Greeks' objection to the misuse of the name of Macedonia is therefore
well founded. It is all very well for the experts to claim that the petty new
state presents no threat to anybody. That could be as fatally optimistic as the
expectation that the disintegration of Yugoslavia could be peacefully managed.

   The optimists should not forget that both Serbia and Bulgaria have had
historic claims on Greek Macedonia, however ill-based. It was from Belgrade and
Sofia that the last assault on Greek sovereignty was launched. Are the present
incumbents of power in Belgrade and Sofia today more trustworthy? They too have
potential claims against the ex-Yugoslav republic, whereas the Greeks have none
apart from the usurpation of the name.

   It would be naive to suppose that in accepting the Greeks' argument the EC
was yielding to a tiresome and obstructive partner. It was simply exercising
prudence and common sense. If a catastrophe is coming in the ex-Yugoslav
republic, it will come anyway, not because its wish to choose a provocative
name is frustrated.
===============================================================================


Regards,
Milan Pavlovic
===============================================================================
		M A C E D O N I A  =  H E L L A S
===============================================================================