Newsgroups: bit.listserv.hellas
Date:         Fri, 17 Apr 1992 14:52:00 EDT
Reply-To:     Kostas Kyriakopoulos <kostas@CAT.RPI.EDU>
From:         Kostas Kyriakopoulos <kostas@CAT.RPI.EDU>
Subject:      Makedoniko
Comments: To: hellas@brownvm.brown.edu

San na duskoleuoun ta pragmata magkes ...


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	ATHENS, April 12 - Greece seems hypnotized once again by its past, not in study
 of its glorious achievements, but in an extraordinary burst of nationalism set
 off by the disintegration of Yugoslavia to the North.
	The object of this passion is the name Macedonia.  Marching in the streets,
 putting stickers on cars and shop windows and waving flags, Greeks are heatedly
 proclaiming that the name Macedonia is exclusively Greek, that it has been
 theirs for 3,000 years and must remain so.
	The threat, as they see it, is that a small territory long part of Yugoslavia
 now wants recognition as the independent republic of Madeconia.  Greeks say a
 combination of ethnic Albanians and Slavs are thus trying to unsurp the name of
 a Greek region that was made famous by Macedonians like Aristotle and his pupil
 Alexander the Great.
	And as important here, the name evokes the painful history of northern Greece,
 a land that has been constantly fought over, the last time barely 40 years ago.
  The Greeks say they have no designs on the territory to the north, but they
 fear that Yoguslav Macedonia has designs on Greece.

			"A True Balkan Puzzle"
	The issue has come to a boil here in recent weeks because of growing signs that
 both the European Community and the United States are eager to find a way of
 recognizing the new state, whose capital is Skopje, to help stabilize the
 volatile situation in the republic.
	"This is a true Balkan puzzle." a Western diplomat said.  "Skopje says this
 part of Yugoslavia will destabilize if it's not recognized quickly.  Athens
 says that recognizing a new Macedonia will destabilize all of the southern
 Balkans."
	Bowing to intense Greek pressure, the community and Washington have postponed a
 decision until May, but they have urged Athens to find a compromise with the
 Skopje government, though talks in January broke down.  They have also proposed
 other names for the new republic, like New Macedonia and Slavo-Macedonia.
	But no name that includes the word "Macedonia" is acceptable to Greece, the
 Government and most of the opposition have solemnly reiterated in recent days.
 And if Western European governments decide to ignore Greece's protestations,
 many Greeks say Athens should close the country's northern border in
 retaliation and paralyze an important international transit route.
	An imprecise geographical region that was home to Greek-speaking tribes more
 than 3,000 years ago, Macedonia has not been a stable nation-state with fixed
 borders since the time of Alexander in the forth century B.C.  Slavic tribes
 settled in the region around the seventh century A.D.
	In modern times, it has been a particularly troublesome political faultline and
 the scene of much bloodshed.  The formerly Yugoslav republic of Macedonia
 covers nearly 26,000 square kilometers and has 1.9 million people.  The
 dominant language is a dialect of Bulgarian.  The Macedonia region of Greece
 has about the same number of people in a 34,600 square kilometer area.
	At the beginning of this century, Macedonian rebels in Greece and Bulgaria were
 fighting not only against the Turks but also against each other in the final
 days of the Ottoman Empire.  Subsequently, two Balkan wars were fought over the
 territory until it was finally carved up in 1913. Bulgaria got 10 percent,
 Serbia got 38 percent and just over half went to Greece.
	But frustrated Macedonians in Bulgaria, who wanted union with the Macedonians
 of Serbia and Greece, formed a guerrilla movement, and between the World Wars
 they terrorized the region with assassinations and cross-border raids.  In
 world War II, Bulgaria, which was pro-Hitler, saw its chance to take Greek
 Macedonia and moved in, but it was forced to withdraw towards the end of the
 war.
	Worse fighting came during the Greek civil war, from 1946 to 1949, in which an
 estimated 100,000 Greeks died.  Greek Communists had their bases in this region
 and got supplies from Yugoslavia in exchange for promises to deliver Macedonia
 to Communism.  At the peak of the civil war, both Tito and Stalin wanted
 Salonika, the exit to the Aegean Sea.
	Washington became alarmed when Tito created a Yugoslav Macedonia, seeing it as
 a springboard into Greece and an embryo for a Greater Communist Macedonia.
 Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius Jr., in a 1944 memorandum, condemned
 any reference to a Macedonian "fatherland" or "national conscience," calling it
 a potential "offensive action against Greece."
	The right-wing Athens newspaper Estia reprinted the memorandum last week,
 saying Washington should read up on its recent diplomatic history.  The text
 says, "The solid policy of the U.S. Government is to oppose strongly any
 resurgence of the Macedonian question as far as Greece is concerned."
	Today, Greece seems consumed by anger and insecurity over the issue. "We are so
 furious because the Yugoslav Communists falsified and stole our history by
 saying that Macedonia is basically Slavic," said Eugenia Koukoura, a historian,
 who insisted on taking a visitor to see a 2,500-year-old Macedonian tombstone,
 that bears Greek inscriptions.  She is eager to point out that Tito, when he
 carved a new Macedonia out of the Serbian region called Vardar in 1944, had his
 followers rewrite history to create a local Macedonian identity.
	In recent weeks, Greek officials have been busily reasserting their claims over
 the name, although they make no claims on the Yugoslav territory.  They have
 rebaptized several warships and northern airports.  Salonika's airport is now
 called Macedonia and Kavalla's was renamed Alexander the Great.  Fresh
 archeological finds have been unveiled to link the area's history to Greece.
 This month, two museums in Athens put on Macedonia exhibits.
	Many citizens have joined what seems to be a wholesale reaffirmation of
 identity.  The Macedonian star, the emblem of the ancient empire, appears in
 stickers on shop windows and streetlamps.  Men wear the star in their lapels,
 and women have them on brooches and earrings.  A few weeks ago, the Government
 issued new 100-drachma coins that carry the Macedonian star and the image of
 Alexander.
	"Greeks often are not good patriots; they emigrate; they send their money
 abroad," said Andreas Ekonomides, a lawyer.  "But they are very sensitive about
 their heritage and their history."
	Thus, what to outsiders might appear to be merely a dispute over semantics has
 taken on the dimensions of a battle for Greek cultural heritage against thei
 heirs to a Yugoslav Communist Government that long harbored territorial
 ambitions over Macedonia.
	Government officials here said that ever since Tito created a Yugoslav
 Macedonia, radical groups in the territory had spoken openly of the need to
 "liberate" the rest of their region to form a "Greater Macedonia." The
 officials say such talk goes on with ominous insistence.  The Skopje Government
 says that it has not territorial designs but that it does not want to change
 the republic's name.
	The six-month-old dispute has had the unusual effect of uniting this often
 quarrelsome and divided nation in an intense wave of nationalism.  But this has
 also enormously complicated the Greek government's efforts to find a solution.
 "We have reached a nationalistic delirium," a senior official said.

			Some Fault Government
	Foreign diplomats in Athens said the government itself had helped stir up the
 highly charged mood, and that it now had little room for maneuver.  Apparently
 seeking to widen his freedom of movement, Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis
 dismissed his hard-line Foreign Minister, Antonios Samars, on Monday.  Mr.
 Samaras had insisted on closing the border.
	When asked what they fear from their small and impoverished neighbor, Greeks
 recall that competing claims over "Macedonia" - both name and land - have often
 led to war.
	In Athens and Salonika, the northern capital, Greeks say they believe that the
 Skopje Government is not looking to start offensive actions now.  But they fear
 that militant groups might start trouble in the future under a Macedonian
 banner.  Therefore, they say, the teritory must be prevented from calling
 itself Macedonia.  Radicals reportedly include former Greek Communists who fled
 to Skopje and never got over their defeat in the civil war.


------------------------------------------------------------------------

KAI H APANTHSH

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                        	April 17, 1992

Mr. Jack Rosenthal

Editorial Page Editor

The New York Times

229 West 43d Street

New York, NY 10036



Dear Mr. Rosenthal:



The article "For the Name of Macedonia, a Burst of Greek Pride,"
that appeared in the New York Times on April 17, 1992 on page
A9, presents the facts on the issue of the recognition of the
former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in an accurate and
objective manner.



The facts presented in the article today, sharply contradict
your editorial "The Two Macedonias" that appeared in the New
York Times on April 5, 1992.  In addition, the article today is
in agreement with other articles on the subject that have
appeared in the New York Times.  As a result, it has been
revealed that your editorial "The Two Macedonias" is not
supported by any facts and presents a distortion of the reality.
 Given the influential position of your newspaper, articles such
as your editorial of April 5, may have a very negative effect on
the peace in the region.  Your editorial leads to the oxymoron
that Greece, unique among European nations in that it paid with
the blood of 100,000 of its citizens the fight against
communism, is going to be the victim of the last communists in
the Balkans with the support of the US.



Based on the information presented in your article today, you
editorial, "The Two Macedonias," becomes false and dangerous to
peace and needs to be retracted publicly.  This is the only fair
solution that is in accordance to your organization's tradition
of accurate reporting.



							Sincerely

							Emmanuel Petrakis

							Professor

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