Macedonians in USA in 1899

Macedonian a "race" according to US Bureau of Immigration 1899!

Macedonian is mentioned as a separate race in Turkey in Europe, Bulgaria and Greece, used by the United States Bureau of Immigration since 1899.

“The Economic Investigations of the United States Immigration Commission” by W. Jett Lauck, published in “The Journal of Political Economy”, Vol. 18, No. 7, (Jul., 1910), pp. 525-549. This is from page 527.

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Our Name is Macedonia

Who gave YOU the right to negotiate MY name?

The most basic human right is self - identification.

Macedonian Human Rights Movement International (MHRMI) and the Australian Macedonian Human Rights Committee (AMHRC) have launched an ad campaign demanding an end to all negotiations with Greece over its name.

MHRMI and AMHRC ask every Macedonian organization, in the country and abroad, to join our call for Macedonia to immediately cease name negotiations.

To sign on or see the ad campaign, please visit www.mhrmi.org/our_name_is_macedonia

Saint Elijah day celebrated by the ethnic Macedonians in Greece

Few days ago Macedonians in Greece celebrated their national holiday, Saint Elijah's Day.

Yes! The same Macedonians that don't exist in Greece. The "few hundred Slavs" as Greek government would like to name them. Unfortunately for them,they are not few hundred, they are thousands and thousands, and every day they speak more openly about their past, their roots, their position in the Greek society.

In Ovcarani, near Lerin (greek: Florina) last weekend thousands of Macedonians joined the festivity. They sang, danced, talked and celebrated life. 

The media from Republic of Macedonia were not allowed to cover from Ovcarani. The TV crew from  the national Kanal 5 television station were stopped on the Macedonian/Greek border by the Greek custom and asked for "special permission". Only the reporter was allowed to pass, without equipment. 

This shows the level of democracy, that this EU member country practices. 

Here are few short videos which were uploaded from the festivity. Enjoy! 

Za mnogu godini Makedonci, kade i da ste! Za mnogu godini moj narode, na Makedonija!

CNN on Macedonia's name issue

The World media finally decided to spend some time, and analyze the "Macedonian issue", the name dispute and the meaningless requests by the Greek government.

The reporter Nic Robertson plastically presents the current situation, interviews the Prime minister Nikola Gruevski, and shows a new perspective on the whole problem.

I think that finally is the time for the World to know that Macedonia is mobbed by Greece, and that all international law are broken in this despute with no ending.

Macedonia with a spectacular victory over Greece

Republic of Macedonia, Skopje
Olympic arena
World League - 5th leg

Macedonia - Greece 7:6  
(2-2. 2-1, 2-0 1-3)
Attendance app. 2000

The star of the tonight’s match was the fantastic Macedonian goalkeeper Dalibor Percinic. He had the match of his carrier. Macedonian national team led during the whole match. The Macedonians opened the result in the first quarter, and didn't let thier lead down until the end of the match.

Before the end of the second quarter it was 3:3. On half time Macedonia was leading by 4:3.

In the third quarter total domination of the Macedonian water polo team. They scored two goals, and enter the last quarter with 6:3.

  
The last part of the match was tensed, but Macedonia manages to stay on top, and beat Greece.

Congratulation for the great performance of the players and a fantastic atmosphere by the audience. Long live Macedonia!

Council of Europe: Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights slaps Greece on minority issue

Check out the official document on Greece:

Case study: Greece

77. Since the monitoring procedures set up under the framework convention and the European charter do not formally apply to states that have not ratified them, these states escape scrutiny by the advisory committee (but they are monitored by other Council of Europe bodies). It is nevertheless most interesting to examine how these countries accommodate diversity, whether through minority policies with respect to recognised minorities or through a "non-discrimination" approach when minorities are not recognised, or by combining both approaches. In the context of this report, I therefore decided to visit one of these countries, namely Greece, which recognises only one minority on its territory. From 26 to 28 February 2009, I had a number of meetings in Athens, Thessaloniki and Florina (see the programme of the visit in Appendix III).

78. In its 2004 report on Greece, the ECRI noted, “persons wishing to express their Macedonian, Turkish or other identity incur the hostility of the population. They are targets of prejudices and stereotypes, and sometimes face discrimination, especially in the labour market”.24 In its 2009 report on Greece,25 the ECRI expressed concern about the situation of Roma, which suffer discrimination in particular in education, housing and employment.26 It also noted that the problem of the recognition of the identity of Macedonians and ethnic Turks, and in particular their right to freedom of association, remains. 27

79. Given that other reports of the Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights address the issue of the Muslim minority in Thrace (Eastern Greece), as well as the situation of Roma in Europe,28 I limited my focus to the contentious issue of the Macedonian community in Greece, which has, inter alia, also been recently dealt with, to various extents, by the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner and the United Nations independent expert on minority issues, Ms Gay McDougall. The latter also visited Florina in September 2008. 29

-        The approach of the Greek Government

80. The Greek authorities recognise only one minority in Greece, namely the ‘Muslim’ minority in Western Thrace, by virtue of the Lausanne Peace Treaty of 24 July 1923. In this context, Greece was recently commended by various bodies, including the Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights,30 for a number of measures it had taken to enhance the rights of the Muslim minority in Greece. As regards others, Greece favours the approach to non-discrimination defined by European Union instruments.31

81. The Greek authorities have repeatedly denied the existence of any Macedonian minority in Greece and repeatedly referred to the hijacking of local culture by persons and groups which pursue political aims.

82. Despite the non-recognition of any other national or linguistic minority, the Greek authorities have acknowledged that in northern Greece there exist “a small number of persons who … use, without restrictions, in addition to the Greek language, Slavic oral idioms, confined to family or colloquial use”.32

83. During my visit, the Greek authorities stressed that Greek citizens who claim Macedonian identity are fully represented by a political party, which is free to participate in elections in Greece.

-        Claims of representatives of the Macedonian community

84. First and foremost, I should stress that there has not been any ethnic violence in the Florina area. Greek society is pluralistic and open to diversity. Nevertheless, it seems that still today, persons who express and actively claim a Macedonian identity often come up against the resentment and even hostility of the authorities.

85. Members of the Macedonian community recognised that their situation had improved in the last 15 years, though they were still allegedly subject to individual acts of harassment and intimidation (at work, to get Greek citizenship, when crossing the border with the neighbouring country, for recognition of diplomas, for property issues or in religious matters). They ask the authorities to recognise their right to self-identification as well as the existence of a Macedonian national minority in Greece.

Croatia beats Macedonia in FINA's World League match in Skopje

Skopje, Macedonia - FINA's World League debut match for Macedonia. Swimming poll "Mladost", attendance 600. The result 7-9 (1-1; 3-3; 1-3; 2-2) for Croatia.


Macedonian national water polo team had a great debut, even though Croatia won the match at the end.

Croatian team led by water polo legend Ratko Rudic came to Skopje with with a few newcomers. Macedonian coach Nonkovic put an a good strategy, pressuring the Croats all over the field.

The first two periods were tied. A few seconds before half time Macedonian led by 4-3, but Croats scored and went on break with draw.

The game was finally decided in the third quater. Croats played more agresively, and scored 3 goals more, recieved only one. At one point in the fourth quater, Croats led by 4 goals (9-5).

Macedonia scored twice before tha match was over, and showed that they are a team to be respected and feared in this group.


Macedonia will take on Greece in the next match, in Athens.

Aegean Refugee Children Golgotha (1946 - 1949)

Political refugees of the Greek Civil War were members or sympathisers of the defeated communist forces who fled Greece during or in the aftermath of the Civil War of 1946–1949. The collapse of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) and the evacuation of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) to Tashkent in 1949 led thousands of people to leave the country. 

It has been estimated that by 1949 over 100,000 people had left Greece, including tens of thousands of child refugees who had been evacuated by the KKE in an organised campaign. The war wreaked widespread devastation right across Greece and particularly in the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, causing many people to continue to leave the country even after the end of the war.

Many people fled due the collapse of the DSE, it has also been claimed that many ethnic Macedonians fled to avoid possible persecution by the advancing National Army. A term used to describe the experience of the ethnic Macedonians who left Greece as a result of the Civil War is the Exodus of Macedonians from Greece, particularly in the Republic of Macedonia and the ethnic Macedonian diaspora. 

The KKE claims that the total number of political refugees was 55,881, an estimated 28,000 - 32,000 children were evacuated during the Greek Civil War, A 1951 document from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia states that the total number of ethnic Macedonians that left Greece during the Civil War was 28,595 whereas some ethnic Macedonian sources put the number of refugees at over 213,000.


On March 4 1948, "Radio Free Greece" announced that all children under the age of 15 would be evacuated from areas under control of the Provisional Government. The older women were instructed to take the children across the border to Yugoslavia and Albania, while the younger women took to the hills with the partisans. 

Widows of dead partisans soon became surrogate mothers for the children and assisted them in their journey to the Eastern Bloc. Many people also had their children evacuated. 

By 1948 scores of children had already died from malnutrition, disease and injuries. It is estimated that 8,000 children left the Kastoria area in the ensuing weeks. The children were sorted into groups and made way for the Albanian border. The partisan carers (often young women and men) had to help and support the children as they fled the Civil War.



Thousands of Greek, ethnic Macedonian and Aromanian children were evacuated from the Areas under communist control. Although a United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans (UNSCOB) report confirms that villages with an ethnic Macedonian population were far more willing to let their children be evacuated. They are now known as „Децата Бегалци “ (Decata Begalci) "the Refugee Children" in the Republic of Macedonia and the ethnic Macedonian diaspora. 

It is estimated that from 28,000 children to 32,000 children were evacuated in the years 1948 and 1949. According to some sources, the majority of the children sent to the Eastern Bloc had an Ethnic Macedonian origin and spoke their native Slav vernacular, but this is disputed by official KKE documents and statements made by political refugees in the years after the evacuation. Exceptions were made for children under the age of two or three who stayed with their mothers while the rest should be evacuated. 

Many of these children were spread throughout the Eastern Bloc by 1950 there were 5,132 children in Romania, 4,148 in Czechoslovakia, 3,590 in Poland, 2,859 in Hungary and 672 had been evacuated to Bulgaria.

The official Greek position was that these children had been forcibly taken by the Communists to be brought up under a socialist system. The alleged abduction of children is referred to by Greek historians and politicians as the Παιδομάζωμα (Paidomázoma), an allusion to the Ottoman devşirme.

One major effect of the Macedonian exodus from Northern Greece was the effect of depopulation on the region of Greek Macedonia. This was most markedly felt in the Florina, Kastoria, Kozani and Edessa areas where the Communist party was popular and where the largest concentrations of Ethnic Macedonians could be found. Many of these depopulated and devastated villages and confiscated properties were given to people from outside of the area. 

Vlachs and Greeks were given property in the resettlement programme conducted by the Greek Government from the period 1952-58. Many properties were confiscated from those persons who had fled the war and had their citizenship subsequently stripped from them.

Law 1540/85 of April 10,1985 stated that political refugees could regain property taken by the Greek government as long as they were “Greek by genus”. This again excluded many people who were not "Greek by genus", namely the ethnic Macedonian refugees.

Citizenship was stripped from the evacuees without the fair hearing to an independent tribunal and other internationally accepted protocols for the seizure of citizenship such as legal representation and the opportunity to defend oneself. This process of seizing citizenship had "historically been used against people identifying as ethnic Macedonians". Despite it applying to all citizens regardless of ethnicity. 

It has been enforced, in all but one case, only against citizens who identified themselves as members of the "Macedonian" minority. Dual citizens who are stripped of Greek citizenship under Article 20 of the citizenship code are sometimes prevented from entering Greece using the passport of their second nationality. Although since 1998 there have been no new reported cases of this occurring.

Many people who had fled the country were also denied visa for re-entry into Greece. The refugees planned on attending weddings, funerals and other events but were denied access to Greece. These measures were even extended to Australian and Canadian citizens, many of whom have been barred from entering Greece. 

There have been claims that specifically the exiles who left Greece were especially targeted while other nationals from the Republic of Macedonia have had very little problems with entering Greece. The Greek Helsinki Monitor has called on the Greek government to stop using articles of the Citizenship code to deprive, "non-ethnic Greeks", of their citizenship.

_____________________________

Due to all of this, the refugee children took a lawsuit against Republic of Greece in from of the International court in The Hague. They are looking back for their property as well as the right for double citizenship. Estimated value of the lawsuit is around 40 billion euros.