In the 2022 Macedonian League Annual Assessment, we talk with Marcus A. Templar for an in-depth analysis of some of the most pressing questions from our audience, including among others: the Turkish government; Russia; the Greek Genocide; the Greek political establishment, and much more.
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"The Turkish MİT and the Russian SVR are "excellently" sending Greece to its demise one piece at a time. In this manner, Greece will disintegrate piecemeal and become easier to be manipulated to its demise. I know how both operate, and this is a warning."
                                  -- Marcus A. Templar

Let us start with the term Rum, which puzzles many people. Its origin is found in the Quran. It is the source of the term. "The Romans" is the title of the 30th chapter (sūrah) of the Quran, consisting of 60 verses (āyāt). The term Rūm originates in the word Roman existing during the time of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It is referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire, aka Byzantium. The title, Roman, is sometimes translated as "Greeks" or "Byzantines," essentially an officially Greek state.

Muslims believe the above was a prophecy fulfilled by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, who launched a campaign in AD 622 against the Sassanid Persians in Asia Minor. The campaign started as a Byzantine military counter-offensive resulting in a crushing defeat for the Persians. Muslims cite the above as an example of the miraculous nature of the Quran. (Geisler; Saleeb 2002, 107 and Shanker, 1992, 129).[1][2]

Perversely, the Turks based on a continuous regression line of reasoning starting with the Quran, they made anything Byzantine, i.e., Christian Greek items, institutions, and buildings, became Rum, and anything Rum, built by pagan Greeks remained Rum translated into Roman. Even Greeks under the Ottoman Great State started calling themselves Rum, or in Greek, Ρωμιοί (Romioi), but unfortunately continues even today in the modern Turkish Republic.

The phrase «ἐγῶ Ῥωμιὸς γεννήθηκα, Ῥωμιὸς θὲ νὰ πεθάνω» pertains to the under Ottoman yoke Greeks. Yet it exists even today in their mind. For instance, my father, born within the Ottoman Great State, was a Rum, or Roman, but since I was born in Greece, I am Yunanlı or Greek. This was the explanation I received from one of my teachers from Adana.

However, let us not forget the term Rumeli, "the land of the Rum"; of course, it was a term when Greece was under Ottoman rule, but I have heard many Greeks of the present referring to Sterea Hellas (Central Greece) as "Rumeli." That tells me that the Ottoman thought is still in the minds of some Greeks in modern Greece itself.

To recap, under such Turkish logic, EVERYTHING built, say, between 1500 BCE and today by Greeks (Ionian, Dorians, Aeolian) in areas controlled by Turkey falls under the category of Rum.

So when one visits Ephesus, a city built around 1000 BCE by Greeks, according to the Turks one visits a Roman city. The fact is that the Romans appeared in the area in 129 BC. In that year, King Attalus of Pergamum ceded Ephesus to the Roman Empire in his will, and so Ephesus became the seat of the Roman provincial governor. It is similar to how many ignorant "experts" state "ancient Turkey," as absurd as it is. Nevertheless, the absurdity continues.
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Something positive could happen when people leave their social or political prejudices and everything their grandparents told them about the Turks and Turkey.

However, people must know that Turks work as ONE TEAM for the benefit of Turkey regardless of political views. It is okay for people to enjoy the views of those Turks who want to change Turkey. However, they must keep their eyes on the ball. The MİT (Turkey's National Intelligence Organization) does not employ cub scouts.

Their network is beyond the understanding of ordinary people. Propaganda, bullying, extortion, and a few other ways of persuasion are means employed in the name of Turkism. Nobody is spared. They work like the spy systems of the GESTAPO and NKVD/KGB, but now they go after those who use the Internet.

Turks reward journalists and

1. social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit;
2. social question-and-answers website like Quora and The Onion;
3. non-academic reference source like Wikipedia and all other Wikis-type social media

with all kinds of bribes and payments maintaining fake accounts managed and staffed by the MİT.

Albanians are slightly different but aim toward the same goal: establishing excuses and propaganda exalting the state, the language, and "race."

​One can easily find who is employed by the MİT by the arguments they present against Greece and in favor of Turkey. Never mind what names and credentials they present online. I had fun with a man with an Anglo-Saxon name who was supposedly born in New Jersey and attended Tufts University with a Master's degree while he attacked Greece using very bad English. Another one was supposedly from Zimbabwe, protecting the might of Turkey until I gave him some facts he could not respond to.

​Turks always have or find excuses to justify any crime the Ottoman Great State and/or the Turkish Republic committed in the name of Pan-Turkism. 
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Turks, Skopjans, Bulgarians, Albanians, and Serbs have very proactive foreign policies. They do anything to show the flag. On the other hand, Greeks are very reactive only if they are pressed to do something. They have a mentality of a follower, not a leader. 

When the Turks left Greece, they took away everything good Greece had to offer. Greeks stayed back with the mentality the aghas had imposed on them during the 500-year occupation. “Σφάξε μὲ ἀγᾶ μου γιὰ ν' ἁγιάσω, δὲ βαριέσαι, ὅλοι ἀδέλφια εἴμαστε” are only part of the remnants of Ottoman misrule. It has little to do with Islam. It has everything to do with Pan-Turkism.

A few months ago, Greece delivered humanitarian aid to Odessa. Nobody heard about it, not even the Greeks. If Turkey had done it, the whole world would know about it. Turks know whom to lobby, how to lobby and encourage their lobbyists to do the job they are paying for. When it comes to Turkey, there is no such a thing as wishy-washy partisan politics followed by the Ottoman, "μὰ τί θὰ πεὶ ὁ κόσμος"?

Part of how Turks work is the example of celebrity Dr. Mehmet Öz. He was born in Cleveland, OH, on June 11, 1960. In 1980, he went to Turkey to serve the Turkish Land Forces (Türk Kara Kuvvetleri) as an officer to keep his dual nationality. He was quoted as saying,

Although Dr. Oz's allies blast his critics as "racist and pushing dog whistles," Dr. Oz dodges to answer the question of the Armenian Genocide, and one could easily assume he will do the same regarding the Greek and Assyrian genocides. After all, the Turkish culture has molded him under the doctrine, "Turkey might not always be right; but she is never wrong."

Of course, it is nothing wrong with him serving his home country for whatever reason, except that the reason he gave means that it is crucial to him to owe allegiance to two countries. That holds true for many people except those elected to make laws based on often highly classified information, civil servants, and the military required by law to hold office, necessitating clearance to handle classified information.

These individuals fill out the Standard Form 86, or SF-86, which is nothing less than a whopping 127 pages long. It is packed with questions requiring a very high level of transparency and honesty. Any answers that the investigators consider murky have to be clarified to the satisfaction not only of the investigators but, most importantly, by granting the clearance authority.

According to the late Senator Patrick Moynihan, elected officials automatically receive a clearance because their voters trust them. I do not remember the highest level of clearance they receive based on such a trust. However, those in Congress who participate in select committees must be cleared by the FBI, or perhaps now by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), to handle Top Secret clearance with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance that is not available to the public.

Because of it, the matter has further implications since it constitutes a national security risk. Dual nationality is a forbidden indulgence for military personnel and civil servants assigned to jobs requiring a security clearance, much more for those in Congress and their aids. After all, these people determine highly classified information and enact laws that directly involve and affect issues about the national security and interests of the United States.

Holding dual nationality, Dr. Oz is a threat to the national interests and security of the United States. He can be easily extorted through his relatives by the very proactive Turkish government and its MİT.

The idea behind one's clearance is based on the level of trust the government has in the person regarding the lifestyle for which he or she might be susceptible to blackmail or coercion. Furthermore, there is the issue with Dr. Oz's dual nationality and celebrity status.

Nevertheless, another question that arises is Dr. Oz's residence. Since he lives in New York, how can he run from Pennsylvania?
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Unfortunately, some people have not gotten the memo. Especially those who live abroad although they post their residence in the Balkans. Although the Skopjans are not as active as they used to be, the Albanian diaspora has started their bravado attitude. Most of them live either in Kosovo or Albania.

I remember one Albanian tried to push the Greek name Εὐνίκη (Eunice) as Albanian. After I explained a few things to him, he asked me what I had against Albanians. I responded, "I have nothing against Albanians, but I hate poppycock garnished with malarkey regardless of their source and ethnicity. Give me facts. Do not convey your beliefs as facts to me." But the way he wrote his texts, vocabulary, and grammar made it evident to me that he lived in Australia. So, I asked him how the weather was in Australia. He never responded.

Over the years, several scholars have studied Albanians' genetics, focusing on historical and linguistic facts. However, very few of them did proper research. The argument of Albanians that they are descendants of Illyrians because they live on an Illyrian territory is, at best, childish.

One may easily assume that everyone in the former Illyrian territory can now claim Illyrian heritage by looking at a map of the regions where the former Illyrian tribes once existed.

One of the best books on the ancient Thracian language group and its relationship to Greek, Dacian, Moesian, and Illyrian is the book written by Vladimir Georgiev (Владимир И. Георгиев, Траките и техният език, Издателство на Българската Академия на Науките, София, 1977).[3] The problem is that Georgiev's 348-page book is in Bulgarian with only one French version. However, he wrote a short academic monograph published "The Genesis of the Balkan Peoples." The Slavonic and East European Review 44, no. 103 (1966): 285–97.

One can read Georgiev's book summary in Kroraina <http://www.kroraina.com/vg/vg.html> or one may access it in JSTOR <https://www.jstor.org/stable/4205776>.

I am offering two paragraphs of Georgiev's monographs for the reader's convenience. They both regard the relationship between Albanian on the one hand and the Dacian, Moesian, and Romanian languages on the other.
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​And after he explains facts on the issues in seven points, he concludes,
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It seems that the Romans, especially Emperor Trajan, are behind the forced migration of Dacians and Moesians to the lower Balkans along the Adriatic Sea and their partial transfer to the Italian Calabria and parts of Adriatic Italy like Abruzzo. Their descendants are today's Albanians or Arbëreshë (Albanese) in Italy. For the Romans, the defeated enslaved people were a force of cheap labor.

Albanian nationalism started with the Austro-Hungarian Empire's national interests.

Certain Western scholars studying the origins of the Albanians advanced the now discredited hypothesis that the Albanians descended from the ancient Pelasgians. One of them, Austrian linguist Johann Georg von Hahn, in his Albanesische Studien (Albanian Studies) published in 1854, hypothesized that the Pelasgians were the first Proto-Albanians and that the languages ​​of the Pelasgians, Illyrians, Epirotians and ancient Macedonians were closely related. It is beyond my comprehension why a linguist got mixed up with mythology. It would be most appropriate for a historian to do so only to attempt to explain certain historical events or locations. Then, a linguist would compare the phonemes of Albanian speakers to other Balkan people, possibly using various historical events as migrations.

Another event in which Austria silently pushed the existence of Albania was the acceptance of Albanian delegates in the 1878 Council of Berlin.

All this started in the19th century nationalism (Albanian Rilindja), which resulted in the Italian invasion of Greece in the early hours of October 28, 1940, after the Albanian Parliament declared the union of Albania with Fascist Italy.

Albanian nationalism continued under Enver Hoxha and his Yugoslav friends, who deprived Greece of Northern Epirus. When the PM and MFA of Greece Tsaldaris went to Paris in 1947 for the Peace Treaty, he suggested to the Yugoslavian delegation to split Albania. Unfortunately, he went unprepared and was a victim of his ignorance and clumsiness. Before one engages with an opponent, whether on the negotiating table or the battlefield, one must know one's opponent and oneself.

Some "academics" using Kling-Klang etymology and imaginary history went beyond that. Recently, Elena Kocaqi wrote a book in which the Trojan war was a civil war between two Illyrian tribes, essentially making both Greeks and Trojans, Illyrians. The Albanian government supports and indirectly sponsors such extremism under the banner of academic freedom.

Under the title "Austrian Scholars Leave Albania Lost for Words", Besar Likmeta published in Balkan Insight on March 25, 2011, a very caustic article regarding the findings of two Austrian Academics.

Of course, the issue is not whether Albanians should have a country or not. The point is that Albanian ultra-nationalists using cockamamie ancestry, false linguistic derivation, and invented historical continuity keep shaking the regional stability of the southern Balkans.

We must, therefore, attract the attention of the White House on this; it needs to apply EO 14033.

People investigate phonemes comparing Armenian to Albanian without paying attention to whether they evaluate Albanian of the Caucasus, i.e., Aghwank and Aluank, or Albanian of the Balkans, i.e., Shqip.

Albanians play the whole world like a Stradivarius violin. One advocate and troublemaker is Joseph John DioGuardi, an American certified public accountant and a Republican politician. DioGuardi served in the House of Representatives, representing the 20th Congressional district of New York from 1985 to 1989. He was the first Albanian American voting member of Congress. The family traces its roots to the Arbëreshë (Albanese) minority in Italy, officially established by Mussolini. A former member of Congress had and has ample access to visit and lobby for Albanian causes. He had a lot to do with the bombing of Serbia and the independence of Kosovo.

The importance of Emperor Trajan in the formation of Romania is depicted in the second stanza of the Romanian National Anthem: 
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The Roman emperor Trajan conquered Dacia, a land that covers roughly the same territory as modern Romania. As a result, Romania became the land where Roman veteran soldiers could move in and live by getting their homesteads. The Dacians fought the Roman tooth and nail but succumbed to the Roman might in the end.

Trajan and his successors forced the migration of the Dacians and or part of the Mysians (Moesians) to the locations where present-day Albania is and also to Calabria and the Adriatic coast of Italy. To the Romans, it was a case of cheap slave labor.

I am thinking of writing something on the issue.

As I have mentioned before, I was born in a family in which each branch spoke different languages.  Greek was our lingual franca. Thus, I appreciate the existence of all languages. I feel very sad when I find out that a language is extinct. Thank God, Tsakonika is being taught in some schools.

I must stress that live languages develop. Latin itself is a dead language, but it survives in its derivative languages like Italian, Spanish, Romansh, and so on.  What I cannot stand is the falsification of a language's origins as a tool for a nation's false origin and vice versa.
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Russia in the 1920's eyed the transfer of the title of the Ecumenical Patriarch from Constantinople to Moscow. So, what Russians do is nothing new. They will succeed because they have on their side the Slavic populations regardless of assurances and the help of a good number of Greeks, especially abroad.

When one researches a matter, asking the wrong questions, surveying the wrong people, using an exclusive collection method, and misinterpreting data results could easily create problems.

Also, one must keep in mind that, at that time, people had limited resources. The standards the Fathers of the Church had placed were as high as they should.

The New Testament had to be God-inspired and canonical, i.e., apostolic origin, have universal acceptance, liturgical use, and consistent message. They took the Old Testament as it was in Judaism. To Christians, the Old Testament constitutes an educator in Christ.

Now returning to the political side of it, Turkey will not let the title go, not because its politicians are in love with Christianity, but because it is a matter of prestige for Turkey. It will never give up the title of Ecumenical out of its soil unless the Greeks, especially of the diaspora, help.

But like all documents written in the past, one must consider the culture of each nation and time. I remember one man could not understand why it took the Apostle Paul six months to travel from the area of Troy to Kavala or Neapolis. I was tempted to respond that he could find an earlier flight. But, no, it is not funny. Such logic creates problems in interpreting older events and deeds.
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As President Biden said, "ignorance has no bounds." Attending classes and receiving degrees do not mean anything unless you can put the knowledge you get into practice. Unfortunately, sheer logic is not something that comes to one's head through schooling. They would be right if they admitted that Cyprus was not a European country at the time or that the Turkish invasion had never happened.

On the other hand, I remember the invasions of the USSR on Hungary on November 4, 1956, and Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968. So, I put their multi-annual occupation aside. I could add some more, but since the starting point is WWII, it is a matter of opinion whether the starting dates should be in 1945, 1946, 1947, and so on. Of course, the other reason could be quasi-medical; it is called Politically Induced Dementia (PID). Some people would call it cowardice!
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Greek organizations are member-driven instead of staff-driven, which encourages false choices.

I happened to have a little experience on the matter, so, I slowly withdrew in early 2000. What annoyed me the most were the unscrupulous demagogues who found fools and told them what they wanted to hear. Also, the businesspeople thought because they run successful businesses, they could succeed in running organizations the same way.

You won't believe how many and how often people take ego trips. Things might work out in Greece but dealing with foreign-based organizations that follow their constitutions and laws may not be as easy or good as politicians hope. In general, people do not know their cognitive limits. Because today it is easy to find something online, everyone has become an "expert" until they face a real expert. Then although they should listen to experts, they argue with them, agitating a reaction that would help them learn something new. Then, they use the information they received from the experts, presenting it as their own. When I face know-it-alls, I do not argue with them. Instead, I let them unveil their unconscious incompetence on a specific subject matter. In English, they are called dumbasses! In Greek, κουτοπόνηροι!

The other problem is that political aides try to please the bosses who run the government of Greece in a transactional manner.

Organizations that take it upon themselves to solve Greece's "national issues" do not have the resources (human resources, financial resources, physical resources, and information resources) to weigh the potential consequences of each decision, including unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated or unforeseen) of a purposeful action that are not intended or foreseen.

Worse, since politicians of Greece use transactional relationships with the diaspora, they hold the reins on how any such organization would effectively move. They always consider at home voters connected to the organization. Greece has a lot of politicians who care only about the next elections. So, they sacrifice what is good for them and their political party than for the national interests and security of the country. I am slightly paraphrasing Aesop's statement, "after all is said and done, a lot is said, but nothing is done." Greece needs STATESMEN. It has a lot of politicians.

In an organization, one does not manage people; one manages affairs. One leads people, and leading people is not easy.

​The first thing I learned in Political Science and fully agree with is that one cannot run a government of any kind as one runs one's business. But on the other hand, an organization is a government.
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I think the answer I gave above touched on a few things. First, however, let me go to the core of the matter. Greece must change its election laws. I find it appalling and inconceivable that people who live in Athens have the right to be elected in a region where their family descends.

Almost half the country's population lives in the basin of Attica because everything is going on there. Most companies exist, and consequently, most jobs and other opportunities exist in the basin of Attica. So, people from all over the country move to Attica.

Who is behind all this? The same people who have lived in Athens all their lives. Still, they supposedly represent Patras, Euritaneia, Thessaloniki, Chania, Kozani, and what have you. It is why they own houses in Athens.

I know only of one who actually rented during his tenure in government. He was renting a place in Athens. Even his boss was after him because he was working for the people who had placed him in the Parliament. He did what everyone else did not do. He WORKED for the people whom he represented.

A movement had started to transfer the Capital of Greece to Lamia, demographically, a great idea because Lamia is in the center of the mainland. However, I wonder why it has died out. The hydrocephalus of Athens is killing it.
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It is hard to tell, but I cannot see this charade continuing. North Macedonia is a simple geographical name turned into a political entity by the communists. Ethnicity is one thing, and allegiance is another. But this now. Then it was a different story. However, this is the Balkans, so "when the legend becomes fact, print the legend" from director John Ford's Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). It is precisely what the Skopjans do. But I also falter the Bulgarians. They do not tell their people that their language is divided into Eastern and Western dialects. A few months ago, I was talking with a Bulgarian who had no idea about it. She did not know that it took the Parliament of Bulgaria 25 years to decide which would be the official language. In the end, they chose the Eastern dialect in 1899. The Western dialect is still spoken; somehow, Bulgarians call it "Macedonian" as if it is not their language.

At first, these two speeches are the closest languages to the Old Church Slavonic. Western Bulgarian is actually the language that the Thessalonian Brothers Cyril and Methodius using the alphabet they had invented, translated the Bible from Greek to the then Slavic language of Macedonia.

Bulgarians living under Ottoman rule never expressed an individual ethnic conscience in any form. Slowly, however, things changed, and while Bulgaria was independent, those within the Skopjan state were under Serbian linguistic influence until the breakup of Yugoslavia. On the other hand, easterners also had stronger ties with Russia. As a result, their dialect was considered the purest dissociated from a non-Slavic foreign influence. Over and above, Bulgaria had short but firm periods of autonomy and absolute independence on October 5 [O.S. September 22] 1908.

Now, coming to the language. Standard or colloquial Bulgarian does reflect some western features, even though it is primarily based on the eastern dialect. One would contend that it happens due to the notoriety of Veliko Târnovo as the old capital of Bulgaria. Also, the geographical structure has more dynamic financial advancement on both sides of the Stara Planina or Balkan Mountains compared to the Western half of the linguistic domain.

After the communist takeover, the Skopjan language was codified and slowly Serbianized;  in the early 1960s Cyrillic alphabet was established according to the Serbian version of the Cyrillic alphabet.

On the other hand, Bulgaria made a few changes in its alphabet, it could come into an understanding with Skopje to find common ground in revising both alphabets to the point that they could serve both dialects.

Grammatically, the differences between both languages are almost non-existent. But, of course, one cannot stop the nationalists of both sides from telling you otherwise. So, whether the two countries will unite one day, my answer is maybe, but I do not expect the union to be like the one between West and East Germany. I think it will be gradual.

At the beginning of the last century, people's communication was rather impossible. First, we had the telegraph, then the telephone came, and now we have reached the point of not even thinking about reaching someone on the other side of the Earth. I can say the same thing about transportation, as well. Lack of communication and meager transportation made diasporas live in a time warp. Today, such a thing is hardly true.

The reason I mention it is that people from both countries are going to get closer and closer. Since the language will no longer be a barrier, it will help assimilation. The time is here of essence.
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At first, the Turkish MİT and the Russian SVR are "excellently" sending Greece to its demise one piece at a time. In this manner, Greece will disintegrate piecemeal and become easier to be manipulated to its demise. I know how both operate, and this is a warning.

It will be a blessing if those who descend from Pontus of Anatolia dispose of the underhanded provocations separating themselves from the rest of the Greeks. In case they have missed it, Pontians are Greeks. There is no parallel to Greek ethnicity. Either they are Greeks, or they are not.

Even people who are not Greeks in origin are proud to say that they are Greeks since they were born in Greece.

As for the date, the Greek government has established September 14 as the date of the Greek Genocide in Asia Minor, and it looks okay to me. The exit of the Greeks from Smyrna took place on September 13; the next day, September 14, is the commemorative date of the Elevation of the Venerable and Life-Giving Cross. Therefore, the government of Greece combined these two days into one.

It will be a blessing if the Pontians who claim to be Greeks learn the etymology and the meaning of the word GENOCIDE and think about it.

GENOCIDE is the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.

In other words, GENOCIDE is an internationally recognized crime where acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

I do wonder in what way the Pontians differ from the other Greeks and why the promotion of a separate Pontian-specific genocide?

Incidentally, a friend sent me this very interesting documentary on Vimeo entitled "Lethal Nationalism: Genocide of the Greeks 1913-1923" https://vimeo.com/ondemand/lethalnationalism/​

Mr. George Mavropoulos, Director of the Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center (AMPHRC), located at 801 W Adams St, Chicago, IL 60607, phone: (312) 964-5120 and the members of the board would be delighted to discuss issues of the Greek Genocide. https://hellenicresearchcenter.org/#AboutTheAMPHRC ​
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Bibliography
Keyes, Nelson Beecher. Story of the bible World in Map, Word and Picture, . New York: C. S. Hammond, 
     1959.
Ptolemy, Claudius. Geography . Edited by J. Lennart & al Berggren. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 
     2001.
Suvorov, Viktor. Inside the Soviet Army. New York: MacMillan, 1982. "The Great Patriotic War of 1941-45."
     Российская военная энциклопедия (Koutchkovo Polje) III (2012).
Георгиев, Владимир И. Траките И Техният Език. София: Институт За Български Език, Издателство
​     На Българската Академия На Науките, 1977.

Endnotes
[1] Norman Geisler; Abdul Saleeb (2002). Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the Cross (revised ed.). Baker Books. p. 107.

​[2] Uday Shanker (1992). Internal Unity of All Religions. Enkay Publishers. p. 129.

​[3] Владимир И. Георгиев; ​Траките и техният език (1977 В Георгиев) - [PDF Document] (cupdf.com)

​[4] ​https://balkaninsight.com/2011/03/25/austrian-scholars-leave-albania-lost-for-words/

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About Marcus A. Templar
Professor Marcus A. Templar is a former U.S. Army Cryptologic Linguist (Language Analyst), Signal Intelligence and All-Source Intelligence Analyst. During his career as a U.S. Intelligence Officer, besides organizational duties, he discharged the responsibilities of a U.S. Army Observer/Controller, Instructor of Intelligence Courses specializing in Deconstruction of Strategies, Foreign Disclosures Officer, and Translator Interpreter of Serbo-Croatian. He is the Macedonian League's National Security Advisor.

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About the Macedonian League
We are an international professional Hellenic advocacy group. Our primary purpose is to advance our interests to informed and responsive governments on issues concerning Greece's national security and territorial integrity. As of 12 February 2019, the Macedonian League's main focus is on the “Prespes Agreement", as this Agreement is a serious national security issue for Greece and the wider Balkan region. The Macedonian League also focuses on exposing and combating anti-Hellenism and analyzing political developments in Skopje.

For more information, follow us on: Website, Facebook, Twitter

The Macedonian League strongly condemns the anti-Hellenic and anti-Greece unsubstantiated allegations​ expressed on the Toronto Star website dated October 5, 2021, in a letter titled "Macedonian history echoes that of Indigenous Peoples" sent in by a reader named Virginia Stoymenoff.

Ms. Virginia Stoymenoff, under the guise of a "concerned reader," brought up imaginary events that exist only in her mind and like-minded members in her community. However, according to a Twitter post on the same day by the United Macedonian Diaspora (UMD), a Washington-based organization, the letter was, in fact, sent on behalf of the UMD.

The stability of the Western Balkans is of utmost importance to all countries of the region and the world. Historically, the nationalism that keeps thriving in the Balkans either created preconditions for war or, in some cases, was the reason for wars. Thus, while the Balkan wars can be dismissed as "Yesterday's War," the underlying causes of the 1945-2001 upheaval remain as strong and viable as ever.

The 1944-49 civil war in Greece took place because the communists of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) dreamed of annexing the Greek region of Macedonia, even violently.

The Bosnian war (1992-1995) and the 2001 civil war between the Albanian minority and the Slav majority in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, now North Macedonia, demonstrate the volatility of the region. All these years, the nationalism that has fueled this region's fires for centuries was not extinguished or resolved by the 2001 events, unfortunately.

Another upheaval in North Macedonia is so likely that the area and the people should be the subject of continuing and in-depth interest to all peace-loving nations. It is a well-known fact that the Bosnian war ended with the Dayton Accords on December 14, 1995. It was the bloodiest interethnic conflict in Europe since World War II, which saw about 100,000 people killed between 1992 and 1995. Isn't it enough?

The U.S. Department of Justice would be very interested in finding out whether Ms. Stoymenoff and her like-minded peers are pushing another bloody conflict in the Balkans?

The UMD's only mission, since its founding, is to disparage Greece and Greeks both online and to governments around the world and will stop at nothing to do so, and we mean at nothing. It is why Ms. Stoymenoff took advantage of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation to drive the aforementioned organization's point home. It is not a simple opinion. It is a sustained mentality of hate.

The UMD has acted similarly with events such as 9/11, the Holocaust, genocides, and the Middle East situation, moreover tying Greeks into the same sphere as ISIS and other jihadi groups.

As such, the question that Canadians and the Toronto Star should be asking of Ms. Stoymenoff: Was she honestly "concerned" with the plight of Canada's First Nations, or was she doing the bidding of the UMD to promote their ongoing racist objectives by taking advantage of just one more sensitive issue from around the world just to promote their brand of anti-Hellenism?

It is absolutely reprehensible that the UMD via Ms. Stoymenoff saw to it to disparage Greece and the Greek nation on a sensitive day like Truth and Reconciliation where Canada's First Nations are seeking justice for the wrongs of Canada's past.

Since Ms. Stoymenoff broached the subject and portrayed her people as "indigenous to Macedonia" who have suffered the exact same fate as Canada's First Nations, perhaps she should carefully re-read her own home country's REAL history in regards to the arrival of her people in the Balkan region.

So let us start with the time of Byzantine Emperor Justinian when during his reign, the Slavs appeared for the first time under their own name, "Sklavini." The historian Procopius states that they formed tribal unions called Sklavinija, hence their name.

Large hordes of Slavs and Bulgarians, whom Procopius calls Huns, crossed the Danube almost every year and penetrated deep into the Byzantine provinces, destroying everything. Lasting settlements of Slavs in Macedonia began at the end of the sixth century. Thus they forged the Sklavinija of Draguviti, Brsjaci or Bereziti, Sagudati, Rinhini, Strumljani, Smoljani, Velegeziti, Milliges, Ezerites, Timočani, Abodrini, Moravijani, etc.

The above-mentioned Slavic tribes chose to stay with the Serbian nation or their Bulgarian allies. They are Ms. Stoymenoff's ancestors, and this is her people's history as referred to in Article 7.2 of the Prespa Agreement of 2018 signed between Greece and North Macedonia.

Regarding the alleged anguish that her "Macedonians" suffered at the hands of the Greeks, Ms. Stoymenoff ought to know that her ethnicity is the result of communist invention [1][2]. Actually, during WWII and the occupation of their land, her people identified with the Bulgarians and fully collaborated with them. [3][4][5]

We are offering the exact text of Article 7 of the 2018 Prespa Agreement in its entirety, which clearly explains that Ms. Stoymenoff's "Macedonians" and their inherent rights over all aspects of Macedonia is nonsense. We remind Ms. Stoymenoff that the ancient Macedonians were Greeks and also natives to Macedonia, the northern region of Greece. Here is the text:

ARTICLE 7

1. The Parties acknowledge that their respective understanding of the terms "Macedonia" and "Macedonian" refers to a different historical context and cultural heritage.
   
   
2. When reference is made to the First Party [Greece], these terms denote not only the area and people of the northern region of the First Party [Greece], but also their attributes, as well as the Hellenic civilization, history, culture, and heritage of that region from antiquity to present day.
   
   
3. When reference is made to the Second Party [North Macedonia], these terms denote its territory, language, people and their attributes, with their own history, culture, and heritage, distinctly different from those referred to under Article 7(2).
   
   
4. The Second Party [North Macedonia] notes that its official language, the Macedonian language, is within the group of South Slavic languages. The Parties note that the official language and other attributes of the Second Party [North Macedonia] are not related to the ancient Hellenic civilization, history, culture and heritage of the northern region of the First Party [Greece]
   
   
5. Nothing in this Agreement is intended to denigrate in any way, or to alter or affect, the usage by the citizens of either Party.

Thus if Ms. Stoymenoff feels that her people have suffered at the hands of the Greeks, she should file a complaint with her home country, i.e., North Macedonia, or she should petition the European Court. However, we must caution Ms. Stoymenoff that serious governments and Courts require tangible proof, not hot air.

Ms. Stoymenoff and her UMD affiliate are subject to Executive Order (E. O.) 14033, issued on June 8, 2021, by the President of the United States, Joe Biden. The title of Executive Order 14033 says it all. It states: Blocking Property and Suspending Entry into the United States of Certain Persons Contributing to the Destabilizing Situation in the Western Balkans.

The same applies to the editors of the Toronto Star that offered a forum to Ms. Stoymenoff, allowing her space to print her rhetoric that could destabilize the Western Balkans in the name of ultra-nationalism. One must bear in mind that North Macedonia was part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the E.O. applies here.

The Macedonian League wonders how Mr. Metodija Koloski, President of the UMD in Washington, D.C., feels about the Executive Order as a U.S. citizen, attorney, and registered Foreign Agent?

The Balkan region has suffered enough. It does not need destabilization or even a new war as a result of the UMD's ongoing anti-Hellenic and anti-Greece efforts. Enough is enough.


Department of Communications
The Macedonian League

​Cc: Embassy of Greece in Canada
      Consulate General of Greece in Toronto
      Embassy of North Macedonia in Canada
      Embassy of the United States in Canada
      Department of Justice, Canada
      U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, USA


_____
About the Macedonian League
We are an international professional Hellenic advocacy group. Our primary purpose is to advance our interests to informed and responsive governments on issues concerning Greece's national security and territorial integrity.

As of 12 February 2019, the Macedonian League's main focus is on the “Prespes Agreement", as this agreement is a serious national security matter for Greece and the wider Balkan region.

The Macedonian League also focuses on exposing and combating anti-Hellenism and analyzing political developments in Skopje.

For more information, follow us on: Website, Facebook, Twitter

Last year the Macedonian League publicly sought the stability of the Greek government. Some agreed. Many fought against the position and attempted to skew our call for stability. Explain the need for stability of the Greek government.

At first, I must explain that the Macedonian League's call for political stability took place about six months before it was announced that a final agreement between Skopje and Athens had taken place. One of the very relevant politicians of Greece thought that I was in favor of Skopje’s name that would include the word “Macedonia.” I gave him a couple of names that I would go for, as Central Balkan Republic, South Slavonia. However, I knew in my heart that it would be impossible because of the position of the Greek MFA since the party of New Democracy (2004–2009), which not only had accepted a name that would include “Macedonia” with a geographic designation, but also Mrs. Bakoyanni (Feb 15, 2006 – Oct. 7, 2009) was entertaining the idea that any name would be for “international use only”.

Greece has seen a lot of instability. Since 1821, Greece had three civil wars, five bankruptcies, a few political upheavals, which had resulted in The National Schism. The latter brought the defeat of the Greek Army in Sangarios River and Afion Karahisar the reasons behind the loss of Smyrna. Another one of the political upheavals in the 1960s brought the seven-year dictatorship (1967-1974) to the stage which was followed by the tilting of Greece, dangerously I might add, to the left. The organization ΑΣΠΙΔΑ (Αξιωματικοί Σώσατε Πατρίδα, Ιδέα, Δημοκρατία, Αξιοκρατία), which until late 1980 was treated as a total lie which was used as an excuse for the 1967 dictatorship. Of course, nobody was talking about the involvement of Andreas Papandreou. In reality, the whole affair was very accurate.

In the middle of March of 1967, at the call of Ενιαία Δημοκρατική Αριστερά (ΕΔΑ) in silent cooperation with Ένωση Κέντρου (ΕΚ), farmers brought tractors, threshing machines and other farming equipment and other vehicles coming from all over had effectively sieged Thessaloniki. Brigadier General Andreas Erselman of the III Army Corps was ordered to send armored units to open all roads leading to Thessaloniki. About one month later, the Colonels took over. I had just turned 19.

Consequently, I do not want to see Greece suffering the consequences of characters with limited understanding of the present world. Tunnel vision is not a way of seeing the world. They should take a few steps back and then they can see. All the clueless individuals lead movements!

My birthplace has suffered enough in the hands of irresponsible politicians since the assassination of Count Ioannis Kapodistrias in September of 1831. The last thing Greece needs at this point is a bunch of egomaniacs who in the name of their pseudo-patriotism are ready to throw the country into chaos and even bloodshed destroying the crumbs of prosperity and dignity the people of Greece have left with, in order to get the desired results for their kicks.

The fact is that the political leadership of the country regardless of political leanings and social capital with their silence have sanctioned the auction of the national interests and endangerment of the national security of Greece since 1950 and especially since 1991. They cared more about their political party and ideology than the welfare of their country.

Greece’s adventures start in the mindset of its citizens who when they enjoy the fruits of corruption, forget that they will pay for their choice in the future. However, when it is time for them to pay, they forget their past choice claiming that it is not their fault. There is a Greek word which encapsulates the behavior of individuals that use no common sense, who instead, repeat the same mistakes many times over while maintaining an attitude of self-righteousness. It is up to the reader to figure it out.

The issue of the Macedonian State goes back to 1924 and specifically regarding Skopje it retrogresses to November 1950 and the normalization process of Greece with Yugoslavia. For those who now scream foul it is too late. Where had they been ten, twenty, or even twenty five years ago? I was yelling “national security,” and their answer was “Alexander the Great was Greek.” I still have the e-mails.

Finally, we also need stability in the diaspora. I received the following message from Melbourne. It refers to the issue of the Melbourne University Macedonian [sic] Student Society - MUMSS and their alliance with the Turk and Albanian students against anything Greek.
​

Use of this flag has therefore been illegal since 1993 (UNSC Res. 817 and 845), and its illegality has been covered by articles 2.3 of the Interim Accord and Article 3 of the Prespes Agreement.

The question we are therefore asking is: why did the students illegally use a Greek national symbol and not the official flag, name, and symbol of their republic?

The answer is simple: racial hatred and political advertising.

The Racial Vilification Act defines racial hatred as being unlawful to insult, humiliate, offend, or intimidate another person or group in public based on their race. Specifically, the Act states: It is unlawful for a person to do an act in public, if:

(a) the act is reasonably likely in all the circumstances to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or group of people, and

(b) the act is done because of the race, colour, or national or ethnic origin of the other person or some or all of the people in the group.

A variety of acts can constitute racial hatred, including speaking, singing and making gestures in public, as well as drawings, images, and written publications such as newspapers, leaflets, and websites.

The student photos and their actions illustrated here, clearly offend, insult, and humiliate the Greek Community and are in direct violation of the Act. They have also violated the use of amenities fees, which should be used in strict accordance with the Higher Education Support Act 2003 and the Administration Guidelines made under the Act.

The students further aggravated, offended, insulted and humiliated the Greek-Australian Community by posing next to Turkish flags with these illegal, expansionist flags. The Vergina star flag was never part of their history, because it represents the Hellenism of Ancient Macedonians.

Professor Maskell, UMSU operations are funded annually by the university and the government on the percentage of votes made every year at student union elections. Under the Higher Education Support Act, providers must confirm with the Australian Government that fees were spent strictly by the Act and the Representation Guidelines made under the Act, and only on allowable services and amenities.

Clearly, funding and displaying a large banner of the WIPO-protected Greek Star of Vergina due to racial hatred and for political advertising contravenes the act. The students and their union should have exercised appropriate caution and not used tax-payer funds to incite racial hatred.

We are therefore requesting that The University of Melbourne urgently investigates this on-campus breach of the Racial Discrimination Act and the Department of Education and Training investigates these allegations of non-compliance under the Higher Education Support Act 2003.

We also want to be advised on the outcome of these allegations and any penalties to be applied for breaching these requirements as soon as possible.

Department of Communications
The Macedonian League

cc:
Department of Education and Training
​President of the University of Melbourne Students Union
President of the Melbourne University Greek Association (MUNGA)
Minister of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Embassy of the Hellenic Republic in Canberra
Consulate General of the Hellenic Republic in Melbourne
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Republic
General Secretariat of Greeks Abroad
Greek-Australian community associations
Australian politicians
Australian media
  ​
About the Macedonian League
We are an international professional Hellenic advocacy group. Our primary purpose is to advance our interests to informed and responsive governments on issues concerning Greece's national security and territorial integrity.

As of 12 February 2019, the Macedonian League's main focus is on the “Prespes Agreement", as this Agreement is a serious national security issue that threatens the territorial integrity of Greece and the regional stability of the Balkans.

The Macedonian League also focuses on exposing and combating anti-Hellenism and analyzing political developments in Skopje.

For more information, follow us on: Website, Facebook, Twitter

From fake statues of ancient Greek kings and heroes to Byzantine rulers...from Roman emperors to modern Bulgarian revolutionaries, if there is one thing that the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) is famous for it is theft and forgery of history [1].

From this very small and poor land locked republic, a whole industry of fake news production sprung up prior to the 2016 US elections where youth were cashing in to the tunes of thousands of dollars a day by churning out fake and outlandish news stories. Since that US election, the term "fake news" is still a topic of discussion and a household word. And, even as Facebook and other social media giants are attempting to fix the problem with fake news on their platforms, these young "news and media entrepreneurs" in the former Yugoslav republic are eagerly anticipating and gearing up for the US elections of 2020. [2] [3] [4] [5].

For Greeks however, fake news, outlandish stories and forgeries emanating out of the FYROM is not a new phenomenon. It has been a thorn in the side of Greece and Greeks ever since the former Yugoslav republic declared independence as the "Republic of Macedonia" in September of 1991. Greece opposed the name of the new republic from the very beginning and has rightfully argued that the Balkan nation's name as "Macedonia" points to territorial claims over the Greek geographical region in northern Greece called Macedonia.

In the early days of the internet, FYROM Slavs especially in the diaspora were busily plying their trade in promoting fake history and ancient forgery on the then new medium (i.e. the internet of the early days) in their hodge-podge attempt at linking the ancient Greek history of Macedonia to that of the then recently independent Yugoslav state. Unfortunately, the remnants of their early endeavors online from the mid-1990's is actually still available on websites which will forever be frozen in time. Today, anyone who attempts to search the terms "Macedonia" and "ancient Macedonia" on the internet will always without fail end up on fake history websites about 95% to 98% of the time - websites which are all laden with anti-Greek rhetoric and racism. In other words these early websites and news forums from the early days of independence simply fulfilled an ultra-nationalist agenda and nothing remotely of history.

The latest fake news emanating from the media in the FYROM targets both the US Postal Service and the modern history of the Balkans (in particular the modern history of Greece and Bulgaria respectively).

Desperately grasping at straws due to the upcoming September 30, 2018 "Name Change Referendum" which will seek to change the constitutional name from the "Republic of Macedonia" to the "Republic of North Macedonia," the ever crafty media in the FYROM and many ultra-nationalist, anti-Greek FYROM Slav diaspora Facebook and Twitter pages released a fake story between mid to late August 2018 [6] [7] [8] [9] that claims that: "back in 1928 the US Postal Service released stamps featuring a map of a "United Macedonia" along with the name of the country as "Macedonia" and its national heroes."

The obvious reason behind the fake news article is a very last ditch effort in attempting to sway a certain segment of the FYROM Slav population to boycott the name change referendum. The message that the FYROM media is trying to push onto this particular segment is: why should we change the name of the country to appease Greece, Bulgaria, the EU, NATO and the UN when even the US considered us simply as "Macedonia" back in 1928?" The target segment of the population that this hoax was geared for was obviously towards the hardcore ultra-nationalist element. However, this hoax also targets the more vulnerable and also the less educated in society who may not be able to determine if these stamps are authentic or not.

So, the question is: did the United States Postal Service ever release the above set of "Macedonia" stamps which also features a fantasy map of a "United Macedonia" in 1928 as claimed by the FYROM's fake news media and diaspora groups?

The answer is an emphatic NO!

All stamp collectors know that next to the stamps of the United Kingdom, the stamps released by the United States of America are some of the most recognizable and most desirable in the world. Every image of every US stamp is known. Every single one of them.

The hoax and the facts

The stamps featured above are claimed to be released by the US Postal Service in 1928. However, according to the Philatelic Learning Centre:

"When the fiscal budget for 1927, (July 1, 1927 through June 30, 1928), was reduced from the $8 million of the 1926 fiscal year to $7.5 million, the Postmaster was forced to tighten the belts of the stamp production process considerably. Chief among these was elimination of any new commemorative issues. It was an unfortunate coincidence that this period marked the 150th anniversary of some of the more famous events in the American Revolution, events that by all rights deserved to be commemorated by postage stamps. After much prodding, including from the then President Coolidge, Postmaster New authorized the production of the "Surrender of Burgoyne" and "Green Mountain Boys of Vermont" commemoratives in 1927. Further pressure was exerted to issue a stamp honoring the events at Valley Forge."

Therefore, the first thing to consider is, if the US Postmaster was forced to tighten the belts of the stamp production process in 1928 - on such an auspicious year - a year which marked the 150th anniversary of some of the more famous events in the American Revolution, how likely then would it have been for the US Postal Service to almost forego the printing of US commemorative stamps altogether but, in turn, spend limited funds and resources to print stamps of a then non-existent country in the southern Balkans? As stated above by the Philatelic Learning Centre, even President Coolidge personally intervened and then even further pressure was exerted by others just to print a few stamps honoring a few of the most famous events in the American Revolution.

The second thing to consider is that all US stamps have been heavily documented and catalogued for decades. Taking into account the point above then, due to financial constraints on the US Postmaster, according to all stamp catalogues, in the year 1928, the US Postal Service printed only six different themed stamps for the entire year. According to all stamp catalogue sources, none of those printed were the stamps features above with the legend "Macedonia" as promoted by FYROM Slav organizations. The stamps, therefore, are a hoax.

The third thing to consider is that the fake "Macedonia" stamps don't even look like US postage stamps. First, they are missing the words "U.S. Postage" featured on all US stamps in that particular [protected] font of that era. Even more importantly they are all missing the value of the stamps which was also a main feature on all US stamps of the era.

Sources: An inside look inside the catalogues of United States postage stamps
1) The six types of US stamps printed in 1928 can be seen here: United States Stamps of 1928.
2) The entire catalogue of all US stamps ever printed can be seen here: United States Stamps since 1847.

Other stamps printed by the US Postal Service include:
a) Panama Canal: The Canal zone 1904-1978; b) China: US Post China 1919-1922; c) Guam: Guam 1899-1930; d) Mariana Islands (Philippines postage) Mariana Islands 1899; e) US Cuba (Surcharged): US Cuba 1898-1899; f) Hawaii Postage: Hawaii 1851-1899; g) Confederate States: Confederate States; h) City Carrier Stamps: City Carrier Stamps; i) Postmasters Issues: Postmasters Issues.

Based on the fact that the above stamps are obviously not printed by the US Postal Service, the conclusion that can be drawn is that the fake stamps were more than likely created as a souvenir item among ultra-nationalists especially of the 1950's or more than likely a very recent Photoshop. Google and other image search engines also point back to the FYROM media articles and to FYROM Slav diaspora Facebook and Twitter pages that are promoting these fake stamps as "real US stamps of 1928." The oldest image we could find of the above fake stamps was from back in 2017, a search which led us on to a FYROM Slav ultra-nationalist website in which they "uncover the hidden truth" on subjects pertaining to the former Yugoslav republic.

Some chatter that we have seen online on certain FYROM Slav diaspora social media pages also posit that these stamps were printed in Yugoslavia. Others say Bulgaria. There is even a very small minority who promote an outlandish theory that these stamps were printed by "Slav separatists" within Greece under their own provisional government - a "provisional government" that is also based purely on fantasy or, as the term is stated today, "fake news."

Therefore, lest there be any doubt of our research by our FYROM Slav friends promoting this hoax, below and for good measure we also link the catalogues for these three countries to cover all the theories swirling about these "1928 stamps."

Yugoslavia: Yugoslavia stamps of 1928;
Bulgaria: Bulgaria stamps of 1928;
Greece: Greece stamps of 1920-1929.

We hope then, that by exposing the above "Macedonia" stamps as a verifiable hoax, that the generally anti-Greek media in the former Yugoslav republic and the ultra-nationalist FYROM Slav diaspora organizations which incessantly promote these sorts of fake stories for internal consumption will understand that their racist, anti-Greek fake news and Photoshop games aimed towards Greece and Greece's history will always be exposed by the Macedonian League to an extremely wide audience.

Department of Document Analysis
Macedonian League

About the Macedonian League
We are an international professional Hellenic advocacy group. Our primary purpose is to advance our interests to informed and responsive governments on issues concerning Greece's national security and territorial integrity.

The Macedonian League's main focus is on the “Macedonian name dispute”, as this dispute is a serious national security issue that threatens the territorial integrity of Greece.

The Macedonian League also focuses on exposing and combating anti-Hellenism and analyzing political developments in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

For more information, follow us on: Website, Facebook, Twitter

To listen to the panel discussion click here or on the picture below to be redirected to the East Mediterranean Business & Culture program by Lou Katsos directly on Soundcloud

Blood donations: EKEA
>> As of the organization's July 27, 2018 Press Release (In Greek)

Blood donations: Sismanoglio Hospital
>> Time: 09:00 - 20:00 // Phone: 213-2058001 // Address: Sismanogliou 37, Marousi 151 26

Collection of various items at Municipal Center of Nea Makri (Leoforos Marathonos 104)
>> Items being collected: water, food (rusks, paximadia, dry snacks, corn flake bars etc.), medicine (gauze, fucidin, betadin), pampers and baby wipes

Collection of various items at Oli Mazi Boroume (Poseidonos & Lokridos, Moschato)
>> Items being collected: water, food (rusks, paximadia, dry snacks, corn flake bars etc.), medicine (gauze, fucidin, betadin), pampers and baby wipes

Financial donations for Rafina Municipality
>> all Pireus bank branch locations

Hellenic Red Cross (Financial donations for Attica Wildfires)
​>> Bank: Eurobank
>> Account No: 0026.0240.31.0201181388
>> IBAN: GR6402602400000310201181388

Medecins du Monde - Greece 
>> Donate directly to their Paypal account here

Ministry of Finance of the Hellenic Republic
Dedicated Bank Account for the assistance of the victims of the wildfires in Greece

SOS Children's Villages Greece
>> http://www.sos-villages.gr/content/help/53-kane-kai-esy-mia-dwrea

Wildlife and Animal Rescue
>> Anima - Organization for the Protection of Wildlife - Σύλλογος Προστασίας 'Αγριας Ζηής
​>> Star-Special Team Animal Rescue - Ειδική Ομάδα Διάσωσης Ζώων

Bank of Sydney
>> Financial donations can be made at all branches

Delphi Bank (formerly the Bank of Cyprus Australia)
>> Financial donations can be made at all branches

Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia
>> http://www.greekorthodox.org.au/?p=17782

Merimna of Pontian Ladies of Oceania
Financial donations can be made to:
>> Bank: National Australia Bank (nab)
>> BSB: 083-170
>> Account: 86-970-7328

Pedia Greek School Melbourne
>> https://www.gofundme.com/fire-appeal-for-people-in-greece

AHEPA Canada & AHEPA Family Charitable Foundation of Canada
Please send cheques to:

AFCFC - Greece Fire Relief Fund
C/o: Nick Aroutzidis
107 Erie Street, Suite 2
Stratford, Ontario
N5A 2M5

Greek Community of Greater Montreal (GCGM)
>> http://www.hcgm.org/hcgm-statement-wildfires-solidarity-with-greece-please-donate-here/

Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Toronto (Canada)
>> http://www.gometropolis.org/website/letter-of-metropolitan-sotirios-greek-fires/

Hellenic Community of Calgary
>> https://www.gofundme.com/greece-wildfire-relief-fundraiser

The Hellenic Initiative (Canada)
>> https://ca.thehellenicinitiative.org/donate-now-wildfire-relief-fund/

Archdiocese of Thyateira & Great Britain
>> http://www.thyateira.org.uk/special-fund-for-the-victims-of-the-attica-wildfires/

American Hellenic Council (AHC)
>> https://www.gofundme.com/emergency-relief-aid-for-greece

American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA)
>> ​https://ahepa.org/donate/

Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York Inc.
>> http://hellenicsocieties.org/Greek-fire-relief.html

Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
>> https://www.goarch.org/-/the-greek-orthodox-archdiocese-of-america-and-the-greek-american-omogeneia-participate-in-the-mourning-and-suffering-caused-by-the-latest-fires-in-att

Greek Reporter
>> https://www.gofundme.com/greece-fires-relief-fund

Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC)
>> ​https://www.gofundme.com/greecewildfirerelief​

International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC)
>> IOCC Greece Wildfire Support

The Hellenic Initiative (THI)
>> https://www.thehellenicinitiative.org/donate-to-greece-wildfire-relief-fund/

Not taking into account the recent Prespes Agreement, where did the Greek political establishment go wrong on domestic and foreign policies, especially as it concerns the “FYROM Name Issue?”

The answer is simple, EVERYWHERE!
 
Modern Greece does not have a clear, coherent national goal. The national objectives of the Greek revolutionaries as expressed at the Declaration of Independence, Justice, Personal Freedom, Ownership, and Honor, over the years have become irrelevant as politicians interpret these goals as part of their personal, not national aims. They have the mentality of the kodzabashis, i.e. the appointed heads of village councils, and the Phanariot hospodars, i.e. the masters who ruled the Rum millet as a second governing tier. This mentality has overshadowed the spirit of the 1821 revolution. 

​Like the Phanariots of the old times, who “sold the offices under their control and exacted extraordinary taxes and contributions to the fullest extent of their power.  Corruption, initiated at the top, extended down to the lowest levels of administration” (Jelavich, 1962). Nikolaos Soutzos expressed decadence of the Greek political crème de la crème as follows, “The prevalence over their competitors and their dominance through the use of insidious means, which the Turks highly encouraged, became the constant pursuit of the Phanariots. It was an incessant struggle, especially when the stakes were linked to their fortune, and often their life." (Soutzo, 1899, 4).  ​

But the kodzabashis the headmen of the enslaved Greece, were not any better. They had prolonged the enslavement of Greece and through their spiritual offspring continue to ensure the maintenance of their Ottoman mentality. This time the terminology and the names are different, but not the narrative. Nothing has changed since. Expressions such as «Ξες ποιος είμαι
εγώ, ρε;» or «μία θεσούλα στο δημόσιο,» «το μέσον» and a few other similar expressions explain why Greece is a mentally Ottoman province. The political elite of Greece and their cohorts govern the country as if they are the hospodars, kodzabashis, and kaymakams of the estate. The sad part is that Greek voters have entrusted them and preserve them with their vote. No matter which party is in government it controls the country through the use of advertising funding in the media. Not only have they managed the country, but they also restrain the diaspora using the same method. No wonder nothing happens in Greece.  
 
The problem is that the above “masters” have downgraded the social education of the Greek nation by indirectly bribing the means of formal, informal, and non-formal education. Such a downgrade benefits the crème de la crème of the Greek ruling society. Under this downgraded learning, patriotism has turned into nationalism and sometimes ultra-nationalism, and hard-core communists give lessons on something they do not understand – democracy. 
 
Only those who understand the full meaning of Socrates’ Crito can fully comprehend the meaning of homeland.  Greeks have lost the ideals of their ancestors and the direction that those ideals could lead the country into the 21st century and beyond.  Democracy does not work when people think only of themselves and not the general good.  Also, people in Greece did not learn and have not learned how to think.    
 
The lack of articulate national goals has resulted in Greece’s lack of coherent national interests. It is why Greece is deprived of proper foreign and domestic policies. Thus Greece has partisan interests which are reflected in foreign and domestic policies. If a country does not arrange a national path for the future it cannot develop a strategy to achieve any goal. Greeks think emotionally based on stories that only those who believe what they read in the “National Enquirer” would believe.
 
Since 1829, Greece’s foreign and domestic policies revolve around personal interests, direct and indirect reward of the political elite which is reactive, not proactive, to external pressures, movements, events, and circumstances that feed decision-making and behavior of its politicians.
 
It is said that possession is nine-tenths of the law. This adage means that ownership is easier to maintain if one has possession of something, or difficult to enforce if one does not. In the case of Skopje, Skopje possesses the name “Macedonia” since 1943 as a constituent republic within Marxist Yugoslavia with full government structure whereas Greece had Macedonia as an administrative unit and often the Press of Athens would call it Northern Greece. Even now, the Athenian Press continues to call Macedonia Northern Greece, never mind the cop-out they give when asked. I understand that in using Northern Greece the Athenian government meant Macedonia and Thrace; however, as Northern Greece or later as Macedonia-Thrace, Macedonia did not have the international exposure that Skopje had.
 
Yugoslavia started having indications and warnings of political upheavals in 1990. The 14th and last Congress of the League of Yugoslav Communists took place on January 20-22, 1990, the Slovenian and the Croatian delegations left during the Congress. That move by the delegations should have been a warning that something serious was going to happen. By May of 1991, despite the draconian efforts of Vasil Tupurkovski to keep the Republic together, the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia was over.  Greece as a neighboring country directly affected by any political and military turmoil should have monitored the situation and it should have assessed the fallout of any mishap in a wide range of possibilities that could affect the region, especially Greece. 
 
The following would hit Greek politicians on the head – on January 3, 1992, and during the informal meeting that took place in Athens between Greek and FYROM experts, the talks were deadlocked because of the insistence of Skopje delegates not to discuss the name of their country. That should have been a very serious indicator and warning of things to come. However, as we say in Greek «πέρα βρέχει» and «τα βόδια μου αργά». On January 26, 1993, six days after Pres. Bill Clinton took office the Greek Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs sent a letter to the new President stating that Greece was ready to compromise with Skopje on the name issue. Greece surrendered before the first shot of the war was fired. The same man stated later that in 10 years nobody would remember Macedonia. 
 
Most Greeks and especially politicians and their advisors do not know the national strategic culture of Greece’s neighbors. Greece’s present electoral system does not help either. Most politicians and their advisors not only don’t know Greece’s neighbors but worst of all, they don’t know Greece. They do not care what occurs north of Thebes and south of Corinth. If they knew Greece’s neighbors and Greece itself, the issue of Skopje’s name would not exist at all. But nobody cared. What kind of impression should one form when people in Rhodes say that they lived better under the Italians?
 
I have talked with a few diplomats and politicians of Greece, and was shocked by their naiveté. They could not even distinguish the difference between how many countries have recognized the FYROM, in general, from those countries that have recognized Skopje under its so-called constitutional name. Skopje keeps promoting that about 130 nations have recognized them, which means nothing. About ten years ago, they claimed something similar until it was revealed that out of 110 or so countries, only 78 of them had recognized them as “Republic of Macedonia.”
 
So they should have three numbers.
 
1) How many countries have recognized the FYROM?
 
2) How many countries have recognized the FYROM as “Macedonia”? Was it a bilateral or erga omnes recognition?
 
3) How many countries have recognized the FYROM under its provisional name?  
 
Clearly, the Greek MFA has no idea because Greece does not have a functional intelligence process within the MFA. The A3 is as busy as the Maytag repairman under the principle «δε βαρυέσαι» and «ωχ αδερφέ.» The less they know, the better it is for the boss! He can always truthfully say, “nobody told me”. They are supposed to be professionals; it is their job to know.
 
What is happening today, reminds us of what had happened in 1902. The Bulgarians had sent Sarafov, a Supremist, to Western Capitals to push for the Bulgarian cause over Macedonia. 
 
The Greek government was asleep then as it is today, including the Greek people! Pavlos Melas wrote to Bishop Karavangelis, «Διάβασα τήν ἐκθεσί σου στο ὑπουργεῖο. Μά ἐδῶ κοιμοῦνται. Τί νά σοῦ κάνω ἐγώ;»  Moreover, the weapons (Gras, Mauser, Mannlicher-Schönauer) were transported to the Bulgarian komitadjis in Macedonia by Greek mule drovers or αγωγιάτες, so that the Bulgars can fight against and kill Greeks in Macedonia.
 
On at least one occasion, one of the chief komitadjis, Vasil Tsakalarov, went in person to Athens to buy weapons. There’s no difference today. Skopje has its fifth phalanx in the Greek Parliament itself.
 
I remember one diplomat had mentioned that Skopje would change its name, as did Myanmar which changed its name from Burma. When I told him that Myanmar was Burma’s ancient name and asked him to name the old name of the FYROM region; he could not even come up with Paeonia.
 
While Skopje governments implemented the strategy of protraction as they negotiated under the Turkish model of negotiation, it simultaneously bolstered excuses for Greek politicians to procrastinate, as they wanted to avoid signing a treaty on the name that would make them and their party appear as betraying Greece.
 
While this was taking place, Skopje threw ashes into the eyes of the Greek people, entertaining the thought of being descendants of the ancient Macedonians who miraculously were not Greeks. ALL subsequent governments of the FYROM used denial and deception via non-state and illicit actors working in the background and successfully persuading foreign governments to recognize them as “Republic of Macedonia.” The FYROM diplomacy was and is extraordinarily active on the name issue and recognition of the state as “Macedonia.” They’ll do anything to show their flag!   
 
In contrast, Greece employed extremely dormant and reactive diplomacy lacking a strategy of deterrence with tactics of a courteous, but fatalistic policy. Even the reactive tactics of Greece’s foreign policy proved to have been through an entirely personal lens of her politicians and diplomats who cared more about pleasing their bosses than doing their job by committing to their homeland and protecting the national interests of Greece.
 
Under such peculiar circumstances, the answer to your question is “Greece went wrong everywhere,” starting in 1951, the year Greece had recognized Marxist Yugoslavia. Would the same politicians direct negotiations of their real estate in a similar manner as they have negotiated the future of one-quarter of Greece’s land and indeed Greece’s future territorial integrity? 
 
The fact is that all governments of Greece, and by their silence the politicians of Greece, have created the problem that Greece has in the form of a self-inflicting wound. Some countries in the world had or still have names such as the Federal Republic of Brazil, Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, Federal Republic of Germany, and United States of America. These countries were or are known under the name portrayed last: Brazil, Yugoslavia, Germany, America. What did, if anything, the Greek MFA think that the popularized name of “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” would be? Patagonia?
 
They only looked at the official name of the country, not the popular name that people would be using, especially when we all know people do not care about official names, not even diplomats. Didn’t they know that while Greece would be in its usual lethargic state, Skopje would launch any power in the world to achieve what it wanted and still wants?

Some would argue that during the second century AD, the Romans had called the region of the FYROM, Macedonia Secunda or Salutaris. Doesn’t this justify the present name of the republic?
 
The argument that the area of the FYROM was called Macedonia Secunda (or Macedonia Salutaris) and this justifies the present name of the Republic is very weak.
 
To begin with, depending on the time and type of Administration in the Roman Empire, provinces used to change names as well as borders. On one occasion, we see Macedonia starting just north of Stobi excluding Skopje which was in Dardania, and continues south of Lamia, leaving for Epirus a slice of land from Dyrrachium to Messolongi. Romans called south Greece, Achaea, and we had two lands named Epirus: Epirus Vetus and Epirus Nova. Another mess with names comes to us from what are today France, Belgium, and Northern Italy. There we see Gallia Belgica, Gallia Narbonensis, Gallia Lugdunensis, but in other times we know the name Gallia Lugdunensis and Gallia Narbonensis as Celtica while the toponym Gallia is found as Gallia Cisalpina and Gallia Transalpina around Switzerland. At that time one also finds Palaestina Salutaris or Palaestina Tertia and Galatia Salutaris and so on.
 
The whole naming of a region had to do with whether the administration was in the hands of the Emperor or the Senate. It is also immaterial because not one Macedonian King had named the region of the FYROM as Macedonia. Alexander the Great and his Greeks had reached India, China, and Uzbekistan, but none of these can claim to be ‘Macedonia’.
 
It is true that King Philip VI of Macedonia had conquered the area up to about the Shar Mountains, but he never changed the name of the region and did not move any Macedonians from Macedonia to Paeonia and Dardania. So, the ethnicity of the local population from Paeonian and Dardanian never changed ethnically to Macedonian Greek.
 
Romans had occupied some territories of Alexander the Great and his Diadochi and they also occupied almost all of Europe. They did not change the human terrain of the regions they occupied. They had local garrisons and used Latin as their lingua franca of their wide Empire. 
 
Another example is the Ottomans who ruled the area of the Western and South Balkans for about 500 years. They could not alter the local populations even though they settled Turks in the occupied regions and some of the locals changed their religion to Islam.  They succeeded in changing the religion of some Slavs like those in Bosnia, who were mostly Serbs, but these people remained Slavs. Muslims of Bosnia are proud of their Slavic heritage and they are first to claim it.
 
Conquest does not mean occupation with resettlement. On the contrary, when the Byzantine Emperors resettled about half a million Slavs from Macedonia to Bithynia the resettled Slavic population amalgamated with the indigenous population.Over the years and after numerous political and ethnic fusions, the Slavs ended up Turkified (Türkleştirme). That means what actually happened is exactly the opposite of what the FYROM Slavs advocate.

Although the Prespes Agreement is not a done deal yet, what are the national security implications for Greece if the final name of the FYROM includes “Macedonia?”  Are its ethnically diverse citizens of the republic going to be recognized as “Macedonians?”
 
The final name of the FYROM is significant not just to Greece’s national security and territorial integrity but is also essential to the national security of all countries adjacent to FYROM, including the stability of the Peninsula and the Middle East.   
 
The issue of the country’s name is different from the subject of the ethnicity of its citizens. What is important is the name of the ethnic group of the Slav people who have no ethnic surname. According to international norms, nationality follows the name of the country regardless of the actual or perceived ethnicity of the person. Holders of passports of multiethnic nations as the United States, Canada, Australia, etc. see the name of the land next to “Nationality.” Thus, the issue comes down to one segment of the FYROM citizens who until November 29, 1943, were considered as part of the Serbian nation along with Montenegrins. This is evident from the Comintern Resolution of January 11, 1934.
 
Thus if we assume (without taking into account the Prespes Agreement) that the country’s final name is Povardarie, then the passports of Povardarie will indicate as “Nationality: Povardarie,” even if the bearer is ethnically Albanian, Turk, or Greek. In general, ethnicity of individuals is something personal. On the other hand, the ethnicity, language, and heritage of the Slavic population as far as I am concerned should be ‘Jugosloveni’ or South Slavs. This better reflects their slavic heritage, which constitutes an ethnic and linguistic transition zone between Bulgaria and Serbia.
 
It is a thorn in the whole agreement. The government of the FYROM cannot say on one hand that they are Slavs, but on the other, they call themselves “ethnic Macedonians.”  Even Misirkov did not call them “ethnic” Macedonians; He made sure he mentioned them as Slavs. ‘Macedonians’ for Misirkov was a regional name and applied to all people of Macedonia regardless of ethnicity.By “Macedonian people”, Comintern meant all the people of geographic Macedonia regardless of ethnicity (Hristo Andonov-Poljanski. 1981, v. 2). 
 
I am not even touching the issue that the region of the FYROM became officially “Macedonia” in 1900. I consider myself a Macedonian of Greek heritage since I was born within the geographical area of the ancient kingdom. Who are these people to take away my right to call myself a Macedonian?  
 
I would push for the name “Central Balkan Republic” or “Jugoslavonija”, or better “Povardarie”. It is an existing name within the FYROM and all its people are very familiar with it. It is also a name of the Bishopric of Veles and Povardarie.

Let’s stay on the previous topic and focusing only on the Slavic population of the FYROM, why is the issue of ethnicity, language and heritage so contentious for both sides these days?
 
The Interim Accord was only about the name of the country. Here’s my argument that Greeks do not know their neighbors. 
 
What about the National Anthem of the FYROM, which is being played outside of the country as well? Nobody thus far has answered this simple question: How can the state change its name “Macedonia” but keep its national anthem intact? Does anyone in Greece know its lyrics? The first verse calls the nation “Macedonia” (Today over Macedonia, the new sun of Freedom is being born).
 
Has anyone in the Greek MFA thought about it? Or are they going to conveniently claim that the national anthem is a domestic issue as are the ethnicity, language, heritage and all other derivatives of “Macedonia”?
 
The claim that the “Macedonian” language was recognized by the UN in 1977 is absurd.  The UN recognized Taiwan, a country with a vital economy, since the 1945 San Francisco Conference. The country was a Charter member of the UN. Despite such a status, Taiwan was expelled by the General Assembly of the UN on October 25, 1971. It was unrecognized for political reasons. The issue of recognition of a language by the UN is not linguistic, but political; it may and can be unrecognized. The question is whether Greece has ever recognized anything “Macedonian”. We are referring to one-quarter of purely Greek land, not the ciftlik of Nasreddin Hodja.
 
Typically, the issue of ethnicity, heritage, and language are issues of domestic use, but  in this case, they are very important. When Greece signed the Interim Accord, the people responsible should have known better. They messed up due to their ignorance and personal convenience, so they can’t expect others to get the snake out of its den. And, what about the last failure? Whose fault is it? This has been going on for 75 years, however, the Greek political elite keep governing like ostriches. 

We have seen many Greek organizations demand that Greece withdraws from negotiations altogether. Let’s say the recent Prespes Agreement fails, what would happen if Greece withdraws from future negotiations with the FYROM on the name issue?
 
My first recommendation is that all Greeks who follow the moves of the FYROM Slav diaspora should stop imitating them. They are nonsensical and their goals are different from the aims of Greek people. This idea of withdrawal from the talks started by the Skopje diaspora about ten years ago and I was hoping that Skopje under Gruevski had listened to them. I was thinking, “get more rope to hang yourselves,” but unfortunately it did not happen. 
 
I have read some Greeks are calling for such a thing. It shows how little these people understand the international political scope of the issue.
 
In answer to your question, Greece could withdraw from the negotiations if the issue were bilateral. It would be with little or no political cost for the country. Skopje has tried to make it bilateral in the past; and luckily Greece fought against it. This is one of the correct things Greece has done on the issue. 
 
On a bilateral basis, the Interim Accord would be null and void making the erga omnes and inclusion of the name in the FYROM’s Constitution irrelevant and illogical. Every single country would recognize the FYROM as “Macedonia” leaving Greece on its own. The FYROM would get into the EU and NATO and in every organization it wishes, since the name issue would not exist. Greece would have to deal with Skopje being alone and without international support. I do not believe that any Greek wants such a thing.
 
All those people who want Greece to withdraw from negotiations because it cannot give the name Macedonia to the Slavs, in fact, become agents of Skopje on the issue because they’re thinking with their heart and not their head. I would say the same thing for those who want Greece out of the EU and NATO. They think that Russia will help Greece. That might be true, but knowing the foreign interests of Russia one of those interests is the Ecumenical Patriarchate and its move from Constantinople to Moscow. Such is the goal of Russia. Russia will also help its Pan-Slavic friends, which means that Thessaloniki will go to the FYROM and Kavala will become part of Bulgaria leaving Alexandroupolis to Turkey.
 
If this is what the Russophile Greeks want, then their wish will materialize. It should be known that since Aleksey Mikhailovich, father of Peter the Great, Russia’s main national interest is to support its goal for World supremacy and consequently Russian domestic and foreign policies reflect just that. This explains why the Russian Patriarch was absent from the Synod in Crete a few years ago although the preparation for the Synod had started about 35 years earlier.
 
The Vatican Newspaper, Il Osservatore Romano, had indicated that if the Patriarch of Moscow attended the Synod, the Orthodox Church would split because of the demands of the Russian Church. Their argument is that they lead 350 million Orthodox faithful whereas the Ecumenical Patriarch leads only about 1,500 souls. Such a statement indicates that the Patriarch of Moscow does not consider the Patriarch of Constantinople as Ecumenical, but only a local bishop with a limited flock. In reality, an Ecumenical Patriarch includes all Orthodox faithful of the World including the Russians; it is why he is called Ecumenical, not because of the number of his direct followers.
 
Greeks should be careful what they wish for regarding the Russians because they might get it. Then they will not be able to blame others, but themselves. International law is not case law or statutory law, but a common law. To quote Wikipedia, “The defining characteristic of “common law” is that it arises as precedent. In cases where the parties disagree on what the law is, a common law court looks to past precedential decisions of relevant courts, and synthesizes the principles of those past cases as applicable to the current facts.” In the case of treaties, the precedents seek answers from previous similar treaties. The UN is in possession of such treaties.   
 
Some international norms, precedents, and guarantees regulate international talks and treaties as they are incorporated into the set of rules generally accepted as binding in relations between countries, aka international law. 
 
Greece is not in a position of prestige because the people are disunited and the political parties deal with their micro-political scheming issues, just as the kodzabashis did two hundred years ago. Greece is only a European country geographically speaking. It is progressively becoming worse in a disappointing way.

Some erroneously believe that the name issue is a uniquely Greek issue. But, that is not the case. Explain how other countries deal with similar issues of shared regions.

Let me start by saying that many countries in the world share regions. Luxembourg, for instance, shares the French prefecture with the same name. Vojvodina (Serbia), Romania, and Hungary split the region of Banat. The Flemish, i.e., Dutch-speaking part of Belgium is the continuation of the Netherlands, and the French-speaking is a continuation of France.  The name Great Britain goes back to Britany in France; both names go back to the Bretons, a Celtic tribe. There are two European regions with the name Galicia, one in Spain and one in Eastern Europe. Hungary, Croatia, and Serbia share the territory of Baranya or Baranja. Let us not forget Thrace. 
 
The name is not the problem. The United States has a state named New Mexico, and Mexico has a state called Baja or South California. I can go on with similar examples.  
 
Let’s go a little bit further than that. The most striking element of the National Anthem of the Netherlands is at the end of the first stanza. It states, “The prince of Orange I am; afraid of nothing; I have always remained loyal to the king of Spain.” It is a remnant of the Napoleonic Wars, but I have not heard any Spaniard claiming the Netherlands.  Therefore, the whole matter goes to the mentality of the people of the south Balkans.   
 
The name of the region of FYROM as Macedonia is the result of political events:

• Some intellectuals participating in a convention in Belgrade in 1865 envisioned the Balkan Federation in a politically socialist basis, not in a religious sense as Rhigas Pheraios had done many years before.

 

• The Berlin Conference of June 1878 deprived Serbia of expanding west although Serbia received other means of compensation from Austria. Serbia thus extended south, a move that conflicted with the territorial aspiration of Bulgaria even after its territorial folding. Bulgaria had maintained its national ambitions long after its defeat in the Berlin Conference. It moved its Capital to Sofia (1879), annexed Eastern Rumelia (1885), which the Berlin Conference had made an autonomous territory within the Ottoman Empire. To balance the domestic political scene, the current Bulgarian government also made the Eastern Bulgarian dialect its literary language (1899).

 

• Communism took advantage of the Bulgarian expansionist foreign policy and proceeded with a strategy that even if Bulgaria were not directly involved, she would have a lot to say on the Federation of Macedonia and Thrace. 

 
I have translated the three primary documents that are related to Macedonia; the six-page 1924 “May Manifesto”; the nine-page III Communist International, Fifth Congress - June 17–July 8, 1924 "Resolution on National Question in Central Europe and Balkans,” which includes the Macedonian and Thracian Questions. I have also translated the three-page Comintern Resolution 11 January 1934 “The Macedonian Question and the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization - United (IMRO-U)”.
 
When the three documents are studied, one understands that the main objective was a federal Macedonia and Thrace under the administration of the communist IMRO. It is obvious that the word “nation” in those documents referred to a multicultural nation-state or a nation as in “United Nations,” not an ethnic one. Such multicultural nations were the answer to the Communist “National Question.”

Based on your experience, what is the driving force behind the FYROM’s irredentist claims on the northern Greek province of Macedonia? Using past examples how could these irredentist claims serve to affect Greece’s national security.
 
Briefly put, the driving force is the territorial expansion over Macedonia by military occupation; it cannot be done otherwise. Their strategy hides this fact behind the imaginary issue of the so-called human rights of “Macedonians.” They do it because they think in a Court of Law such nonsense prevails; it does not. They see other cases of legitimate minority complaints around the world, the intervention of great powers in setting new borders and they hope they can identify themselves with such matters. But to do it, they employ deceiving and criminal means. Photoshop is one of the methods they employ. The bottom line is that they cannot Photoshop facts.
 
For the second part of the question the answer is that they work with two domestic Greek groups – the communists of Greece who still support Comintern’s resolutions under the doctrine “Comintern might not have been right, but it was not wrong”, and the ultra-right wing who believe that they are the only ones who care about Greece. Most members of these two groups do not even know the modern history of Greece and how Greece’s political instability has affected the country so far. Both groups live in a parallel universe.
 
The brief history of Modern Greece is as follows:
 
Greece declared independence in 1821 (officially on January 26, 1822, in Epidavros). However by 1827, while fighting the Turks, Greeks engaged in two civil wars while the Turko-Egyptian Ibrahim was threatening to suppress the revolution. After its independence in 1829, the first political parties that sprang up were the "Russian," "English" and "French," while the newly established country was already bankrupt.  Nicholas Karlovich Giers of the Asian Section of the Russian Foreign Ministry stated the following regarding the assassination of Capodistrias: “the assassin, Mavromichalis, belonged to one of the most distinguished families of the region, who looked with envy upon [Capodistrias] rise. The only thing that has changed since then are the names of the political parties, not the mentality of the Greeks. Personal ego, especially among those disqualified to speak, feeds Greece’s political instability.
 
The “Μαύρο '97” or “Ατυχής πόλεμος του 1897” (Eng: “Black ’97” or the “Unfortunate War of 1897”) took place because of people’s wishful thinking instead of weighing up reality and waiting. The result of that war was an Ottoman military victory after which Greece ceded small parts of Thessaly to the Ottoman Empire. It would be nice if people read the background of the war and the full outcome to understand that ultra-nationalistic overtones brought Greece to humiliation and bankruptcy. The embarrassment came when the commander of the Ottoman Army stated ostentatiously that he was ready to march to Athens and drink coffee on the Acropolis. Thankfully the Great Powers of Europe intervened stopping the Turks from advancing south of Olympus.
 
That was not enough. Following this, we had the National Schism between 1914 and 1917. The National Schism set the foundations for the foolish overconfidence of an unprepared, almost defunct Army to at least control Ionia and a government to lay claim on Constantinople. Instead of being satisfied with whatever the ally victors had given to Greece, they wanted more. They proceeded to capture and destroy Ankara. The Battles of Sakarya and Dumlupınar (26–30 August 1922) brought Greece to reality. Ionia was damaged, and Constantinople was lost. Turks still remember the date of their victory.  August 30 every year is the date of military promotions and new positions.
 
Due to National Schism, the loss of prestige and non-existent political will, Greece could not even enforce the Autonomy of Northern Epirus. 
 
In the case of the Greek-Italian War (1940-1941), Greece was a clear victor delivering to the Allied Powers not only a physical victory but also a tremendous moral victory; it was the first Allied victory they so badly needed. One must consider the defeat of the UK at the beaches of Dunkirk, Belgium, and the annihilation of France by Germany that rendered the Maginot lines a simple hurdle. For that decisive victory, Greece was awarded the Dodecanese.
 
Despite the prestige that Greece had enjoyed, due to securing the first allied victory in defeating an Axis power, the domestic instability, and fanfare during the WWII Peace talks in Paris (1946-1947) was responsible for Greece losing Cyprus. The United States wanted to pass Cyprus to Greece. However, the domestic turmoil in Greece and the usual fanfare and bogus claims of some Greeks from Florida brought the intention of the United States in the open and found stiff resistance by the Soviet Union and the UK.
 
Between 1966 and 1967, Greece was in political turmoil changing governments as often as people change their shirts. I witnessed it firsthand. I still remember the blockade of Thessaloniki by land about a month before the coup of April 21, 1967. Communist-led farmers had closed the co-capital of Greece from all nine land connections. I was in Thessaloniki, and I know what happened. Such domestic instability led to the revolt of April 21, 1967. Following seven years of uncertainty, another coup, dual at this time, took place. The first one resulted in the displacement of the Papadopoulos regime. The new military government, feeling that it was their “patriotic” duty to unite Cyprus with Greece launched a coup in Cyprus under the EOKA fighter Sampson giving the excuse to Turkey to intervene to “protect” its minority. The Greek Generals and the “inactive” politicians behind them should have known better. Turkey wanted to do the same in 1962, but its invasion was averted by the United States. The situation worsened because in 1964 the United States wanted to see Cyprus united with Greece under certain conditions (Acheson Plan). Both Archbishop Makarios and the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou rejected it because the plan included “a sovereign Turkish base on the island that would limit enosis and give Ankara too much say in Cyprus’ affairs”.
 
Between 1829 and the present, Greece has gone bankrupt five times each time bringing the nation into further instability; as if the political instability was not enough. Uncertainty in Greece means calamity for the country. It will be beneficial for Greece if her people start thinking in these logical terms.

Now to the hot topic on everyone's mind lately: the "North Macedonia Agreement” at Prespes. What are your views on this Agreement?
 
This Agreement goes far beyond the scope of the Interim Accord of 1995, which only applied to the name of the country. It seems that the FYROM’s negotiators seized this opportunity during negotiations. The Greek side should have refused to negotiate anything more than the name of the country. It seems however, the Skopje’s negotiators got the hint that Greeks were easy prey from the manner Mrs. Dora Bakoyanni had negotiated and accepted the adjective “Macedonian” as ethnicity, language, and heritage. Actually, at that time, she had accepted and pushed the name to the Greek American diaspora not as erga omnes, but “for international use” claiming that it was the same thing. Actually, Mr. Panagopoulos or Panagiotopoulos, I do not exactly recall, of the Greek Embassy in Washington was the bearer of the news. The Greek side should stick to its guns and refuse to talk about issues that were not included in the Interim Agreement. Bulgaria was not stupid to have done so.
 
Having said that, I was hoping that it would not be an Agreement, but a Treaty. I am against this Agreement for a number of reasons especially the fact that it does not clearly address the false informal and non-formal education that the FYROM diaspora disseminates to themselves and their posterity, including the influence of their Church.  In addition, I have a problem with the FYROM diaspora that injects hatred in their offspring against the Greek nation. It offers lip service to such a vital issue. 
 
To me, the most important issue is that it is NOT a Treaty, but an Agreement. Although in international law, there is no real difference in validity, they do differ in the manner that the two are handled and the level of their standing. The difference is often the number of votes needed in a country’s Parliament to ratify an Agreement or a Treaty.  As Greeks know, although the Interim Accord was ratified by the Parliament in Skopje, the Simitis government never brought it to the Greek Parliament for ratification because it was an Accord or Agreement. The problem I always had is, although the governing party was silent on the issue, the official opposition was silent as well. Agreements do not have to be brought for ratification. It is true that it was a command of the UNSC, the law enforcement body of the United Nations, but it should have still been offered to Parliament for discussion and ratification. Mr. Papoulias would have had a lot of explaining to do. 
 
Coming to the present issue, Nikos Voutsis, the present Speaker of the Parliament, declared that the matter will be offered to the Parliament for discussion and ratification. What is unclear is that he mentioned ratification of this agreement will require a very large majority in the Greek Parliament. “There is no constitutional provision for 180 votes, but for such a serious matter, the larger the majority will be, the better for all”. Really?
 
What exactly does the Article 28.2 of the Greek Constitution stand for? It states,  
 
“Authorities provided by the Constitution may by treaty or agreement be vested in agencies of international organizations when this serves an important national interest and promotes cooperation with other States. A majority of three-fifths of the total number of Members of Parliament shall be necessary to vote the law ratifying the treaty or agreement (website: Parliament of Greece).
 
Mr. Voutsis is the Speaker of the Parliament, but he has no reading comprehension.  The whole article 28 deals with international law, but he cannot find the reason for legal approval of a treaty or agreement?
 
As for the Agreement itself, between 1950 to 2015, Greece, directly and indirectly, gave up about 80% of what the FYROM wanted. The name “Macedonia” was given indirectly in 1950 when Greece established a Consulate General in the Capital of the People’s Republic of Macedonia. The mere establishment of an official Greek diplomatic office within the former Yugoslavia implied an indirect recognition.
 
So in essence, the negotiations between the FYROM and Greece did not start subject to a clean slate. International law is common law based on precedent unlike Greece's domestic law, which is based on statutes. Thus as time passed since the 1951 normalization of relations between Greece and the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, SFRJ, Greece kept giving away or recognizing institutions and agreements. Also, by ignoring developments on the Macedonian issue, even as a side effect, such acts kept accumulating. Thus by 1995, Greece had already given about 50-60% of what they wanted as fait accompli. Most of the time under the upsetting procrastination and indifference expressed by «ωχ, αδελφέ» «δε βαριέσαι», «ε και τι έγινε», «και ποιος θα το μάθει;». According to the former MFA of Greece, Dora Bakoyanni, by 2010 Greece had already awarded Skopje 80% of what it sought by constantly giving in. Thus, Skopje had no incentive to allow Greece to receive the remaining 20%. Holding to the already possessed 80%, it negotiated the remaining 20% adhering to the dictum “what is mine is mine, what is yours is negotiable.” It has been Skopje’s traditional approach to the name issue since 1991(Templar, August 28, 2014).
 
Upon reading the entire agreement, the deficiencies were evident as if it were put together by a group of 15-year-old high school students who wrote their individual pieces and compiled the agreement without even reading it.
 
The agreement covers legal issues at the government level. It offers lip service to how legal definitions and provisions would be used by the people of Greece and its Macedonian Greek diaspora. It provides ethnic cover for the Macedonian Slavs, but it does nothing to protect the regional identity of Macedonian Greeks like me. As the diaspora of the FYROM has embraced the Macedonian national identity, they will have a very solid stance to declare that they are rightfully Macedonians. Nobody among the common international community would care about the Agreement, nor that their history has nothing to do with THE ancient Macedonians. The so-called experts in the Greek MFA have started an inferno that will die when the Macedonian region of Greece gets incorporated into ‘North Macedonia’. The geniuses of humanity from the ‘Republic of Athens’ have NO idea whom they are dealing with. They should come to Australia next year to learn a thing or two and leave their conceit back in Greece. 
 
Some parts of the Agreement make sense, but others do not; their vagueness will hurt Greek national interests but mostly the relations of our diaspora. Making the FYROM Slavs “Macedonians” even under the definition that Misirkov offered in his book On Macedonian Matters deprives the Macedonian Greeks of their true Macedonian Heritage. Other provisions nullify or even contradict stipulations of the same article or muddy other articles of the agreement. 
 
In general, Article 3, for instance, reinforces the Peace, Friendship and Mutual Protection between Serbia and Greece signed in Thessaloniki on June 1, 1913, by the Greek ambassador to Belgrade, Ioannis Alexandropoulos, and the Serbian ambassador to Athens, Mateja Bošković; it is known as the Koromilas - Bošković Protocol. Under article 3, Skopje accepts the borders of 1913.
 
Then we jump to the issue of citizenship or legal nationality.  Article 1.b in the Agreement is unacceptable.
 
The Agreement offers two meanings in the term "nationality". In international law, the term nationality is a loose term of citizenship. American passports for instance bear as nationality “United States of America”; it does not state “American”. In the case of this agreement, the two parties should have done the same; on the issue of nationality, the name of the country should be written, not the adjective Macedonian as it refers to ethnicity in article 7. That would have prevented part of the future headaches.
 
The agreement sees all citizens of the FYROM as “Macedonians” from the scope of a community of descent. So according to this agreement, the FYROM is 100% Slavic, but also North Macedonian. Thus the people of FYROM are given a choice, the Slavs are Macedonians in nationality, but the rest of them are North Macedonians. The problem from the point of international law is simple. There are two countries, one is Macedonia with its own nationals and the other one is North Macedonia with its own nationals. But how can citizens belong to a country under the name Macedonia that does not exist?

Coming to the issue of history, it correctly deprives the Slavs of any part of Greek history. However, the real issue was not, is not, and will never be ancient history as most Greeks believe. There is nothing in the history of the Slavs that connects them to ancient Greek history. Misirkov born in Pella knew extremely well who and what the ancient Macedonians were. He had never mentioned ancient history at all.
 
The history myth started in 1936 in Melbourne from the followers of the Bulgarian General Mihajilov and it continued later by their posterity under the thought, "if we are Macedonians, we must be descendants of the ancient Macedonians; otherwise what kind of Macedonians are we?" It was based on faulty logic and stories that their grandparents told them. 
 
Some historians doubt that the ancient Macedonians were Greeks on various pretexts, but not a single historian connects the Slavs a historical continuity to the ancient Macedonians, not one. Nobody considers the sermon of Pribojevic and the Book of Orbini as historical theses.
 
But the issue is very different from what the agreement addresses. Even if the FYROM had signed treaties that excluded the name Macedonia in their name, language, ethnicity and heritage the morons of VMRO-DPMNE, their Golden Dawn type (and there are plenty of those), will still claim ancient Macedonian ancestry. I had a numerous conversations with Hungarians and Croats of the Golden Dawn type and I could not believe the absurdities they said.
 
But what concerns me is not only the combination of the entire Article 1, Article 7 (paragraphs 2, 3, 4) and Article 8 (paragraphs 1, 2, 5), but in particular, Article 8.5. 
 
As previously stated, I wonder if anyone in the A3 has ever read and understood the national anthem of the FYROM. The agreement does not indicate anything of the kind.  Despite the explanations in article 7, the agreement considers the country to be “Macedonia” and treats it as such, since it does not touch its national anthem. If everything is erga omnes, the FYROM under the name “North Macedonia” cannot have a national anthem that pertains to Macedonia, which is a region of Greece. 
 
In addition, what exactly does paragraph 7.5 mean in relation to Article 7 as a whole?
 
The main concern is, who will be scientists and experts from the Greek side that will negotiate the history of Greece, including ancient history, and the history of the Macedonian struggle? If the Minority Research Center (KEMO) and the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) get involved in “negotiating” the agreement, then:

• a) All the Vlach-speaking Greeks of Krushevo, that is the victims of Ilinden, will be renamed "ethnic Macedonians"

 

• b) the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (EMEA) will be proclaimed an "ethnic Macedonian Liberation Movement" with philanthropic and benevolent intentions, forgetting their terrorist acts of the “Boatmen” and the “Miss Stone Affair”

 

• c) Pavlos Melas, the Metropolitan Germanos Karavangelis and so many other Greeks who gave their blood for Macedonia will be called "terrorists"

 

• d) The approximately 30,000 kidnapped children from all over Greece will end up being boy scouts going camping with the blessings of their parents 

 
One must always bear in mind that even though the Agreement states the preservation of Greek history within Greek contexts, it does NOT explicitly and unambiguously state that ancient Macedonian history is an integral part of Greek history.
 
Do not assume that this is implied by the wording of the Agreement. Such an issue can be resolved by the exchange of letters between the Foreign Ministers of Greece and Skopje. Exchange of letters is a regular institution in diplomatic services.
 
What makes it particularly intriguing is Article 8.
 
Article 8.1 cannot be clearly understood. What I have not yet understood is the issue of Article 8.1. This article is an exact copy of Article 7.3 of the Interim Agreement. It is the same article that helped Gruevski and others steal Greek history and transplant it to their Slavic country. Why did they put it back, particularly when Article 8.5 exists? Have there been no lessons learned by the MFA?
 
8.2 Gives the government in Skopje six months to consider whether the statues are historical or not. What have they done so far?
 
8.3 In this article, the last paragraph allows any Slav to make copies of whatever Greek they want (e.g., Sun of Vergina) and sell them anywhere. These copies can be in clothes, flags, etc. Its prohibition under Article 8.3 applies only to the government and any organizations affiliated with the Skopje government, either directly or indirectly. Unless I have missed something, it does not apply to the private sector. This means that the spread of Skopje can follow their own drummer.
 
8.4 This is standard practice in the official gazetteer. It is no longer Solun or Monastiri in official documents. But this is normal for all official documents. Names used in the interior of a country are preferred by names used abroad. These names will be used in the list of UN names, i.e., gazetteer.
 
As for Article 13, it deals with the former Serbian> former Yugoslavian> current Serbian Free Zone at the harbor of Thessaloniki. Greece has already passed part of the same Zone to Skopje.
 
Never mind the explanation of Article 7. Greek-Australians should prepare for the fight of their lives. Greece has ensured that they and their offspring will be fighting against the FYROM Slav diaspora for as long as they live. 
 
The negative side of this agreement is that the Greek diplomatic corps, following the official line of the Agreement, will assist the FYROM Slav diaspora, declaring that the Slavs are actually Macedonians and the Macedonian-Greeks are just Greeks who live in Macedonia. The Slavic diaspora is not interested in the agreement or the emphasis on different historical context and cultural heritage. This Agreement actually strengthens their effort to “explain” why they are Macedonians.
 
Until now, the FYROM Slav diaspora only had academics side against them. Even Badian and Borza were clearly stating that the modern “Macedonians” could not claim a historical continuity with the ancient Macedonians. Now they have the official political side stating that they can be called Macedonians, because they moved to Macedonia during the 6th-7th centuries, and their name comes from their habitation. It gives them a regional, not a sanguine disposition but it still gives them the historical name. It clearly states their Slavic origin and it does the same with their language and heritage. 
 
I’m assuming that according to Article 15, visitors from the FYROM to archaeological sites will follow the rules of the Ministry of Culture that only certified guides will explain any and all historical facts related to the site. This must apply especially to the students, who until now they had their own “learned” teachers to explain.
 
From the composition of the Agreement, it looks like after the negotiating teams finished their job, someone took a superficial glance over the Agreement and approved it, without considering possible redundancies or conflicting statements in different sections. To put it bluntly, the Agreement was rushed kicking the tin away for others to get the snake out of its den. Eventually, and I suspect sooner than later, the snake will prove to be a gargantuan komodo dragon with lethal saliva.
 
As it is, the Agreement needs many explanatory notes and exchange of official letters like the ones that accompanied the Interim Agreement, but very few people know about those letters.
 
When one regresses to 1822, the connection to issues associated with the problems that Greece has becomes apparent. Political expediency, along with ignorance of the real world outside of Athens, is the source of all evils created by Athens. Because the creators of the problems are either incapable or politically unwilling to solve them, they turn around and ask for foreign help, whilst simultaneously releasing their partisan henchmen to tacitly “inform” the public that the Germans or the Americans are behind all of Greece’s calamities. Of course, they are behind them – their own boss had asked them to help.
 
For the sake of Greece’s survival, the Greek MFA needs to understand that Greece is far beyond the real estate between Thebes, Sounion, and Corinth – Athens is not Greece; it is simply part of Greece. Greece includes all of us who expect guidance and enlightenment from our home country, but all we get is a luminous darkness of corruption, conceit, and indifference that amounts to political immaturity.
 
The way politicians govern Greece is reminiscent of the Phanariots of Wallachia and the kodzabashis of the Sultan. The Sultan is dead, but their spirit lives on in the Parliament of Greece.
 
They better go back and re-write this Agreement before it is too late to save Macedonia.
 
​If you were tasked with changing something in the Constitution of the Hellenic Republic, what would it be?
 
Oh, that’s easy. We have to try to at least keep the politicians honest:

1. Residence
All elected officials shall physically reside within the district they are elected and represent for at least 10 years before they register their candidacy. Such a clause shall apply to all elected officials including the leaders of all political parties in the Parliament without exception. They shall be Greek citizens by birth or naturalization. No elected official shall be allowed to hold any other nationality but Greek. It also applies to residents of the diaspora unless the law changes to allow representatives of the diaspora in the Greek Parliament.  

* Explanation: As it is today if a person from the diaspora wants to run for office in Greece this person will have to follow the same rules that apply to all residents of Greece who want to be elected in the Parliament.

2. Nationality
Civil servants no matter how high or how low in rank or position shall have only Greek nationality. Such a requirement shall apply to all and any military personnel with any kind of Security Clearance. If such personnel have dual or multiple nationalities, the same personnel shall renounce all foreign nationalities before they enter the service or force. As the New Testament states, "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”

3. Referendum
a. The Parliament will decide on issuing a notice of a referendum concerning specific matters within its sphere of competence by a simple majority vote of the total number of Representatives. The decision of the majority of voters in a referendum shall be adopted on condition that more than half of the total number of registered voters had voted. 

b. The Parliament will be obliged to issue a notice of a referendum if one is proposed by at least, say, 5% of the registered voters. The decision made in such a referendum will be binding.     

4. The President of the Republic will be elected directly by the people
The President of the Republic will be elected in general and direct elections, by secret ballot, for a single six-year term. The President of the Republic shall physically reside for a minimum of ten years within Greece at the day s/he is elected to office. The President of the Republic shall be a national of the Hellenic Republic by birth and only of the Hellenic Republic even if she/he resides abroad.  A person may be elected President of the Republic if over the age of at least 40 on the day of the election. A person may not be elected President of the Republic if, on the day of the election, he/she has not been a physical resident of the Hellenic Republic at least ten years in a row. Owning property in Greece while physically living abroad does not qualify one as being a physical resident.  
 
Greeks in Greece and in the diaspora held rallies on the “Macedonia” name issue sporadically. Some of these rallies were quite large, but the question remains: was there a message attached to those rallies or did the outside world penalize the message and Greece along with it?
 
Many messages used in those rallies make sense only to Greeks; however, they give the wrong message to foreigners with no understanding of the issue. Either the organizers do not seem to care, or they feel like isolating people who genuinely care about Greece. People have to understand that what makes sense to us is not necessarily a useful tool to spread our message. ‘One message fits all’ is the wrong concept. We can satisfy our pride and our ego, but simultaneously sacrifice our message or play it smart and spread the right message without over-dramatization, sensationalism, and ultra-nationalism.
 
To foreigners, slogans such as “Macedonia is Greek” sounds like it hides an ultra-nationalistic message with an expansionist connotation against the FYROM. Strabo said, “Indeed, Macedonia is part of Greece”; however, one must consider that at his time Greece was only a geographical term under the Romans; it was not a country. The Hellenic Peninsula was divided into two administrative segments, one of which included Macedonia.
 
In my view, people who prepare advertising should take Strabo’s statement and present in a way that the word “Macedonia” does not refer to the FYROM in any way and form, but to Greece. Something like “Macedonia is already a part of Greece”; “No state with the name Macedonia”; “Macedonia IS in Greece”; something like that would be more effective and to the point. People should stop thinking emotionally and start thinking strategically. People in the advertising industry are genuinely creative.   
 
I love Greece, I truly do, but loving something or someone does not mean I have to be blind; it means I should face reality and distinguish between what is right and wrong. I cannot restrict my mind of the truth whilst ignoring facts. It is said that love is blind; however, it does not have to be senseless.
 
People have the right to hold rallies and they should. In a democracy, it is the right and obligation of the citizens to petition their government. However, the same demonstrators and especially their leadership must debilitate all elements who misdirect the tide of the demonstration whether they come from the extreme right or extreme left. Leaders are responsible for anything that takes place in protests. About ten years ago, I suggested that we demonstrate before Greek diplomatic missions, not in front of foreign government buildings but I was turned down flat. Ten years later, they decided to do it, but it's too late. Even when I had suggested it, it was late; now it is much worse.     

Australia, USA, and Canada are home to an extensive Greek diaspora. However, we are a diaspora divided especially on advocacy. Why is this?
 
We are divided because those in leadership not only undermine each other but also don’t know what they are doing.  Others accept bribes from subsequent Greek governments about 25 to 35 thousand U.S. dollars monthly under the guise of promoting Greek causes or advertisement. This is true for some well-known Greek NGOs and mass media of the Greek Diaspora. Since it is an issue pertaining to all Greeks, where is the voice from key Greek American NGOs? They are silent on the matter of Macedonia because they are probably on the take.  
 
In some cases, those who think of themselves as superior homeland patriots are in fact so irrational that they end up collaborating with the FYROM Slavs without even realising it. Some go as far as getting their supporters to troll both Greeks and Slavs online and to exchange absurd nonsense as if they were Karagiozis (Karagöz) and Hatzivatis (Hacivat). The fact is the Sultan hung them both. More recently these ‘patriots’ have even put people’s lives in danger by “outing” some of our FYROM Slav supporters in the diaspora who work for the Greek cause. These trolls consider these public outings as an “achievement.” However, it never occurred to them that the people they have outed may be providing very useful information to Greece. A nation cannot survive with such people and is doomed to fail.
 
How can the Greek diaspora create advocacy groups when they have such members? One does not find this kind of behavior in the FYROM Slav camp.
 
Ultimately, intelligent Greeks of the diaspora become non-inclined towards involvement in such destructive organizations.

How would you describe the FYROM Slav diaspora organizations and the methods they employ to get their message heard not only within their community but also in the public sphere?
 
From the efficiency of their work, they are very well-organized with discipline and attention directed toward their goal not at each other. Their lobby works under a strategy that employs professional experts in disciplines where the lobby needs to spread the word. Their experts are not FYROM Slavs and they often resort to proxy struggle just like the VMRO in the early 1900s.
 
Also, FYROM Slavs have money, and the methods they employ are put together professionally. The coordination of tactics as part of a strategic purpose is apparent.  Their community takes “guidelines” from both Skopje and Ankara - Turkey is helping them a lot and supports them unquestionably. Not one of the members of the various groups would dare disobey it. When it comes to “Macedonia” they face it with religious reverence. It is exactly why the FYROM is where it is. Additionally, they don’t troll each other, nor divulge or out their sources, or attack each other, because they take the issue seriously.

Going back to the Greek diaspora, you are an advocate for the creation of a Greek lobby. Many in the diaspora already believe that there are Greek lobby groups at work to protect the interests of both the diaspora and to lobby their respective governments. What are the facts on this issue?
 
The myth about the Greek lobby started after the invasion of Cyprus by Turkey. As I understand it, a couple of Greek restaurant owners went to the U.S. Congress to talk to their Congressman about the invasion. As they were leaving the office, someone asked who these men were; one of the present office workers said “the Greek lobby.” More or less, it is how the myth started.   
 
Well, if so many lobby groups existed, Greece would not have been continuously on the receiving end. Since Greece never had a lobby, most Greeks do not know what a lobby is, what it needs to operate, nor the amount of money involved. Greeks are also tribal. They do not have the national unity necessary to address domestic and national security issues. I have been attacked as a pro-Skopje Slav only because my last name is not Greek. If they take the telephone book of, say, Athens, they will be surprised how many so-called Greek names are Arabian, Persian, Turkish, Slavic, Albanian, etc. A name ending such as “-is” does not make a name Greek, by the way. A name ending in “-oğlu” which is a possessive genitive of oğul (son) cannot be purely Greek. Papazoğlu, for instance, is purely a Turkish name. The Greek word for a priest is “ἱερεύς,” not papas. Papas is remnant of Greece’s Ottoman past. In Turkish “papaz” means “Christian priest.”
 
Skopje has only ONE national issue, their survival as a state. They have Turkish-trained personnel on issues of lobbying and their experts listen to professional advice. In the United States, lobbyists for other powers are required to register as Foreign Agents (FARA). The President of the UMD is a designated Foreign Agent. Additionally, the Ministry of Culture of the government of the FYROM, has for 10 years now employed people full-time to work solely on articles published in Wikipedia promoting the “Macedonian Heritage” of the Slavs turned “ethnic Macedonians”. 
 
Greece on the other hand has five national security issues; (Macedonia, Northern Epirus, Thrace, EEZ, and Aegean Air Space) and two national topics (Cyprus, and the Greek Genocide). Each one of them needs a separate lobby. 
 
The reason why we don’t have a lobby is because the political establishment of Greece does not allow it and does everything possible to subvert, sabotage, and weaken any attempt for a valid and honest lobby. Secondly, those who want to lead a lobby do not have any idea what a real lobby entails – dreams don’t count. Lobby means M-O-N-E-Y and expertise (love for the homeland or I want to help are fine, but they do not count as expertise). Just to open its doors for example, an active lobby requires a minimum of three million U.S. dollars. The operating costs reduce as the organization depreciates its assets but salaries and other operational expenses need to be factored in. If this sum seems exorbitant, one must start working in a Cost Accounting manner and without discounting any costs. 
 
A lobby is a fully organized operation consisting of adequately staffed and equipped teams with a single scope tasking that does not lose its peripheral vision. A team is a group whose identity reflects the consensus of its members without suppressing their individuality.
 
A lobby needs teams of experts, groups of professionals with expertise in the specific cause they advocate without interference or meddling in the business of other teams.  The experts are dedicated to their field and they do not need to be of Greek descent.  Each of the lobby teams consist of experts on specific subject matters, as geologists, national security experts with a specialty in geostrategy, experts in avionics, attorneys specializing in international law, diagnosticians, analysts, strategists, tacticians, operationalists, a lot of full-time staffers; but most of all, a lobby needs famous spokespersons in the community they operate and FUNDING.
 
Lobbies are connected to foundations or nonprofit public policy organizations using all forms of mass and social media and mass communication to influence a government or individual politicians. They demonstrate that the public demands a particular action. Such is the advocacy side of the lobbies that works overtly through lectures and presentations. 
 
A real Greek lobby requires serious funding because our multiple causes have been neglected or marginalized for a long time. The number of personnel required for a lobby can be anywhere between twenty to thousands; it always depends on what the aim and objective is. A few years back, I met someone who worked for a lobby as a Human Resource Manager, but the lobby in my opinion was insignificant. Yet she still had close to 100 personnel on her payroll. Not only do we have no lobby in Washington, but we don’t have appropriate people to lead such a lobby. All those who lead numerous Greek organizations have no understanding what a true lobby is, no appropriate training, no suitable contacts, and lack leadership ability.
 
Lobbyists are naturally accountable to their supporters who usually remain anonymous; it is why professional lobbies work quietly and behind the scenes using covert techniques. 
 
On the public relations side, a simple garden party with a politician today will cost a lobby about US$400-500,000 in the United States. The only Greek-American firm registered in the United States as a public relations firm is Manatos and Manatos. This firm was charging US$300,000 for garden parties about ten years ago.  
 
Most organizations of the Greek diaspora that I’m aware of are organized under the scope of cultural, societal, or educational societies with appropriate by-laws. Their part-time leadership, boards, and sometimes paid employees, lack what it takes to undertake the duties of a lobbyist. Unfortunately, they seek ‘lobbyists’ among themselves, restricting any possible expertise in the realm of the Greek diaspora.  Such mentality hinders the achievement of goals. The people who believe they currently lead a lobby are unaware that they do not have the suitable skills and information to deliver what is required. Titles, academic standing, or military and social eminence do not provide what it takes to operate and lead a political or national security lobby group, nor do they provide appropriate methods and strategies to achieve set goals. 
 
Those involved, do not understand what a lobby is nor its definition. The most critical part of lobbying is an affinity for the cause, not lust for it. Affinity lends itself to using logic, but passion raises emotional ties which are counterproductive. What one loves to do does not mean that it is the right thing to do.  
 
However, the problem within the Greek diaspora is more profound.  When irresponsible people spread the news that they are lobbyists while they do nothing near lobbying, they raise expectations by throwing ashes into the eyes of those who hope that someone is doing something. If they were honest about it, people would not have such expectations, and they would take the issue seriously trying to do something to fill the gap instead of being complacent. 
 
Others believe that educated people know what they are doing. To begin with, it is a faulty assumption. Let us take a teacher. There is a difference between teaching a five-year-old from teaching a 60-year-old. It is worse when a teacher of English is trying to teach English as a Second Language to foreigners. In my Turkish language class, for example, there were three engineers from Turkey teaching us Turkish as a Second Language. It was a farce. 
 
Another way of looking at the knowledge and expertise required for an effective lobby is like this. The human body and a house use plumbing. The gastroenterologist and the plumber do similar jobs.  They both take care of the plumbing, the first one of the human body and the second one of the house. The question is simple; would you visit a plumber to perform a colonoscopy?
 
I remember a Greek Cypriot professor of Political Science who teaches in the UK claiming that he knew a lot about Turkey. When he read my paper on the Strategic Culture of Turkey, he said: “I did not know all these details.” I am sure others would have presented a different set of details on the same subject. A lobby needs eloquent people to control the ground, spin the media, have credibility, sponsor a think-tank, neutralize the opposition without criminal means, control the web, and have access to government offices.
 
Most of the issues Greeks have arisen from targeting the wrong audience. They keep preaching to the choir. The message to the Greeks and non-Greeks can never be the same. They make videos in Greek explaining to the Greek audience that the ancient Macedonians were Greeks. Why? If the Greek audience does not know that, why are we attacking the FYROM Slavs for their historical ignorance? Why don’t the same people make a video in the language that the FYROM Slavs understand? What about in Serbian or even Russian? I am sure there are a few of Slavic descent who are willing to do it for a fee. They can even dub the voice. They can just narrate without showing their faces. It is exactly why a true lobby needs money. But who has the intelligence to think about it? According to Mr. Philip Christopher, President of the International Coordinating Committee – “Justice for Cyprus” (PSEKA), Turkey has spent US$102 million to professional lobbying firms such as Gephard, Livingston, Dole, Wexler, etc. Turks seek experts regardless of their ethnic background. Greeks look for people of Greek background. That alone limits the choices that Greeks have.  
 
In saying this, I want to clarify that I am not a lobbyist and will never be one. I do not have what it takes to be a lobbyist. I can organize a lobby without any outside interference and I can task the necessary research with a team of true researchers; that is what I can do.
 
We cannot end this interview without discussing our organization. Why has the Macedonian League resonated with so many people young and old? We see it from the constant communication and the enthusiasm of our followers. We see it with foreign government officials who follow us seeking answers to the name issue. What does the Macedonian League offer that other Greek organizations don't?
 
We are a small group of professionals specializing in various disciplines. Since its inception, our website and social media has remained and will remain clear of sensationalist articles with unproven “facts.” We welcome articles from professionals that have something to do with Greece’s domestic and national security issues. All of them pass through the editorial board. We have several professional editors who check the accuracy and the tone of articles.
 
What people like is the thoughtfulness behind the maintenance of our website and our social media sites. It is why foreign governments and intelligence agencies are our followers. It is only for a mature following and for people who want to learn something. It is precisely why the Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies (AIMS) has honored us with the Research Fellowship. People have noticed that anything we do is based on facts and not rumors or hallucinations.
 
It also depends on your readership. We do not care about spreading nonsense to gain readership. From the beginning we decided to keep our website content of high quality caliber and we stayed focused on the national security of Greece. Quality is always better than quantity. From a personal perspective, I’ve had many opportunities in life to follow popular movements and webinars. I did not do it because of the people I had to deal with and the direction the webinars would take. My father fought against fascists, Nazis and Communists and I would not forgo his example. I would never allow myself to be used by people who seek my knowledge on the matter to promote their pre-existing beliefs or political ideology.
 
Marcus Templar, your closing thoughts. Seeing that the global Greek community is extremely unhappy with this ‘Agreement’, going forward, what is the best way to protect Greece’s national security interests, and undo some of the damage done so far?

Well in closing, I wish that the governments and the people of Greece had woken up in 1990 regarding the name issue. Some Greek politicians have a problem with Skopje taking the name “Macedonia” as part of its final name, but I wonder where they had been since then? The demagogues who now take advantage of the issue could easily create social and political upheavals in the country by using toxic populism.
 
Having said that, the following course of action will help undo damage done so far:

• Firstly, people whose education, employment and expertise have nothing to do with issues of political science (foreign affairs, national security, etc.) should stay out of these issues because they are unskilled in the craft. Imagine how senseless it would be if I got involved in their profession whether they were engineers, physicians, teachers of literature, etc? Serious issues are not for kafeneion discussion and Politicial Science is not kafeneion politics.

 

• Secondly, establish Professional Lobby groups; one to lobby Greek politicians and others to lobby governments of the countries they live in.

 

• Thirdly, hire a legal team of experts in international law to look into protesting and consequently annulling the present Agreement between Athens and Skopje under any or all of the following: 

 
                 – Ultra vires;
                 – Misunderstanding, fraud, corruption, coercion in accordance with Articles 46–53 of the Vienna
                    Convention on the Law of Treaties;
                 – Contrary to peremptory norms.

Then re-negotiate an Agreement based on the findings of the Legal Group and this time assign diplomatically relevant and politically competent negotiators instead of international nation-nihilistic organizations. The name of the multi-ethnic country must be Modern Yugoslavia or Yugoslavonia. The Nationality (which is a loose term of citizenship) must follow solely the name of the country and its Slav nationals should be designated as South Slavs speaking a South Slavic, with South Slavic Heritage. 

• Fourthly, employ full-time multilingual personnel, dedicated to maintaining Greek-related content on Wikipedia in more languages than Greek. Never underestimate the influence of Wikipedia on people especially on children.

​

• Finally, implement all the changes to the Greek constitution that were proposed in the report above.

 
Marcus Templar, The Macedonian League wishes to thank you for your genuine and in-depth analysis in presenting the causes and consequences of this serious national security issue.
 
Your academic and strategic insights are vital to the future direction and success of the Greek position on the Macedonian issue.

​--

About Marcus A. Templar
Professor Marcus A. Templar is a former U.S. Army Cryptologic Linguist (Language Analyst), Certified U.S. Army Instructor of Intelligence Courses, Certified Foreign Disclosures Officer, Certified Translator Interpreter of Serbo-Croatian, SIGINT / All-Source Intelligence Analyst. He is the Macedonian League's National Security Advisor.

​To read all his papers, please click here.

About the Macedonian League
We are an international professional Hellenic advocacy group. Our primary purpose is to advance our interests to informed and responsive governments on issues concerning Greece's national security and territorial integrity. 

The Macedonian League's main focus is on the “Macedonian name dispute”, as this dispute is a serious national security issue that threatens the territorial integrity of Greece.

The Macedonian League also focuses on exposing and combating anti-Hellenism and analyzing political developments in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

For more information, follow us on: Website, Facebook, Twitter

Department of Communications
Macedonian League 

The Macedonian League wishes to extend its warmest congratulations to Marcus A. Templar for being nominated as Honorary Research Fellow at the Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies (AIMS).

Professor Templar, who is also the Macedonian League's National Security Advisor, will make an outstanding contribution to the Institute.

In accepting the appointment as Honorary Research Fellow of AIMS, Professor Templar thanked President Dr. Anastasios Tamis and all the members of the institute saying his appointment "was an honour bestowed upon him."

Professor Templar said he would continue to work for the advancement of the Macedonia region's people, culture, and history as well as Greece’s stability as well as that of the Balkan region.

His research background on the Macedonian issue spans over forty years.

About Marcus A. Templar
Professor Marcus A. Templar is a former U.S. Army Cryptologic Linguist (Language Analyst), Certified U.S. Army Instructor of Intelligence Courses, Certified Foreign Disclosures Officer (Final Approving Authority), Certified Translator Interpreter of Serbo-Croatian, SIGINT / All-Source Intelligence Analyst. He is the Macedonian League's National Security Advisor.

To read all his papers, please click here.

About the Macedonian League
We are an international professional Hellenic advocacy group. Our primary purpose is to advance our interests to informed and responsive governments on issues concerning Greece's national security and territorial integrity.

The Macedonian League's main focus is on the “Macedonian name dispute”, as this dispute is a serious national security issue that threatens the territorial integrity of Greece.

The Macedonian League also focuses on exposing and combating anti-Hellenism and analyzing political developments in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

For more information, follow us on: Website, Facebook, Twitter

Department of Communications
Macedonian League

The Macedonian League condemns Acting NSW Premier John Barilaro's position on the 'Macedonia Naming Dispute.'​ 

​According to video that has surfaced online on social media, whilst attending the Orthodox Christmas celebrations at the Queanbeyan Macedonian [sic] Community Centre on January 13, 2018, Acting NSW Premier John Barilaro called on the Australian Government to recognise the FYROM as the "Republic of Macedonia" stating:

"I will always acknowledge as the Republic of Macedonia. It's 2018, and I do hope...I do hope that in 2018 - and I do know that the Ambassador is strong on this - and I do hope that 2018 is the year that the world comes to its senses; Australia as a nation, the federal government, comes to its senses and acknowledges as the only rightful name Republic of Macedonia."

As an Australian MP, and more importantly as the Deputy Premier of NSW, we find it insensitive and irresponsible that Mr. Barilaro made such a comment in a public forum.

As a representative of the State of NSW (and the people therein), making such a one-sided comment ignores the Greek community, many of who originate (or trace their roots) from the true historic region of Macedonia in northern Greece. It also flies in the face of Australian federal foreign policy, which recognises the country as the 'Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' (FYROM), in line with the September 1995 United Nation Interim Accord (no. 32193) signed by both Greece and the FYROM, in good faith.

Athens and Skopje have currently re-opened negotiations on the name issue of the FYROM, an issue which has serious national security implications for Greece and the entire Balkan region. As noted by the Macedonian League's National Security Advisor Marcus A. Templar:

​
​Mr. Jonathan R. Cohen 
Deputy Assistant Secretary 
Bureau of European & Eurasian Affairs
U.S. Department of State
2201 C St. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20520
​

Dear Mr. Cohen,
 
As U.S. citizens concerned about stability in the south Balkan Peninsula, we are opposed to the inclusion of the name “Macedonia” or “Macedonian” in the final name of "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (The FYROM). Although local solutions are significant as they contribute to the global stability one must consider the political and social reality in the specific region. The present political values in the FYROM do not support conditions needed to improve functional neighborly relations between the latter and Greece.
​
The Greek region of Macedonia, due to its natural resources and the geographical position has become a tempting prize to be won by conquest either through invasions with consequent devastation or through political posturing. In fact, politicians of neighboring countries set as an objective the establishment of a foundation of descent and birthright to eventually claim over the land which for 4,000 years has been by inheritance Greek. Indeed, in the last two centuries, the Greek region of Macedonia has confronted belligerent predisposition to include but not limited to demographic manipulations, historical forgeries, relentless disinformation, and even abduction along with indoctrination of Greek children to communism.

While it is paramount that the name dispute of the FYROM must be solved the soonest, it also imperative that such an agreement must be devoid of unfair and misleading terms that appear durable and overtly bestow hope for stability, while in fact, they uncover to be awash of instability. Such a solution is imperative so that both sides should benefit from it without endangering the national security and territorial integrity of Greece any time the FYROM changes governments. It is essential that designations such as nationality, ethnicity, heritage, culture, identity and any other description presently linked to the name “Macedonia” and its derivatives follow the final name of the FYROM as international law and norms prescribe.   

Since previous governments of the FYROM had created a national amnesia that causes them to forget who and what they are through malfeasance, the responsibility to educate their citizens regarding their Slavic heritage lingers on the present administration. We are urging all powers involved to offer their good offices for a just solution considering the reasons behind our objection. The path that the forefathers of the Slav inhabitants of the FYROM had carved remains unaltered at present with the excuse that the name for their ethnicity is “Macedonian” which is the only one they know since their birth. The reality is that they have changed their ethnic designation a few times during the 20th century.

We are opposed to the name “Macedonia” even if it follows a geographic designation that would allow the FYROM explicitly or implicitly the derivative “Macedonian.” Such demands provide an indirect but particular path to the inherent right to claim the land of their imaginary ancient ancestors.

Thank you.
 
​
Marcus A. Templar
National Security Advisor
Macedonian League

The Macedonian League condemns the purposeful disinformation and anti-Hellenism that was promoted online by the "United Macedonian [sic] Diaspora (UMD)" on World Refugee Day.

It is shocking to see an organization such as the UMD stoop so low on a day that commemorates the plight of refugees to be used to attack the state of Greece and its people.

On World Refugee Day, June 20, 2017, the UMD promoted the below image which was created by its youth wing - "Generation M" - in which baseless, historically inaccurate information and events were presented "as facts" to a wide audience.

Since its inception, the agenda of the UMD has been to portray Greece (and Greeks) in a negative light due to the organization's ultra-nationalist ties with the former VMRO-DPMNE government of the 'Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).'

However, it must be stressed, regardless of the differences that the UMD has with Greece, the decision made by their Executive Committee to purposely spread anti-Hellenic sentiments and historical misinformation on a day like World Refugee Day is quite appalling. It shows a total disregard and lack of respect for people who have gone through great lengths to leave a war-torn country in search of a better life elsewhere.

Below, the Macedonian League responds to the inaccuracies promoted by the UMD:

>> MYTH #1 - 1913:
"4,725 buildings were burned in 40 villages around Kukush^ [sic] along with Macedonian [sic] quarters in Salonica"

TRUE HISTORICAL ACCOUNT #1:
The 40 villages around Kilkis were Greek villages and the Greek Army had no reason to burn them*. The event that did take place in the year in question was the Battle of Kilkis
(also referred to as the Battle of Kilkis-Lachanas [1]) which occurred during the second Balkan War from the 19th to the 21st of June 1913 and was a battle between Bulgarians and the Greeks. History shows that the second Balkan war [2] took place between Bulgaria on one side and Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Greece and Ottoman Turkey on the other, resulting in the Treaty of Bucharest [3] in 1913, setting the borders of BULGARIA in relation to its neighbors. The political creation of Slavic 'Macedonians' had not occurred yet, hence there are no historical references to such an ethnic group. 

^ Kukush is the Bulgarian name for the city of Kilkis, in the province of Macedonia, Greece

* Similar historically inaccurate attempts at providing misinformation about the tragic 1917 Fire of Thessaloniki [4] have also been made by the UMD and other FYROM Slav diaspora groups; this fire too had NOTHING to do with ethnic hatred and was a fire started accidentally in the kitchen of a small house when a spark fell in a pile of straw and ignited it. In all, 32% of the city of Thessaloniki was destroyed. 4,000 shops burned and over 70,000 people were displaced. Due to lack of water, the initial fire was not put out. Eventually, an intense wind carried the fire to the neighboring houses, and it continued throughout central Thessaloniki. 

>> MYTH #2 - 1928:
"All Macedonians [sic] villages, cities, rivers and mountain names are discarded and Hellenized"

TRUE HISTORICAL ACCOUNT #2:
Place names did not require Hellenization as they already consisted of Hellenic, Bulgarian and Turkish names. The restoration of the toponyms to their original form started immediately after Greece officially took over the liberated areas**. Furthermore in 1928, after the Treaty of Lausanne, Greece and Bulgaria signed the Kalfov-Politis agreement which enabled the VOLUNTARY exchange of the local Greek and Bulgarian population between Greece and Bulgaria. Once again, there is no historical evidence of Slavic 'Macedonian' groups in existence.

**When the Ottomans took over the region, names of villages, cities, rivers and mountains were Greek due to the previous reign of the Byzantine Empire - these names pre-existed the Ottoman occupation. Upon the occupation of Macedonia by the Ottomans, the new administration gave names that fitted their phonetic system, hence Thessaloniki became Selanik, etc. Cities, villages and towns that were built during the Ottoman administration kept the names the Ottomans had given them, e.g. Yanitsa, Kilkis. Thus the only thing the Greeks did was to adjust the names to their phonetics. Our question is, why have the authorities of Skopje changed the names of Skopje, from the original Dardanian name Skup to the present Skopje? What about Bitola from Monastirion, or Stypeon​ to Shtip or Kavadarci from Tikvesh? Greece had no obligation to keep toponyms that the Ottomans gave them. The Turks also changed Greek toponyms themselves in Turkey, e.g. Constantinople to Istanbul, Rize, Izmir, etc.

Evidently, the so-called 'Macedonians' want Greece to keep toponyms that Bulgarians and Serbians had given them. True Macedonians, being Ethnically Greeks, had no problem keeping the names their ancestors had given them. After all, a name such as Thessaloniki is very Greek. One finds the toponym Solun in Slavic Literature, e.g. Slavic version of the Bible whether it is in Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Serbian, or Bulgarian. Slovenians kept the name Tesaloniki (Pavlovo delo v Tesaloníki (2,1-16) ). Note however, in the original language of the New Testament, the city’s name is Thessaloniki, and this original Greek name is what counts!

>> MYTH #3 - 1936-1940:
"Under Metaxas dictatorship, 5,250 Macedonians [sic] are brutally punished for speaking Macedonian [sic]"

TRUE HISTORICAL ACCOUNT #3:
Metaxas was brutal to ANYONE WHO WAS A COMMUNIST whether they were Greeks, Bulgarians or Albanians. He was totally against the Comintern's 1934 proposal to create an artificial “Macedonian” nation-state, due to the territorial implications on Greece's regional province of the same name.

>> MYTH #4 -1945:
"400 murders registered, 440 rapes, 13,529 interned on Greek islands, 8,145 imprisoned, 1,605 families plundered, 1,943 families evicted"

TRUE HISTORICAL ACCOUNT #4:
In the period between 1945 and 1949, ANYONE who had committed crimes against the Greek state in association with the German and the Bulgarian occupying forces during WWII, or had taken arms against the legal government of Greece was sent to the island of Makronissos between Athens and Evia or tried and executed for treason. This included any citizens of Greece (Slav or Greek) who attempted the illegal annexation of Greek land to Yugoslavia with the help of Bulgarian and German occupying forces. As for the rest, the Slavs should be talking to the members of the “Democratic Army”, i.e. the allied to the Slavs communist forces, which incidentally, were responsible for the kidnapping of about 30,000 Greek children, an act that the UN officially condemned Yugoslavia***.

***For this reason and in an effort to protect other Greek children from being kidnapped by the communists, the Greek government under the auspices of the then Queen Frederica, organized the camps for children of all ages known as Paidopoleis. It was a network of 53 Camps all over Greece where mostly orphans and children of poor families were housed and educated. The camps were the only means of survival through shelter, food, and education.

>> MYTH #5 - 1948:
"40,000 Macedonian [sic] children between the ages of 2 and 14 are forced out of Greece. To this day most are not allowed to return"

TRUE HISTORICAL ACCOUNT #5:
Following the Greek civil war, children were taken out of Greece by retreating Communists. The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 193 (1948) and the (UNGA) Resolution 288 (1949), unanimously condemned the kidnapping of 29,877 Greek children by the communist forces demanding their return. These and subsequent UN resolutions were ignored by Albania and Yugoslavia. From 1950 to 1952, only 684 children were permitted by communist countries to return to Greece because of the pressure of the Red Cross and two new UN Resolutions. The children were pushed to Bulgaria (17 camps), Romania (11 camps), Hungary (11 camps), Czechoslovakia (18 camps), Poland (3 camps), East Germany and Albania (5 camps), and 9,500 went to Yugoslavia (15 camps). As adults, many of these children returned to Greece, but it was their choice.

To be absolutely clear, it is NOT the kidnapped children that cannot return home. It is the ADULTS who committed crimes against humanity that will be facing justice if they ever return to Greece.

​About the Macedonian League
We are an international professional Hellenic advocacy group. Our primary purpose is to advance our interests to informed and responsive governments on issues concerning Greece's national security and territorial integrity. 

The Macedonian League's main focus is on the “Macedonian name dispute”, as this dispute is a serious national security issue that threatens the territorial integrity of Greece.

The Macedonian League also focuses on exposing and combating anti-Hellenism and analyzing political developments in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

For more information, follow us on: Website, Facebook, Twitter

Department of Communications
Macedonian League

Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP
Prime Minister
PO Box 6022, House of Representatives
Parliament House
CANBERRA, ACT 2600


​May 22, 2017


​Dear Mr Turnbull

On behalf of the Australian, American and Canadian global Hellenic Community, The Macedonian League wishes to officially thank you and your Government for its recent commitment to continue the policy of referring to the FYROM as “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”.

Following the recent negligent comments, made by the Member for Hughes (NSW) Craig Kelly, your government was quick to confirm its consistent position in following United Nations' practice and expressed great regret for any offence caused to the Hellenic Republic and Greek Australians.

The global Hellenic Community wishes to congratulate you and your Government on its position regarding this important matter - one that carries serious national security implications for Greece and the entire Balkan region.

In the spirit of Greece and Australia’s shared history, we look forward to maintaining our strong national ties and continuing our mutually beneficial cooperation on strategic affairs.

Yours sincerely,

​
Department of Communications
​The Macedonian League

​-

About the Macedonian League
We are an international professional Hellenic advocacy group. Our primary purpose is to advance our interests to informed and responsive governments on issues concerning Greece's national security and territorial integrity. 

The Macedonian League's main focus is on the “Macedonian name dispute”, as this dispute is a serious national security issue that threatens the territorial integrity of Greece.

The Macedonian League also focuses on exposing and combating anti-Hellenism and analyzing political developments in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

For more information, follow us on: Website, Facebook, Twitter

Department of Communications
Macedonian League

The Macedonian League condemns Australian MP Craig Kelly's position on the 'Macedonia Naming Dispute' at a rally he attended in Sydney on April 23, 2017, organised by FYROM’s diaspora.

At the rally, Mr. Kelly emphatically stated, "Macedonians" [sic] have every right to call their country "Macedonia" [sic]. In other words, he stated that the southern Slavs, who are totally unrelated to the indigenous Greek population of Macedonia proper, have every right to call their country by the Greek regional name ‘Macedonia’. Obviously, Mr. Kelly is unaware that in 1900 Vasil Kunchov, a paid Bulgarian ethnographer serving the interests of Bulgaria, coined the region of the FYROM “Macedonia.”

​The Macedonian League's National Security Expert, Marcus A. Templar (Professor Emeritus in Political Science - Strategic Intelligence), had this to say about Mr. Kelly‘s statement:

In his attempt to reach out to the Greek community, Mr. Kelly has gone on record stating he is well-aware of Greece's connection to the heritage of ancient Macedonia, but went on to say that the modern issue is not historical. In this one statement, Mr. Kelly is correct - the issue is no longer historical, but political. It is a serious national security matter for Greece and the entire Balkan region.

During the rally itself, anti-Hellenism by the FYROM’S racist ultra-nationalist diaspora was on full display, directly in front of Mr. Kelly. Thousands of attendees were waving red flags with the ancient Greek Pan-Hellenic star - the 16 ray Star of Vergina, originally found on Spartan vases and Cretan coins as far back as the 6th century BC.
​
The Macedonian League wants an explanation from Mr. Kelly, issued to both the Australian government and the Greek community, as to why he attended a rally knowing full well that the map of a "United Macedonia" (incorporating the sovereign Greek region of Macedonia) was depicted front and centre and throughout the rally? Why did he attend a rally depicting a poster with a slogan referring to the supposed partition of a country that has never existed?

When Mr. Kelly sees the phrases "For a United Macedonia" on the bottom of these posters as well as other slogans such as “Macedonia for Macedonians“, he probably sees (in his mind) images of unity within the FYROM between the Albanians and the Slavs. However, for the Slavs of the FYROM, "United Macedonia" means exactly what it has always meant since the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991 - the creation of their fantasy land (with an outlet to the Aegean sea) as depicted on the poster below incorporating Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian and Albanian territories. Clearly, this is not a force for political stability in the Balkans! If Mr. Kelly was unaware of this concept, he now knows and has no further excuses to be photographed with such paraphernalia in the future. 

To reiterate, Mr. Kelly you are correct - this has NOTHING to do with history but EVERYTHING to do with the overt propaganda war being waged by Skopje since 1991. This propaganda war has one goal on the agenda: the territorial fragmentation of all adjacent countries and especially the territory of the Hellenic Republic, i.e. Greece.
 
Is this the country that deserves to be called "Macedonia", Mr. Kelly?  Is this the country you demand that Australia recognize as such? As an MP in a democratic country Mr. Kelly, you should demand that the President of the FYROM give a mandate to the democratically elected leader of the opposition, Zoran Zaev and the Albanian coalition to govern the country, before the FYROM collapses from the political upheaval that is currently brewing between the Albanians and Slavs in the region.

​​About the Macedonian League
We are an international professional Hellenic advocacy group. Our primary purpose is to advance our interests to informed and responsive governments on issues concerning Greece's national security and territorial integrity. 

The Macedonian League's main focus is on the “Macedonian name dispute”, as this dispute is a serious national security issue that threatens the territorial integrity of Greece.

The Macedonian League also focuses on exposing and combating anti-Hellenism and analyzing political developments in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

For more information, follow us on: Website, Facebook, Twitter

Department of Communications
Macedonian League

​In a politically motivated, but crafty interview with the Serbian Beta News Agency on January 2, 2017, Mr. Ivica Dačić, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia admitted that Serbia’s recognition of The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (The FYROM) under the latter’s so-called Constitutional name was a “significant error.”

"Although the Macedonian League welcomes Serbia’s admission of its mistake, it regrets the reason behind such an acknowledgment. Serbia had confessed its error only when the recognition of the FYROM as “Macedonia” precipitated the fomentation of Serbia’s territorial integrity while it undermined Serbia’s national interests. "
 
The Macedonian League hopes that Serbia would come to its senses and overturns its recognition of “Macedonia” to The FYROM as the governments of Panama, Mexico, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have done in the past.

About the Macedonian League
We are an international professional Hellenic advocacy group. Our primary purpose is to advance our interests to informed and responsive governments on issues concerning Greece's national security and territorial integrity. 

The Macedonian League's main focus is on the “Macedonian name dispute”, as this dispute is a serious national security issue that threatens the territorial integrity of Greece.

The Macedonian League also focuses on exposing and combating anti-Hellenism and analyzing political developments in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

For more information, follow us on: Website, Facebook, Twitter

Department of Communications
Macedonian League

A racist and extremist anti-Hellenic event, exported to Canada from the 'Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)' - the propaganda capital of world - and disguised under the auspices of a comedy theatre show, took place in Toronto, Ontario on Friday, October 14 and Saturday October 15, 2016.

As seen in the images below, comedian Marjanco Gjorgievski wore an offensive and racist t-shirt with a Swastika in the Greek flag and the words 'Fuck Greece' emblazoned below the flag. Other actors involved in this anti-Hellenic event were Aleksandar Dimitrovski (skit author), Nikola Trgacevski, Valentina Kozovski, Katerina Petrovska and Dimitar Mihajlovski.

The severity of hate symbols, such as the swastika on the Greek flag, cannot be underestimated. They are powerful communication tools conveying racism and anti-Hellenism in an immediately recognizable form.

According to National Security Expert, Marcus A. Templar,  “the contempt Greeks have for fascism, who took on Nazi Germany and the entire Axis resistance in WW2, is immeasurable. Greeks displayed selfless acts of heroism in protecting Jewish communities throughout the country (and beyond), killing German collaborators following the liberation of Greece. The replacement of the cross, a symbol of love with the swastika, a symbol representing the slaughter of millions of people, constitutes a racist and anti-Hellenic hate crime, warranting serious investigation.”

This hate crime committed in Toronto, combined with the misappropriation of the Hellenic history of Macedonia, demonstrates FYROM’s continued provocative and racist behaviour that fuels their domestic nationalism, creating regional instability and unpredictable conditions for the world!

About the Macedonian League
We are an international professional Hellenic advocacy group. Our primary purpose is to advance our interests to informed and responsive governments on issues concerning Greece's national security and territorial integrity. 

The Macedonian League's main focus is on the “Macedonian name dispute”, as this dispute is a serious national security issue that threatens the territorial integrity of Greece.

The Macedonian League also focuses on exposing and combating anti-Hellenism and analyzing political developments in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

For more information, follow us on: Website, Facebook, Twitter

Department of Communications
Macedonian League