Greece and The Macedonian Question Today
Everything you wanted to know about Macedonians and Greeks

Greece and the Macedonian Question Yesterday
Don't watch the History Channel, read this instead!

How To Find News on Macedonia.
See this article on Macedonian news sites.

Thursday, September 30, 2004

Another Report - Another Chance to Ignore Macedonians in Greece and Bulgaria

Freedom House Report: Macedonia is Partly Free Country

We have a new report from a group called "Freedom House", that promotes the interests of the USA. This means that Freedom House ignores "freedom issues" that conflict with US interests. Which of course means that Macedonians in Greece are ignored. Macedonians are mentioned as being part of the "Ethnic Groups: Greek (98 percent), other [including Macedonian and Turkish] (2 percent)" It also reports that Greece does not "recognize" minorities, but that has not stopped Greece from being declared "free".

Macedonia, for its part, was declared "partly free" because of issues relating to the Albanians etc. Nothing too sinister here, just that "Freedom House proposes that Albanians deserve to eat "human rights cake" while cheerfully ignoring the fact that Macedonians in Greece have to eat "human rights shit"

Bulgaria is declared to be free even though they acknowledge that " there have been reports that the government has denied ethnic Macedonians the right to hold public gatherings".

I got this story from a web site One World South East Europe. don't know much about this group. It just discusses the report without going into it failing. No complain here, it can't do everytin.

Organizations: Partly Truthful about Macedonia

Freedom House
International Crisis Group
Radio Free Europe
IWPR

Organizations: Truthful about Macedonia

Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Constructive Engagement

RADIO FREE EUROPE/ RADIO LIBERTY

Another group from "The West" is going to come to the Balkans to tell us how to get alone while at the same time never discussing the support of "The West" for human rights violations in the Balkans.

It is important to have an open dialogue with these people and to put pressure on them to address the situation of Macedonians in Greece. Interview these people and ask the question:

Can Macedonia use Greece as a model with regarding human rights. If the Republic of Macedonia treated the Albanians the way that Greece treats ethnic Macedonians, would Macedonia enter the Eurpean Union? Get it on the record and publish it on the web.

Reality Macedonia : New Jersey Macedonian-American Community Proclaims Crvenkovski Persona Non-Grate

Reality Macedonia : New Jersey Macedonian-American Community Proclaims Crvenkovski Persona Non-Grate

If Macedonians are going to make it through the next few years without being partitioned, again, we must learn from the super-powers who "unite their friends and divide their enemies". Macedonians in New Jersey should apologise to Crvenkovski, and the Macedonian diaspora, who is after all "The President of the Republic of Macedonia". This is a fight "within the familly" and we should not banish familly members.

I have always thought that we have to try to form alliances with "our first cousins - the Bulgarians" and "our second cousins - the Serbs". This task seems to be harder as each day passes. Now we are fighting with our own brothers, which reminds me of the saying:

"Brotherly love isn't what it used to be, ever since Cain killed Abel".

Friday, September 24, 2004

Serbian Conspiracy

My comments yesterday about the Serbian Orthodox Church in Macedonia got the following response:

Is the purpose of your blog to show how ignorant you are about the Serbian worldwide atempt to take over the Macedonian orthodox Church? If so, you have succeeded.

I can assure my reader(s) that I am knowledgeable about the worldwide attempt to subvert Macedonia (and its Orthodox Church) by Serbian, Bulgarian and Greek Orthodox Churches. If playing that game with Serbomans and Bugaromans, and the one Grkoman in the Republic of Macedonia brought us any closer to full recognition, I would endorse it. However, by playing that game, we are totally ignored when we discuss Macedonians in Greece and Bulgaria.

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Ulrich Buechsenschuetz Radio Free Europe

This is an interesting article by Radio Free Europe writer Ulrich Buechsenschuetz. He is very knowledgeable about Macedonian issues, but has never discussed the treatment of Macedonians in Greece.

The US government funds RFE. Its' mandate is to follow events in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe with an eye to American interests. When Ulrich publishes a story on Macedonians in Greece, we can suppose that American interests are tilting towards the Macedonians. Until then, Macedonia is on the American breakfast menu as "toast".

Analysis: Macedonian Opposition in A QuandaryBy Ulrich Buechsenschuetzhttp://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/09/65b7556b-e7a8-43cd-b74a-1210d96a67a9.html

Serbians in Macedonia

The article below about the Macedonia - Serbian Orthodox Church split was written by By Branko Bjelajac, Balkans Correspondent, Forum 18 News Service.

MACEDONIA: Serbian Orthodox "will never get registration"
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=418

It seems to be accurate, although from a Serbian perspective. I don't know anything about this group and they don't seem to have a Macedonian correspondent.

Question: I understand that there is a small Macedonian community living in Belgrade. Has the Macedonian Church tried to open a parish to serve their needs? Would the Serbian Orthodox Church oppose this?

The Macedonian government should drop its opposition to the Serbian Churches in Macedonia. It only makes us look bad without any benefit in drawing attention to the plight of Macedonians in Greece or Bulgaria.