The Human Rights Situation of Macedonians in Greece and Australia

Life In Aegean Macedonia

Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade: Human Rights Sub-Committee

By Aegean Macedonian Association of Australia

July 1993

printable version

Published in: Parliament of The Commonwealth of Australia Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Human Rights Sub-Committee, (Reference: Australia's Efforts to Promote and Protect Human Rights), Submissions and Incorporated Documents, Volume 2, Canberra 19 August 1993

CONTENTS

Recommendations

Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade: Human Rights Sub-Committee

Section 1: Overview

Section 2: Examples of Human Rights Abuses Between 1913 and the Present

Section 3: The Situation in Australia

List of Enclosures

Appendix 1: Freedom of Expression: the Case of Hristos Sideropoulos and Tasos Boulis

Appendix 2: The Case of Archimandrite Nikodemos Tsarknias

Appendix 3: The Case of Michael Papadakis

Appendix 4: The Case of the Macedonian "child refugees"

Appendix 5: The Situation of the Macedonians in Greece

Appendix 6: The Situation in Australia

Appendix 7: Various Books and Reports

NOTE: The above mentioned supporting documents are with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Human Rights Sub-Committee in Canberra

Recommendations

As a democratic and multicultural country, Australia has an important role to play in the promotion of human rights around the world. The Association requests the Australian Government to use its good standing with the international community and the Greek Government in particular to raise the following matters with the Greek Government:

1. To allow the free choice of national identity in accordance with international principles.

2. To officially recognize the existence of a Macedonian minority in Greece and cease its perennial policy of non-recognition of the many ethnic minorities in Greece.

3. To improve the availability of human rights to Macedonians in Greece, in particular the right to use the Macedonian language; the right to have the Macedonian language taught at all levels of the school system; the right to freedom of religion including the establishment of Macedonian churches; and the right to have Macedonian language radio, television, newspapers, and other cultural media.

4. To allow Macedonians to use their proper Macedonian names and to cease the mandatory use of Greek versions.

5. To allow Macedonian representatives at all levels of public life, including elected office.

6. To end the persecution of Macedonian human rights campaigners in Greece, including the internationally known cases of Hristos Sideropoulos, Tasos Bulis, and Archimandrite Nikodemos Tsarknias. We request the Australian government to monitor the appeal of Hristos Sideropoulos and Tasos Bulis, the April 1994 trial of Archimandrite Nikodemos Tsarknias, other current cases, and new cases as they arise.

7. To cease State discrimination whereby Macedonians and Macedonian activists have been dismissed from employment.

8. To implement United Nations Resolution 193C (III) of November 27, 1948 which calls for the free repatriation of all child refugees from the Greek Civil War of 1946-49.

9. To repeal the Greek laws 106841 and 1540 which discriminate against Macedonians who fled from Greece during the Greek Civil War and are still unable to repatriate to Greece or to reclaim their property.

10. To return Greek citizenship and its attendant rights to all Macedonians whose Greek citizenship has been revoked.

11. To allow the 550 child refugees resident in Australia to return to Greece, to reclaim their Greek citizenship if desired, and to reclaim their ancestral property.

12. To legislate for the nationalistic elements in the Greek media to cease their persecution of the Macedonian minority and to require these media to give Macedonians a right of reply.

13. For Greece to comply with all international human rights agreements to which it is a signatory, particularly the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

14. For Greece to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political, the Optional Protocol on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.

The Association's remaining recommendations concern Australia. There are a number of areas in this country where Australian citizens of Macedonian background, including Macedonians from Greece, receive less than fair treatment that can be seen as a denial of human rights.

As these areas fall within the influence of the Australian government, the Association recommends that the Australian Government implement measures to:

15. Increase the amount of Macedonian language programing on SBS Television in proportion to the size of the Australian Macedonian population.

16. Investigate why SBS Television broadcasts an average of 156 hours of Greek language programing per year, year after year, while it broadcasts an average of only 2.75 hours of Macedonian language programing per year, year after year. The investigation should also examine why SBS Television employs a vastly disproportionate number of personnel of Greek background, including on screen identities, compared to other nationalities, including Macedonian.

17. Allow the Australian Bureau of Statistics to create a country code for Macedonia for use in the next Census.

18. Instruct the Australian Bureau of Statistics to collate credible statistics on the number of Macedonians in Australia, something it cannot do at present despite having had credible figures on other nationalities for many decades.

19. Instruct the Australian Bureau of Statistics to devise a methodology for the next Census that will allow Macedonians who have emigrated from Greece to be counted as Macedonians. At present the Birthplace and Birthplace of Parents questions in the Census force these Macedonians to place Greece as their country of origin or their parents birth and thus to be counted as Greek. This situation overstates the number of Greeks in Australia and understates the number of Macedonians, a situation that is politically and morally abhorrent to many of our members, as well as casting serious doubts on the credibility of the ABS data.

20. Investigate why Telecom politicized itself and denied the Republic of Macedonia the right to self identify by placing the country under the letter F in the White Pages rather than under the letter M.

21. Investigate why the Australian Customs politicized itself by requiring an Australian importer of Macedonian background to re-label goods imported from the Republic of Macedonia.

22. Request the Australian Labor Party to disassociate itself from a December 10, 1991 letter written by the Greek Central Committee of the Australian Labor Party and addressed to all Federal and State Labor parliamentarians. This letter explicitly denies the existence of a Macedonian minority in Greece.

23. Investigate the level of Greek influence in the formulation of Australian foreign policy. This should include the excessive influence on the policy on Cyprus and other matters as evidenced in the paper The Role Of The Greek Communities In The Formulation Of Australian Foreign Policy: With Particular Reference To Cyprus, which was authored by a Greek-Australian parliamentarian and presented at the Institute of International Relations Conference "The Greek Diaspora in Foreign Policy", held in Athens.

Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade: Human Rights Sub-Committee

from the Aegean Macedonian Association of Australia

July, 1993

The Aegean Macedonian Association of Australia welcomes the opportunity to put before the Human Rights Sub-Committee the long standing concerns of Australia's Aegean Macedonian community regarding the intense and continuous suppression of the human rights of ethnic Macedonians in Greece.

The Aegean Macedonian Association of Australia represents the interests of an estimated 90,000 Macedonians in Australia who originate from the part of Macedonia which is now incorporated into Greece. We emphasize, however, that our ethnic origin is Macedonian, not Greek: we speak Macedonian, identify as Macedonian, and have a separate, wholly Macedonian culture.

The Aegean Macedonian community is ethnically related to the Macedonian immigrants from the Republic of Macedonia, which was formerly part of Yugoslavia. In addition the estimated 90,000 Aegean Macedonians in Australia, there are another estimated 100,000 immigrants from the Republic of Macedonia.

Many of the members of the Aegean Macedonian Association of Australia are political refugees from Greece, others are economic refugees due to the Greek policy of not developing Macedonian areas, and the majority still have family members in Greece. Therefore the Association cannot overstate the strength of feeling from our members on the matter of human rights abuses in Greece.

Overview

At the end of the Second Balkan War in 1913 the original Macedonia was divided between Greece, which obtained 51 per cent of the territory, Serbia, which obtained 39 per cent, and Bulgaria which obtained 10 per cent.

At the time of the tri-partition, the population was predominately Macedonian, with well established Turkish, Bulgarian, Vlach, Thracian, Jewish and Greek minorities.

The Greek takeover of Aegean Macedonia was quickly followed by a ruthless campaign of ethnic cleansing of much of the non-Greek population.

The Bulgarian and Turkish minorities were largely ethnically cleansed between 1923 and 1926 with the official exchange of populations between Greece and Bulgaria and Greece and Turkey. Among those resettled were many Bulgarian Macedonians and muslim Macedonians.

However, close to a million Macedonians remained and in regard to these a policy of denationalization and hellenization was instigated. The process of political repression and denial of human rights included:

* The compulsory changing of Macedonian first and family names to Greek versions.

* The banning of the use of the Macedonian language.

* The banning of Macedonian schools.

* The banning of Macedonian churches.

* The banning of Macedonian newspapers, books, radio programs, dancing and other cultural expression.

* A massive population transfer of 632,000 Greeks from Turkey into Aegean Macedonia during the 1920s. This saw a major change in the ethnic composition of the region, and the Macedonians suddenly found themselves a significant national minority within what was previously their own country.

These facts, together with active encouragement from the Greek government, saw the commencement of large scale Macedonian emigration from Greece, with many of these people settling in Australia, Canada and the US.

This anti-Macedonian policy was particularly ruthless during the Metaxas dictatorship of the 1930s and included prison camps where Macedonians were killed in their thousands. Their only crime was to be Macedonian and/ or speak their native language.

Writing in 1938, Australian author Bert Birtles in his book, Exiles in the Aegean, said "If Greece has no Jewish problem, she has the Macedonians. In the name of "Hellenization" these people are being persecuted continually and arrested for the most fantastic reasons. Metaxas' way of inculcating the proper nationalist spirit among them has been to change all the native place-names into Greek and to forbid use of the native language. For displaying the slightest resistance to this edict - for this too is a danger to the security of the State - peasants and villagers have been exiled without trial." (see appendix 5)

A second period of intense repression followed the Greek Civil War of 1946-49 when the Macedonian minority sided with the Greek communists who had promised them national autonomy and human rights if they won the war. Their loss saw another wave of emigrants from Aegean Macedonia. Many of these also came to Australia.

Among the refugees were 28,00 Macedonian children between the ages of two and 14. These were mostly the children of the Macedonian freedom fighters whose parents were fearful for their safety after the war.

The children were evacuated to the Eastern bloc countries. Although the children of Greek fighters were officially pardoned in the 1980s and allowed back into Greece, this human right has not been extended to the Macedonian children. Today there are 550 such children, now adults, living in Australia. These are among the many thousands who are not allowed back into Greece and have never been reunited with their families. (Appendices 4 and 7)

The Greek government's policy of ruthless denationalization of the Macedonian minority has continued to the present day. The estimates of the number of Macedonians in Greece today are between 300,000 and one million. However most of these are too afraid to admit to their Macedonian ancestry.

Several specific cases of current human rights abuses have attracted the attention of Amnesty International. The following examples of repression between 1913 and the present, which are by no means exhaustive, put the current situation into perspective.

Examples of Human Rights Abuses Between 1913 and the Present

* In 1913 following its victory in the First and Second Balkan Wars, Greece officially annexed 51 per cent of Macedonia. This was against the desire of the population of Macedonia for an independent and autonomous country.

* In 1916 the author John Reed in his book, The War in Eastern Europe, wrote about the aftermath of the First Balkan War and how the Greeks and Serbians tried to legitimize their takeover of the territory while also trying to wipe out the Bulgarian influence.

He wrote "A thousand Greek and Serbian publicists began to fill the world with their shouting about the essentially Greek or Serbian character of the populations of their different spheres. The Serbs gave the unhappy Macedonians twenty four hours to renounce their nationality and proclaim themselves Serbs, and the Greeks did the same. Refusal meant murder or expulsion. Greek and Serbian colonists were poured into the occupied country...The Greek newspapers began to talk about a Macedonia peopled entirely with Greeks - and they explained the fact that no one spoke Greek by calling the people "Bulgarophone" Greeks...the Greek army entered villages where no one spoke their language. "What do you mean by speaking Bulgarian?" cried the officers. "This is Greece and you must speak Greek"."

* The Carnegie Report on the Balkan Wars indicated that 161 villages were burned down and more than 16,000 houses were destroyed in the Aegean part of Macedonia.

* On August 10th, 1920 at Serves, Paris, the countries of Britain, France, Italy and Japan concluded an agreement with Greece On the Protection of Non?Greek Nations. Greece pledged full protection of the Macedonian national minority, its language and culture and the opening of Macedonian schools.

In Section 2 Greece pledged to extend full care over the life and freedom of all citizens irrespective of their origin, nationality, language, faith.

Clause 7 reads: "All Greek citizens will avail themselves of the same civic and political rights irrespective of nationality, language and faith... and to legally guarantee the freedom of use by each citizen of any language in personal, trade and religious contacts, in print and publications or meetings..."

Clause 8 states: "Greek citizens belonging to national, religious or language minorities will be treated on a par with native Greeks."

Clause 9 reads: As regards education, the Greek government will create appropriate facilitations and will safeguard the possibility of learning one's own language in schools of towns and areas inhabited by citizens speaking a language different than Greek."

On September 4, 1925, the office of High Commissioner for National Minorities was established at Salonika, northern Greece, for the observance of international agreements concerning national minorities.

However, none of these assurances were put into practice. Instead the Greek government adopted a policy of denationalization and assimilation while simultaneously denying the existence of a Macedonian minority.

* In 1925 the ABECEDAR booklet was published in Athens. This was an elementary book for teaching the Macedonian language and was written in the Latin alphabet. It was designed for Macedonian children. However, it was never distributed to them. After the departure of the representatives of the League of Nations, the booklets were destroyed.

This booklet was republished in Perth in 1993 by the Macedonian Information Centre to prove the booklet's existence and the fact that Greece was once accountable to the world for its Macedonian minority.

* In the 1920s Macedonian schools were closed, not opened. Kindergartens were established in Macedonian localities so children could be inculcated in a Greek spirit and to limit the influence of parents. This was despite a November 11, 1930 press conference in Athens at which prime minister Eleaterios Venizelos said, "The problem of a Macedonian national minority will be solved and I will be the first one to commit myself to the opening of Macedonian schools if the nation so wishes."

* On March 30, 1927 the Greek newspaper Rizospastis wrote that 500,000 Macedonians were resettled to Bulgaria.

* On the basis of a Greek thesis: "the faith determines the nation", hundreds of thousands of Turks and Macedonians of Muslim faith were resettled to Asia Minor. They were replaced by 638,253 Greeks brought in from Asia Minor.

* November 1926: a legal Act was issued to change Macedonian geographic names into the Greek version. The news of the Act was published in the Greek government daily Efimeris tis Kiverniseos No. 322 of November 21, 1926. The same newspaper in its No. 346 published the new, official, Greek names. The names of the people were changed too. First names as well as family names were changed to Greek versions. These are still officially binding to this day.

* In 1929 a legal Act was issued On the Protection of Public Order, whereby each demand for nationality rights was regarded as high treason. This law is still in force.

* On December 18, 1936 the Metaxas dictatorship issued a legal Act On the Activity Against State Security. On the basis of this Act, thousands of Macedonians were arrested, imprisoned or expelled from Greece.

* On September 7, 1938 the legal Act 2366 was issued. This banned the use of the Macedonian language. All Macedonian localities were flooded with posters that read "Speak Greek". Evening schools were opened in which adult Macedonians were taught Greek. There was not a single Macedonian school at the time. It is estimated that nearly 5,000 Macedonians were imprisoned or sent to prison camps for having used the Macedonian language.

* During the Greek Civil War, the Headquarters of the Democratic Greek Army reported that from mid?1945 to May 20, 1947 in Western Macedonia alone 13,529 Macedonians were tortured, 3,215 were imprisoned and 268 were executed without trial. In addition, 1,891 houses were burnt down and 1,553 were looted. 13,808 Macedonians were resettled by force.

* During the war, Greek-run prison camps where Macedonians were imprisoned, tortured and murdered included: the island of Ikaria near Turkey, the island of Makronis near Athens, the jail Averov near Athens, the jail at Larica near the Volos Peninsula, and in the jail at Thessaloniki. Among other places, there were mass killings on Vicho, Gramos, Kaymakchalan, and at Mala Prespa in Albania.

* In 1947, during the Greek Civil War, the legal Act L?2 was issued. This meant that all who left Greece without the consent of the Greek government were stripped of Greek citizenship and banned from returning to the country. The law applied to Greeks and Macedonians, but in its modernized version the Act is binding only on Macedonians. It prevents Macedonians but not Greeks who fought against the winning side to return to Greece and reclaim property. Among those not allowed to return to Greece are the 28,000 child refugees who have not renounced their Macedonian ethnicity.

* On January 20, 1948 the legal Act M was issued. This allowed the Greek government to confiscate the property of those who were stripped of their citizenship. The law was updated in 1985 to exclude Greeks but it is still binding on Macedonians. * On November 27, 1948 the United Nations issued resolution 193C (III) which called for the repatriation of all child refugees back to Greece. However, discriminatory laws introduced by the Greek government have prevented the free return of many thousands of the Macedonian child refugees. This is still the case in 1993.

* On August 23, 1953 the legal Act 2536 was issued. This meant that all those who left Greece and who did not return within three years' time could be deprived of their property. This facilitated the confiscation of Macedonian property.

* Around the same time a decision was taken to resettle Macedonians. A wide ranging media campaign was launched to induce the Macedonians to leave their native areas voluntarily and to settle in the south of Greece and on the islands. The Greek intention was to separate Macedonians living in Greece from their relatives, living in the Republic of Macedonia in Yugoslavia, and to create a 60 kilometre?wide belt along the border with then Yugoslavia where "the faithful sons of the Greek nation" could be settled.

A firm reaction from Yugoslavia saw the cancellation of the plan.

* In 1959 the legal Act 3958 was issued. This allowed for the confiscation of the land of those (Macedonians) who left Greece and did not return within five years' time. The law was amended in 1985, but it is still binding on Macedonians.

* In 1960 the first secretary of the Greek Communist Party, H Florakis, was brought to court charged with high treason for supporting the Macedonian national minority.

In September 1988 at the press conference in Salonika, the same Florakis said that the Greek Communist Party had changed its views and that it now recognized neither the Macedonians nor the Macedonian national minority.

On August 30, 1989, the same H Florakis demanded from the Greek parliament the eradication from the currently legally binding Acts the term "Greek by origin" which made it impossible for the Macedonians to return to their homeland and to recover their property and damages. He branded this term as racist.

The Greek press charged him with treason in order to win the electorate, implying the existence of Macedonian electors.

* In 1961 Gramatnikowski Michal saw his mother on the Greek frontier from a distance of 100 metres. The Greek border guards would not permit them to come closer.

Filip Wasilew Dimitris from Pozdivista (official Greek name: Halara) of Moscow made repeated attempts to obtain a Greek visa in the Greek embassy in Moscow. The last application, in August 1989, was to no avail.

Georgios Nicolaos Cocos, a Macedonian political refugee who fought against German armoured divisions in the defence of Greece, was living in Tashkent (former Soviet Union) and wished to return to Greece. Despite his repeated attempts the Greek authorities did not give him a visa. Not even direct request from the death bed and addressed to the prime minister Andreas Papandreou helped. He died without seeing his family, his home and his homeland.

Cinika Sandra twice tried to go to her home village in Greece on an excursion for old aged and disabled pensioners. Each time the Greek embassy in Warsaw would give visas only to Greeks by origin. Cinika as well as other Macedonians, including mixed Greek?Macedonian couples, were refused visas.

* In 1962 the legal Act 4234 was issued. Persons who were stripped of their Greek citizenship were banned from returning to Greece. A ban on crossing the Greek border also extended to spouses and children. This law is still in force for Macedonians, including those who left Greece as children.

* Macedonians abroad believed that Greek diplomatic posts have a ban on issuing visas to Macedonians and have compiled lists of Macedonian refugees from Greece to enforce this.

* In 1969 a legal Act was issued to allow the settlement by ethnic Greeks of Macedonian farms left behind.

* The Greek government has continued its ethnic restocking program with the relocation in Aegean Macedonia of over one hundred thousand immigrants of Greek origin from the ex?Soviet Union. These are termed Pontiac Greeks.

* In 1978 the consul of the Greek embassy in Warsaw, Poland trampled underfoot a travel document issued by Polish authorities and which had the Polish national emblem. The reason: the name of the applicant was written in its Macedonian/ Polish version? Aleksowski Mito and not in Greek, Aleksiu Dimitris.

* In 1980 the Macedonian Michal Gramatnikowski sent a letter to the Greek prime minister asking him to grant a visa so that he could visit his ill mother. He received neither a reply nor a visa.

* In early 1982 a confidential report by the security branch of the Greek police in Salonika came to light. Dated March 8, 1982, the report contained highly controversial and inhuman recommendations about strategies to deal with the "Macedonian problem".

* On December 29, 1982 the legal Act 106841 was issued by the government of Andreas Papandreou. This allowed Greeks by origin who had fled during the Civil War to return to Greece and reclaim their Greek citizenship. Macedonians born in Greece and their families were excluded and remain in exile. Heads of various State administration departments received the right to use property left in Greece by Macedonian refugees.

Greek authorities frequently reject the requests by Macedonians for the recovery of their Greek citizenship. This is despite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which says that "Everyone has the right to leave every country, including one's own and to return to his own country," that "Each man has the right to have a citizenship," and that "No one can be freely dispossessed of his citizenship."

* In 1983 the Greek government decided that it would no longer recognize university degrees from the Republic of Macedonia. Its stated reason was that "the Macedonian language is not internationally recognized." This is incorrect and hides the real motive.

* On October 17, 1983 Lazo Jovanovski wrote a letter to the Minister of Internal Affairs asking for the restoration of his citizenship. He has never received a reply.

The same happened to Spiro Steriovski and Kosta Wlakantchovski, also both in 1983.

* In 1983 Toli Radovski, who was living in Gdynia, Poland, wrote a letter to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Athens asking for the restoration of his citizenship. He did not receive a reply. The lack of reply forced him to ask the Centre for Human Rights in Geneva for help. Thanks to the intervention of the Centre, after four years a reply from Athens arrived. Quoting the relevant legal Acts, the Ministry of Internal Affairs rejected his demand for the recovery of citizenship.

In 1984 Toli Radovski wrote a letter to the Ministry of Internal Affairs asking for a visa. He did not receive the visa nor a reply.

* In 1984 the Movement for Human and National Rights for the Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia, operating in Greece illegally, issued a Manifest for Macedonian Human Rights. This states "In Greece human rights are openly disregarded and our human existence is cursed. We, in the Aegean Macedonia, are determined to carry our struggle on various levels, employing all legal means until our rights are guaranteed."

* On April 10, 1985 legal Act 1540/ 85 was issued. This amended the previously issued Acts regulating property relations so as to make it impossible for Macedonians to return. This discriminatory Act limits the definition of political refugees to ethnic Greeks and permits the recovery of illegally seized property to "Greeks by origin" only. Once again, the Macedonian refugees from Greece are denied the same rights.

* In 1986 former Minister for Northern Greece, N Martis, addressed a letter to the Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, entitled Falsification of the History of Macedonia, in which he denied the existence of a Macedonian nation.

* Several times during the 1980s Greek officials have admonished overseas officials for recognizing a Macedonian nationality. Minister for Macedonia and Trakia (previously for Northern Greece) Stelios Papatamelis sent a letter to Pope John Paul II admonishing him for having uttered his Christmas and New Year greetings in the "non?existent Macedonian language." Greek authorities protested to the US ambassador in then Yugoslavia for having uttered a few sentences in the "non?existent Macedonian language" while visiting the Republic of Macedonia.

* In June, 1986 at its 49th Congress, the international writers' organization, PEN, condemned the denial of the Macedonian language by Greece and sent letters to the Greek PEN Centre and the Greek Minister for Culture. The Greek response was a denial of the existence of a Macedonian minority.

* In 1987 the Encyclopedia Britannica put the number of Macedonians in Greece at 180,000. This is considerably more than the Greek government will admit to, which is around 80,000, but considerably less than what the Macedonians themselves believe, which varies between 300,000 and one million.

* In 1987 Macedonian parents in Aegean Macedonia were forced to send their 2 and 3 year old children to "integrated kindergartens" to prevent them from learning the Macedonian language and culture. The ruling was not implemented elsewhere in Greece.

* The far right Greek newspaper Stohos has written: "Everyone who will openly manifest his views concerning the Macedonian minority will curse the hour of his birth."

* In February 1988, the Athenian newspaper Ergatiki Alilengii criticized the discriminatory policy of Greek authorities towards Macedonians. It also criticized the anti?Macedonian hysteria in certain mass media.

* In June 1988, Gona and Tome Miovski of Perth were on their way to Yugoslavia and wished to visit Greece. They were arrested at Athens airport, beaten up and locked in separate underground rooms. They were beaten up again the next day. They were released 24 hours later, after the intervention of the representative of Yugoslav Airlines and were expelled from Greece.

* On July 5 and 6, 1988 two groups of Macedonian refugees who had come from Australia and Canada wanted to visit their homeland in Greece. Both coaches were stopped on the Greek frontier. Surrounded by armed policemen the coaches stood in the open air at 42 degrees Centigrade: one for two hours and the other for four hours. Opening of the windows was prohibited. The passengers had a seal stamped in their passports which forbade them to cross the Greek frontier. The vehicles and their passengers had to return. There are photographs and videofilm of this incident.

* During late June and early July 1988 a large demonstration of Macedonians who had left Greece as children in 1948 took place in Skopje, capital of the Republic of Macedonia. The demonstration was attended by several thousand Macedonians from all over the world. A petition to the United Nations and many national governments was addressed.

* On August 10, 1988, on the 75th anniversary of the division and partition of Macedonia, a large demonstration by Macedonians was held outside the UN building in New York.

* On September 4, 1988 Mito Aleksovski addressed an open letter to the Greek embassy in Warsaw asking for a visa. He received no reply.

* In the northern autumn of 1988, the Alagi newspaper in Lerin (Greek name Florina) wrote that the Macedonians do exist and that they should have the full rights of a national minority. The newspaper pledged to fight for those rights until victory.

* In November 1988 the same newspaper published the statement by one of the leaders of the Greek Communist Party, Mr Kostopulos, who said that it was a fact that the Macedonian minority existed in Greece.

* In its issue No 1/89 the Athens monthly Sholiastis published an article by Mrs Elewteria Panagiopoulou entitled Nationalists and the Inhabitants of Skopje ? the Gypsies, in which she demands a halt to the discriminatory policy of authorities and abolition of the inhuman legal acts aimed against the Macedonians. In another article the same author calls Macedonians "the Palestinians of Europe".

* In the northern spring of 1989, 90 Greek intellectuals addressed a note of protest to the Greek government in connection with the common violation of human rights in Greece.

* In 1989 during the Bicentenary of Australia, Greece organized an exhibition in Sydney entitled Ancient Macedonia: the Wealth of Greece. The Greek President Sardzetakis toured various Australian cities and disseminated anti?Macedonian propaganda. After a sharp reaction from Macedonians in Australia, the Greek government protested to the Australian government for letting the Macedonian protests occur.

* On May 11, 1989 a Macedonian folk ensemble was expelled from Greece without reason. The ensemble had come to the locality of Komotini for a "Festival of Friendship" at the invitation of its organizers. A similar occurrence took place in 1988.

* On May 20, 1989 Minister for Macedonia and Trakia (Northern Greece) Stelios Papatemelis appealed to the Greeks to wage a sacred war against Macedonians.

* On May 28, 1989 the Association of Macedonians in Poland sent to the Greek embassy an invitation for its first congress. There was no representative from the embassy and there was no answer to the invitation. On June 10, 1989 the participants of the First Congress of the Association of Macedonians in Poland addressed a petition to the Greek government concerning the situation of Macedonians. There was no reply. On June 26, 1989 the Association of Macedonians in Poland sent a letter to the Greek embassy in Warsaw concerning visas for Macedonians. The embassy informed the Polish Post Office about the receipt of the letter. Despite this there was no reply.

* In May 1989 an international delegation of Macedonians from Australia, Canada and Greece presented the problem of the Macedonian national minority in Greece to the Centre for Human Rights in Geneva. They also met with representatives of the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

* On June 22, 1989 the Helsinki Committee in Poland addressed an appeal to the state cosignatories to the CSCE Final Act concerning the situation of Macedonians in Greece.

* In summer 1989 the New York Times printed an article entitled Macedonians are not Greeks.

* Between June 26 and 30, 1989 at Columbia University in New York, Greeks held a symposium entitled History, Culture and the Art of Macedonia. The purpose of the symposium was to convince American society that Macedonia is Greek. The symposium occasioned strong protests from Macedonians in the United States and Canada.

* In the summer of 1989 the Atika, the Munich?Athens?Munich express train serviced by Greeks would not take ? despite available places ? passengers from Skopje, capital of the Republic of Macedonia.

* In June 1989, the prime minister A Papandreou said at a pre?election meeting in the Macedonian locality of Lerin (Florina in Greek) that if he won the election he would build a factory in which only the locals (that is how he described the Macedonians) would be employed.

He also said that he would abolish law 1540. This law was issued during his own rule and of his own initiative in 1985 and deprived the Macedonian refugees of the right to the property they had left behind in Greece.

* In July 1989 the Athens Information Agency issued a leaflet in English entitled The So Called Macedonian Problem. This leaflet denies the existence of a Macedonian minority in Greece.

* At a rally in Salonika on July 29, 1989 President Sardzetakis said "Macedonia was, is and will always be Greek."

* After parliamentary elections in 1989 thousands of leaflets were found in the ballot boxes in the area of Macedonia in Northern Greece which contained protests against the disregard for human rights in Greece.

* On August 30, 1989 a legal Act rehabilitating the participants in the Greek Civil War of 1946?49 was issued. The Act granted damages and disability pensions to fighters in the civil war who now have Greek citizenship. By this measure the Macedonian fighters living in exile ? who earlier had been stripped of their citizenship ? were rendered ineligible.

* In September 1989 the Athenian newspaper Avriani wrote that the demands of some members of parliament for the abolition in Greek law of the term "Greek by origin" creates a serious threat to the national unity and territorial sovereignty of Greece.

The newspaper also wrote that the "second group" of refugees i.e. Macedonian refugees as opposed to refugees of Greek origin, could return to Greece under the condition that they unambiguously declare their Greek origin, i.e deny their Macedonian ethnicity.

* In September 1989 the Ta Maglena newspaper asked "Why are the Macedonians discriminated against?" The newspaper also asked "Why does Greece not observe international legal acts?" At the same time it warned Macedonians against the agents of the Greek Security Service whose number in Macedonian localities is unimaginable.

* In November 1989 the Sholiastis monthly published an interview with several members of the illegal Movement for Human and National Rights for Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia.

* In December 1989, during a period when there was public discussion about the Macedonian problem, the Greek press warned "The enemy is at the door."

* On January 29, 1990 The Times newspaper published an ethnographic map of Europe which shows that Macedonians are living in Greece, Bulgaria, Albania and the Republic of Macedonia.

* In February 1990 The Guardian newspaper wrote "the Macedonian problem is knocking on the door of Europe. It must be solved before the Balkans join the united Europe."

* In 1990 a feature film entitled Macedonia was made in Sweden. It is a six part TV series and presents the homeless and wandering lot of the Macedonian nation.

* On February 21, 1990 Constantinos Mitsotakis, then leader of the New Democracy party, said at a press conference in the town of Janina that he is increasingly convinced that the Greek policy in relation to national minorities should be more aggressive. He said "We have nothing to fear. We are clean because Greece is the only Balkan country without the problem of national minorities." He added "The Macedonian minority does not exist, neither is it recognized by international agreements."

* On March 7, 1990 Nocolau Martis, former Minister for Northern Greece, declared that the Macedonian nation is an invention of the Communist party of Yugoslavia.

* On March 25, 1990 in a television address, President Sardzetakis said "Only native Greeks live in Greece."

* The Greek government warned the former Yugoslavia that should it not stop discussing the problem of the "so called Macedonian national minority" Greece will not render it support in cooperating with and eventually joining the EEC.

* In 1990 the High Court of Florina under decision 19/33/3/1990 refused to register a Centre for Macedonian Culture. An appeal on August 9 the same year against the decision was also refused. In May 1991 a second appeal was refused by the High Court of Appeals in Thessaloniki. In June 1991 the Supreme Administrative Council of Greece in Athens dismissed a further appeal.

* In June 1990 at the Copenhagen Conference on Human Rights (CHD), the Greek delegation requested that the executive secretary of the conference remove the Macedonian Human Rights delegation's literature from the non-government organization's desk. The request was refused.

* Later, two Macedonian human rights campaigners from Aegean Macedonia who participated in the CHD experienced official State harassment upon their return to Greece.

One, Hristo Sideropoulos, was transferred through his work to Kefalonia, several hundred kilometres from his homeplace. The other participant, Stavros Anastasiadis, was given discriminatory tax penalties and dismissed from his job.

* On July 20, 1990 at the village of Meliti near Lerin (Florina) a Macedonian folk festival was broken up by force by Greek authorities and police.

* In its June, 1991 edition the Atlantic Monthly magazine ran an extensive story detailing many of the atrocities committed in Macedonian during the Balkan Wars and following the partition of Macedonia.

The author, Robert Kaplan, also said "Greece, for its part, according to a Greek consular official whom I visited in Skopje, does not permit anyone with a "Slavic" name who was born in northern Greece and now lives in Yugoslav Macedonia to visit Greece, even if he or she has relatives there. This means that many families have been separated for decades."

* On December 10, 1991 the Greek Central Committee of the Australian Labor Party in Victoria sent a letter addressed to all Victorian Labor Federal parliamentarians and all State Labor parliamentarians. The letter explicitly denies the existence of a Macedonian minority in Greece. Point 4 refers to "Misinformation claiming that an ethnic "minority" of Macedonians in Greece is being denied its cultural rights. Greece has no ethnic minority other than a Moslem religious minority." (Appendix 6)

* In January, 1992, six members of the OAKKE anti-nationalist group were condemned to 6 and a half months imprisonment for putting up posters for the recognition of Macedonia.

* In February, 1992 the Guardian newspaper published an article about the town of Florina in Greece and the struggle of its Macedonian inhabitants to maintain their identity in the face of Greek repression.

* On March 12, 1992 the Canberra Times ran an article, What's in a Name? For Greeks a Great Deal, by Peter Hill, the author of the section Macedonians in the official Australian Bicentenary encyclopedia the Australian People. The article affirmed the existence of a large Macedonian minority in Greece and the existence of official discrimination and the denial of human rights.

Mr Hill said "The claim by the Greek Republic that their part of Macedonia has "one of the most homogenous populations in the world (98.5 per cent Greek)" is quite absurd. In fact, some parts of it, such as the county of Florina (Lerin), do not have any indigenous Greek inhabitants at all."

* In March, 1992 the organizers of the Moomba Festival in Melbourne asked the Macedonian community participants not to use the name Macedonia on its float after representations were made to the Moomba organizers by the Greek lobby in Australia and by the Victorian Minister for Ethnic Affairs. The Macedonians refused. The ministry later said that threats to the Macedonians' safety had been received.

* On April 2, 1992 the Ambassador of Greece to Australia, VS Zafiropoulos, wrote a letter to the Canberra Times newspaper in which he said "Macedonia, Greece's most northerly province, does not contain "a significant minority who are ethnically related to the Slavs across the border"."

"In fact, Greece has the most homogenous country in Europe and if a small number of Greeks on the border speak, beside Greek, a Slavic idiom, this bilingualism does not constitute a minority."

* In May, 1992 Australian journalist Richard Farmer visited Aegean Macedonia and published an article in the Sunday Telegraph, Sydney entitled Freedom Fragile in Macedonia. The article described numerous examples of human rights abuses witnessed by Farmer, including the jamming by Greek authorities of Easter services broadcast in the Macedonian language from the Republic of Macedonia and listened to by Macedonians in Greece.

The Greek lobby in Australia subsequently took Farmer to the Press Council but were unable to deny him his right to publish.

* In July, 1992 the Archimandrite Nikodemos Tsarknias, a priest with the Greek Orthodox Church and a well known Macedonian human rights campaigner, and a parishioner, Photios Tzelepis, were issued with a Writ of Summons to appear in the Magistrate's Court of Thessaloniki. The priest was charged with insulting his Archbishop. He is also accused of being a homosexual and a Skopjan (Republic of Macedonia) spy.

However, a KYP (Greek Secret Service) report published in a Greek newspaper revealed that the minor charge in the Summons was a pretext to harass the priest for his human rights activism. The report says the authorities "did not find the courage to say that they kicked him out of the church for his antihellenic stance and to ask for his committal to trial for high treason but instead they removed him with the lukewarm "justification" which we reveal today so that it will stain with shame all those who contributed to it."

The priest's trial is set for April 1994.

* In July 1992 the Macedonian Human Rights Association of Newcastle (Australia) published the book The Real Macedonians by Dr John Shea, an Irish academic at Newcastle University. The book gives a great number of reference sources about the ethnicity of the Macedonian people, the partition of Macedonia, the ethnic cleansing and repopulation of Aegean Macedonia, and the Greek Civil War. Chapter 13 is titled Denial Of Human Rights For Macedonian Minorities.

* On August 15, 1992 The Spectator magazine published an article, The New Bully of the Balkans, by Noel Malcolm. The article discusses the plight of the main ethnic minorities in Greece including the Macedonians, the Vlachs, and the Turks.

On the Macedonians, Mr Malcolm asks "How many of these Slavs still live in Greece is not known. The 1940 census registered 85,000 'Slav-speakers'. The 1951 census (the last to record any figures for speakers of other languages) put it at 41,000; many who had fought on the losing side in the civil war had fled, but other evidence shows that all the censuses heavily underestimate the Slav's numbers. The lack of a question on the census-form is not, however, the only reason for their obscurity."

Mr Malcolm says "One group of these Slavs has started a small monthly newsletter, with an estimated readership of 10,000. But they have great difficulty finding a printer (even though it is in Greek), and they say that if copies are sent through the post they tend to 'disappear'. "Even if we find a sympathetic printer," one told me, "he's usually too scared to take the work: he's afraid of losing his other contracts, or perhaps of getting bricks through his window"."

* In 1992 a spokesman for the Pan Macedonian Association of Victoria, a Greek organization, was interviewed on SBS television. The spokesman said that there are no Macedonians in Florina. This was a direct lie as Florina (formerly Lerin in Macedonian) is well known to have an almost exclusively Macedonian population. In fact a large number of Macedonian immigrants now living in Melbourne and Perth are from Florina. This organization has on other occasions made similar claims on SBS television.

* In November, 1992 Amnesty International published a report entitled Greece: Violations of the Right to Freedom of Expression. This gave details on a number of human rights abuses by Greece including the repression of the Macedonian human rights campaigners, Hristos Sideropoulos and Tasos Boulis.

* In November, 1992 Pollitecon Publications of Sydney published the book What Europe Has Forgotten: The Struggle Of The Aegean Macedonians. The book was written by the Association of Macedonians in Poland and was one of the first English language books to detail human rights abuses against Macedonians in Greece.

* On December 5, 1992 The Sydney Morning Herald published an article titled The Balkan Dance of Death by Bob Beale. Mr Beale says "Greece's record of dealing with its Greek Macedonian minority is poor. A specialist in Balkan ethnic minorities, Hugh Poulton, has noted that in the wake of the bitter civil war - during and after World War 11 - Greece actively sought to remove Slav Macedonians from its north as "undesirable aliens"."

"At various times since, it has forbidden Greek Macedonians from using the Slavonic forms of their names, removed them from official posts in Greek Macedonia and suppressed their language - measures that led many to emigrate to places like Australia."

* In January, 1993 Amnesty International published another report - Greece: Violations of the Right to Freedom of Expression: Further Cases of Concern. This report detailed the case of Michail Papadakis, a 17 year old school boy who had been arrested on December 10, 1992 for handing out a leaflet that said "Don't be consumed by nationalism. Alexander the Great: war criminal. Macedonia belongs to its people. There are no races; we are all of mixed descent."

* In January, 1993 the Macedonian Movement for Prosperity in the Balkans held its first congress, in Sobotsko, Greece. The MMPB issued a statement highlighting Greece's discriminatory policy towards its Macedonian minority and in particular the denial of basic human rights.

The MMPB said ethnic Macedonians in Greece and Macedonians in the diaspora should cooperate closely to further ethnic, religious, linguistic and social freedoms for all minorities in Greece. The organization urged the Greek government to allow Macedonian political and economic refugees to return to Greece if they desired.

* In February 1993 a meeting was held between the Macedonian Forum for Human Rights and the Greek Balkan Citizens' Movement to open up dialog to help solve existing problems between the two countries.

* In February, 1993, president of the Republic of Macedonia, Kiro Gligorov, speaking at the United Nations on the possible admission of Macedonia to the body, criticized Greece for its treatment of its Macedonian minority.

Mr Gligorov said "It is surprising that the Republic of Greece disputes article 49 of our Constitution which refers to the care of the Republic of Macedonia for our minority in the neighbouring countries. It should be pointed out that there is a similar provision in the Greek constitution. It is a well known fact that the Republic of Greece does not admit the existence of a Macedonian minority there. From this derive the following logical questions."

"A. If such a minority does not exist in the Republic of Greece, then this article does not refer to this country and their reactions are surprising."

"B. If such a minority does exist, which is indisputable, why does Greece not fulfil at least the basic rights of this minority provided in the UN Charter, the Helsinki Document, the Charter of Paris, etc of which it is a signatory party."

"C. "Most important of all, is this the reason that the Republic of Greece opposes the recognition of the Republic of Macedonia under its constitutional name?"

* In March 1993, the Archimandite Nikodemos Tsarknias was defrocked and expelled from the Greek Orthodox Church for his human rights activism.

* On March 26, 1993, five members of the OSE organization were put on trial for publishing and distributing a pamphlet entitled Crisis in the Balkans: the Macedonian Question and the Working Class. They were charged with exposing the friendly relations of Greece with foreign countries to risk of disturbance; spreading false information and rumours that might cause anxiety and fear to citizens; and inciting citizens to rivalry and division leading to disturbance of the peace.

* On April 1, 1993 Macedonian human rights campaigners Hristos Sideropoulos and Tasos Boulis were put on trial after their comments about the existence of the Macedonian minority were published in ENA magazine in March 1992. They were charged with spreading false information and rumours that might cause anxiety and fear to the citizens. They were sentenced to five months imprisonment.

The World Macedonian Congress said that the defence counsel was not allowed to present its views. An appeal was launched to the higher court in Athens.

* In April, 1993 the Macedonian Information Centre in Perth republished the booklet the ABECEDAR, originally published by the Greek government in 1925 as a teaching aid for Macedonian children, but which was never distributed.

* In April, 1993 the Belgian press was quoted as saying that Greece was quickly losing its democratic reputation. The press was quoted as saying that "Greece, undermining the European principles of respecting basic human rights, is placing itself at the margins of Europe."

* In May, 1993 the Macedonian Movement for Balkan Prosperity, based in Arideja, Greece, said that it wanted to participate in the Macedonian-Greek dialog underway under the auspices of the United Nations to settle the issue of the name of the Republic of Macedonia. The Movement said the participation of the Macedonians in Greece was imperative and that it was time to determine the status of the Macedonians in Greece as well as those forced to leave during the Greek Civil War.

The Situation in Australia

There are a number of aspects about the position of Aegean Macedonians in Australia and of the activities of the Greek lobby in Australia that are cause for concern.

These concerns are fourfold in regard to:

* The Australian Bureau of Statistics Census.

* The influence of the Greek lobby on the Federal Government and parliamentarians.

* The Greek influence in multicultural organizations such as SBS.

* General harassment of the Macedonian community in Australia by the Greek community.

The Census

The Association is concerned that the treatment of Aegean Macedonians in the Census grossly underestimates the number of total Macedonians in Australia, with profound political and social consequences.

Country code

The under-estimation is partly caused by the lack of an Australian Bureau of Statistics' country code for Macedonia.

This means that the true number of Macedonians in Australia is not known, as Macedonians from the Republic of Macedonia have previously been counted as Yugoslavians and Macedonians from Greece have been counted as Greeks. To this day, the ABS cannot say with any accuracy how many Macedonians there are in Australia. Nor can it say how many Aegean Macedonians there are.

In addition, the lack of a country code denies Aegean Macedonians and Macedonians from the Republic of Macedonia of the human right to be classified under the nationality with which they self identify.

Birthplace questions

A second reason for the under-estimation lies with the questions on Birthplace and Birthplace of Parents. One's country of birth does not necessarily indicate one's ethnic origin and identity, and this is the case with the Aegean Macedonians.

Many of the Association's members were born in Macedonia but in a region that has since become a part of Greece. Nonetheless, their ethnic identity is Macedonian, not Greek, and they deeply resent the fact that if they answer the Birthplace question they will be classified as Greek.

Likewise, first and second generation Australians of Aegean Macedonian background resent the fact that if they answer the Birthplace of Parents question they will be identified as Greek rather than Macedonian origin.

The lack of a country code for Macedonia and the lack of a method for distinguishing Aegean Macedonians from Greeks in previous Censuses has had, and continues to have, devastating political consequences for Aegean Macedonians in Australia. The effect is to increase the apparent number of Greeks in Australia and reduce the apparent number of Macedonians in Australia. This has allowed the Greek lobby in Australia to use past Census figures indicating a large Greek population and a smaller Macedonian population to exert political influence over Australia's federal parliamentarians.

This influence has often been to the detriment of the Macedonian and Aegean Macedonian communities in this country.

Although the Macedonian community is one of the largest in Australia, the lack of credible ABS data means it is unable to prove its size, with a consequent loss of political and social influence.

The consequences have included:

* The dissemination of inaccurate Greek and Macedonian population figures for Australia.

* The fact that the Australian Bureau of Statistics has yet to classify the Republic of Macedonia as a separate country with its own country code.

* The delay of recognition of the Republic of Macedonia by the Australian government. The Greek government's foreign policy on this issue has been vigorously adopted by the Greek community in Australia, and has lead to the Australian government adopting a policy on the issue consistent with Greek government policy.

* The over provision of Greek language and other ethnic services and the under provision of Macedonian language and other services.

* Under-representation of Macedonians in the area of broadcasting time on SBS television. An examination of SBS annual reports over the past five years shows that the station broadcasts around 160 hours per year of Greek language programs compared with 2 and three quarter hours per year of Macedonian language programs. Such a discrepancy would be unbelievable, were it not happening year after year.

The Aegean Macedonian community of Australia would like to see an investigation of SBS. The enquiry should focus on the SBS staff and their ethnic backgrounds to determine if any groups are disproportionately represented. This is necessary if the human rights of groups oppressed outside of Australia are to be protected inside Australia.

* There are many other examples that illustrate the suppression of Macedonian identity in Australia.

In 1992, for example, the participants in the Macedonian float in the Moomba festival were asked by the promoters, after Greek lobbying, not the use the name Macedonia on their float. The organizers later admitted that members of the Greek community had threatened the Macedonians with violence. Most Macedonians living in Melbourne are from Aegean Macedonia.

Another example is the existence of the Pan Macedonian Association of Victoria, a Greek organization that claims there is no Macedonian minority in Greece. This organization has on occasion made this claim on SBS television.

* The requirement that imported foodstuffs from the Republic of Macedonia have stickers placed on each item to cover the "Product of Macedonia" labels.

* Inclusion by Telecom of the Republic of Macedonia under the heading of Yugoslavia although Macedonia has been independent since 1991 and every other country of former Yugoslavia is listed under its own heading.

* There are many other examples.

The Association believes that Aegean Macedonians in Australia should have the human right to identify themselves by their own self perceived nationality, and not by the constrictions of a Census form.

The Association has proposed to the Australian Bureau of Statistics that the 1996 Census should contain a method for allowing Aegean Macedonians to identify as Macedonian in origin and thus be distinguished from Greeks.

Our suggestion is that the Place of Birth question be followed with a supplementary question along the lines of "If your ethnic origin is different from your country of birth, please state your ethnic origin." This approach has several advantages over a general ancestry question as only a proportion of people will need to answer it, streamlining processing time and costs as well as improving accuracy.

Aegean Macedonians can then distinguish themselves from Greeks, Kurds can distinguish themselves from Turks, Basques can distinguish themselves from Spaniards and the French, Palestinians can distinguish themselves from Israelis, East Timorese can distinguish themselves from Indonesians, Tibetans can distinguish themselves from Chinese and so on. Surely this is fairer as well as more accurate.

This right is particularly important for all of these groups. It is an intolerable degradation for a conquered people to be unwillingly counted among their oppressors and thereby add to their oppressor's political power.

Yet it is an unrecognized fact of Australian life that the first wave of Macedonian immigrants from Greece during the 1920s were political refugees and economic refugees fleeing a deliberately undeveloped economy.

A second period of intense repression during and after the Greek Civil War of 1946-49 saw another wave of immigrants to Australia from Aegean Macedonia.

It is a humiliating degradation for these people to be forced to put Greece as their country of birth in the knowledge that they will be counted as Greeks and will add to the power of a Greek lobby that has worked so assiduously against the interests of the Aegean Macedonians.

It is within the power of the Australian Government to rectify this appalling situation.

The Association requests the Australian government to implement all of the above mentioned recommendations.

End

The Aegean Macedonian Association of Australia is pleased to participate in this important Australian human rights initiative, and trusts that this submission will clarify the position of Aegean Macedonians in Greece and Australia.

Yours faithfully

The Committee

Aegean Macedonian Association of Australia

Enclosures:

Appendix 1: Freedom of Expression: the Case of Hristos Sideropoulos and Tasos Boulis:

* Hansard extract: speech in the Australian Senate by Senator Sid Spindler.

* The Economist: Greece and Macedonia: Do Not Disagree, an article, August 14, 1993.

* Helsinki Watch report: Greece: Free Speech on Trial: Government Stifles Debate on Macedonia, July 1993.

* Amnesty International: Section on Greece in Amnesty International Annual Report 1993.

* Amnesty International: Worldwatch article: Greece: Government Critics Face Prison, June 1993.

* Amnesty International: Greece: Violations of the right to freedom of expression. London, November 1992.

* Translation of the Summons for the Arrest of Hristos Sideropoulos and Tasos Boulis.

* Four newspaper articles.

* Section on Greece from Amnesty International 1993 Annual Report.

Appendix 2: The Case of Archimandrite Nikodemos Tsarknias:

* Statement by the Archimandrite at the October 1993 CSCE Implementation Meeting on Human Dimension Issues.

* Press release for function organized in Sydney in February 1993.

* Statement by Archimandrite Nikodemos Tsarknias on his sacking and derobing by the Greek Orthodox Church.

* Translation of Writ of Summons for Archimandrite Nikodemos and Photios Tzelepis.

* Translation of a Greek newspaper article containing a "Top Secret" Information Bulletin from the Greek Secret Service.

* Four newspaper articles.

Appendix 3: The Case of Michael Papadakis:

* Amnesty International: Greece: Violations of the right to freedom of expression: further cases of concern. London, January 1993.

Appendix 4: The Case of the Macedonian "child refugees":

* Article.

* Common Decision of the Ministers of Internal Affairs and Public Security

* Application form to enter Greece from Macedonia

* Memorandum to Greek prime minister

* Letter from Greek Department of Citizenship refusing application for return of citizenship

* Information in connection with the demands for property and other rights realization of the Yugoslav citizens in the Republic of Greece.

* Declaration by Australian citizens and residents who were child refugees

Appendix 5: The Situation of the Macedonians in Greece

* Manifest For Macedonian Human Rights, by the Movement for Human and national Rights for the Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia. Salonica, 1984.

* Open letter to elected representatives from Region Pelas

* Title page of confidential report from European Community regarding Greek application for funding to resettle Greeks in Aegean Macedonia.

* Is the CSCE Really Serious About Human Rights In Europe?, by Macedonian Human Rights Movement, Europe, Canada, Australia and USA.

* "The Conspiracy Against Macedonia", a report by the Office of Security, Greek Ministry of Public Order, 1982.

* The Real Macedonians, Chapter 13, Denial of Human Rights: Macedonian Minorities, by Dr John Shea. Newcastle, Australia, 1992.

* Photograph from The Terror In Aegean Macedonia Under Greek Occupation, by the Macedonian Cultural and Educational Society of Australia, Perth, 1980.

* Map of Greece showing settlement of Greeks from Turkey in Aegean Macedonia during the 1920s.

* Two translations from the Greek newspaper Stohos

* Extract from Exiles in the Aegean by Australian author Bert Birtles, published 1938.

* Full Text of (president of Macedonia) Gligorov's Letter to United Nations (see section 8).

* Letter from European Bureau of Lesser Used Languages and article titled Multilingualism in Greece from Contact Bulletin

* Newspaper article: An Act of Discrimination

* Various newspaper and magazine articles:

Freedom fragile in Macedonia.

Extract from The Balkan Dance of Death, Sydney Morning Herald, December 5, 1992.

OSE five on trial in Greece.

Slav search for identity stirs historic passions.

Letters to The Economist and The Independent. First congress of ethnic Macedonians in Greece.

Aegean Macedonians want to take part in negotiations.

Second meeting between Macedonian and Greek intellectuals.

Greece: Balkanised. The Economist, April 18, 1993.

The New Bully of the Balkans, The Spectator, August 15, 1992.

Letter, Stamp on Greece, in response to The New Bully of the Balkans.

History's cauldron, The Atlantic Monthly, June 1991.

Exodus from Bosnia: a repeat of the exodus from Aegean Macedonia.

Editorial: Macedonia is Macedonian.

Setting the scene for the third Balkan War.

What's in a name? For Greeks a great deal.

Greek dinosaurs wallowing in deep trouble.

Appendix 6: The Situation in Australia:

* The Sunday Times article: Perth Group In Border Block, July 17, 1988.

* Letter to newspaper by Greek ambassador to Australia denying the existence of a Macedonian minority in Greece.

* Letter from the Greek Central Committee of the ALP Victoria to all Victorian Labor federal parliamentarians and all state Labor parliamentarians.

* Various newspaper articles:

Moomba Macedonians threatened, says adviser.

Macedonians angry over pressure on Moomba float.

BHP worker 'harassed' over badge.

Macedonians protest.

Tensions deepen on Macedonia.

Advertisement placed by the Macedonian Community of Victoria.

Appendix 7: (in back flap):

* What Europe Has Forgotten: The Struggle Of The Aegean Macedonians, A Report by the Association of Macedonians in Poland. Pollitecon Publications, Sydney, 1992.

* Human Rights Abuses Against Macedonians In Greece, a report by the Aegean Macedonian Association of Australia, July 1993.

* Paper: The Role Of The Greek Communities In The Formulation Of Australian Foreign Policy: With Particular Reference To Cyprus; by Andrew Theophanous and Michalis Michael, May 1990.

NOTE: The above mentioned supporting documents are with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Human Rights Sub-Committee in Canberra

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