In 1913, according to the International Carnegie Commission of Inquiry, the Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia formed the largest ethnic group followed by the Turks and then the Greeks.

After World War I, Bulgaria lost to Greece its entire Aegean littoral. The Treaty of Neuilly, signed on August 9, 1920 with Bulgaria, provided for a voluntary exchange of populations between the two countries. A convention for "voluntary emigration" was signed on November 27, 1919, by the Prime Ministers of Greece and Bulgaria - Venizelos and Stamboliski respectively.

In actuality, the "voluntary emigration" of Macedonians from Greece became compulsory, as the Greek government employed every possible means to force them to leave the country. However, a substantial number of Macedonians chose to remain in Greece, estimated at about 150,000 to 200,000 Macedonians living chiefly in south-western Macedonia.

Even a Greek propaganda book of 500 pages admits that a Macedonian minority remained in Greece after the "voluntary migration agreement" with Bulgaria:

"Almost all of the Bulgarian-Macedonians from the Nestos to the Axios crossed the frontier to Bulgaria. However, the situation in Western Greek Macedonia was somewhat different. The majority of Slav speakers stayed behind in this region."25

Considering them sufficiently remote from the Bulgarian frontier, the Greek government believed these people would be easily assimilated, and had not compelled them to emigrate. After the fall of Venizelos in 1920, it had even declared its willingness to grant certain minority rights to the Macedonian population. According to the "Greek Sevres" of August 1920 (Treaty for the Protection of Foreign Minorities in Greece), all Christian minorities living in the territories left and which would be left to Greece, whether Orthodox (mainland Greece) or Catholic (in some Aegean and Ionian Sea islands), could establish their separate churches where they would preach the Bible in their vernacular, and were given the right to found their own ethnic community schools where their language would also be taught.

Articles 7, 8 and 9 of the Greek Sevres contain provisions which guarantee the use of the language of the minorities concerned in their press, assemblies, courts, and sphere of religion; that the existence of charitable, religious and social institutions, school, and other institutions of learning are guaranteed with the right to use the national language of the ethnic groups; that a portion of the national budget be spent for the above mentioned purposes in favour of Greece's minorities.

Although Greece acknowledged the existence of the Macedonian minority, in practice it did not make any concessions, and these rights and provisions were not fulfilled.

Instead, under the Treaty of Lausanne Greece commenced an exchange of populations with Turkey which saw many thousands of Turks including thousands of Muslim Macedonians move to Turkey and several hundred thousand Greeks from Turkey settle in Aegean Macedonia.

In all "The number of Greek refugees entering Greece between 1922 and 1925 was 1,221,849. Over half of these (638,253) settled in Greek Macedonia."25

It is apparent that recognizing the Macedonians as Macedonians was never an option. When in September 1923, by the Kalkov-Politis Protocol, Greece prepared to recognize its Macedonians as a "Bulgarian" minority, it met with a strong protest from the Yugoslav government and abandoned the idea. In its February 3, 1925 meeting, the Greek Parliament refused to ratify it. The Greek government then declared the so-called Slavophones "Macedono-Slavs", but this time the project failed because of Bulgarian objections. Subsequently, the agreement was dropped, and the Greek government did not give minority status to its Macedonian subjects.

This attempt to hide the existence and identity of the Macedonians has been an ongoing facet of the situation. Although the Macedonians have always referred to themselves simply as "Macedonians", the Greek government at various times has labeled the Macedonians as "Greeks", "Slavophones", "Slavic speakers with a Greek consciousness", "Macedo-slavs", "Slav-Macedonians" and "non-existent".

In November 1926, the Greek government in Decree No. 332 ordered that "All Slavonic names of towns, villages, rivers and mountains should be replaced by Greek ones". All the Macedonian schools were closed, and the inventories destroyed while in the Macedonian churches the icons were repainted with Greek names.27

The statistics of the League of Nations on Greek Macedonia indicate that between 1912 and 1926 the number of Muslims fell from 475,000 to 2,000 of the population (39.4 per cent to 0.1 per cent), the number of Bulgarians fell from 119,000 to 77,000 (9.9 per cent to 5.1 per cent), Miscellaneous fell from 98,000 to 91,000 (8.1 per cent to 6 per cent).26

A Greek census of 1928 reported to have found 81,984 "Slavophones". These historical facts expose the invalidity of the Greek thesis that Macedonia was completely Hellenized after the Turkish-Greek and Bulgarian-Greek exchange of populations. This census, as was pointed out by the Minority Rights Group Report on the Balkans, had almost certainly exaggerated the number of Greeks.

The dictatorial regime established in 1936 under General Metaxas adopted a policy of forced assimilation of the Macedonian minority. The repression on the Macedonian minority in Greece was further stepped up. Macedonians were forbidden to speak their language in public, and deportations to the islands became a usual governmental practice. According to Yugoslav sources, some 1,600 Macedonians were interned on the islands of Thasos and Cephalonia in the years preceding World War II.

During World War II and the succeeding Greek Civil War, the Macedonians enjoyed language rights such as education in Macedonian which had been denied to them, despite the brief appearance of a Macedonian primer, "Abecedar", in September 1925. The Greek Communist Party recognized the right of Macedonians in Greece to self determination during the war, and a Macedonian Liberation Front was formed. During the 1946-1949 period of the Greek Civil war, 50,000 to 60,000 Macedonians abandoned their homes and left Greece. In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, a considerable number of Macedonians migrated to overseas countries, while it is estimated that about 30,000 persons migrated to Western Europe.

In the beginning of 1954, the Papagos government in Greece resolved to remove all Macedonians from official posts in Aegean Macedonia. In 1959 in the villages around Lerin, Kostur and Kajlari the inhabitants were asked to confirm publicly in front of officials that they did not speak Macedonian.

In the 1990s, Greece continues not to recognize the presence and the minority rights of the Macedonians in Greece. According to the Greek view, "Greek Macedonia is Greek since the dawn of history" and some people living there are not anything but "inhabitants of Greek descent superficially slavicized (mainly linguistically) who still preserve some of their ancient customs".28

Determining the exact number of Macedonians in Greece today remains difficult due to the attitude of the Greek Government in not recognizing the existence of the Macedonians and in not providing the official means to count them.

Furthermore, many Macedonians remain fearful of suffering discrimination and persecution if they declare themselves as Macedonians. Human Rights Watch in its April 1994 report "Denying Ethnic Identity: The Macedonians of Greece" states that such harassment "has led to a marked climate of fear in which many ethnic Macedonians are reluctant to assert their Macedonian identity or to express their views openly."

Human Rights Watch says it was unable to determine with any certainly the total number of ethnic Macedonians. "The number of ethnic Macedonians in northern Greece is a matter of dispute. Ethnic Macedonian activists in northern Greece assert that half the population of Aegean Macedonia is of Macedonian descent - that is, about one million. The government of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia sets the figure at between 230,000 and 270,000."

The Commission of the European Community's Report on linguistic minorities in Greece (1990)

According to the 1990 report prepared by the Commission of the European Communities on "Linguistic Minorities in the European Economic Community: Spain, Portugal, Greece", "Within the territory of Greece there are still linguistic minorities and although they are not very numerous and have little influence, their existence cannot be denied."

The Greek census of 1951, the report says, gave the following classification of the inhabitants according to their mother tongue:

Turkish-speaking 92,443 (of which 86,633 live in Western Thrace)
Slav-speaking 41,017
Vlachs 39,855
Arvanites 22,736
Pomaks 18,671

The Commission's report emphasizes the fact that these are the only available figures of an official nature as Greek is the only recognized language of Greece. The Commission Report describes the present situation of the Macedonian minority in Greece as follows:

"Slav-speaking: Although the massive resettlements of population which followed the end of the Balkan War provoked the exodus of no less than a quarter of a million Slav-speaking people from what had become Greek Macedonia, there were also a certain number who preferred or managed to remain in their places of origin. As we have seen, the 1951 census put this figure at something around 40,000. Probably at the time of the census the real figure was much higher... For those who continue to live in their original places the situation of their language is extremely precarious. It has no official recognition, neither in theory nor in practice. Education and religious ceremonies are both carried out exclusively in Greek."

Despite these comments, it has been acknowledged within the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages that because the report was from the European Commission it was "of necessity toned down".

The US State Department's Annual Human Rights Report - the Section on Greece

For a number of years the US State Department has presented its "Country Reports On Human Rights Practices" to the US President. The section of this Report regarding the minorities and their human rights situation in Greece has created great anger and "disappointment" in the official circles in Athens, as with these reports the USA officially acknowledges the presence of the Macedonian minority in Greece.
The reports explain the human rights violations against the Macedonian minority in Greece by the Greek authorities. The 1990 report includes the following sections:

"Northern Greece has a Slavophone Orthodox population, largely rural and economically relatively underdeveloped, numbering probably between 20,000 and 50,000, the remnant of a much larger population that emigrated before and during the Greek Civil War (1946-49) into Yugoslavia and abroad. The Government denies that its population has a minority ethnic consciousness and imposes restrictions on minority contacts with Yugoslavia and encourages the full assimilation of the population. For example, tight visa requirements bar Yugoslavs suspected of Macedonian activism, as well as US citizens of Slavic descent, from entering Greece. Greece does not recognize the existence of a Macedonian language and denies the validity of studies undertaken or documents presented in that language. There are no minority schools or language classes, in accordance with the Greek insistence that Macedonian is a nonliterate language... the security services seize most Turkish and Yugoslav Macedonian publications at the border."

"Greece maintains a large military zone along its northern border, in areas where many members of the Pomak and Macedonian minorities reside. Within the zone, movements are strictly controlled, even for local inhabitants. Greek Civil War refugees of Slavic ethnicity, who were stripped of their Greek citizenship for participation in the Communist-led insurrection of 1946-1949, were expressly excluded from the general amnesty and return of exiles completed in 1982."

The State Department's report for 1993, issued in February 1994, includes the following statements:

"There are communities in Greece which identify themselves as Turks, Pomaks, Vlachs, Gypsies and Macedonians."

However, Macedonian organizations "are not allowed to use the word "Macedonian" in their names."

"In 1991 a "Macedonian Cultural Center" in Florina, organized by Greeks of Slavic descent, lost an appeal of a lower court decision denying it registration because of the use in its title of the word "Macedonian", which the court held would cause "confusion". The decision was appealed to the Supreme Court, which has not yet heard the case."

"People were arrested for distributing leaflets or booklets denouncing government policy on Macedonia and asserting the existence and mistreatment in Greece of Macedonian and other minorities."

"It is widely believed that those who engage in public dissent, even in scholarly publications, on sensitive issues like Macedonia and minorities will find it difficult to pursue an academic career since all universities are state institutions."

"Some legal restrictions on free speech remain in force and have been invoked the last two years in five cases concerning the politically sensitive topic of relations with the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia and the question of ethnic minorities in Greece. On these so-called national issues, under the previous government, the authorities gave clear evidence of their intolerance of political dissent."

'The Government, in principle, respects the right of foreign diplomats to meet with Greek officials and other citizens, including critics of official policy, and such contacts normally take place without adverse reaction. Occasionally, however, senior government officials make known their unhappiness over such meetings, particularly with activist members of minority groups or communities. It is also clear that the security forces closely monitor such contacts."

The Macedonian minority in Greece - Human rights violations

"We have reached a crisis point. Unless we are recognized as a Macedonian minority, you will be seeing us in the next elections: The consequences will be brought to parliament. We assure you that we are fielding a Macedonian deputy in the next election either as an independent candidate or as part of a movement, or even in cooperation with another party... How long are we going to live in fear of danger from the north and east? We have reached a point where we see the Turks as our enemies, the Bulgarians as enemies, the Macedonians as enemies, the Albanians as enemies... There are a million Macedonian-speakers in Greece. We are entitled to rights, to associations, schools, churches, traditions... I have a Macedonian ethnic consciousness, but I am a citizen of Greece with all the rights and the obligations of a Greek citizen. With one difference: I belong to an ethnic minority which is not recognized by Greece."29 Christos Sideropoulos in ENA magazine, March 1992.

Macedonian minority leaders in Greece brought their situation to the international forums by participating in the CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) Human Dimension meetings. They distributed documents about human rights violations during the Paris meeting of the CSCE for the "Charter of Paris for a New Europe" in November 1990.

Hristos Prickas, Yanni Kirkou, Konstantino Pasoi and Dimitri Papadimitrios, members of the Macedonian minority in Greece, submitted a petition signed by the members of the Macedonian minority in Greece to the then Greek Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis. Prickas stated that in their petition they acknowledged the fact that they were not of Greek origin, and they had their own language which they requested be recognized by the Greek government. They stated that the fundamental human rights of the Macedonian minority in Greece, to speak their native language, Macedonian, and to open their own schools should be recognized by the Greek government.

In the Moscow CSCE Human Dimension meeting in September 1991, the then Yugoslav government delegation put a question on the agenda of the meeting regarding the situation of the Macedonian minority in Greece. During the conference, the judge of the Florina Court of First Instance in Greece ordered an investigation into which Greek citizens participated in the CSCE Human Dimension meeting.30 The representatives of the Macedonians' Human Rights Movement in Greece attending the meeting, Stavros Anastiadis, Hristos Prickas and Hristos Sideropoulos, chairmen of the Macedonian organizations in Greece, were placed under close surveillance by the authorities when they returned to Greece.

A fourth representative, Trainos Dimitriu, was an emigrant Macedonian leader from Canada. In all, the international Macedonian delegation comprised 15 people from six countries.

In other instances, Hristos Sideropoulos and Stefanos Kiriakou Dimcis, the latter was a commissar in the Greek Police and the brother of Petro Dimcis (the secretary-general of the Macedonians' Human Rights Movement), were sent to exile in the Cephalonia island on the pretext of speaking Macedonian and propagating Macedonian culture and language, and so disseminating "false information".

Petros Dimcis was also deported from Florina and the Macedonians participating in the Human Rights Movement received death threats. Basilis Pasmacis, the president of the Macedonians' Human Rights Movement, and Petros Dimcis, its secretary general, had sent a letter to the Macedonian president Kiro Gligorov indicating their support for the independence declaration of the Republic of Macedonia.

In Florina, the Macedonians, comprising 60 per cent of the inhabitants of the city, declared that they wanted to elect their governor and metropolitan. Macedonian leader Otkusoto Seme said all the local administrative posts in Florina have been filled by Greeks, and this should be changed. The Macedonians should be given their right to participate in local administrative posts in the Florina municipality, and should have their own priests to preach to them in their vernacular.

In 1991 a group of ethnic Macedonian students wanted to organize a forum at Thessaloniki Aristotle University on the pressures of the Macedonian minority in Greece. However, University Dean Deputy AI Mandis prohibited the forum. The Macedonian students, protesting this, covered the university walls with posters and slogans. Upon this, they were attacked by the Greek students, and the ethnic Macedonian students were taken to the Thessaloniki Central Hospital after having been beaten.

Since the Macedonians began to seek their human rights, a section of the Greek press has initiated a campaign targeting the leaders of the Macedonian minority in Greece, to the extent of presenting them as targets by giving their addresses:

"Cut out their tongues: During the days of [Ottoman] bondage there may have been reasons for some to use the so-called "dialect". But now, 80 years after liberation, nothing can justify such use [of the language]. Those who continue to do this are traitors! Cut out their tongues!"31 Some parts of the Greek press offer "harsh punishment" indeed to those who dare to speak Macedonian.

On 4 April 1992, members of the Anti-War Nationalistic Movement, Stratis Bournazos, Christina Tsamoura, Vangelio Sotiropoulou and Maria Kalogeromolou, were arrested in central Athens while distributing a leaflet entitled "Our Neighbours Are Not Our Enemies, No To Nationalism and War". The leaflet called for peace in the Balkans and opposed the Greek government's foreign policy and domestic policy regarding Greece's ethnic minorities. They were taken to the General Police Headquarters and arrested. On 4 May, 1992, they were all convicted by an Athens court of "disseminating false information, attempting to incite citizens to acts of violence or to dissension". Their sentence to 19 months' imprisonment was confirmed by a Supreme Court of Appeal in September 1993 but later dropped.

In November 1992, Amnesty International released a report on the violation of the right to freedom of expression. As a result of the interest shown by international human rights organizations, the Greek government twice delayed the trial of Hristos Sideropoulos and Anastasios Boulis, who were to be tried for comments they made in an interview with a Greek magazine, ENA, in March 1992, about their ethnic identity as Macedonians and their criticism of the Greek government's foreign policy (see above). Both were sentenced to five months in jail, pending the decision of the higher court, and a small fine. The charges were subsequently dropped.

However, on May 25, 1994 Sideropoulos was again brought to Court on a different charge of "spreading false information which may cause disturbance to the international relations of Greece." Amnesty International said that "This charge refers to a statement he reportedly made at a press conference in Copenhagen, Denmark on June 10, 1990. He reportedly declared to the journalists present that he belongs to the "Macedonian minority living in Greece and that his cultural rights were violated."

The Court postponed the hearing to October 5, 1994. However, this trial was also postponed when representatives of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Australian Government and other observers attended the trial.

Archimandrite Nikodimos Tsarknias, an Orthodox priest of Macedonian origin and a member of the "Macedonian Movement for Balkan Prosperity", is also subject to pressure by the Greek authorities. In 1993 Tsarknias was relieved of his archimandrite's duties in his parish just outside Thessaloniki. The Archimandrite has stated his belief that this was because of his human rights activism.

On May 10, 1994 Amnesty International wrote to the Greek Government expressing concern for the Archimandrite and his sister Maria who on May 4 were beaten by Greek border guards when crossing the border check point at Nikki between the towns of Bitola in the Republic of Macedonia and Florina in Greece.

Amnesty International stated "Archimandrite Tsarknias was arrested and sent to the Regional Office of the Department of Defence in Florina for further interrogation. He collapsed there and was transferred to the General Hospital of Florina for medical treatment. It is not clear on what charges he was arrested; however the charges were later dropped and he was released."

Amnesty International stated that it believed that the human rights of the Archimandrite and his sister had "been violated by the Greek authorities purely because of their non-violent activities on behalf of the Macedonian minority in Greece."

Harassment of the Archimandrite continues. On May 11 he was again unable to leave Greece to visit Canada and was told that his safe passage across the Greek border could not be assured. On June 18 he was due to appear in court at Edessa (Voden) on charges of misrepresenting religious authority but the trial was postponed due to a lawyers' strike. Outside the Courthouse the Archimandrite and his sister Stoyanka were physically assaulted by Greek police and taken to the General Hospital where medical staff verbally abused them and a male nurse attempted to choke him.

Over recent years there have been a number of other cases of violations of the right to freedom of expression which have attracted international attention.

In May, 1994 the Macedonian Movement for Balkan Prosperity formed an alliance with the Rainbow Group in the European Parliament to field 23 candidates for the June elections to the European Parliament. The Macedonian candidates were to run under the name Rainbow Group. However, registration of the candidates by the authorities was immediately denied and only granted after considerable international pressure.

The delay gave the Rainbow Group only about one week of time in which to campaign, and they were further hampered by a lack of access to media outlets.

Human Rights Watch recommendations

In its report "Denying Ethnic Identity: The Macedonians of Greece" Human Rights Watch "recommends to the government of Greece that it:
* acknowledge the existence in Greece of an ethnic Macedonian minority with its own culture and language;

* end free expression restrictions on ethnic Macedonians;

* permit ethnic Macedonian political refugees to return to Greece to regain their citizenship, to resettle and visit on the same basis as political refugees who identify themselves as Greek;

* end the practice of prohibiting the teaching of the Macedonian language;

* permit ethnic Macedonians to establish cultural and other associations;

* carry out an impartial investigation into whether ethnic Macedonians are currently discriminated against in employment in the public sector; if that discrimination is found to exist, end it;

* end harassment of ethnic Macedonians in general, and of Macedonian rights monitors in particular."

Human Rights Watch also recommended that the United States government "acknowledge the Greek government's human rights violations as presented in the report, and use its best efforts to persuade the Greek government to follow Human Rights Watch's recommendations."

< Return to Index or Next Chapter >