porakava so tekstot ja dobiv denes i sakav da ja spodelam. ne e prevedena posto e golem tekstot , i baj d vej eve vi ja adresata od kopileto iako mislam deka dzabe pisuvanje po mail. mene mi ide da skoknam do kanada samo da mu skrsam glava na kopileto grcko.

agerolym@sfu.ca Andre Gerolymatos

American folly in the Balkans
There's more than just a name in recognizing Macedonia

Andre Gerolymatos
Special to the Sun

November 9, 2004

Just days after winning the U.S. election the Bush Administration has
created a potential Balkan crisis by announc-
ing that it will recognize FYROM (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia)
as Macedonia.

The much-beleaguered issue of the name is as ridiculous as it is
contentious. It all began after the Second World War when Marshal Tito had
ambitions of creating a Balkan federation dominated by Yugoslavia.

Towards this end, in 1946 he supported the Greek Communist insurgency and
created the Socialist Republic of Macedonia as a ploy to lay future claim to Greece's northern province of the same name.

Tito's policy was based on the notion that by simply naming one of the
Yugoslav republics Macedonia it automatically engendered all its citizens to be reborn as "Macedonians" and as a corollary Greek Macedonia should
naturally be incorporated into Yugoslavia.

Although Tito failed to lop off the Greek province, he added a new layer of
ethnic chauvinism to the Balkans -- a region where history, religion and
language often serve as props for territorial aggrandizement.

During the course of the Axis occupation of Greece, thousands of Slavophone
Greeks volunteered to serve with German SS and Bulgarian security forces.
Some joined for revenge against the repressive measures of the pre-war Greek dictatorship, others out of desperation. A small minority even believed that the Axis would enable them to secede Macedonia from Greece.

The Axis used the Slavophone Greeks in counterinsurgency operations that
resulted in massacres and the torching of hundreds of Greek villages.
Consequently, for most Greeks, the establishment of a Yugoslav republic with the identical regional name of their homeland is unacceptable.

After the Second World War, many Slavophone Greeks, terrified of reprisals,
joined the Greek Communist army. At the end of the Greek civil war in 1949,
Tito relocated a significant number of Slavophone Greeks, who had served
with the Communist forces, to the newly constituted Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia.

For the next 50 years the Macedonian issue remained dormant, insofar as the
international community was concerned.

However, during the this period, the government of the Yugoslav Macedonian
Republic instigated a propaganda campaign essentially demanding that all
Slav-speaking Greeks, as well as Greece's northern province of Macedonia,
should become part of the Yugoslav Federation.

Outrageous claims were engendered -- Alexander the Great was falsely
characterized as being Yugoslav Macedonian and not Greek. Equally absurd
rhetoric boasted that the second man who stepped from Noah's Arc spoke
Macedonian.

The demands of Skopje posed little threat to Greece beyond the credulity of
those who succumbed to such fiction and the incredulity of historians.

In reality the Cold War balance of power between NATO and the Warsaw Pact
powers prohibited any territorial change in Europe, except at the price of
global nuclear war. In this strategic context, the issue of a greater
Macedonia remained in the foggy realm of coffee house propaganda.

However, the collapse of the Soviet Empire followed by the other Communist
regimes in Eastern Europe (including the Yugoslav Federation), shattered
almost 50 years of stability in the Balkans.

It was not long before ex-Communist leaders conjured up ethnic hatred to
serve personal and national ambitions. Hundreds of thousands of Bosnians,
Serbs, Albanians and Croats died because the clarion call of nationalism
superseded common sense and humanity.

In this maelstrom of revenge and war, few western leaders could understand
the Balkan conundrum and even fewer could fathom the Greek fears over the
Macedonian issue that reemerged in 1991.

Despite the hysterical rhetoric from Athens and Skopje, the dispute did not
lead to violence. Over time, Greek investment in FYROM has become vital to
the small country's economy, even though tortuous negotiations over the
ultimate name have strained the imagination of all concerned.

Yet, peace reigned until the Bush administration chose as its first policy
initiative to recognize FYROM as Macedonia.

Ostensibly, the U.S. has decided to grant recognition because of the
referendum held on Nov. 7 in FYROM that aimed at preventing the Skopje
government from granting the Albanians (who make up over twenty-five percent of the population) minority rights.

There was little doubt the referendum, organized by extreme nationalists,
would fail and American intervention was unnecessary.

In reality, U.S. recognition is an extension of the Bush doctrine of "you
are either with us or against us" -- a reward for FYROM's participation in
the war in Iraq and payback against popular Greek opinion for opposing
American intervention.

In contrast, the EU has again distanced itself from the U.S. and will not
extend recognition to FYROM to be named Macedonia.

Indeed, short-term objectives linked directly to the U.S. quagmire in Iraq,
will dominate American foreign policy for the foreseeable future, regardless of the consequences for America's allies.

Small countries and medium powers such as Canada should take notice that
they are vulnerable to U.S. pressure and must choose whether to placate
American whims or work towards developing a balance of power.

Andre Gerolymatos holds the Chair of Hellenic Studies and is the author of
Red Acropolis Black Terror: The Greek Civil War and the Origins of
Soviet-American Rivalry, 1943-1949

© The Vancouver Sun 2004