A DUTIFUL DECLARATION, OBJECTION AND PETITION

OF THE PAN-MACEDONIAN ASSOCIATION, NEW ENGLAND DISTRICT

TO OUR MOST HONORABLE PRESIDENT MR. GEORGE W. BUSH

AND TO OUR USA GOVERNMENT

 

WHY GREEK AMERICANS OBJECT TO

THE NAME “REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA”

 FOR THE “FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA” (F.Y.R.O.M)

 

 

Whereas “The Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia” (F.Y.R.O.M.), with its recent byproduct “Republic of Macedonia,” is not a historic name but a name arbitrarily and pretentiously invented after World War II in 1944 by the Communist Leader of Yugoslavia General Tito in order to expedite his communist political plans within the Yugoslav Socialist Republic and the wider geographical region of the Balkans;

 

Whereas this arbitrary Communist action was fully detected by the former President Harry S. Truman who tried to save Greek Macedonia from the Communist menace of that time and, in addition, was explicitly denounced as fraudulent and as “a cloak for aggression against Greece” in December 1944 by the then Secretary of State, E. Stettinius, who also threatened to take strict measures towards those who might assist in aggressive acts against Greece;

 

Whereas the name Macedonia is for over three thousand and five hundred years a name that belongs to Hellenism and specifies a specific Greek geographic area in Northern Greece which has been uninterruptedly occupied by Greek-speaking people who bear the name Macedonians and are widely known by their indisputable Greek leaders and philosophers, such as Alexander the Great and Aristotle of Stageira, and by the witness of St. Paul and the New Testament;

 

Whereas the traditional geographic region of Macedonia is today divided into three parts, 51.57% belonging to the Republic of Greece, 38.32% belonging to former Yugoslavia or the so-called F.Y.R.O.M., and 10.11% to the Republic of Bulgaria, but only in the first part that belongs to Greece we find people who speak the Greek language and consider themselves Greeks in continuity with the historic and cultural identity of the Macedonian region and rightfully bear the name of their Macedonian ancestors;

 

Whereas the Macedonian piece of land within the F.Y.R.O.M., is today inhabited by people whose majority is of Bulgarian-Slavic and Albanian origin and speak a Bulgarian-Slavic and Albanian based dialect and is not related to the Greek language and culture of the Macedonians or to the Greek people (although there are also other minorities including Serbians, Bulgarians, Greeks, etc.);

 

Whereas the people of F.Y.R.O.M., being of Bulgarian-Slavic and Albanian origin have clearly usurped the Greek identity and history of the Macedonians extended over three millennia in order to project, as they have repeatedly done, regional claims over the Greek Macedonian lands, by publishing a forged history, forged maps, money notes with the White Tower of Thessaloniki, the capital city of Greek Macedonians, and using the ethnic emblems of Alexander the Great in their flag;

 

And Whereas the people of F.Y.R.O.M., are posing a potential threat to the peace of the Balkan region by their false, forged and unsubstantiated claims, against the spirit of reconciliation and peace which is being cultivated in that region and throughout the European continent, although they are not threatened by their Greek neighbors who are fully committed to political peace and stability as their full participation in the European Union demonstrates;

 

We, therefore, dutifully declare, We, The Pan-Macedonian Association New England District, also joined by the Federation of Hellenic American Societies of New England, that it is an unjust and unprecedented action on the part of our President and our US Government to accept the pretentious usurpation of our name and identity by the newly founded Republic of F.Y.R.O.M., which was first invented by a communist leader for the purpose of misleading, projecting false claims and disturbing the freedom, peace and stability of the people of the Balkans and especially of the Greek people and their inalienable rights over their lands.

 

We, therefore, dutifully object to this action as ill-informed and ill-advised policy, uncharacteristic of past American foreign policy towards Greece, the country of our ancestors, which has been a faithful ally of America and the free world and has made lasting contributions to the civilization of this country and the world at large.

 

We, therefore, dutifully put forward this Petition to You, our Honorable President, to our Justice-supporting Government, and to all our freedom-loving American compatriots, to take steps for revoking this action and supporting a just settlement of this issue, in accordance with UN and EU policies for the sake of establishing a lasting and just peace in the Balkan countries which are recovering their political democracies after the ordeal of a long totalitarian imposition.

 

And We, therefore, dutifully urge you, Mr. President, in the best interests of the United States: i) to reconsider this misinformed and ill-advised policy; (ii) to instruct the State Department to withdraw recognition of F.Y.R.O.M., as Macedonia and, (iii) to encourage F.Y.R.O.M., to continue its diplomatic dialogue with Greece on the name issue in line with UN and EU policy.

 

November 17, 2004

 

PAN-MACEDONIAN ASSOCIATION

NEW ENGLAND DISTRICT

GEORGE TSITSOPOULOS, GOVERNOR        

 

FEDERATION OF HELLENIC AMERICAN SOCIETIES

OF NEW ENGLAND

DESPINA DIMITROPOULOS, PRESIDENT