German museum man says Alexander the Great was mainly Greek

Mannheim, Germany - The head of a German museum which is set to show an exhibition about Alexander the Great weighed into a dispute between Skopje and Athens on Friday, saying the ancient leader had been predominantly Greek.

The modern state of Macedonia, where the main language is a Slavic one, claims the heritage of ancient Macedonia.

'Alexander was predominantly Greek and definitely not an ancestor of contemporary Slavic Macedonians,' said Alfried Wieczorek, head of the Reiss-Engelhorn Museums in the southern German city of Mannheim.

The exhibition devoted to the ancient general and ruler, who lived from 356 to 323 BC, opens on Saturday and runs till February 21.

For two decades, Athens has been objecting to its northern neighbour calling itself Macedonia. Skopje has named its airport after Alexander and insists on having Alexander's 'star of Vergina' symbol on its coat of arms.

In an interview with the German Press Agency dpa, Wieczorek said, 'The latest research shows very clearly yet again that the Macedonians in the days of Alexander were closely related to the contemporary Greeks.'

He added, 'In antiquity, Greeks and Macedonians could interact because they spoke the same language.'

Athens has been insisting that the name Macedonia can only been applied to a province in its own north.

The country of Macedonia became independent in 1991 when Yugoslavia split up. The name issue has held up efforts to bring the new country into NATO and into formal assocation with the European Union.

The museum director referred to findings that its population of 2 million, one quarter of them Albanian speakers and three quarters Slavic speakers, are descended from people who immigrated in the 6th century of the modern era, long after Alexander's death.

Macedonian Encyclopaedia Offends Albanians
Skopje | 21 September 2009 | Sinisa-Jakov Marusic

The ruling Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, party says it will sue the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, MANU, for spreading lies about the country's ethnic Albanian minority.

In announcing the lawsuit, DUI legislator Xhevat Ademi told reporters that the academy's latest edition of the Encyclopaedia of Macedonia contains “insinuations and lies” regarding the origin of the Albanian people in Macedonia.

The party and several ethnic Albanian members of the academy object to the encyclopaedia's presentation of Albanians as “settlers” in Macedonia, and to references to them as “Shiptari”, a term considered derogatory and offensive to ethnic Albanians in the country.

DUI also objects to the fact that their leader, who was the former head of the 2001 Albanian insurgency, is described as a “suspected war criminal”.

Macedonian authorities launched a probe against the insurgents’ leadership after the conflict ended. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, took over the case but did not bring any indictments. Ahmeti was never mentioned by name as a suspect in the government investigation.

“DUI will do everything it takes in order to amend the mistakes, lies and [distortions] of the truth in this publication, printed with taxpayers' money” an official statement from DUI reads.

MANU’s Blaze Ristovski, who is the main supervisor of the edition, argues that the political party is exaggerating, adding that qualified experts wrote all the articles in the encyclopaedia.

“Unfortunately, some of our Albanian colleagues, under pressure from political parties, withdrew from this capital project. Some other authorities from the Albanian ethnic community wrote the different units,” he told reporters.

But some of his ethnic Albanian colleagues were quick to distance themselves from the claims in the encyclopaedia.

“It is obvious that the project is influenced by daily politics,” academy member Shukri Rahimi told newspaper Dnevnik. He claimed that he was initially offered the position of editor for the section dedicated to Albanian history, but “knowing who I would have to cooperate with, I declined”.

A second MANU member, Alajdin Abazi, also distanced himself from the project, in comments to Alsat M TV, arguing that all of his Albanian colleagues did the same right at the beginning.

About one quarter of Macedonian population is ethnic Albanian, who consider themselves as much indigenes as the ethnic Macedonian majority.

After the 2001 armed conflict, a peace treaty was formulated that envisaged the extension of greater rights to the Albanian community. The leadership of the Albanian insurgency subsequently transformed themselves into DUI.

Romania supports the Greek position in the bilateral dispute between Athens and Skopje about the use of the name Macedonia, media reports said.

Speaking after meeting his Greek counterpart Karolos Papoulias in Athens on May 27 2009, Basescu said: "The principle of good neighborly relations represents an obligation for all countries regardless of whether they are or aren't members of the European Union".

Reporting Basescu’s statement, Russian agency RIA Novosti said that it was notable that Romania recognises Macedonia under that name.

Greece accepts only that the country is referred to as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. United Nations-brokered attempts to resolve the dispute, which has led Athens to block an invitation to Macedonia to join Nato and seen Macedonia retaliate with international court action, have failed so far.

Greek media reports quoted Papoulias and Basecu as paying tribute to the friendly relations between Greece and Romania.

Papoulias said that he and Basescu supported the countries of the Western Balkans joining the European Union and emphasised the importance of good neighbourly relations.

Obama Urged to End “Silliness” over Macedonia Name

Greek lobbyists have written to President Barack Obama claiming the United States has no business supporting Macedonia's “subversion of history” and should now withdraw its support for the formal name of the fledgling Balkan state.

The letter, signed by around 200 lecturers of Graeco-Roman Antiquity from 11 countries, is a result of extensive lobbying by the Greek diaspora, local news agency Makfax said on Friday.

The document was sent earlier this week and has now been posted on the website Macedonia Evidence. Its authors urge President Obama to reverse the policy of predecessor George W Bush, whose administration unilaterally recognized Macedonia’s formal name in 2004.

Macedonia is currently embroiled in a long-lasting row with Greece over rights to the name, which is shared with a northerly Greek province. Greece has claimed that, by using the name, its young neighbour is assuming territorial rights over its own lands.

"We call upon you, Mr. President, to help - in whatever ways you deem appropriate - the government in Skopje to understand that it cannot build a national identity at the expense of historic truth," the authors state.

"We believe that this silliness has gone too far, and that the USA has no business supporting the subversion of history.”

The authors conclude by asking the President to clean up the "debris" left by the previous administration.

The name row escalated last year after Athens blocked Skopje’s NATO accession, and UN-brokered mediation has so far been unsuccessful. Observers see the US administration as a crucial catalyst for pushing the talks forward.

Macedonia's name has so far been recognized by over two thirds of the UN member countries, including US, Russia and China. However the provisional reference, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, FYROM, is still in official use in the UN at Greek insistence.

(Reporting By Sinisa-Jakov Marusic)

Clashes break out in Greece over Koran incident
By Dina Kyriakidou

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek riot police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of Muslims who pelted them with sticks and stones outside parliament on Friday during protests over what they said was the destruction of a Koran by a Greek policeman.

The Muslim Union of Greece says that during police checks at a Syrian-owned coffee shop, an officer took a customer's Koran, tore it up, threw it on the floor and stomped on it. Police have launched an investigation.

About 1,500 Muslims marched through Athens to protest against the incident, chanting "Allah is great", carrying banners reading "Hands off immigrants" and holding up copies of Islam's holy book.

"They started throwing rocks and sticks at police guarding parliament and the officers responded with tear gas and percussion bombs," a police official said.

The protesters pulled up pavements, smashed about a dozen shop windows and damaged cars, leaving some overturned in the middle of streets. Bus stops and traffic lights were destroyed and shocked tourists ran into hotels on the central Syndagma Square for cover.

Police said 46 protesters were arrested. Seven Muslims and another seven policemen were injured and brought to hospital for treatment. About 75 cars, five stores and one bank were damaged, according to a police statement.

"We want to live here in peace, we don't want trouble but we want the policeman to be punished," said a 30-year-old illegal Egyptian immigrant who identified himself as Said.

It was the second protest since the reported incident. On Thursday, about 1,000 immigrants, many from Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, marched to centrally located Omonia Square, smashing several shop windows and five cars.

The Muslim Union, representing thousands of immigrants in Athens, said it had filed a lawsuit against the unidentified policeman.

"Police told us they need more time for the internal investigation so we went ahead and filed a suit," union president Naim Elghandour told Reuters.

Deputy Public Order Minister Christos Markogiannakis said that the incident was isolated and that it didn't justify the immigrants' violent outburst.

"We call on the economic migrants who live in Greece to respect the rule of law and we point out that the state won't allow such extreme behavior," Markogiannakis said in the statement.

Thousands of immigrants, many from Muslim countries, cross into Greece illegally every year seeking a better life in the West. Trapped in legal limbo, most have no jobs, live in squalid conditions and are often arrested for minor crimes.

On May 9, members of a rightist group attacked immigrants in Athens, sending at least three to hospital. Rights groups accuse predominantly Orthodox Christian Greece of not doing enough to protect immigrants.

Greece says the burden of being the main entry point for illegal immigration into Europe is too heavy to bear alone and has asked its EU partners for help.

Copyright © 2008 Reuters

The mostly Albanian Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) -- a coalition partner of the ruling VMRO-DPMNE -- is pressing Macedonia to compromise with Greece.

Up to now, DUI and the other ethnic Albanian parties in Macedonia have generally supported government strategies to preserve Macedonia's name.

DUI leader Ali Ahmeti met with newly elected President Gjorge Ivanov after the local and presidential elections last month. They jointly issued a statement that said "National unity is needed, as well as a reasonable compromise, for a solution to the differences about the name with Greece."

Ivanov did not explain exactly what he meant by compromise but underlined "we are not talking about changing the name."

Leading DUI officials have been arguing this year that a settlement would foster Macedonia's NATO membership and EU integration.

DUI officials have told A1 TV the unofficial deadline DUI has set for a "compromise" will be the September elections in Greece.

DUI official Teuta Arifi said the party would encourage VMRO-DPMNE to hold a constructive debate on a timely solution to the squabble because "coalition partners should listen to one another."

While party spokesman and parliament Deputy Speaker Rafiz Aliti said DUI "party structures will decide" whether to leave the government if their expectations go unmet, Arifi put an end to such speculation by saying "the party is not debating that question" but is open to debating government policies.

Imer Ismaili -- professor and contributor to Albanian RTSh TV and Koha Ditore -- told Radio Free Europe that DUI has assumed the role within the governing coalition of subtly pressuring Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski into compromising on Macedonia's name.

Fifteen members of the US Congress have appealed to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to help break the deadlock in the dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) over the latter’s name so that the tiny Balkan state can join NATO, it was revealed yesterday.

In a joint letter the 15 senators, led by Democrat Bill Pascrell of New Jersey and Republican Mark Souder of Indiana, urged Clinton to recognize FYROM as “a staunch ally and trusted partner” and to review the state’s “contribution to stability in the southern Balkans and its contribution to America’s foreign policy objectives in Afghanistan, Kosovo and the Middle East.”

The Congressmen also appear to press Clinton to take a stand on the name dispute. “We look forward to working with you... to reach a speedy and equitable resolution on issues such as the name dispute,” the letter said.

Greek diplomats said yesterday that they believed the FYROM lobby in the US had prompted the initiative in a bid to revive interest in stalled talks on the name issue.

NATO will not change right of veto on accession of new members

Skopje. Macedonia do not have to hope NATO will change rules on accession of new member states and that it can get an invitation to access NATO before it solves name dispute with Greece. This is what Holland Ambassador Simone Philippine to Macedonia said in an interview with Radio Free Europe.
Holland Ambassador pointed there is no serious dialogue in NATO on accessing new member states on formula consensus minus one country. According to the ambassador “no one must count on that.”
“NATO is an organization established on consensus and it will continue being like that. There is no serious dialogue at this stage on changing rules. In my opinion name dispute is the only obstacle on Macedonia’s integration to NATO,” Simone Philippine pointed.
In her words the question is not whether but when the country will become NATO member state.

http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n178311

Troubled Macedonia
The name game

Apr 2nd 2009 | SKOPJE
From The Economist print edition
Annoy Greece, put up more statues of Alexander

THE winner of the second round of Macedonia’s presidential election on April 5th will almost certainly be Georgi Ivanov, the candidate of the ruling nationalist party led by the prime minister, Nikola Gruevski. But that does not mean he will get the job. He is unpopular with ethnic Albanians, who make up a quarter of Macedonia’s 2.1m people. If most of them do not vote, turnout could fall below 40%—in which case the entire election has to be rerun.

That would be a problem Macedonia does not need. Its economy is stuttering. Exports of metals, textiles and farm produce have slumped. Unemployment is high, public spending must be cut and tensions are rising. Violence broke out in Skopje on March 28th during a protest over plans for a new church in the centre.

Macedonia remains fragile eight years after it almost lapsed into war. Testy relations with its neighbours do not help. For 18 years it has been locked in conflict with Greece over its name, which the Greeks say implies territorial pretensions to Greek Macedonia. Macedonia has won sympathy from other European countries in this dispute. But under the nationalist Mr Gruevski, it is losing it.

When Macedonia renamed Skopje airport for Alexander the Great in 2007, this seemed a one-off to annoy Greece. More recently, however, the government has broadened a policy the opposition calls “antiquisation”. The main road to Greece has been renamed for Alexander and the national sports stadium named after his father, and plans are afoot to erect a huge statue of Alexander in central Skopje. These gestures play well to a public that was incensed by Greece’s veto of an invitation to Macedonia to join NATO, but the country is losing friends. “It is nuts,” sighs one diplomat. “They don’t see the cause and effect.”

Alexander died in 323BC. The Slavs arrived only a thousand years later. But, says Pasko Kuzman, an archaeologist at the culture ministry, Macedonians are a mix of all the people who have ever lived in the region, so they have every right to treat Alexander as a symbol. Besides, he adds, Greece denies the very existence of a Macedonian minority in Greece.

Macedonia’s ethnic Albanians have mostly stayed out of this debate. Some officials say antiquisation was a sop to offset the shock of not being let into NATO. They dearly want the European Union to grant visa-free travel to Macedonians this year (and then open membership talks). If people in Macedonia and elsewhere in the western Balkans lose hope of ever joining the EU, says Macedonia’s deputy prime minister, Ivica Bocevski, everybody should start worrying about regional stability.

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/disp...ory_id=13414181

Macedonian Identity "To Be Defined"

Skopje | 02 April 2009 |

The European Commission has decided to redefine the terms “Macedonian”, “Macedonians” and country code “MK” in its institutional style guide, Erik Meijer, European Parliament Rapporteur for Macedonia, suspects.

According to information obtained by Eric Meijer, these terms now in common use are to be replaced with the designation "to be defined", in order to satisfy Greece's objections to the name "Macedonia". The “altered” style guide is not yet available to the public.

Meijer was cited by the Macedonian national news agency, MIA, asking the EC whether it takes into account that this only complicates matters by taking the “name” row into new and “very sensitive” fields of national identity that will be “impossible to solve".

However, in an interview for local Alfa TV this afternoon Meijer said he got reassured by the EC that this means nothing in practice. “It means the situation will not change” and the terms will remain in use, he said.

Athens blocked Skopje last April from NATO entry, objecting that only the Greek northern province has the right to call itself Macedonia. Greece stated that it could block Macedonia's EU accession as well, if it did not change its name.

In an EC response to Meijer, MIA reports, EC President Jose Manuel Barroso confirms it is true they used standard names until recently, but that, in the summer of 2008, a decision was taken to make this change. Thus, in the inter institutional style guide compiled by the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, these terms have been replaced with "to be defined". The commission says all references are strictly in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 817/93.

Meijer also expresses concerns about the delaying of the date for opening EU accession talks for Macedonia, despite recent European Parliament recommendations assessing that Greek opposition could continue for years, MIA reported. The country achieved candidate status in 2005, but the EC did not grant an extended recommendation for further progress due to insufficient internal reforms.

Long-standing UN-sponsored name talks between Macedonia and Greece have so far been in vain. While Greece insists a composite name for its neighbour should be used by all countries, Macedonia accepts a mutually agreeable name only in correspondence with Greece, since only this country has such problems.

Additionally, the talks have in effect ground to a halt, as both countries are currently occupied with domestic elections.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/17888/

GENEVA (ANA-MPA) -- Greece's permanent representative to United Nations on Friday responded in detail to a handful of findings listed in recent report by an independent UN expert on minority issues focusing on the EU and NATO member-state, taking the opportunity to again reiterate Athens' standing positions.

Amb. Frangiskos Verros, speaking before the UN's Human Rights Council, first thanked the UN expert, Gay McDougall, for opening the way "to a frank and constructive dialogue on a number of issues concerning the implementation of human rights standards towards minorities (in Greece)", as he noted.

In reference to the Muslim minority in the extreme northeast Greek province of Thrace, Verros reminded that the Greek government "respects the right of every person to self-identify. However, such self-identification should neither be arbitrary nor at the expense of the right of self-identification of other groups."

He was commenting on claims, mostly put forth by successive Turkish governments, to identify the entire Muslim minority as "Turkish", instead of the internationally recognised "Muslim minority" as foreseen in the landmark 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which refers to a Greek minority in Turkey and a Muslim minority in Greece.

"It is a fact that the Muslim minority in Thrace consists of three distinct groups, those of Turkish, Pomak and Roma (gypsy) origin. Each group has its own distinct spoken language and cultural traditions, which are fully respected. Thus, any attempt to identify the entire Muslim minority in Thrace as 'Turkish' is unacceptable, not only for political reasons, but also because it does not objectively reflect the actual composition of the whole minority," he said, speaking in Geneva.

Verros also charged that any effort by the "Turkish-origin component" of the minority to impose its own cultural characteristics and traditions on the Pomak and Roma communities contravenes modern human rights standards vis-?-vis minority protection.

Moreover, he defended the appointments of muftis, Muslim quasi-judicial officials, as conducted in an absolutely transparent manner, while calling efforts to organise "elections" by certain individuals in the province illegal, pointing to, among others, the exclusion of women and most of the minority's members.

Additionally, he said the Greek government will study possible readjustments with regards to the current and partial application of Sharia law (domestic unions, inheritance etc.) for members of the Muslim minority in Thrace, noting that "Greece takes seriously into account the need to strengthen the substantive review and control by domestic courts of the conformity of muftis' decisions with the Greek constitution and international human rights treaties."

In a separate issue, Verros outlined Greece's categorical and unwavering opposition to any recognition of a "distinct or linguistic minority in Greece by the name 'Macedonian', since the name Macedonian is used in the cultural/regional sense by Greek Macedonians living in the region," Verros' reference to the province of Macedonia, Greece's largest, which more closely approximates to geographical and historical Macedonia.

"Thus, the term 'Macedonian' to denote such an identity in Greece not only fails to respect Hellenic cultural heritage and the identify of 2.5 million Greek Macedonians living there, but also threatens to create a serious confusion or even a potential clash over identities in the whole region," he said, adding:

"Greece believes that references in the report to the name 'Macedonian' to denote an ethnic 'minority' living in the Greek region (province) of Macedonia or a 'language' spoken in this region should have been avoided. These references should not be interpreted as implying a determination that such a minority or language exists in Greece, but claims emanating from the individuals concerned ... Let me add that the political party ("Rainbow" or "Ouranio Toxo"), which claims to represent the so-called 'Macedonian minority', obtained in the Greek parliamentary elections of 1996 a very small number of votes, which further decreased to 1,139 votes in the 2000 elections," Verros said, in reference to the last time the specific political formation stood in national elections.

In concluding, he emphasised that all Greek citizens are free to manifest their traditions and culture, saying festivities and cultural events are regularly held in the Florina region of northwest Greece, where the tiny political party is headquarters.

Serbia's national TV uses FYROM abbreviation for Macedonia
11 March 2009 | 08:38 | FOCUS News Agency
Skopje. Macedonia was presented as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia /FYROM/ at Beovizia festival in Serbia. None of representatives of the Macedonian delegation had reacted to this, Macedonian Vecer newspaper informs.
“Organizers of the festival, from where Serbian representative for Eurovision is chosen, said they had stuck to the festival’s rules. Last year Eurovision was held in Belgrade.
According to the director of the festival - Dragan Ilic, no one has reacted until now on why Serbia does not stick up to the bilateral agreement and used the name FYROM, Vecer informs.

Suncica STOJANOVSKA

http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n173817