Miltiades Elia Bolaris
The ugly face of VMRO’s pseudo-“Makedonism“, a grass roots, popular fascist movement in FYROM, based on a racist „blood-descent“ ideology, invented ancient pseudo-history, extreme ethnic intolerance, hatred and political terrorism, viewed in the light of the disappearance of the Philosopher, Historian, Archaeologist and Blogger Vasko Gligorijevic.
Achileas Papaioannou was a taxiarch, a brigadeer of the ΔΣΕ/DSE (Δημοκρατικός Στρατός Ἐλλάδας/Democratikos Stratos Elladas/Democratic Army of Greece) the rebel army, during the 1946-1949 civil war in Greece.
After the defeat of the DSE, Papaioannou escaped through the frontiers, along with thousands of his co-fighters, going from one eastern block country to another, eventually finding his way to Tashkend, the capital of the central Asian Soviet republic of Uzbekistan. In 1956, following the 20th congress of the CPSU and Khrushtsov’s de-Stalinization campaign, Achileas Papaioannou sided with the hard core Stalinists and Stalin’s stooge in the CPG/KKE, Zachariades. He was promptly arrested by the KGB and was sent to internal exile in a remote location in the deserts of Aral, and after that, to insure full rehabilitation, to Sorgut, in Siberia. In 1971, upon his release, he petitioned the Soviets to be let out, in accordance to a recently passed law that allowed foreign nationals to repatriate after the end of their incarceration/exile. No country would take him in, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria who normally accepted Greek civil war veterans refused him, and Greece would not start receiving any of them until 1975, and opened its doors to the majority of them after Andreas Papandreou’s Socialist PASOK/ΠΑΣΟΚ came to power in 1981.
The only country that was willing to accept Achileas Papaioannou’s petition was Yugoslavia, with the understanding that he will go and live in what was then known as the „Socijalistička Republika Makedonija /Социјалистичка Република Македонија“, in the south of Yugoslavia. It was 1971.
„I arrived in Skopia and it was as if I had descended on a different planet“ he declared, beginning his narration, the veteran rebel kapetanios. „The state there was engaged in large scale propaganda against Greece. That it supposedly oppresses the „Makedones“ in Northern Greece. That it supposedly deprives their human rights, and other such stuff. I had passed by then through several eastern block countries, I had suffered a lot, but in Skopia I felt as if I had landed on a different constellation. And this is because the official authorities was cultivating into their people’s minds the opposition to everything Greek.“ he said.
From: „Ta paraskenia tou Makedonikou zetematos/Τα παρασκήνια του Μακεδονικού ζητήματος/The backdrops of the Macedonian Issue“, page 186, Spyros Kouzinopoulos, Kastaniotis Publications, Athens, 2008.
„We arrived there, me along with several other Kapetanioi: Liakos Papademetriou from Anthochori of Mt. Pelion, Patsiouras from Argos Orestikon, Makedonas, this was his last name, from Bogatsiko, and Kallinos Amarbeis, from southern Greece. As soon as we stepped our foot there, we were faced with an anti-Hellenic environment. And all this during Tito’s era, while he was still alive“, says the ex fighter of the resistance and the civil war. He then relates a very characteristic event that shows that the tactics which ultra-nationalist circles of Skopia developed in recent years, do not constitute a modern phenomenon, but they are the results of a systematic campaign which was methodically being carried out for the last half century.
„One day, in the spring of 1978″ recounts Achileas Papaioannou, „they called me without any specific reason, to the Ministry of Security. And without much of an introduction, they tried to exert unacceptable psychological pressure against me: „If we get into a war situation with Greece, then what will you do? Whose side will you take?“ an officer of Security asked me. I did not hesitate and I did not have to think twice to give an answer: „I am a Greek. And if such a thing happens, which I would hope never does, then I will fight against you“. This was it. Who ever saw the wreath of God and did not feel fear! They were foaming from malice. I was badly beaten up for my answer. And they interned me up for three days in the lock up cells of Security, in Skopia“.
From: „Ta paraskenia tou Makedonikou zetematos/Τα παρασκήνια του Μακεδονικού ζητήματος/The backdrops of the Macedonian Issue“, page 187-188, Spyros Kouzinopoulos, Kastaniotis Publications, Athens, 2008.
Two years after these events, in 1980, Tito dies. Within eleven years we experience the break up of Yugoslavia, and „Socijalistička Republika Makedonija /Социјалистичка Република Македонија “ tries to become recognized as simply „Republika Makedonija /Република Македонија „. The modern phase of the hundred-plus year old Macedonian issue erupts, and old passions flare up.
The ultra-nationalists from Skopje adopt the irredentist slogan of „United Macedonia/Обединета Македонија“, demanding nothing less than absorption of the province of Macedonia of Northern Greece, into their diminutive state . For the record, Makedonia/Μακεδονία of Greece is 34,177 km² with a population of over 2,6 millions while ex-Yugoslav Makedonija is 25.333 km² whose Slavomacedonian population is 1,3 million. Its total population including Albanians, Serbs, Vlachs, Gypsies, Turks and others is about 2,1 millions). If FYROM is to be considered part of an imaginary „greater“ Macedonia (only the extreme south of that country can actually be considered part of Macedonia proper), then the realization is reached that FYROM constitutes only 30% of that Macedonia, and the Macedonian Slavs are less than 30% of the total population (I include the Bulgarian part of Macedonia in the calculations). Yet, they claim exclusivity over the name Macedonia, and everything of Macedonia, including its ancient Greek History and its Medieval history which is alternatively Byzantine Greek, Serbian or Bulgarian.
In such a multinational society, as FYROM, virtually a copy in a microcosm of the recently broken up Yugoslavia, someone would think that the first priority of a progressively thinking political elite would have been to unite the various people and use every bit of energy they could muster to productively move forward, forming alliances with the states around it, especially the most economically advanced of them Greece. It would seem that they would want to try and create opportunities for growth and job creation in this volatile international environment. This is precisely what Bulgaria and Romania did, and now they are both part of the European Union.
What we saw instead, in FYROM, was an increasingly harder, more stubborn and extreme ultra-nationalist agenda being forged in Skopje, an agenda that went way beyond the Slavic“Makedonism“ of the Yugoslav and early independence years. After the capture of power by the VMRO party and its thirty-plus year old prime minister Nikola Gruevski, all reason went out the window. Extreme right wind reaction to progress triumphed. The country reverted to a glorification of an imaginary past. pseudoMakedonism reached levels of Nazi-style political paranoia. In a total and absolute disregard of the fact that the Slavic speaking population of FYROM is sharing that land with at least ten other major nationalities, the Slavo-Makedonci nationalists have unleashed a virulent diplomatic guerrilla war against the Greeks and Greece, with one target on sight: the control of the name Macedonia, and long term irredentism over northern Greek Makedonia, whatever the cost to the whole population today.
The Greeks on the other hand are moving between one side of the spectrum which shows willingness to compromise with FYROM on an array of possible names that would include „Gorna Makedonija/Горна Македонија“ (untranslated Slavic for „Upper Macedonia“) or „Slavomacedonia/СлавоМакедонија“, to the other side of the spectrum. The more determined and hard core Greeks are actually the Greek Makedonians especially of Thessaloniki/Θεσσαλονίκη. They absolutely oppose any compromises to the sharing of what is considered the historical Greek name Macedonia, demanding that the Slav inhabitants of FYROM chose a completely different name to name themselves.
The name issue which is seen from the outside as a trivial squabble over virtually nothing puzzling diplomats the world over, is taken deadly seriously on the ground, locally. It is all about cultural, local and ethnic identity, national history and/or mythology, the exclusive rights on pride for old kings and heroes, and of course claims on the land. While the Greeks have never made (ever since 1913, that is) any claims on Yugoslav lands, the land-locked Slavs of FYROM, following the old dreams of St. Stephano’s treaty Bulgaria, and 1940′s-immediately post WWII Tito’s Yugoslavia, are adamant about eventual break into the Aegean Sea, and capture of Thessaloniki, to be renamed Solun. Since there are more than a few instances where neighbors from the immediate North of Greece and even beyond (Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Germany, Italy) tried to violently wrest Macedonia or parts of it from Greece during the 20th century, Greeks take these threats, even from this diminutive potential enemy seriously. The Macedonian Greeks stick their feet to the ground, and demand that FYROM takes „Macedonia“ out of the name equation, taking the teeth out of Slavomakedonski irredentism, and demand a hard line from their elected officials and their governments in Athens.
The governments in Skopje have been taking the other route, going more extreme by the year, creating new issues that make a potential compromise look like a far off possibility. This was not always so. In a revealing interview, Denko Malenski, the first post Yugoslavian foreign minister of FYROM explains how the politics were hijacked by the extremists: ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0mm6GwqC6s&feature=related ).
We are now at the point where in order to accommodate the national mythology of FYROM, the science of History has been transformed into a training ground for „creative“ ethno-mythology in the hands of Skopje regime propagandists. Pseudo-scientists and charlatans of every shade, shape and color keep on discovering Slavic Makedonci everywhere, from ancient Macedonia to Hellenistic Egypt, down to the prehistoric Sea of Japan, of all places:
Some (there are countless of them, and we had a hard time choosing) of the more outlandish pseudoMakedonist examples of ultra-nationalist pearls in the realm of historic paranoia and fable can be found below:
A. The Rosetta Stone – Ancient Macedonian:
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcdlT8Bureg&feature=related ). Read also my article in issuu: (http://issuu.com/eismakedon/docs/boshevski_and_tendov_s_egyptian_illusions ), and also Vasko Gligorijevic´s excellent article: „The Rosetta Stone Hoax: Pseudomacedonism’s Sharpest Tool“ ( http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/85942 ), for more information of this issue.
B. Fascist Official Video of the FYROMian Government, on State TV to read about the racist Makedonoidi White race and the Negroidi and Mongoloidi races, not to speak of the rest of the „Mulatos“. Someone could wish I was making this up, but unfortunately it was all shown on national, state owned, Makedonija Television, MKTV:
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ITEdiSBl3Y&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fuser%2FSrbolog&feature=player_profilepage ).
C. Homer’s Slavic Character! Yes, for those of you who thought that Homer’s Iliad and Odessy were written in Greek, you had it all wrong, it was all in Makedonski: ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HH8H4AFufM&feature=related ).
Finally,
D. There is professor Aleksandar Donski, who changed his name (Doncevic) to rime with „Makedonski“, who has gayfully „proven“ that if not all, then at least a large number of Ancient Macedonian names are not Greek but „Slavic“ – his quotation marks, since he believes that The Slavomacedonians are not Slavic, but the other way around: The „Slavs“ as he quotes them are „Makedonci“. I found the time to sit down and write one by one a rebuttal for each of the names he has written and some have already been published and you can read them on my American Chronicle page: ( http://www.americanchronicle.com/authors/view/4172 ).
I need to stress here that most of these charlatans are not the average nut in the streets of Skopje or the emigre coffee houses of Toronto and Sydney. Some of them are actually professors in State Universities, members of the national Academy of Arts and Sciences, like Professors Tendov and Boshevski. Others are highly paid reporters and film makers, working in the state television stations promoting this kind of pseudo-scientific scatology. The“nuts“ are not any longer walking the streets, in Skopje, they are in power!
The people whose descendants appeared on the Balkan scene the 6th century AD, fully a thousand years after Aristotle, Philip II and Alexander the Great, are claiming that they are full bloodied descendants of the Ancient Macedonians, wasting untold tons of ink into trying to prove to the world that Aristotle and Alexander the Great were not Greek but proto-Slavs. The Skopje regime, taking clues from Saddam Hussein, has been wasting the country’s meager resources on super-sized statues of Alexander the Great to fill every major city square in the country. They are constantly renaming every road, stadium, airport, sports club and highway they can lay their scopes on, to Philip II or Aleksandar Veliki/Александар Велики (A. the Great), provoking the Greeks in every turn of the road. They are provocatively playing a cat and mouse chasing game, in an attempt to put facts on the ground by naming more and more places Makedonija and Aleksandar Makedonski than the Greeks can whistle „foul“ on them.
The population, Slavomacedonian and others, demand a path towards a future without poverty or reliance on the Kosovar drug, prostitution, gambling and contraband based economy or international handouts, from the European Community and the government of Greece, in most cases. The Albanian minority is increasingly expressing its frustration over an issue it cares little about: All they want is for their country to join the European Union, to have a chance to find a job, to see investments come in the depressed economy. Up to now, all they have been offered is renaming of streets with ancient Greek Kings and city squares being decorated with statues of Alexander the Great. See for example: „Christian Science Monitor“ About the „Alexander-Mania“ in FYROM, 20-III-2009 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrJK5Oc8TR8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fuser%2FSrbolog&feature=player_profilepage ). And: „2,300 years later, ‘Alexander-mania’ grips Macedonia“
( ttp://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0321/p01s01-wogn.html )
The Gruevski administration is galloping forward on its Bucephalean attack against anything of Greece, including Greek companies which have heavily invested FYROM´s economy. These companies have seen their investments being held hostage and used as blackmail by Skopje´s VMRO regime against the Greek government, and the Greeks feel that their investments have become an economic and diplomatic boomerang against themselves. Bucephalas/Βουκεφάλας, meaning the Ox-headed (Bous + Kephale) was Alexander the Great´s horse. Bucephalian politics is a sarcastic term coined by intellectuals and politicians in FYROM who are opposed to the pseudoMakedonist politics of the VMRO regime. Professor and Writer Jasna Kotevska is one good example, of an intellectual speaking on national TV against pseudoMacedonism and the „Bucephalization“ of FYROM’s society:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Srbolog?view=videos#play/uploads/60/n4XlFSctgbg
Enter Vasko Gligorov/Васко Глигоров or Gligorijevic/Глигоријевиќ into the equation. Vasko is a thirty two year old Philosopher and student of History at the University of Cyrillus and Methodios (UKIM) in Skopje, the capital of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Makedonija (FYROM).
Vasko (or Vasilije as his baptismal name is properly called) has been a regular contributor to the American Chronicle with twelve well documented articles already published and widely read:
University Education in FYROM: The Production of Pseudomacedonian Historiography
Slavic Settlement in Povardarje (FYROM) Reviewed: History, Ethnology and Modern Politics
FYROM: How a Lie was Imposed as a Supreme Reality
VMRO Reign in FYROM: Europe’s Only Modern-Day Fascist Regime
The Rosetta Stone Hoax: Pseudomacedonism’s Sharpest Tool
The Early Pseudomacedonism: A Legacy of Bulgarian Irredentism
The Basic Narrative of Pseudomacedonian Ideology
FYROM’s Nikola Gruevski Lawsuit: His Latest Provocation
Serbs in FYROM: Historical Presence and the Current Status
Titus Livius, J.S. Gandeto and the Misrepresentation of Macedonian History
The Anatomy of a Big Lie: Nationalistic Ideology and FYROM
Some of Vasko’s work can be read right here, on American Chronicle:
http://www.americanchronicle.com/authors/view/3645, or at www.vardaraxios.wordpress.com
With a degree in Archeology from an Australian University, his English is immaculate, and so is his Serbian, Bulgarian (including the Slavomacedonian dialect, spoken in FYROM) and German. He is also a student of the Old Church Slavonic (OCS) language, Latin and Russian.
By all accounts, his academic credentials are beaming, his resume is stellar and his future as a professor in the University of his choice, in his own country of birth or anywhere else in Europe, Australia or the US, should be a guaranteed done deal. There is only one problem, or rather two of them. Mr. Gligorijevic is well educated; he knows his History, and he does not buy the regime propaganda for the imaginary „ancient Macedonian“ descent of the Slavs of FYROM. Educated, free-thinking intellectuals never made a popular group for totalitarian regimes. Political mass mind control on a national scale is so much easier when the populace is naïve and pacified with mystical opium of the nationalistic type.
Late in the fall of 2008, Gligorijevic along with three other men established the Slavic Philhellenic Network, which they described as „the Skopje-based organization established as an informal body of students in November 2008 to counteract Anti-Greek propaganda, Slavophobia and Fascist ideology of Gruevism“.
( http://vardaraxios.wordpress.com/ ).
On January 28, 2009, Vasko Gligorijevic was arrested by Internal Security police who broke into his apartment and took him away. He had the quick wits to send a one line message over the Face Book to some Greek friends of his, in Thessaloniki, and this triggered a world wide Human Rights campaign to locate him and gain his release. In a vitriolic article, newspaper Nova Makedonija of Skopje was being sarcastic about Greek propaganda inventing the case of a „non-existing person“ to smear the government of FYROM. When proof of his messages came through, newspapers and regime had to acknowledge that Vasco Gligorijevic was indeed a real person, and now their dance and song changed: Internet chatlines went on fire as mouthpieces of VMRO became busy spreading disinformation. „He is just a crazy person, his mother asked the police to arrest him and send him to the Bardovski Psychiatric Clinic“. „He is just a crazy guy, who thinks he is not a Macedonian, what do Greeks care about?“ ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boPCu732urk )
Vasko was tied for days on end on a bed, as if he was some dangerous insane criminal, and he was injected with psycho-altering drugs, Gulag style, for a week. He was kept isolated in a room, having no news from the outside world, unaware of the world wide campaign to liberate him. Once his case reached the Euro-parliament and fearing of the next inspection by the European commissioner on European integration, the Gruevski regime had to release him, a month and a half later. But the damage was already done: „Think Tank Says Macedonia Lagging Behind“, Balkan Insight,
Skopje, 17 July 2009 ( http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/21148/ ).
While he effectively stopped writing articles, he continued sending news out of FYROM, becoming busy in You tube and other internet Blogs ( http://www.youtube.com/user/Srbolog ) informing the outside world through his exposes, especially in issues relating to the creeping fascism of the Skopje regime, and the deleterious Nazification of the political climate, as instigated by Nikola Gruevski and the elevation of pseudoMakedonism as a State quasi-religion:
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDDb1_RxbjQ&feature=related ).
On May 31sr, 2009, Vasko had to shut down the Slavic Philhellenic Network, without any credible public explanation, but this was an ominous sign that the pseudoMakedonist state apparatus was closing in on him once again.
A few days later, on June 9, he wrote his last article on American Chronicle: „Ѓorge Ivanov, the President of FYROM Orders a Referendum About the Name Issue“ ( http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/view/105386 ).
On June 27th Vasko sent a Greeting to the 63rd Greek-American convention of the Pan Macedonian Association – USA, in which he greeted the conventioneers with the wish that Greeks and Slavs of the Balkan peninsula that lived in fraternal association with each other for so many centuries, should not follow the hate-filled messages of the Skopje. In his letter Vasko described himself as a Philhellene, a friend of Greeks.
( http://www.panmacedonian.info/vasko_63rd_GR.htm ).
Immediately afterward, a week later, on July 3, 2009, Vasko sent an urgent message to a friend of his in Greece:
„I may be arrested again. I know that from my sources. Please check me on this email in the next 12 hours. Do not alert nobody for now, please, it is not certain. But do check me every 12 hours for few days. If repeatedly do not answer in next hours or days, I´m dead, I´m gone.“
A day later, he was arrested and disappeared. Vasko Gligorijevic has gone missing as of Jyly 4th, 2009 and he is being reputedly held (according to his family´s sources, given to them from Serbophile and Philhellenic policemen who refuse to have innocent blood on their hands) in solitary confinement in FYROM´s most notorious prison, in the town of Tetovo, in that country’s Albanian-speaking territory. Officially, he is „disappeared“.
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7CDP8PgEcc )
The Skopje daily Nova Makedonija, the unofficial mouthpiece of Skopje’s regime, the same one that was misinforming its readership about the non existing Gligorov of Greek propaganda back in January, is already screaming of „Greek hysteria“ on the issue of the arrest of Vasko Gligorijevic and it is quoting the country’s Minister of Interior Gordana Jankulovska and Khasim Asipi Director/warden of the Tetovo prison that „nobody by this name has been arrested or imprisoned“.
If this was in Holland or Belgium, we would have no reasons to worry about it. But things are not this simple. This is a country where national elections are considered successful as long as there are no rampant killings between rivals of different parties. FYROM is run by a fascist leaning ultra-nationalist and extreme right wing party (VMRO/ВМРО -“Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization“) that has deep roots in old time terrorism. According to Vasko Grigorijevic:
„US Department of State initially classified VMRO, then an emergent „Macedonian“ organization during 1990 as a terrorist organization, but it remains a mystery why that suitable label was withdrawn later. Today’s VMRO most staunchly defends a continuity with the historic VMRO, listing the friend and ally of Adolf Hitler and Ante Pavelic, the Bulgarian VMRO leader Ivan Mihailoff (1896-1990) as its ideological predecessor. Unlike other current and former terrorist organizations in Europe, whose strategists were subtle enough to create differently named civil wings for the purpose of negotiations and other political affairs, the fact remains that VMRO is the only authentic terrorist organization in power on European soil…“
VMRO Reign in FYROM: Europe’s Only Modern-Day Fascist Regime, Vasko Gligorijevic, December 07, 2008
( http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/84113 ).
It is obvious that FYROM’s regime is not going to tolerate a critic of „the identity-seeking counterculture in FYROM and its diaspora“ and for sure it is not going to accept someone explaining to a docile and drugged up via pseudoMakedonism population the „the fallacy of the crude ethno-genetic theory which claims that the „Macedonians“ of FYROM and elsewhere speak the tongue of Phillip II and Alexander the Great and that their customs, folklore and other aspects of the culture are either intact or evolved form of the civilization of Ancient Macedon is quite easy refutable, this is not the case in the current conditions under which the national discourse articulates itself in FYROM.“
FYROM: How a Lie was Imposed as a Supreme Reality, Vasko Gligorijevic,
November 30, 2008
( http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/83386 )
For the last 16 years, the governments of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Makedonija are trying to perpetuate a number of BIG (in the Hitlerite-Gaebelian sense) lies.
A. That they are ethnic Macedonians, when the reality is that this is a multinational state of Bulgarian and Serbian speaking Slavs, Albanians, Muslim Slavs – Pomaks, Turks, Jews, Greeks, Latin and Greek speaking Vlachoi, Greek speaking Sarakatsani, Gypsies, etc. etc. FYROM is a microcosm of Yugoslavia, which was deemed unsustainable to continue existing as a multi-ethnic state.
B. That they are the victims of an aggressive Greek campaign that seeks to oppress their identity, when it is known that this is a fake identity which never existed before the CPYu decided to invent it (see another American Chronicle article: A brief overview of the Macedonian name issue, July 12, 2009)
( http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/109817 ).
The truth is that the pseudoMakedonist regime has been even before its inception, when it was still the Socijalistička Republika Makedonija, engaged in unrelenting virulent attacks against Greece and Greeks and the Macedonian Greeks in particular. They are engaged in a deleterious and racist campaign trying to make themselves look like the poor little red riding hoods, under attack by the big bad wolf.
C. That they are a democratic country with free elections ( http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/06/01/macedonia-election.html )and democratic institutions, ready to join the family of European nations in the European Union. Unless of course we revert to accepting that arrest, disappearance and imprisonment without trial and incarceration in psychiatric clinics, with mind-altering drugs injections on the daily menu, for opposing the State cult of pseudoMakedonism, are normal political practices in the „New“ Europe.
The case of the Human rights activist, blogger, historian, archaeologist, philosopher and reporter Vasilie Gligorov / Vasko Gligorijevic the proving ground where the masks are on the ground and every rascal needs to stand up and be counted.
Who is the fascist and who is not?
Who is the oppressor of Human Rights and who is not?
Who are really the Macedonians and who are the clones that panic by the explosive power of historical truth and the free speech of an intellectual who is exposing their „cut and paste“ fake pseudoMakedonism?
Who is using their State Ideology as a tool to subdue the democratic expression and true Slavic identity of the majority of their population in order to enrich themselves via drug running, prostitution and gambling, in a land-locked impoverished country that has no future under Gruevski and his paranoid and reactionary megalo-makedomania?
Nikola Gruevski needs to be exposed for what he is: a complex-ridden, Kosovar mafia connected and drug dealing, megalomaniac mini-Saddam clone, the comical incarnation of a later day Tito, the creator of a Central-Asian-type totalitarian regime (a state-owned tv station inviting recently Prime Minister Gruevski to a talk-show addressed him as the „Eternal and Immortal Leader of His People“), a provincial mini Führer, a „Makedonbashi“ who is leading his impoverished multi-ethnic country, FYROM, into collision and a train-wreck of an ethnic disaster.
Free men and women the world over cannot allow the internment of an activist opposition intellectual in mental hospitals, Stalin’s Gulag style, in the middle of Europe. Free thinking people citizens of the world cannot accept the disappearance in the dark nights of free citizens by a reactionary regime that is spreading poverty, drugs (the police just recently arrested Nikola Gruevski’s brothen red handed on a big drug deal with the Albanian mafia and the courts let him get away with a pat on the wrist), racial religious and ethnic hatred throughout the volatile powder keg that is the Balkans. The people of FYROM deserve to be treated with more respect than that. A government by the people, necessarily starts with a government by the people, and by that I do not simply mean an elected government. Hitler was elected too, if we remember. I mean a government that is being voted by the people in a normal election, not in one where the only issue determining the result is which party is the more ardent pseudo-Makedonist, and the others are summarily being branded traitors. A government of the people and by the people does not need to resort to arrests in the middle of the night of its intellectuals to tie them them in isolation in mental hospitals or abduct them from their home and declare them officially as „disappeared“. Whom are we kidding if we think that Gruevski’s-VMRO’s regime is ready to lead that country into the European union?
VASILIJE GLIGOROV-VASKO GLIGORIJEVIC MUST BE IMMEDIATELY RELEASED!
Grave as it may be, it is not only the human rights aspect of his case, though his life and well being are important to all of us that have come in some way or another in contact with him and his work.
Additionally, and this must be understood, that country’s near and mid term future, and its relations with its neighbors are at stake. A clear cut line of stopping the political terror of the one party (for all practical purposes) regime of Skopje must be drawn on the sand. The political use of state-enforced physical terror against anyone that is opposing their ethno-political and quasi-religious cult, the cult of pseudoMakedonism, a fascist, extremist and reactionary cult that is copying the methods and ideology of 1930´s Nazi party must stop now, before it is too late. If Nikola Gruevski’s regime is allowed a carte blanche to kill Vasko Gligorijevic (as it savagely killed the poor Muslim economic refugees from South Asia who were trying to sneak into Greece, in search of jobs, a few years ago, and then pretending that it scored a victory against international terrorism, to look good with Mr. Bush) and if they get away with his murder, then nothing and nobody will be able to stop them for a long time to come. Vasko, by all accounts, is an easy prey for these wolves since he is not politically affiliated, his cause is not popular with the majority at the moment. He advocates peace and friendship with Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, he advocates Freedom and Human Rights, he advocates Truth and Honesty in the History of that nation. In the pseudoMakedonist hysteria of the moment, his cause is paramount to high treason in the eyes of many fanatics.
The people who beat up comrade Achileas Papaioannou for daring say that he would support his own country in a fictitious war they provoked with with, the people who made an attempt on their first President for saying that the Slavs have no relation to the ancient Macedonians, the people who arrested Vasko and tied him down in a psychiatric clinic, are all still around. It is still the same country, just different name. Most of the players are in the very same chairs, going from „communist“ comrade to „pro-USA“ and „pro-EU“, mafia connected „gentleman“.
FYROM is a country where the first President of the Republic, Kiro Gligorov, was branded a traitor to „Makedonism“ and was blown up in his car by extremists, some of whom are probably high officials in Gruevski’s administration, escaping with half of his body carved away: „Who tried to kill Gligorov?“ ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtbeebtMkyw&feature=related ), for saying the historically correct and linguistically and ethnically self evident, i.e. that the Slavic inhabitants of that land are Slavic indeed: „We are Macedonians but we are Slav Macedonians. That´s who we are! We have no connection to Alexander the Greek and his Macedonia… Our ancestors came here in the 5th and 6th century“(Toronto Star, March 15, 1992)….“( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXLFdX2iDHQ&feature=related ). With the above in mind, we can begin to understand in how serious of a deadly threat Vasko Gligorijevic’s life is right now.
The impoverished people of FYROM deserve better. Their political culture and their future deserve better. The issues are grave. On one side is a lone intellectual fighting for the truth, facing the power of the government in Skopje, the pseudoMakedonist regime of VMRO and the power of the government-connected Albanian-Kosovar Mafia.
There are powerful interests involved. The political Party that is in power in these post-Tito lands, once they join the European Union (if they ever do and even before they do) is the political Party that will be handling the vast funds that the European Union will be dispersing to make this place seem like a European country. That incidentally translates into fat Swiss bank accounts for FYROM’S corrupt governing VMRO nomenclatura. Obviously, they are not willing to allow some historian and blogger try to spoil THAT party! After all, what is the life of a lone intellectual voice in the desert amount to, when faced with the spoils to be had? People have killed for much less than that. The stakes here are simply too huge to allow someone to play in the sandbox of history, ideology and clean government and create problems for the big boys.
The orders for his arrest and disappearance came from the very top, we all understand this, and this is where the ultimate responsibility for whatever happens to Vasko Grigorijevic, if something indeed happens to him must fall. Whatever happens, it will eventually come out, there is never a perfect crime. Let it be known that there is not a European or American court that will allow Gruevski & Co. to ultimately get away with it. The Macedonian Greeks, the Serbs, free thinking and freedom loving Slavomakedonians and their organizations will make sure that they will pursue this issue to its end. We also hope that the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Greek orthodox Church and eventually the self named „Makedonskata Pravoslavna Church“ of FYROM will move drastically to get Vasko away from the wolves.
We also hope that nobody in their political arrogance will decide to act too stupid out of their hybris and sense of power. Immunity lasts only so long, and when the fall comes it is proportional to the height of the previous power and insolence. Several Balkan power figures, with blood of innocents in their hands, ended up in European prison cells lately; let this be their forewarning: They will not get away with it, if something happens to Vasko Gligorijevic!
We need to act, and to act urgently, to apply pressure to Human Rights and other religious and political international organizations to act now on his behalf! The big name NGO’s have to date done nothing. No word from Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, for example. Their coziness with the regime in Skopje is suspect, to say the least! After all, who would want to rock the boat in a year when the big hats in Brussels are preparing their signatures on documents allowing 9in November) Nikola Gruevski’s VMRO-DPMNE government to accept an invitation for FYROM to join the European Union. Is this the Europe the Europeans want? Then they might as well extend an invitation to Turkmenistan to join the EU (yes, I know they already invited Turkey, it’s a start).
We cannot allow Vasko to become the blood victim of this sacrifice of Human and Political Rights in the altar of the dubious integration of this transplant of totalitarian central Asian politics in Europe!
VASILIJE GLIGOROV-VASKO GLIGORIJEVIC´S LIFE (if he is still alive) IS IN GRAVE DANGER!
VASKO MUST BE IMMEDIATELY AND UNCONDITIONALLY RELEASED!
As you know there are two two western-oriented international human rights organizations operating worldwide in most situations of severe oppression or abuse.
