While the negotiations between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia(FYROM) are taking place regarding the 17-year-old dispute over FYROM's name, young nationalists were throwing rocks, gas bottles, etc etc, against the Greek Embassy in Skopje!
The young nationalists were holding banners with slogans as "cretin Greeks", "fuck you Greece", etc etc, as well as maps showing the "Great Macedonia", meaning maps showing FYROM extended against Greek, Bulgarian and Albanian territories! They were also holding flags with the star of Vergina, which has been forbidden in 1995, since the Vergina Sun was recognised as a Greek symbol and part of the Greek heritage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lELZNtNA2Sk
They also attacked Greek journalists who were filming both them and THE POLICE, WHICH WAS JUST WATCHING THEM, DOING NOTHING ABOUT IT. They caused damages to the Greek embassy and the Greek cars out of it. The Greeks employees of the embassy were pent there for hours.
And those things were happening in A COUNTRY THAT WANTS TO JOIN NATO AND EU!!!!
The international Media made no reference about the whole thing. There is not a single reference even for the negotiations taking place the last days between Greece and FYROM under the United Nations representative Matthiew Nimetz. I guess the news "donkeys like to swim in the sea" which I read today in
http://www.nu.nl/ is much more important than the sensitive region of Balkans.
Some words for those who don't know anything about the issue:
The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia became an independent country after the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1991. Greece objected immediately since Macedonia is a Greek region, Macedonians is one of the Greek tribes, and the history of Macedonia is part of the Greek history (more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_%28Greece%29 ).
The citizens of FYROM are Slavic. Like the rest of the Slavs, they came to the Balkans during the 7th century, thus 1000 years after the death of the most famous king of the Macedonians, Alexander the Great. They have nothing to do with Macedonia.
Actually, the citizens of FYROM, as the rest of the Yugoslav republics which were created after the split of Yugoslavia are a mixture of many different nationalities. Bulgarians (the majority), Serbs, Croats, Albanians (the biggest minority, around 25%), Turks, Greeks(Vlachs), are some of them. Bulgaria itself recognises them as Bulgarians and gives them the Bulgarian nationality and passport. Skopje (the capital city of FYROM) has actually been the capital of Bulgaria for some years!
In 1995 there has been achieved a mid-agreement between the two countries. It was decided that the country would join the United Nations with the name Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, it will change its flag, into a flag that doesn't contain any Greek symbols (like the Vergina Sun) and both the countries promised to continue the negotiations to find a commonly accepted name.
Unfortunately FYROM does nothing towards this direction. In contrast they insist in the name "Republic of Macedonia", they spread propaganda that they are the real descendants of the ancient Macedonians, that ancient Macedonians didn't even speak Greek(!!!) and they have territoral claims against Greece and Bulgaria!
I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a documentary of a famous Greek journalist (A. Papachelas) who went to a high school of FYROM. He asked the students if they know where their country ends. ALL the students gave names of Greek cities!!! Moreover in the classroom there was a map of "Great Macedonia". Here's that map:
This map shows FYROM extended on foreign territories of Greece, Bulgaria and Albania.
The propaganda of the existence of a "Macedonian nation" started in the fifties from Tito. Tito, tried to keep Skopjeans in Yugoslavia and away from their actual brothers, Bulgarians. He started this propaganda that they are neither Bulgarian, nor Serb, but a distinguish nation: Macedonians. The majority of the people were forced to change their names. The typical ending of a name was the typical Bulgarian -ov. For example Dimitrov. The "macedonian" ending -vski was invented, and Dimtrov was renamed to Dimitrovski.
Before the 50s, the region was never called "Macedonia". And here's some proof:
Although Greeks are against of any use of the term "Macedonia" by those people, they are willing to compromise into a compositional name, like "Republic of North Macedonia", which uses Macedonia as a geographical and not ethnic term.
In my opinion the best name would be "Slavomacedonia" since it shows 1)where this country lays and 2)the origin of the people and it distinguishes them from the original Macedonians (the Greeks).
FYROM, however, refuses to change its constitutional name(Republic of Macedonia). They believe that the agreement should be about the name that they will use only when they talk with Greece (despite what they agreed in the mid-agreement of 1995) and keep their constitutional name for all the other countries and international organisations, whereas Greece believes that they should have one name for all uses.
Greece, thus, has no other option than raise veto and block the entrance of this country both in NATO and EU.
This is definitely going to wake up some people in FYROM. Joining NATO and EU is a matter of survival for this country. Since the Albanians consist 25% of the population what happened in Kosovo may be repeated in FYROM! Even if it doesn't happen soon, in 10 to 20 years Albanians will be 50% of the population of this country, and then... Skopjeans will be wishing they had never left Yugoslavia!
