The Offical Stance of the Greek Government on the Question
- Denial of ethnic identity, brutal forms of assimilation, restrictions on the cultural rights and harassment against minority leaders are the main methods employed by Greece against its ethnic minorities. Ethnic Albanians are subject to these treatments as well.- Official Greek allegations that both northern and southern Epirus are historically greek lands are in dispute with the historical facts. The famous King Pirro, who founded the Kigdom of Epir in III. Century AD is called “Barbarian”, namely “not Greek”, in the writings of many greek historians. As the Western sources confirmed, the Epirus region has always been ethnically Albanian.
- Even supposing that Cham people cooperated with Nazis during the second World War, the repatriation of the greeks who collaborated with Nazis during the second World War with general amnesties in 1970s as against the violent expulsion of 300.000 Cham Albanians from the lands that bequeathed to them from their forefathers, is bitter evidence of the chauvinist approach of the Greek government against ethnic minorities.
- While the Greek political leaders demand from the Albanian government to recognize the minority rights of the Greeks in northern Epirus, they vehemently deny the existence of an Albanian minority in Greece.
Following excerpts from a statement made by the then Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis on 14 July 1993 are noteworthy with regard to the double standard employed by the Greek government in the case of the Albanian minority in particular, and other minorities of Greece in general.
"The Albanian government must end all interference with the right of Albanian citizens to declare whatever ethnic identity they wish according to international principles . . .”
(Presently, despite the provisions of the international agreements, not only the existence of ethnic Albanians, but also all other ethnic minorities, namely Turks, Macedonians, Vlahs and Roma, are vehemently denied by the Greek government. The government maintains that Greece is a “homogeneous” country.)
“The Tirana Government refused to allow the teaching of the Greek in public schools beyond the first few grades and even then, it was allowed only in a few arbitrarily designated “minority zones”
(Teaching of the minority languages in Greek schools, except Turkish, is strictly forbidden in Greece. Albanians and Macedonians are not even allowed to speak their mother tongues.)
“Breaking all rules protecting religious freedom and in violation of article 16 of Albania’s own human rights law, the Tirana Government hampered the operation of the orthodox church in the country by failing to return church property taken during the hard years of communist rule, by insisting that the liturgy be conducted in Albanian and by harassing the few priests allowed to serve Greek communities.”
(Though the Greek government accepted the right of Albanians, Macedonians and Vlahs to establish their own autonomous Orthodox churches with the Sevres Treaty of 1920, today this is only on paper and the religious life of all orthodox communities in Greece is under the tight control of Greek Orthodox Church. )
“The Albanian government did not facilitate the repatriation of the tens of thousands of ethnic greeks who were forcibly removed from Northern Epirus during 40 years of the Stalinist regime of Enver Hoxha. It did not restore their property to them..”
( In this context, one should remember thousands of Chamides, Macedonians and Turks who were expelled by Greece in the course of twentieth century to Albania, Macedonia and Turkey respectively. )
Today, the ethnic minorities of Greece, namely Turks, Macedonians, Albanians, Vlahs and Roma demand no more than what the Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis asked for the so-called Greek minority in Albania, in 1993.