Επιστολή Αναγνώστη(email)

NORTHERN EPIRUS IS NOT A DIRTY WORD.

Way back in 1960, just around the time when the leader of the USSR Nikita Khrushchev suggested to the paranoid leader of Stalinist Albania Enver Hoxha that autonomy be granted to Northern Epirus, as the majority population in this region along the border with Greece, was of ethnic Greek origin, George Papandreou, the grandfather of the current Greek Prime Minister, known also by the sobriquet: “Grandfather of the Republic,” said the following in Parliament:

“What all Greek Governments need to know is that the Northern Epirus issue continues to exist. And what should be forbidden down the ages, is the denial of our sacred claims. With regards to Northern Epirus, these claims are sacred and indelible.”

            Fast forward some fifty years later to the government of George Papandreou’s grandson and his namesake, and a totally different state of affairs exists. Recently the Greek Consul in the southern city of Korytsa (Korçë), Theodoros Oikonomou-Kamarinos was recalled to Athens in disgrace after mentioning at a meeting celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the ethnic Greek political party OMONOIA in that city, that “this region is referred to as Northern Epirus,” and that “your grandfathers were Greek.” That the grandfathers of members of the Greek minority in Korytsa were Greek seems axiomatic. During 1914, bloody battles between Greeks and Albanians took place in order to secure the city for the autonomous Greek state of Northern Epirus and Korytsa’s inclusion within that state was agreed to by the Albanian government of the time. Further, between 1916-1918, the region of Korytsa was annexed by Greece and local representatives represented the region in the Greek parliament. As late as 1940, the Greek inhabitants of Korytsa jubilantly welcomed the Greek army into their city, fighting off the Italian invaders. The Greeks are therefore…Greek.

           

The Elephant of Northern Epirus (Epirus) still sleeps!

!

"Do not disturb the elephant, which hides in deep sleep." This is the epithet that the great Himariot writer Petro Marko, considers Northern Epirus, a rich historic region which is recognized by international relations, as half of the Hellenic state of the Pyrros of Epirus. The paradox is that neither Greater Albania or Greater Serbia, or Greater Bulgaria, do not must disturb the "elephant" to sleep, until one day, it will be set up again giant.
Petro Marko
June 14, 1991


smarkos

Without future, the foreign policy of Athens, in North Epirus

Two months after the speech of Greek Prime Minister Papandreou, the Greek community property, has no progress to protect them. In Himare, the mafia is still in action, with the help of state authorities. 

Frustration for getting Greek citizenship and pensions, they may force the Greeks in Northern Epirus, to be turned back from Greece, forever.

In 20 years after the collapse of the dictatorship in Albania, Greece is failing in its foreign policy, leaving orphans Greek homogeneous, in northern Epirus, and placing primary priorities, the interests of their businesses is disappearing at companies in Tirana.

Historically is inexcusable that, for the failure of national policies of Athens, after 20 years, hopelessness and fatigue, with hundreds of thousands epiriote omogjene from southern Albania, their return home, with a profoundly tragic despair, for the future.

The consequences of the economic crisis in Greece, is also opening in foreign policy, so that, northern epiriotes in the south of Albania, now, would be forced either to stay in Greece to obtain Greek citizenship and to sell all their possessions in Northen Epirus, or, to return with empty hands and no prospect in the country.