Mirande Vickers: The Cham Issue – Where to Now?

[Grace]

from a neutral point of view, some 20 pages (pdf):

Before dismissing it you should really read it. Some $2.8 billion in property and some 200,000 Chams who are insisting in getting their land back. They are and want to Greek citizens they claim.

To be fair to ordinary Greek people, it is quite understandable why they have little sympathy or any accurate knowledge of the Cham issue. They have been taught a very simplistic historiography of the Epirus region – “those Albanians who left the coast and lowland areas of Epirus were really Turks, whereas those that remained in the hills were Christian, i.e. good, Albanians who were allowed to stay, and as the Muslim landowning ‘Turks’ left the Greeks were only getting their land back”.38

There is also a genuine, if wholly irrational, fear amongst many older Greeks that to bring back the Muslim Chams is tantamount to asking the Turks to return. However understandable is this lack of accurate historical knowledge and fear of the returning Turk, there is also unfortunately a strongly nationalist element within Greece, spearheaded by the Greek Orthodox Church, which claims to own huge tracts of land within Albania.

The Greek hard right and many people within the Orthodox world in Greece still harbour territorial designs on the ‘minority’ areas around Saranda, the coast north to Vlora and inland to Gjirokaster and Korca. For their part Albanians have never been taught about the terrible suffering of the Greek people during World War II, and the subsequent bloody Greek Civil War (1944-1949). It is clear that old prejudices need to be dispelled, and regional histories need to be re-evaluated and in most cases re-written.

http://www.da.mod.uk/colleges/csrc/d...n/07(01)MV.pdf

[Draco]

This propaganda has been brought up before here and serves little more than to confirm the existence of a wannabe terrorist group calling itself the UCC. Because it is highly discouraged that states negotiate with terrorists (and especially terrorists who hold foreign passports and can be deported) we now have a serious reason not to accept the existence of a "Cham issue".

Also, there is no such thing as 200,000 Chams. The latest available census data (from before the war) found less than 20,000 Chams and even today the population of "Chameria" is about 40,000 (out of which less than 100 are Chams according to the European Commission's Euromosaic report). How 200,000 Chams fitted in there is just another Albanian mystery...

[Grace]

Miranda Vickers is no terrorist. She is a British scholar, and was pretty harsh on Albanians, or at least enough to be quoted by Serbs.

Plus, calling people terrorists to dismiss them is kinda old.

On how they fitted there: people do have kids, and it has been two generations.

[chicagogeorge]

Originally Posted by Draco

Also, there is no such thing as 200,000 Chams. The latest available census data (from before the war) found less than 20,000 Chams and even today the population of "Chameria" is about 40,000 (out of which less than 100 are Chams according to the European Commission's Euromosaic report). How 200,000 Chams fitted in there is just another Albanian mystery...

They just added an extra 0 to the real number



furthermore, it serves them right when the Chams sided with the Fascists and Nazis against Greece.....

[helios]

Originally Posted by chicagogeorge

the Chams sided with the Fascists and Nazis[/size][/u][/b] against Greece.....

You dont know if they sided colectively with but anyhow
there is no excuse for this:

[Orphic_Hymn]

Originally Posted by helios

You dont know if they sided colectively with but anyhow
there is no excuse for this:

It was a war, those that sided with the enemy did so with clear intention to undermine the nation's borders. High treason is the verdict, DEATH is the sentence..

[helios]

Originally Posted by Orphic_Hymn

It was a war, those that sided with the enemy did so with clear intention to undermine the nation's borders. ..

War has nothing to do with genocide.

Originally Posted by Orphic_Hymn

High treason is the verdict, DEATH is the sentence..

Be reasonable, only the GOD gives the sentences.

[Orphic_Hymn]

[quote=helios;82089]War has nothing to do with genocide.[/QIPTE]
Genocide.. oh, you mean the additional 180.000 souls that you came up with to support your claims. Yeah, we're guilty.

Be reasonable, only the GOD gives the sentences.

Guess again.

[Draco]

Originally Posted by helios

You dont know if they sided colectively

Only the ones who sided were punished. The ones who weren't are still in "Chameria" (they number just under 100 according to the European Commission's Euromosaic report).

Originally Posted by helios

there is no excuse for this:

The Greek government is not responsible for this. A private band, kinda like the UCK, did this.

[gmellos]

Originally Posted by helios

War has nothing to do with genocide.



Be reasonable, only the GOD gives the sentences.

AGAIN how does 1000 deaths EQUAL genocide!??????