Dr. Alex Bebler

Peace and Greece

 


And Provocations from High Places

But the provocations against the people's democracies do not stop there. From the very beginning of Anglo-American intervention in Greece the controlled press of that country has been full of anti-Soviet and anti-Balkan propaganda. This propaganda in the press is echoed by high officials of the Athens Government. The official propaganda of the Athens Government is based on anti-Soviet, anti-Balkan and anti-Slav slogans, from the Fascist songs, such as "Moscow, Sofia must be occupied", to the inflammatory speeches of General Ketses, who told the units on the Peloponnesus that they were "fighting against 200 million Slays."

Vradini, the personal newspaper of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Athens Government, and the newspaper Ethniltos Kiriks are openly advocating war and the invasion of Albania by the army. In a leading article published on August 24, 1948 it is said that the time will come when the army will lose patience and will invade Albania. Ethniltos Kiriks in its leading article of August 25, 1948, entitled "Let us Invade" prints the following: "We should send an ultimatum to the Albanians and if they do not accept it, we should enter the country immediately and demolish the Albanian State. If the numerous hostile and indecent acts which have occurred between the 'Allies' have not become a cause for war, then let our invasion of Albania be such a cause." This statement needs no comment.

For the provocative military activities on the frontiers of the northern neighbours of Greece, and the ever-growing war-mongering propaganda with its aggressive tone, are two sides of the same medal. Radio Athens said in the course of a broadcast to Northern Greece on February 26, 1948: "The Greek problem will be settled through rectification of the northern frontiers by the Greek Army. Stressing the plans for annexations of Yugoslav territory, Radio Athens announced in its broadcast of February 2: "Bitolj is Greek and so are the Greek localities of Magareva and Trnovo. Skoplje and Kumanovo, Stip, Prizren and Mitrovica are also Greek." All these towns are in Yugoslavia, some of them over 100 km. inside the Yugoslav border. On August 30, a speaker over radio Athens, expounded the Greek pretensions concerning Yugoslav and Bulgarian territories, and quoted from the book written by a former high officer of the Greek army, Periklis Yakov Agiropulos, who particularly said: "When a feeling of security is created through rectification of the frontier to cut off Bulgaria's road to the Aegean Sea and to Salonika, the aid extended for the reconstruction of Greece will have value. The ethnical, historical and natural frontiers of Greece run just south of the Emos-Kosifopedion-Alesio line" — i.e. just south of Balkan Mountain in Bulgaria, Kosovo Field in Yugoslavia, Alesi in Albania. Agiropulos continues, "Greece is not asking for foreign territory when she claims Northern Epirus or Bitolj, Djevdjelija, Doyran and the Strumica Plain." But all these places are in Yugoslavia!

The Greek newspaper Kathirnerini in its issue of August 31, 1948, states that "In the most responsible circles the idea prevails that if the Soviet Government and its satellites, as it is believed, are not prepared for open conflict, there is no reason in the world why an expeditionary corps should not be sent into Albania to give a good lesson to this perfidious little country. Such action would prove in a flaming manner that the Western Powers are ready to act; and that, basing themselves on the support of the General Assembly of the United Nations, they could pursue such tactics as long as they possess a monopoly of the atom bomb!"


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