(GHM/IFEX) – The following is a 23 December 1998 GHM press release further to an attack on journalists and others by Greek Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos during an official visit to Macedonia: Press Release 23/12/1998 Government, parties & human rights organizations must condemn intolerant statements by Foreign Minister Pangalos The cooperating non-governmental organizations (NGOs) Greek […]
(GHM/IFEX) – The following is a 23 December 1998 GHM press release further
to an attack on journalists and others by Greek Foreign Minister Theodoros
Pangalos during an official visit to Macedonia:
Press Release
23/12/1998
Government, parties & human rights organizations must condemn intolerant
statements by Foreign Minister Pangalos
The cooperating non-governmental organizations (NGOs) Greek Helsinki Monitor
and Minority Rights Group-Greece condemn the statements made yesterday in
Skopje by Minister of Foreign Affairs Theodoros Pangalos, as intolerant if
not racist. They call upon the Greek government, political parties and other
human rights organizations to unequivocally condemn them because in such
cases “silence means complicity.”
Mr. Pangalos referred to all persons claiming there is a minority in the
Greek region of Western Macedonia as “pervert intellectuals and pervert
journalists.” He argued that the minority is “artificial, a product of
Titoism and Stalinism.” He repeatedly used pejorative if not slanderous
language for the minority party “Rainbow”. He characterized it “a coalition
of Slavomacedonians, Stalinists and homosexuals that got 1,700 votes in the
last elections.” He added, later on, that Rainbow “took part in the
elections forming alliances with the Organization for the Reconstruction of
the Communist Party of Greece (OAKKE) which is Stalinist, and the Movement
for the Liberation of Homosexuals managing to obtain throughout Greece only
1,840 votes.”
Given that Rainbow never took part in an election in coalition with an
organization representing homosexuals, the above statement by Mr. Pangalos
brings to memory similar attacks made by intolerant and nationalist circles
towards human rights activists, independently of the clarifications the
Minister resorted to later on. Besides, it must be reminded that Rainbow
obtained in the 1994 European elections, in which it stood alone, 7,300
votes; and in the parliamentary elections of 1996, in coalition with OAKKE,
3,500 votes. Therefore, the figures presented by the Minister, who insisted
they were official, were false. But, even if only 1,700 persons claimed the
right to a minority identity, the argument that they constitute a very small
number in order to be recognized as a minority weakens decisively the
demands of the Greeks of Turkey who, with the tolerance of successive Greek
governments, have been reduced to 2,500 persons.
We consider these statements unacceptable and condemnable for any Greek
politician. More so when the Minister of Foreign Affairs makes them in an
official visit to the capital of another country aiming at fellow nationals
of the population of that country. How would Greeks feel if, for example, a
Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs blasted off with a similar attack
against the Greek minority in Turkey during an official visit to Greece?
