Written by Saimir Lolja. Translated by Petrit Latifi.

The southern part of Lower Albania is called by the Albanians by the name Chameria. The Roman imperial name Epirus of the 1st – 4th centuries AD is also used for it, taken from the geographical expression in Albanian “Tokat E Pirit” by adding the Western Roman imperial suffix -us. The ruins of Pirit, a very ancient Arban city, are located near the village of Zhulat in Gjinokastra.

The Pirit Lands were first outlined as a state region of Magna Graecia in 1913 using the Roman name Epirus. The use of the name “Epirus” by Magna Graecia and the claim that “Epirus is Greek” does not mean that “Greece” created for the first time in history in 1830 becomes “Ancient Greece”.

In Albanian, Ar bana (northern dialect) = Ar tëmë (southern dialect). These root words describe the basic action of farmers at least 12,000 years ago. From them arise qualitative nouns that are essentially the same and slightly different in spelling: Arban = Arbër = Arbëresh = Arbëror = Arbanas = Arbanit = Arvanit = Arnaut (Ottoman) = Arnavut (Turkish, today) = Alban = Albanian (from foreigners) = Shqiptar = I-lir.

Since the letter B in the Byzantine ecclesiastical language Katharevousa is read as V, then the qualitative noun Arbanit was transformed into Arvanit. According to the religious garb of faith, the local Arvanites are distinguished into Orthodox Christians and Muslims. Wrongly, and deliberately planted by anti-Albanian propaganda, only the local Muslim Arvanites of the northwest of Magna Graecia are understood by Albanians as Chams.

After the uprising of the Christian Arvanites in 1821, the uncertified Entente League of the empires of Britain-Russia-France created on February 3, 1830, for the first time in history, a non-Western religious principality called “Greece” and with an area of ​​1/6 of today’s Magna Graecia. For betrayal of Europe and the West, “Greece” was outlined as a state that would revive the Eastern Orthodox Christian empire that had been extinguished in 1453.

Therefore, even today, a “Greek” citizen means not a person by nationality but an Orthodox Christian believer, who also uses the Byzantine ecclesiastical language Katharevousa adapted to the people (Dhimotiki), whose name has the Byzantine religious suffixes -os and -is, and hates Muslims and the like.

The Entente was certified with the signatures of 1907 and in the 20th century, for betrayal of Europe and the West, it would further enlarge “Greece” and create Yugoslavia (Greater Serbia) three times. With the help of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, prominent Albanian scholars held an Assembly on November 14-22, 1908 in Manastir where they designated a unified Albanian Alphabet with Western letters. (The American noble couple Phineas and Violet Kennedy also participated in the Assembly.)

In October 1912, with the encouragement of the Entente League, Greater Serbia, Greater Greece, Montenegro, and Bulgaria ignited the First Balkan War to attack with increased appetite to seize as much Albanian territory as possible that had remained as Ottoman vilayets.

In the conditions when the Albanian lands were either under the Turkish army or under the Serbian, Greek, Montenegrin and Bulgarian ones, with the advice of Austria-Hungary, the Albanian representatives managed to declare Albanian independence in Vlora on November 28, 1912.

Three months later, the Greek army occupied Ioannina for the first time on March 6, 1913, as well as Chameria, which it continues to keep occupied.

Violence, displacement from settlements, forced conversion and change of religious faith, plunder of wealth and property, massacres and expulsions abroad fell upon Muslims, including the Albanians, whenever their region was given to Greece. As in Greater Serbia (Yugoslavia), all local Arvanites in Greater Greece were also forbidden to attend Albanian schools.

A similar Eastern genocide against the Orthodox Christian population took on a larger scale in the weakened Ottoman Empire with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. As a result, most of the Ottoman Orthodox Christian population had been either killed or deported to Greece by the end of 1922.

The Paris Peace Conference was held from 18 January 1919 to 21 January 1920. With the encouragement of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who promised that Greater Greece would be granted further enlargement if it conquered Ottoman territories, the Greek army landed at Smyrna (present-day Izmir) on 15 May 1919 and launched an in-depth attack.

As the Ottoman Empire was in its final moments of agony, its representatives signed the Treaty of Sèvres, near Paris, on August 10, 1920, against Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. The Treaty of Sèvres, which definitively ended the Ottoman Empire, granted France, Britain, Magna Graecia, and Italy large territories in Anatolia.

When Mustafa Kemal took command of the Turkish army and after military supplies arrived from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s Bolshevik Russia (a German troops), the Turkish army counterattacked in August 1922.

The Greco-Turkish War ended on 11 October 1922 with the expulsion of the Greek army from Anatolia. Peace talks began in Lausanne, Switzerland on 20 November 1922. The Treaty of Lausanne was signed by Britain, France, Italy, Magna Graecia, Japan and Romania on 24 July 1923. It recognized the formation of the Republic of Turkey within its present borders.

An Eastern Agreement signed on 30 January 1923 as part of the future Treaty of Lausanne was the exchange of 1.2 million Orthodox Christian inhabitants remaining in the Republic of Turkey for 400,000 Muslim inhabitants in Magna Graecia. The exchange was forced, violent, chaotic, with countless human lives lost and the statehood of those who came from it was severed.

In that population exchange, the local Muslim Arvanites suffered greatly, especially those in the northwest of Greater Greece, Chameria. The Albanian government tried through the League of Nations to separate the local Muslim Arvanites from the Islamic believers of other nations in that population exchange.

With British help, a military coup in Greater Greece restored King George II to power on November 25, 1935. On April 13, 1936, he appointed the Nazi military leader Ioannis Metaxas as prime minister (www.metaxas-project.com). He, in turn, and with the king’s signature, established his Nazi rule on August 4, 1936, dissolving the Parliament, banning political parties, and abrogating the Constitution.

Violence against the local Muslim Albanians increased and a complete ban on the use of the Albanian language was immediately ordered. On 25 March, 2 and 6 April 1939, King Zog I refused the Italian demand to accept the unification of Albania with Italy. Then, World War II in Europe began on 7 April 1939 when the Italian army attacked Albania and completed the occupation on 11 April.

Two days later, Britain and France declared themselves protectors of the independence of Magna Graecia. On 16 April, Albania was dissolved as a political state, becoming part of the Italian kingdom. On 3 June 1939, Italy vaporized the Albanian Foreign Ministry and foreign diplomats left Tirana. Britain officially accepted the dissolution of Albania by Italy on 31 October 1939.

On the night of 28 October 1940, Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas turned down Italy’s firm demand to allow the Italian army to enter. A few hours later, the Italian army began its invasion of Greece along the 145 km (90 mi) Albanian-Greek border. (October 28, commemorating the speech of a Nazi prime minister who had been in power for four years, http://www.metaxas-project.com, continues to be an official holiday in Greater Greece.)

The Greek army was supplied with everything it needed from Britain and its air power was British aircraft. Meanwhile, British military intelligence had broken the code of German and Italian communications since April 1940. The British command was constantly informed of the situation and plans of the Italian army. As a result, the Greek army quickly confronted the Italian army, counterattacked and did not stop at the Albanian-Greek border but continued and occupied half of the territory of southern Albania. The German army from Greece would also occupy Albania in September 1943.

With British advice, the Greek government prepared and King George II signed the Approved Law No. 2636 on 10 November 1940 (Figure 1). It designated Italy and Albania as enemy states and their citizens, except those of Greek origin, as enemies. (Since Greece was created in 1830, then, for example, if some Himariots are Greek when and why did they come to Himara after 1830?)

The Approved Law was known to be implemented on October 28, 1940. Although it was known that Albania could not be an attacker, it was a golden tool to continue the expulsions and appropriations of the very large movable and immovable properties of Albanians that had occurred since the declaration of Albanian independence. It defined how to act economically against enemy states and citizens.

Economic and financial relations were interrupted, while movable and immovable properties were temporarily separated from their owners (sequestration). And the Greek government was assigned to use those movable and immovable properties without losing the names of the owners and the purposes of the properties (conservative confiscation). The monetary income from those assets was paid into a special account in the Bank of Greece.

The Approved Law 2636/1940 had nothing to do with the citizens of Greece, including the local Muslim Arvanites. Since it defined Italy and the dissolved Albania as enemy states, it had the force of economic law for such cases and did not declare war on Italy and Albania. Meanwhile, intentionally, treacherously, incompetently, mistakenly, the Approved Law 2636/1940 and the local Muslim Arvanites have been grafted together barrenly into Albanian consciousness as the “Law of “The War against the Chams”.

Chameria did not become part of Albania even with the border changes during World War II. The local Muslim Arvanites, who are deliberately and incorrectly called Chams and not Greeks in state relations, were continuously citizens of Greater Greece and genocide was committed against them in June 1944 and the following months.

The Greek army had 14 divisions stuck facing the Italian army in southern Albania while it had two divisions left on the Greek-Yugoslav border and four divisions along the Greek-Bulgarian border. On 2 March 1941 the British Imperial Command landed in Greece the British 1st Armoured Brigade, the 2nd Division from New Zealand and the 6th Division from Australia, a total of 62,000 soldiers who were deployed as the second echelon.

On 6 April 1941 the German 12th Army attacked from Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, and on 10 April it entered Thessaloniki. On 10 April the British Imperial Force began a fighting retreat. By 20 April 1941 the Greek divisions had surrendered and the German command allowed the soldiers and officers to return home with their light weapons; a mistake it would later regret.

The occupation of mainland Greece ended on 30 April 1941 and cost the British Imperial Army 11,840 soldiers and the German Army 5,000 soldiers. In occupied Greater Greece, the German army covered the region of southern Macedonia with the port of Thessaloniki, Athens with the port of Piraeus and several islands.

The eastern part was covered by the Bulgarian army and the entire rest was covered by the Italian army until September 1943, then by the German army. The Holocaust, with the increased enthusiasm of the Greek government, began to be implemented immediately after the invasion.

A part of the surrendered soldiers and priest commissars were immediately lined up in various formations in the service of the occupation forces. Meanwhile, with Christian Arvanites from the Suli highlands in Chameria and priest commissars, the British command formed in September 1941 an “army” with two regiments named the Hellenic National Democratic League (?!) and led by Napoleon Zerva.

The British Directorate of Special Operations (Special Operations Executive – SOE, eng.) paid Napoleon Zerva 16 gold pounds/month while giving his approximately 2000 mercenaries two gold pounds/month. The Hellenic National Democratic League (LKDH – EDES, dhim.) gangs operated only in Chameria, not against the occupying armies, only against the Slavic-communist military units and towards the end of the war against the local Muslim Arvanites remaining in Chameria.

The British Imperial Fleet blockaded the Greek coast immediately after the invasion and as a result not a single grain of grain was brought in for the population of Greater Greece. As a result, the Holodomor in the winter of late 1941 – early 1942 claimed the lives of 300,000 Greek citizens due to starvation in the cold.

Another part of the surrendered soldiers and reservists provided the human resources for the Greek Communist Party to launch the Greek People’s Liberation Army (ULPG – ELAS, ed.) in June 1942. As its power grew, the Athens government and the German command formed in April 1943 with 22,000 former surrendered soldiers and priest commissars the Security Battalions (Evzonoi, ed., today constitute the Presidential Guard). They fought against the ULPG and committed all kinds of crimes.

After the surrender of the Italian army on 8 September 1943, the regions occupied by it were covered by the German army. It informed the population that for every German soldier killed, about ten inhabitants would be shot. On 24 September 1943, UPLG partisans killed six German soldiers who were sunbathing on the Paramithi Steps. In keeping with its word, the German army shot 49 residents of Paramithi after five days.

In May 1944, the ULPG formed the IV “Ali Demi” Battalion in Chameria with the local Muslim Arvanites as part of its XV Regiment. On June 27, 1944, under instructions from the British SOE military mission, informing the German army of its presence and not being hindered by it, the so-called XVI Regiment of the LKDH began the genocidal massacre against the local Muslim Arvanites in the town of Paramithi.

It was followed by massacres, expulsions, destruction and burnings in Parga on July 28, 1944, in Filat, Spatar and other places on September 23, 1944. Disappointed that the mosques were not spared, those who could took the terrified roads on foot towards Albania. The rest, mainly children, women and the elderly, were locked up in the Paramithi prison guarded by the LKDH gangs. The prison was exterminatory because under its inhuman conditions 7 or 8 people died per day.

Ordered to prepare for withdrawal on 26 August 1944, Army Group E of the German army began its withdrawal from Greece on 3 October 1944. Its western rear, after entering Albania, left Saranda on 10 October 1944, while the last rearguard crossed the Greek-Macedonian border on the night of 1/2 November 1944.

The British army arrived in Chameria in November 1944 and took the local Muslim Arvanites who had survived in the Paramithi prison with cars and sent them to Igoumenitsa. From there, they loaded them onto small boats and landed them in Saranda.

In December 1944, the ULPG brigades crushed the LKDH gangs and their remnants were taken by British ships to Corfu. Lured, in January 1945, the Muslim Arvanites from Filati returned to their homes. In Corfu, on 15 February 1945, the British command dissolved the LKDH and enlisted its mercenaries in the National Guard units it had formed for the Greek government. On 15 March 1945, the National Guard units with former LKDH bandits attacked and massacred everyone they found in Filati. Few were those who ran and reached Albania alive.

Thousands of local Muslim Arvanites were killed, just as many lost their lives on the roads of expulsion, and tens of thousands were expelled. Properties and houses were burned or destroyed and everything of value was looted. In addition to living testimonies, e.g. by Sali Bollati, it is enough to read the diaries Molla e Sherrit (Apple of Discord, 1948) and Diçka e Sprovuar (Something Ventured, 1982) of the head of the British SOE Mission in Chameria, Colonel Christopher Montague Woodhouse, to touch the truth.

For example, in a statement of his on 16 October 1945, with the archival citation FO 371/48094/18138, it was written: “…Zerva, instigated by the Allied Mission under my direction, expelled the Chams from their homes in 1944….”.

The Yugoslav communist forces, the Slavic-communist forces in Albania and the LKDH forces in Chameria were created, supplied, armed and were closely directed by the British command in Cairo, Egypt until September 1943 and then in Bari, Italy. (It is necessary to browse the book “Receta pa komb”.)

According to the order from the Entente League, the British dictator Enver Hoxha did not order any Slavic-communist partisan units to prevent the genocide against the local Muslim Arvanites in Chameria. Even the Slavic-communist ULPG force, although it had seven Brigades in Chameria, did not prevent the massacres and expulsions carried out by the LKDH gangs.

On October 13, 1944, three British Brigades entered Athens while most of Greater Greece was in the hands of the Slavic-communist forces. On December 3, 1944 in Athens, British soldiers and former soldiers of the Security Battalions, now government police, fired on a very large crowd of supporters of the Slavic-communist forces, killing at least 28 people. In the following, a war using artillery, tanks and aircraft would ignite Athens.

As reinforcements, the British command landed and engaged the 4th Indian Infantry Division. After 37 days, the Slavic-communist forces left Athens. An international civil war would engulf the entire Greater Greece and its population until October 16, 1949, when it would end with the defeat and expulsion of the Slavic-communist forces called the Democratic Army of Greece (?!). The Kingdom continued and only on December 8, 1974 would Greece be declared a Republic, for the third time.

In 1947, Italy and Greece signed a treaty of friendship in which Greater Greece no longer recognized Italy as an enemy country. Their economic relations began on May 4, 1955. The Entente League’s project to create the Balkan Communist Federation by dissolving Albania into Yugoslavia was broken in 1948.

And since the end of the international civil war in Greece was clearly visible, on May 13, 1949, the Greek government gazette published the Approved Law 1138/1949. It stipulated that if a country was to be called a non-enemy, a new law had to be approved by the government and the king, and published in the government gazette.

Albania under the Slavic-communist regime was a closed country and would not have diplomatic relations with Greater Greece until May 7, 1971. That is, deliberately, the expelled Muslim Arbanites were prevented from returning to their homes and the creaking of broken movable and immovable property in Greater Greece had no political ear to hear.

At the end of 1952, there remained 18,622 Muslim Arbanites expelled from Chameria in Albania who still had the status of refugees with Greek citizenship. Law No. 1654 of April 19, 1953 of the Albanian state under the Slavic-communist regime granted them Albanian citizenship by force, without exception, and with the knowledge that Greece had not taken away their citizenship.

That is, they were unilaterally covered by Greek citizenship and at the same time they became “enemy citizens” according to Greek Law 2636/1940. Following the order to dissolve them and separate them from their origins, the Slavic-communist government in Albania undertook a campaign of propaganda, imprisonment, executions and family dismemberment against the expelled Muslim Arvanites in the years 1946-1973.

The War Diaries of the High Command of the German Armed Forces (Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht, 1940-1945) were compiled into eight volumes by a team of leading historians written by Percy Ernst Schramm in the years 1961-1965. They do not mention the local Muslim Chams or Arvanites who collaborated with the occupying armies in northwestern Greece.

While they do mention, for example, the non-combat agreements with Napoleon Zerva. His bandits carried out, on orders, in June-September 1944 and March 1945, massacres and deportations of the local Muslim Arvanites because the latter were among the last Muslims remaining in Byzantine Greater Greece and supported the ULPG led by the Greek Communist Party.

Even if there were local Muslim Arvanites who collaborated with the occupying forces, their number or value were negligible. They were always either under the orders of the central government in Athens or were used in Albania.

Moreover, their actions cannot even be compared to the numbers and crimes of the Security Battalions or other Greek government forces or to the 300,000 deaths from the Holodomor caused by the British fleet in the winter of 1941/1942. If the men and the entire population had been collaborators of the occupiers, then the German army command would have prevented the LKDH gangs from carrying out the massacres, deportations and imprisonments in June-October 1944.

The Greek Law Approved 2636/1940 itself, the decision of the Greek Ministry of Economy 14882/1947 and that of the Greek Ministry of Finance 3574/1947, as well as the Greek Law Approved 4506/1966 exclude Albanian citizens of Greek origin from the impact of the Greek Law 2636/1940. Consequently, the Muslim Arvanites who are natives of Greece, of Greek origin, when they became Albanian citizens with the Albanian Law 1654/1953 are excluded from the impact of the Greek Law 2636/1940.

That is, their movable and immovable assets are there in the country. Remembering that the registers are archived and the Greek citizenship for the Muslim Arvanites has not been revoked (Figure 2), and since when they were expelled they arrived in Albania with only the clothes on their backs, it is the responsibility of the Albanian government to pave the way, together with the Greek government, for them to go to the country and obtain their documents, including the Greek passport.

In order for the obstacle net to fall at least on one side and the way to be opened, it is enough for the Albanian state to issue a law that invalidates its Law 1654/1953. Because this only restores the names of the Muslim Arvanites on the relevant list to the status of refugee with Greek citizenship. This disconnection does not affect the current citizenships (passports) of their heirs and family members.

With Britain and France as the mediators, diplomatic relations between Greece and Albania were to be postponed until they were established on May 7, 1971. The mediators took care not to mention the repeal of the Law 2636/1940 in Greater Greece and not to make a sound for the Muslim Arvanites expelled to Albania.

On August 28, 1987, the Greek government officially recognized Albania as a non-enemy country. Albania and Greece signed the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, Good Neighborliness and Security on March 26, 1996. The Treaty, after passing through the Assemblies and Presidents of both countries, entered into force on February 4, 1998.

Although the Treaty recognizes both states, although the state relations between Greece and Albania are complete, although Article 15 of that Treaty required the removal of legal obstacles for citizens of one party to enjoy property in the territory of the other party, the repeal of the Approved Law 2636/1940 has not yet become an Approved Law published in the Greek government gazette.

The reason is that the value of the Albanian properties looted in Greater Greece before and in November 1940, together with the value they have produced from exploitation (compound interest), and which must be returned, is very large.

The Albanian assets that were looted in November 1940 were hotels, houses, restaurants, various enterprises, financial enterprises, land, agricultural land, forests, pastures, meadows, pensions, money stored in banks, etc. Some examples without counting the value produced by use, recirculation and time are given below:

(1) Hasan Prishtina’s villa at Vasilisis Olgas 32, Thessaloniki, costs at least four million Euros today. Meanwhile, the Albanian state has been paying rent for its Consulate General in Thessaloniki since 1999.

(2) The Albanian state spent 2.5 million Euros in 2002 for the Albanian Embassy building in Athens, while 6.3 km away on Vasilisis Sofias Street is the building of the former Albanian Legation looted by Greek Law 2636/1940 and which the Greek government continues to use.

(3) Citing the book “The Last War” by the author Mentor Nazarko, the Albanian lands forcibly expropriated with “agrarian reforms” from the signing of the independent Albania in July 1913 until November 1940 are 350,000 hectares. Starting from a calculation made in the Albanian Parliament on June 25, 1925, the taxes from the use of those 350,000 hectares for the years 1913-1940 not paid to the Albanian state come out to 456 million gold francs in 1940 value. And the taxes not paid per year 1941-2021 are (2021-1941) *456 million /(1940-1913) = 1351 million gold francs in 1940 value.

(4) The land acquired by Greek Law 2636/1940 is 260,000 hectares. The taxes from the use of this land area for the years 1941-2021 not paid to the Albanian state are (2021-1941) *456 million *(260,000 /350,000) /(1940-1913) = 1003 million gold francs in 1940 value.

One gold franc = 0.29025 grams of pure gold. On January 11, 2021, the price of gold is 59.56 US$/gram and 1 Euro = 1.22 US$. Then, the above values ​​together are (456+1331+1003 = 2810 million gold francs) *0.29025 *59.56 /1.22 = 39’817 million Euros today = 39.817 billion Euros today.

Citing the book “The Last War” by the author Mentor Nazarko, the price of those 350,000 + 260,000 = 610,000 ha of land was 203 million gold francs in 1941. Assuming an average land price today of 22 Euro/m2 and 1 ha = 10,000 m2, then the value of 610,000 ha is 610,000 * 10,000 * 20 = 134.2 billion Euros today. In total, the value of land and taxes is 174 billion Euros today.

(5) Vangjel Zhapa’s movable and immovable assets in 19th century Romania and Greece were extraordinary. On November 30, 1860, he left a large monetary fortune in his will to his people in Labovë e Madhe, Gjinokastro. He asked the Athens inheritance commission to carry out the will after the death of his cousin Constantine (who died in 1892). Greek law 2636/1940 again prevented the execution of wills and legal inheritances for his people. In 1955, the Tirana government made a clumsy and fruitless attempt to withdraw to Albania 800 million US$ (6.36 billion Euros today) that Vangjel Zhapa had left in safekeeping with the Orthodox Christian Patriarchate in Istanbul and that the Turkish government had temporarily frozen until heirs emerged.

These are in addition to the value of the compensation that Great Greece must pay to Albania for the damages and massacres of its army during the Balkan Wars, World War I, in November 1940 – April 1941 and August 1949. (The trial in Albania for the events of 1997 has not yet been held so the details of this are not yet known.)

And these are in addition to the value of the looted property plus the compound interest that belongs to the local Muslim Arvanites expelled to Albania in 1944-1945.

In short, all of Greece constitutes a liability to Albania.

Reference

https://www.ikvi.at/?p=274653