During the Conference of Ambassadors in London in
1913, the southern part of the region was cut off from
the motherland and annexed to the Greek state despite
the fact that people of the southern Epirus were
Albanians of Orthodox and the Muslim faith. While the
orthodox Albanians were targets of hellenization, the
muslim Albanians were either exterminated or expelled
from their ancestral lands by the Greek government.


Chams who lived in Southern Epirus (Chameria or
Thesprotia as it is called by the Greeks) were the
victims of the first ethnic cleansing in Europe at the
end of the Second World War. The Cham tragedy is one
of the most painful tragedies of the European
continent. Statistical yearbook of the Greek
government in 1936 showed that 26.000 Chams lived in
Chameria region in Greece at that time.


As a result of the 1944-1945 ethnic cleansing and
genocide, 30.000 Albanian Muslims were violently
expelled from the Chameria region, and sought refuge
in the Republic of Albania, where they still live.
Today, there are 150.000 members of this population in
Albania, a figure that has grown because of the high
birth rate of the population. On the other hand,
current number of Cham Albanians living in Greece is
estimated at around 100.000. Yet these people are
deprived of every sort of minority rights like other
minorities living in Greece. To cite but one example,
they can speak Albanian only in their homes.


The population of Chameria has always been ethnically
Albanian: - A lot of voyagers and foreign historians
wrote that Chameria had been populated by Albanians.
Even the Greek historian Herodotus underscored this
fact in his book Historias and called Albanians of the
Chameria barbarians, a term used by the ancient Greeks
to distinguish non-greek people. - The census held by
the Turkish Administration in 1910 established that
there were 83.000 orthodox and muslim Albanians in the
region. The demographic map of the British military
mission sent to the British government in London
indicates that on the eve of the second World War, 75%
of Chameria's population was Albanian. - The pro-Greek
historian Spiro Muselimi, in his book "Historical
Sight Through Thesprotia", edited in Joannina on 1974,
wrote that "The bishop of Thesprotia in the year 1870
translated some parts of Bible into Albanian, as the
people of orthodox faith of the region did not
understand any word in Greek" .


The Greek authorities, sticking to the concept of
absolute denial of the existence of ethnic groups on
Greek territory, have followed a well-established
chauvinistic policy and, as history recorded, they
committed genocide against the Albanians of muslim
faith. The racial assault on Chameria's muslim
Albanians began to be first applied at the end of the
Second World War, in 1944-1945, when criminal bands of
the notorious General Napoleon Zervas perpetrated
ethnic cleansing against them.


On June 27, 1944, Greek criminal bands resorted to the
worst atrocities witnessed in this region. The terror
committed against this population was beyond
description. It included killings, rapes, inhuman
treatment, massacre of women, babies and pregnant
women. More than 1400 men, women and children were
killed within 24 hours in the town of Paramithy, on
Tuesday, June 27, 1944, which happened to be the date
of St.Bartholomeus day for the whole Chameria.


During the June 1944-March 1945 period, 1286 persons
were killed in Filat, 192 people were killed in
Gumenica, 626 persons were killed in Margellic and
Parga. There were hundreds of other missing persons.
In the same period, as a result of Greek massacres,
acts of robbery and rapes against the Albanian
population of Chameria; 2900 young and old men, 214
women, 96 children were massacred, 745 women were
raped, 76 women abducted, 32 children, younger than 3
years were massacred, 68 villages were razed to the
ground, 5800 houses and places of worship were burned
down or destroyed. Furthermore, 30.000 Albanian
Muslims were violently expelled from the Chameria
region who took refuge in the Republic of Albania.


The Albanian government, after the war, took the Cham
issue to the Peace Conference in Paris. The conference
of Foreign Ministers of the Allied Powers not only
recognized the very difficult circumstances the Chams
were subjected to, but also demanded repatriation and
recovery of their property. The International
Investigation Commission of the United Nations,
appointed for the verification of the tragedy on both
sides of the border, concluded its report in
1946-1947, replete with facts and evidence about the
massacre and painful tragedy of the Cham people.


Realities of the recent history of Chameria require
the attention of the international community. Greece
cannot avoid but recognize the genocide of the Cham
Albanians. The civil and legal rights of those
currently living in Greece, estimated around 100.000
today, must be respected by Greece. According to the
official Greek stand, the muslim population of
Chameria, which numbers around 150.000 and still
refugees in Albania will never be allowed to return to
Greece because they allegedly collaborated with the
German occupiers during the Second World War. They are
considered as war criminals according to the Greek
laws (K.Mitsotakis, Tirana, May 1992).


This hypothesis is untrue and fabricated. To consider
a whole community as criminals, many members of which
died in Greece's liberation struggle in the Second
World War, is a political and historical crime against
Cham Albanians. In 1994, the Parliament of the
Albanian Republic proclaimed 27 June 1944 as the
commemoration day for the massacred Albanians of
Chameria, and a monument was built up in Konispol in
memory of the victims of Chameria.


After 1945, with a view to changing the demographic
structure of Chameria, its colonization with Greeks,
Aromens and Gypsies was begun. Greece wanted the
demographic structure of the province changed because
it did not trust the rest of the Albanian population
who remained there, even though they were of the
Orthodox confession. Greece violently put an end to
every attempt to preserve the identity of the Albanian
population of the Orthodox belief and Albanian was
prohibited to be spoken in public. Thereby, the
assimilation of orthodox Albanians gained momentum.
The fate of the orthodox Albanians was not much
different than that of their Muslim brothers when it
came to maintaining their ethnic identity.






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