DID GREEKS SUPPORTED SERBS BECAUSE THEY ARE BOTH ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS?

Well, if you believe this... go ahead and read the following statements:

• Statement of an atheist Greek
• Statement of two Orthodox Christian Greeks
• Statement of a French Roman Catholic who lives in Greece

I have many times read generally on the media, that Greeks showed solidarity to Serbia, because of their religion. Personally I am an atheist, so this doesn´t count. I don´t think that´s correct. Greeks showed solidarity to Serbia, because they didn´t like an attack against a sovereign country and the bombing of innocent civilians. It is sure that Greece - Serbia traditional friendly relations ( allies in 1st 2nd Balkan wars and in 1st and 2nd WWar, Greece and Serbia the only Balkan countries that fought against the Axis ) played a role, but I think it was secondary.

 As far as ethnic cleansing is concerned, I would like to tell you that one in 3 Greeks has refugee origins. When in early 20´s there was one of the biggest ethnic cleansing of human history ( more than 1.5 million Greeks were ethnically cleansed from Asia Minor and from Pontian areas and aprox. 300.000 were slaughtered. ) noone did anything to protect those refugees. When in the 1950´s the Greeks of Istanbul were driven away from their homes, no one reacted. When in 1974 Turkey invaded in Cyprus and produced 200.000 refugees and around 10.000 dead, nobody waged a war to protect those refugees too. How can Greeks believe that the bombings of Yugoslavia were done due to an ethnic cleansing ( that hadn´t even started before the bombings )? Most Greeks due to recent greek history can understand that the oppression of Albanian Kosovars was not the CAUSE of this war, but just a PRETENSE.

• Vassiliki Aroniadou says: There are many atheists, or communists or anarchists in Greece. They all suported the Serbs. The problem in that area extend beyond Kosovo, have little to do with religion and much to do with peserving our own and our freedom.
• Maria Dimitriadou says: I have read an article on this and I want to comment to the paragraph: "Greece was a center of opposition to the NATO

bombing. A mix of anti-American sentiment and kinship with fellow Christian
Orthodox Serbs led to widespread sympathy for Yugoslavia."
As a Greek I must say that first of all, my fellow country men are not
anti-Americans. Personally I have many American friends, as well as other
Greeks do. What we oppose is the bloody imperialism which is represented by
the US government.
Secondly, we do not support Serbs just because they are Orthodox
Christians, but because the right is in their side. Kurds have also the
support of  Greek people, because the right is in their side also.
Kurds are not Christians; most of them are Zoroastrianists, while many
of them are Moslems. During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon we supported
Palestinians (mostly Moslems), because the right was in their side.
Now we support the Timorese - and believe, me we are not interested on their
religion. I suppose they are Roman Catholics.
I think this paragraph is trying to downgrade the FACT that the Serbs worth
to be supported because the right is in their side. It is a well known
refrain, similar to the expressions "retaliation of Albanians", "revengeful
acts that followed Serb atrocities" and all these lies.
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Statement of a French Roman Catholic who lives in Greece

There are also lots of Catholics, and foreigners in Greece, who were against the NATO
bombing, thanks to the Greek media showing BOTH sides of the tragedy. I am one of them. I am French and a Catholic, living in Thessaloniki. Well, this was the one time in my life when I was ashamed of being French because of the attitude of my country in this war. I run a foreign language school here and I do not know personally a SINGLE person here or in Greece who was not against the bombings --OR in favour of Milocevic either. Greek people cannot accept the slaughter of innocent people, whatever their nationality, especially based on false humanitarian pretences.
The point is that NATO, pushed by the USA, tried to exterminate a nation,
multiplied the innocent victims, destroyed a country and caused the worst ecological disaster in the Balkans of all times.
I cannot resist the opportunity and would like to add that  last year , they
did with modern technology what they have been doing to Native Americans for
500 years now on their own continent.
In the past it was massive slaughter of whole tribes, spreading
diseases -sometimes on purpose, as when they organised the distribution of
blankets infected with smallpox - etc....
Now it is by cultural genocide, forcible relocation of people like the
Navajo (Dine'h) from their land to send them to radioactive contaminated
lands in Arizona, blatant racism in and out of schools,  the violations of
human and religious rights (of Native AMerican prisoners for instance, with
plenty of cases of torture, or innocent people kept for decades in
prison like Leonard Peltier, Standing Deer and others), well the list is so long I'd better stop here.
Superpowers do not care about human rights - it is only an alibi for them to
get bigger, stronger, and greedier.

Brigitte Thimiakis http://www.senaa.org

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Designed and maintained by Greeks against NATO aggression