Sceptisim as nations prepare to ink accord
THE small fishing village of Psarades made history yesterday when the leaders of Greece and Macedonia met to bury a 27-year-old name row, but many locals are seething.
“I would not call it a pleasant day,” says Achileas Papadopoulos, a 60-year-old fisherman on the banks of Lake Prespa, a natural boundary between the two countries.
“We are giving away the name ‘Macedonia’, and we’re supposed to be happy?”
Security was intense, with police cordons in place many kilometres from the village. Anybody seeking to approach had to pass through successive identity checks.
Protests against the agreement were expected in the area yesterday.
On Saturday, as the government defeated a censure motion against the accord in Athens, clashes broke out between protesters and police outside parliament.
Officials later blamed the incident on far-right supporters of Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, some of whom attacked the cars of lawmakers after the vote.
Opposition is even stronger in Greece’s north, where Greek and Bulgarian guerrillas fought a bitter four-year war in the early 20th century for predominance among Orthodox Christians in then Ottomanheld Macedonia.
Two short wars were then fought in 1912 and 1913 between the Balkan states and the Ottoman Empire to end six centuries of rule from Istanbul, with atrocities committed by both sides.
“This land has been watered with blood,” says a 22-year-old Psarades local, who declined to give her name.
“Our grandfathers talk about the past and cry,” says this Greek woman.
The deal, brokered after months of intensive talks, is touted as a vital step for stability and economic development in the Balkans.
“Signing the deal will mean opening the border soon I guess. It means a lot, for us it is a huge thing,” says Bosko Dimovski, a 60year-old from Dolno Dupeni, the first village on the Macedonian side of the border.
“This used to be one of the richest regions in the Balkans, and after the border was closed it became one of the poorest. Imagine what [the deal] will mean, just for the flow of people … local business, revival of tourism,” says Dimovski, who runs a beach bar just 50 metres from the border. —