Chameria is an albanian "wound" that needs healing. The international community has unfairly kept silent for too long about this issue. Here we bring you few excerpts from various sources (check comments section aswell) to have a better understanding of "The Cham issue". If you have a good article on Chameria subject, please post it in the comments section, preferably in english, for the world to understand.
"Cameria geographically is situated on the today north-west Greece. This beautiful region, has a rich Albanian heritage and it was only in the 1912 that it was annexed unfairly and unjustifiably by Greece. This was the aftermath of the decision of the great powers to give Çameria to Greece, just as the great powers had made similar decisions to give Kosova and other Albanian territories to Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro... The Greek government has been very hostile toward Çams and the main reason is the fact that Çams have a very strong Albanian identity. Another reason of the Greek hostilities is the fact that Greeks inherited a very hostile policy towards Cams. During the period of time, from 1854 till 1877 the Albanians of Çameria resisted successfully the attacks from Greek "Andartes". During the WWI and WWII the greek troops attacked Çameria again. The (provisional) government of Vlora (Albania) responded by sending Albanian military troops to assist the Albanian population of Çameria , but the decision of the Ambassadors Conference assigned Çameria to Greece. As a result of this decision by the great powers, Greeks forces led by the hateful figure of N. Zervas launched attackers that ended up with many innocent Albanian locals killed... During the summer of 1944, the neo-nazi forces led by Zervas attacked many villages and towns of Chameria and as a result 9,000 Albanians (including children, women and old folks) were killed indiscriminately." [illyrians.org]
"In 1944 the Chams were evicted from Northern Greece by guerilla forces under the command of Gen. Zervas acting under the instructions of Allied officers... It was unfortunately true however that the eviction was carried out in an extremely bloody manner, and in the form of a reprisal... In March 1945 units of Zervas’ dissolved forces, under a certain officer called Zotos, carried out a ruthless massacre of the Chams in the Philiates area, and practically cleared the area of Albanian(Cham) minority." [Documents of the. British Foreign Office No.371/58479/R 10458]
"Colonel Chriss Monague Woodhouse, head of the British Military Mission in Greece reported as follows in October 1945: Encouraged by the Allied Mission I headed, Zervas drove the Chams out of their homes in 1944. The majority fled to find shelter in Albania... Their eviction from Greece was carried out with large scale bloodshed. Zervas work was followed with a big scale massacre that cannot be excused among the Philiates Chams in march 1945... The result was eviction of the undesirable Albanian population from their own native land." [Documents of the British Foreign Office, No.371/48094/544/R8 564]
"In June 1946, Joseph Jacobs, Head of the U.S. Mission in Albania (1945—1946), writes in his report: According to all information I have been able to gather on the Chams issue, in autumn 1944 and during the first months of 1945, the authorities in north—western Greece perpetrated savage brutality by evicting 25.000 Chams, residents of Chameria, from their homes, where they had been living for centuries on end, chasing them across the border after having robbed them of their land and property. Most of the young people were killed because the majority of the refugees were old folk, and children." [Documents of the U.S Department of State, No.84/3,Tirana Mission, 1945—1946, 6—646]
"1) We request that the Greek Democratic government as a member of the European Community, as a state that has signed all International Acts on Human Rights and respect for national minorities, recognizes our denied rights; 2) We request that the Greek state and government should accept the historical reality of the Cham question; 3) It should recognize the civil and legal rights of the Albanians evicted from their own territories in 1944-1945, as well as their right as legitimate owners of the property they have been robbed of. 4) We request that the Greek state and government should allow and make possible the free movement of this population to visit its ancestors’ land." [aacl.com]
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