Chameria-çamëria.

Çameria (chameria) geographically is situated on the to-day north-west Greece. This beautiful and unique region , has a rich Albanian heritage and it was only in the 1912 that it was annexed unfairly and unjustifiably from Greece. This was the aftermath of the decision of the great powers to give Çameria ( South Epirus) to Greece, just as the great powers had made similar decisions to give Kosova and other Albanian territories to Serbia, Ilirida to Macedonia and some imoprtant cities to Montenegro.

The word Çam is an evolution of the word "t'chiam" which is the name of an ancient river passing right through Çameria (The word T'chamis appears on many ancient Roman and even Hellenic maps, indicating that the word Chameria is older than the word Epirus, and it's used only by Albanians). Another branch of this river remains to be known to this day as the "lumi i kalamait" (Kalamait River - Childrens Rivier). What's most important is that everything about Çameria is Albanian in every sense of the word. The word Çameria has more of a topological meaning, but Çams have a very strong Albanian ethnicity, tradition and customs. Çameria has a very well-defined ethno-geographical meaning, which is strongly Albanian.

A large number of Çam population is situated on the seaside and goes up to the Gulf of Preveza. Another considerable number of towns and villages are situated on both sides of the river of "kalamait". The rest of of the Çam villages and towns are situated in more remote places and often on hills and mountains.

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 us. 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 (South Epirus) 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 in 1913 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.

To this day, we Çams in greece are described as bad people from an increasing "suffocating" Greek propaganda based on the fact that we refuse to be assimilated as it is the case with some of "Arvanites" in south and central Greece.

The today exact number of Albanians of Çameria in Greece is approx. one million people, taking into the account some relativly newly formed Çam villages and towns elsewhere in Greece..if all the number of Albanians in Çameria is added to the number of Arvanites in other areas of Greece, then the total number of Albanians in Greece is around 3.000.000 people. However only Albanians in Çameria call themselves real Shqiptars (Albanians). Arvanites elsewhere in Greece are under greater assimilating pressure from the Greek government and Anti-Albanian Greek circles.

This section is dedicated to hundreds of thousands of Albanians from the region of Chameria expelled by force, from the Greek forces in 1944 and residing now in the Republic of Albania and in the memory of 850,000 Cham Albanians sent to Turkey during the period between 1913-44.

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. A considerable number of Albanians were expelled and live now in the Republic of Albania. The official number of those Albanian refugees from Chameria is between 150,000 and 300,000.

Today they have formed their own Albanian patriotic and cultural association based in Tirana and which is active right across Albania. Among other they are asking from the Greek government in Athens-Greece, to be repatriated and their lands and other assets be returned to them as well as compensations for the usage of the lands for the past 50 years. Also they are rallying for the opening of Albanian schools to the Albanians living in Chameria(Shkolla Shqipe).

The policy of expulsion of Cham Albanians from Chameria had started earlier than 1944. Greeks as well as Serbs followed the same pattern in politics with respect to Albanians. Often they had signed documents with the Turkish government for the exchange of Muslims with Christians. During all this not a single Cham Albanian was asked! As a result of such policy around 850,000 Cham Albanians from Chameria were sent to Turkey, where they are settled in the region of Asia minor in Turkey.

Prior to WWI and WWII, the population in Çameria was around 93% Albanian, the rest were other ethnic groups such as Greeks, Vlachs, gypsies, etc.. On the 19th century, 80% of the Albanian population in Çameria was of Muslim Religion (the process of conversion to Islam started in the 18th century) and a 20% Christian Orthodox, however the first world war, found the the Albanian community as made up of 50% muslim and 50% orthodox believers (this shift happened in a matter of 70 years). After the world wars a fraction of the Muslim Populations was expelled by the Greek special forces, leaving intact the mainly orthodox Albanian population (50%) and a small fraction of molsims(13%) who by now mostly converted to orthodoxy to survive. The conversion back and forth from one religion to the other, before the World War I, was common among families!

However both Albanian religious communities were extremely close to each-other before the war and to this day, the Greek government has not managed to assimilate the Albanians of Çameria. The Albanian language is spoken indoors and outdoors as much as on everyday working places, but the Greek government with very little pressure from outside refuses to recognize Albanian minority in Greece and refuses to open schools on Albanian language.

The region is officially known as Epirus by the Greek government, but on the further north western corner of Greece, every single people knows the place as Çameria. Anyone from this region stating that he or she is a Çam, makes a political statement saying that he or she is an Albanian. That's why the Greek government doesn't know officially the region as Çameria. The heartland of Çameria is also called Thesprotia.

This region has still an Albanian majority (since many people of other ethnic groups have emigrated away, which has compensated somehow for the displacement of some Albanians during WWI and WWII!) and all the Çams expelled unjustifiably from Greece are very welcomed by all the Albanian people here, there is a UN resolution which asks the Greek government to repatriate our brothers and sisters back to their homes, where they belong among the rest of us.

Edited by EthnicAlbania - 07-Jun-2008 at 02:19

I repeat, source?

What a lovely unbiased site....

Oï no private joke… what bet are you talkin about?

Originally posted by Maharbbal Oï no private joke… what bet are you talkin about?

I bet he would get himself banned after 10 posts, but he doesn't flame just post ridiculous threads.

I would prefer to belive what www.answers.com says rather than the nationalistic illyrians.com...

Maybe EthnicAlbania believes the chams were saints or something...The reason for whatever happened is bolded out...

The Chameria issue is an issue which has been raised by Albania since the 1990s over the expulsion of Cham Albanians from the Greek province of Epirus between 1944–1945, during the World War II. The Greek government considers the issue closed and refuses to negotiate.

Following the defeat of Ottoman forces in the region and the Balkan Wars of 1913, an international boundary commission awarded the North of the territory of Epirus to Albania, and the South to Greece. The newly drawn borders, which left consistent minorities on both sides of the border, left almost all Chameria in what was now recognized as Greece, except for a few Cham villages assigned to Albania. Considerable numbers of Chams were forced to leave, and other were expelled to Turkey under the treaty of Lausanne in 1923.^[1]

Muslims were subjected to severe pressure, that increased under the rule of Ioannis Metaxas. Tensions exacerbated at the time of World War II. Italy captured Albania in 1939, and in 1940 Greece fell to invading Italian and Germans forces, striking from Albania and Yugoslavia. Italians recruited a number of Muslim civilians to assist in the occupation.

A large number of Chams collaborated with the Italians after occupation, as these favored them due to fierce Greek resistance to the Axis forces.^[2] A number of Chams were responsible of atrocities against Greeks, but the majority were only passive collaborators, distrusting both Italians and Greeks. After the Italians left the Axis, and the Germans took over control of Epirus, Cham units comprised the main occupation force, committing a number of atrocities, including the round-up of the Jews of Ioannina at the orders of the German command^[3]. As the Germans and their allies began to lose ground to the anti-Nazi militias in 1944, and started retiring in Albania, many hundreds of Chams followed them.^[4]

Beginning on June 27, 1944, while Greece was still under German occupation, and continuing through March 1945, EDES resistance fighters, operating under British orders to estabilish a mono-ethnic border and to expel and punish the Nazi collaborators, launched a series of attacks on Muslim Cham villages in Epirus, killing 5,000 Chams and causing 35,000 to flee to Albania or Turkey.^[5]

Joseph Jacobs, head of the US Mission in Albania (1945-1946) wrote:

In March 1945 units of Zervas's dissolved forces carried out a massacre of Chams in the Filiates area, and practically cleared the district of the Albanian minority. According to all the information I have been able to gather on the Cham issue, in the fall of 1944 and during the first months of 1945, the authorities in north-western Greece perpetrated savage brutality by evicting some 25,000 Chams - residents of Chameria - from their homes. They were chased across the border after having been robbed of their land and property. Hundreds of male Chams from the ages of 15 to 70 were interned on the islands of the Aegean Sea. In total 102 mosques were burnt down.

A large number of the predominantly Muslim refugees settled in villages of southern Albania, where today they number about 200,000.^[6] The Greek government refuses to allow them to resettle in Greece considering them to have lost their citizenship for collaboration with the enemy and/or having left Greece as non-ethnic Greeks (either on the part of them personally or their ancestors from whom they would ordinarily have acquired it). The Greek government also refuses to negotiate over the properties formerly belonging to the Chams considering them lawfully confiscated for the same reasons.

Legally, according to the Greek view, their status is not different from that of Czech and Polish citizens of German ethnicity who were evicted from their homes after WWII as the result of their association with Nazi Germany. The European Court of Human Rights has the authority to render a verdict on the matter of the properties of evicted Chams, but no relevant case has ever been brought before it.

http://www.answers.com/topic/chameria-issue

A nationalistic Albanian site which promotes hatred and racism is the only source for this "new" topic.
No REAL evidence have been presented so far regarding this area of Northern Greece.

And for your information General Zervas has fought against the Nazis and Italians during the axis occupation of Greece. During the same period your Albanian brothers and sisters were more than happy to participate in ethic cleansing operations  in northern Greece.

You are so unhappy that the Germans lost the war and great Albania will remain a dream forever.