Jump to content

Cham Albanians

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Astavrou (talk | contribs) at 19:56, 6 January 2006. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Cham Albanians (In Albanian: Çamë or Shqiptarë, in Greek: Τσάμηδες Tsámidhes or Αλβανοί Alvaní) are a group of ethnic Albanians traditionally from Çamëria (the Greek region of Epirus) and today live in Albania, Greece and Turkey. They speak the Albanian language and are predominantly Muslim, with a sizable Orthodox Christian minority.

History

While the Balkan Wars resulted in Albanian independence, they also resulted in an expansion of the territory of Greece by about 64%. The newly drawn borders left a sizable Albanian minority in Greece and a sizable Greek minority in Albania.

In March 1926 Greece announced that all Greek citizens, including the Chams enjoyed equal rights. In practice, these rights were very selective. The Greek authorities discouraged ethnic Albanians from speaking Albanian outside their homes and did not permit Albanian language schools. In 1936, Ioannis Metaxas came to power and life for the Chams, along with all other ethnic minorities in Greece, became even more difficult. Cham property was confiscated in order to permit Greeks to settle in the area and Albanian place names were replaced with Greek ones. As a result, the Chams welcomed the invasion of Greece by Axis forces. Cham militants were armed with Italian weaponry and committed a number of atrocities against Greek civilians. The majority of the Cham population however, distrusted the Italians as much as the Greeks.

Beginning on June 27 1944, and continuing through March 1945, EDES troops lead by General Napoleon Zervas, launched a series of attacks on Muslim Albanian villages and killed roughly 2,771 Chams. The surviving Muslim Chams fled to Albania and settled in villages of southern Albania, where today they number over 100,000. The Greek government then brought Greek, Vlach and Rom populations to settle in the region.

Joseph Jacobs, the 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.

The Orthodox Cham Albanians were not expelled, but were placed under tight restrictions. Speaking Albanian in public was prohibited, and as a result, was reduced to a home language spoken only in private. Since then, Greece has maintained that there are no Albanians in the region and that there are no ethnic minorities in Greece at all, with the notable exception of the Greek Muslim minority, whose recognition was guaranteed under the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.

Current situation

The exiled Muslim Cham Albanians have addressed the issue of their lost properties and requested permission to return to their villages Greece. So far, the Greek government has maintained that the Cham issue is closed. The National Political Organisation "Çamëria" (in Albanian: Shoqëria Politike Atdhetare "Çamëria"), a pressure group advocating the return of the Chams to Greece, receipt of compensation and greater freedom for the Orthodox Chams in Greece, was founded 10 January 1991, and was registerend with the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation in January 1995.

There are currently c. 200,000 Cham Albanians in Greece according to UNPO, the overwhelming majority being Orthodox Christians. They live mostly in and in villages around Preveza, Thesprotia and Ioannina. It should be noted that today Christian Chams are reluctant to identify as such, but refer to themselves as Albanians. The designation "Cham" usually refers to the Muslim Chams.

Since the early 1990s there has been an influx of Albanian immigrants, estimated in the only official report undertaken (for the Greek Interior Ministry) Statistical Data on Immigrants in Greece at 650-700.000 individuals, of which up to 200.000 are documented as ethnic Greek. Some of these immigrants have settled in Cham villages, although the vast majority have moved to the Greek cities.

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cham_Albanians&oldid=34148245"