Verified answer

1) I was in Skopje. They definitely were not 8.000 people at the rally, more like 1000-1500. And I don't know what the iht reporters mean by "rally" but there weren't any protests on the streets, only in a stadium where the 1000-1500 people gathered.

2) All the fighters who fought on the side of the DSE (communist armed forces) during the civil war (1946-1949) and later on left Greece were stripped of their greek nationality. Later on, the greek nationality was rendered back to them, apart from those "non-Grreek in ethnicity" (that's how they were described) the biggest part of which had settled in FYROM. The reason for that was that during the civil war, they fought for the creation of an "independent macedonian state". To the Greek state that was high treason, taking up arms against Greece and fighting for the secession of a part of her territory.

The above is a simplified description of the issue of course. If you want more details, I'll try to answer.

3) I have no problems with the 80-year-old veterans who come back to Greece to see the villages in which they were born. It is their right and if they have a visa they can enter the country.

About the so-called "mass crossing of the borders" which was supposed to happen yesterday and today, it didn't happen. Why was it so widely advertised? You should ask yourself. The feast goes on peacefully (like every year) as far as I know.

4) Finally: There is a great difference between a person who says "My parents/grandparents were forced to leave Greece for political reasons. They now want to return to their birthplace, Greece" and another who says "I want to go visit the occupied part of my country, Aegean Macedonia".

added: In Macedonia live about 100.000 of bilingual Greek Macedonians (among whom my aunt and cousins). Nobody harasses them because they speak a slavic dialect (the correct word is ιδίωμα but I can't translate it in english) between themselves, or because they dance their own dances and sing their own songs at feasts. That doesn't classify them as a minority. If you visit these places and ask the locals, they'll tell you that those who propagate the "opressed macedonian minority" idea are actually very few (and well-known in each village) and they're usually pushing their own agenda. The leaders of FYROM seem not to understand this, but these people will be a serious problem to them also.

added: I put 100.000 at the most (my mistake that I didn't specify that). As far as I know we do not know (and there is not a way of finding out) how many our bilingual countrymen are (they could be from 10.000 to 100.000 from what I know), so I put the maximum number. Where did you get the 30.000 number from vasiliki?

First of all the civil war in Greece was not a war between the greeks and non-greeks. It was a war between greek communists and greek anti-communists (the latter supported by the UK and the USA). So, the anti-communists won and some of the communists left greece to go to communistic countries, while the most of them were sent to deserted islands of Greece or were executed by their enemies. Now the government o FYROM (supported by the USA) supports that the greek communists who left Greece to Yugoslavia since that period were not greeks but a "macedonian" Minority. OK. It's a summer night dream!

The most ridiculous thing is that the FYROMian Prime Minister's (Gruevski's) grandfather fought for Greece against the fascist Italians and he is considered to be one of the heros of 1940 for Greeks, as he was killed by the Italians. His grandmother took her children and went to Yugoslavia because she was communist, and she used to get an agricultural retirement from the greek state, after the legalization of the communist party in Greece (1974), although she lived in Skopje)

Almost everything is well answered by Elaine already.

To inform you,

They expected of 8.000 but the were 1.000 to 1.500...

And also to correct Elaine,the billingual Greeks are estimated to be 30.000 and not 100.000.

so

•those are against the Greek regime that period,and they wanted Greece to be "united" with the rest communist Europe ...

Not only the Slavs but Greeks expelled as well.Both the Greeks and Slavs of the civil war were "traitors" ,and even worst as Elaine mentioned they wanted to invent a new country!

Of course they are free to visit the place they were born.

Nothing more and nothing less.....