The Anti-Fascist Committee of Cham Immigrants was an organization created by Cham Albanians, when they were expelled from Greece, with the help of the newly established communist government of Albania. It was established, during the first wave of refugees, and it aimed to make Greece allow, the returning of Chams in their homes. They organized two congresses, adopted a memorandum and sent delegates in Greece and in European allies. After three years activity, the organization did not manage, neither to re-allocate Chams in Chameria, nor to internationalize the Cham issue. Greece did not acknowledge that EDES had expelled Chams, saying that they fled and that they could return, although this was impossible. The international community did not respond to Chams plea, but they acknowledged the humanitarian disaster. Since 1947, the committee was charged with the normalization of living situations of Cham refugees in Albania. In 1951, Chams were forcibly given the Albanian citizenship and the committee was disbanded. The Cham issue did not regain momentum until 1991, when the communist regime collapsed, and the National Political Association "Çamëria" was established.
Background
In 1913, the area of Chameria, as the whole Southern Epirus came under Greek control.Clogg, Richard (2002). Concise History of Greece (Second Edition ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . The Albanian state complained that the Greek government was persecuting the Muslim Cham community, however there was no evidence of direct state persecution Muslim Chams were counted as a religious minority, and some of them were transferred to Turkey, during the 1923 population exchange,Fabbe, Kristin. "Defining Minorities and Identities - Religious Categorization and State-Making Strategies in Greece and Turkey". Presentation at: The Graduate Student Pre-Conference in Turkish and Turkic Studies, University of Washington, October 18, 2007. while their property was alienated by the Greek government.Ktistakis, Yiorgos. "Τσάμηδες - Τσαμουριά. Η ιστορία και τα εγκλήματα τους" [Chams - Chameria. Their History and Crimes] Orthodox Cham Albanians were counted as Greeks, and their language and Albanian heritage were under pressure of assimilation.Dimitri Pentzopoulos, The Balkan Exchange of Minorities and Its Impact on Greece, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2002, , , p. 128
Following the Italian occupation of Albania in 1939, the Chams became a prominent propaganda tool for the Italians. As a result, on the eve of the Greco-Italian War, the adult male Cham population was deported by the Greek authorities to internment camps. After the occupation of Greece, some Cham Albanians collaborated with Italian and German forces, while approximately the same number participated in the Albanian and Greek resistance movements; the majority however remained uninvolved in the war. Nevertheless, in 1944, the entire Muslim Cham population was expelled from Greece, by a republican resistance group, as a result of the participation of Chams in the communist resistance group of Greece, and the collaboration with the Axis of some members of the minority. This expulsion intended to create a pure ethnic border and to facilitate the anti-communist movement in the aftermath of the war. Most of the Chams crossed the border into Albania, while others formed émigré communities in Turkey and the United States. Today, their descendants continue to live in these countries, although their religious affiliation has changed considerably in the past decades. At the same time, the Orthodox minority that remained in Greece has suffered from decades of suppression of their heritage and language.
Creation Muslim Cham Albanians that fled in Albania, were organised as refugees by the communist-led Albanian government. The Anti-Fascist Committee of Cham Immigrants was created since 1944, as part of the Anti-Fascist National Liberation Front, led by the communists, in order to lobby for the returning of Chams in their homes and to create the facilities for their surviving in the refugee camps that were created in Albania. The new post-war Communist government of Albania took the Cham issue to the Paris Peace Conference to demand the repatriation of the Chams and the return of their property, but no answer was given. At the same time, they established refugee camps and distributed Chams throughout Albania, especially in regions like Fier, Durrës and Tirana.
Aims
Their aims were to return in their homes and to get assistance for their destroyed properties. In a six-point resolution they asked the international community:
Memorandum Chams adopted a memorandum, in which they reacted to their expulsion. According to the document of the "Anti-Fascist Committee of Cham Immigrants", in total 2,771 Albanian civilians were killed during the 1944-1945 attacks on their villages. The breakdown is as follows: in Filiates and suburbs 1,286, in Igoumenitsa and suburbs 192, in Paramythia and suburbs 673 and Parga 620. Sixty-eight villages with 5,800 houses were looted and then burnt. A detailed list of material losses includes 110,000 sheep, 2,400 cattle, 21,000 quintals of wheat and 80,000 quintals of edible oil, amounting to 11,000,000 kilograms of grain and 3,000,000 kilograms of edible oil. As a result of these assaults, an estimated 28,000 Chams fled to Albania."Document of the Committee of Cham Albanians in exile, on Greek persecution of the Chams, submitted to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations in 1946". Online version According to the memorandum the reason of their expulsion, was their resistance alongside ELAS and not EDES.We, the Anti-Fascist Committee of Cham immigrants in Albania, having faith in the democratic and humanitarian principles of the UN, and acting in the name of Cham immigrants in Albania, do hereby address the Investigating Commission concerning our lost rights, oppression, persecutions and massacres committed by Greek Fascists in order to exterminate the Albanian minority in Greece.
In pursuit of the protests and appeals that we have addressed to the Great Allies and the United Nations, we ask for justice with regard to the following:
For 32 years in succession, Greek chauvinist and reactionary cliques, in brutal violation of every humanitarian principle, and in total disregard of international treaties, have carried out a policy of extermination toward the Albanian minority in Greece.
Beginning with the Greek occupation of Chameria on February 23, 1913, the gang of Deli Janaqi, incited and assisted by the local authorities, massacred without cause whatsoever 72 men, in the brook of Selani, district of Paramithia.
This massacre marked the beginning of the drive to exterminate the Albanian minority, and made clear the orientation of Greek policy toward our population.
The hounding, persecutions, imprisonment, internment, tortures, and plunder carried out on the pretext of disarming [the population] in the years 1914–1921, the terrorist actions of outlaws, and the provocations of Gjen Baire in 1921, reveal the reality of the sufferings to which our population was subjected during the Greek occupation.
Koska, Lopsi, Varfanj, Karbunara, Kardhiq, Paramithia, Margëllëç, Arpica, Grykohori, and others, are some of the villages that paid an especially high price as a consequence of the terror.
In 1922–1923, the Greek authorities decided to displace the Moslem element of Chameria, in exchange for the Greeks in Asia Minor, on the pretext that we were Turks. This shameless act of the Athenian authorities ran into opposition on our part and the intervention of the League of Nations which, upon ascertaining the Albanian nationality of our people, rejected the decision of the Greek Government.
But despite the intervention of the League of Nations, and the solemn commitments undertaken by the Greek Government in Lausanne on 16 January 1923, the authorities in Athens continued their policy of extermination. They resorted to every device to make it difficult for the Albanian element to remain in Chameria, and confiscated 6,000 hectares of land owned by hundreds of families in Dushk, Gumenica, Kardhiq, Karbunara, and others, without compensating them in the least.
The government in Athens settled the immigrants from Asia Minor in Chameria, with the intention of peopling it with Greeks and creating conditions that would lead to the emigration of the autochthonous Albanian population.
Entire families were forced to abandon their birthplace and migrate to Turkey, Albania, America and elsewhere, and villages like Petrovica and Shëndellia were deserted completely by their Albanian inhabitants.
Under these circumstances, we did not enjoy any national rights, not even the use of our mother tongue. Fanaticism and ignorance were given support, instead of developing our national culture and stimulating progress. Instead of opening schools, they subsidized religious clubs in the Arab language. Ninety-five percent of our population remained illiterate. The province of Chameria, a fertile and prosperous land, remained backward, without economic development, without communication facilities, and in the hands of money-lenders and monopolists, such as: Koçoni, Pitulejtë, Kufalla, Zhulla, Ringa and others, who impoverished and enslaved the entire region.
In the war against Fascism, and more precisely at its conclusion, the reactionary Monarcho-Fascist forces of Llaka of Suli, which were created by the reaction to serve the occupier under the command of General Napoleon Zervas, turned on and treacherously massacred the Moslem Albanian inhabitants of Chameria.
At that time, when the troops of ELAS [National Popular Liberation Army] and our troops were committed to fighting the Germans, the leadership of EOEA [National Troops of Greek Guerillas], in league with the Germans, maneuvered to gain positions to fight a civil war. And when our forces, in keeping with the spirit and decisions of the protocol of Caserta (Sarafis-Zervas), August 1944, implemented the orders of the Joint Command in pursuit of the Germans, General Napoleon Zervas, commander of the resistance forces in Epirus (ELAS – EOEA), gave orders to massacre the innocent population of Chameria.
The massacres in Chameria were a flagrant violation of humanitarian principles, and a shameless disregard for the principles and the nature of the Anti-Fascist struggle. The massacres in Chameria were a result of collaboration and agreements with the Germans, who in the process of retreating, let Zervas forces take their place. Here is a concrete example of the collaboration between Zervas forces and the Germans. Theodhor Vito, the commander of the Zervas forces in the district of Filat, met the commander of the retreating German forces on 22 September 1944, in the village of Panaromen, 3 km. from Filat, just one day before the entrance of Zervas forces in Filat. Right after that meeting, and even before the German forces cleared out of Filat entirely, the forces of Theodhor Vito entered Filat. That close collaboration strengthened the position of the Zervas forces, and enabled them to initiate the terror and the massacres on a broad scale in all the districts of Chameria.
The forces of the 10th Division of EOEA, under the command of Col. Vasil Kamaras, and specifically the 16th Regiment of that division, which was led by Kranja and his aides Lefter Strugari, attorney Stavropullos Ballumi Zotos, the notorious criminals Patazejt and others, entered the town of Paramithia on 27 June 1944. Contrary to their promises and the agreement arrived at between mufti Hasan Abdullaj, on the one hand, and Shapera and the Bishop of Paramithia, on the other, who acted as agents of Zervas, the most ignoble massacres were set in motion. Defenseless men, women and children became targets for the Greek Monarcho-Fascists. The number of the massacred in the town of Paramithia and vicinity reached 600 souls.