By Fahri Dahri
Memorie.al / Exactly 111 years ago, Paramethi was conquered by the “dragon” – the mythical snake. It was February 23 (Flevar) of the year 1913, when “Azdërhalli” (¹) clenched its jaws and took out its worm-eaten teeth; was armed with the combat tools of the time and crawled through the nahina of Paramethia, to carry out the barbaric act, using rifles, rifle butts, axes and other striking tools, against the pariah of 13 towns of Thesprotia. Yes, this is true!. According to oral testimony and file No. 23, doc. 17, no. 61, Ioannina 11. 8. 1913, of the State Archives of Vienna (Austria)) for Albania, at the beginning of 1913, a diabolical plan of the Greek chauvinist forces (church-state) for the extermination of the ethnic population began to be implemented Albanians of the Muslim faith, from the Chameria region.
Historical chances aligned and enabled the expansionist strategies in favor of the extension of Hellenism even in the ethnic Albanian territory of Chameria. The main and premeditated factors that helped in the demographic change, initially in the city of Paramethia, were the population movements, starting from the middle of the 19th century and continuing. The influx of non-Albanian ethnic populations, in the Chameria region, where the Greek Orthodox massacres and genocide took place, weakened the Muslim elite and led to the gradual Hellenization of the cities with an Albanian majority in the area.
The change of the demographic structure from Albanian-Greek, which was before 1920, to Greek-Albanian, happened mainly in the city of Paramethia. After the end of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), like the entire region of Chameria, the city of Paramethi became part of the Greek state. In that geo-political situation, the Greek state began implementing the infamous “Megalloid” strategy.
During the interwar period (Italo-German, with the Greek state), Paramëthia was a center with autochthonous inhabitants of Albanian ethnicity, in the Chameria area.
But according to the strategies in the demographic interventions, initially in the city of Paramethia, after 1939, the specific weight of the inhabitants changed, increasing Greek-speakers. At the time of the occupation of Greece by the “Axis” (1941-1944), the city of Paraméthia had a population of about 6,000 inhabitants, of which 3,000 inhabitants were of Greek nationality and 3,000 Cham inhabitants of Albanian ethnicity. Almost all the buildings inhabited by Muslim Albanians in the city were destroyed during the Second World War.
On February 23, 1913, Deli Janaq’s gang consisting of 200 Andarts, helped by the local authorities of Greek nationality, dispersed to the 13 villages of the Nahi of Paramëthi and began to collect, one by one, all the people who had noted in the preliminary lists. They went door to door, took the person whose name was on the list, ordering them “to dress nicely, because the government wanted them, to appoint them muhtars (chief elders) of the villages with Cham residents”.
In truth the action was a sham, for they were sent to the strait of a stream, whence they could not hear the cries of the two-faced men, the exclamations of the pains of blows with machetes, spades, and other striking instruments. There, at Prroi i Selani, near the city of Paramethia, 72 men, the pariah of 13 villages, was killed.
The massacre of Selani warned of the genocide to come. The brutality, the means that were used against that primacy, cutting them to pieces with knives, spades and machetes, leaving them unburied for days, was intended to frighten and panic the Cham population of the Muslim faith, to abandon everything and take the path of exile.
These actions did not stop from that day until March 5, 1945, years when the region was gradually emptied of its indigenous inhabitants and filled with populations of other ethnicities, but of the Orthodox faith. (And with impudence, they continue to be accused of being “collaborators with the occupier”!? When the Greek massacres against those inhabitants were continuous over 30 years before the Italian-German occupation!?).
In the Greek strategy of the Hellenization of Epirus, the extermination of the most prominent (notable) heads of the ethnic Albanian province of Chameria was initially foreseen. In the first group of gathering, there were the men of the villages; Nihuar, Skupicë, Rrëzanj, Bedelen and Drama. After these, the gathering of men from the other eight villages of the Paramethi district continued. The collection of men separately (groups-groups) facilitated the work of the “gatherers” and ensured the andarts from any possibility of a counterattack.
According to the data we have, the selection of the Cham parish was extended to 13 villages, mainly in the city of Paramethia and villages in its surroundings. This district was singled out, for the sake of security, because as we discussed above, the demographic base had been formed and strengthened in this city, the number of Cham residents had decreased and the number of residents of Greek nationality had increased.
The districts and the number of the people selected to be killed, butchered and dismembered were: In the city of Paramethia, 5 people; in the townships: Petrovica 1; Killed 4; Nikolica 9 people; Nikohor 20 people; Mine (Neraida) 29 people; in Saint Mary 4; in Rzëzanj (Risian) 14 people; in Bedelen 7; in Skupica, 10 people; in Vratila 4; in Grika village, 3 people and in Drama village, 16 people.
A total of 126 men were called and collected from Nahija of Paramethia. Of these, 72 people were killed with rifle batteries, butchered and dismembered with machetes and shovels, the others in different ways managed to escape from the murders of the Cretan burghers and Andarts, captain Deli Janaqi.
In a conversation with some Dramsio people, in the village of Cermë-Biçak in Lushnja, there since 1955, in memory of those 72 martyrs, whose lives were taken by the Greek Andarts, deceiving them that they would meet with the command, to be recognized by the Greek government as “muhtars” in their villages, Nevruz Binozi (Dalani), the grandson of Dalan Binozi, who was killed together with other friends in “Prroin e Selani”, near the city of Paramethia, brought to mind the speech given from his grandfather, in the moments when they were being taken to the narrow gorge of Selan.
Dalan Binozi tells the Andarts: “We understood that you are taking us to kill us, but know that Chameria will not lack men even after our murder.” And after a while, when they reached the designated place, the order “fire” was given. The shots of the two-sided guns, the thundering of the shovels and the screams of pain were heard in that place, on that day, according to the witnesses, the screams of pain continued for several days.
After they were killed and dismembered even though some bodies were not dead, the “braves” of Deli Janaq, quickly robbed them, extorting everything they had taken with them, money, valuables, ornaments and expensive clothes that had been selected , because they were going to appear before the captains.
Greek infidelity and deceit, they failed to spot, they did not think that they were in front of the murderous traps of the Greek Orthodox state. They were selected to be executed without any court decision, without any kind of guilt, but for the fact that they were the leaders of their villages, rich and of pure Albanian ethnicity.
To this barbarity, the Greek authorities not only did not react, but took the criminals under their protection, because the government itself had sent them to carry out that special inhumane mission. The fact that the killing was a governmental decision also results from a report made on that tragedy by the Austro-Hungarian Consul in Ioannina, who wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vienna:
“An officer who was sent by the military court of Ioannina to investigate this ugly crime, established the fact that it had been committed according to the statement of the witnesses, but refused to go to the place of the event, even though the murdered Beylers were still unburied. He returned without making any arrests, much less the punishment of the guilty”.
Betrayal, deception and non-punishment of those who commit serious criminal acts are methods and tools used by traitors, cowards and mercenaries and, when these behaviors are not dealt with by the state, as in the present case, show that the state is rotten, cowardly and badly stuck by another inhuman link, which is not related to any religious faith at all, but is a monster organizational structure, which sooner or later, will burn in the fire of the real “Hell”, but not in that of Dante Alighieri.
The tragedy of the 72 Petrites of Thesprotia was an ominous signal for an impossible future for the inhabitants of the Cham tribe of Albanian ethnicity, in their autochthonous country, and a display of Greek behavior, as a “reward of evil”, of infamous decisions that were being prepared at the tables of the Great Powers. Decisions, as they themselves have declared, would harm the people for 100 years.
The noise of those “firms”, fell on the peoples, damaged especially the interests of the small and peaceful peoples, mainly the Albanian nation, favoring the states that even today in different forms, camouflaged, use all kinds of weapons to kill children, women, the sick and the elderly. The real attitudes of these states can be distinguished and understood precisely in being “Anti-Christ”, but they deceive the people with demagoguery, hiding behind the preaching of Christ.
This writing is dedicated to the 72 Cham men, who were killed and dismembered by the bloody Greek Orthodox hand 111 years ago. Those men fell to never be forgotten, as the sacrifice of their lives remains in the memory of society, to show, in addition to the inhuman cruelty of the Greek state and religious institutions, the serious consequences of not maintaining the right balance in the treatment of the interests of the peoples from the Great Powers, regardless of ethnicity, religion, religious belief and origin.
A tombstone for 72 noble, righteous and innocent men, apart from preserving the memory, increases state values and keeps national consciousness high. They were killed and tortured to always be by our side, reminding us and continuously increasing “Vigilance” and “Unity” among us, without forgetting the true faces of the neighboring countries, who like savages await the geo-political darkness for them over the fences. Memorie.al
