Macedonians living in US and several other countries are holding rallies Saturday and Sunday on possible changes to their home country’s name, MIA reports from Washington.
Organisations and groups from New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York and Washington took part at the ‘We Are Macedonia’ rally. They demand from Macedonian government to break off the negotiations with Greece and protection of Macedonian identity.
“The meaning of our appeal is not to criticize, we are not against anyone and we do not spread chauvinism, but we defend fundamental rights. Our ancestors succeeded the country to be called Macedonia and fought the name to be kept. They have given us that right and our goal is to preserve it,” Goran Mitrevski, one of the leaders of ‘We are Macedonia’ movement said.
Slobodan Petkovski, priest of the Orthodox Church "St. Cyril and Methodius" from New Jersey, United Macedonian Diaspora leaders Aleksandar Mitevski and Metod Koloski, as well as the leaders of the Organization for Macedonian Human Rights in North America addressed the rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
“The two great injustices our country face is the change of the name as the requirement for joining NATO and the EU and imposing additional conditions for Macedonia’s membership notwithstanding the fact that Republic of Macedonia fulfilled the criteria for membership laid out in Article 4 of the UN Charter,” Mitrevski said.
Similar rallies are being held in several cities in Australia and New Zealand, as well as in Germany, Netherlands, England, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Malta.
