The Plundering of the Foundations in the Western Thrace Continues

Press Office of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF),
Witten, 12 July 2005

The Plundering of the Foundations in the Western Thrace Continues

After the Junta government, which had taken the political power over in 1967, the foundations of the Western Thrace Turkish minority, whose executives cannot be elected by the minority itself, are occupying the agenda again. The executives of the foundations, who are preparing themselves to sell the lands of the minority foundations to the contractors in return of flats, are being protested harshly.

The foundations, which belong to the Western Thrace Turkish minority, and whose executives have been determined by the Greek government for almost 40 years, has become a current issue once again through the plundering attempt. Since the Junta government, which had taken the political power over in Greece in 1967 until today, the foundations of the Western Thrace Turkish minority have been getting weak continuously. The “Law on Re-setting the Public Order”, which was made by the Junta right away after their assuming the control of the political power, has also embraced the executive boards of the minority foundations, and new executives were appointed instead of those who had been elected by the minority and present in the executive board until that time. The situation did not change even after re-coming of the democracy to the country in 1974. In 1980, although the current situation was wanted to be changed toward a more negative direction through a new law, Greece could not implement the law due to the pressures having come from Turkey and the European Union. This law, which has brought a strict state control over the foundations, and permitted the state to nationalize the properties of the foundations, has been brought in force in 1991 through profiting from the environment of confusion in the country. The law has brought the obligation of declaring the minority properties in front of the state authorities with the necessary documents until the law has come in force. Otherwise, the state has had the right to confiscate these properties. When it is considered that many documents have gone lost in this region which experienced wars, plunderings and migrations, this law is still like the “sword of Demokles” over the minority foundations. On the other side, the elections for the minority foundations, which should be made according to the rules of Lausanne Treaty, and the laws which apply the treaty rules to the national law, could not have been made yet. The minority has always protested the situation that it cannot determine the persons administrating its own foundations, and depending on this, control them. The decision of the foundation executive board in Xanthi that it wants to sell the foundation properties to the conractors in return of flats, has become the highlight in this sense. The Minority Advisory Council, which brings the old and new deputies of the Western Thrace Turkish minority, Muftis (the highest religious authority of a province/district), mayors and the presidents of the foundations together, and is the highest competent authority of the minority in the Western Thrace, has made a declaration , and there, it was said: “We appeal once again that this injustice, which complies with the democracy our state has exported to Europe by no means, goes to an end at once, and in order that the properties of the foundations, in which every Western Thrace Turk has a share, are managed by the persons which are going to be determined by the free will of the minority, the elections are declared immediately.” The President of the Federation of the Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF), Halit Habipoglu appealed also Greece to return the properties of the foundations to the minority, and said: “Our foundations are our backbone which make us stand. Our state, which has tried to break our backbone for almost 40 years, should give up these policies now. While the other foundations in the country are not treated in such a way, the world public opinion should not remain silent to the repression of our minority under the so-called “reciprocity principle.”