LETTER TO EDITOR: The game of the name

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Ivica Bocevski neglected to clarify the legacy of the so-called name dispute, as reported in The Washington Times recently ("No names, please," Embassy Row, World, June 12). The country Mr. Bocevski hails from is a state that was part of the former Yugoslavia, an artificial political construct that waged war on Greece during the immediate aftermath of World War II.

The name "Macedonia" was originally bestowed on the region buttressing Greece by the dictator Josip Broz Tito, who funded and armed a military campaign fighting for partition of our land and people. It was concocted primarily by the Comintern and carried out with the most callous disregard for the basic human and linguistic rights recognized in modern Europe. It remains one of the gravest political crimes of all time and continues to stain the history of Europe and the United States. Imagine cutting a living human being limb from limb. This is the legacy of the Greek Civil War, a war fueled by communist forces seeping in from the porous borders of northern Greece and Macedonia.

The Macedonia of Alexander the Great was, and forever will be, Hellenic -- not Yugoslavian. It is time that Mr. Bocevski end his country's isolation by embracing the Hellenic origin of Alexander, one of Europe's greatest sons. Stop denying the past and dispense with false historical revisionism. It smacks of genocidal ideologies of a discredited era.

NIKOLAOS TANERIS

Press officer

Hellenic League of America

New York City