The greeks of Vlora Region
James Petiffer refereeing on his book for the old Greek community of Vlora: The Greek Minority in Albania - In the Aftermath of Communism"
"The area studied was confined to the southern border fringes, and there is good reason to believe that this estimate was very low"."Under this definition, minority status was limited to those who lived in 99 villages in the southern border areas, thereby excluding important concentrations of Greek settlement in Vlora (perhaps 8000 people in 1994) and in adjoining areas along the coast, ancestral Greek towns such as Himara,
and ethnic Greeks living elsewhere throughout the country".Mixed villages outside this designated zone, even those with a clear majority of ethnic Greeks, were not considered minority areas and therefore were denied any Greek-language cultural or educational provisions.
In addition, many Greeks were forcibly removed from the minority zones to other parts of the country as a product of communist population policy, an important and constant element of which was to pre-empt ethnic sources of political dissent.
Greek place-names were changed to Albanian names, while use of the Greek language, prohibited everywhere outside the minority zones, was prohibited for many official purposes within them as well."
Petiffer, James (2001).
"The Greek Minority in Albania - In the Aftermath of Communism". Surrey, UK: Conflict Studies Research Centre.
http://kms1.isn.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/ISN/38652/ipublicationdocument_singledocument/5494CBC6-4F56-4EFD-B6DB-7FB1EC46CC11/en/2001_Jul_2.pdf.
Archives and Documents
THE IMPOSSIBLE MISSION "ANTIPATREA" OF CIA AND GREEK SPECIAL FORCES TO CONQUEST THE ISLAND OF SASENOS IN 1962
Photo: The Greek Special Forces embarked on first attack reactions ship
The island Sasonos, which historically and geographically belongs to Ionion islands group, a front at the entrance to the Gulf of 
Vlore is a strategic point of maximum importance as it controls the Strait of Otranto. The rocky island of 4.5 square kilometers of land granted by the Treaty of London (1864) together with the Ionian Islands in Greece but the Greek government and the inert Sason ... appears to be a Turkish soil, as the Turks occupied the city of Vlore.
.....With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1946, Greece goes to annexation of the Dodecanese, but not in Northern Epirus, which was released by the Greek Army heavy toll. In 1951 manufactured naval base with underground facilities for nuclear submarines of the Soviet fleet.
On 3 December 1961 rupture of relations occurred USSR and Albania and interrupted diplomatic relations between them. Tirana quickly expel all Soviet advisers, mobilization of reservists to go and close the naval base, even all the military equipment of Soviet origin was there. Albania ceases to be a member of the Warsaw Pact. This development mobilizes the Greek side which recognizes the geostrategic importance of the island.
In 1962 The General Quarter of Marine in Athens organized the action plain to the island Sason code-named «ANTIPATREIA» together with CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency in cooperation with the Special Forces of the Greek Naval Army. the Greek intelligence services, making dozens of missions in the wider area between Sason Island and parts of Northern Epirus.
The objective of the operation is to recover the island Sasonos, to entrance in actions other points of special Greek forces to liberate Northern Epirus (Southern Albania), under the commander Lieutenant-LOK K. Kollias..... but the Plain where stopped for other secret reasons...
At critical point, the whole "leaking" so the cancellation of the operation. One of the paratroopers of the Special Forces, not embittered the shipment and was betrayed before completed suicide.
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