The Greek Minority in Albania – Current Tensions
Miranda Vickers

Himara`s Indipendence: "The town and its six surrounding villages, with a population of 20,000, paid a yearly tribute of 16,000 francs to the Sublime Porte in Constantinople

Key Findings

• The problems of the Greek minority in Albania continue to affect the wider relationship between Albania and Greece.

• Efforts to improve the situation and human rights of the minority have met with delays and difficulties as both past and present Albanian and Greek governments have been willing to use nationalism as political capital for electoral benefits.

• External manipulation of the minorities’ issues by nationalist-based groups has hindered efforts to correctly evaluate the minority situation and contributed to interethnic tensions.

• The election of a new government in Greece may offer an opportunity to attempt to solve some of these problems and improve regional relationships.


Himara

The district of Himara, however, on the southern coast, appears to have always have had a
Greek population. In the latter period of Ottoman rule, Himara enjoyed a considerable measure
of practical independence from central authority. The town and its six surrounding villages, with a
population of 20,000, paid a yearly tribute of 16,000 francs to the Sublime Porte in
Constantinople. In 1912 the Greek government sent gunboats to Himara to attempt to prevent
the incorporation of Himara district within the new Albanian state.6 Consequently, Greek
historiography claims that since its inception in 1912, the Albanian state has attempted to de-
Hellenise the southern part of Albania.

The tiny, drab, little town of Himara on Albania’s southern coast, plays a hugely disproportionate
role for its size in Albanian - Greek relations, especially around election time, when the activities
of its inhabitants provide a useful barometer of Athens’ relations with Tirana. ..........

In this acutely sensitive context, the ethnic Greek minority decided to boycott the 2001
population census. OMONIA chairman Vangel Dule accused the Albanian authorities of trying to
force the Greek minority to declare themselves Albanians, citing the census because it did not
refer to ethnicity or religion.15 OMONIA urged the minority to boycott the census in order to halt
the “Albanianisation” of minority areas.

www.da.mod.uk/colleges/.../Balkan%20Series%200110%20WEB.pdf