Evros

Evros Crisis: The Comprehensive Approach and Challenges for Integrated Action.Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy . Το κείμενο αυτό αναφέρεται στην διαχείριση της Κρίσης στον Έβρο και την πολιτική εργαλειοποίησης μεταναστών και προσφύγων ως πολιορκητικό κριό από την Τουρκία. Καταγράφει την νέα αντίληψη της «ολιστικής προσέγγισης» που ακολουθήθηκε από την Ελλάδα με την χρήση όλων των πολιτικών, μέσων και εργαλείων που είχε στην διάθεσή της. Επικεντρώνεται στην πολιτικοστρατιωτική επιχειρησιακή συνεργασία των Σωμάτων Ασφαλείας με τις Ένοπλες Δυνάμεις της χώρας, που ανήκουν σε διαφορετικά Υπουργεία και έχουν όχι μόνο ξεχωριστά αυτόνομα μέσα, αλλά και διαφορετική κουλτούρα. Καταγράφει ότι η μετάβαση από την «ολιστική προσέγγιση» προς την «ολοκληρωμένη αντίδραση» παρουσιάζει διεθνώς προκλήσεις. Η κύρια πρόκληση σχετίζεται την διαλειτουργικότητα, την ικανότητα διαφορετικών οργανισμών και συστημάτων να ανταλλάσσουν και να συνεκμεταλλεύονται πληροφορίες. Αυτή απαιτεί την δημιουργία κατάλληλης αρχιτεκτονικής στον τομέα στρατηγικών και τακτικών πληροφοριών, που θα παρέχει τόσο σε αυτούς που λαμβάνουν τις αποφάσεις όσο και σε εκείνους που τις εκτελούν, την σωστή πληροφορία, σε επαρκή λεπτομέρεια και σε έγκαιρο χρόνο προκειμένου να λάβουν τις σωστές αποφάσεις σε όλα τα επίπεδα της διοίκησης.  Εκτιμάται ότι η ολιστική προσέγγιση θα επεκταθεί και πέραν του Έβρου, ώστε να υλοποιηθεί ένα ολοκληρωμένο σχέδιο δράσης που θα επιτρέπει την ανταλλαγή πληροφοριών που θα παράσχουν έγκαιρη προειδοποίηση σε ενδεχόμενη εχθρική ενέργεια και συνακόλουθα αποτελεσματική αντίδραση σε όλη την επικράτεια.

ÖZET
1912 Edeköy Katliamı, Birinci Balkan Savaşı’nda yaşanan en büyük katliamlardan biridir. Katliam, savaşın ilk günlerinde, 13-20 Kasım tarihleri arasında yaşanmıştır. Bir hafta süren olaylar sırasında binlerce kişi öldürülmüştür. Katliamı yapanlar, Edeköy yakınlarındaki Sofulu kasabası ve çevresindeki köylerin Rum çeteleridir. Katliamın sorumlusu Rumların bir çoğu, işkencelerle öldürdükleri Edeköylüleri yakından tanıyan, yıllarca Edeköy Müslümanları ile birlikte yaşamış, çalışmış kişilerdir. Katliam sırasında bölgede hakim olan Bulgar askerinin de olaylarda sorumluluğu bulunmaktadır.
Bu makale, Edeköy Katliamı üzerine hazırlanmış ilk geniş çaplı araştırma kitabının, Birinci Balkan Savaşı'nın 100. yılında Atlas Tarih Dergisi tarafından hazırlanan özel sayısı için hazırlanmış kısa bir özetidir.
Görseller, dergi yayınından alınmıştır.

ABSTRACT
1912 Edeköy Massacre, is one of the biggest massacres of the First Balkan War.
The incident happened in the first days of the war, between 13-20th of November.
During this time period, thousands of Muslim Turk people were killed, many women and children raped and Edeköy was plundered.
Greek gangs from Soufli town and other nearby Greek villages were responsible for the massacre.
Most of the members of the gangs had been working and living with the victims of the massacre, for long years.
Bulgarian Army, who was ruling the region these days, also had played a role in the incident.
This article is a shorter version of the first wide-scale study over the Edeköy Massacre; and was published in the Atlas History Magazine’s special issue for the 100th year of the Balkan Wars.

This article aims at portraying the symbolic and material impact of cross-border and entrepreneurial EU-funded projects on the local public sphere of Evros, a Greek region bordering with Turkey. Often construed as ‘European policies’ at the local level, such projects reflect a complex interaction between the ‘European’, the ‘national’ and the ‘local’. In order to unravel the dynamics of such interaction, I focus on the case of local cultural associations. These associations stood as typical bearers of a romantic nationalist discourse; this local enactment of Greek nationalism was also related with specific forms of symbolic capital, through ostensibly ‘disinterested patriotic action’. The introduction of EU-funded projects in the local public sphere challenged such historically constructed practices. At the same time, these projects were mediated by the representatives of the Greek State and were locally appropriated as a reformulation of older national policies and funding channels. The article argues that the implementation of those projects brought about two significant changes in the local public sphere: the dissemination of cross-border policies throughout the 1990s and 2000s, and the growing importance of a new, market-oriented perception of public action, in local cultural associations.

This article focuses on the representations of Greek–Turkish relations among local political elites in the Greek border region of Evros. The transition from competitive nationalism to Greek–Turkish rapprochement in the late 1990s created a new context for political action and led to a readjustment of public practices. This process reflected an interplay of national and European policies and global normative discourses. Nonetheless, changing discourses should be critically examined, as fieldwork in Evros revealed ambivalent representations that point to the reproduction of nationalism and the state, a condition that is becoming salient anew in the context of the recent economic crisis.

The principles of the investigation for the art of stone carving at the region of Metaxades in Evros, Greece The research for the preservation and the proposal for the inscription of the art of stone carving of Metaxades, a settlement at the prefecture of Evros in Northern Greece, on the national intangible cultural heritage lists, by the Service of Modern Monuments of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace of the Ministry of Culture, initially started as a wider reflection of a concern on the decaying buildings of the traditional settlement and its surroundings. The working team, a group of preservation and restoration professionals, believed that real protection for buildings and settlements affected by desertification and abandonment is to give new uses and to produce within them creative nuclei of new interests. The Service of Modern Monuments of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, was directly involved in the process of visiting the settlement, studying its history and the history of the local stone craft, a well-known craft in the wider region and documenting the building stock. The team interviewed the old stone carvers of the region and their descendants, who practice the same profession and gathered information about traditional customs connetcted to the craft. Τhe team analyzed the characteristics of the area, focusing on scenarios for "branding" the craft of stone carving, in order to secure its presence and evolution.

The importance of water in the 20th century has emerged in such a level that has become a major field of study for many IR scholars. Many cases of transboundary water management have become a theater for political tensions and conflictual situations. Nevertheless, direct conflict has been prevented avoiding military engagement. Along the international community, the major mechanism for conflict prevention in such cases is the creation of a water management institution in which all riparian countries are members. This paper explores the alternatives routes to peaceful co-existence by comparing the two transboundary rivers for which there is no institutionalized mechanism addressing the interests of all riparian countries, On the one hand lies the Mekong case in Southeast Asia where international organizations and regional groups have worked towards the direction of cooperation but the major player in the area, China, is not a member of any water management institution. On the other hand the case of Evros River is being examined, a river in the Balkans area where a dead-end for the promotion of transnational cooperation between the riparian countries has been reached. The paper explores the role of two regional integration schemes covering the two respective areas, ASEAN for Mekong and the EU for Evros, in conflict prevention and water management enhancement. Evidence shows that although the Evros case should have been gathering less threatening potentials, transboundary river management seems to work more successfully in the Mekong case.