FLIRTING WITH DEATH

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 January 1934, Page 2

FLIRTING WITH DEATH

REVOLUTIONARIES AWAIT HOUR

I have spent two days travelling in Bulgaria in the company of revolutionaries and members of the Macedonian secret organisation, writes Ernest Main in the “Daily Mail.” They are decent folk, these desperadoes, humorous and kindly, courteous and hospitable. But all carry revolvers, and they are quick on the draw, for their lives are in constant danger. Their special job is to keep alive the spirit of independence among those Macedonians who are living under Yugoslav rule. Macedonia is one of Europe’s storm centres. “Our people over there,” they told me, pointing across the frontier, “are forbidden to have their own churches and schools, even to use their own language. We have to send some of our people across to keep their spirits up, and to carry messages from member,S of divided families, some of whom live here in Bulgaria in freedom, while the rest are in Yugoslavia.” The meh who are detailed to smuggle themselves across the frontier have a real man’s job to do —I have seen the frontier! It is marked by barbed wire, and they tell me that the Serbs on the other side have a complete system of mantraps, hidden pits, and other devices to catch the intruder. The revolutionary Macedonian organisation is pledged to free all Macedonia. The sides of great gorges, rising above fine trout streams in the valleys, are covered with trees whose lovely Autumn yellows, reds, and browns contrast vividly with the dark conifers on the higher slopes. We were seldom below 5000 ft in altitude; above us rose peaks with snow patches.' “All Macedonia is like this,” said one of our guides, “from here to Ochrida in the west. “Our grievance is the same as that of Hungary. We too were despoiled uy the peace. The frontier bisects some of our villages and In one case it cuts across a cemetery, and there is a grave in which the dead man’s head is in one country and his body in another. “One village which is in Bulgaria has its pump in Yugoslavia. The women assemble at given times of the day and are marched across the frontier, where under the Yugoslav guard they fill their pails and jars, and are then marched back again. “I have been across the frontier about twenty times,” said our comitadji—simply and plainly, as one might say, “I took a bus to Charing Cross.” Yet while he was on the other side his life, had he been found, would not have been worth a minute’s purchase. “Why do you do it?”

“Why?” There was scorn in his voice. “My mother and sisters live in a village in the west. I don’t mind the risk if I can see them, and they me, now and again. Besides, I carry messages.” “How do you get across?”

“There are many of us on this job —too many for the Serb guards to I cope with. With wire-cutters and knives we cross the frontier, and with luck” —meaning “unless we are killed”! —“by morning we are on top of the next range of hills. “All our journeys are arranged -well beforehand. We can go from one end of Macedonia to the other under the noses of the Serbs.” They told me that a Secret Three control the organisation. Those near the head know who these Three are, otherwise their identity is secret. “Could I see any of them?”

“It could be arranged if you stay for some days with us in Macedonia. We should have to blindfold you for the last miles of the journey and also on the way back. After dining one evening we all went to the communal bath. Numbers of villages have salt baths that many a big spa -would envy.

As we sat around afterwards in bathrobes, I asked how all this widespread organisation is financed, and was told “by a voluntary levy on all the people of Macedonia.” “We don’t enforce it; we don’t need to,” they told me. “It is a levy willingly paid by the whole of the Macedonian people.” There can only be one end to all this. The Macedonians are determined to alter the frontier: the Yugoslavs are determined to maintain it. Things are superficially quiet in Macedonia, but the visitor can see all around the elements o£ a great upheaval.