OPENING OLD WOUNDS

After a rather idyllic period in their mutual relations, recently, ashower of poison-tipped arrows has been exchanged between Skoplje and Sofia. The reason is a long-standing one: the existence or non-existence of Macedonian national minority in Bulgaria, as well as of the Macedonian nation.

AIM Skopje, April 3, 2000

In mid February the Constitutional Court of Bulgaria disputed the registration of the United Macedonian Organisation "Ilinden" which is active in Pirin, assessing that this organisation posed a threat to the country's national interests. In the political geography of Skoplje that part of Bulgaria is called Pirin Macedonia for the last 50 years. The Constitutional Court ruling did not attract much interest in Bulgaria (the only one to protest was the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee which the media is Skoplje wrote about in detail), but it certainly did in Macedonia. According to the media, this move of the highest judicial instance of the neighbouring country was "a blow to the good neighbourly relations" and even more "a new proof of the denial of the existence of the Macedonian national minority in Bulgaria" and of the Macedonian nation in general. Only the government controlled media remained reserved letting the opposition and independent papers and radio and TV stations have the main say.

Prime Minister Ljubco Georgijevski and Chief of Diplomacy Aleksandar Dimitrov did not rush to react to the ruling of the Bulgarian Constitutional Court so that with their incidental remarks to journalists, gave the media every right to be angry. The Prime Minister added that the Constitutional Court's decision was not conducive to good neighbourly relations. And that was that. President of the Republic Boris Trajkovski gave an interview along the same lines. The opposition Social-Democratic Alliance proposed a Declaration condemning the procedure of the Bulgarian Constitutional Court, a Declaration that was adopted by the Parliament without any problems and was supported by all parties in power. Analysts assessed that the Declaration was a support to the Macedonians in Bulgaria on the one hand, but also a test of the readiness of the ruling VMRO-DPMNE to condemn the policy of Sofia regarding the Macedonian issue, on the other.

Non-parliamentary parties, which like to say that they are of patriotic orientation, organised on March 17 a protest in front of the Bulgarian Embassy in Skoplje expressing their resentment of the decision of the Bulgarian authorities to prevent "Ilinden" from working. The organisers' attempt to hand over the Declaration expressing the protest to the Bulgarian diplomats failed as no one from the Embassy was willing to receive a delegation of the organisers of the rally. Although thousands of demonstrators were expected, organisers were disappointed when only several hundreds of people appeared before the Embassy of Bulgaria. Despite the fact that there were so few of them, those present were loud enough in shouting slogans against Bulgaria, so loud that their insults were broadcast and published by practically all Bulgarian, but also Macedonian media.

It did not take long for Sofia to react. Already the following morning the Sofia dailies carried the following headlines: "Save the thief from the gallows and he'll cut your throat", "Ungrateful Macedonia", etc. Authors of these articles hinted at the fact that the Government of Bulgaria was the first the recognise the independence of the Macedonian state (but not the nation) in winter 1992, that Bulgaria helped Macedonia to survive through the economic embargo which Greece had introduced against it in 1994, i.e. economic sanctions that the international community had introduced against FR Yugoslavia (which directly affected Macedonia). And, what is not least important, the Bulgarian press was embittered by the way Macedonia was repaying 150 tanks it presented the Macedonian Army with. An undivided conclusion in Sofia was: the opposition with its Serbian-communist pedigree, was behind tensions that are being heightened in Macedonia because it is against the rapprochement of the two countries.

Leader of the coalition Democratic Party of the Albanians, Arben Xhaferi only "poured oil on the fire" with his assessment that protests in front of the Bulgarian Embassy "were artificially provoking a crisis in the Macedonian-Bulgarian relations". According to Xhaferi, the reason for this was the "activity of certain forces in Macedonia which were aiming at distracting public attention from problems in Serbia". According to the media, he stated this opinion in a phone conversation with the Bulgarian Prime Minister Ivan Kostov. All Macedonian papers and political parties without exception interpreted this gesture of Georgijevski's coalition partner in Government, as a continuation of a kind of "behind-the-screen politics" pursued on the line Sofia-Tetovo-Pristina. For, Xhaferi has not yet been forgiven the recent meeting with Kostov and one of the Albanian Leaders, Hashim Thaqi, about which the Macedonian public did not learn much (or at least, thinks so). Opposition papers found enough advocates of a thesis that a "new Albanian-Bulgarian division of Macedonia was in the making".

Spokesman for the Social-Democratic Alliance, Vlado Buckovski, gave an illustrative comment: "It is pitiful that, together with his friends from Bulgaria and VMRO-DPMNE leadership, Xhaferi sees only "the authorities as being democratically oriented", while everybody else is a foreign force which works against Macedonian interests. Until now such thesis came from national-chauvinistic circles of Bulgaria, so that Xhaferi has become a cat's paw of such propaganda as "great" and "concerned" democrat".

For a long time now, foreign influence and who is susceptible to it, is one of the favourite subjects in Macedonian political disputes. In its propaganda for the parliamentary elections in fall 1998, the Social-Democratic Alliance profusely used a thesis that VMRO-DPMNE was sailing towards power down the east wind, which was supposed to mean - with significant Bulgarian support. An average Macedonia hardly knows anything about discussions among political activists from the beginning of the century, which foreign observers also barely understand.

Be it as it may, the history which children have been learning in the past five decades has left trace in their heads: irrespective of its original credit for the national awakening of Macedonians, the logo VMRO stands for something that wants to place Macedonia under the Bulgarian umbrella. Under such condition was the emergence of VMRO-DPMNE in 1990 commented in the state media of that time as "revamping of anachronistic Bugarofile ideas". During its entire rule, the Social-Democratic Alliance dosed anti-Bulgarian sentiments personified in the strongest opposition party; however, exactly that boomeranged against them: as if out of spite, the people put their trust in VMRO.

The VMRO-DPMNE leader and the current Prime Minister, Ljubco Georgijevski, again and again tried to prove that the party he is heading only inherited "a sacred name which has brought about the national awakening". He never completely allayed opponents' doubts that his party was being financed from Sofia, that part cadres were receiving training in summer camps all round Bulgaria, that the leadership was maintaining contacts with the reactionary nationalistic forces in Bulgaria, as well as in disapora. Georgievski is also held accountable for numerous statements of Bulgarian politicians who dream about "slightly expanded fatherland stretching from the Black Sea to Ohrid".

Instead of convincing his opponents that they were wrong, certain moves of the Prime Minister Georgijevski's ruling team have achieved quite contrary. It all began with the visit of the young Prime Minister to Sofia last February when with one move of the pen the so called "language dispute" was resolved so that the two governments agreed to use in their future communication languages specified in the Constitutions of the two countries (the formulation MACEDONIAN and BULGARIAN was thus avoided). On his departure Georgijevski got a real surprise: his colleague by profession, Ivan Kostov deeply impressed him by presenting the modest Macedonian Army with 150 tanks!

Irrespective of the fact that the opposition started claiming that it was nothing but a rubbish heap which the Bulgarians wanted to get rid of on their way to NATO and that the price to be paid for such a modest present might turn out to be too high, Georgijevski and his party comrade, Defence Minister Nikola Kljusev insisted that it was a gesture which would enable the Macedonian Army to finally find its feet. In a parliamentary discussion in which President Gligorov warned of the dangers of Macedonia's growing too close with the Bulgarians, the Prime Minister reminded him of the distant 1943 when he (Gligorov) humbly begged Bulgarian occupiers to allow him to open an attorney's office because he was a "Bulgarian". The scandal was inevitable; the President held his tongue...

Through the media close to them, the VMRO-DPMNE party ideologists are trying to rehabilitate the importance of the Bulgarian spirit for raising the Macedonian national consciousness. A growing number of young Macedonians study in Sofia (there are about 1,5 thousand of them) and not at some of the universities in the territory of former Yugoslavia. It was noted that after years of absence, Bulgarian papers have reappeared at the Skoplje newsstands. Last summer thousands of Macedonian citizens spent their summer vacation at the Black Sea beeches. Does that mean anything? Or is it perhaps just someone's excessive fear? The dilemma remains...

AIM Skopje

ZELJKO BAJIC