Diplomatic Extravagance
At times inexplicably restrained and proverbially reserved, the Macedonian diplomacy has turned into top story material for the local press - not because of its outstanding results and achievements, but because of certain much more prosaic and drab reasons
AIM, Skopje, 12. 01. 2001.
The extravagance of diplomats representing the country abroad was stigmatized by the press a few months ago as a veritable scandal. At the time, the assistant to the Co-ordinator of the Stability Pact, ambassador to Berlin Srdjan Kerim, found himself in the limelight of criticism carried by the weekly Zum and the daily Dnevnik, later on by other journals as well. Similarly to the case of his superior in the Pact Bodo Hombach a bit earlier, the financial control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ascribed lack of thriftiness to the ambassador: in the instances of paying out an unreasonably high commission of 800.000 DM for the purchase of the plot on which the embassy was to be built, the acquisition of a writing-desk worth 59.000 Deutch marks and the arbitrary rise in salaries of his immediate subordinates. Unofficially, it came to be known that the building of the embassy had cost 10 million DM and that the edifice is a far cry from being modest as becoming a poor country it belongs to - a vehicle-elevator carrying cars to the basement, a fountain with a fish-pond and a memorial tablet, according to some malicious views, erected by the ambassador himself in order to honor his own role in the building of the first non-rented Macedonian embassy abroad, can hardly be described as thrifty.
At the time, a " regular " inspection of embassies world-wide, as the official explanation ran, was set in motion the results of which, by means of a mysterious divine design, leaked into the public. The then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aleksandar Dimitrov, named the embassies in the Hague and Washington, setting a deadline within which his diplomatic staff was to supply him with the necessary information as to how the money had been spent. Furthermore, an inter-departmental inquiry commission was set up to investigate the matter.
The said scandal was a God sent opportunity for ordinary citizens to find out that ambassadors representing them earn between 2.000 - 3.000 DM per month, that the costs of their rented apartments are covered by the Ministry in full, as opposed to the lower ranked personal which can hope but for a 75 percent reimbursement of the rental costs, as well as that diplomatic spouses are entitled to a benefit amounting to 20 percent of the salary of the diplomat in question and that the costs of the schooling of their children within the education system of a given country are also fully covered by the government. At the time it also came to be known that a certain ambassador performs his exhaustive duties in a mansion of 1000 square metres, that a few of the highest diplomatic envoys of the country manage private companies in countries they were sent to, that the embassy in Vienna shares its entrance with a sex shop ( ! ), that a number of the diplomatic offspring are presently enrolled in private American colleges and similar institutions.
Srdjan Kerim enjoys the reputation of the probably most capable Macedonian diplomat, shunned by many of the previous Macedonian Foreign Secretaries because of it. It is therefore not improbable that his involvement in the scandal had been a frame-up. That this possibility was not to be entirely ruled out became obvious very shortly, on the very last day of last November, with the latest recomposition of Prime Minister's Ljubco Georgievski's cabinet, when the assistant to the Co-ordinator of the Stability Pact, longtime ambassador to Germany, graduate of the Munich university and former professor of the Belgrade University Srdjan Kerim was nominated head of Macedonian diplomacy.
The instigator of the ill-famed report on the extravagance of Macedonian diplomats - Minister Aleksandar Dmitrov - found himself in the role of a fervent newspaper reader at the end. True, the building of the Berlin embassy was carried out with no formal decision on the part of the government, merely on the authority of the former Prime Minister, Branko Crvenkovski; as for the price of the plot, the lowest tender and commission fee were agreed to; nevertheless, there was no governmental commission to supervise the project consequently carried out in its entirety by ambassador Kerim himself; the ambassador did raise the salaries of his immediate staff arbitrarily.and so on, and so forth. Epilogue: the inquiry commission's proposal to minister Dmitrov amounted to " a single cut in ambassador Kerim's monthly salary "!!! What a wry sneer this must have drawn out of the newspaper-reader Dmitrov !?
Prior to his appointment to the post of Foreign Secretary, Srdjan Kerim obstinately stuck to the recommendation of Prime Minister Georgievski, refusing to comment on the issue in the local press, yet finding ways to let the public know he is " as pure as virgin snow"... The inaugural interviews of the newly appointed leader of Macedonian diplomacy to the press offered no novelty in that respect. Just in case, and true to the spirit of the " good old European school of diplomacy ", through mediation of journalistic circles close to him, a version of the whole affair ( which the Foreign Secretary never exactly strained himself to deny, ascribing the bulky debt to his predecessor, by the way ) leaked into the press thanks to " highly confidential " sources. Some local commentators are willing to take a solemn oath that the ensuing offer of Secretary Kerim - malicious according to some, calculated according to others - sprang from the same diplomatic " handbook " and was launched in an attempt to tone down the embarrassing findings of the inquiry commission. In any case, in an interview preceding New Year's Eve, Secretary Kerim ruminated on the possibility of offering certain prominent figures of the opposition and the press a chance to put on diplomatic tuxedos themselves. Secretary Kerim even mentioned a few names in passing. And thus the bait was set...
Surprisingly or not, the press demonstrated little enthusiasm. The most influential opposition party, the Social Democratic League, on the other hand, took the offer of the new Foreign Secretary in earnest. Party members Mr. Kerim named, without exemption members of Parliament, finding themselves in an akward situation, did their best to justify themselves with their party comrades and the general public, claiming that they have never, ever discussed the idea with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Even if they had been given the chance, the unanimous chant went, they would have never accepted the offer, since the intention of the promoter of the said idea " was obviously insincere to start with "!? The party concluded that the true intent of the ruling coalition was to weaken its standing as the most influential opposition party, give rise to faction-ridden tendencies within it and, to put it shortly, give way to the " bribing " of party figures similar to what went on during the November reconstruction of the government. Only Nano Ruzin, an intellectual, decided to give himself room to think things over.....After weighing the " pros" and the " contras ", Ruzin boldly decided to accept the appointment to the post of the Macedonian ambassador to NATO in Brussels. His decision, he says, was brought on by the fact that his party companions called him a traitor even before he had made up his mind.
To tell the truth, the particularly harsh response of the Social Democratic League surprised even many of its sympathisers: Nano Ruzin was expelled not only from the inner leadership ( as he himself predicted ), but from the party itself as well (presumably, so as to serve as an example to other possible waverers - the press commented). Accounting for its decision, the leadership of the Social Democratic League voiced a boastful and narcissoid - and, to a certain extent, ridiculous - observation: " In doing so, the government has confirmed the Euroatlantic orientation of the Social Democratic League" !? If so, a prominent TV commentator asked himself, how does one explain the rigorous sanction applied against Ruzin?!
Nano Ruzin has a number of supporters amongst the politicians who believe that the interest of the state is above all party interests, as well as some who think differently. The spokesman of oppositional Democratic Alternative, talkative Slobodan Casule, reminded the leadership of the Social Democratic League that in times past it had nothing against its ambassadors keeping their posts inspite of the fact that the party had lost elections; there were no expulsions at the time.
In any case, the Social democratic League will have a hard time in clearing itself in the face of the world of the already deep-rooted impression of western diplomats that it is an " anti-western ," almost Stalinist party which does not tolerate difference of opinion amongst its ranks. Whatever its true intentions, the ruling VMRO-DPMNE can count on having scored a, perhaps slight, but still far from insignificant diplomatic point.
In the meantime, after full two years of squabbles between the coalitional partners, the outlines of the list of the new ambassadors are starting to come into view. In a word, key diplomatic posts will continue to be reserved for party members ( Ruzin is just an exception to the rule ). Empty for a year and a half, ambassadors' easy chairs in Washington, the UN Geneva Mission and other important capitals, are finally to find new hosts. Who cares if the country has compromised itself a bit here and there as, for example, when it revoked the Washington credentials of the party-wise unfit Radmila Kiprijanova whose Democratic Alternative had stepped out of the ruling coalition and when it applied for a new agreement. True professionals, if any, will have to wait in the name of " superior interests" - party ones, of course.
AIM Skopje
ZELJKO BAJIC