War Whirlwind in the Peace Oasis?

AIM Skopje, March 16, 2001

After the horror in Kosovo, even the greatest pessimists believed that Macedonia has avoided all risks of a military conflict. But this time Macedonia has surprised both pessimists and optimists proving that in the Balkan the role of forecasters can be assumed either by completely naive or extremely pretentious persons. Simply, the peace oasis, as Macedonian statesmen like to call this country, is nowadays at the epicentre of a military whirlwind. Perhaps not according to the intensity of military operations which objectively, at least for the time being, cannot grow because of the military potential of the parties in conflict, but certainly by the atmosphere of war illustrated by columns of refugees who are leaving their homes (mostly in ethnically mixed environments) and by battle-cries coming from various sides clashing above the heads of confused citizens. It all began in Tanusevci, a village of several ten houses and several hundred inhabitants, the village Macedonia had forgotten existed on its territory and remembered only when it signed the Agreement on border determination with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Its inhabitants still do not have the citizenship of Macedonia and until the war in Kosovo they appealed that Macedonian authorities protect them from Milosevic's police. But the officials in Skopje have neither offered them protection nor listened to the entreating of the population of this village to at least be explicitly explained under whose jurisdiction they lived.

And while the officials in Skopje claimed that the disturbances in Tanusevci were caused by “terrorist groups” that had come from Kosovo, reasonable people argued that the matter was much more serious: that the “war trumpets” had an autochthonous source, that is, that Macedonia was marching towards a classical civil war in which it will be the least important what had brought it about and who started it.

At least when causes are concerned, the Balkan has a quantity of them at its disposal that would be sufficient for waging wars in the next few centuries. Now that shooting has already begun in Tetovo, while all forecasts indicate that disturbances will spread on the whole territory of Western Macedonia, the number increases of those who dare predict the further course of developments. The opinion that is predominant is that the two most numerous ethnic groups in Macedonia are on the threshold of waging war with each other for the first time in history. And also that Macedonia may survive as some kind of a buffer-zone in the Balkan even if it passes the bloody path of war. After a possible war, of course, Macedonia will neither be what nowadays ethnic Macedonians feel it is, nor what ethnic Albanians wish it to be, but what the “saviors” decide.

When causes of military action in Macedonia are concerned, they are not older than this new state. To put it simply, ethnic Macedonians and Albanians have been building their joint state for ten years resembling mostly two teams stretching rope both hoping that the other team will either fall down or give up. In the meantime, only political elites benefited from the new state, quickly becoming like brethren in order to acquire wealth and forgetting that the foundation of the pyramid – the people – was splitting into two parallel worlds. A long time ago interethnic relations have become a hostage of government coalition partners in Macedonia and their level depended on business arrangements between the ruling parties. Finally, sufficiently broad space was created for growing intolerance among those who claimed that the demands of the Albanians served only the interests of the nouveaux riches, and the uncompromising stand in the political camp of ethnic Macedonians (set up at the bulwark of protection of national interests of the people who have nothing but Macedonia) brought profit only to the elite which held the posts that enabled it to charge commissions for every business deal.

In the past ten years Macedonia has not succeeded to resolve certain crucial issues from the sphere of interethnic relations which are always thrown back to the initial position during every parliamentary of local elections. These issues refer to the respect of differences and their institutional support. For ten years in Macedonia futile inter-partisan haggling has been going on over the use of Albanian language, education of the Albanians, use of insignia, adequate representation of the Albanians in state institutions... For ten years political elites in this country have used interethnic relations as the most profitable bargaining issue for winning or losing political points forgetting that time was running short for Macedonia and that the moment was coming when the manipulating space would become very narrow. Nowadays Macedonia is experiencing what logically sooner or later had to happen. The citizens do not trust their political parties any more, especially the Albanians. Unlike ethnic Macedonians who at least have for “consolation” the fact that state institutions, especially the police and the army, are controlled by them, the Albanians are left in the open facing two possibilities – either to continue trusting their corrupt political elite or to incline towards those who have taken up weapons and demand a quick solution of all the accumulated problems.

From what the shooting around Tetovo announces it can be concluded that Macedonia is not far from dissolving by the very pattern former SFRY dissolved. While Albanian political parties have no power to influence armed Albanians, it may turn out that the police and the army of Macedonia will increasingly act as if their duty were to protect only ethnic Macedonians. There is but a single step that separates Macedonia from setting up a clear line between two opposed blocks – state institutions siding with ethnic Macedonians and armed Albanians protecting interests of their ethnic group. Should that happen, the rest of the film is the one deja vu in this space: a single-ethnic state “liberation” army and the police of ethnic Macedonians which will try to “free” the villages and towns in Western Macedonia of its own Albanian citizens.

Even now, at the very beginning, the war in Macedonia has one absurd element: everyone – both the armed Albanians and the officials – claim that they are in favour of territorial integrity and stability of Macedonia. Relevant international protagonists also express this commitment. There is no reason for one to doubt their declarations. But the problem is that all three parties have their own views of sovereign and stable Macedonia. By stable and sovereign Macedonia the official state agencies controlled by ethnic Macedonians mean a unitarian state of ethnic Macedonians and other citizens, while armed Albanians see their stable Macedonia as a state relying on the pillars of two largest ethnic groups living there – ethnic Macedonians and Albanians; and the international public looks upon Macedonia as the “firstborn” in the Balkan conceived by “multiculturalism” as its farther and “civil society” as its mother. This triangle formed by three extremely strained lines – three state-creating projects which do not coincide in a single point – can in fact lead to only one outcome – nothing would be left of Macedonia, especially if the authorities decide to implement the idea of the prime minister who declared that “Macedonia will not be choosy about its allies if preservation of territorial integrity is threatened”. It seems that nobody has bothered (or forgotten) to tell him that Macedonia is surrounded by “saviors” (some, like Bulgaria, have already offered to send their soldiers) and should such “salvation” occur, Macedonia will become just a romantic history of an attempt to create a new state in the Balkan.

And while messages of support to its integrity and stability are arriving to Macedonia, everybody seems to be forgetting that this country will not be able to survive if such recognition does not arrive from its own citizens. This means that while the international community is supporting Macedonia in the attempts to establish order on its territory, cynics mock and remind of the similar support once offered to SFRY which dissolved anyway because it did not become aware in time that it was not supported by the ethnic groups that lived in it. Are we in fact watching the same old film but directed by someone else, it remains to be seen, but what is certain is that, when wars are concerned, the Balkan is very vigorous and endurable. It still does not seem to be tired of columns of refugees, ruins and graves. The Balkan is also still a good training-ground for Western diplomacy and all those whose ambition is to become experts for resolving conflicts. And Macedonia is specific for many elements, if nothing else, because for the time being both ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians wish to see it whole and undamaged. They just need to discover who should liberate it from whom and answer the key question: where is their interest in building of such a “brotherly state”. Because even if armed operations in Macedonia end tomorrow, it will still remain an unstable state creation, if in the meantime ethnic Macedonians do not clearly state whether they are ready to build a joint multiethnic state with all the ethnic groups that live in it, and the Albanians do not define their minimum of demands and interests they wish to realise in such a state. However, nowadays in Macedonia the space for asking such questions has been narrowed down for the simple reason that for ten years the terms of multiculturality and interethnic relations have been a pretext for a false democracy, in fact concealed dictatorship, promoted by ethnic “political sects”. They have forgotten, however, that false democracy creates nothing but an unstable state creation.

AIM Skopje

KIM MEHMETI