Macedonia on Fire?

Multiplying One's Brain by A Zero

Ever since the border incidents around Tanusevac have turned into head on clashes near Tetovo, the second largest Macedonian town, it has become less clear what is actually going on. In my mind I am turning over and over again a question to which I have no answer: how and why has Macedonia, the only former Yugoslav Republic which won its independence without a war, a country which after all wars in the neighbourhood was a "peace oasis", found itself on a verge of war which is threatening to set the entire Balkans on fire?

AIM Skoplje, March 19, 2001

"My dear, do you see what has happened to us", asked an E-mail message of my old friend Goran Stefanovski, who has been living in Canterbury in England these last couple of years. He is not the only one who is unable to understand why and how has Macedonia, the only former Yugoslav Republic which won its independence without a war, a country which after all wars in the neighbourhood was a "peace oasis", found itself on a verge of war which can set the entire Balkans of fire? Why are fightings going on for six days now around Tetovo, the second largest town in Macedonia?

I talk by the phone several times a day with Artan Skenderi, owner of TV "Art" station in Tetovo. The first day he told me he had heard shots coming from the hill of Kale, which is practically in the very city centre. On the second day, evidently in a bad mood, he spoke about a disaster, people leaving town. He spoke similarly on the third. On the Internet, where I get most information on the events there, I found a description practically identical to the one Artan gave me: "Empty streets are resounding with sounds of rhythmical, but constant shelling. Clouds of smoke and dust are spreading through the woods as shells go off a kilometre or two from the city centre. And when the night falls, the firing continues along the front line. Both sides exchange fire a kilometre further to the east of the second hill".

Macedonians who have fled from Tetovo are gathering in front of the Parliament building in Skoplje. "Tetovo is a Macedonian town and will remain Macedonian. That is why you must go back and live together with the Albanians", Boris Trajkovski, President of the state told the gathered crowd of people who were chanting "Give us arms!", "Give us arms!". The President promised "On Sunday we shall settle accounts with the terrorists". That same day foreign reporters in Tetovo wrote: "Despite the shelling of the guerrilla positions, security forces did not manage to move one inch up the hill since the conflicts broke out".

The Albanians are also leaving Tetovo and the surrounding villages heading for Albania, West European countries and Turkey, where they have relatives. The number of Albanian refugees is five times larger than that of the Macedonians, said Prime Minister Ljupco Georgievski in his Sunday address. He reiterated his Government's assessment that the crisis had been initiated by the Kosovo Albanians and was not the internal Macedonian conflict. He also said: "This aggression is coming from Kosovo and we have proof of that. You cannot convince anyone in Macedonia today that Governments of America and Germany do not know who are the terrorist leaders and what they want" accuse Georgievski. "They could stop them".

Who are actually the people fighting against the Macedonian security forces around Tetovo? In the latest issue of the weekly "Lobi" in the Albanian language, of which I am the editor, we have carried an interview with Fazli Veliu (aged 60) who is claimed to be the political leader of the NLA (National Liberation Army). "We are in favour of Macedonia's integrity because we think that Macedonia cannot exist without the Albanians" said Veliu.

In its Press Release No.6 NLA presented its political objectives. It mentioned the international mediation in negotiations regarding conflicts, adoption of the new Constitution under which the Macedonians and Albanians would be equal ethnic groups in one state. NLA pointed out that they did not wish to harm the integrity of the state of Macedonia in any way. This release was mostly intended to convince the international community that the rebels were not aiming at establishing the Greater Albania or dividing the country. Their demands are practically identical to those of the existing Albanian parties, which are members of the Macedonian Parliament and Government from the first days of its independence. Why, then, have the arms replaced politics?

Before 1998 parliamentary elections, the leader of the Democratic Party of Albanians, which is now part of the ruling coalition, Arben Xhaferi, invited another Albanian party - Party of Democratic Prosperity - to join forces. Concerned about the emergence of KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army), he used to say that the Albanian parties should work together on the realisation of Albanian demands in Macedonia so as not to be pushed to the margins by some radical options. Some three years later, he and his Party have lived to see the emergence of Macedonian KLA, which has the same acronym as the Kosovo one, but a different name - The National Liberation Army (NB: both are written UCK in the Albanian language).

Many local Albanians claim that it is the result of unkept promises, corruptness of DPA representatives in the authorities and force that has been used against the Albanians who expressed a different opinion at the local elections in 2000.

The Albanians who are sympathetic towards NLA pointed out that they have lost patience because in the last 10 years the Macedonian authorities and their Albanian representatives in them have done nothing regarding their demands in the fields of education, culture, media, use of the Albanian language, national symbols, flag, etc. "We have been asking for a dialogue, but our problems have been persistently ignored" said Arben Xhaferi to the Macedonian papers. And it was until yesterday that everyone said that Xhaferi's presence in Georgievski's Cabinet was contributing to the easing of tensions. "Macedonia and Kosovo and Bosnia are not the same, but there are horrifying and depressing similarities between these cases", said a chronicler of latest Balkan wars.

Although I have disconnected from the Internet long ago, a sentence of Nick Wood, BBC reporter, is still on my mind. Reporting from Selce (a village nearby the conflict line) he said that groups of young men came each hour to voluntarily enlist in the National Liberation Army (NLA).

I go out for a cup of coffee. I am not the only one to notice broken flowerpots, which used to decorate a terrace in front of a pizza restaurant in the Skoplje mall "Porta Vlae" owned by an Albanian.

While I am leafing through the local papers I observe the language of hate which is slowly, but surely spreading through the media. Once again I get that unpleasant feeling that my colleagues and acquaintances have started seeing me only as an Albanian - a terrorist and find it hard to resist saying something unpleasant. When will all this end? I do not know. But I wonder whether Goran Stefanovski had that same feeling when he wrote to me that his "brain was being multiplied by a zero".

AIM SKOPLJE

ISO RUSI