"Armed people" - Theory and Practice

Shouting in front of some Macedonian military barracks “We want arms!”, “self-organising” in suburban settlements of Skopje, establishment of night guards, appearance of paramilitary formations... All this shows that the lesson in the once very popular school subject called Total National Defence was learnt well. Fear has spread that, if the state fails to act in the current crisis, somebody else will take “the law in his hands”

AIM Skopje, June 14, 2001

The Party of Democratic Prosperity from the so-called “Albanian political block” issued a statement on Wednesday in which it claims that in Tetovo, Kumanovo, Skopje and other places “certain formations of the police are distributing arms to the citizens of Macedonian ethnic origin based on party affiliation”. The Party believes that “this phenomenon increases insecurity among the citizens, normal and free movement is prevented and the number of people who move or leave the country is increasing”. In the party statement it is concluded that such a “situation is the result of non-institutional operation and decision-making which is in the jurisdiction of state agencies pursuant the Constitution and laws, and the goal is – isolation of the Albanians from these institutions, especially the Ministry of internal affairs”.

Police spokesman Stevo Pendarovski said briefly that “the information is true, the population is supplying itself with arms. However, according to official sources, it is all within limits of the plan for complete mobilisation of police reserve forces”. When one knows that spokesman Pendarovski and his chief, Minister Ljuben Boskovski, were in dissonance in their statements in the past few days, the expressed stand on mobilisation could be interpreted in different ways. In any case, a question has arisen in official communication concerning which there have lately been plenty of dilemmas in public: are some people engaging paramilitary or parapolice forces because they are discontented by the speed or intensity with which the state is treating the crisis.

Especially since Sunday when one of the commanders of the National Liberation Army whose nickname is Hoxha sent a message to Prime Minister Georgievski that Skopje would be the target if military operations in the region of Kumanovo were not interrupted, media are reporting about “self-organising” of the citizens in some parts of Skopje, about formation of night guards, and rumours spread that there are paramilitary units ready to "obey commands”...

The story about paramilitary units is not new. In the past few years media in Macedonian were swamped with exciting stories on the establishment of clandestine organisations of the Albanians. Everything or at least a lot has been said about them. To write a whole dossier on them would not be a problem at all. However, to compose a story about operation of paramilitary units of, conditionally speaking, ethnic Macedonians – is much more difficult. Perhaps even impossible: little, almost nothing has been written about them.

Members of special police units, fifteen of them, previously engaged in the crisis stricken region of Kumanovo, announced about a fortnight ago their departure dissatisfied with the command of the police and more specifically with the work of Minister Boskovski himself. The Minister quite calmly replied that “Macedonia has, if need be, 15 thousand patriots who are ready to defend it”. In the press which is not inclined towards the Minister this statement was interpreted as an announcement for “bringing into the games” certain forces that are not (and probably will not be) controlled by the state. Therefore the information launched via several Macedonian media that fell on fertile ground was that in the village of Dragomance in Kumanovo region there is a training centre in which 60 to 80 local young men armed by the municipal committee of VMRO-DPMNE were training the use of their “Scorpio” and “Kalashnykov” machine guns and that Minister Boskovski was informed about it. Allegedly another 30 recruits are trained in Bulgaria, and a group is acquiring knowledge in Ukraine and Minister Boskovski registered them as members of police forces. Fokus weekly learnt that certain Antun Golomeic, a close associate of former president Tudjman, who is engaged in smuggling of arms and military equipment, is a guest of Minister Boskovski in Skopje, and that he had come to supply the paramilitary units with arms, bullet-proof vests and other equipment worth five million Swiss francs.

On June 6, a man who the public learnt very little about shot at the office of President of the Republic Trajkovski while he was talking to the leader of Social Democratic League Branko Crvenkovski. When he was arrested he admitted that he was motivated “by indecisiveness of the state leadership to overcome the crisis”!? Political rumours immediately made a connection between this case and the discontented faction of VMRO-DPMNE of Prime Minister Georgievski who advocate the war option.

Last weekend Minister of internal affairs Boskovski gave a dramatic interview to state television in which he amazed the public by stating that there were between 700 and 800 combatants in the village of Aracinovo controlled by the members of the National Liberation Army; less than 24 hours before that spokesman Pendarovski had claimed that there were about 30 of them... This unfortunate interview was the immediate cause for the Social Democratic League to publicly express suspicion that VMRO-DPMNE in fact wished to push the country into civil war and engage paramilitary units for that purpose.

>From the beginning of the crisis, occasionally it is possible to hear a hint of a real or possible existence and operation of paramilitary units which were behind certain minor or major incidents. On both occasions of the unrest in Bitolj, both in May when thirty odd shops owned by ethnic Albanians and Muslim Macedonians were demolished and a month later when the number of shops was twice bigger, certain signals led journalists to conclude that the “spontaneous rebellion” of the citizens of Bitolj because of their killed fellow citizens on mount Sara was not at all spontaneous after all. Some bold assumptions indicated that it was stirred up by men close to the police.

The responsibility for the attack on Palma cafe in Skopje and the murder of an Albanian in a restaurant called Lozana in Skopje was claimed by previously unknown organisation called Todor Aleksandrov. Skopje Zum weekly claimed afterwards that it was a military faction of Macedonian National Front which had existed a little longer. They claim that there are about 1400 of them, Zum claims that there are about 200 men, mostly members of a few agencies that offer protection well know for their activities in presidential and local elections in places where incidents occurred. According to this version, members of the organisation are well armed (they themselves claim that they were armed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs) and they even say that they are a special police unit. The weekly linked this association directly to Minister Ljuben Boskovski. For some time the name of the Minister was mentioned quite often in a similar context in the press close to the former opposition, the Social Democratic League.

Start weekly wrote last October that Boskovski was entrusted by the leadership of his party, VMRO-DPMNE, with the task to establish “protection committees”. The author of the article reminded that immediately after coming to power of the then Coalition for Changes, in the capacity of deputy director of the Department for Security and Counterintelligence Boskovski was given a similar assignment to form in the service where he worked a parallel organisation, but the coalition partners – Democratic Alternative and Democratic Party of the Albanians protested so nothing happened.

In March, that same weekly wrote about its favourite hero again stating evidence that in a Skopje restaurant a meeting had taken place of a few bosses of the underground who created the Macedonian National Front which was ready to “help (when it becomes necessary) defend the national cause”. The coordinator was the then state secretary Boskovski.

>From the beginning of the crisis, walls in Skopje are adorned by graffiti signed with “Macedonian Lions” and with the message “Ljubco, we are with you!” and similar. Not long ago a “general” of secret Macedonian revolutionary organisation (TMRO) “Macedonian Lions” bragged in the newspaper that the idol of his gang was Arkan and that at any moment he could raise 500 trained armed “combatants”.

More than a year ago the public was intrigued by an advertisement in a weekly from Skopje in which young Macedonians were called to join “Macedonian Lions”. The condition: it was necessary to be an “honest Macedonian patriot, a volunteer, to have completed military service in the former JNA or the Macedonian army”. Candidates could apply to the provided e-mail address. The objective of the advertisement was, as stated, “to oppose the Albanian terrorist Mafia-style gangs which are striving to annex western Macedonia to the United States of Albania (USA)”. The Department for Security and Counter-Intelligence determined that a certain worker who is earning for his life in Stuttgart stood behind the “Macedonian Lions” with a few of his supporters. The case did not get much attention so it was soon forgotten.

There is no evidence that the present “Lions” have anything to do with the former, “virtual” ones.

There are too many questions to which nobody has given a clear answer. Western diplomats and analysts mostly agree that if something is not done immediately, the country will sink into civil war. This opens the possibility for action of paramilitary units that may have unpredictable consequences. And just to paraphrase Chekhov: a rifle hanging on the wall in the first act of a play is sure to go off at its end.

ZELJKO BAJIC

(AIM)