You Asked for It!

President of Macedonia Boris Trajkovski and those who, together with him, decided to launch an offensive against the village of Aracinovo, controlled by the NLA members, couldn't have dreamed that after they had "bottled in the terrorists", what they tried to show as "NATO and EU saving their skins" would twice blow up in their faces: once from Luxembourg and the second time in the form of popular protests.

AIM Skoplje, June 26, 2001

It is now almost clear that at the moment Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski addressed the nation last Wednesday to say that the dialogue conducted through his mediation between leaders of four largest parties, was blocked because of the maximalistic demands of the Albanian political parties he had already decided, as Supreme Commander of the Macedonian Security Forces, to engage all his power in the liberation of the largest Skoplje village Aracinovo, which only fifteen days before that was under the control of members of the Macedonian UCK or National Liberation Army (NLA).

It would be otherwise hard to explain why after his announced peace plan, which won him a strong support of the West, and which he initiated by organising meetings with party leaders, and with announcements of a truce from both warring sides, after he came across the first obstacle in negotiations and managing to persuade the Albanian leaders to give up their clumsily formulated demands formulated after the arrival of Xavier Solana, Trajkovski ordered the Macedonian Security Forces to advance towards Aracinovo on the day of his departure.

NATO Secretary General George Robertson called this intervention sheer madness and demanded its suspension. Trajkovski, as a Supreme Commander of the Macedonian Security Forces, received Robertson's message, but did not accept it. Therefore, after his visit to the Near East, Robertson returned to Skoplje on Saturday and had a very hard time trying to persuade the Macedonian state leaders to agree to a ceasefire (rumour has it that he achieved that by threatening with the sanctions unless the offensive was not stopped and war operations in other regions suspended). On Sunday, he succeeded in gaining his purpose after 14 hours, after the strongest action of the Macedonian forces against the NLA members. As many as 6 helicopters Mi-8, Mi-17 and Mi-24, together with tanks and heavy artillery shelled Aracinovo for a full hour. The village was shrouded in thick smoke when the electronic media, positioned around the village, reported about white flags on village houses, as a sign of NLA's surrender, which explained the ceasefire.

That same evening, quoting reliable sources, the MTV's central News informed that some 250 NLA members had been wounded and three times more killed (altogether 750 of them) in Aracinovo during the operation of the Macedonian security forces! Private TV Sitel (which has a national concession to broadcast on the entire national territory) euphorically started its last TV News with a statement that when Europe, USA and NATO were not interfering so as to stop the actions of the Macedonian security forces, these forces proved that they could easily liberate territories controlled by the NLA.

In such an atmosphere everyone disregarded the information that the Macedonian forces were controlling one third of the village and that the number of wounded and killed NLA members was much greater than the one mentioned by the Defence Minister, Vlado Buckovski a day earlier.

The state leadership met that evening, as a strange substitution for President's Security Council, a constitutional category which, apart from the Prime Minister, President of Parliament, Defence Minister and Foreign and Internal Affairs Ministers (as the "state leadership"), includes three members elected on the proposal of the President of the state, one of which in this specific case is an Albanian (Vice-President of Parliament), Ilijaz Halimi. After the session, usually very talkative members of the top ranks avoided the press, while Chief of President's cabinet addressed them with a rather cheerful statement.

On Monday, the front pages of practically all dailies featured articles on "the hoisting of the white flag". The "Vecer" (The Evening) went the furthest in its euphoria vividly describing "the dramatic resolution of the crisis in Aracinovo" when "terrorists were bottled, with NATO and EU saving their skins".

Foreign sources were much more reserved. The AFP carried a statement of the NLA Commander, Hoxha that he accepted the ceasefire after the orders he received from his Command. Quoting his statement, the Reuters informed that the NLA claimed that it did not surrender in Aracinovo, but that direct negotiations with NATO representatives would be continued on Monday morning. That entire Monday morning the public was informed of what was really going on in Aracinovo: the NATO and OSCE were preparing the pull-out of NLA members, together with their arms so as to transfer them to an unknown location near Kumanovo, on the Macedonian territory.

Very little was left of the triumphant victory. Luxembourg, where EU Foreign Ministers met expecting the Macedonian report of "some progress" in inter-ethnic relations (as was announced at the signing of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement on April 9), expressed its dissatisfaction with the progress achieved so far, emphasising that the Macedonian situation could be resolved only by political means and making the granting of aid to Macedonia conditional upon the progress in political dialogue (along the way, the Ministers rebuked Macedonia that it could not expect European assistance while it was at the same time buying expensive arms). The meeting assessed that EU mediation in this dialogue was necessary and entrusted that task to the former French Defence Minister.

That same afternoon President of the state held a meeting with leaders of parliamentary parties, which his cabinet announced as the continuation of a dialogue conducted with four Albanian party leaders just before the offensive on Aracinovo. Before this meeting, the PDP leader, Imer Imeri said that the only purpose of this meeting was to reassure the public, while the real dialogue would be continued on Thursday, while VMRO-VMRO President Boris Stojmenov announced that he would ask the President to explain the reasons for suspending the security forces' action in Aracinovo and how was the agreement reached to pull out NLA members from the village. Another participant in this meeting, President of the Socialists Ljubisav Ivanov, asked similar questions in his interview for his own TV Sitel.

The meeting started with some delay because of the meeting President Trajkovski had with the Macedonian inhabitants of Aracinovo, who asked his the same questions. Just when Trajkovski's meeting with leaders of political parties was starting, the reserve police forces. which took part in actions in Aracinovo, joined the gathered Aracinovo villagers in front of the Parliament building. On the other side, people from Macedonian villages and Kumanovo denizens, who swore to stop the convoy of American buses carrying NLA members, rallied along the route by which NLA members were supposed to be pulled out from Aracinovo.

That is how the popular riots started at two points. If a clash was avoided on the pull-out route of NLA soldiers by leaving them in Aracinovo, the events in front of the Parliament building took a dramatic turn.

The crowd in front of the Parliament kept growing and at one moment filled the entire vast space in front of the building. Minister of the Interior tried to persuade the reserve police units that the authorities did not make any concessions regarding Aracinovo, but failed. The atmosphere became increasingly tense as the number of gathered reserve police forces, in full battle kit and with side arms, increased. Minister himself barely avoided the attack of the masses, while his official car parked in front of the Parliament building was wrecked. At one moment the crowd broke through the police cordon line and barriers and entered the Parliament building, venting its dissatisfaction on everything they came across.

In the end, it eventually turned out that these riots did not have a destructive potential of events that happened in Bitolj twice before. But, it is obvious that a part of leadership, led by Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, is increasingly successful in its attempts to create chaos and exact(as he is convinced)a quick military show-down with the NLA members, which (according to some sources) control almost one third of the Macedonian territory.

The pulling out of NLA members from Aracinovo was not carried out and it is still unknown how will the American soldiers who accepted to do it, realise it. But, even greater uncertainty is created by the announced interview of Prime Minister Georgievski for the national MTV. In case, as it is expected, he persists on his option and tries to use the most powerful medium for that purpose, literally anything can happen.

ISO RUSI

(AIM)