Macedonia – The Third Path

If the truth is to be said, what the parties belonging to the so called "Macedonian political block" would like best is that the existing status quo concerning minority rights be preserved; seeking to do away with the odious label of second-hand citizens once and for all, Albanian parties are demanding rights equal to those granted to the Macedonian majority; representatives of other ethnic communities present in multiethnic Macedonia have goals of their own. Judging by its current stand, the international community seems to be closest to those last mentioned

AIM Skopje, July 11, 2001

A few days ago, in the presence of international envoys Francois Leotard and James Pardew, president Trajkovski met with the representatives of 13 non-parliamentary parties representing ethnic groups other than Macedonians and Albanians. The leaders of the lesser minorities voiced their concern with the fact that only the representatives of the Macedonian and Albanian community were being consulted on the crisis endangering the country as a whole. The issues under discussion, they pointed out, concern all ethnic groups living in Macedonia. In a word, those present at the meeting were unanimous in their request that Macedonia be constituted as a civic society rather than as an ethnic state. Accidentally or not, that was exactly the sort of thing those governing the country craved to hear. Or, to be more precise, that was exactly what president Trajkovski wanted the representatives of the international community to be told. For, that is precisely what Trajkovski has been advocating since the beginning of the crisis: the constitution of Macedonia as a civic society. But, ethnic Albanian leaders keep reminding the president this is not what they had agreed upon previously. According to them, Trajkovski should bare in mind that he had been the presidential candidate of a party noted not for its civic orientation, but rather to the contrary, for its ethnic nature (VMRO-DPMNE) and, perhaps even more importantly, that he was sworn into office owing to Albanian votes.

According to the 1994. census, ethnic Turks make up four per cent of the population, Romanies and Serbs 2,4 per cent, the so-called "others" - Vlachs, Macedonian Muslims and Bosniacs - additional two per cent. All in all, a little under ten per cent. Ethnic-mathematicians have calculated: 66 per cent of Macedonians plus some ten per cent of other national minorities equal 77 per cent, as opposed to the 23 per cent of Albanians. Just right!

Some analysts have interpreted president Trajkovski's attempt to draw other national minorities into the political dialogue as a means to lessen the obvious Albanian influence, particularly since the representatives of these ethnic groups seem to be willing to go along with the wishes of the government at the moment. With the exception of Albanians, ethnic minorities have often been shoved to the margins of the political arena in the past. This is best illustrated by the fact that there is no mention of Serbs in the present Constitution and that the changes of the election law adopted in 1998. have practically banished all national minorities from the Parliament. Yet, each of these ethnic communities has its specific position within the political scene of the past decade. Some were on the brink of securing a solid position within the establishment, some, however hard they tried, barely managed to have their cultural identities recognized.

In a way, the Turks, as the most numerous minority, have had luck in as much as their mother country happened to be wealthy enough to help satisfy their cultural, educational and informative needs. This, the representatives of the community themselves admit, has in a sense relieved the Macedonian government of the obligation to promote their minority rights. Nevertheless, the political influence of the Turkish community is less today than it had been a few years ago when it could boast of actually having an MP of its own in the Parliament.

Aside from ethnic Albanians, Romanies are the only other minority represented in Parliament during the past decade. The only problem being that the MPs coming from this ethnic group seem to be a source of amusement for the public rather than serious political figures. Their reputation is such that they are considered to be proverbially willing to go along with the authorities, even when this contradicts the basic interests of their own people. This has resulted in disagreements within the Romany community itself which, of course, only weakens their political influence further.

The Serb community has undergone a painful internal disintegration in the past decade but, speaking from the ethnic Macedonian point of view, what was perhaps even more damaging to it, was its "satellite stand" in relation to the previous regime in Serbia. The leadership of the Democratic Party of Serbs (DPS) shadowed the Belgrade regime's attitude towards Albanians which, in the specific reality of the Macedonian political scene, assumed tragicomic forms at times. As, for instance, when the leader of DPS demanded that other minorities, just like Albanians, be granted the right to an university education in their mother tongues. No comment needed, considering the difficulties the Serbs have been encountering while organizing merely the elementary education of the community in this manner.

The community of Macedonian Muslims is yet in the phase of articulating its political interests, practically the same holds true when Vlachs and Bosniacs are concerned. During the recent eruption of violence in Bitola after the deaths of several soldiers on Sara when Albanian shops were targeted, Macedonian Muslims found themselves exposed to the wrath of rioters too. Yet, a certain duality could be discerned in the public. On one hand, up to the present, Macedonian Muslims have never given rise to ethnic intolerance. On the other, their "otherness" seemed to prove a strong enough motive for the rioters.

The two leading Albanian parties have never clearly defined their stand on the issue of Macedonian multi-ethnicity. In fact, in Macedonian political circles, Albanian views on the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nature of the country have been interpreted mostly as an attempt to narrow everything down to the issue of Macedonian-Albanian relations.

Even from the ethnic Macedonian perspective, things have seemed pretty much the same. Some western analysts point out that this is precisely why the Macedonian political elite has found itself in the position to negotiate on the future of the country almost exclusively with Albanians. More to the point, although the multi-ethnic nature of the society was dutifully proclaimed during the entire ten-year-period of independence, little has been done to actually achieve the goal set by the international community: to pave the way for the realization of minority rights through the promotion of basic human rights.

It seems the international expert team appointed by the envoys of the international community to Skopje, Francois Leotard and James Pardew, lead by a well-known figure dating back to the era of the disintegration of ex-Yugoslavia, French jurist Robert Badinter, had this in mind when drawing up its proposal of constitutional changes, presented both to president Trajkovski and to the leaders of major political parties. According to journalistic sources (the draft of the document was never officially presented in public), the proposed changes call for the decentralization of the government and the delegation of power to the local levels of rule, further promotion of minority languages in public services in areas where these minorities constitute a majority or a relevant portion of the population (20%), as well as the optional use of minority mother-tongues in Parliament and other governmental institutions. The proposal also envisages a mechanism for blocking outvoting when laws pertaining to the cultural, educational and other specific minority needs are being legislated. Furthermore, it prescribes a two-thirds majority of votes on any given law if it is to be passed by the Parliament and the necessity that at least a half of the minority MPs concerned are in favor of the said bill. As things stand at the moment, this means that merely 13 out of 24 Albanian MPs need to vote in favor of a law if it is to be passed, since, aside from the representative of the Romany community, no other ethnic minority is currently fortunate enough to have a representative in the Macedonian Parliament.

The proposed platform, that much is clear, will be the subject of prolonged negotiations. Although somewhat distanced from the main political arena, ethnic minorities, the calculated ten per cent of them, may turn out to be the unexpected winners in the end. For, and this much is certain: neither Macedonians nor Albanians will get all they want. Their national ambitions, it seems, are likely to prove too large for the ready-made clothes cut to order by the international community.

ZELJKO BAJIC

(AIM)