A Preamble to Disintegration

"You cannot eat the Constitution. You cannot feed your children with Constitutional amendments", read the message of NATO's Secretary General Robertson sent from Brussels to Macedonia, which failed to touch the local parliamentarians and politicians who are constantly devising new ways to stall the implementation of Framework Agreement, which brought Macedonia a fragile peace.

AIM Skopje, October 27, 2001

The Macedonian President, Boris Trajkovski sent a rather unusual letter to George W. Bush, State Secretary Collin Powell and Candoleezze Rise, National Security Counsellor. Trajkovski asked their support for the new wording of the preamble to the Macedonian Constitution, which would re-introduce the term the "Macedonian people".

In his letter, Trajkovski informed that EU had already promised to support for the new text of the preamble, but that he needed the American approval so that other legal and constitutional reforms could be enacted within two weeks time. If the term the Macedonian people was not included in the revised text of the preamble, then, according to Trajkovski, the entire work done so far would be ruined and would spark a new precarious crisis in Macedonia. In his letter Trajkovski informed Bush and his closest associates that a group of deputies rejected the Framework Agreement as it had been signed in Ohrid and that despite all its efforts the Macedonian leadership did not manage to persuade them to the contrary. In Trajkovski's opinion the delay of the parliamentary procedure was a result of the wish "to make sure that the entire package is adopted" and that the solution it offered "might be controversial", which was why he was asking President Bush's assistance so as to have the Macedonian people included in the Constitution's preamble, which would secure parliamentary majority required for the adoption of Constitutional changes (as the most essential part of the Framework Agreement).

The letter was unusual first because it basically asked the American President to give his support that would exact a solution to an internal problem, which the local statesmen and politicians were obviously unable to cope with. And, secondly, it was unusual because it is common knowledge that the Americans, who are one way or the other deeply involved in the implementation of the Framework Agreement (American Ambassador Mike Inick and envoy James Pardew), have already refused to pressure the Albanian political leaders into agreeing with the change of the contents of the Framework Agreement.

Nevertheless, the "return of the Macedonian people to the preamble" was the centre of days-long arguing of Macedonian and Albanian political parties over the implementation of the Peace Accord, which was blocked by a parliamentary debate on constitutional amendments. The first thought that by devising and proposing new versions of the text of the new Constitution's preamble they could alter the Ohrid Accord, while the latter were convinced that it should be implemented just as it had been signed, because the Macedonian National Liberation Army (NLA) already met its end of the bargain envisaged by the Accord.

The main parliamentary group - VMRO-DPMNE already informed that it would not vote for constitutional amendments unless the term "Macedonian people" was put back in the preamble. According to this party's deputies – whose leader and Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski had signed the Ohrid Accord, with the proposed preamble without any reference to ethnicity - the fact that there would be no reference to Macedonian people in the Constitution would mean its deletion, its self-negation. Those among them who went a step further claimed that the whole Framework Agreement had been forced on them (by a combination of "terrorist actions" and support that the NLA got from the international community).

Instead of a clarification, Solana's latest visit only increased the confusion. During his stay in Skopje on Thursday and Friday, he tried to reconcile the two opposed sides and work out a mutually acceptable text of the new Constitution's preamble. At least judging by the reporting of the local media, the new text would just bring new ambiguities and provoke the reaction of the Macedonian side. Namely, the new formula for introducing the Macedonian people in the preamble reads: "The citizens of the Republic of Macedonia, the Macedonian people, as well as citizens living within the borders who are part of the Albanian people, Turkish people, Vlach people, Serb people, Roma people...".

Obviously, Solana accepted the Macedonian request that the Macedonian people should retain a kind of verbal pre-eminence in the preamble, but he also included the request of the Albanian parties that in case mention was made of the Macedonian people, other peoples would also be specified. It highly probable that the Macedonian side would consider the offered text unacceptable because the Albanians would be mentioned as a people, which would mean that they got by the back door what they insisted on all along - status of a constitutive nation. In any case, this formulation could be hardly expected to resolve the problem that is currently paralysing the implementation of the Framework Accord.

In all trials and tribulations with the implementation of the Ohrid Framework Agreement so far, much more importance has been attached to the preamble to the Constitution than would ordinarily be the case. It is also known that even before the start of the negotiating process, information came from many sides, which were considered close to the official Macedonian option (even in a written form) that at the very beginning of its negotiations with the Albanian side, the Macedonian side wanted to change or even delete the preamble from the Constitution. Consequently, the significance attached to this political declaration, which is by definition unimportant for the normative part of the Constitution, can be viewed as another way of undermining the contents of the Framework Agreement without disclosing the real reasons behind it. Things have gone so far that everyone has forgotten a very important fact: that this imperfect Framework Agreement, unacceptable for both sides was and, for the time being, still is the only true alternative to war. After all, the Agreement did stop a seven-month war. The illusion which many Macedonians are harbouring lately that peace could be preserved without meeting obligations stemming from the Agreement (because, allegedly, the NLA has been marginalized), practically means that they are reckoning without their host.

At his recent meeting with the Macedonian press in Brussels, NATO's Secretary General George Robertson tried to explain that fruitless discussions in Parliament had nothing to do with real life. Robertson – who before that, together with Solana and Mircea Gjoana, the OSCE Chairman, warned Macedonian politicians that they had to meet their end of the bargain and fulfil their obligations, said: "You cannot eat the Constitution. You cannot feed your children with Constitutional amendments". On that occasion he also told the journalists: "The fact remains that you all have to live as one Macedonia. You will either live together or you will be no more".

During his later official visit to Lisbon, regarding the situation in Macedonia NATO's Secretary General said that the situation that had been created regarding the adoption of constitutional amendments was frustrating: "The frustration has intensified and could easily turn into violence". On this occasion too he reminded that leaders of political parties had "enough tasks on which to concentrate" and expressed his expectations that they would implement what they had solemnly promised.

In the meantime, hardly anyone in Macedonia pays any attention to almost tragic erosion of the economy, widespread poverty of almost one half of the population, daily street protests and road blockades of dissatisfied workers. The economists say that the worst is yet to come unless the promised economic assistance arrives, which is conditioned by the realisation of the Framework Agreement.

Under such circumstances the parliamentary procedure for the adoption of Constitutional amendments is expected to continue. It is still unclear how will it end, because all options are still open. It is hard to even assume that the local politicians will find a way to patch up their mutual differences and finally adopt the Constitutional amendments, which are just one part envisaged by the Framework Agreement. And, it is common knowledge that the implementation of the Framework Agreement per se will not mean the end of all troubles. For, the realisation of the Framework Agreement is, in a way, a continuation of a longer, but in many respects much more painful process of the transformation of the Macedonian society.

ISO RUSI

(AIM)