"PYRAMIDAL" SYSTEM OF VALUES

Organized Crime

AIM Skopje, 17 April, 1997

For a few weeks already a hunting season has been opened in Macedonia, in which bankers, enterprise managers, high party officials and not only they, are going to jail or have their passports taken away so they cannot leave the country. In fact, the "hunting" season was opened on perpetrators of crimes in order to establish order and save some of the things threatened by decay. And while "hunters" are revealing new scandals, new names of suspects and the arrested, the public is more and more discontented. The reason is simple: there are no "capitals" among those who have been hunted down.

The scandal concerning the TAT savings-bank from Bitola (the biggest in a series of banks which have robbed their savers) was probably the last drop, so that this can neither be ignored nor stopped. This scandal forced the Macedonian Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski to admit at the platform of the parliament that there was organized crime in Macedonia and that it was high time to cut the tentacles of this "octopus", but also to smash its "body". The struggle against crime started with euphoria, with statements of support and hope that time has finally come to bring out in the open all foul dealings and abuses, and then, of course, begin with "airing" and general "cleaning" of the house. The euphoria reminded many of the times when various letters of comrade Tito or the central committee of the communist party used to arrive addressed to the broad membership in order to mobilize them and begin social action. Everything was set for the "hunt" to begin, it was uncertain only how deep it will reach, or rather how high up.

The public was doubtful as soon as the hunt was announced, and now there are numerous indicators that the suspicion that this would not be a hunt for the "big game" was not unfounded. There are serious indications that apart from resignation of a single minister (Jorgo Sundovski, minister of construction industry, town planning, and the environment, resigned because of involvement of a member of his family in the TAT scandal), everything will end up with chopping of minor and insignificant "heads", but that the "body of the octopus" would remain intact. Of course, this means that it will regrow its tentacles after some time and that after some time it will be necessary to open a new "hunting season".

The newly created atmosphere in Macedonia, indeed, leaves room for suspicion that two parallel processes are going on: fishing in troubled waters (for scoring accounts among centres of power) and the planned hunt (for hushing things up). That is why everybody is attacking and slandering everybody else, skillfully and imperceptibly diverting attention of the public elsewhere. Daily Vecer therefore attacked the rival Dnevnik, the only independent Macedonian daily founded by a group of young enthusiastic journalists, slandering it that it was a bulletin of the man who was once the first policeman in the country, and who is the current foreign minister, Ljubomir Frckovski, and his "brethren". The slander originated from one of the publications of Nova Makedonija, the publishing "octopus" which imprisoned several dailies, weeklies, monthlies and specialized editions which are themselves also nothing but controlled "bulletins" of the ruling Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia (SDSM). Nova Makedonija has also the monopoly on an enormous sales network, but it is burdened by a bulky administration. It has managed to develop "pyramidal" journalism which is nowadays threatened by two privately-owned journals with high circulation, the mentioned Dnevnik and the weekly Fokus. This "pyramidal" journalism which has been cultivated in Nova Makedonija publishing company for decades, now that professionals have appeared who know how to make a good, cheap newspaper (Dnevnik is sold at 5 denars a copy, which is less than one fifth of a German mark, and Fokus, weekly on 50 pages costs 50 denars a copy or 1.8 marks, in comparison with daily publications of Nova Makedonija which are sold at 20-30 denars a copy), ceased to be able to feed their overgrown "tentacles" - their enormous machinery which operates on the principles of remote control. Well paid by the citizens' money, directed journalism did not seek salvation in reorganization, but tried to disqualify other journals instead, by striking them blows below the belt.

While on the one hand independent newspapers turned into a nightmare for Nova Makedonija, a part of health workers have for quite some time felt the current minister of health, Ilija Filipce as a millstone around their necks which is pulling them down deeper and deeper into the mud of nepotism. Now when the "hunting" season has begun, they too have raised their voices and finally forced the mentioned minister to face the journalists. And while minister Filipce is accusing all those who are attacking him and demanding their resignation (at the time when demands for his resignation are arriving from several places, Filipce is dismissing the disobedient), his opponents are presenting to the public documents and other "material" evidence about the manner in which their minister works. His brother, sister, relatives and friends are mentioned for being appointed to key posts in health administration in order to establish the "pyramid" of health services the top of which is sovereignly reigned by minister Filipce. In the meantime, scandals are revealed connected with the imported drugs the shelf life of which has expired but which are sold repacked, so they would not be "wasted", "disappearing of essential medical supplies from surgeries, "strange" flows of money allocated for medical purposes.

While professors of medical sciences, respectable doctors, private dentists and pharmacists are publicly demanding from the Prime Minister to free them of their Minister who was, by the way, chosen by the Prime Minister himself to become the member of the cabinet, the public is overwhelmed by numeorus scandals in other spheres which a man, even if he wished, could not even register all, least of all follow. For instance, different malversations in the Ministry of Internal Affairs have come out in the open (two high officials were recently discharged over there, the one who was in charge of money and the other who was in charge of bugging), but also in the Defence Ministry. The possibility was also revealed that the narcotics confiscated from dealers and smugglers were "disappearing" in unknown direction and withot ever being taken to institutions where they were supposed to be destroyed.

All these scandals and correspondence, all mutual accusations, are pointing out to the fact that a new "pyramidal" system of values has been established in Macedonia. Almost in all spheres of the society the same thing was and still is happening: on the bases formed of friends, relatives, and trustworthy persons, "pyramids" of value have been constructed at the head of which are managers, mayors, ministers... It is in fact an endless spiral in which little attention or none at all is paid to personal values, honesty and professional qualities. That is the reason why many "pyramids" in Macedonia are torn down in a hurry, as if panic-stricken, and even in a bigger hurry, bases of those which have not been hit yet are being consolidated. However, there is plenty of evidence which shows that many of these "pyramids" will remain intact during this "hunting" season, which will be yet another proof that nobody has yet realized what is happening in several countries in transition where the entire state mechanism has tumbled down like a sandcastle in just a few hours, due to the fact that standards of evaluation have been distorted and pyramids built on the principle that "who does not agree with us, is of no value".

Such pyramids of value for Macedonia are much more dangerous because all internal differences threaten to shift to the interethnic ground, for the simple reason that two pyramidal systems of values have developed in Macedonia: the Macedonian and the Albanian. This means that the Albanians - "partners" in power - were enabled to construct a small "pyramid" of their own, so as not to be left empty-handed. Wishing to have as obedient media in Albanian as possible, their status was brought to the phase which is defined by the people as "it makes no difference whether you work or not". At the same time, for the sake of improving the structure of the Albanians employed in state services (in which achievement of factual results cannot be denied), several members of families of party "personnel managers" and obedient party members have been installed there. Raising party affiliation and family and friendly connections as values above everything else, enabled sealing of centres of power and decison-making. As every Albanian schoolboy knows, it is impossible to find even the job of a night watchman, least of all of, say, a manager, if you are not a member of the Party of Democratic Prosperity (PDP).

This "pyramidal" system of values (if they are valuesat all), which was, by the way, most skilfully developed by Sali Berisha who proclaimed everything and everybody who did not agree with him, to be the "red gang", destructive, inimical, incompetent, anachronous, undemocratic and what not, bringing Albania into the situation it is in now - of bottomless chaos and general national catastrophe, can greatly affect further development of Macedonia. All things considered, it is naive to believe that the group in power will go all the way in squaring accounts, since a lot indicates that quite a few of them will remain "clean". If nothing else, majority of the people in power should answer to the question what they had done to prevent development of such an obvious "pyramidal" system of values which recognizes almost exclusively family ties, friendship, obedience and party affiliation.

KIM MEHMETI