FLAGS LOWERED BY FORCE

Unrest in Gostivar and Tetovo

AIM Skopje, 10 July, 1997

Just a few hours after adoption of the Law on the flag, members of the Ministry of the interior of Macedonia, simultaneously in Gostivar and Tetovo took off the flags of the Albanian and the Turkish nationality in front of the municipal buildings. Minister of internal affairs of Macedonia, Tomislav Cokrevski, declared in the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia the following: "For some time the Ministry of Internal Affairs is making preparations for an adequate action after the decision of the Constitutional Court, which has sent us a direct demand to intervene. We believed that all political means should be applied for a peaceful solution of the problem in order to avoid serious conflicts". At the time when Cokrevski was speaking in the parliament, the public had already seen shots of the developments in Tetovo and Gostivar. State TV carried shots of taking down the flags in early morning, and after that private television stations presented shots of what was left after the raid of the policemen in the premises of the mayor and council of the municipality of Tetovo (as if a stampedo had passed through them), shots which clearly showed that there was shooting on both sides in Gostivar, although the spokesman of the Ministry denied information about it at a press conference. It could also be seen on tv that while "introducing peace and order" police was beating people who were lying on the lawn in the park in front of Gostivar municipality building, most of whom were elderly.

Twenty four hours after police intervention and protests which followed and in which two demonstrants were killed, persons were wounded on both sides, and about 400 people were arrested or taken to the police station for interrogation, the official assessment said: "the situation is peaceful".

Briefly about the background. In the end of January, the newly elected council of the municipality of Gostivar reached a decision about hoisting of the Macedonian state flag and the flags of the Albanian and Turkish nationality which are identical with the flags of the Republic of Albania and the Republic of Turkey, on the flagposts in front of the municipal building. In about twenty other municipalities in western Macedonia where the Albanians are the majority population, municipal councils reached identical decisions and sooner or later acted in the same manner as the leaders of Gostivar. In May, however, the Constitutional Court of Macedonia, as part of its discussion about the questioned statute of Gostivar municipality which regulated the use of the flag, reached a temporary decision on taking down of the flags with the explanation that in front of the local self-administration buildings, only the state flag of Macedonia could be hoisted, and only during state holidays, but not flags of foreign states. The answer of Gostivar municipal council was that the Albanian flag was older than the state of Albania, that it was used during the National Liberation War and in former Yugoslavia, and demanded that the Constitutional Court reconsider its decision, and recommend the authorities not to resolve the problem by force. After that the Constitutional Court demanded from the government to assist in implementation of its decision. The government which was not limited in time to implement the decision, postponed its assistance because it believed that it was necessary to adopt legal regulations first.

After a long government-parliamentary procedure which was announced and carried out as urgent, the Macedonian parliament adopted the Law on flags of nationalities. A few hours after that, minister Cokrevski sent policemen to Tetovo and Gostivar which are literally still under siege.

Ever since the controversial Macedonian, Albanian and Turkish flags were hoisted in front of the Gostivar municipal building, and then that of Tetovo, and majority of about 25 municipalities the mayors of which belong to the Party of Democratic Prosperity of the Albanians (PDA) or in the councils of which they have the majority, all kinds of things happened in the media. From using this event as the immediate cause for manifestation of Albanophobia to a threat of MAAK-Conservative Party, a true minor party, that it would take things in its hands and take the flags off the posts in front of the Gostivar municipal building.

The problem about the flags of nationalities in Macedonia has been acquiring farcical proportions for quite some time now. On the one hand, using the possibility to bring to the absurdity superficial solutions of the new Macedonian legislature, the newly-elected local authorities in western Macedonia where the Party of Democratic Prosperity of the Albanians triumphed (which is in the black-and-white scheme almost always marked as radical as opposed to the cooperative Party of Democratic Prosperity) and having won legitimacy in the local elections, started "testing" the central authorities.

In Gostivar, the municipality where the original and dynamic mayor Rufi Osmani, former deputy in the parliament, the first thing they did, was to banish the Turkish language from official use, because according to the valid law on local self-administration, nationalities with over 20 per cent of the local population have the right to official use of their language, which the Turks do not have. To reactions of the Turks and their party, but also the media in Macedonian, Osmani responded with the message: "Change the law!" The next thing he did was to hoist the controversial flags in front of the municipal building.

The other municipalities where his party is in power followed suite. At large gatherings and official meetings of all Albanian parties in Macedonia, the red flag with the two-headed black eagle was always hoisted. According to the words of the new minister of justice (Gorgi Spasov, formally still the ambassador of Macedonia in Bulgaria), in an interview to Skopje daily Vecer, admitted that the Albanians had carried this flag during the National Liberation Struggle (1941-1945) and in the period between 1973 and 1989, when the adopted amendments abolished this possibility, and all the "others" found themselves together outside the Constitution of Macedonia.

The adopted law prescribes only the possibility of hoisting the state flag outside state institutions, while flag of nationalities which they themselves can choose, may be hoisted at private gatherings and in front of municipalities where they are significantly represented (above 20 per cent of the population), but only at the time of state holidays.

But, nevertheless, this has nothing to do with what is really happening. Because hoisting of the Albanian flag in Macedonian municipalities is not anything either new or important. Not such a long time ago, actually a couple of months ago, the parliament discussed a harmonious resolution of interethnic relations within the system (a document was adopted - a resolution - foundation for the interethnic dialogue which was politically dead the very next day). The discussion which lasted for a few days in the parliament threatened to be a complete fiasco, so prime minister Crvenkovski took the floor and in a dramatic emotional address offered a great deal and fulfilled hardly any to this day.

According to this scheme, everything seems to be done to divert attention. Newspapers are full of scandals which can put former ministers in a situation in which they may face criminal charges. It seems that when a problem appears which is impossible to solve, a new one must be produced which will cover up and ease the tension created by the previous one. There is a bunch of examples: adoption of the law on language at the Teachers' College in Skopje was first denied by a students' organization. When the most probably ordered "foul dealings" got out of control and the elementary school children manifested the yet unseen national xenophobia, a law was adopted in the parliament which was not supported by the Party of Democratic Prosperity, all the time a coalition partner of the SDSM. And then the TAT scandal broke out, and the official authorities promised that they would cut the arms of the octopus (figure of speech for organized crime whose existence was until recently denied by the same official authorities). A lot of time was spent on the "octopus" and the announced reconstruction, but nothing significant happened. There is always something new which will with the help of the controlled media, especially electronic ones, both state and private, divert attention to a "bigger" problem which suddenly becomes more significant for "state reasons". Anyone reasonable knows where this leads, and buying time by this recipe is an example of a political boomerang, for which unfortunately not only those who launched it will pay dearly.

Whether accidentally or not, the intervention in Tetovo and Gostivar coincided with the decision of the government about 16 per cent devaluation of the denar, although just ten days before it had happened the prime minister denied the very possibility. Has the government "veiled" the devaluation by prompt implementation of the law on flags? When speaking of interethnic relations which depend, whether one likes to admit it or not, on relations of the two largest populations in Macedonia, it seems that everything is the same - a continuation of a process initiated a long time ago - they are strictly divided primarily because the (old-new) authorities were not ready to resolve certain questions in time (and which were not created by them, but by previous, socialists - but like problems in education, cultural institutions and in information), while there was still some political will to resolve them. When that will disappeared, despite all declarations, which had created the impression that the Republic of Macedonia has managed to avoid what was happening to all the other former brotherly republics, and slowly but surely, different nationalities homogenized and disassociated themselves from the "others", who were by nature enemies because of different ethnic origin. In exclusive and closed ethnic circles there is no place for other way of thinking but as about us and them, about our and their national interests. Political representatives, one the one hand wish to be acceptable for their voters and keep promising more and more in favour of their own ethnic group which is never acceptable for the "others"... According to this cliche Macedonia has been for seven years already sinking into the mire of opposed national collectivities, being at the same time further and further away from the proclaimed civic concept.

Recently, at an international seminar for security and stability in the Balkans (ROS-ROT), the coordinator of the group of the Party of Democratic Prosperity which is part of the ruling coalition, speaking about Tetovo university supported by this party but considered to be illegal by the authorities, resolutely said the following in his speech: "In the first days, despite our effort as Albanians-members of parliament to prevent a direct conflict of the police with the Albanian intellectuals and citizens, we were not respected and the incident with the victim in Mala Recica happened... Then the leaders of my party and the heads of the state prevented a conflict of bigger proportions with the agreement to continue the work of the university in private premises". In other words, he confirmed that the principle "secret quarrels - public harmony" between the Albanian and the Macedonian power bearers still functions as was the case immediately after the first parliamentary elections in 1990 after which the Albanians secretly negotiated with representatives of the authorities about re-assertion of the rights they had enjoyed before. Promises and agreements were reached at meetings of the leaders concealed from the public, and not in the parliament sessions which are carried live on tv. And there is still no real solution about constitutional and legal status of the Albanians, education at the Tetovo university, official use of the Albanian language, acquiring citizenship, representation of the Albanians in state institutions and the administration.

Let us go back to the problem of the law on flags. According to the mentioned principle, the Party of Democratic Prosperity as a coalition partner in the government imposed a legal solution which does not satisfy any of the interested parties. It has already become a tradition that coalition partners haggle for a long time and then reach a solution which is harmful for both the ones and the others.

It seems that those who claim that the Albanians are pulled out from the sleeve whenever the current authorities need something to distract attention from other (more important) problems. This is, of course, wrong because it is harmful for both the initiators and their "civic orientation" and for their coalition partners from the other ethnic group. A few days ago, for instance, the new spokesman of the Macedonian government spoke about the private meeting of the Macedonian prime minister and president of the SDSM Branko Crvenkovski with Arben Djaferi, leader of the DPA, which was accused by the minister of internal affairs that it had organized the developments in Tetovo and Gostivar. After events in Vir Pazar in 1993, when there were four victims, in Mala Recica (one victim whose murderer, presumably a policeman, has never been found), the incident in Gostivar occurred. What will be next and when will it happen?!

ISO RUSI