NANO MEETS CRVENKOVSKI

Albanian Prime Minister Involved in Macedonian Schemes?

AIM Skopje, 22 January, 1998

Several days after the end of the first, prolonged visit of the Albanian prime minister to Macedonia and signing of eight interstate agreements and announced new ones (on free trade and friendship and cooperation) which should be signed when president or prime minister of Macedonia visit Tirana, Macedonian media are still "playing the same tune" - about the meeting of Fatos Nano and Branko Crvenkovski being "a new Balkan reality as a result of atypical shift of the Balkans from history towards the future" and "creation of a new Balkan reality" (statements given by prime ministers of Macedonia and Albania after signing of the agreements). This "extremely favourable atmosphere" is sufficient for statements such as "overcoming of the period of instability", "a new page in the history of relations between the two countries" and "democratization of the Balkans begins from the south" (state daily Nova Makedonija from its special reporter in Tirana).

Citizens of Skopje and travellers between Skopje and Tetovo seem to have already forgotten long delays of traffic, police cars and motorcycles and their sirens escorting about thirty cars around the Macedonian capital and along the road Skopje-Tetovo which the Albanian delegation, accompanied by its hosts, visited twice in two days during the state visit. Simply, the streets of Skopje have been jammed for a long time now at any time of the day, and the road between Skopje and Tetovo, regardless of the fact that it is one of the best in the state, is one of the busiest. In both cases uninformed drivers were forced to wait endlessly in their cars. In these crowds, the journalists who covered the visit were also the victims - from the very arrival of the Albanian prime minister to Skopje airport (because of the blockade of the traffic they could not reach the site of talks or their editorial offices in time) and some of them were arrested (?!) in the attempt to join the line of vehicles during the second day of the visit.

Of course, it would be extremely naive to say that the visit of Fatos Nano to Skopje and signing of the six agreements at the preparatory meeting of foreign ministers Paskal Milo and Blagoje Handjiski at Ohrid lake do not mark progress in comparison with the almost three-year long estrangement between the two countries which can only partly be explained by the dramatic departure of the Democrats from power and cancelled visit of prime minister Eduard Maxi to Macedonia before Berisha sacrificed him by creation of the government of national unity, when shaken by tumbling down of pyramidal systems he himself also fell.

The Albanian party can rightfully put this visit to the credit of its intention to establish relations among traditionally inimical states in the Balkans on new foundations - the civic concept and wish to be integrated in world security systems and the European Union. After all, this is also a wish of the Macedonian government which has managed to outshine by this visit with glamourous media coverage, at least for a day or two, the unenviable level of interethnic relations and its other daily problems. One would say that the visit was useful for both sides, if it had not been for "but"...

Indeed, after Sali Berisha had won power with whole-hearted assistance of the USA and the West, Macedonian authorities had excellent relations with the new "democratic" regime in Albania. The first meetings of the two presidents of the states are still remembered for the utterly positive projections of interstate relations and especially of improvement of the status of the minorities in both states. Presidential friendship seemed endless. How it all ended is a deja vu for the Balkan space - relations became strained, accusations began for interfering in each other's internal affairs, and in two most drastic cases, the united Albanian Party of Democratic Prosperity split and a scandal about Albanian paramilitary units broke out in which, according to Macedonian sources, Albanian officers were involved (former minister of internal affairs explained it unofficially to the journalists of Koha: "We caught Berisha with his pants down"). All this happened despite the fact that American presence and influence is dominant in both countries. What raises suspicion in the so intensely demonstrated love between the two countries after a long period of mutual, mildly said, intolerance, is fear of repeated estrangement. Of course, partners on one side are new (Albanian), but it causes concern that the others (Macedonian) are the same. The previous Albanians lied, and of their Macedonian partners it can almost be said that they do not to know what truth is. At first, the new Albanian statesmen might prove to have been naive because they believed in the sincerity of the old Macedonian authorities whose memory is very short, so that they forget everything they had said even a day before. Nothing to say that in the meantime they have mastered the up till now fantastically succeessful formula - not a day passes without their masking the tail of some scandal which had been believed to be able to bury them. And there are such "tails" every day. One would say - fantastic pupils of Slobodan Milosevic - nothing can catch them by surprise, and they have never run out of inventiveness with which they divert attention from a previous event to a new one. Which the public - with ardent help of the media - easily forgets. Production of scandals, in which some members of the former or even current team of the ruling Social Democratic Alliance (SDSM) end their career, acquired the attributes of recycling. Not to mention that many (state) scandals are on "stand by" - it appears as if it is just a matter of the assessment of the current authorities when they will release them into circulation in order to lead the public by the nose.

In all that, diplomatic activity played a prominent role. In the beginning, president Gligorov, at the time before the attempt on his life and when nobody showed readiness to recognize the Republic of Macedonia under any name, introduced the practice of presenting every visit of even a minor western diplomat to Macedonia as an enormous diplomatic success. After recognition of the new state, under the name such as it is, but nevertheless pursuant the constitution, interstate activity of the Republic of Macedonia became an "alibi" for internal problems. They were veiled by visits and promenades which were supposed to prove that the authorities enjoyed international support and that it was not shown due respect only at home! At the moment this is being written, president Gligorov is going for a visit to Slovenia. Slightly unusually for the practice of the president's advisor for public relations, this was made public on the eve of the visit, and Macedonian media were not given even the text of the interview the president had given to Ljubljana Delo two days before, which was, by the way, offered to the Slovenian daily by the Macedonian ambassador in Ljubljana. Italian prime minister Augustino Prodi came to Skopje on the same day in order to sign two agreements with his colleague Branko Crvenkovski, and according to the statement of the Italian ambassador in Skopje given in Macedonian language, he was accompanied by a large group of Italian businessmen. Vice prime minister just a day before that, signed a contract in Brussels on a second instalment of a loan for improvement of the payment balance and increase of foreign currency reserves amounting to 15 million ecus. In the end of this month President Gligorov will pay a visit to Russia and Yeltsin, while prime minister Crvenkovski will go to France. Plenty of material for "panem et circensem" and diverting attention of the public.

    It may easily happen that Fatos Nano and his team

which surrounds him, from advisors to ministers, may appear to have been naive in their attitude to their hosts. It is not a matter of a lack of experience, or a lack of a politician's defensive reflex - but that the ruling team does not care one tiny bit for its word. The fact is that for all the signed agreements - those in Podgradec near the lake Ohrid and these in Skopje - one could freely claim that they were not signed at all, because the Macedonian party was not flexible concerning the demands of Macedonian Albanians and their parties. During the two-day talks, according to the stament of Fatos Nano, all issues which concern relations of the two countries were discussed, even those which greatly determines Macedonian interethnic relations (university education in Albanian and use of Albanian language) and for that they got certain promises.

In view of the several times demonstrated practice of Macedonian authorities to cause delays and fail to meet the agreed obligations, but also in relation to all additionally opened questions on the status of the Albanians in Macedonia, and despite exceptional correctness of the newest Albanian team, it can in the end bring about total estangement of the two countries. Berisha believed Gligorov, why would not Nano believe Crvenkovski - they understood each other so well during their first meetings.

There is another dimension. According to the principle of black-and-white, which is unfortunately very close to the truth, Berisha trusted only one ethnic Albanian party in Macedonia and tried to help it the best he could, and now Nano is taking sides with another, the one which is participating in the current authorities and which bears the burden of having been inactive during the entire pluralist period so that it is paying for it by its declining rating in the electorate and decreasing number of representatives in the authorities. Both the one and the other "patron" are doing what is mildly speaking unpermissible - interfering in the other's internal affairs - if Berisha forced the "radicals", Nano is supporting the rule of "moderate" ethnic Albanians with whom not all the Albanians in Macedonia are satisfied. This is actually dividing the Albanian population in Macedonia in their political orientation - which would have been ideal if it were the result of social establishment of these parties or the result of adopted programs by certain parts of the population, and if it were not used to proclaim the ones or the others the only true representatives of the Albanians and, God forbid, be used for minimizing the political will of a part of the population.

Of course, homogenization on ethnic grounds is an evil which should be avoided, but it is hopefully in the political interest of all the Albanian parties to carry out what they all agree about. Possible (ab)use of the visit of Fatos Nano to Macedonia is not (only) in the sphere of interethnic problems in Macedonia. It refers also to the so far efficiently used formula for diverting attention, leading the public in Macedonia by the nose by its authorities, often founded on "free interpretation" of facts and only tinkering with the problems. It would be tragic for the circumstances in the Balkans if sincere intentions of the Albanian guests would be used to this end by the Macedonian authorities.

AIM Skopje

ISO RUSI