War Whirlwind in the Peace Oasis? - AIM Skopje

[Paola Lucchesi <paola.lucchesi@mail.inet.it>]

http://www.aimpress.org/dyn/trae/archive/data/200103/10317-008-trae-sko.htm

SAT, 17 MAR 2001 19:08:00 GMT

War Whirlwind in the Peace Oasis?
AIM Skopje
KIM MEHMETI

AIM Skopje, March 16, 2001

After the horror in Kosovo, even the greatest pessimists believed that
Macedonia has avoided all risks of a military conflict. But this time
Macedonia has surprised both pessimists and optimists proving that in the
Balkan the role of forecasters can be assumed either by completely naive or
extremely pretentious persons. Simply, the peace oasis, as Macedonian
statesmen like to call this country, is nowadays at the epicentre of a
military whirlwind. Perhaps not according to the intensity of military
operations which objectively, at least for the time being, cannot grow
because of the military potential of the parties in conflict, but certainly
by the atmosphere of war illustrated by columns of refugees who are leaving
their homes (mostly in ethnically mixed environments) and by battle-cries
coming from various sides clashing above the heads of confused citizens. It
all began in Tanusevci, a village of several ten houses and several hundred
inhabitants, the village Macedonia had forgotten existed on its territory
and remembered only when it signed the Agreement on border determination
with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Its inhabitants still do not have
the citizenship of Macedonia and until the war in Kosovo they appealed that
Macedonian authorities protect them from Milosevic’s police. But the
officials in Skopje have neither offered them protection nor listened to
the entreating of the population of this village to at least be explicitly
explained under whose jurisdiction they lived.

And while the officials in Skopje claimed that the disturbances in
Tanusevci were caused by “terrorist groups” that had come from Kosovo,
reasonable people argued that the matter was much more serious: that the
“war trumpets” had an autochthonous source, that is, that Macedonia was
marching towards a classical civil war in which it will be the least
important what had brought it about and who started it.

At least when causes are concerned, the Balkan has a quantity of them at
its disposal that would be sufficient for waging wars in the next few
centuries. Now that shooting has already begun in Tetovo, while all
forecasts indicate that disturbances will spread on the whole territory of
Western Macedonia, the number increases of those who dare predict the
further course of developments. The opinion that is predominant is that the
two most numerous ethnic groups in Macedonia are on the threshold of waging
war with each other for the first time in history. And also that Macedonia
may survive as some kind of a buffer-zone in the Balkan even if it passes
the bloody path of war. After a possible war, of course, Macedonia will
neither be what nowadays ethnic Macedonians feel it is, nor what ethnic
Albanians wish it to be, but what the “saviors” decide.

When causes of military action in Macedonia are concerned, they are not
older than this new state. To put it simply, ethnic Macedonians and
Albanians have been building their joint state for ten years resembling
mostly two teams stretching rope both hoping that the other team will
either fall down or give up. In the meantime, only political elites
benefited from the new state, quickly becoming like brethren in order to
acquire wealth and forgetting that the foundation of the pyramid – the
people – was splitting into two parallel worlds. A long time ago
interethnic relations have become a hostage of government coalition
partners in Macedonia and their level depended on business arrangements
between the ruling parties. Finally, sufficiently broad space was created
for growing intolerance among those who claimed that the demands of the
Albanians served only the interests of the nouveaux riches, and the
uncompromising stand in the political camp of ethnic Macedonians (set up at
the bulwark of protection of national interests of the people who have
nothing but Macedonia) brought profit only to the elite which held the
posts that enabled it to charge commissions for every business deal.

In the past ten years Macedonia has not succeeded to resolve certain
crucial issues from the sphere of interethnic relations which are always
thrown back to the initial position during every parliamentary of local
elections. These issues refer to the respect of differences and their
institutional support. For ten years in Macedonia futile inter-partisan
haggling has been going on over the use of Albanian language, education of
the Albanians, use of insignia, adequate representation of the Albanians in
state institutions... For ten years political elites in this country have
used interethnic relations as the most profitable bargaining issue for
winning or losing political points forgetting that time was running short
for Macedonia and that the moment was coming when the manipulating space
would become very narrow. Nowadays Macedonia is experiencing what logically
sooner or later had to happen. The citizens do not trust their political
parties any more, especially the Albanians. Unlike ethnic Macedonians who
at least have for “consolation” the fact that state institutions,
especially the police and the army, are controlled by them, the Albanians
are left in the open facing two possibilities – either to continue trusting
their corrupt political elite or to incline towards those who have taken up
weapons and demand a quick solution of all the accumulated problems.

From what the shooting around Tetovo announces it can be concluded that
Macedonia is not far from dissolving by the very pattern former SFRY
dissolved. While Albanian political parties have no power to influence
armed Albanians, it may turn out that the police and the army of Macedonia
will increasingly act as if their duty were to protect only ethnic
Macedonians. There is but a single step that separates Macedonia from
setting up a clear line between two opposed blocks – state institutions
siding with ethnic Macedonians and armed Albanians protecting interests of
their ethnic group. Should that happen, the rest of the film is the one
deja vu in this space: a single-ethnic state “liberation” army and the
police of ethnic Macedonians which will try to “free” the villages and
towns in Western Macedonia of its own Albanian citizens.

Even now, at the very beginning, the war in Macedonia has one absurd
element: everyone – both the armed Albanians and the officials – claim that
they are in favour of territorial integrity and stability of Macedonia.
Relevant international protagonists also express this commitment. There is
no reason for one to doubt their declarations. But the problem is that all
three parties have their own views of sovereign and stable Macedonia. By
stable and sovereign Macedonia the official state agencies controlled by
ethnic Macedonians mean a unitarian state of ethnic Macedonians and other
citizens, while armed Albanians see their stable Macedonia as a state
relying on the pillars of two largest ethnic groups living there – ethnic
Macedonians and Albanians; and the international public looks upon
Macedonia as the “firstborn” in the Balkan conceived by “multiculturalism”
as its farther and “civil society” as its mother. This triangle formed by
three extremely strained lines – three state-creating projects which do not
coincide in a single point – can in fact lead to only one outcome – nothing
would be left of Macedonia, especially if the authorities decide to
implement the idea of the prime minister who declared that “Macedonia will
not be choosy about its allies if preservation of territorial integrity is
threatened”. It seems that nobody has bothered (or forgotten) to tell him
that Macedonia is surrounded by “saviors” (some, like Bulgaria, have
already offered to send their soldiers) and should such “salvation” occur,
Macedonia will become just a romantic history of an attempt to create a new
state in the Balkan.

And while messages of support to its integrity and stability are arriving
to Macedonia, everybody seems to be forgetting that this country will not
be able to survive if such recognition does not arrive from its own
citizens. This means that while the international community is supporting
Macedonia in the attempts to establish order on its territory, cynics mock
and remind of the similar support once offered to SFRY which dissolved
anyway because it did not become aware in time that it was not supported by
the ethnic groups that lived in it. Are we in fact watching the same old
film but directed by someone else, it remains to be seen, but what is
certain is that, when wars are concerned, the Balkan is very vigorous and
endurable. It still does not seem to be tired of columns of refugees, ruins
and graves. The Balkan is also still a good training-ground for Western
diplomacy and all those whose ambition is to become experts for resolving
conflicts. And Macedonia is specific for many elements, if nothing else,
because for the time being both ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians
wish to see it whole and undamaged. They just need to discover who should
liberate it from whom and answer the key question: where is their interest
in building of such a “brotherly state”. Because even if armed operations
in Macedonia end tomorrow, it will still remain an unstable state creation,
if in the meantime ethnic Macedonians do not clearly state whether they are
ready to build a joint multiethnic state with all the ethnic groups that
live in it, and the Albanians do not define their minimum of demands and
interests they wish to realise in such a state. However, nowadays in
Macedonia the space for asking such questions has been narrowed down for
the simple reason that for ten years the terms of multiculturality and
interethnic relations have been a pretext for a false democracy, in fact
concealed dictatorship, promoted by ethnic “political sects”. They have
forgotten, however, that false democracy creates nothing but an unstable