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"EURO-BALKAN" INSTITUTE ON MACEDONIAN CRISIS

31-03-2001 & 01-04-2001

CONTENTS:

- Daily briefing from Macedonian press about
Macedonian crisis
- Daily briefing from international press about
Macedonian crisis
- Supplement 1: MACEDONIAN JOURNALIST'S VIEWS ON
SOME ASPECTS WESTERN EUROPEAN JOURNALISTS'
REPORTING ABOUT MACEDONIAN CRISIS
- Supplement 2: HOW DOES AN ALBANIAN THAT
'ENJOYS ALL THE RIGHTS' LOOKS LIKE?-AN EDITORIAL
BY EMIN AZEMI, THE OWNER OF DAILY "FAKTI"

a) DAILY BRIEFING FROM MACEDONIAN PRESS ABOUT
MACEDONIAN CRISIS
THE MACEDONIAN SECURITY FORCES ENTERED SHIPKOVICA
The Macedonian security forces continue the
action sweep and search to clear the terrain
from the presence of the Albanian terrorists and
their hideouts on Shara Mountain, and
yesterday's activities, including the monitoring
teams of OSCE, were conducted in the region of
the Shipkovica mosque, towards the village
Shipkovica, as well on the stretch from the
village Germo to the village Poroj. We are
informed by the Tetovo police that the region in
the vicinity of the village Vejce is also being
controlled, and the action is conducted after
the request of a parent who received an
anonymous phone call that his son, forcefully
enrolled by the extremists, is killed in the
neighborhood of this village. The team of the
newspaper "Nova Makedonija" headed yesterday
towards the village Shipkovica, and the convoy
included OSCE representatives. As informed by
the State Secretary of the Ministry of Internal
Affairs, Ljube Boshkovski, OSCE is involved in
these activities, with the intention to stop all
speculations circling consistently these days,
according to which the police, during these
search and sweep operations, molests the
villages' inhabitants. This is an opportunity
for OSCE to be convinced in the real situation
on the terrain, adds Boshkovski. All around the
village, there were trenches, hideouts, and
about a dozen machine gun nests in which the
police discovered left behind weapons. Because
of the danger of hidden mine traps, the anti-
terrorist teams still hadn't entered the houses
by the late morning hours. Considering that the
village Shipkovica was one of the strategic
positions of the Albanian extremists, there are
assumptions that a much larger quantity of
weapons, ammunition and sanitary supplies will
be found there. The inhabitants who didn't leave
Shipkovica, and who we met on the village paths
assured us that the terrorists have not entered
the village, i.e. that they conducted their
actions from the surrounding hillsides. ("NOVA
MAKEDONIJA")
HANS HAEKKERUP VISITS THE MACEDONIAN STATE
OFFICIALS
The Head of UN Interim Administration Mission in
Kosovo, Hans Haekkerup, made a short visit to
our country yesterday during which he met with
the President, Boris Trajkovski, the Prime
Minister, Ljubcho Georgievski, and the Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Srdjan Kerim. In the
dialogue with the Macedonian State Officials,
evaluated as a very concrete and useful one, it
was decided that there are undoubtedly clear
links between Kosovo and the extremists
operating in Macedonia. UNMIK and K-For will
make extreme endeavors to protect the Northern
Macedonian border, and to prevent all kinds of
extremist activities from Kosovo directed at our
country, said Haekkerup. The Special Envoy of
the United Nations High Representative for
Kosovo announced that the border crossing, Blace
would be entirely opened. Staring from today,
all ramps will be opened for the vehicles of
UNMIK. The measures taken by Macedonia for
closing the border are not directed against the
Kosovo inhabitants, nor against UNMIK, but are
taken in order to prevent any possibility for
abuse of the border crossings by the terrorists,
pointed out the Minister, Srdjan Kerim. ("NOVA
MAKEDONIJA")
THE MACEDONIAN GOVERNMENT STARTED AN
INVESTIGATION TO REVEAL THE ORIGIN OF THE
PROJECTILE WITH WHICH THE PRODUCER OF THE
AMERICAN AGENCY APTN WAS KILLED
Monitoring units of the Macedonian Army noticed,
in the region of the Kosovo village Krivenik,
about 30 armed individuals wearing military
uniforms with the sign of the Macedonian Army,
just a while before the incident in which Kerem
Lawton, a television news producer from
Associated Press, lost his life. The spokesman
of the Ministry of Defense, Gjorgji Trendafilov,
says that this armed group was also noticed by
the soldiers of K-For who immediately contacted
the Macedonian Army. The spokesman, Trendafilov,
explained the impossibility the producer of APTN
was killed by a grenade fired by the Macedonian
Army, because the weapons of the Macedonian Army
in the region of the watchtower, Chaska, hasn't
got that fire range. As the army representative
informed, the soldiers of the Macedonian Army
acted from positions 4 km from the border on
Macedonian territory and fired at the so called
"elevation peak 802" occupied by Albanian
terrorists. The Kosovo village, Krivenik, is
about 2 km on the other side of the border. The
fire range of the Macedonian Army stationed in
that region was 4.000 meters. The spokesman,
Trendafilov, says that the Macedonian Army is
waiting for the investigation results to prove
the type of weapon from which the grenade that
hit the APTN vehicle, was fired. ("DNEVNIK")
THE BIGGEST OPPOSITION PARTY IN OFFENSIVE
AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT
Appearing on yesterday's press conference, the
leader of the SDSM (Macedonian Socialist
Democratic Union), renounced the party's role as
constructive opposition and the collaboration
with the Government structures because of the
current crisis, promoting the frames of its
platform for its resolving. "We are left no
other alternative in this situation when Xhaferi
says that the terrorists are under his control
and presents himself as the Lord of peace or war
in Macedonia, and Georgievski fingers military
operations", stated Crvenkovski. The main frames
of the platform prepared by the SDSM, which
leaves room for further development, according
to Crvenkovski, don't include the possibilities
of change of the Macedonian Constitution, i.e.
erasing of the preamble, they include only the
improvement of the rights of the ethnic
Albanians in education, culture and healthcare.
"The erasing of the preamble of the Constitution
will do no good to no one, especially now when
the people of Macedonia are faced with the
denying of their existence as a people", said
Crvenkovski. In his opinion, it is true that
there is a disproportion in the participation of
the minorities in administration, so this is one
of the issues that can be discussed, but all
decisions brought "overnight for the change of
the state structure - are unwelcome". ("NOVA
MAKEDONIJA")
PRESS CONFERENCE OF THE LEADERS OF THE DS (THE
DEMOCRATIC UNION) AND VMRO-VMRO
"The current situation and the terrorist actions
in the state are part of a previously planned
strategy by the Albanian extremism aimed at the
change of the borders in the Balkans with
violence and realization of the idea of 'Greater
Albania'. The conflicts with the Albanian
terrorists will continue for a long time and
that is why the competent state authorities and
the population must prepare for a serious battle
for Macedonia", stated, on the common press
conference, the leaders of the DS and VRMO -
True, Pavle Trajanov and Boris Stojmenov. These
two parties have information that the actions of
the Liberation National Army in Macedonia are
supported by the entire Albanian factor in the
region, as well as by certain Western
Intelligence Services. VMRO-True and DS are at
the opinion that the "well-intentional"
proposals of the numerous mediators shouldn't be
adopted, least of all those made by Javier
Solana for the change of the Constitution
because such changes are contrary to the
national and state interests of the Macedonian
people and the nationalities. ("VEST")

b) DAILY BRIEFING FROM INTERNATIONAL PRESS ABOUT
MACEDONIAN CRISIS

MACEDONIA SAYS OFFENSIVE IS OVER, REBEL MAKE
TACTICAL WITHDRAW
Government officials declared on Friday that a
government offensive against ethnic Albanian
insurgents was over, saying Macedonian forces
have regained key border areas with Kosovo.
Spokesman Antonio Milososki did not indicate
whether the end of the offensive was simply a
pause in fighting on the government side. But he
suggested negotiations with ethnic Albanian
factions were ahead in the struggle to keep the
country together. "The political battle is still
to come," he told reporters. "We must preserve
Macedonia as our common country." (Excerpts from
AP)"In 12 days on the hills the Albanian cause
was advanced at least 10 years," said Besnik
Jakupi, an unemployed teacher. "Now people are
listening to us, they know about our problems
and perhaps the government will do something
about it." If it doesn't, the guerrillas will be
back, another resident warned. "We haven't lost
the battle, we are just giving them a chance to
negotiate," said one man. "But if they fail we
are ready. The fighters are ready, in the hills,
in this town, around this table." "If they want
peace they need to do something quickly," said
Jusuf Mustafai. "Macedonia is surrounded by
Albanians on all sides. Next time the war will
not just be in Tetovo." (Excerpts from Reuters)

TWO WAYS TO LOOK AT WAR
Macedonia, the single most peaceful ex-Yugoslav
republic, is now in an incipient civil war. From
NATO-liberated Kosovo, guerrillas have attacked
Macedonia, ostensibly in the name of civil
rights but clearly in the hope of detaching its
Albanian-populated region to Kosovo and a
Greater Albania. The pity is that this was all
utterly predictable. "An independent Albanian
Kosovo will surely seek to incorporate the
neighboring Albanian minorities--mostly in
Macedonia," wrote Henry Kissinger in February
1999. Other realists, such as National Interest
editor Owen Harries, expressed similar
objections. I wrote (Feb. 26, 1999) that "NATO
intervention ... would sever Kosovo from Serbian
control and lead inevitably to an irredentist
Kosovar state, unstable and unviable and forced
to either join or take over pieces of
neighbouring countries." The Albanians did not
wait for their Kosovar state. They have already
struck. And peaceful Macedonia, some of whose
soldiers went into battle this week in sneakers,
is a poor candidate to fight a deadly
counterinsurgency. (Excerpts from Washington
Post)

BALKAN-WIDE ALBANIAN-NATIONALIST .
Paul Beaver, a defence analyst, recently caused
a stir among Balkan-watchers by asserting that
the violence in Macedonia and the Presevo
valley, in addition to anti-Serb riots in the
town of Mitrovica in Kosovo, form part of an
orchestrated, Balkans-wide Albanian-nationalist
campaign. (Excerpts from The Economist)

ETHNIC CONFLICT IN MACEDONIA: ITS LURKING DANGERS
The ethnic Albanian Muslims' insurgency in
Macedonia may engulf the volatile Balkan region
and beyond. It is a region where Europe meets
Asia and three monotheistic religious
practitioners - Catholics, Orthodox Christians
and Muslims live side by side. The ethnic mix of
Macedonia has been always a potent political
problem as is in other countries in the Balkans,
in particular in Bosnia and Kosovo. If the
insurgency is not handled with sensitivity,
other countries may get involved. If the
Albanian Muslim refugees continue to pour into
Turkey, it may not be able to keep silent for
long. Even Afghanistan and the Islamic militants
from Central Asia could become sympathetic to
the rebels and join them to fight against the
Slav dominated Macedonia. Furthermore, Bulgaria
has an eye on eastern areas of Macedonia and it
may be tempted to annex the area if Macedonia is
plunged into civil war. Albania may also annex
its adjacent areas of Macedonia. Some Balkan
specialists argue that Macedonia as an
independent country may cease to exist as a
result of a civil war, looming large in the
horizon. (Excerpts from Independent Bangladesh)

UN KOSOVO CHIEF PRESSES MACEDONIA TO REOPEN
BORDER
Kosovo's UN administrator Hans Haekkerup asked
Macedonia Friday to reopen its border with the
UN-run Yugoslav province, saying that other
measures were needed to ensure frontier
security. "It is also very important to address
the problem politically, so the extremists will
have no chance to win." Macedonian decision to
close the border had had "negative effects." UN
officials have said the border closure has
threatened fuel supplies to emergency services,
driven up prices in the impoverished province,
and caused shortages of oxygen and other
essentials in hospitals. "I am considering
issuing some regulations on crossing the border
outside the border points," he said. (Excerpts
from AFP)

LIGHTLY ARMED FIGHTERS CHALLENGE THE WORLD
It might seem extraordinary that a couple of
thousand lightly-armed fighters should pose an
insuperable and apparently growing challenge to
Kosovo's supposed protectors: a 44,000-strong
force led by NATO, 4,000-plus foreign and local
policemen, two dozen intelligence agencies and a
team of well-paid bureaucrats seconded from the
UN and the European Union. (The Economist) "KFOR
- sure, they help us a little," said one of the
flak-jacketed Macedonian policemen, but not a
lot." "The UCK-they're out there," he said. "Is
KFOR going to go and find them for us? No."
(Excerpts from The Associated Press)

MACEDONIA BLAMED FOR SHELL ATTACK
Apparently ignoring NATO Secretary General
George Robertson's call for a joint inquiry in
to Thursday's shelling of the Kosovo village of
Krivenik, defense ministry spokesman Georgi
Trendafilov said: "Our commission has finished
its work and confirmed what was already said.
"We rule out any possibility that the cause of
the death of the foreign journalist was fire
from Macedonian forces...we even rule out the
possibility it was done by mistake," he said.
(Excerpts from Reuters) Kosovo's main political
parties have blamed the Macedonia Government for
the shelling of a Kosovo village in which three
people died. U.S. army investigators are
analyzing craters to try to determine where the
shells came from. A statement from Kosovo's
largest political party, the Democratic League
of Kosovo, read: "Despite all the warnings of
the international community that Macedonia needs
to act towards stopping the conflict and
starting a dialogue with Albanians in Macedonia,
they have continued their offensives and they
have spread them into Kosovo territory as well."
(Excerpts from Kosovapress)."We have asked for
explanations, although it is obvious that shells
came from FYROM, bit it must be specified who
was the target," NATO Spokesperson, Mark Laity,
was quoted as saying. (Excerpts from Z¨RI)

KFOR CAUGHT LORRY ATTEMPTING TO TRANSPORT
WEAPONS .
"A German patrol of the European Organization
for Demining (EOD) have found and confiscated a
cache of weapons on the Macedonian border, while
last night at around 22.00 hours, a KFOR
military patrol stopped a lorry and found some
weapons and military ammunition," said KFOR
spokesman Tomas Lobering. He said individuals
arrested on suspicion of participating in armed
Albanian (Excerpts from KosovaLive) German
soldiers in K-For peacekeeping force have
detained 44 suspected Albanian guerrillas for
illegally crossing into southern Kosovo from
Macedonia and possessing arms, and handed them
over to the UN police in the province. (Excerpts
from Reuters).

BULGARIA OFFERS MORE ARMS TO MACEDONIA .
Bulgaria announced it would send more arms to
Macedonia to deal with unrest by ethnic Albanian
rebels, its second such shipment since the
recent upsurge in violence began. But at the
same time Prime Minister Ivan Kostov appealed to
Bulgaria's strife-torn neighbour to begin talks
rapidly with all sides, warning of the risks of
delay and the dangers of using force. At the
time Defense Minister Boiko Noev said the first
shipment involved "hundreds of tones" of
material, but did not include tanks. (Excerpts
from AFP) Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov
said the world had initially underestimated the
crisis in Macedonia. Stoyanov said his initial
suggestion that Bulgaria could consider sending
troops to help the Macedonian government was
motivated by his realization of the seriousness
of the crisis. (Excerpts from Reuters)

MACEDONIA WILL NOT CONCEDE TO 'CRIMINALS'.
Boris Trajkovski, the Macedonian President,
declared that he would not make any concessions
to armed rebels and gave warning that a long-
term solution to the crisis in his country was
still distant. In his first interview with a
British newspaper since fighting erupted in his
country, Mr Trajkovski called the NLA fighters
"terrorists" and said: "They have interrupted a
dialogue that has been going on for years to
improve the situation of Albanians in Macedonia.
They are no more than 300 thugs and criminals
and I am sure that most of Macedonia's Albanians
do not support them." He was determined to
continue discussions to defuse the passions that
have brought Macedonia close to another Balkan
war. "To look for a quick solution would be very
dangerous. I want a grand discussion involving
ordinary people, political leaders and the
clergy." But he rejected calls by an ethnic
Albanian political party, which is part of the
Macedonian coalition government, for the
European Union to mediate between the two
communities. "We must tackle this on our own,"
he said. He said: "I will not allow any division
of this country along ethnic lines. If we do
that, it will be disastrous." He said that if
Albanians received special treatment that could
tempt Macedonia's many other minorities such as
Serbs, Greeks, Romas and Vlachs to hold the
country hostage to their demands. (Excerpts from
Daily Telegraph)

FORMER MACEDONIAN PRESIDENT STRONGLY OPPOSES
CONFERENCE ON CONFLICT .
An international conference on the conflict in
Macedonia would only open the door to
nationalist demands from ethnic Albanian
separatists across the region, former Macedonian
president Kiro Gligorov warned. "They are
demanding other rights and claiming they are not
a minority, they demand that the state be
proclaimed as Albanian and Macedonian, a two-
nation state," he said, as Macedonian forces
pressed on with the struggle against armed
Albanian rebels. "We are hearing demands, which
we do not know if we should take seriously, for
a sort of international conference to be held on
Macedonia. That must not be done," he said.  He
pointed out that his own state was cobbled
together from territory that had once belonged
to Greece and Serbia with smaller parts of
Bulgaria and Albania thrown in. (Excerpts from
AFP)

FROWICK: MACEDONIA FACES MOMENT OF TRUTH .
Robert Frowick, the U.S. diplomat, who was
appointed the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)'s special envoy to
Macedonia amid the upsurge in violence this
month, said he expects to spend months working
on the process. "The situation is very volatile
still, smoke is still in the air," he told
reporters after a special session of the OSCE's
permanent council in Vienna devoted to the
crisis in Macedonia. "Passions are still very
high. I think everybody knows it is a moment of
truth for Macedonia," he added. But speaking
after a week of talks in Skopje, he said he was
encouraged by the willingness of all political
leaders to pursue dialogue rather than to join
the armed struggle. (Excerpts from Agence France
Presse)


           c) SUPPLEMENT 1: MACEDONIAN JOURNALIST'S VIEWS
           ON SOME ASPECTS WESTERN EUROPEAN JOURNALISTS'
                 REPORTING ABOUT MACEDONIAN CRISIS

WHO PLANTS POTATOES IN FEBRUARY?
by Aleksandar Damovski

Planting potatoes in the middle of
February, "TV recordings" of Macedonian women
loading magazines for the Macedonian Army or
devious and clever Albanians, and military and
with lack of sense of humor Macedonians, are
just part of the sentences that the
international public was exposed to, watched or
read from their "highly professional" reporters
who, these days, are reporting on the happenings
in Macedonia.
Surprisingly easy and with lack of
responsibility, part of the reporter stars of
the large media houses, took over the Kosovian
scheme on the good guys and the bad guys from
the crisis in 1999. Everything, since then, has
been flowing with ease, and continues to flow in
that manner. Simply, they copied the Kosovo
scheme in their reports on the latest
occurrences in Macedonia. The model is here,
except that now, everything is transferred a bit
more South, but the actors are pretty much the
same ones: the orthodox, always in the mood for
combat Slavs, and the poor, discriminated and
deprived of their rights, Albanians.
So, in the renown British newspaper
"Independent" from the ink of its reporter
Justin Huggler we read: "The Macedonian
onslaught began at 4.00pm just hours after the
rebels offered peace talks. The guerrillas had
warned that their attacks would continue if the
Macedonian government did not respond to their
offer. The government's response was the huge
flames leaping from the crown of Baltepe hill
and the shattering explosions that rebounded off
the rooftops of Tetovo."
Without bothering to check if his
information was correct, the reporter sends his
clear message - it is obvious who should be
declared the proponents of peace in this case!
The rebels, of course. They offered peace but
the Macedonian State did not accept it and
started shooting indiscriminately, is the
obvious message. However, the facts are somehow
different: several hours after the end of the
ultimatum period proposed by the Macedonian
State calling upon the rebels to lay down their
arms, two mortars were shot from Tetovo fortress
injuring 5 civilians. The Tetovo fortress was at
that point the stronghold of the rebels.
We read the following outburst of
sentimentalism by the same author: "In the town
below, cars raced along the streets as some of
the few remaining residents fled. From the
deserted children's playground a row of soldiers
fired mortars up into the hills as the blue and
white swings swayed in the breeze beside them.
Petrified conscript soldiers patrolled the city
streets, presumably in case any of the rebels
made it down into the town. There has so far
been no sign of civil unrest in the town." It
should not be a problem for a publisher of such
high reputation to try to observe the golden
rule of journalism, namely "representing both
sides". Had this golden rule been observed, I
suppose, we would have been reading something in
the sense of: "Rebels claim they are fighting
for the improvement of the rights of ethnic
Albanians, being less than a quarter of
country's population. Although there are no
signs of illegal persecutions, there is great
dissatisfaction among the Albanians, as a result
to, as they claim, the general discrimination
against them in Macedonia."
Huggler's fellow reporter, from the same
newspaper, Mr. John Sweeney, in obviously
complete accordance with his house's editing
policy, goes: "Tetovo, this week, is a town
fizzling with fear. Heads turn too fast at the
slamming of a car door, people stare transfixed
at the spiral of dirty gray smoke rising against
a blue sky from a burning Albanian home." Now,
how does the author know that the "burning home"
was Albanian? On the hill near Tetovo fortress
there are many cottages almost all of them
belonging to ethnic-Macedonians. What scares me
most, in the case of this reporter as in the
case of many others too, is the simplicity with
which they report forgetting to mention the most
important issue at stake. Namely, that some
armed persons have enterd a country and attacked
it. 
Then the celebrated BBC reporter, Paul
Wood, began his first Tanusevci story with the
death of the 22 years old boy, brutally killed
in the field while planting potatoes. Have you
ever heard of a spot on this globe where, at
1500 m up in the mountains, covered by snow, in
the middle of February, one plants potatoes?
And again the reporter Sweeney, who knows
everything, but merely supposes that the first
victim under the Tetovo fortress received a
bullet of the Macedonian Army: Until today,
reports Sweeney, one ethnic-Albanian civilian
was killed, shot in his head, most probably by
the Macedonian Army. Also, an Albanian-policeman
was killed in a battle with UCK. These are two
dead Albanians. Well, this report was published
to without any effort by the author to check who
really killed the first Albanian. The Chief of
Tetovo police, of ethnic-Albanian origin
himself, in his statement given to Newsweek,
claims that he was killed by a sniper from the
direction of Tetovo fortress, unquestionably at
that time a strong-hold of the rebels.
Again falsity in facts: "Under this hills
is Tetovo, inhabited by 80% of ethnic Albanians,
but under the rule of the Macedonians, in many
aspects similar to their orthodox friends, the
Serbs. Under the hills is the Macedonian Army,
better armed, but less motivated than the
rebels." Nevertheless, the local government of
Tetovo is under a complete rule by the purely
ethnic-Albanian party DPA. The second part of
the sentence, however, insinuates that the
rebels have a fairly strong motive to fight,
namely justice. The others, on the other hand -
do not!!!
The other day our paper received an
invitation, precisely by BBC, to a seminar about
war reporting. I, on the other hand, suggest
that we, the Macedonian journalists, finance the
seminar and have it held in Tanusevci, with
Western European journalists as its
participants. Maybe in May, the right season for
planting potatoes.
(The author is editor of the Macedonian
daily, "Dnevnik")

d) SUPPLEMENT 2: HOW DOES AN ALBANIAN THAT
'ENJOYS ALL THE RIGHTS' LOOKS LIKE?
AN EDITORIAL BY EMIN AZEMI, THE OWNER OF DAILY
"FAKTI".
  .
"Albanians enjoy all the rights". This is the
refrain that foreign .
journalists most often hear from the mouths of
ethnic Macedonians. .
"OK, fine. Then, why the ethnic Albanians are
fighting in the hills," the foreign journalists
would ask, just to face an avalanche of answers
"They are fighting for Great Albania." .
And when the same foreign journalist comes to
visit you, a first thing he does is to take a
good look at you, from head to toes. And he
looks at you again. And again. And then he tries
to look at you face, trying to find a glimpse,
at least one small, the smallest piece of "the
Great Albania" tittering on your face. And he
keeps looking, staring at you. He still looks at
you. And while looking at your face, he tries to
behave nicely by looking straight into your
eyes, but always on the edge of popping 'the
question
':
"Eh, and what about Great Albania. I mean, where do you stand on that .
" And even after you say that 80% of the ethnic Albanians in Macedonia are
unemployed, and even when you say that you can count on one hand the number
of
Albanian doctors and nurses in Skopje hospitals, and when you say that you can
't find any Albanian working in local banks (not even as cleaning ladies),
and
even when you say that the share-holders in the biggest companies are almost
exclusively Macedonians (and few naturalized Vlachs), and when you say that
there are not more than 3% of Albanians in police forces, and that 99% of
Army
officers are ethnic Macedonians, and when you say that 150.000 Albanians from
Macedonia are working abroad in western countries, and when you explain that
Albanian pupils are still reading in own books the names of towns written on
Macedonian, and even when you say that 112.000 ethnic Albanians are without
citizenship status, the foreign journalist will still ask you
"And what about Great Albania .
" But one cannot blame on the foreign journalists why they persist in their
attempt to fine the glimpse of Great Albania in the background of Albanian
grievances. The red-cart known as
'Great Albania
' that is constantly waved in the face of Albanians, whenever they ask for
more
policeman, more doctors, army officers, bank clerks etc., actually represents
the essence of the conflict in Macedonia. So, what we witness these days in
the
hills is not the conflict. The real conflict is in the heads of some
Macedonians that are deeply convinced that Albanians really enjoy all the
rights. The concept of
"all the rights
", according to ethnic Macedonians, means that Albanians must me cured only
by
an ethnic Macedonian doctors, that the Albanian must be tortured
exclusively by
an ethnic Macedonian policeman and that the Albanian soldier in ARM must be
only commanded by an ethnic Macedonian army officer.
"Macedonian healthcare, Macedonian torture and Macedonian command,
" this is the vulgar concept of preventing the creation of a
'Great Albania'. .
"We gave all the rights to Albanians," this is
how Macedonians like to say whenever someone
from abroad would ask them about the Albanians.
As long as they consider and present themselves
as exclusive owners of human rights and
especially as owners that have rented such right
by labelling the Albanians with a continuous
guilt for destroying the state, one cannot speak
about any ethnic or citizen harmony in this
country.