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Making Muslims Defenseless
By Umberine Syed
27/08/2001
NATO forces have launched a 30-day operation -Operation Essential Harvest - unanimously approved by NATO's military committee to disarm Muslim Albanians, euphemistically called "ethnic Albanians," who began a freedom struggle in February this year.
The latest NATO deployment, to reach 3,500 troops in Macedonia, is the third intervention in the Balkans in the last six years.
Under NATO's plan, Muslims will collect their own weapons and deposit them at pre-arranged collection sites where NATO troops will then move in, seal the area, pick up the guns for destruction in a third country and leave.
A Western-brokered peace accord, which laid the groundwork for the handover of weapons, aimed at extinguishing long-smoldering grievances among Macedonia's Muslim minority offers improved rights for Muslims, providing the Albanian language official status in areas where Muslims make up 20% or more of the population.
It also aims to make Macedonia's police force more representative, and changes the country's constitution to remove references to ethnic background.
The Macedonian government has welcomed the move, which it described as a "delicate mission," and pledged to cooperate with the incoming troops.
"We have big expectations from NATO's mission," said Stevo Pendarovski, an adviser to Macedonian President Boris Trajkovksi.
NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said the decision to send in the full force was "the right one, but a difficult one." He pointed out: "There are risks involved ... we recognize that… members of the alliance have agreed to send their troops because they know the risks of not sending them are far greater."
NATO's top military commander, General Joseph Ralston, told NATO's policy-making wing, the North Atlantic Council, that there was a strong case for sending in the task force without further delay, saying that he was enjoying excellent cooperation from both parties in Macedonia and, while the ceasefire was not perfect, it was generally holding.
The former NATO commander in Kosova, U.S. General Wesley Clark, however, does not seem to agree with the short mission. He says it is imperative that NATO nations see this as a starting point, and stay as long as is necessary to ensure that the fighting does not resume. He argues that it would have been preferable for NATO to have gone into Macedonia earlier, and stresses that if NATO's mission needs to change, then hopefully NATO governments will have the wisdom to change it.
The Macedonian nationality has always been the most contentious in the Balkans. The protesters who stormed the Skopje parliament on June 26th claimed to be the authentic inheritors of the traditions and military achievements of the ancient Macedonian monarch, Alexander the Great. However, modern Macedonia dates from the decisions of Josip Brzz Tito, former leader of communist Yugoslavia, and Joseph Stalin, former leader of the Soviet Union, who decided to set up a Macedonian republic within communist Yugoslavia after 1945, in the interests of Yugoslav communism.
Some of Macedonia's neighbors felt betrayed by this decision. Bulgaria believed Macedonia was Bulgarian, and Greece that it was Greek. Greece has never recognized the new republic by its preferred name of the Republic of Macedonia. Macedonia is also the name of a region of Greece.
Macedonians believe their little country is involved in a fight for survival, and that the "four wolves" of Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, and Serbia - which surround it as its traditional enemies - are now poised yet again to strike.
The most nationalist party in Skopje is the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO), led by Ljubco Georgievski, who, in alliance with a Muslim Albanian party, managed to displace the pro-Serb ex-communists as the majority party in government after 1998. Georgievski is now prime minister. Many of the party's banners were seen during the riot outside Skopje's parliament, with Georgievski locked in a power struggle with the more moderate (but still ex-VMRO) President Boris Trajkovski.
These Macedonians, mostly from Skopje and the eastern part of the country, believe that their version of Macedonian identity is the correct one, and that Bulgaria and other neighboring nations have never understood Macedonian history correctly and question the Albanian Muslim's unwillingness to give up their identity and fully integrate within the Macedonian majority.
Macedonia, however, has many interest groups, such as the 10% Roma population. In addition, many Muslims came to Skopje from the Sandjak region that straddles Montenegro and Serbia in order to help reconstruct the city after a great earthquake 30 years ago. And parts of the population more closely identify themselves as Serbs or Bulgarians. Over 130,000 Serbs came as colonists to the northern Macedonian territory when it was part of South Serbia under Royalist Yugoslavia. Many called themselves Macedonians after World War II in order to keep their privileged positions.
Many of the most politically influential Macedonian nationalists in Skopje's politics do not accept the modern concept of a multicultural and pluralistic state, and adhere to communist-era concepts of monolithic Macedonian nationalism. This makes it difficult for leaders, whether Trajkovski or Georgievski, to compromise with reformist demands of the Muslim minority, even if they would like to do so.
Muslim Macedonians say that all they want is to be equal citizens, and for this they must be recognized as equal by the Macedonian constitution. One of their demands is that Albanian must be accepted as an official language, and that there should be a state-funded university teaching its curriculum in Albanian. However, Macedonians allege that Muslims are really seeking the destruction of Macedonia and the creation of a "Greater Albania".
Official figures put the overall number of Muslims in Macedonia at about 23%, but Muslims say they make up more than 40% of the population. Whatever the count, less than 10% of the workforce is Albanian, according to a government report released in May 2000. In the police and the military, Muslims make up only 3.1% of the employees, and a similar situation exists in other sectors of public life, including the judiciary and health system.
Economically, Muslims are generally self-reliant, with many being self-employed. However, they say that when they have a grievance, they face an administration that is so disproportionately Macedonian that they are made to feel "alien". The government argues that this is due in part because education levels among Muslims are generally lower than amongst ethnic Macedonians - which, in turn, lead Muslims to demand that education be provided in their mother tongue.
For the past decade, Albanians in Macedonia have been unanimous in demanding the creation of a university with Albanian as the primary language. Since 1994, they have consistently clashed with authorities after the establishment of such an institution just outside the mainly Muslim Albanian city of Tetovo, which the government subsequently deemed "illegal" and took steps to close down.
The government charges that an Albanian language university would set the country on a path towards separatism. A compromise brokered by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe - that a private university be set up in lieu of a publicly-funded institution - appears to have satisfied only some Muslim elite.
The Macedonian constitution defines the republic as a state of Macedonians and other minorities. For their part, Muslims cannot accept being second-class citizens, living as another national minority. Instead, they want the constitution to define Macedonia as a state of its citizens, regardless of ethnicity, or alternatively, to become a bi-national entity. Muslims rightly want to have the right of veto over parliamentary decisions centering on Albanian issues.
However, Macedonians fear the creation of a bi-national entity would encourage Albanians to secede, alleging that the Muslims' real aim is to carve up a slice of western and northern Macedonia and attach it to Kosova.
Macedonian authorities allege that the Muslim movement is not homegrown, but an offshoot of the now-disbanded Kosova Liberation Army. The parent group - the Popular Movement for Kosova (LPK) - is long known to have favored an armed struggle to bring about Kosova's independence and the unification of Albanians, particularly those of former Yugoslavia.
The Muslims, who vehemently deny plans to carve up Macedonia, say they have reconciled themselves to life within a Macedonian state, have invited NATO to oversee their demilitarization in the event of a peace deal.
Critics say that NATO deployment between the two communities would inevitably lead to a
de facto separation, and allege that increased support for Muslims may shift public opinion back towards an "Albanian togetherness" as existed in communist Yugoslavia.
The Muslim National Liberation Army (NLA) has put its trust in NATO and has began bringing weapons, including a tank, to collection points in Macedonia, and NLA commanders have met NATO commanders to discuss Essential Harvest, the weapons collection program.
NATO commanders stress that five main collection points are now planned, each corresponding to an NLA brigade situated at points on the map, and that there is no intention for the 3,500-strong NATO force to deploy along the inter-ethnic frontline. NATO commanders stress that any such deployment would both solidify that line - the result of six months' fighting - and give their own mission a more permanent nature, which NATO does not desire. They are at great pains to emphasize that they are not "M-for" - to follow K-for in Kosova and S-for in Bosnia - but simply the facilitators of an arms collection exercise, strictly limited to 30 days.
Another point of contention is the estimate on quantities and quality of NLA weapons. The Macedonian Defense Ministry says that the NLA has 8,000 guns, but the NLA itself suggests 2,000.
Once NATO collects these weapons and departs as planned, Muslims, in general, fear revenge attacks from what they call extremist elements in the Macedonian police. They would like NATO to stay "forever - or at least till the elections next year," as one observer put it. The question presently is whether the mission can succeed against the unpromising backdrop of a tight deadline and an already wavering ceasefire. Muslims are giving up their arms, but are there NATO guarantees that their future will be safe?
Macedonia's parliament has to ratify the peace deal, which will be done in stages as weapons are collected. Once again, the issue is: what guarantees does NATO have if the Macedonians start delaying tactics by disputing the quantity of weapons?
The situation demands caution. A case in point: nationalistic Macedonians have been blocking the main border crossing into Kosovo at Blace in protest at the government's concessions to Muslims. Some observers expect Muslims to hand over only symbolic, older weapons, and keep their best armaments in case they need them again. This would seem a logical move, especially in these highly Islamophobic times when Muslims' fear reprisal from Macedonian forces once NATO troops leave.
Even with the deal in the bag, and NATO troops on the ground, Macedonia's path back to peace may not be a smooth one: Operation Essential Harvest may turn into Mission Impossible.
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