Quick, Kill 'Em While There's Still Time!

"Population data will be among the factors influencing the process of determining Kosovo's future status..."

So says the SE Times, in reporting that a census for Kosovo will occur in 2006 (exactly when is not stated):


Kosovo to hold census in 2006

30/12/2005

Authorities in Kosovo have completed the first phase of testing for next year's population census, the first to be held in the province since the breakup of Yugoslavia.

By Erlis Selimaj – 30/12/05

Kosovo is preparing to hold a population census in 2006. In mid-November, local authorities announced the conclusion of the first testing phase, which took place in six municipalities.
Officials from the Ministry of Public Services said that this phase -- conducted in Pristina, Prizren, Gjilan, Kacanik, Skenderaj and Novo Brdo -- was "successful" and boded well for the project as a whole.

Lasting more than two weeks, the pilot project aimed to gather information on the number of inhabitants and their territorial distribution.

"The main objective was to test the data-gathering instruments and their functioning, and to detect the eventual deficiencies of procedure that need to be eliminated before the start of the general census," said Minister of Public Services Melihate Termkolli.
Population data will be among the factors influencing the process of determining Kosovo's future status, Termkolli added.

While legally part of Serbia-Montenegro, Kosovo has been a de facto UN protectorate since the end of the 1998-1999 conflict there. The ethnic Albanian majority favours full independence from Serbia, while Belgrade is seeking to retain some form of sovereignty.
The last census in Kosovo took place in 1981, and was organised by the former Yugoslav authorities.

At the time, Kosovo's inhabitants were found to number nearly 2 million. However, the overall figure, as well as the demographic breakdown, is thought to have changed significantly as a result of the conflict and related displacements.

Kosovo's Assembly first approved a population registration in 2003, but its adoption was delayed due to objections from Serbian representatives in parliament."

There is still time for the Serbs and other minorities to be eliminated. I have argued before that this will be a prime negotiating factor in the final status talks; depriving Belgrade of a bargaining chip, by having no population, only a lifeless historical heritage left to protect, will virtually guarantee independence for the Albanians.

Don't think it can't happen. And it might even be better; the UN can wipe the blood from its hands and the census workers' job will be a lot easier too.

...With the Kosovo Blues Again

Now that the UNMIK has gone and created justice and interior ministries, fairly whimsically, perhaps illegally, for the hometown crowd in Kosovo, comes the point when is decided which will become the personal property of Ramush Haradinaj (those so-called "restrictions" are irrelevant), and what that of Ibrahim Rugova.

According to KosovaReport on December 28, the guns will go to the "pacifist," whereas the courts will go to the war crimes indictee- somehow fitting in the Bizarro World that is occupied Kosovo:

"...The Ministry of Interior will be headed by LDK while the Ministry of Justice by AAK, Kosova Sot quotes a source as saying. The paper further says that now we are just waiting for the names of the ministers to be announced.

Under a big front-page headline Formulas for new ministries, Express reports that the problem with allocation of ministries between LDK and AAK will be solved through the creation of a new ministry for Euro-Atlantic Integrations. According to the first scenario the interior ministry and the ministry for Euro-Atlantic integrations will be headed by LDK, while the ministry of Justice by AAK.

According to the second formula LDK gets ministries of interior and justice while AAK gets the ministry of integrations. The paper says that Ramë Maraj has been opposed to by the internationals, and quotes an unnamed diplomat in Pristina as saying that there is no chance that Maraj will lead the ministry as it needs professional and apolitical people. Express quotes sources as saying that LDK has a second option: the appointment of Çelëj Çelaj, an officer currently in the US."

Of course, Bob Dylan wasn't singing about Kosovo in the '60's. Nevertheless, might not the intrepid reader find some accidental symbolism in these lyrics?

Now the bricks lay on Grand Street where the neon madmen climb,
They all fall there so perfectly, it all seems so well timed.
And here I sit so patiently waiting to find out what price.
You have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice.
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end?
To be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again.

Coaxing Out Whistleblowers- a New Appeal

I am reprinting verbatim below the following Dec. 30 press release from the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. In the wake of the recent uproar over NSA warrantless wiretaps, they are taking the opportunity to call for informed people to come forward and do their civic duty by speaking out about government abuses of power, crime and corruption, etc.

I can take this opportunity to add that for those of you (or those you may know) with experience working in the Balkans (in international missions, in the military or related fields, or in any other informed capacity here), that we like hearing from new whistleblowers and sources, on or off the record. We've already lined some up juicy tidbits to come out in early 2006- a particularly crucial year for a lot of reasons in the Balkans.

So... now's the time, and here's the place.

Now, on to the press release:

December 30, 2005

NSWBC Call to Patriotic Duty

By Sibel Edmonds & William WeaverWithout whistleblowers the public would never know of the many abuses of constitutional rights by the government. Whistleblowers, Truth Tellers, are responsible for the disclosure that President George W. Bush ordered unconstitutional surveillance of American citizens. These constitutional lifeguards take their patriotic oaths to heart and soul: Rather than complying with classification and secrecy orders designed to protect officials engaging in criminal conduct, whistleblowers chose to risk their livelihoods and the wrath of their agencies to get the truth out. But will they be listened to by those who are charged with accountability?

The Whistleblowers Law of Congressional Hearings holds that the higher ranking the official who testifies the less the likelihood that the truth will be revealed. With this in mind, it is impossible to proceed to the viscera of what happened to whom and when without asking those who are charged with putting policy decisions into the actual stream of practice. High officials have perverse incentives to hide what is done in their orders by the employees below them. It is indispensable that Congress reach deep inside the National Security Agency and other agencies, seeking out employees at the operational level to determine how the President’s illegal order was carried into action. To assure that this occurs, we need for people with information from the agencies involved to come forward and ask to be interviewed by Congress.

The National Security Whistleblowers Coalition calls on people with knowledge of unconstitutional surveillance of American citizens to contact NSWBC and let us know that they are willing to provide congress with information and testimony. Anonymity, if desired, will be scrupulously honored. NSWBC will provide contact information to Congress and investigative authorities, and will follow up to ensure that these witnesses were in fact interviewed in good faith by congressional staff and committees and allowed to participate in the hearing process.

NSWBC will be the conduit between agents and Congress for those like Russ Tice, a former intelligence agent at the National Security Agency, who announced his willingness to disclose to Congress illegal acts by officials at his former employer. At NSWBC we know what we are asking people to do: Our organization is made up exclusively of veteran intelligence and law enforcement officers, agents and analysts.

Now is the time to come forward, not to reveal legitimately classified information, but to make yourselves available as witnesses and to serve the true supervisor of us all: the Constitution.

Ordinarily one would expect the congress to be the guardian of our freedom by living up to its storied role as a check and balance to the President and the Executive Branch. But for four years, members of our Congress in supposed oversight committees were aware of illegal spying on American citizens. Co-opted by an unscrupulous commitment to secrecy and the state, intelligence oversight committees in Congress must step out of the way for a People’s hearing on the matter of presidentially ordered illegal surveillance. Congress must engage in a broad, public hearing of these matters.Accountability, in the end, always comes down to the public’s right to know, the right to have the most basic knowledge about what its servants are doing with its money and its authority.

Ambassador Maxwell Taylor, when asked what he thought about the public’s right to know of what the government is doing on its behalf, infamously responded the he did not “believe in that as a general rule.” Fortunately, that is not a general rule that comports with our system of government. Citizens cannot make informed choices if they do not have the facts. Public servants should not be forced to choose between career and conscience, between commitment to oath and commitment to colleagues, and if we live by our words, laws, and principles they will not have to.

Protecting all employees of the People are that:

• Their higher loyalty is to the Constitution and the rule of law;
• Information may never be classified as secret merely because it is embarrassing or incriminating, or to cover up criminal and unlawful conduct;
• There is no agreement that public servants may sign that will require them lie to the Congress or courts;
• The United States’ Code of Ethics for Government Service explains carefully and clearly in an assured voice that "Any person in government service should put loyalty to the highest moral principles and to the Country above loyalty to persons, party, or Government department."

Contact: Sibel Edmonds-Director, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, sedmonds@nswbc.org

Sibel Edmonds, NSWBC Founder & President, sedmonds@nswbc.org

Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI language specialist, was terminated from the bureau after reporting security breaches, cover-up, and blocking of intelligence with national security implications. Since that time, court proceedings in her whistleblower case have been blocked by the imposition of “State Secret Privilege,” and Congress has been prevented from discussion of her case through retroactive reclassification by the Department of Justice. Edmonds, fluent in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani; holds an MA in Public Policy and International Commerce from George Mason University, and a BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology from George Washington University.

Professor William Weaver, NSWBC Senior Advisor, wweaver@nswbc.org

Bill Weaver served in U.S. Army signals intelligence for eight years in Berlin and Augsburg, Germany, in the late 1970s and 1980s. He holds a law degree and Ph.D. in politics from the University of Virginia. He currently is an associate professor and associate director of faculty for the Institute for Policy and Economic Development and an Associate in the Center for Law and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso.

He specializes in executive branch secrecy policy, governmental abuse, and law and bureaucracy. About National Security Whistleblowers CoalitionNational Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), founded in August 2004, is an independent and nonpartisan alliance of whistleblowers who have come forward to address our nation’s security weaknesses; to inform authorities of security vulnerabilities in our intelligence agencies, at nuclear power plants and weapon facilities, in airports, and at our nation’s borders and ports; to uncover government waste, fraud, abuse, and in some cases criminal conduct.

The NSWBC is dedicated to aiding national security whistleblowers through a variety of methods, including advocacy of governmental and legal reform, educating the public concerning whistleblowing activity, provision of comfort and fellowship to national security whistleblowers suffering retaliation and other harms, and working with other public interest organizations to affect goals defined in the NSWBC mission statement.

For more on NSWBC visit www.nswbc.org

Escaping Macedonia, 5 Kazakhstanis Seek Asylum in Albania- Why?

Maxfax reports today that five Kazakhstani nationals are seeking asylum in Albana- after crossing the border from Macedonia:

"...A group of five Kazakhstan citizens that entered illegally into Albania over the border crossing Kafasan, have sought political asylum from the Albanian authorities, local police reported.The same sources said that Kazakhstanis, which had no identification papers, were quoting international conventions when claiming the right for asylum. Police gave no further details, except that one of the men presented himself as Volodja Novikov. He stated they would unveil the reasons for their request before the competent Albanian authorities [italics mine]. The media reported that it was uncommon [for] foreigners to seek asylum in Albania, adding that Kazakhstanis were captured in country's southwest."

No need to pass judgment yet as we have no details about who they were, why they fled or how they ended up in Macedonia in the first place- or why they would desire asylum in Albania, of all places (on the other hand, this is where the industry is).

Were they in danger of sharing El-Masri's fate? Or were they periodic visitors of another sort? In fact, were they even Muslim?

Developing...

"I Want To Be Embraced"

Personally, I suspect Osama Bin Laden's niece, Wafah Dufour, is being rather devious when she laments, "I feel that everybody’s judging me and rejecting me [in America]." Yep, chonically relegated to the couch every Friday night in front of the TV, shy and friendless, just waiting for the phone to ring.

Case Studies in Macedonian Decentralization: Challenges and Opportunities (2)

(This article is from the Balkanalysis.com archive)


This survey of the Macedonian decentralization process, which cites several local mayors and outside sources, is divided into two halves. The first, discussing challenges and difficulties faced by municipalities during the decentralization process appeared yesterday, while today’s second part discusses some of the opportunities municipalities can exploit in the fields of IT and tourism.

Macedonia is a small and predominantly rural country, with a few large areas of population concentration, but enormous and fairly depopulated regions comprised of wilderness, mountains and rivers, not to mention historical sites of significance. As such, it presents ideal opportunities for outdoors and cultural tourism.Also, since Macedonia cannot even seek to compete with neighboring countries in terms of heavy industry, there is better opportunity in developing “white collar” IT industries, which can be far more flexible and decentralized. And, while the larger businesses and factories are generally in the hands of older, change-resistant businessmen, the younger generation of Macedonians is increasingly tech-savvy and able to compete with programmers, designers and other IT workers from anywhere in the world. The main challenge here is to give them an incentive to stay, rather than seeking out fortunes in more developed countries.

An Opportunity: Technological Development

Macedonia has one of the lowest levels of internet usage in Europe. Even though the estimates on daily usage vary, several surveys point out that 70 percent of the population has never used the internet, and those who use it daily number below 10 percent.

However, several large-scale initiatives on the national level, with international input, are already having a big impact on municipalities’ e-capabilities. USAID and Macedonia’s On.Net have teamed up to make Macedonia the world’s first wi-fi internet country, and the Chinese government donated thousands of computers to local schools. According to the BBC, this means “…broadband internet access [for] hundreds of remote villages in Macedonia by putting the country's 460 primary and secondary schools online.”

Getting businesses and government to become more IT-friendly is a goal of organizations such as Metamorphosis, a Skopje-based foundation that promotes the development of information society and which was represented at the weekend event, organizing an educational session entitled "ICT for more efficient local government." ICT usage continues to be pointed out as an efficient tool for satisfying the needs of the citizens. Also, with EU candidate status, Macedonia will be required to develop its e-government capacities.

Some municipalities, most notably Veles, are already making strides to develop e-governance. Under the direction of Mayor Ace Kocevski, Veles was the first Macedonian municipality to have its own IT department, as well as “four employees with Microsoft licenses,” according to Metamorphosis. The municipality’s manager of the sector for economical development and IT, Sashko Ristovski, spoke at the recent NGO Fair’s educative session regarding Veles’ progress in ICT implementation, noting that the main factors are "strong support from the mayor, clear vision on what to do, quality projects, and training of all employees according to the tasks assigned to their workplace.”

Filip Stojanovski, Metamorphosis program coordinator, recently explained his group’s vision to us in more depth: “we are working on a local e-governance project that would enable the municipalities to provide e-services for the citizens, together with the USAID Decentralization project. The project is jointly financed by USAID and FOSIM, and has several stages: research of the needs of the citizens, supplying a number of municipalities with needed hardware, software and training, as well as developing two e-services that would be available to citizens.”

“Important factor when selecting partner municipalities will be the level of their commitment to ICT development,” Stojanovski added. “A good indicator, for example, is the fact that they formed an ICT department and actually employed people to run it, as opposed to just intending to do it after they receive the equipment and the training.”

Tourism: a Key Factor for Local Economies

Everyone agrees that tourism, especially outdoors-oriented tourism, is key for little Macedonia. At the convention, municipalities from Kriva Palanka to Ohrid – that is, from one corner of the country to the other – devoted large parts of their displays to promoting their natural and cultural attractions.

Enthusiasm too is needed, and the human aspect is important. When asked why visitors should come to Rosoman, Mayor Goce Velickovski stressed the climate, the wine, and “the well-known Rosoman hospitality.” Of course, there’s also the captivating nearby site of Stobi, with its Roman ruins and mosaics.

Long-established tourism destination Ohrid, of course, has the clear advantage as Macedonia’s leader in terms of visitor numbers and infrastructure development. Problems for places such as Ohrid today have more to do with resource management, environmental safeguards and rubbish removal. For relatively undeveloped places, by contrast, developing infrastructure, access and service for tourists is necessary.

“We would like to develop our tourism,” says Caska Mayor Manevski. “Our municipality is full of mountains and ecologically clean.” Indeed, a quick look on the map shows how Caska sprawls across an enormous area of central Macedonia which includes the mountains of Jakupica, Golesnica and Karadzica. Lovers of the outdoors can rely on an established series of mountain huts of Cheples, Vranovci, Oravdol and soon, in the picturesque hamlet of Bogomila. However, for those who prefer more luxuries, there are not many options for other places to stay- according to the mayor, only one old hotel in Gorno Vranovci.

While much of Caska municipality comprises remote and inaccessible terrain, the town itself does have one enviable benefit- its own railroad station on the Skopje-Bitola line. Another key strategy for the municipality is to develop the increasingly popular “monastery tourism” that brings the religiously or historically curious to see some of Macedonia’s most representative cultural monuments. New publications from Caska point out a wealth of churches to see, including the 13th century Gorna Crkva and Monastery of Sveti Spas in Bogomila, Teovo’s Monastery of Sveti Arhangel Mihail, Sveti Bogorodica near the village of Sogle, and the secluded Monastery of Sveti Ghiorgia outside Bogomila.

Kriva Palanka, in Macedonia’s northeastern corner, is another mountainous, sparsely populated municipality that is banking on monastery tourism. The sublime Monastery of St. Joakim Osogovski is located about 3 km northeast of the town and remains the area’s best-known attraction. Similarly rural Demir Hisar, in southern Macedonia, put an emphasis with its own fair presentation on its monasteries, including the 17th century Sveti Atanasij Aleksandriski, Sveti Petar in the village of Smilevo, Sveti Nikola Toplicki,

Dobromirovo Monastery in Slepce, the Golemo Ilino Monastery of Sveti Ilija, built in 1550, and more.

Prilep too is keen on developing its monastery tourism. It has one of the more famous churches in Macedonia, the 12th century Treskavec Monastery, built into an adjacent mountainside. But Prilep also has something else: the formidable Mariovo plain, an isolated moonscape of mountains, creeks and traditional houses set in nearly deserted ghost villages. This great area stretches to the border with Greece, hemmed in by the Kozjak Mountain to the east and on the west evening out at the Bitola plain.

Mende Trajkovski, Mariovo enthusiast and head of the environmental association “Kajmakcalan” was involved with the 2003 Mariovo Children’s Camp (a project sponsored by the Soros Foundation’s Living Heritage Network) that brought together kids and Mariovo elders. The former provided a living connection to the past through stories and workshops in traditional sheep fleecing and honey-making, among other things. For Trajkovski, such interactive projects help stress the living connections with the past that can still be made in this largely depopulated region. “Everyone should visit Mariovo,” he said at the SAEM fair. “This is one of the most fascinating parts of Macedonia.” Prilep Mayor Risteski agreed, stating that Mariovo is a central part of the municipality’s future tourism strategy.

Other municipalities are banking on new investment in winter tourism. Mavrovo of course leads the way, with its established ski resort, international competitions and several hotels. In Ohrid, there is talk of developing Mt. Galicica for skiing (though this is a national park). At the convention, Kavadarci Municipality used its presentation space to promote its Kozuf ski center, a joint Greek-Macedonian investment that should be ready by 2007. This resort, which “promises to become the most modern tourist centre in the Balkans” according to the Southeastern European Times, will require a 72-million euro investment, to be invested over the next three years.

The ski center is expected to be comprised of 40 kilometers of ski trails and will be located at a height of 1,500-2000 meters above sea level. Perhaps over-optimistically, planners are expecting to fill a “…600-bed hotel, 450 four-star 180-bed suites, 750 cottages, a shopping mall, a parking lot for 1,600 vehicles, and sport facilities.” Yet there is no guarantee such a facility would be popular in the summertime, and there are environmental concerns as well, as Kozuf is home to endemic flowers and trees.

Nevertheless, in July Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski pledged state assistance for the construction of connecting roads, 35 kilometers in all, a potential example of the type of new cooperation state and local governments will have in future economic development projects, Panco Minov, the mayor of Kavadarci, has specifically asked the central government for help in realizing the project, “which will mean revival of the economy in Kavadarci and Gevgelija” he said, according to the SE Times.

But small personal initiatives on the local level can also lead to results. Mixed marriages between locals and foreigners have led to an influx of foreign tourists, albeit in small numbers to some places. The same goes for expatriate Macedonians. According to Strumica Mayor Zoran Zaev, Strumica natives living in Holland have helped the municipality attract Dutch visitors. “This summer they brought 4 tours consisting of 15-25 people each,” says Mayor Zaev. “The Dutch are very interested, especially in the villages around Strumica.”

To better facilitate tourists’ needs, more informative infrastructure is required. All too often roads in Macedonia are insufficiently signposted and main attractions like churches and mosques often not open to the public, or only on erratic hours. Incidentally one wonders about the strategic worth of the Ohrid Agreement’s decree to make signs in minority languages rather than in English. This costly and time-consuming process will no doubt bring emotional and political satisfaction for some, but it won’t particularly help develop Macedonia as a destination for the outside world.

According to Mayor Zaev, the next big project for his city will be to create a tourism information center, with a large map of the municipality, so that tourists can locate the key points of interest in the Strumica area.

Lessons Learned and New Opportunities

As they enjoyed the weekend fair at SEAM, Macedonia’s mayors learned from one other’s experiences, swapped stories and made contacts with one another and with international donors. All in all, mayors seemed to be satisfied with the initiative that brought them together for a few days and about the prospects for the future, despite the teething problems of the decentralization process.

“It was a big experience for me,” said Caska Mayor Manevski. “I took a lot of information out of it and got good ideas from my colleagues. We are prepared to do something for the good of the people.”

“Most of us are young,” noted Mayor Risteski of Prilep. “So we’re optimistic for the future. There is potential.”

Strumica’s Zaev continued on this theme, noting that “we represent a new generation, and we have new obligations.”

Adding that the new powers granted under decentralization have put a new spotlight on their activities and led the citizens to expect more, the mayor joked, “it’s harder now, because we are so open with our citizens- they feel free to come here to complain! But we were elected, and we have an obligation to solve their problems.”

Macedonian Government Gets Wise to the Benefits of Internet

In its "strategic relationship" with Microsoft, the Macedonia government has finally started a constructive internet-based initiative that should be a big help to the country's tech development.

Since MIA links expire daily, we reproduce the whole story below.

MACEDONIAN GOVERNMENT LAUNCHES THREE NEW INTERNET PORTALS

Skopje, December 19 (MIA) - The government of the Republic of Macedonia and Microsoft Corp Monday announced the launch of several new e-government services that will help improve access and promote online interaction among the citizens and the Macedonian government.
The following three services launched today were developed entirely by local IT companies under the mentorship of Microsoft: http://www.uslugi.gov.mk/ This service will create a standardised central information portal for all citizens of the Republic of Macedonia. It will provide citizens with access and the ability to search in a structured way for information about the services provided by the public administration. At the same time, this service will promote online interaction among the citizens and the government; www.emarketplace.org.mk

Through this portal, SMEs in Macedonia will have the opportunity to create an internet presence and participate in e-commerce, which they may not otherwise have had the resources to create on their own. This will contribute increasing the visibility of Macedonian SMEs in the global market and to positioning IT as a key ingredient of their competitive strategy; http://www.gs.gov.mk/ An intranet portal for the government Secretariat where the Secretary General and cabinet can follow the progress of the decisions made at government sessions as well as the responses of the ministries to questions raised by the parliament members. This service also allows them to check on the current status of the implementation of the annual government programme.
"With the launch of these new services, the government of Macedonia is providing our citizens with important access to the main services of the public administration. We are happy to have worked with Microsoft to develop these tools and I believe that this will bring important benefits to the citizens of Macedonia," said PM Vlado Buckovski.

"Today's launch of these high-impact e-government services is a result of our working in partnership with the government of Macedonia to deliver technology solutions that will best meet citizens' needs and help stimulate the development of a modern IT industry in the Republic of Macedonia," said Ilijanco Gagovski, general manager of Microsoft Macedonia. "We look forward to continuing to work with the government in Macedonia and our local partners as part of the strategic Partnership Agreement and beyond."

Today's news of the launch of these e-government services further demonstrates Microsoft's commitment to establishing long-term collaborations and investing with governments, academic institutions and private companies throughout Europe to support the grow of local economic development and enable these countries to better compete in the global marketplace through the use of technology.

Microsoft is committed to helping governments develop strong, sustainable IT infrastructures that deliver ease of use, value through innovative technology, a clear road map for future development, and access to source code to improve security and implementation."

Case Studies in Macedonian Decentralization: Challenges and Opportunities (1)

(This article is from the Balkanalysis.com archive)


This survey covering the Macedonian decentralization process, which cites several local mayors and outside sources, is divided into two halves. The first, discussing challenges and difficulties faced by municipalities during the decentralization process appears today, while tomorrow will appear the second part, which discusses some of the opportunities municipalities can exploit in the fields of IT and tourism.

A fair held on the weekend of 9-11 December in Skopje’s convention center, SAEM, brought together representatives of many municipalities as well as NGOs, offering a unique opportunity for citizens to speak with local officials and for said officials to mingle and share their concerns with one another.

Of course, the common task for all mayors and municipal officials was to try and promote investor interest and chart the progress of the decentralization program, which got underway in July. The local elections of March had brought numerous shake-ups in the local power structure across Macedonia. Since then, mayors have been grappling with issues that are difficult and complex. However, the weekend’s high turnout and detailed presentations of municipal projects, local goods, information packets and tourist guides was a good sign that the local governments intend to keep active.

Aside from booths reserved for each municipality, the fair featured lively performances from traditional dance ensembles, musicians, and multimedia presentations, bringing a festive atmosphere to the proceedings. And curious citizens turned out en masse to check it all out.

“We Can Do Something Concrete and Specific”

On Saturday, we spoke with several mayors and other officials from municipalities large and small, to learn about the main issues of decentralization affecting them. Notably, many of Macedonia’s new mayors are young and eager to take the initiative. But certain constraints, such as fiscal problems, unqualified employees and an unfinished devolution process have been restricting factors.

One of the most optimistic leaders is 31 year-old Zoran Zaev, Mayor of Strumica. With an enviable position in Macedonia’s sunny southeast, Strumica is the country’s leading agricultural producer and also boasts numerous cultural and natural attractions such as the 11th century Byzantine Monastery of Veljusa, a Roman bath complex, and the sublime woodland waterfalls of Kolesino and Smolare.

According to Mayor Zaev, a trained economist and former SDSM parliamentarian, the state of the economy was what led him to run for mayor. Although he had served in the parliament for the 16 months preceding March’s elections, Mr. Zaev decried the impossibility of making “concrete steps” for fixing Macedonia’s problems through the legislature. “In parliament, you can just vote for laws,” he said. “But as mayor, you can do something concrete and specific to help solve the problems local people face.”

Strategies for Wooing Investors: Tax Incentives and Promising Industries
Promoting their municipalities as outside investment destinations was a major goal of the convention for mayors. This has forced them to isolate the key areas in which they might be successful, and the major obstacles they face along the way.

This was illustrated by the case of the proactive Zaev, who isolated a specific impediment to his city’s development: the lack of a central distribution point for local agricultural products. Pointing out that agriculture makes up at least 50 percent of the economy of Strumica Municipality, and that it is a major exporter of such goods, Mayor Zaev cited the pressing needs to improve the logistical coordination of goods delivery and the need to open new export markets.

According to the mayor, a large project for building a new distribution center has been offered to outside investors, and a German as well as Italian agricultural firm is interested in investing. The tender will go out in January 2006; the municipality is seeking 2 million euros for the project, and investors will receive “zero percent local taxes- plus the land is free,” says Mayor Zaev. The planned agricultural distribution center will be located near the new bus station in Strumica

A similar idea for offering total tax incentives and land concessions to woo local investment, but on a grander scale, has been conceived by the municipality of Prilep, in south Macedonia. “Every investor who comes to Prilep will not pay local taxes,” pledged Mayor Marjan Risteski, who takes credit for introducing the initiative. The 33 year-old economics graduate, who ran as the VMRO-DPMNE candidate this past March, was previously employed as an inspector in the local self-government administration. According to him, Prilep’s main potential for investors lies in the established marble, tobacco and brewing industries.

As with Strumica and Prilep, the municipality of Rosoman – located in the heart of Macedonia’s wine country – sees agriculture as a vital industry for the local economy. Its most important products are high-quality grapes, peaches, peppers and tomatoes. “But we don’t have the proper organization,” laments Rosoman’s 35 year-old mayor, Goce Velickovski, an electrical engineer by training who is now on his second mandate. According to him, Rosoman already exports its agricultural goods to Poland, Croatia and the Czech Republic, among other places, but like Strumica, needs to centralize distribution. According to the mayor, Rosoman plans to create a new distribution center for agricultural goods in cooperation with neighboring Kavadarci, which also relies on agriculture and especially its wineries.

Strumica is also seeking investment for a new central shopping mall. Mayor Zaev sees Skopje’s Ramstore, built by Turkey’s Koc Company as a role model (though on a grander scale than could be attempted in a town of 45,000 like Strumica). He also points to the interest Greek investors in the leather industry have shown in his city, which lies close to their border. “They want to invest in Strumica because of the cheap labor,” he says, echoing a view held across the country.

From Italian shoemakers operating in Kumanovo to Hollywood animators in Skopje, outsourcing labor to cheaper Macedonia has helped them to cut costs and better compete on their home markets.

The Pernicious Problem of Pre-existing Debt

Outstanding debts have presented a major obstacle for officials, especially from the smaller and poorer municipalities. Caska is an isolated and mountainous municipality of 7,630 inhabitants in the central part of the country, west of Veles. Its meager economy is based on subsistence agriculture and animal husbandry. Although Caska’s small population only requires 11 municipal employees, it is geographically large and sprinkled with villages, all of which require basic public services, electricity and heating.

39 year-old Stojan Manevski is the municipality’s new mayor. This past March he ran as an independent, regaining the office he held from 1996-2000. In the old days of Yugoslavia, the Caska native worked in Zagreb, after finishing the Military Academy in Belgrade.

Like Rosoman’s Mayor Velickovski, Manevski decries the burden of debt his new administration has inherited from the previous one. He cites the always pervasive issue of corruption as the culprit. “They didn’t pay for electric bills and other taxes… the salaries of municipal employees were withheld for 8 whole months.” Mr. Manevski surmises that this was one of the reasons why his predecessor was not re-elected.

Problems with the Decentralization Process: A Lack of Preparation and Trained Officials
“We weren’t prepared enough for the whole process,” says Mayor Manevski, evincing a common theme for municipalities across Macedonia. “It wasn’t explained and discussed clearly and thoroughly enough.”

In the 2005 decentralization, it was the first time for everyone. Many changes were made; legislation was added, and new competencies were created. With them came greater responsibilities for local governments. However, there is a widespread fear that the existing personnel are not sufficiently trained for their new tasks, and that the entrenched mid-level bureaucrats of yesteryear are mired in outdated thinking and have forgotten about the ‘servant’ part of their brief as civil servants.

“The local officials should be at the service of the citizens- not the other way around!” quips Strumica Mayor Zaev. However, the situation in too many municipalities is like that of Kumanovo, where bad tempered bureaucrats delight in being as unhelpful as possible, while inventing ever-changing and ever-more complex requirements. Meanwhile, vital paperwork runs the risk of being lost amongst the voluminous, 50 year-old giant folders in which crucial documentation is kept. In forgotten offices upstairs, solitary officials bang away at typewriters instead of computers.

In 2001, Albanian rebel leader Ali Ahmeti claimed that his war against the state owed to discrimination against Albanians and alleged shoddy treatment from local officials. Yet local bureaucratic tyrants are pretty good at being equal opportunity offenders, and not only Albanians feel the desire to wage war on them. Nevertheless, it is ironic to note that the most sympathetic and helpful municipal employee in Kumanovo is an Albanian from that hotbed of ethnic unrest, the village of Slupcane.

A mentality of petty corruption pervades as well. Noting how a certain local was very frosty with her, one Macedonian woman recalled, “but she was very helpful for the people who slipped her 50 euros.” The prospect of surreptitiously handing over one-third of an average Macedonian’s monthly salary just to expedite the bureaucratic process has a more ruinous direct effect on people’s lives than does the better publicized high-level government corruption- but all too often, this is the reality.

The problem of mentality was also mentioned by Prilep Mayor Risteski, who spoke of the need for well-trained officials. “Certain directors need to be changed,” he says, “because the current ones are not qualified. But this is now under the jurisdiction of the central government, and they won’t let me change them.” Somewhat cryptically, he added that the problem will be fixed “when the government changes” following the upcoming 2006 parliamentary elections.

Rosoman Mayor Velickovski also complained that the issue of qualified personnel presents a problem for his administration. “We don’t have workers who have the right experience in the right positions,” he said, a view seconded by Mayor Manevski: “the [decentralization] is very difficult for the small municipalities. There are not enough employees trained and ready for the kind of reforms they want us to make.”

An Albanian member of Ahmeti’s DUI party, speaking off the record, also told us that the lack of trained local officials has been an unfortunate drag on the party following its astonishing successes in the March elections. “We captured many mayoral positions and local administrations in the elections,” he said. “However, certain low-level individuals in the party demanded that their experience as “war heroes” be acknowledged, in the form of jobs in the municipal governments. Yet many of these guys lack the right training- or even a basic education. This means that they can’t deliver the proper service. Inevitably, our people will become dissatisfied, and it could backfire on the party.”

However difficult the issue of finding trained personnel has been, not all are reporting major problems. In the case of Strumica, Mayor Zaev stated that “so far, we haven’t changed many people- actually, we have had to hire more to deal with the new responsibilities we’ve been given. So now we’re up to 60 municipal officials from the 46 we had before the elections.”

More Ills: Ownership and Financing Confusion for Necessary Infrastructure

“The biggest problem for us is that the municipality still doesn’t have ownership or control of a lot of local facilities and properties,” says Prilep’s Mayor Risteski. Indeed, the unclear status of ownership for local buildings has emerged as a nationwide problem. In Strumica, sports facilities top the list here. The central government was always the owners of these structures, but the municipality should be inheriting them. “The national government isn’t very interested in them,” says Mayor Zaev, “but we are.”

The question of financing for public infrastructure must also be resolved. For Mayor Manevski, the big problem in Caska involves the primary schools. There are 2 larger primary schools in the town, and 7 regional primary schools. But children from the sparsely populated municipality must still attend secondary school in the neighboring municipality of Veles.

These local realities play a major role in Caska’s schools problem. “One school has only five children, and we have a big problem with paying for heating,” says the mayor. Because of the mountainous nature of the Caska municipality and the remoteness of some of its villages, these kids can’t be relocated to another school. Finding ways to pay for heating and other maintenance in schools came up as an issue in Strumica and Prilep as well.

Because of the economic stagnation of the local area and thus a lack of funds, Caska like many other municipalities has had to rely on foreign donors like the EU for essential projects such as sewage and water systems. Without this, nothing would be done. “We just don’t have the resources,” says Mayor Manevski. Now the municipality is hoping for foreign donations for a road project that will cost approximately 750,000 euros. In Rosoman, Mayor Velickovski would like to tap new wells to help ease the area’s chronic water shortage problems, but so far the project has attracted no donors.

Part of these fiscal problems can involve budget ambiguities. “We only have 50 percent of the budget money we need,” charges Prilep Mayor Risteski. “We don’t know why the central government won’t release it, according to the law. They must do so until 2007, after which point we have to come up with the money all by ourselves.”

Tax collection problems have been compounded in some cases by disconnects between the central and local authorities. This past July, for example, the Public Revenue Office failed to provide necessary equipment- meaning that in municipalities like Demir Hisar, workers were “forced to fill in the information in forms manually in order to work.” The Office’s failure to transfer the right software also affected tax collection in Stip and Tetovo.

But all financial matters haven’t been worsened since the decentralization kicked in. In fact, some have improved. Strumica Mayor Zaev claims that his municipality has since July enjoyed a 50 percent improvement in tax receipts because “now, the citizens can see where their money is going, and that the local projects will benefit them.” He adds that prices for agriculture goods were better this year “than anytime in the past 3-6 years, because we have developed new markets in Europe and have steadily improved production standards.” Nevertheless, an ongoing furor over grape prices has prolonged uncertainty in municipalities such as Kavadarci, Negotino and Rosoman, where Mayor Velickovski notes that “prices are still lower than we would like.”

The Word on the Street: Macedonians React to EU Candidacy Decision

(This article is from the Balkanalysis.com archive)



Rain turning to snow fell throughout a gray, historic Saturday in Skopje, putting a damper on the government's organized rally/celebration in honor of the EU's declaration that Macedonia is now officially a candidate state for membership.

While the top brass plied one another with compliments and Irish whiskey during a day of conviviality in Skopje, less than 1,500 people turned out for the planned evening extravaganza on Macedonia Square, in the center of the city. Of these, some were just passing through the center on their Saturday night strolls, others had been bussed in by the SDSM from outlying towns, and a few others seemed genuinely pleased with the turn of events.

As pop singers performed and fireworks and balloons were let off over the city square and the River Vardar, Balkanalysis.com took the pulse of the people in attendance. The results of our informal poll are useful for gauging the mood of the public in the run-up to the 2006 parliamentary elections. The EU's announcement, made on Saturday morning, ended a dramatic waiting game in which the French had threatened to veto Macedonia's candidacy because of an unresolved EU budget and fears that future enlargement lacked a strategy. Nevertheless, France cooperated in the end, and Macedonia was ushered in, though no timeline for negotiations was set and no one expects a radical change in the current situation.

Still, the announcement came as an enormous relief for the sitting government which, while it will face only a tepid and disorganized opposition in the upcoming parliamentary elections, was counting on the EU's positive decision as a justification for the past few years of painful reforms and sluggish economic growth.

While the government greeted Saturday's announcement with joy and even announced that bars could stay open all night during the weekend (ironically, the last time they did that was in Nov. 2004 to help quash the referendum), the bad weather prevented a large turnout. Indeed, following short speeches and the truncated entertainment segment, the crowd began to disperse quickly through the square, decorated for Christmas with stalls selling cards and small gifts and little fried doughnuts and roasting chestnuts.

Despite the modesty of the event, the obedient local media has apparently been writing with their winter gloves on ever since, presenting the Saturday celebration as a bigger success than it actually was. While official figures are impossible to determine, and the mass was fluid throughout, it's not likely that more than 1,500 people were there at any given point between 7:30-9 PM, and even that number is probably generous.

Balkanalysis.com surveyed those who did turn out for the celebration, amidst the blasting of speakers and flash of fireworks. The results were revealing in several ways, and the unofficial poll we conducted also provides food for thought.

Macedonian, Albanian and Roma individuals surveyed all had different and sometimes humorous takes on the EU decision. When asked whether the EU's granting of candidate status signified a big achievement for the SDSM-DUI coalition, a man dressed in a Santa Claus suit poured some coal in the government's stocking: “…this was just a political decision," he cracked. "Our government didn't do or decide anything - Europe did, for their own political interests - and Buchko [PM Buckovski] can't take the credit for this."

A 50 year-old Skopje woman continued this bah-humbug theme. “So they think that just this one thing can make up for everything that they did to the people?" she grumbled rhetorically.

"They are just criminals who care only for themselves. I hope we will have some better government in the future."

Many, however, seemed to have "a cassette tape of the prime minister's speech in their mouth," as one local cynic put it. Indeed, many of the comments made by passers-by seemed to have come straight out of a government speech or pro-government media announcement.

“This is a great and historic day," said one 50 year-old Macedonian man from Veles.

"Macedonians should be proud. We should finally stop being pessimistic, now we have every right to be optimistic and expect a future in the EU."

And, one cheerful 30 year-old man cited the perceived economic benefits of EU candidate status, saying that “this is a good signal for every potential investor in Macedonia. This is a signal that we are going to be part of Europe, where everybody must respect the law and the rules."

Meanwhile, a good-natured Roma man selling lighters in the open-air GTC Shopping Mall leading to the square enthused that, "well, everybody is saying this is something good and we should be happy- so I am happy too."

In general, however, people were realistic that the candidate status would not be a panacea for social and economic woes and that progress would take time. “This is a very big step for all of us, but that doesn’t mean something will happen overnight. This is just the beginning," said one 30 year-old woman.

Her companion added that the EU decision represents merely "the beginning of a very long and hard process. I think that not everything will be so easy." This Skopje woman, also 30, pointed out a widely held fear when saying, "I think that Greece will try to make us problems, like always."

People from opposite ends of the age spectrum also held out hope that the EU decision might make life easier. “I think this is very good for the future of the young generation," said a 65 year-old Skopje man out for a walk with his wife. "I hope that they will have a better life than we have now." Carrying on from this theme, a 19 year-old girl from the eastern town of Stip expressed a common hope, stating overoptimistically that “this is great- I just hope that we will not need visas anymore for going in Europe."

Now, what effect will all this have on the upcoming elections, for which dates have still not been set? We conducted an unofficial poll among 120 randomly selected people who braved the conditions to attend the celebration in the city square. While this is obviously an informal poll, the results are interesting (one should perhaps just keep in mind that those who were enthusiastic enough to turn out were probably bound to be favorable to the government).

The questions covered a range of topics, from the relative importance of the EU announcement to the outcome of the elections.

Interestingly enough, a full 53.3 percent of respondents said that the EU decision would not improve their quality of life significantly. Another 20 percent said yes, but not in the foreseeable future, while 14.2 percent weren't sure. Only 12.5 percent of respondents were enthusiastic that the EU decision will dramatically improve their lives.

The arrival of EU candidate status also does not seem to have radically altered political preferences. Some 71.66 percent of respondents stated that the new status would not change their vote, while 15 percent said that it might and another 10 percent had not decided. Only 3.33 percent said that the EU candidate status anouncement would alter their current party allegiance.

This by no means implied that everyone was overjoyed with the current government, however. When asked who they intended to vote for in the coming elections, almost half - a full 40 percent - said that they hadn't yet made up their minds. Another 43.33 percent declared they would vote for the incumbent SDSM-DUI coalition.

Yet the opposition, which was forced to congratulate the incumbents on their work in attaining candidate status for Macedonia, has been rendered voiceless and the informal poll did not reflect well for their chances in the upcoming election. Only 10 percent of respondents stated they would definitely support main opposition party VMRO-DPMNE, while 3.33 percent stood for breakaway opposition party VMRO-Narodna.

Finally, while numerous initiatives to form new parties in time for the elections have been undertaken over the past few months, our belief that they will not have a strong impact (individually, at least) seemed to be borne out by the fact that only 3.33 of respondents stated they would definitely vote for a new party. Indeed, even though many of our 120 respondents did note in passing that they were dissatisfied with both the government and the opposition, the people will probably as usual take what is on offer, perceiving the lack of a real option.

It thus seems that the political significance of the EU decision on a local level, at least for now, is that it has extended somewhat the shelf life of the SDSM-DUI government.

Whereas a 'no' from the EU might have spelled disaster for the ruling coalition, the guarded 'yes' means that the opposition will have to become much more unified and make its message much more vital if it is going to defeat a government of committed technocrats whose controversial though diligent labors seem to have been rewarded by the EU, which has always been, in fact, the senior coalition partner in the Macedonian government anyway.

Cheney at the Alamo

(This article is from the Balkanalysis.com archive)

Things would have been better for George W. Bush had his vice president just been more, well, vice presidential. In a modest, supportive role, as an influential facilitator of the president's policies rather than an aggressive shaper of them, Cheney could have remained both worthy of respect and suitably distant, as would appear to befit his job profile and his professional experience. As such he could have put his personal stamp on the office, in the manner of predecessors such as the earnest technocrat (Al Gore) or the hapless comic sidekick (Dan Quayle).

Alas, Cheney adopted another persona entirely: that of the malevolent power behind the throne, becoming the man of a thousand undisclosed locations and constant apocalyptic admonitions to war without end.Becoming the president in everything but name, Cheney and the neocons with whom he sympathized crafted the disastrous war in Iraq that is now dragging down Bush's second term.

That Cheney would seek such a role isn't hard to understand. After all, when candidate Bush once upon a time asked the elder statesman to suggest a possible running mate, Cheney nominated himself. In various other fields of human endeavor, such opportunism from a trusted elder would be seen as crass exploitation. To this day it remains unclear as to whether George W. Bush knew exactly what he was getting into by taking Cheney's advice – and whether the former even considered that someday he might need to be gotten out of it.

Writing in the Financial Times on Dec. 2, Philip Stephens states succinctly how the uncompromising stance of the vice president in upholding the CIA's right to torture at will has ruined the credibility of America (that alleged shining example of democracy and human rights) abroad. For Stephens, the government's "denials" of running covert torture operations "are rendered virtually worthless by the stance of Dick Cheney, the vice president."

Noting that Cheney would like to exempt the CIA from legislation against "cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment" of detainees, Stephens poses this rhetorical question: "Why would the CIA need an exemption, if it did not employ torture?"

Of course, Cheney does have his supporters – though they don't include the majority of senators or congressmen or the majority of Americans in general. The main ones are the neocons, whose ruthlessness and pathologies are well known already. Aside from them, torture-supporters include those patriotic sorts who dare not withhold any weapon from the government's arsenal if it'll help win the war against the terr'ists faster (as if torturing people ever expedited the acquisition of a truthful answer, anyway).

However, while the sponsor of the legislation, John McCain, will not move an inch from his position on the moral high ground, neither will Cheney, a scoundrel holed up in the last refuge of amorality.

Is it this battle, then, that could finally result in the removal of the Bush administration's dark overlord? Is Dick Cheney, in his truly outrageous defense of an indefensible principle incompatible with all American values (not to mention in his role in both the Plamegate and Nigergate scandals) being forced to hunker down in an ideological and political Alamo of his own making?

For George W. Bush, part of the good fortune of being perceived as a blank slate is that he can be erased and rewritten endlessly. The average person will always have some measure of sympathy for his mediocrity, because the mediocre is usually not too far from home. Sheer malevolence is another story. Despite all the disaster and death Bush's wars have brought over the past few years, my guess is that the average Joe would probably not mind having a beer with George W. But it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to sidle up to the bar next to Dick Cheney (except maybe Judith Miller).

That Cheney has thus far survived despite it all owes first to the administration's conventional wisdom that internal discord is a sign of weakness, and that termination, implying terminal discord, thus means terminal weakness. This is why the president continually refused to allow gentle Secretary of Death Donald Rumsfeld to resign following the Abu Ghraib torture scandal and the disastrous course of a war that the latter had incompetently planned. However, despite the indictment of his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, the vice president has so far brushed aside all criticism. It looks as if Cheney is going to fight early termination all the way.

If it really is a siege, it looks like Cheney's planning to take a lot of people with him – whether they want to go or not. Perhaps Stephens was overly optimistic in arguing that Condoleezza Rice, allegedly the most powerful secretary of state in the modern age, is going to neutralize the influence of the most powerful vice president of all time, a man who can bend whole constitutions single-handedly and effortlessly deflect political missiles. Because at this moment, Rice is being put through the wringer over the latest torture-related scandal to hit the administration – alleged secret American torture camps in Europe and elsewhere.

On a fence-mending tour of the Continent this week, Rice has been forced to defend the indefensible – a position that Cheney still relishes. In fact, Rice's tactic has not been simply to deny the allegations (though there has been some of that), but to actually argue for the legitimacy of American actions. As she "robustly defended the CIA's extrajudicial seizure, transportation, and interrogation of thousands of suspects," reports the Times (UK) online, Rice "responded to European demands for explanations of secret CIA flights from EU territory by insisting that aggressive U.S. actions had 'prevented attacks in Europe' and 'saved innocent lives.'" And, while denying that American treatment of detainees does not technically amount to torture, she refused specific comment – using the same old code of secrecy: "We cannot discuss information that would compromise intelligence, law enforcement, and military operations."

The Europeans aren't buying it, however. From Italian indignation to German inquiries into terror flights to British incredulity over Rice's refutations that "defy belief," it is clear that America's policy is being met with revulsion by its oldest allies. And, while the Bush administration's vision of spreading democracy globally is allegedly underpinned by universal values common to all humans, Rice doesn't seem to think so:

"[T]he captured terrorists of the 21st century do not fit easily into traditional systems of criminal or military justice, which were designed for different needs. We have had to adapt."
All of this nonsense Rice is now faithfully spouting is nothing other than Cheney logic and Cheney policy, Cheney secrecy and Cheney deceit. So it hardly seems that the secretary of state is making a sea change in the administration's course. Rather, it would seem that Cheney is not planning to give up quietly, and if he is forced to, will take the administration with him.

Indeed, that Rice is now being portrayed as a match for the grim overlord is a testament merely to the times and the ways. She owes her job to the hard-fought victory of Cheney and the neocons over her predecessor, Colin Powell. But that was a tag-team effort, and in any case, Rice is no Colin Powell.

If, as is often mentioned, the neophyte President Bush needed to hold someone's hand upon entering office, he certainly picked the wrong person's, especially considering his apparent predetermination to wage foreign wars. Powell, after all, was the experienced military man and a voice of relative moderation and responsibility. Cheney (ironically, the one who had had "other priorities" when asked to serve in Vietnam) was the voice not of reason but of the military-industrial complex. From over on the Dark Side of the Force, the old man delights in predicting that the death and destruction his policies have wrought will keep on killing for decades after he (no doubt peacefully) passes away.

Back in 2003, when Powell was still serving, Sen. Joseph Biden characterized White House interpersonal dynamics thus:

"[L]ike with a horse, Powell is always able to lead Bush to the water. But just as he is about to put his head down, Cheney up in the saddle says, 'Un-uh,' and yanks up the reins before Bush can drink the water. That's my image of how it goes."

With Rice faithfully spouting Cheney's policy to the Europeans, and the vice president apparently prepared to fight any and all critics, it looks as if the horse has been ridden away from the oasis and straight into the Alamo. If Cheney has to go out in a blaze of glory, he's trying to ensure that he won't go out alone. This article was originally published on December 7, 2005 by Antiwar.com.

A Devastating Critique of Hague Double Standards

Wow. This article from an admittedly partisan figure about the Hague's hypocrisy in disallowing a defendant the same number of witnesses and proportionate time to refute the charges is really quite damning.

Also the bit about Slobo as "a political genius" near the end shows that even if it doesn't seem they will let him push the envelope exactly as I had hoped, the power of Milosevic to affect the Kosovo issue perhaps only increased with his fall from power.

Back to 1913?

Greece's Kathimerini, which consistently has taken an arrogant and patronizing stance (not unexpectedly, all things considered) towards the Republic of Macedonia, let slip an interesting statement in their most recent expert opinion today on the situation of "FYROM."

Noting that "more than 21,000 Slav-Macedonians [sic] have applied for Bulgarian citizenship since 2001 and nearly 7,000 have already been awarded the documents," the Greek newspaper comes to the conclusion that "the nation carved out by Yugoslav dictator Tito is disintegrating."

However, the really interesting thing is the next opinion:

"Greece is on standby, but without really being able to prevent Bulgaria’s penetration into FYROM nor to offset that by using its right to give passports to ethnic Greeks in that corner of the Balkans."

Leaving aside the ambiguity of the comment on Greece's "right" to issue passports (i.e., there are no ethnic Greeks to whom they can be given, whereas the Macedonian minority in Greece remains ignored), the unprecedented aspect of this is the claim that Bulgaria is in danger of "penetrating" Macedonia.

But isn't the Greek-Bulgarian friendship supposed to be just growing by leaps and bounds?

Perhaps some Greeks are getting wise to the fact that the degree of economic overlordship they now have in Macedonia could be severely affected if the country is partitioned between Albania and Bulgaria and they then have to contend with the role both of those countries' formidable mafias have in the business world.

Indeed, there is nothing as useful - and usually, as unfairly maligned - as a buffer state. Can it really have taken 15 years for the Greeks to realize that their principled obstructionism of Macedonia, no matter how emotionally satisfying it has been, was pragmatically and strategically disastrous?

If the country "disintegrates" as some Greeks now warn, they will have only themselves to thank. And regardless we will hear more 1913-ish comments about Bulgaria.

Additional reading...

The Balkan Wars, 1912-1913 by Richard C. Hall

And also see Carl Savich's four-part series on the Balkan Wars, published on Balkanalysis.com: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4.

Turkey’s Trial of Orhan Pamuk: Some Ignored Complexities

(This article is from the Balkanalysis.com archive)


By Mark White*

The trial of Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, charged with "the public denigration of Turkishness" over an interview he gave to a Swiss newspaper in February, is set to open tomorrow in
Istanbul. Pamuk's alleged crime was a reference to the Armenian and Kurdish issues in Turkey.

Pamuk’s claim, that "thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and almost nobody but me dares to talk about it," caused an uproar in his native country and the authorities were obliged to respond. How they have chosen to do so, however, has made ambivalent friends in Europe uneasy and just given Turkey’s apparent EU foes more ammunition to use against it.Further, while Amnesty International reports that there are currently 60 writers, publishers and journalists in Turkey under judicial process for similar breaches of the penal code, Pamuk's international stature has guaranteed a worldwide audience. Especially interested, of course, are the Europeans.

Coming at a time when European popular support for Turkey's entrance to the European Union is on the wane, the case promises to have a significant impact on the negotiations between Ankara and Brussels. Short of a massive revision of the articles that Pamuk and others have been charged with breaking, it's difficult to see much good coming out of the case for Turkey.

While no state should have the power to prosecute "thought crimes" of any kind, to read Pamuk's case as simply a "human rights" case without examining its particulars would be a missed opportunity. The obvious freedom of speech issues aside, the Pamuk case shows just how complex the issue of Turkish inclusion in the EU has become, and it further sheds light on the complexities of the Turkish state, as well as on Pamuk himself.

As a direct result of the EU accession talks, Turkey recently completed a massive overhaul of its penal system, which has received largely favorable -- through certainly not universal -- praise. However, the articles that Pamuk and others have been accused of breaking effectively indicate a "simple cut and paste of the old Article 159," according to Eugene Schoulgin, member of the board of International PEN.

The articles in question -- Article 301 and 302 of the Turkish penal code -- forbid a Turkish national from denigrating the Turkish identity, the Republic, the Grand National Assembly, the government, the judicial branches or the military. In addition, this past May the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe published a 10-page document (.PDF) detailing several other areas of concern with respect to freedom of speech issues in the Turkish penal code.

While the current articles call for a punishment of between six months and two years, because Pamuk's alleged crime took place outside of Turkey, he faces up to three years of prison if convicted. Few believe that Pamuk will be imprisoned even if he is found guilty, but the mere act of charging such a high-profile writer with a thought crime has raised the ire of Turkish critics and human rights organizations around the world.

Human Rights Watch, for instance, has called for an immediate dismissal of the case, as have many intellectuals, including Salman Rushdie, who adds that there's an element of Blairite poppycock" in Great Britain's argument for supporting Turkey's application to the EU.
While the Pamuk case is certainly important for its own obvious reasons, one of its unintended effects has been to shed light on the host of other equally important issues that Turkey is currently facing with respect to European integration.

For example, EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn recently criticized the country for not coming clean on torture.

Turkey's "Kurdish question," which Pamuk alluded to in his interview, continues to wreak havoc on the nation. From 1984 to 1999, over 30,000 people -- including Turkish soldiers, Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) insurgents, and civilians -- were killed in clashes between the government and the PKK. (Some have criticized Pamuk for claiming that 30,000 Kurds were killed; many argue that the figure should include deaths from both sides, and not exclusively Kurds).

But the Kurdish issue is far from being a distant historical problem. On November 9, a bookshop in the town of Semdinli, close to the Iran and Iraq borders, was bombed in an attempt to assassinate its owner, Seferi Yilmaz, a separatist who had previously served a long prison sentence for his involvement with the PKK, a group that Turkey, the EU, and the United States have classified as a terrorist organization. Two non-commissioned members of the country's security forces were charged in connection with the attack, a move that has both highlighted and exasperated the rift between the military and the government.

The following week, on November 15, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declined to attend a joint press conference in Copenhagen with his Danish counterpart Anders Fogh Rasmussen when he learned that journalists from Roj TV would be in attendance. According to Ankara, Denmark-based Roj TV is closely linked to the PKK. Erdogan's snub made headlines across Europe and landed him few friends.

As if additional proof of how the Kurdish question continues to affect Turkey is necessary, Fatih Tas, an Istanbul-based Kurdish publisher, was recently prosecuted under Article 301 for publishing a translation of Spoils of War by American writer John Tirman, a book that includes strong criticism of the Turkish military during its war with Kurdish separatists. Ironically, Tas' prosecution came on the same day the European Commission expressed serious concerns about the capacity of certain judges and prosecutors in Turkey to comply with the European

Convention on Human Rights’ safeguards on freedom of expression.

This was not the first time that Mr. Tas had run afoul with Turkish prosecutors; in 2002, he had been unsuccessfully prosecuted for publishing Noam Chomsky's essays that accused Turkish authorities of human rights abuses against Kurds.

While some have tried to compare the situation that Turkish intellectuals such as Pamuk and Tas are experiencing with the plight of Eastern bloc writers during the Cold War, the situation is not so simple. For starters, while the mere prosecution of anyone expressing themselves is an outrage under any circumstance, it is significant that the ECHR noted that it was "certain judges and prosecutors" in Turkey that it had doubts about, that Tas won his 2002 case, and that currently there are no writers, journalists or publishers serving prison time in Turkey.

(However, Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor, was recently given a suspended jail sentence for breaking Article 301).

The careful observer of Turkey will also find it significant to note that initially both the Istanbul Republic Prosecutor's Office and the Sisli Republic Prosecutor's Office reviewed Pamuk's case, but ultimately only the Sisli office decided to file charges. And it was Sisli Prosecutor Turgay Evsen who brought the case against Pamuk -- the same prosecutor who brought Hrant to court.

In other words, while critics of Turkey maintain that the distinction is a matter of semantics, the fact is that Turkey's judicial system operates independently of the legislature. While the country has moved forward with many significant reforms demanded by the EU, the bookstore bombing and the Article 301 prosecutions reveal internal opposition to EU integration- not necessarily reveal the will of the state as a whole.

In many ways Pamuk himself mirrors what appears to be this split Turkish personality. Despite his vociferous criticisms of the country, Pamuk is an ardent supporter of Turkey's inclusion in the EU, recently stating that a stable and peaceful Europe would only be possible with Turkey's inclusion. He sees the negotiations as a process, and one that he believes will result in a more liberalized Turkey than currently exists.

This stance seems inconsistent with Pamuk’s portrayal of Turkey in his writing, especially in his most recent novel Snow. The Turkey that inhabits the pages of Snow is a sectarian, provincial, and unstable country, full of Islamic fundamentalists with age-old blood disputes. In a recent interview with Der Spiegel, he responded to a question about this seeming contradiction by saying that he considers Snow, which is set in the 1990s, to be an historical novel, and that much has changed over the past decade. However, as artists have long come to understand only too cruelly, the work speaks more forcefully than the artist. Oftentimes, so do the critics. Regardless of Pamuk's intention with his novel, critics such as Christopher Hitchens, writing in the Atlantic Monthly, point to Snow as proof that "Turkey's claims to modernity" shouldn't be taken at face value.

And despite his immense international success, Pamuk is far from being a universally respected figure. Although he stepped away from his claim that he was the only one saying anything about the Armenian and Kurdish issues, Pamuk’s self-aggrandizing claim offended many Turkish human rights workers, who complained that his comments ultimately hurt their own work.

It remains to be seen whether Turkey and the EU will at some point agree that the former has fully complied with the latter’s human rights standards. Yet already, the Pamuk case and ones like it have brought to light a compelling and often disregarded point. The point is that the West should not treat Turkey as if it were a monolithic entity, with single-minded purposes and no internal differences of opinion. This is an unfortunate oversimplification.

Indeed, even an occasional glance at Turkish newspaper editorials (to say nothing of the population at large) reveals numerous contrary points of view and a divergence of arguments raised. Further, as even the ECHR implicitly noted when it criticized only certain judges and prosecutors, Turkey's judicial system operates independently of the legislature. So it shouldn’t be said that one “state policy” exists in many cases, or that the government as an entity would even seek to enforce one.

That said, what some outside critics seem to be overlooking is that the high-profile Pamuk case, and others like it, are much more of a headache for Turkish leaders than for the EU, considering that the former are trying to join the club of the latter- among whom there number, ironically, several who would seem to have a state policy regarding Turkey’s exclusion from Europe.

It is thus clear that both the EU governments and their media would do well to strive for a deeper understanding of the social and political dynamics operative in Turkey. A more thoughtful and reasoned approach is necessary if the EU wants to be on firm ground when criticizing its controversial candidate, but most of all if it wants to minimize the risk of misunderstandings that could prove tragic for both Turkey and the rest of Europe....................................

*Mark White is a publisher with Scala House Press an American publishing house devoted to the translation and publication of works from the Balkans region. One of their groundbreaking translations, of Slovenia author Vladimir Bartol’s 1938 classic Alamut, was reviewed here by Balkanalysis.com in November 2004.

Buchko to Madonna: I'm More Jewish Than You

Many wonderful things have emerged from Macedonian Prime Minister Buckovski's visit to Israel. According to MIA, there is talk of Israeli military contractors beefing up Macedonia's army, as well as investments in tourism and other industries. On Monday, the PM visited in Jerusalem with Israeli President Moshe Katzav and the one and only Ariel Sharon. "He also held meeting with the Vice-Premier and Miniser of Finance, Industry & Trade Ehud Olmert and visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Centre."

Yet best of all was the entertaining sight of Buchko donning the Jewish headgear.

(Photo by MIA, Fair Use)

While one reader quipped, "best not to let the Arabs see this!", what is most startling is the resemblance the profiled Bucko bears to a Muslim Albanian. With the skullcap and nose, he appears to be coming straight out of Tetovo- not the synagogue.

So despite the charges of sacrilege from irate Jewish elders, looks like Madge is still way ahead.

Balkan Defense Overview: Developments and Prospects

(This article is from the Balkanalysis.com archive)


By Ioannis Michaletos

In this comparative analysis of defense procurement in four key Balkan states, Greek consultant Ioannis Michaletos gives an overview of the factors influencing government arms buildups, restructuring and modernization of forces at a key moment for the region.

At this time the Balkans is one of the most heavily armed areas in Europe and it remains one of the crucial regions for geo-strategic analysis, as far as the international balance of power is concerned. It is a peninsula that is sufficiently close to Russia, the Middle East and Western Europe alike to become important in cases of power shifts like the major one that happened after 1989, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Defense developments in the region are thus of profound interest for everyone involved in forecasting, analysis and policy making. This article considers defense procurement trends in four Balkan countries: Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and Serbia & Montenegro.

Preliminary: Reasons for Reform

The reason for the reforms in all states being considered is to keep costs down, whilst simultaneously achieving greater mobility, flexibility and quick response capabilities. On numerous occasions NATO defense ministers have stretched the importance of the above features for all modern armies. Three of the Balkan states considered here are NATO members, while the fourth (Serbia & Montenegro) would like to be someday. The reason for structural reforms that are proving unpopular due to the increased number of redundancies is the largely American vision of NATO as a rapid reaction force deployable quickly in non-traditional theaters, such as Afghanistan, as part of the new ‘war on terror.’ Of course, when countries save money by trimming staff, they also have more money to purchase expensive new weaponry produced by America (and the leading EU countries).

There has been much debate regarding the role and relevance of the new European rapid reaction force that came into effect in 2003, vis-à-vis NATO, and what this might imply for the EU’s plans for future policing of the continent and perhaps, elsewhere. It is composed of units made up of its respective members, which contribute mobile structures, heavy firepower and professional troops. Therefore all countries that would want to contribute to the European force should have the above infrastructure- another reason for reform among the two Balkan newcomers. But first let’s discuss the established regional powers, Greece and Turkey.

1.) Greece

In Greece, a significant trend is currently going on in the defense sector: the reconstruction of the General Staff’s services. This involves the standardization of the operational, logistical, personnel and defense planning structures of the Greek army, navy and air force. For this reason a considerable disbandment of directorates and departments have occurred, and at the same time a new law was passed by parliament in 2003, which eased the seniority-based promotion system for officers, giving more attention to merit-based appointments.

A reduction of the army’s general staff personnel by about one-third has been accomplished, and respectively the top positions from brigadier ranks and above. Furthermore, a new planning format for active combat units has been introduced that rely on smaller, mobile and more actively manned units has been introduced. The navy and air force have also performed operational cost-cutting and consigned older ships, planes and armor to the scrap heap, in order to keep costs down and at the same time allow invest in high technology. All of these reforms are in keeping with NATO strategy for reducing troop sizes throughout the alliance member states and redirecting funds to next generation military technology.

On the procurement side of things, the Hellenic army has invested heavily in the Leopard 2HEL armored tank, a German-made model of Krauss-Maffei Wegmann. The total cost for 170 units was 1.7 billion Euros. The tank is considered the best in the world in terms of battle survival prospects and force projection.

Another notable procurement has been the 20 tactical transport helicopters from the French-German NH industry, at a total cost of 657,500 million Euros. Procurements in the Greek navy include 4 U214 submarines made by the HDW shipyards in Hanover, Germany, at a cost of around 1.5 billion Euros. Also, 5 small corvettes are being constructed in the Elefsis yards in Athens, based on a British design, at a total cost of around 740 million euros.

In the Greek air force, considerable attention has been given to new planes and for this reason, after some debate, 80 F-16’s have been ordered from the American firm Lockheed Martin, as well as 15 Mirage 2000-5 from Dassault, and 12 C-27J Spartan transport planes from the Alenia-Lockheed consortium. Lastly, 4 AWACS of the EMB-145H Erieye type were procured from a consortium of Ericsson and Embraer. Approximately 10 billion euros were spent over the period 2000-2005 for military procurements, with the aim of creating forces that rely more on technology and mobile structures. Another 6.5 billion are planned for increasing armaments between now and 2010. There is also talk of Greece planning to acquire some 60 new fighter planes; for the moment the Eurofighter model seems to be the favorite.

2.) Turkey

Turkey has plans to severely reduce its armed forces and create a semi-professional army in the coming decade. Because the devastating Izmit earthquake in 1999 and the banking crisis in 2001, not all previous defense procurement plans have been realized. But the most important ones have. A major one here involves the 4 Boeing 737 AWACS that are going to be delivered between 2007 and 2008. Another notable Turkish arms purchase is the 1600 Eryx antitank guided missile launchers stipulated in a 485 million Euro agreement with EADS.

The forthcoming plans for the Turkish armed forces include greater attention for sea power, and according to analysts and officers as well, Turkey wants to expand its naval capabilities and construct a navy that would be strong enough to have continuous and parallel activity in the Black Sea, the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean. It is notable that for the first time Turkish attention is being directed into the naval strategic sphere.

On the more usual terrain of ground war, Turkey for its part has plans for 1000 new armored tanks. Its main aim is to be able to manufacture them itself domestically, something that few countries can do, with the major military contractor Otokar.

Both of these countries, which are considered to be long-standing adversaries, have bought weaponry worth around 100 billion Euros over the past 20 years, mainly from the USA, France and Germany. The EU is a major player in their armament and will increasingly become one for the other Balkan states. According to European Defence, “the European defence industry is valued at about €30 billion and employs 800,000 people both directly and indirectly.”

3.) Bulgaria

At the time, Bulgaria is mainly preoccupied with the reduction of its armed forces, following the mandates of NATO. After its recent inclusion in the alliance, Bulgaria is projecting that the total cut will reach 50% of its active forces. Simultaneously, Western armaments are going to be introduced in order to phase out Bulgaria’s Soviet-era weaponry. This is the first time since the creation of the Bulgarian state in the late 19th century that the country seems to be abandoning the preservation of strong troop numbers, changing its historic role to achieve other strategic goals, namely NATO standards and the forthcoming EU accession.

In May 2004, the government unfolded a plan for the armed forces called "Vision and Development for the Armed Forces-2015." It ordains the procurements of certain armaments worth 1.5 billion Levas for the period 2005-2007, for ground and air forces as well as new, high-tech electronics systems. The acquisitions show Bulgaria’s strong desire to re-orient its arsenal away from old Soviet-made gear and towards Western production, not surprising in light of Bulgaria’s imminent entry into the EU.

Among the goods were included 12,900 vehicles from the Daimler-Chrysler group, 12 AS-532AL Cougar helicopters and 6 AS 565MB Panther ones from Eurocopter. Another 8 C27j Spartan transport planes produced by Alenia Aeronautica are to be ordered, and the Belgian navy will provide 1 Wielingen-class corvette. The electronic systems will be obtained from various producers.

4.) Serbia & Montenegro

Years after the wars of the 1990’s in the former Yugoslavia, the country still faces relative geopolitical isolation as far as defense procurements are involved. Since Yugoslav times, there has been no notable change in Serbia & Montenegro’s arsenal. It is more than certain that in the coming years there is going to be a significant reduction in its armed forces, for economic reasons as well as because of NATO aspirations. In fact, according to a recent report, by 2007 compulsory military service will be phased out as Serbia & Montenegro moves towards a fully professional army.

However, there hasn't been much news regarding new procurement, except perhaps for a procurement scandal that shook up the Serbian defense ministry this year. But Serbia, once a great military producer as the major industrial republic of the former Yugoslavia, may well seek to again manufacture what armaments it can domestically. It is assumed that production capacity has been mended following the heavy damage inflicted by NATO in its 1999 bombing campaign. With its existing defense facilities and factories, Serbia & Montenegro is capable of producing a wide range of ammunitions, electronics, anti-armor and anti-aircraft missiles.

The estimated total size of the army of Serbia & Montenegro is 55,000 personnel. This includes non-combat units, paramedics, telecommunication, civil and aircraft defence battalions and units of virtual mobilization, usually situated in the countryside.

Of this total, 28,000 soldiers are on constant active duty. The Serbian army has a unique and quite effective mobilization scheme, in which the armed forces are composed of a three-part force designed for quick mobilization in time of need. The active units are always on call; they are followed by secondary ones, and finally reserves who keep their weaponry and uniforms at home. In a time of total mobilization, they can all appear in the units to which they were originally assigned at the time of their compulsory military service. This is a non-centralized structure very flexible for small states. Similar systems operate in Switzerland and Cyprus.

However whether this system can survive the expected downsizing and phasing out of compulsory service remains to be seen. In geopolitical terms, the country is a purely continental power, and its main preoccupation is to command a considerable and well organized infantry and army in general. It is highly likely that this role will be severely strained in the future and it is more than certain to expect grumbling from army officials as their role is gradually reduced.

Such reductions will also lessen the country’s traditional geo-strategic capabilities, perhaps the most significant regional trend given the possibility that war with Kosovo Albanians, who are now becoming increasingly well armed, could break out again at some point in the not so distant future. Further, should Montenegro break away from Serbia as has been increasingly forwarded, the end result would see Serbia totally landlocked and Montenegro left without any realistic means of defending itself in the case of any potential conflict with its own Albanian secessionist elements. Reducing Serbia’s historic role of military superiority in the Balkans will have far-reaching ramifications for the regional balance of power.

Conclusion

The current article on defense balance in the Balkans covers only in general terms recent developments; there are many other interesting facts that cannot be examined in only one news article. Everyone interested in European security must pay attention to this region, since apart from its greater geopolitical importance it is the only place in continental Europe that has had recent experience with war. With the resolution of Kosovo’s final status still to be decided and various tensions still simmering away, it is still impossible to confidently predict a peaceful future for the Balkans in the 21st century.

Appendix: Breakdown of Military Resources by Country

Greece

Defense Budget: 7.5 billion euros

Troop Numbers, Army: 99,000Troop Numbers, Navy: 19,850Troop Numbers, Air Force: 24,705Tanks: Leopard & M48 types- 1400Artillery: M270 & RM70 types- 152Combat Planes: F-16, F-4, A-7 and M-2000 types- 333Attack Helicopters: AH-64 Apache type- 20Frigates: MEKO and Kortenaer types- 13Submarines: U-209 type- 8SAM’s: 1332 total [Patriot PAC-3 (6 units), S-300 (2 units), Nike Hercules (3 units), Crotale (9 units), TOR M-1 (25 units), OSA-AK (31 units), Hawk (7 units), Sparrow (12 units), Stinger (1237)]

Turkey

Defense Budget: 9.5 billion euros

Troop Numbers, Army: 402,000Troop Numbers, Navy: 51,000Troop Numbers, Air Force: 51,000Tanks: Leopard, M48 & M60 types- 3,432Artillery: M270&T-122 types- 42Combat Planes: F-16, F-4 and F-5 types- 443Attack Helicopters: Cobra and Super Cobra types- 39 Frigates: OHP, KNOX & MEKO types- 20Submarines: U-209 type- 11SAM’s: 3739 total [Stinger (3648 units), Rapier (83 units), Nike Hercules (8 units)]

Bulgaria

Defense Budget: 1.0 billion euros

Troop Numbers, Army: 28,280Troop Numbers, Navy: 4,400Troop Numbers, Air Force: 15,600Tanks: T-72 type- 429Artillery: BM-21 type- 222Combat Planes: MIG 29, 23, 21& Su 25k types- 206Attack Helicopters: Mi-17 type- 24Frigates: 0Submarines: 0SAM’s: 661 total [S-300 (2 units), S-75 (22 units), S-125 (34 units), Strela-10 (20 units), Strela-2 (500 units), 2K-12 (32 units), 2K-11(27), Osa-AK (24 units)]

Serbia & Montenegro

Defense Budget: 0.9 billion euros

Troop Numbers, Army: 55,000Troop Numbers, Navy: 3,500Troop Numbers, Air Force: 10,000Tanks: M84, T-72 & T-64 types- 630Artillery: M77 & M63 types- 72Combat Planes: MIG-29, 21 & Orao types- 125Attack Helicopters: Gazelle type- 65Frigates: 0Submarines: SAVA type- 1SAM’s: 994 total [Strela 1 (113 units), Strela 10 (17 units), Igla 1 (200 units), 2K-12 (6 units), S-75 (8 units), S-125 (8 units), Strela 2M (650 units)]

Recommended Links

Some of the sources for this article, as well as other interesting facts, statistics and geo-strategic related information can be found on the following websites:

Research Institute for European & American Studies, Athens

Institute of Defence Analyses, Athens

Geopolitics.gr

Strategy.gr (in Greek)

Armada Publishing, Zurich

International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), United Kingdom

International Assessment and Strategy Center (IASC), Washington

Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington

Greek Ministry of Defense (in Greek)

Turkish Ministry of Defense (in Turkish)

Bulgarian Ministry of Defense (in Bulgarian and English)

Serbia & Montenegro Ministry of Defense (in Serbian and English)
………………………….

The author is a Human Resources consultant and project collaborator on issues concerning sustainable development and knowledge management in the Greek NGO sector. He lives in Athens and has a BA in Political Science, an MSc in Human Resource Management, and speaks four languages. Readers can contact him at: ianos24@lycos.com.

Rocket Attack, Grenades and Gun Battle- Kosovo's Latest “Isolated Incidents”

(This article is from the Balkanalysis.com archive)


"Regardless of some isolated incidents the security situation is stable,” said KFOR Spokesman Col. Pio Sabeta on 7 December. The colonel was speaking of an early morning grenade attack that day against a jewelry shop in the town of Viti, which caused “material damages” but no injuries, according to Radio-Television Kosova.

Four days earlier, armed assailants had launched a Saturday Night Special attack against a civilian bus connecting the southwestern towns of Dragas and Prizren. In an offensive that would seem right out of Iraq, the unknown attackers fired two rocket-propelled grenades at the bus.

According to Serbia’s B-92, they “luckily did not explode, but passed right through the vehicle.” Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi immediately condemned the assault, while UNMIK Chief Søren Jessen-Petersen spoke of a need to “enhance” security measures in Kosovo.Nevertheless, he effectively downplayed the significance of the attacks, like Col. Sabeta speaking of “isolated individuals or groups.” Even as their rule is increasingly threatened, the internationals in Kosovo are continuing to put on a brave face and pretend that the province is not headed for meltdown.

The most infamous previous attack against a bus in Kosovo was the shocking explosion near Podujevo on 16 February, 2001. This gruesome bombing, targeting elderly Serbs visiting a cemetery, was caused when the bus hit a remote-controlled bomb planted by Albanian extremists. Some 11 passengers were killed and another 40 injured, and the explosion ripped the bus to pieces.

According to the Sunday Times of London on 29 July, 2001, the bombing occurred because of a “simple mistake by British soldiers” combined with “a failure in basic communications.” The British and other UN colleagues had been aware for months, the report claimed, of the exact location Albanians were planning to conduct such an attack. But on 16 February, “…a series of factors coincided to change the routine of the weekly convoy which carried civilians from Serbian enclaves within Kosovo across the border for shopping and family visits. A critical half-mile stretch of road, including two culverts beneath it, went unchecked by a British patrol.”

The aftermath of the bombing became more scandalous still when one of the accused, Florim Ejupi, managed to “escape” from the high-security US Camp Bondsteel in southern Kosovo. The British newspaper cited Detective Stu Kellock, former head of the United Nations Kosovo Mission's regional serious crime squad who stated his disbelief at the escape story “…a prisoner could not just walk away from Bondsteel. In my opinion he was taken elsewhere for questioning or something and I still do not understand why we, the police in the investigation who held jurisdiction, were not involved.” The newspaper concludes by citing unnamed UN officials.
Allegedly, Ejupi “had been working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). His trial would have been a serious embarrassment, they claim.”

However, according to Gazeta Shqiptare on 8 June 2004, the CIA "...has offered a great assistance in finding Ejupi’s whereabouts. CIA agents were chasing him since the time of his escape from the military base 'Bondsteel' near Ferizaj."

Indeed, Ejupi was later tracked down in Albania, though whether with or without their help is not stated. Ejupi, along with collaborators Faik Shaqiri and Xhevat Kosumi, were arrested in Tirana on 7 June 2004, and extradited to UNMIK in Kosovo.

Ejupi was also accused of involvement in an attack on international and KPS police on 23 March 2004 - one week after the massive riots targeting Serbs and UN personnel resulted in a province-wide clampdown. At a road checkpoint outside the Podujevo-area village of Skacovice, police were attacked by a group of men “wearing masks and military fatigues.” Two police officers were killed, and the getaway car was traced back to the home of Ejupi, where a large quantity of arms was found.

Almost a year later, on 7 April 2005, two indictments were filed with the District Court of Pristina against Ejupi, one for this case and another for the 2001 bus bombing. According to a statement from UNMIK Spokesperson Neeraj Singh, three accomplices were also indicted for murder over the 2004 gun battle- Shkumbin Mehmeti, Xhavit Kosumi and Faik Shaqiri.

The most recent bus attack on the Dragas-Prizren line is much different, and perhaps more ominous than its predecessors. Unlike the Podujevo bus bombing of 2001 and another about a year earlier, Saturday’s attack did not target Serbs or a Serb-populated area. Dragas lies in the southwestern tip of Kosovo, between the mountainous borders of Macedonia and Albania. Non-Albanians such as the Gorani, Slavic Muslims who had lived in the area for centuries, were forced to flee following the 1999 NATO bombing as they were considered to be Serb collaborators by local Albanians, often escaping to Macedonia. Some remained or have returned, however.

Yet the bombing motive does not seem to have been ethnic. Considering its location, anyone on the bus targeted by the RPGs would have most likely not been of Serbian background. Indeed, even though the bus had a final destination of Belgrade, it turns out that its passengers included “seven Kosovo Albanians, three Kosovo Bosniaks and one Kosovo Serb,” according to the UN.

With most of its minorities having been driven away and its priceless churches torched in the 2004 riots, Prizren too is now an Albanian stronghold. In a tragicomic scandal early last month, large parts of the roof of the medieval Serbian church of Bogorodica Ljeviska in Prizren were removed without anyone knowing- though the church was supposedly under official protection.

The new burst of extremism was likely meant to indirectly target the internationals, by challenging their authority with continual disruptions on a broad front. Indeed, over the past week or so shootings and other attacks have caused injury and death over a wide swathe of territory in Kosovo, including the central Serbian enclave of Gracanica, a village in northern Kosovo, and the capital Pristina.

This view was tacitly seconded by UNMIK Chief Jessen-Petersen in his statement, which claimed that “…isolated individuals or groups who do not have Kosovo's best interests in mind may attempt to disrupt Kosovo's way forward for their own ulterior motives.”

The question now remains as to who these groups might be made up of or whose interests they might represent. With the jewelry shop bombing, the motive might have been of a sheer criminal nature; it is well known that businesses in Kosovo are often forced to pay protection money to organized crime groups. The recent attacks against Serbs throughout Kosovo are also more of the same ethnic cleansing that has been going on for years. But a rocket attack on an (at best mixed-ethnicity) bus in a remote area in the dead of night?

Another possibility was hinted at on 6 December, when British defense and security publication Jane’s claimed that “…intra-Albanian power struggles have equal or greater potential to destabilise the province than violence directed at minorities or at the international community.”

The report suggested that top leaders of the Kosovo Albanian political parties are now vying for power with an eye to controlling the province as status approaches. These leaders maintain, according to the report, their own “…hierarchical intelligence organisations with additional abilities to provide physical security to leaders and to enforce the parties' will both on their members and their rivals, as well as to protect revenue streams.”

An early candidate for this thesis was a nighttime battle on Dec. 7 in Pristina which involved, approximately 20 gunmen, leaving two injured and one dead. According to the Kuwait News Agency, "...a statement issued by the police, reported through the UN radio in Pristina today, said that the sound of explosions shook the capital last night. It added that several groups are involved in the clashes, estimated at 20 members, but the police refused to unveil their identities."

As the time-honored “isolated incidents” continue to pick up in pace and intensity, it is bound to become more and more difficult to tell who is responsible for them. Deciphering the complex and manifold aims and operations of the men with clout in Kosovo has long vexed the UN police, and the inevitable politicization of any arrests they do make has hampered their efforts. In short, there is no reason to labor under the pretense that the situation will miraculously depart from its time-honored course. Taken cumulatively, the “isolated individuals or groups” the UNMIK boss speaks of have a terrific power to shape events in the province. And the trouble is, they know it.

A Difficult Final Year for EU-Bound Bulgaria?

(This article is from the Balkanalysis.com archive)


By Jan Buruma

In this survey, Dutch journalist Jan Buruma focuses on some of the challenges remaining for Bulgaria in its quest for EU accession in 2007.

Will Bulgaria make it to Brussels in 2007? Back in March 1997, when former PM Stefan Sofianski filed his country’s formal EU bid, it seemed almost impossible. The Balkan country had not made any really considerable progress towards developing a market economy and democracy since former dictator Todor Zhivkov’s downfall in November 1989. However, the right-wing Kostov and Saxecoburggotski governments that followed Sofianski’s initiative worked hard from 1997 until the present, and it seemed until the June 2005 parliamentary elections that Bulgaria was on the right track. However, difficulties in forming a cabinet subsequently stalled vital reforms. Now, a lot of work still needs to be done.The European Commission proved rather critical in its October 2005 report. Citing the report, the Sofia Morning News listed organized crime, corruption, a weak judiciary system and agricultural issues as Bulgaria’s main impediments. The BBC spoke of a “post-election impasse” as partially to blame. However, organized crime was only added to the list relatively recently. Although crime in post-communist Bulgaria has always been an issue, it was never considered a major problem. However, a number of high-profile killings in September and October of businessmen in Sofia changed that view. It can hardly be a coincidence that the killings happened around the time of the EC-report. The victory of Boyko Borissov as mayor of Sofia in early November over Socialist candidate Tatjana Doncheva (68.2 percent to 32.8 percent) might be considered as a consequence of the killings. Borissov was general secretary of the Interior Ministry during the Saxecoburggotski-government (2001-2005) and became a symbol of the battle against organised crime.

In the October report, Brussels handed out several “yellow cards” in areas such as free movements of goods, persons and capital, freedom to provide services, as well as in agriculture and fishery. And the EU believes that improvements still need to be done in the social sector, for example in the areas of public health, anti-discrimination measures, and integration of the Roma minority. Bigger concerns – what we could consider “red cards” – were slapped down in the areas of freedom to provide services, company law, agriculture, regional policy, justice and internal affairs.

But Brussels warned not only Bulgaria. The other two candidate member states, Romania and Croatia, are also not quite yet ready. Corruption is the main hurdle for Bucharest, while Zagreb has been told to make further administrative and economic reforms, as well as to take all possible efforts to arrest alleged war crime general Ante Gotovina. However, the fact that Croatia was ushered in without the general’s arrest smacked of hypocrisy for some.

Down to the Wire

Nevertheless, Sofia’s situation has seen sudden fluctuations. When the European Commission decided to start formal negotiations back in 1999, Bulgaria was given clear signals that its reform process was on the right track. Like all the other candidate countries, Bulgaria was required to fulfil the so-called acquis communautaire, acquis in short - over 800,000 pages of demands that a country needs to meet in order to be ready for the European Union. Over the past 10 years, Bulgaria has generally kept in front of neighboring Romania on the realization of reforms. But with the final laps to go, the situation has reversed.

Socialist PM Sergej Stanishev has nevertheless tried to generate optimism. But there are doubts as to whether the 39 year-old Ukrainian-born BSP-leader is the right person for the job.

The political stakes are high. President Georgi Parvanov, PM Stanishev and minister for Euro-Integration Milena Kuneva – who started her job in 2001 and is the only who stayed on from the Saxecoburggotski-government after the elections – firmly announced that joining the EU in 2007 is now Bulgaria’s highest priority. Kuneva announced on 8 November that the government will tightly monitor the ministries’ work, to make sure that neither time nor efforts are wasted.

External factors outside of Sofia’s control are also affecting the pace of accession. The crisis in the enlarged EU, caused by the French and Dutch “no” to the EU-constitution in May and June 2005, has acted as a brake against the ambitions of Bulgaria and other aspiring candidate states. The next wave of enlargement may be postponed until 2008, though too much longer than that seems unlikely. During a visit to Romania early November, Bulgarian president Georgi Parvanov and his Romanian counterpart Traian Basescu agreed to closer cooperation to meet the mutual 2007 deadline.

Meanwhile, anti-EU sentiment in Bulgaria is getting slightly stronger, as statistics show. In 1999, around 49 percent of the population was in favour of the EU; by 2003 this number had increased to 73 percent.

However, in the following year support dropped to 65 percent. The closer Brussels looms, the more some Bulgarians fear they might lose their culture, national traditions and heritage by Euro-assimilation. In fairness, however, viewing the situation in the “old” EU - from the retention of Frisian culture in The Netherlands to continuing bullfighting in Spain - that it not very likely to happen. But popular sentiments do have political weight and the Bulgarians are indeed very proud of their culture and history. After all, the nationalist party Ataka won a completely unexpected 8 percent of the vote in the June elections. Party leader and former journalist Volen Siderov has even called for reopening negotiations with Brussels. That is unrealistic, of course. Eurocritics note that Brussels does indeed have the final word on many of its member states’ important matters, from the measurement of bananas to the strong influence the EU Court of Justice has on national courts.

Nuclear and Political Meltdown: Kozloduj

Some of the most intractable negotiations concern the closure of the nuclear reactor in Kozloduj. It was built in 1974 in Soviet-style, glamorously initiated by the Communist Party. It contains 4 so-called VVER-440 megawatt reactors, and resembles the Chernobyl-reactor that caused the horrible nuclear disaster in Ukraine in 1986. For this reason, the EU would like to see it shut down. The International Atom Energy Agency (IAEA) considered the Kozloduj reactor to be one of the most dangerous in Eastern Europe.

However, the Kozloduj plant also produces 45 percent of Bulgaria’s electricity. It also exports energy to Albania, Greece and Turkey. Last but not least, many local people are currently employed because of Kozloduj. Back in 1980, Bulgaria started to built a second nuclear reactor in Belene, but due to financial difficulties and protests from environmental activists it was never finished.

As the Kozloduj reactor was one of the most dangerous in Europe, in 1993 the EBRD provided ECU 24 million for it closure. In 1999 PM Ivan Kostov agreed with the European Commission to close two reactors in 2003 and the last two in 2006. In 2004, the Narodno Subranie, the Bulgarian Parliament decided to close the last blocks when Bulgaria would be EU-member, reported RFE/RL. Bulgarians were aware of the dangers Kozloduj presented (though EU-financed modernizations in the 1990’s had somewhat diminished the threats) but they had no alternative sources for energy.

However, although they were supposed to function until 2012, due to heavy pressure from Brussels two of the VVER-reactors were closed in 2002. The last two are supposed to close next year. According to Focus News, Energy Minister Ruman Ovcharov said on 11 November that Bulgaria then won’t be able to export electricity to neighbouring countries- not to mention that electricity prices will rise. So, although there are serious plans to restart the Belene reactor project, Bulgaria still needs to find a real solution to its energy question.

The Judiciary

Another major issue is judicial reforms. According to TOL, there are currently three autonomous bodies that investigate crime. The prosecutor-general, the police and a special institution, the National Investigating Services (NIS). The latter was created by the BSP and is composed of magistrates who deal with crime and corruption by senior state officials.

The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee described the three institutions as autonomous, not as cooperating bodies. This redundancy not only leads to overly bureaucratic and time-consuming work, but also it often does not guarantee criminal suspects a fair trial. However, the EU has not given any specific advice on how to reorganize these bodies more efficiently and fairly.

And there is more. TOL explains that these three institutions are overseen by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), an independent body. The idea was good, because under the old regime, judicial bodies were under Communist control. However, the SJC developed into a body in which politicians have hardly any influence, something that also makes it hard to reform.

But there are also good signs. Although the EC’s report cannot be misunderstood, the European Parliament is continuing with its preparations to receive Bulgaria into the European club. After the June elections 18 Bulgarians, among them former Sofia mayor Stefan Sofianski, became so-called “observers” at the European Parliament. And, abiding with the rules of democratic representation, even one Ataka MP went to Brussels. Under this scheme, the Bulgarian MEP’s can do the same work as their EU colleagues, but they don’t have the right to vote. And, having in mind that about 20 Bulgarians are working for the European Parliament as interpreters, the body needs to recruit more.

The political stakes are now so high that Bulgaria cannot afford to fail the 1 January 2007-deadline. The Balkan country should prove to be ready, though only just. But Brussels has the final word. The coming months until April 2006, when the European Commission will give its final verdict, will be crucial.

Jan Buruma is a Dutch freelance journalist specializing in the Balkans. He has 15 years of experience with Bulgaria, including three years spent living there, and speaks the language. He has written for among others the Dutch Balkan Bulletin and the Czech-based Transitions Online. Contact the author at jan.buruma@planet.nl.

Balkanalysis.com’s Christmas Booklist: Our Picks, Old Favorites and More

(This article is from the Balkanalysis.com archive)


It’s the holiday season, and to ring it in Balkanalysis.com is presenting its readers with a blow-out list of intriguing reads available on Amazon.com, books that will be enjoyed by friends, colleagues and relatives interested in the fascinating region bounded by the Adriatic, Aegean and Black Seas. The list comprises recent releases, proven popular items, and a few old chestnuts- all of which will be received with gratitude by those on your list- as well as with the usual selection of Completely Unrelated Items.

And hey, don’t forget that buying your books through Amazon.com means you’ll have no problems finding a parking space at the mall. You’ll save gas and time- and be helping this website in the process.

Newly Published Books on the Balkans

Top 2005 recommended releases on the Balkans include Hellenicity, a provocative and groundbreaking study from the University of Chicago Press devoted to the shifting and varied nature of Greek identity in the ancient period, and The Black Sea: A History by Charles King.

One of the most interesting new books of the year, Cumans and Tatars : Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1185-1365 by Istvan Vasary was published this spring by Cambridge University Press, as was Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire, by Gábor Ágoston.

Another CUP release, of August 2005, is the comprehensive study of the later years of Ottoman rule, The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922 by Donald Quataert.

Reviews available from this category:

Cumans and Tatars : Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, by Istvan Vasary

Guns for the Sultan, by Gábor Ágoston

Perennial Favorites

The Scott Taylor library continues to appeal, month in and month out. The Canadian war reporter’s first-hand account of the Kosovo War, Inat: Images of Serbia and the Kosovo Conflict picks up were Tested Mettle, the riveting story of Canadian peacekeepers caught in the line of fire in the Yugoslav wars, left off. Scott’s later account of the Macedonia 2001 conflict, Diary of an Uncivil War: the Violent Aftermath of the Kosovo Conflict, is like Inat a first-hand retelling of the war at different stages of its development throughout the summer of 2001.

On the fascinating subject of the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, Defeat in Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912-1913 by Edward J. Erickson tells the story of the campaign from the Turkish point of view, explaining Ottoman losses while also arguing that their army was no as hapless as is often said. It has proved popular in the past, as has the more accessible all-around survey of Richard C. Hall, The Balkan Wars, 1912-1913: Prelude to the First World War.

Reviews available from this category:

Inat: Images of Serbia and the Kosovo Conflict, by Scott Taylor

Diary of an Uncivil War: the Violent Aftermath of the Kosovo Conflict, by Scott Taylor

Defeat in Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912-1913, by Edward J. Erickson

The Balkan Wars, 1912-1913: Prelude to the First World War, by Richard C. Hall

Old Chestnuts

…roasting on a Balkan fire. Two works of Balkan literature from the classics section include Ivo Andric’s The Bridge on the Drina, and Vladimir Bartol’s timeless 1938 novel, Alamut. Among classic travel writing, recommended are Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia by Rebecca West, and the renaissance-era Ottoman travelogue, Evliya Celebi in Albania and Adjacent Regions: Kossovo, Montenegro, Ohrid (Evliya Celebi's Book of Travels,
Reviews available from this category:
Alamut, by Vladimir Bartol

And Now for Something Completely Unrelated…

Every month, we inevitably have a few items selected that fit none of the usual categories; in the past they have included South Park (first, second, third and fourth seasons) Irish investigative journalist Tim Pat Coogan’s Eamon De Valera: The Man Who Was Ireland and The IRA, Dr. Wayne W. Dwyer’s The Power of Intention: Learning to Co-Create Your World Your Way, as well as tech items such as the Canon PowerShot S410 4MP Digital Elph with 3x Optical Zoom.
This time around, let us suggest the RIM BlackBerry 7290 Phone. And hey, the country’s going to hell anyway, so why not blow five-and-a-half G’s on a 60 inch plasma screen TV?

So go buy it- and then cultivate the sinking feeling of why you shouldn’t have done so by reading Empire of Debt: The Rise Of An Epic Financial Crisis by Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin. For more light reading from the best-seller list, check out Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s first novel in 10 years, Memories of My Melancholy Whores and Team of Rivals : The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

To accompany all this reading, how about a strong coffee- made with the Gaggia 35008 Carezza Espresso Machine? And for dessert, how about a Velvety Smooth Bittersweet Chocolate Mousse Delicately Flavored with Brandy and Espresso Resting atop Vanilla Cake? After all, it’s the holidays, time to splurge!

…………………..
Note: Over the next few months, we will continue to review many more new Balkan-related books. Upcoming reviews will include:

Military Operations Macedonia, Part 2 (to complement our existing review of the first volume of Military Operations Macedonia, found here: Military Operations Macedonia: The Official British History)

Preparation for a Revolution, the story of the rise to power of the Young Turks, by M. Sukru Hanioglu

Byzantium’s Balkan Frontiers, a study of the Balkans under Byzantine rule, by Paul Stephenson
As always, readers should feel free to recommend to us books that they would like to see reviewed. Researchers on Balkan subjects are also invited to offer their ideas for writing a review. Please send any suggestions/correspondence to contact@balkanalysis.com.

Turkish Government Moves to Restore Ottoman Monuments in Macedonia

(This article is from the Balkanalysis.com archive)


An ambitious 7-point plan agreed with the Macedonian Ministry of Culture foresees the restoration, and in some cases complete reconstruction, of some of the most important Ottoman monuments in the Balkans, as well as projects to benefit today’s living Turkish culture in Macedonia.

While the Turkish legacy in Macedonia goes back more than 500 years, when the descendents of the House of Osman began their aggressive expansion into Europe, the physical testaments to Ottoman culture have been relatively ignored. Crumbling, grass-enshrouded ruins linger on in villages and cities alike. And when they have been restored, as with the unfortunate renovation of Skopje’s Stone Bridge, the results have been disastrous. Further challenges have come more recently from two outside forces. Albanian chauvinism for political purposes has been used to ‘correct’ history (as well as census figures), while Saudi religious expansionism has seen the widespread construction of modern and very un-Ottoman mosques across the Balkans.

Macedonia has not been spared either.

However, the main problem, most agree, is a lack of funds and willpower. Until recently, these impediments may have seemed insurmountable, at least insofar as the Turkish legacy is concerned. However, long discussed but delayed plans for renovating Ottoman monuments were agreed upon during October meetings in Skopje between Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Atilla Koç and his Macedonian counterpart, Blagoja Stefanovski. The two ministers signed a 7-point protocol for selected restoration projects. Now the Turkish government, which will fund the work, is waiting for action from the Macedonian side, which must come up with the project proposals.

The first item of importance for the former is the construction of a Turkish Cultural Center. According to Hidayet Bayraktar, a consular officer at the Turkish Embassy in Skopje, the center will be housed “preferably one of the Ottoman-era buildings, perhaps the large yellow villa close to us that used to be the regional office for the Uskup (Skopje) area.” Such a center is vital for preserving the Turkish living legacy in Macedonia and can only be a positive contribution to Skopje’s cultural life. Other countries, most notably France, have established cultural centers in Skopje and hopefully more will do so in the future.

The yellow building mentioned, well known to all who have visited the upper reaches of Skopje’s old town, lends a welcome splash of color to its surroundings. Nearby it is the second project on the list: the renovation of the 15th century Mustafa Paşa Mosque, a majestic example of Ottoman architecture and one of Skopje’s premier landmarks. According to Mr. Bayraktar, “the project has been accepted and only minor details remain.” For the refurbishments – mostly touch-ups here and there in a mosque that is in generally good working shape – the Turkish government is donating $100,000, while another $200,000 will come from al-Waqf, an Islamic group in Turkey. Since the Mustafa Paşa, built in 1492, is a “top priority” for the Turks, restoration work will start as soon as possible.

According to a representative of the Macedonian Ministry of Culture, the contract has been made and an expert team assigned, and “now we are making preparations for the start of conservation work, once we get the approval of the Republic of Turkey.”

A third project involves the Kurşunlu Han, a 16th-century former caravanserai that according to one local website once provided lodging for Ottoman merchants and storage for their goods. It was probably named for its leaden roof (removed during the First World War). Today, it is part of the Archaeological Museum of Macedonia. According to the Ministry of Culture, renovations to be undertaken here include “the reconstruction of the fountain, roof and horticultural arrangement.” Mr. Bayraktar adds that after the structure has been cleaned out and restored, they may well put in a small museum in the interesting but unexplored basement.

In addition to Turkish government money, the official adds, private Turkish donors have expressed interest in sponsoring restoration work. The Koç Company , which opened Skopje’s first modern shopping mall Ramstore, also pledged funds this summer to the project.

The work on Kurşunlu Han is to be carried out by the Conservation Center of Skopje, with cooperation from the National Conservation Center. This group will also take part in restoration work on another famous landmark, the Stone Bridge (Taş Köprü, in Turkish) that spans the River Vardar in the heart of downtown Skopje. In what has to have been one of the worst renovations carried out since the Taliban went to work on the Bamiyan Buddha , workers inexplicably destroyed the bridge’s tower and Ottoman insignia, while eliminating its quaint cobblestone surface in favor of concrete. According to the Turkish Embassy’s Bayraktar, replicas of the tower and insignia that once adorned the 15th-century bridge will be created according to the existing documentation.

Recourse to the history books will be taken again with another project the Tetovo clock tower and Ter Gözlü Köprü (‘One-Eyed Bridge’), both of which need total reconstruction. The clocktower once stood in front of a small park and the Saat Mosque; in the original documents, says Mr. Bayraktar, a bridge is also attested in the sources, over the small River Pena.

According to the Macedonian Ministry of Culture, significant input from the local government in Tetovo is required before these projects can be realized. This input includes detailed urban planning and project proposals. Considering the multiple levels of government involved and the scope of the works, it is likely that the Tetovo projects will not be carried out overnight.

Another Ottoman reconstruction project in one of Macedonia’s peripheral cities is the Hajibey Mosque in Bitola, which unlike Tetovo does not have a significant Muslim population. According to the Ministry of Culture, an expert team from the National Conservation Center has documented the state of the mosque complex, which also includes a medresah and mektebi.

Reconstruction work here will also be conducted with assistance from the Museum of Bitola, which is already at work on several buildings within the mosque complex. Once again, the Turkish government will provide the funding.

The final project for enhancing Turkish culture in Macedonia, and probably the one dearest to the heart of Minister Stefanovski (a former theater director) is the expansion of the Turkish theater in a new location. According to Hidayet Bakraktar, the Turks in Skopje are currently sharing a theater with Albanians and other minority groups in Bit Pazar, the run-down open market on the outer edges of the city’s old quarter. However, this arrangement (and resulting budget wranglings) has proven restrictive, and the Turks made the unusual but intriguing decision to seek accommodation for the theater on the other side of the river, adjacent to the cultural offerings of downtown Skopje.

It was recently decided that the Turkish dramatists would be given the building of a former ballet school, to be reconstructed and adapted for the purposes of a modern theater. According to the Macedonian Ministry of Culture, the bilateral cooperation on this front includes the engagement of actors from Macedonian theatres in Turkey and Turkish theatre in Macedonia.

“There are many planes for promoting Turkish theater, which enjoys great popularity in Macedonia.” The ministry also points to the collaboration with the Turkish theater of well known Macedonians directors such as Vladimir Milchin and Aleksandar Popovski.
Ottoman monuments make up a very important part of Macedonia’s rich cultural heritage,” says the Ministry of Culture. One of the government’s stated priorities for the period 2004-2008 is cultural tourism. “In all the brochures handed out at international presentations, the monuments from the Ottoman period are mentioned on an equal footing [with others].”

As Turkey moves closer to the European club, it can also take pride in stressing its contributions to European history in the Balkans. Castles, mosques and bridges are just the most well known of the tangible Ottoman legacy. However, Ottoman influences are found even in traditional houses, examples being some of the most distinctive houses in Ohrid, which bear a striking resemblance to those found in far-off central Anatolia.

Projects such as the Macedonia restoration works are not only good example of successful neighborly cooperation. They are also proof of Turkey’s European gestation, and as such represent compelling evidence against claims by EU naysayers that Turkey has no real European past. But whether or not the Turkish government decides to utilize such a strategy, it is certain that the Macedonia cultural projects will benefit everyone, from local residents to foreign tourists, and thus the country itself.