Balkanalysis.com

The US, Russia, and apologists in the Western media have lately been criticizing Georgia for failing to “crack down” on a perceived al Qaeda threat in the Pankisi Gorge. As the first part of this article showed, such a threat may actually be exaggerated, or in fact completely spurious. Assuming that there is at least [...]

Ever since late February, when Georgia was added to Washington’s exclusive club of terror-afflicted nations, the West has developed a whole new Caucasus curiosity. While not exactly gripped by frenzied adoration, the cream of the Western media has lately come around to pay its respects: the BBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Chicago [...]

The present series has documented a clear and coordinated campaign by Western, and mainly American, interventionists to influence Macedonia’s September 15th elections. As we have seen, this campaign has been executed through political pressure, economic coercion, media propaganda, and especially through the publications of Edward Joseph and the ICG. From this evidence, it seems clear [...]

Edward Joseph’s grand report on Macedonian governmental corruption was released, with much fanfare, at a press conference in Skopje on 14 August. The room was packed with eager journalists, and Joseph had even flown in Jonathan Greenwald (of the ICG’s Brussels office) for backup. As usual, the conference was difficult to sit through, as every [...]

The West’s current electoral intervention campaign in Macedonia is the largest since last September, when considerable efforts were made to decisively interfere with the Belarus elections. That attempt failed. But the Macedonian campaign may just work. The Barking Dogs of Intervention The media/PR war has been dictated by the ICG’s Edward Joseph, and implemented by [...]

Interviews with Macedonian Finance Minister Nikola Gruevski and Dr. Sam Vaknin. Nikola Gruevski, Macedonia’s young and energetic Minister of Finance, is regarded as one of the bright spots in a government long accused of incompetence and corruption. His efforts to put Macedonia on track for economic reform have met with considerable success. The ruling VMRO-DPMNE [...]

Macedonia’s parliamentary elections are slated for 15 September, and the US government is taking them seriously. So seriously, in fact, that Washington recently took a rare break from threatening Iraq – in order to officially address the little Balkan country. It was Philip Reeker, State Department spokesman, who (on 13 August) fired the opening salvo. [...]

The ties that bind diaspora groups and interventionists are, very often, twisted and ugly. Sometimes, the two groups are one and the same, as with the fanatic American supporters of a Greater Albania, who allegedly seek to “defend the national cause and human rights of the Albanian people” – by annexing the territory of neighboring [...]