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Archive for December, 2003

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Macedonia year in review part 3: security and defense

Introduction
The year began with now-perennial worries over a “spring offensive” from Albanian paramilitaries. While this did not in fact occur, numerous low-intensity attacks and terrorist bombings did go on throughout the year. As most of these were Kosovo-related, it seemed that, yet again, the unresolved situation there was the biggest threat [...]

Macedonia year in review part 2: the economy

While 2003 was not the banner year hoped for by the government, it still offered some signs for cautious optimism, especially in terms of foreign investment and a burnished international image owing to the general lack of violence. Painful privatization processes reached their final stages, amidst worker protests. Communications shortcomings, and [...]

Macedonia year in review part 1: the political situation

Introduction
As the year began, the three-month-old SDSM-DUI government was still being given the benefit of the doubt. Sure, they had produced nothing substantial, but the people were willing to see what would happen. The fact that nothing has happened (i.e., no war), something so irrelevant in most countries, is nevertheless considered [...]

Macedonia in 2003: Here, there and everywhere

Last year at this time we recapped the year 2002, and looked forward to the new year ahead. This text (reprinted yesterday), offered the following final prediction:
“…2003 will be a far more interesting year than the lackluster, ambivalent 2002. We can only hope that it will be characterized by interestingly peaceful [...]

Classic Balkanalysis:Macedonia in 2002: Neither Here Nor There

This text from one year ago, recapping the year 2002, is a fitting introduction to this week’s special series recapping 2003- and finishing with our predictions for 2004 on January 1st.
While not as exciting a year as many had hoped, 2002 in Macedonia was in the end not so boring, either. Some saw it [...]

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Hire ‘Em: Rumsfeld and the Assassins

There’s a new policy livening things up over at the Pentagon. Israeli-trained US Special Forces are planning to set up a “hit squad” of former Baathist Iraqi intelligence officers, men who could get the dirt on resistance leaders and ideally, kill them. That such a remarkable plan is even being [...]

Narrow escape for UNMIK staff in Kosovo as terror fears mount

A sign of the times in Kosovo? According to official internal sources, there have been two near-death experiences for UN staff in Pristina in the past 4 days. While these did not result in any out-of-body experiences, they could have except for luck and watchfulness.
On 20 December at 9:05 AM, an UNMIK [...]

Inventing Eastern Europe

Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment.
By Larry Wolff
Reviewed by Martin D. Brown
Occasionally a book comes along which forces you to re-calibrate your perceptions and to re-adjust your mental horizons on a particular issue. If you are really lucky such a book will also [...]

Albanian Militant Leader Beqiri Arrested in Germany

Idajet Beqiri, the self-proclaimed spokesman for the FBKSH- political wing of the Albanian National Army (ANA, or AKSH) has been arrested on the German-Swiss border. Beqiri “…was taken into custody Saturday after he attempted to cross by foot into Switzerland near the southern German city of Constance, said German border [...]

Candidate Clark stumps (the rest of us) at the Hague

General Wesley Clark’s testimony at the Hague Tribunal’s trial of Slobodan Milosevic offered, as Antiwar.com’s Nebosja Malic accurately predicted, nothing of substance. Even before he had testified Clark was already on the offensive, using the game plan of slander and character assassination to whet the appetite of a media audience [...]

Efficiency and Other Languages

We’re at a great time for other languages. Efficiency demands they be put to death; while the narcissism and vanity displayed by their self-indulgent executioners simultaneously calls for their retention.
A recent United Nations conference on the expansion of the internet and IT infrastructure to the third world posed a provocative question: [...]

Saddam’s Capture: A Pyrrhic Victory in the Making?

So it’s finally happened – Saddam has been captured. If he was in fact funding the Iraqi guerrillas, US soldiers should now have an easier time of it in the wilds of Iraq, with the resistance’s leading commander eliminated. Yet what if Hussein – as would appear the case from [...]

Turkish company to open mega-mall in Skopje

Koc Holding, one of Turkey’s largest holding companies, has announced plans to open what will be Macedonia’s largest and most modern shopping center, replete with parking garages and cinemas. The $30 million, 25,000 square meter project, set to be completed by the end of 2004, will be located in the heart [...]

The Changing Face of the Serbian Armed Forces

After suffering years of ignominy and Western castigation due to its real and alleged involvement with the Bosnian, Croatian and Kosovar conflicts, the Army of Serbia & Montenegro is trying to change its image. And, while it may not seem so overtly, the Serbian armed forces have been receiving steadily increasing [...]

Good God! Albanians afflicted by the Baptists- and Suleyman Schwartz too

The holiday season came early to Macedonia this year. So far, it’s been a tale straight out of Dickens- Christmas cheer for dirty orphans, and dirty toilets for confused neocons. Or something like that.
From an article on their own website, we learn that evangelical Baptists have been casing out the place [...]

The Empire Strikes Out: Scott Taylor reports from Iraq

Canada’s top war reporter, Scott Taylor has long experience covering conflicts in the Balkans and Iraq. His inside stories from the field have appeared [...]

Ironies of freedom: RFE from anti-Communism to anti-terrorism

Guest author Martin D. Brown, a historian of Central Europe and advisory editor with www.blueear.com, analyzes the anti-terrorist reincarnation of Radio Free Europe in the Czech Republic in [...]

Western embassies fortify in Tirana, Greeks pledge Olympic security

In July 1999, then-US Secretary of Defense William Cohen suddenly cancelled an expected trip to Albania. The reason? Intelligence sources had discovered that a chap named Osama might be planning to crash the party in a most uncultivated way. Of course, it was swept under the rug, seeing as the just-concluded [...]

Counterpoint- Nebosja Malic on ìMyths of Yugoslaviaî

In the spirit of free speech and open dialogue, Balkanalysis.com would like to introduce a new forum- the “Counterpoint” series of articles, in which featured authors get the chance to argue with the contentions of other articles on the site. The series begins today, with Nebosja Malic’s reply to “Myths of [...]

Interview with Valerian Khukhunashvili of Georgia’s Sarke Information Agency

Valerian Khukhunashvili is director of the Sarke Information Agency (www.sarke.com), an independent media group in Tbilisi, Georgia offering unique coverage in English, Russian and Georgian of political and especially economic life in Georgia. He recently spoke with Balkanalysis.com about the implications of the November 2 elections, the Georgian-American relationship and [...]

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