Balkanalysis.com

What Fear Motivated the West’s Anti-Referendum Hysteria?

It was obvious that for the West, stopping Macedonia’s referendum on Sunday was of vital importance. It was so important that EU and US leaders ignored well-deserved charges of hypocrisy, considering that their opposition to a referendum and the law on territorial division they support go counter to the Macedonian constitution, the EU law on local self-government, and the vaunted Ohrid Agreement itself. And it was so important that the US chose to give up its ace in the hole – recognition of Macedonia’s constitutional name – rather than save it for another occasion. As for the beleaguered Macedonian government, it chose to sink to the level of voter manipulation and outright intimidation to quash the referendum.

What, then, led the Great Powers to effectively veto Macedonians’ constitutionally-guaranteed right to a popular referendum over a law that the majority of citizens had not been consulted on?The answer may be more simple, more predictable, and even more banal than one might think.

An article on Friday in Skopje’s leading newspaper Vreme made the sensational claim that the city was being held hostage by armed Albanian militants ready to use the occasion of a successful referendum as a pretext for war. However, as usual with the Albanian fighting style, this would not be carried out through a fair fight on the open field, but through terroristic tactics: the Albanians, said the newspaper, would blow up the Rasche pipeline supplying Macedonia’s capital with water. (Cutting off the water supply was also done to the residents of Kumanovo on the 2001 war from Albanians in Lipkovo).

In addition, Vreme quoted senior defense ministry officials as saying that the Albanian village of Kondovo, 1,000 meters west of Skopje’s most outlying neighborhood, Gjorche Petrov, was in effect a heavily armed forward operations base for planned militant activity. According to this story, heavy artillery, machine guns, concrete fortifications – basically, all the works – had been put in place.

As could be expected, top Macedonian officials heatedly denied the claims, with Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski saying he would be glad to visit Kondovo any time, and top cop Siljan Avramovski declaring that the information was “unconfirmed.”

However, Balkanalysis.com has learned independently from other sources that Vreme’s allegations were in fact true.

“What they published was absolutely correct,” said one defense official on Tuesday. “This buildup occurred in the days before the referendum, when we received more and more information about activity at the border [with Kosovo], from where they are receiving most of their weapons.” In addition to Rasche and Kondovo, villages above the latter and close to the border (Upper and Lower Svinjare, Krivenik) are also being used by the militants transporting weapons.

“We have guards on the border,” lamented the official, “but you can’t police it all… it is too big and too mountainous. We depend on support from KFOR on the other side.”

He also added that the Albanians have two howitzers at their command. Vreme claimed that they may even have commandeered a tank left over from the war.

For obvious reasons, the government cares little when militant gestures emanate from some far-off mountain village. Yet how could Skopje’s well-fed political leaders have allowed such activities to transpire in such a brazenly unchecked way, barely a mile from the capital, where almost half of the Macedonian population lives?

“This referendum period has been a very sensitive time,” the defense official told us. “The government has sought to avoid any actions that would put the forces of ARM [Macedonian army] into confrontation with the Albanians.”

But surely, even without a need for military action, does not a police presence exist in the village? Really, how could masked militants have been able to set up fortifications out in the open, while running checkpoints at night? These things take time, after all.

“Because of the Ohrid Agreement’s guaranteeing jobs for Albanians in the police, there are many former NLA members in the police there,” an interior ministry source told us. “So they [the militants] can do what they want- they have sympathizers in the police.”

That the government knowingly allowed radical militants to set up shop in the immediate vicinity of large inhabited areas is not only negligent – it is grounds for treason. However, as a quasi-protectorate of the West, Macedonia and its government have little say over such vital issues as national security.

By quashing Sunday’s referendum, the West thinks everything will resume running smoothly on the road to implementation of the decentralization package, and tensions will therefore be defused. However, the greatest misconception, shared by the West and some Macedonians alike, is that membership in EU and NATO structures will guarantee Macedonia’s stability and territorial integrity.

Why? Recent history has shown that nothing will stop the Albanian militant movement because it (even while consisting of only a few thousand fighters at its peak) continues to keep the greatest world powers quaking in fear, terrified to confront it in any way. Therefore the only path is perpetual appeasement. Euro-atlantic integration or not, Macedonia’s days are numbered.

However, no one in power wants to admit this. The diplomats and politicians only hope that they can forestall the inevitable destruction of Macedonia for as long as possible, to prevent any upsurge of violence on their shift that might imperil their ability to go on with their coddled careers, fat and happy in some other, more amenable locale.