Since 2004, Balkanalysis.com has been partnered with the Central and Eastern European Online Library, a cool German company that makes the works of a wide range of Balkan Web and print publishers available online, instantly and inexpensively. However, it’s only been since July that we’ve added hundreds of exclusive archive articles, some dating back several years and covering developments in Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia. Many of these ‘private stock’ articles cannot be found anywhere else. The CEEOL databases now include upwards of 200 publishers from all Balkan and Eastern European countries- you will truly be spoiled for choice. As with our own back archive, many of their articles are not available elsewhere. Quite simply, the CEEOL website is a treasure-chest of information for Balkan-lovers everywhere. The company continues to grow, attracting an increasing number of clients from the world’s leading universities, research libraries, think-tanks and other relevant institutions. Private subscribers are also welcome.

Here, thousands of articles and e-books covering all conceivable Balkan-related topics are available, at very attractive prices (generally, $1-5), via secure credit card transaction. (The varying prices you will see for Balkanalysis.com archived articles there have been created by us according to a complex formula judging the relative exclusivity, length, illustrations and importance of each piece).

So if you hunger for more alternative views and unique disclosures aside from the hundreds of articles already existing on the Balkanalysis.com website, just visit the CEEOL site and look us up. If you see something of interest, you can be sure that you know what you’re getting before buying it- just read the article headings and brief descriptions. If that’s not enough info for you to make up your mind, please write us directly with further questions and we will be glad to help.

While some of the Balkanalysis.com articles you will find on CEEOL are already existing in our Web site archive, many of the most exciting ones are not – and are available exclusively through CEEOL.

We’ve decided that this is the most economically feasible way in which to make some revenue from the archive and so be able to continue providing a generally free service at the same time. However, every couple months we will be adding new archives, including current information not available for free on the main site.

To start browsing, go to the Central and Eastern European Online Library website, click on “periodicals” on the left-hand side, and then select “Macedonia” from the drop-down country box that will appear. Then select “Balkanalysis” to browse the archives by year and month.

Balkanalysis.com would like to thank its readers for their continued support, and we look forward to your feedback regarding this selective partnership and the service it provides.

The aggressive tone Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has taken up over the past two months in regard to Russia’s backing for the separatist region of South Ossetia picked up considerably last week, with the announcement that Georgia should prepare for war with Russia.However, considering that Georgia’s civil wars in the 1990’s, with Abkhaz and Ossetian separatists ended rather poorly, one marvels at the little country’s prospects against a giant like Russia. The latter too seems bemused, with the Russian Foreign Ministry on Saturday stating that recent Georgian threats “…are not even worth of commenting [on] because of their absurdity.”

On 27 August, AFP reported that the president is planning an Israeli-style civilian reserve force, because Georgia is “…very close to a war with Russia and the population must be prepared.” Apparently, whether they want to or not, all Georgian citizens must be ready to pitch in because the “…the enemy must know that in case of aggression he will face not only the Army, but the entire nation.” The “tens of thousands” of willing reservists will include women and girls, said the president, drawing a direct parallel with Israel’s similar setup. This is one way to keep the average Georgian from thinking about their dire economic straits, we suppose.

On the same day, Interfax reported that a first reservist battalion has been successfully trained, after a one month training course at the Osiauri base, located close to South Ossetia. Defense Minister Giorgi Baramidze confirmed that the 350-strong battalion had been trained by an elite corps of officers who had “earlier been trained by American military instructors.” The American instructors first arrived in the spring of 2002, under the pretext of helping Georgia deal with suspected Islamic terrorists hiding out in the Pankisi Gorge near Chechnya. Although some stated that only Chechen refugees were actually holed up there, the Americans stayed.

The American-Georgian military cooperation began during the tenure of deposed president Eduard Shevardnadze, but has only increased under the rule of his successor, and Columbia Law graduate, Saakashvili. Last week, Defense Minister Baramidze explained a shake-up in army leadership specifically in terms of this continuing pro-Western orientation.

“…The new leadership of the General Staff of the Armed Forces will be a team of western-educated co-thinkers,” Baramidze recently said. According to Civil Georgia, his General Staff holds parallel prerequisites with the president: new Chief of Staff Major Vakhtang Kapanadze graduated from the US Army War College, and his deputies, Colonels Levan Nikoleishvili and Davit Nairashvili are both graduates of the US Army Command and General Staff College in Kansas, as well as the NATO Defense College.

The appointments come in the wake of 16 military deaths in recent actions in South Ossetia, which Georgian media speculated may have prompted the ouster of the former Chief of Staff, Givi Iukuridze on 25 August. Speculation emerged following Georgian State Minister Goga Khaindrava’s statement on Tbilisi’s Imedi Radio that the casualties were “inadmissible.”

For his part, Iukuridze declared that his soldiers had followed all orders and achieved their objectives, while implying that Baramidze was ultimately responsible for the death toll, considering that he “was in charge of this operation,” according to RFE/RL.

The appointments were quite clearly political, Saakashvili conceded that Iukuridze was history partially because he had been educated in a Russian military academy: “…we are creating a new army which must meet NATO’s standards and so appointing U.S.-educated people to key positions in the General Staff.”

Further sign of its American allegiances came on Friday, when Georgia announced that 50 of its specialized mountain infantry soldiers will be deployed to Afghanistan, following two weeks of training in Germany.

These developments seem all the more mystifying in that they have been provoked almost entirely by the Georgian side. If Saakashvili intends to realize his national greatness scheme through taking on Russia, things might not turn out as he had planned. It is true that Georgia’s civil wars of the 90’s – which led to the current mess – were a sort of proxy war with Russia. However, they were also complicated by the disunity of various Georgian factions, militia groups which fought one another as well as the separatist Abkhaz or Ossetians. And they did not involve open confrontation with Russian troops, who still retain two military bases on Georgian soil. In an additional threat this weekend, Saakashvili ordered Moscow to leave the bases by spring, “or we will make them leave.”

The war of words continued Friday when the Ossetians claimed Georgia has sent 50 of its Special Forces soldiers into the area, in violation of a pullout agreement reached on 19 August. For its part, Georgia continued to urge Russian maritime captains – whose vessels it warned last month would be sunk – to avoid Abkhazian waters.

Russia has also stopped issuing visas to Georgians, in reaction to the increasingly hostile rhetoric and a stunt that smacks suspiciously of “Rose Revolution” tactics, in which young Georgians started playing loud music and using lasers generated from their laptop computers to “cast anti-Russian messages” on the walls of the embassy, thus keeping true to the new Georgian strategy of creating slick mass spectacles. What’s next, the president emerging from dry ice with an electric guitar?

While Evgeni Ivanov, secretary of the Russian Embassy, claimed the visa freeze had nothing to do with the protests, he did say that “it obstructed the working process in the embassy,” and that “the Georgian government [does] not want or cannot deal with the mentioned issue, that is the violation of the international norms of cooperation with the Diplomatic Corps.” In light of the fact that the protests were not stopped, the Russians charged Saakashvili’s government with tacit support for the protest, charging that this ‘complicity’ was a breach of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic
relations.

Russia not only stopped issuing visas, but also halted talks on resolving the Ossetian crisis. A Russian Foreign Ministry statement quoted by Reuters declared that, “…while the scenes of bacchanalia outside the Russian embassy in Tbilisi continue, it will be impossible to hold any contacts or talks with Georgia, either on military issues or a ‘big’ agreement.”

P
redictably enough, the Georgian efforts produced a reflexive reaction on Friday in Moscow, where protesters led by the youth wing of Putin’s United Russia party and the Union of Young Alania (representing North Ossetia) converged on the Georgian embassy, holding signs comparing Saakashvili to Hitler. Hundreds of people, including South Ossetians, took part in the protest. While the ‘Fascist’ charge may be an exaggeration, Saakashvili does not help himself by making eerie statements such as “betrayers will be punished.” But hey, this is national greatness we’re talking about.

A wild card in all this is Chechnya. At least one Georgian parliamentarian has expressed open support for the righteousness of the Chechen struggle for independence. However, while it might seem natural for Georgia to look to the Chechens to fulfill the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” dictum, they have had severe antagonisms in the past. The latter have their suspicions too, as the pro-Chechen website Kavkazcenter.com stated yesterday: “…Washington is not making its hostile attitude towards the Chechen Resistance a secret… this is why Saakashvili will never allow any real cooperation with Chechens unless Washington issues proper instructions.”

Indeed, Muslim Chechnya has long been on the wrong side of the war on terror. When one adds Candidate Bush’s famously close relations with Putin, and the possibility of Russia sending 40,000 troops to Iraq, one has to wonder whether the Georgian adventures in invoking national greatness are indeed irresponsible and unrealistic. Saakashvili is indeed a friend of America, but there may be much bigger long-term factors at work than aiding Georgia in its quest for territorial reconquest.

At the end of the day, one can only hope that the conflict will be resolved peacefully, and that the only resurgence of violence will be of the good-old Caucasus criminal variety- like the bomb that exploded yesterday near Georgia’s Parliament.

For more than a month after the parliamentary elections on June 25th, the political forces in Bulgaria have been unable to strike a deal to form a new coalition government.

As predicted by polls, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) won the majority of the votes (34%) followed by the incumbent National Movement “Simeon II” (NDSV), which received 22%. The Movement of Rights and Freedoms (DPS), an ethnic Turks party, got 14% of the votes.

As in the 2001 parliamentary elections, these were also marked by surprising stunts of new political formations. In 2001, the Simeon II National Movement, which had formed less than six months before the election and was headed by Bulgaria’s exiled monarch Simeon Saxe-Coburg Gotha, managed to comfortably secure an electoral victory. In 2005, barely two months after its formation, the coalition “Attack” (Ataka) received almost 9% of the votes and positioned itself ahead of Union of Democratic Forces (8%) and the Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (7%), led by former Prime Minister Ivan Kostov.

But while the electoral race in 2001 merely resulted in the bizarre outcome of having Bulgaria’s expatriate king become Prime Minister, the 2005 election raised eyebrows and concerns due to the nationalist character and appeal of Attack’s political platform and its calls for detachment from NATO and renegotiations of Bulgaria’s accession agreement with the European Union. After receiving the mandate to form a coalition government with NDSV and DPS, the Socialists were unable to strike a deal with NDSV, which insisted that the new prime minister should be the incumbent Saxe-Coburg Gotha. After three weeks of fruitless negotiations, BSP opted to settle for a two-party coalition and a minority government. The Socialist leader, Sergei Stanishev, presented his choice for ministerial appointees before the Parliament on July 28 and was sworn as Prime Minister after a vote of 120 for and 119 against him. Just five hours later, the Parliament rejected his proposed government cabinet. Consequently, as stipulated by Bulgaria’s Constitution, the President assigned the mandate for government formation to NDSV, the runner-up.

On August 11, NDSV decided to reject the second mandate to form a government due to the “complicated political situation in the country.”

Political analysts have called for a resolution of the pending negotiations for the formation of a new government. The impasse is destabilizing the country and can also have repercussions for Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union (EU), which is expected to happen in 2007. To join the EU, Bulgaria still needs to carry out reforms of the judicial system and the agricultural and service sectors. The longer the deadlock in forming a government, the more these reforms will be delayed. If the European Commission’s report on Bulgaria, expected later this year, finds that the necessary reforms have not been carried out, the country’s membership in the EU will be postponed till 2008. However, these calls seem to have been largely ignored as evidenced by the protracted negotiations, which are now in their second month.

A third mandate to form a government is to be handed out within a week to a political force in the Parliament, other than the election winner and the runner-up. The Socialists, NDSV, DPS, and the Bulgaria’s People’s Union have demonstrated a willingness to continue negotiations among themselves and form a cabinet. In turn, the Union of Democratic Forces, Democrats for Strong Bulgaria and Attack have expressed a strong opposition against this coalition.

Expectations and hope are high that the stalemate will be overcome and a politically and socially acceptable coalition government will be formed. If this option eludes Bulgarians again, a program cabinet without the participation of political leaders might be the only solution, as has already been suggested by some political forces.

Vassia Gueorguieva is a Ph.D. Candidate at American University, Washington DC. She has worked for the Bulgarian Parliament and in 2001 took part in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Election Observation Mission to Bulgaria.

I deliberately did not write anything about Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” when it was going down 10 months ago. Really, what to say? Everything about it was so depressingly predictable that there was nothing left to the imagination: the student protests, the staged rock concerts, the proliferation of colors and slogans, the shocking scandals, the corruption charges, the elections that weren’t “free and fair” according to Western standards. You knew well who would win – the pro-democracy, pro-free-market reformers – and if it was just like a bad Hollywood movie it’s because that’s what it was: scripted, funded and produced in America.There was further little need to write anything because the mass media, usually asleep at the wheel, could not completely avoid – finally – the obvious similarities between Ukraine and its Serbian and Georgian revolutionary precedents. It was not as if such reports would change anything, because the government-friendly media was by and large won over by the citrine revolutionaries and their ostensible cause.

The Orange Revolution, like its predecessors, was a non-event. It proves once again the old thesis of Jean Baudrillard regarding the modern world’s tendency towards simulation and the precession of events by information, in which the story precedes and in fact creates the event. Since such a theory would mean the death of journalism, journalism accordingly had to fight to prove its undiminished vigor. A massive Western media and PR bombardment perpetuated the fraud, gearing up before the Ukrainian election, as a sort of “softening up” campaign meant to instill an advance understanding in the global audience of who was good, who was bad, and what it all meant for freedom and democracy, and to deliver such a blow that the opponents of these could not possibly recover.

Such a campaign followed predictably the strategy used in Serbia and Georgia. Devised by well-paid foreign lobbyists, human rights activists, indigenous politicians and other quasi-officials, this tactic succeeded due to the sheer and unrelenting information overload it created. At the same time it revealed a deep-seated contempt for the intelligence of the average Western citizen, as well as for the imaginations of those foreign puppets tasked with performing their appointed roles before the eyes of the world audience.

If that were all, and that’s where the story ended, it would be depressing enough, but at least we would have some closure. Not so. Since nothing is ever over, even things devoid of any real and singular existence, the whole revolutionary drama continues – long after the dust has settled on election day, or after the palace has been cleared up after the coup – ineluctably to its second phase.

Some Post-revolutionary Recaps

Needless to say, there is a gamble involved in any such adventure, primarily for those who seek to gain most through it – i.e., the power-mad politicians who feign love of their country and citizens in order to seize absolute power for themselves. For them, the day after the revolution ends, there begins the roller-coaster ride in which all manner of unpredictable things – even up to their own ouster – can occur. At every moment, they are reminded that the (American) Kingmaker is in fact King; he who giveth can taketh away.

Now, with three revolutions under our belts over the past five years (Kyrgyzstan got a little too messy to fit the mold) this phase of the media event is well-attested. Kostunica, Western darling when it was time to oust Milosevic in Serbia, has ever since been harangued by the West for everything from non-compliance with the Hague to his policy on Kosovo.

In Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili was allegedly told to rein it in when he practically declared war on Russia last summer, proving that even American patronage has its limits. And the new outburst of public dissent and opposition to his rule – ironically enough, from rivals latching on to the same “freedom and democracy” mantra he successfully used to overthrow Shevardnadze – has both embarrassed “Mishka” and prompted him to new levels of authoritarianism. Since politics is always cyclical, the seeds of a new revolution may already have been planted.

Although it has had a much shorter incubation period than its predecessors in Belgrade and Tbilisi, the Ukrainian Orange Revolution is showing signs of being by far the most grotesque. The same post-revolutionary malaise has set in, and at this stage it is more worthwhile to write about, considering that a certain humor value has finally established itself in Kiev, whereas there is nothing funny at all about the states of either Serbia or Georgia.

Revolutionary Actors and Outcomes

While short-sighted politicians latch on to the rhetoric to enrich themselves quickly, the people who are really left untouched by the post-revolutionary traumas and public malcontent are the less famous employees of Revolution Industry – the students, activists, NGO leaders-turned-consultants, whose entire job portfolio is creating ferment for revolutions which, since they claim to be in support of universal values, can be exported globally, duplicated like CDs, ad infinitum.

However, since the implementation of these allegedly universal values requires stripping them to the lowest common denominator, precious little real “democracy” and “human rights” can be successfully delivered. If a doctor gives a sick man half of the necessary dose of medicine and, when he gets sicker, repeats the process, no one can say that he didn’t give the patient medicine; technically, at least, the doctor didn’t do anything wrong, and the process must go on until the patient vegetates in the same state, dies – or changes his practitioner.

It is too early to tell what will happen in the post-revolutionary countries of the east, but at least there is a certain paradigm established. Serbia by all accounts has continued to vegetate; Georgia, if it keeps provoking its neighbors and internal ethnic minorities under Saakashvili’s brand of human rights and democracy, might end up dying. And then there’s Iraq, whose “red revolution” (as in blood red) has been much less scripted and much more spectacular. There it looks like the patient is changing doctor and will come out of it one-hundred percent better – as an Islamic state ruled by Sharia law – a non-revolution turned from red to green.

What, then, of Ukraine, where the precession of events achieved its vertiginous climax? (Really it was the most spectacular revolution so far, like how the Olympics get more lavish and more expensive every time).

As could be expected, images were everything. So even if his German doctor stated that Viktor Yushchenko was not actually poisoned, could his horribly pockmarked face and vertigo point to any other conclusion? And as for his right-hand collaborator, Yulia Tymoshenko, how could this super-rich tycoon not be a woman of the people, what with that knotted loaf of peasant bread hairstyle?

Let the Branding Begin!

Even if the Orange Revolution has since turned red (As in Soviet red) preserving its nostalgic remembrance means that it requires safeguarding. This, of course, is obviously why the Orange brand was quietly given to the playboy teenage son of President Yushchenko for safekeeping:

“…Local media said the revolutionary slogan ‘Tak!’ (Yes) and a downward-facing horseshoe symbol were now registered trademarks owned by [Yushchenko’s] 19-year-old son, Andriy.

“The President’s eldest son, Andriy has been under media scrutiny after the internet newspaper Ukrainska Pravda publicized his high-stepping lifestyle.

“Andriy, a university student, says he has a part-time job that enables him to rent a BMW and a spacious Kiev city centre flat, pay for a personal bodyguard and hang out in chic restaurants, nightclubs and casinos.”

Kommersant newspaper adds:

“…the Orange theme is widely used till now and Orange goods cost pretty [large amount of] money. For example Orange flag with slogan ‘Tak!’ costs from 5 to 20 UAH ($1-4) – it is 10% of [the] average Ukrainian pension. So, if an old man decides to present ten [of] his old friends with such flags he must spend all his monthly income given by the state.

Yushchenko’s yes-men defended the deal. Yaroslav Lesyuk, who apparently created both a color and a word, “…said Mr Yushchenko had done nothing wrong in transferring the rights to his children. ‘From the point of view of fairness and ethics only Viktor Yushchenko has a right to manage “orange brands.” They were done for him and because of him.’” But some Ukrainians were less impressed:

“…Irina Bekeshkina, a sociologist, wrote on the Ukrainska Pravda website: ‘Explain to me what the difference is between privatization of political brands of the orange revolution by the current president and privatization of Kryvorizhstal by the previous president’s son-in-law.’

“Kryvorizhstal, Ukraine’s largest steel plant, was sold last year for about $US800 million – below other offers – to Viktor Pinchuk, son-in-law of the former president, Leonid Kuchma, and his business partners.”

While the analogy is not exactly precise, there is something to be said here. Ukraine has developed the worst characteristics of America – or at least tiny slivers of its elite have. In 2005, Revolution Industry has become so professionalized that nothing is allowed to be forgotten: the anticipated future profits of branding yesterday’s uprisings are earmarked for a sort of trust fund, so that the president’s teenage son can enjoy a life of luxury far beyond that of the average Ukrainian, while simultaneously proliferating a legacy that never was.

But why should they complain? After all, like the article said, they can enjoy their civic right to patriotic pride, just by paying their meager pension to feel the special joy that only orange revolutionary souvenirs can bring. After all, this was a revolution of the people. I don’t know how the fruit mongers are doing, but chances are among all the problems facing Ukrainians, scurvy isn’t one.

It’s the Economy, Comrade

Image is everything when it comes time to woo the voters, but substance is sometimes required after winning their confidence. And this is why the new government is getting flustered. After only 8 months, Revolution Industry Phase 2 has set in, with the growing public discontent towards the government’s policies, chief of all its economic ones, feeding the dialectic of endless infighting and political turmoil.

These tensions have resulted in open disputes between ranking ministers of differing mindsets. While claiming to be in favor of “Western-style reforms” and economic stimulus, the government under the iron-fisted Yulia Tymoshenko has gone Soviet. As the Washington Post reported in May, government-ordered price controls, a mass renationalization process, onerous taxes and other indiscretions are giving people that Back in the USSR feeling. But the new state socialists in Kiev are very happy with the state of affairs:

“…a new socialist minister of privatization has been appointed who opposes privatization in principle. She asked recently: ‘What is so bad about renationalization?’ Tymoshenko concurred in a recent newspaper interview: ‘The biggest enterprises, which can easily be efficiently managed, must not be privatized, and they can give the state as an owner wonderful profits.’”

Tymoshenko’s misunderstanding of economics is not really theoretical, nor is her undeniable statism; rather, as a worshipper of absolute power, she has come to identify herself with the state. As prime minister, all those “wonderful profits,” as with everything else, will now come under her control.

Tymoshenko offers a certain dramatic flair as well. As she blustered the other day, “…I am stumbling over obstacles that were unheard of in the previous government… I would prefer if the government in Ukraine could work as a balanced team, but at the moment that’s not the case.”

Indeed, the Ukrainian economic policy is in disarray as the factional disputes of a jury-rigged coalition government erupt – even, it seems, over which party owns the rights to the “Our Ukraine” brand name used by the revolutionary coalition. Further, adds a recent report from the Jamestown Foundation,

“…The continued presence of big businessmen in the Yushchenko camp will make it difficult to separate business and politics… Despite making “a major campaign issue” out of the relationship between the oligarchs and the corrupt Kuchma administration, Yushchenko still finds Ukraine’s big businessmen useful allies.”

The article goes on to talk about the alleged demands Tymoshenko and her rivals – er, colleagues – are placing on one another in the run-up to next year’s parliamentary elections, which Tymoshenko, given her newfound fondness for being the state, is dead set on winning.

Problems on the Horizon

But it’s going to be a bumpy ride. CNN adds that “…Tymoshenko regularly clashes with her deputy, Anatoly Kinakh, who is the leading pro-business member of Ukraine’s Western-oriented government.” And voters who were seduced by the billionaire’s populist appeal are confused. First they were awarded arbitrary increases in salaries and pensions; then Tymoshenko announced regional governors would be awarded based on how much tax money they could bring in, and her government decided to &#
8220;…allow imports of Brazilian sugar at the expense of the local sugar industry,” a decision which was criticized openly by Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Baranivsky.

Now, the IMF has urged caution, with a report that shows alarm at “…the government’s populist policies that have led to an increase in pensions and wages had also caused [15 percent] inflation growth.” Now, ordered by the IMF to curb inflation and correct its budget deficit, the Tymoshenko government hopes to raise 600 million euros by “floating” a ten-year Eurobond.

Reports Kommersant, “…lower-than-expected revenues from privatization appeared to be behind the move.” According to analyst Vassyl Yurchychyn, “…privatization has stalled, most strategic enterprises won’t be sold until after the legislative elections and the government has one sole instrument to cover the deficit – borrow the money from abroad.” And this is the proud, strong and independent “Our Ukraine” government nationalistic voters fervently supported 8 months ago!

Further, gasoline prices in the country continue to rise precipitously; A recent Itar-Tass report claimed that “…prices are rocketing in the Crimean, Dnepropetrovsk and the Trans Carpathian regions. In the meantime, three oil refineries in Ukraine have suspended production… The stoppage of half of Ukraine’s refineries is fraught with major fuel shortages. Import may prove the sole solution.”

Major energy supplier Russia, which has been watching Yushchenko’s floundering with delight and which supplies Ukraine with 90 percent of its crude oil, still has a card to play here. Gazprom head Alexey Miller stated that Russia will triple gas prices for Ukraine; it looks as if severing the “special relationship” after the Orange Revolution will have consequences. Yushchenko adviser Boris Nemtsov lamented that “…Ukraine is going to have hard times in the coming months.” That sounds about right.

This article was originally published by Antiwar.com on 12 August, 2005.

While this party must be sending chills down some EU diplomats’ spines, it’s doubtful that anyone from the “international community” will condemn this and risk future property acquisitions in this vacation paradise on the Adriatic. Croatian media reports Prime Minister Ivo Sanader as saying that “…Croatia is proud of the action ‘Storm,’” calling it a “…big, grand, historic action, and with this action were liberated parts of Croatia.”

According to the ‘official’ Croatian history, Operation Storm was a clean, quick and efficient military campaign of liberation. As former Bosnian ambassador of BiH to the European Union and NATO Vitomir Miles Raguz gushed:

“…Croatia’s recent inclusion in the PfP [NATOs Partnership for Peace] program is long overdue. Since we often speak of NATO membership as a reward, the delay here is curious, as perhaps no new state deserves this honor more than Croatia. Since the breakup of the Warsaw Pact, Croatia has done more to benefit Western interests than any other new democracy.

…To begin, Croatia saved BiH. In the summer of 1995 its military operations, named Operation Storm, ended a carnage Europe had not seen since World War II¬óa humanitarian catastrophe for which the West could not muster an appropriate response. The Western capitals often unfairly take credit for this turnaround; in fact, the peace in BiH came only once the Croatian Army (HV) had established a new balance of power in the region by its summer operations. Everything that followed, from the first exercise of NATO air power to the Dayton-Paris peace agreement, was a filling-in of a diplomatic puzzle.

‘All along, the United States and its allies have been looking for a force¬óother than themselves¬óthat could check Serbian and Bosnian Serb adventurism and produce a military balance on which realistic settlement could be built. Maybe such a force is now emerging: Croatia,’ wrote The Washington Post three days before Operation Storm commenced. At the end of the operation the Post added, ‘The Croatians argue they are not the problem but the solution; they claim to have created a new regional ‘balance’ on which ‘proper’ peace talks with the Serbs can begin. This line has been enthusiastically adopted by the American government, which is under pressure to show that the quiet political support it extended to Croatia had a legitimate purpose of promoting a negotiation in Bosnia.’”

The controversial ceremony has sparked a war of words between the Serbian and Croatian leadership. Serbian President Boris Tadic, who had extended the olive branch to Bosnian Muslims at last month’s commemoration of the Official History of Srebrenica, felt the Croatian holiday to be a slap in the face.

However, Sanader scoffed at the criticism, saying that “…nobody should be disturbed because of Tadic’s statement,” and opined that the latter’s stance was merely a product of internal politicking in Serbia.

While there is probably an element of truth to this contention, what with the Serbian Radical Party pressing hard to denounce the Storm ceremony, it’s also hard to deny Tadic the moral high ground – especially considering he had apologized on behalf of Serbia over Srebrenica, even if it was the Bosnian Serbs who were involved with that operation, and even if the fog of war has shrouded what really may have happened.

However, as Nebojsa Malic pointed out, questioning the Official Truth of Srebrenica is anathema because there are too many careers and interests that depend on its retention.

President Tadic left no doubt about his position in a July 29^th interview, in which he asked the Croats to commemorate August 5^th by arresting those responsible for the operation.

“…When we talk about ‘Operation Storm,’ just like with Srebrenica, I don’t want to talk about the legitimacy of military operations. I’m just interested that in this action suffered innocent people. I am interested [to know] why refugee columns were bombed, why people were killed by being shot in the back. I’m interested [to know] about the people who were liquidated only because they were from a different population.

…what was my reaction against such crimes, I showed in Srebrenica. Now I am interested in what is the answer from the other side.”

According to Croatian President Stipe Mesic, disingenuously deflecting attention with help from the Official Truth, “…Srebrenica is the biggest crime that happened in the history of this area, when 8,000 people were killed, only because they were not Serbs, and nobody can say this is equal with some isolated cases which happened during the military operation “Storm.”

Isolated cases? Even the Croats’ American handlers rued the coordinated ethnic cleansing that resulted when they let their ‘junkyard dogs,’ as Richard Holbrooke called them, loose from the chain. And, unlike the great lengths to which John Norris goes to portray Bill Clinton in Kosovo almost as one of Ben Franklin’s clockmaker gods, hovering over everything unperturbed and unaware, it is pretty clear that Clinton took an active, voracious and day-to-day interest in Croatian military operations up to and including Operation Storm. And, though the Croats deny it, America played a key role in logistics, espionage and other nefarious deeds meant to cripple the Serb forces. Indeed, as Bosnian-born Malic put it today, “‘Storm” is something Washington would like to forget. Serbs and Croats don’t have that luxury.”

Even thought they don’t want to be reminded of it, the Hague takes a different view. Perhaps that is just power politics on a higher level, with serious thought about how best to stall Croatian EU membership until other Balkan states are ready to join as well. But this is conjecture.

What is clear is that (perhaps because of this very interest from Del Ponte and Co.) the Croatian leadership is making a point on this jolly anniversary of reminding us that they had the full support of the Americans when they carried it out. And so the government is going out of its way to glorify Operation Storm, just as it continues to ignore similar things they should take pride in, such as Jasenovac and the Ustasha movement in general.

Stay tuned for lots of interesting new reports, starting with tomorrow’s interview with Macedonia’s foremost military historian, author of a controversial new book that documents the centuries of turbulence that have shaped the country and the region.

This means that until the end of July, no new articles will be posted. Email will also not be checked during this period.

For those readers who must stay glued to the internet because of responsibilities, obsessions or whatever else, now is your chance to delve into the archive for stories on a range of Balkan-related topics. So get cracking!

If you are still making your summer reading list, we remind you once again that by buying your books from Amazon.com through the search box on our site, or through books reviewed on our site, we get a small bit of the proceeds- which helps to pay essential costs.

Readers also should note that their future contributions will help the site grow. After summer, we intend to make some decisions about future coverage and planning. If you are interested in helping to shape this process, please click here for more information.

Best wishes,

Balkanalysis.com Team

On June 1, Telekom Austria signed a Share Purchase Agreement which gave it total ownership of Mobiltel AD. According to the Sofia News Agency, the mobile provider is valued at “up to EUR 1.6 B.” With 3.14 million subscribers, MobilTel is the largest mobile operator in Bulgaria with almost 64 percent of the subscriber market. Telekom Austria CEO Heinz Sundt acknowledged the “strategic advantage” the acquisition would give his company in Bulgaria.Until now, MobiTel had been owned by a consortium led by ABN AMRO Capital, Citigroup Investments Inc. and Communications Venture Partners Limited. But the consortium also included some of MobilTel’s existing Austrian shareholders.

The market as a whole is faring robustly. Bulgaria’s other big mobile operation, GloBul, is owned by Greece’s national company, OTE.   Its first-quarter 2005 operating income “…shows an increase by 64% on the year-ago period… the rise was mainly due to higher receipts from subscription fees, which increased by 71%.” For the same periods, GloBul profits more than doubled, from 16 million euros to 34 billion, with a 55 percent year-on-year subscriber increase.

According to the Sofia Echo, Bulgaria’s telecommunication market “…grew by 11 per cent in 2004 after Bulgarian operators expanded their range of services, and because of constantly increasing competition after the licensing of the third GSM operator.” Further, mobile services in Bulgaria “…continued to grow at the expense of the fixed-line market… The former state monopoly, the Bulgarian Telecommunication Company (BTC), lost 40 per cent of its incoming and 11 per cent of its outgoing international call traffic after the end of its monopoly of the provision of leased lines and fixed-line services.:

In another sector, global giant Coca-Cola, through its Greek subsidiary, last week announced its total acquisition of Bulgarian mineral water company Bankia. According to the Sofia News Agency, the amount Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company S.A. paid for the Sofia-area Bankia “was not disclosed.”

This continuing interest comes at a time when the country’s tight fiscal policy has led to a record 345 million euro budget surplus.

But will the recent defeats of the EU Constitution in France and Holland, and the resulting atmosphere of doom and gloom gripping the union, have any effect on Bulgaria’s business climate? After giving Bulgaria the green light for 2007 accession and specifically crediting it for its painstaking reforms, the flustered Eurocrats are now worrying about the effect of the votes on their economy and taking it out on all-but-assured candidates such as Bulgaria and Romania by hypocritically backpedaling in the wake of the referendums they had thought concluded. With other countries waiting to negate the constitution, such as the Czech Republic and Denmark, the EU is grasping for any obstacle it can to appease its population’s wrath with its autocratic, endlessly expansionistic ways.

Thus, in the wake of the referendums, Enlargement Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn recently stated that Bulgaria and Romania will receive “early warning letters” that “would focus on the evident current shortcomings in the reforms of both countries.” Bulgaria had been expecting to make final negotiations this fall for a 2007 entry into the European club.

Comparing the situation to a “yellow card” in football, Rehn intimated darkly his hope that “…both countries can read the political climate of Europe.” There’s no doubt about that.
According to Rehn, Bulgaria is “lagging behind” in 5 areas (most notably legal reforms and the fight against corruption and organized crime) and Romania, in 7 areas.
And, according to the British international property investment specialists Assetz International, the Bulgarian (and Turkish) property markets could be “hit hard” by the EU’s backtracking.

A company representative, Stuart Law, said on June 4 that

“…Turkey was supposed to start negotiations in October 2005 – it is clearly now in greater danger of not getting off the ground as several EU members are fully against Turkey joining. In addition Bulgaria and Romania have signed a treaty to join in 2007 but unless it is ratified by all 25 EU member states it cannot go ahead and only 2 have done so far. These two countries are suffering from corruption and other problems and the property market is a little bit ‘wild-west’ at present – if these issues are not dealt with to the satisfaction of all the EU nations then membership could be off the cards for these two countries and the property market particularly in Bulgaria could go into freefall after its early strong gains in house prices…

Investors should treat property investment in these not-yet-to-join countries as highly speculative and beware of the loose claims made by property agents for the guaranteed returns they could make – don’t put all your eggs in one basket with any kind of investment – especially property where the resale-market could dry up overnight and leave you high and dry – the three highest risk property investment areas are now Turkey, Northern Cyprus and Bulgaria.”

Regardless of the EU’s effect on the Bulgarian economy, Reuters reports that there are also fears that Bulgaria will elect a Socialist government big on public spending in the June 25^th elections, thus gouging the record budget surplus.

In a press release published on Wednesday, the international aid organization summarized the list of damage caused by two weeks of heavy rain and the flooding in Romania of the Bega, Timis and Barzava rivers, where water levels surged to 11 meters higher than normal.Four entire villages (Ionel, Otelec, Foeni and Cruceni) were submerged completely.

According to the report, “…4,000 houses have been destroyed and 3,500 people evacuated. About 52,000 hectares of farming land is flooded.” The flood levels are expected to remain for at least a month “…due to the soil composition and the fact that there is no natural drainage possibility with the flooded land lying in a depression.” The BBC, which shows a photo of rescuers boating through the ruins of houses, reported that 2 elderly people died and that rotting animal carcasses and mosquitoes are exacerbating the health risks.

Further, near the city of Targoviste in south-central Romania, flash flooding of the Ialomita River over 20 localities caused widespread damage to homes and property as well as one death.

Serbia has also suffered from the effects of recent heavy rainfall as well. Serbian television footage of submerged homes in the northern province of Vojvodina showed the effects of the flooding, which has flooded 1,900 ha of land in the municipality of Secanj, and slightly less in the nearby municipalities of Zitiste and Plandiste making 600 people homeless, according to the UN. The area, close to the Romanian border, is similarly flat and susceptible to flood damage.

At this week’s Balkan leadership summit in Bucharest, Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and Romanian President Traian Basescu pledged that the two neighbors would work together to recover from the floods. The Serbian government is proposing property tax exclusions for those affected by the flooding in the municipalities of Secanj, Plandiste, and Zitiste.

Finally, in Macedonia unrelated flooding in the northeastern city of Kumanovo made 650 impoverished Roma homeless when the rising waters of the Kumanovo River invaded the shanty homes in which they live. Lacking good protective barriers and not being well-channeled, this debris-littered river bursts its banks almost annually- invariably ruining the improvised Roma settlement located directly above it. According to A1 TV, which reported on Sunday’s evacuation, “…since the year 2003, this is the third flooding of the Kumanovo River. In the previous two times, 50 percent of the houses in [the neighborhoods of] Sredorek and Bavci were flooded.”

According to Reuters, “…Minister Georgi Petkanov told news agency BTA that business interests were the most likely motive for the killing. Markov had never been the subject of police investigation.”According to the Sofia News Agency, “…two companies are registered [in] Markov’s name – ‘Estel Oil Bulgaria’ Joint Stock Company and ‘Delta International Trading.’” Not much information is readily available about either, but the first is described as being a “petrol-trading firm.”

Markov does not seem to have been a well known figure abroad. Until the Bulgarian media follows up on this case, there is little else to be said about him.

Over the past several years, such murders have become commonplace, in Sofia as well as in other urban areas of Bulgaria. “There have been efforts to rein them in, but they are still more powerful than the police – or else working together with them,” said one bemused Sofia local. Yet also considering that many foreign car rental agencies refuse to sell insurance only in the case of visiting Bulgaria, it is ironic that it is Serbia and Macedonia that have been stigmatized as dangerous places to live. Unless a war’s on, one is far more likely of getting caught in the crossfire in Bulgaria.

‘Whadd’ya mean, I can’t bring my gun in to cash this check?’ Sign on a bank entrance in Sofia.

As in Russia, post-Communist popular culture in Bulgaria has developed its own mafia ideals. Media outlets like Planet TV play round-the-clock music videos, almost completely identical, each featuring another sultry, siliconed vixen with one name and well-built young men decked out in suits, sunglasses, and large, American-style vehicles with tinted windows. They’re always wielding mobiles and stirring vaguely alcoholic drinks, and the girls are always puckering and undulating seductively.

The reality – even the imitated reality – is somewhat different, as an experimental visit to Sofia’s Planet CafˆšÂ© recently showed. The shy young waitress, who like the sirens on TV could have been a model, was accosted by a 40-something year old man who, while he was appropriately dressed in a suit and surrounded by other men also so attired and outfitted with phones, sunglasses and vodka, was somewhat more portly than the svelte young mafiosi in the TV videos.

Failing in his forceful bid to win a kiss from the rather surprised waitress, the man left with his entourage and muttered something like “I will not forget you, baby.” On the way out his comrade packed away the enormous water pipe that had been finding gainful employment under the table.

Big business interests from the leading EU countries are eager to get to work in Bulgaria, and reap fortunes from yet another Eastern European state they’ve taken in. If all goes according to plan, they will soon have their wish. But it just might be more lively than they had anticipated.