Posted on 11/5/2004, 3:07:11 AM by Destro
U.S. to Recognize Ex-Yugoslav Republic as Macedonia
By ANTHEE CARASSAVA
Published: November 5, 2004
ATHENS, Nov. 4 - The United States announced Thursday that it would recognize a former Yugoslav republic as the Republic of Macedonia, touching off protests in Athens and celebrations in the streets of Skopje, the tiny nation's capital.
Greece has opposed official recognition of its name ever since, arguing that it implies territorial ambitions on a northern Greek province, also called Macedonia.
Greece imposed a trade embargo on Macedonia in 1994 and insisted that it enter the United Nations under the provisional name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, pending resolution of the name dispute. Nearly a decade of subsequent United Nations-brokered talks made little headway.
After learning of the decision by the United States, the Greek foreign minister, Petros Molyviatis, summoned Thomas J. Miller, the United States ambassador to Greece, to complain. He also canceled a trip to Brussels, where the European Union had been expected to deal with efforts to resolve the dispute.
"This unilateral decision will have many negative side effects," he said.
Mr. Miller would not comment.
The decision was met with glee in Macedonia, where President Branko Crvenkovski hailed it as a victory, adding, "This is a great day for Macedonia."
Western officials in Athens and Skopje suggested that Washington's recognition was intended to ease tensions before a referendum on Sunday that could overturn a law that ended seven months of fighting by giving the nation's large ethnic Albanian minority greater local autonomy.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell confirmed the link to the referendum in a telephone conversation with his Greek counterpart on Wednesday, a senior Foreign Ministry official said.
Nicholas Wood contributed reporting from Pristina, Kosovo, for this article.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It is as if it does not matter who is president when it comes to small side shows. Presidents may focus on big stuf but they seem to go on autopilot for the rest. The Clinton/Gore/Kerry admin. may well have made this same decision.
Besides which there are a whole bunch of old guys in Albania who should be put on trial for WWII warcrimes, genocide and assorted atrocities.
This was a bone State threw the the ruling party in "Macedonia" so they won't over turn their deal with the Albanians. But in so doing it may have made the situation in the Balkans more dangerous?
Macedonia: Referendum Drive Begins Amidst Veiled Threats Posted on Monday, October 11 @ 16:15:00 EDT by CDeliso
Even as it continues to get a frosty reception from Macedonia’s international minders, the referendum drive has kicked off in Skopje, with organizers hopeful of success on November 7th. Its fate, however, is shrouded in uncertainty, as more powerful forces lie in wait and the population becomes increasingly cowed into subservience.
From ordinary Macedonians we have surveyed recently, it seems that the typical timidity so characteristic of the nation has resurfaced. In the end, the referendum may be defeated because the citizens are more scared of the internationals than they are of eventually losing their country – a lose-lose situation for a people accustomed to perennial colonization and subjugation.
On a one day visit to Skopje, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pointedly told the Macedonians that they face a “clear choice” with the referendum, of either “…a future with NATO, in which stability and economic growth can flourish, or a return to the past.” In other words, “stick with the plan, or we’ll find a new war for you.”
Ironically enough, Rumsfeld was in Skopje to thank Macedonian soldiers for fighting in a war definitely not their own (Iraq), in which they saved the lives of American soldiers.
The patronizing attitude of the “international community” was summed up in a 1 October editorial from the interventionist-minded IWPR. In it, author Michael Saulin haughtily dismissed Macedonia as a “security consumer,” which “only drags itself and its neighbours down.” Official statements from Brussels have more bluntly threatened the tiny Balkan state, warning that any successful referendum will imperil Macedonia’s EU aspirations – not so much because of what the referendum may actually be about, but because it is not the plan ordained by the EU. In essence, it represents merely an annoying distraction enunciated by unimportant Balkanians, whose desires the Union ultimately has no use for.
Now, the expected counter-referendum challenge from the Albanian side has materialized. More unexpectedly and more deviously, perhaps, it has come from a foreign lobbyist on a single-handed quest for liberation of a third party. The Albanian-American Civic League’s Joe DioGuardi is masterminding a drive to collect signatures among the Albanian populations in Tetovo and Kumanovo, for the “International Campaign for the Liberation of Kosova Now” (note the emphasis on “now”).
Apparently, this petition is the fruition of efforts by the Albanians’ long-term paid patrons in the congress, Tom Lantos and Henry Hyde. Anyone interested in joining up with this grand and worthy cause can, we suppose, click here.
While this action may seem to be only fair, considering that the Macedonia initiative was driven by the World Macedonian Congress - also an international lobbying group - the AACL’s efforts in Macedonia are (ostensibly, at least) not targeted towards that state, making the presence of their agitators there more than a bit tiresome.
And so the government is faced with a dilemma: how long will they tolerate such jokers in the midst? Both the SDSM and ethnic partner DUI are encouraging voters to oppose the referendum. Yet allowing a foreign lobbyist to rile up the voters for action in another state is hardly responsible or consistent behavior. The Kosovo issue remains close to the hearts of Macedonia’s Albanian population and the ruling DUI (who, after all, recruited most of their leadership from the gun-toting province).
Nevertheless, according to an October 10 report, every Albanian party in Macedonia showed up at the Tetovo rally to voice solidarity with their ethnic kin and American backers – who plan to submit the list of signatures to the US Congress (as if it was in their purview to adjudicate such issues).
In response to the Western opposition to a Macedonia referendum, opposition leader Nikola Gruevski penned an articulate rebuttal of the IWPR article, making a point-by-point refutation of the alarmist concerns raised in the latter. The article appeared last week in Macedonian in the Skopje daily Vreme, but was translated by Reality Macedonia, and is recommended reading for anyone wishing to get a more rounded understanding of the issue.
In the article, Gruevski points out the 41 spontaneous local referendums that have already been held on the “grassroots” level Don Rumsfeld is apparently so fond of protecting, and confirms that “…citizens are aware that the 1996 law needs to be changed and new municipal borders redraw. However, the much needed improvement of the present status quo situation, should result from well thought-out change of municipal boundaries. Unfortunately, not all change leads to a desired improvement. At present the poorly designed law, disregarding citizens’ concerns, become [a] huge obstacle towards improvement.”
Looming behind everything is the unresolved situation in Kosovo, which is headed for elections that may well be boycotted by the province’s beleaguered Serbian minority. As the unambiguous stance of Macedonia’s Albanian parties indicates, the status of the internationally-administered province remains a divisive issue for Macedonia’s ethnic politics as well.
According to Beta, the SDSM declared that “…the status of Kosovo needs to be reached through institutions and through discussions between Belgrade and Kosovo.” This remains, roughly, the position of the internationals on the matter.
The opposition VMRO-DPMNE, in a rare show of unity with the government rulers, agreed with this statement. More bluntly, the opposition urged the government to “put an end” to DioGuardi’s Macedonian machinations. “The Macedonian government will have to decide by what date the leaders of this initiative have to leave the country,” stated VMRO representative and former Foreign Minister Slobodan Casule, adding that “…they [i.e., the AACL) are free to collect signatures in Pristina.” But does the SDSM have the gumption to expel the troublemakers who are apparently so beloved by their coalition partners?
In any case, it is more than a bit rich that Macedonia’s internal political initiatives are being held under a glaring spotlight as being aberrant, grotesque and deficient, while the role of the region’s number one “security consumer,” Kosovo, in feeding its neighbors’ unrest is ignored. As always, this owes to the willfully forgotten culpability of those responsible for the “successful” 1999 intervention.
In a rare case of the mass media getting it right, a recent Chicago Tribune article commented that, “…the land [Kosovo] is headed in only one direction, toward chaos and bloodshed.” In the end, Macedonia is hardly the state that will “drag down” its neighbors. The fact that it is being treated as such indicates more about the West’s failings in Kosovo than it does about the efficacy of its much-lauded solutions for Macedonia.
Does somebody in FYR want to make trouble or what?!
Sure, it'll make the Greeks mad, but when it comes to them and their Turkish gumbahs we all recall what happened when we needed transit into Iraq. Let them stew in their own pot.
So why turn up the flame on the stew pot?
American Foreign Policy pursues American goals - not the parochial ethno-racist ones you've been espousing hereabouts for the last 4 or so years.
Maybe if you read a little more, you'd have figured it all out a bit sooner.
Seems to me that it's in the American interest to be able to remind the Greeks and Turks from time to time that they haven't had a serious war with each other for many years due to our intervention in their affairs.
America's goals through a filter left or right. What Clinton did may have been for the good of America in his peoples world view - but that does not mean it was. You my atheist pal seem to accept anything those in authority decree from on high - be they Clinton's or Bush's. It's all good as long as it comes from authority on up high.
Turkey is in the other direction and this dispute does not involve them. I am all for America playing honest broker - but not world hegemon.
When it comes to the rump states left over from the Ottoman Empire, the US really does have to get involved.
I don't know how hard you're actually trying, but your level of cluelessness is remarkable.
bump
American involvement has created 3 Muslim states where none existed before. With allies like that who needs enemies?
They're long in the grave. Comrade Hoxha brooked no rivals; real, potential, or imagined--and he had a good imagination.
We got involved when Slobo's extremist Greater Serbia nationalism led to the deaths of over 200,000 with a couple million refugees and the UN & Euro's proved incapable of doing anything about it. American involvement--primarily in the form of the U.S. miltary--stopped the mass killings & warfare, put most of the refugees back in their homes, and set the conditions for the Serbs taking down Milsoevic and sending him to the Hague.
I presume your 3 Muslim states are B-H, Kosovo, and the Albanian-populated regions of Macedonia. All are secular. B-H has a rotating presidency between the Croats, Serbs, & Bosniaks--and all three groups live in regions with substantial autonomy within B-H.
Kosovo's elected president is Catholic and virtually all the Arab Wahabbi missionaries that showed up in 99-2000 have been tossed out, in some cases murdered, or departed discouraged at their inability to make inroads with the very independent & secular Kosovar Albanians.
In Macedonia, the 2001 Alb revolt was concluded in good faith by both sides with the Ohrid accord. There is nothing in the demands of the Albanians or written in the Ohrid accord that could in any way be construed as having a religious or Muslim motivation; or especially as establishing a separate state; much less a Muslim one.
These are essentially political and nationalistic diputes, not driven by religion.
The Greek government and intelligentsia have gone out of their way, over a number of years, to stick their thumbs in our eye.
This is probably diplo-speak for "F**k you too, Jack!"
-ccm
This was done so they can create a Albanian region.
Diplomacy is to gain us something - what does this gain us?
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