The three day official visit to Macedonia of Miguel Martinez, President of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, ended yesterday with a joint press-conference with Martinez and Macedonian Parliament President Stojan Andov. The admission of Macedonia to the Council should be a unifying factor for all political subjects in the country, Martinez said. "This visit enables me to confirm the findings of the three reporters who were present here, which is that Macedonia meets the basic requirements to be included into Europe," he added. The final decision to grant Macedonia Council membership is to be made by the Committee of Ministers by the middle of November. All that is left to be done by the Macedonian government and parliament is to ratify the Declaration for Local Self-government and the Conventions for Human and National Minority Rights. Asked why he had insisted on Macedonia signing the Convention on National Minority Rights when a number of Council members - including Macedonia's neighbors - have not signed it, Martinez said the Convention is a good initiative, adding that all other member countries are pressed to sign it and that the Parliamentary Assembly would be completely satisfied to see a greater participation of ethnic Albanians, as well as women, at all levels of governing with the country.
Speaking of Greece, Martinez said it does not contribute to instability in the region, as it has not sent troops to occupy a foreign territory, but he said that the Greek embargo is unacceptable. He hoped that Greece will not interpret the Council's decision to grant Macedonia membership as a sign of hostility toward Greece. "This visit is to clearly indicate that our country is ready to be admitted to the Council of Europe," Andov said. He added both the government and president Gligorov have also stated readiness to have Macedonia included in the Partnership for Peace program.
In regard to the announced admission of Macedonia into the Council of Europe, official Tirana reacted on behalf of the Albanians in Macedonia, A1 Television reports. Media in Albania say that all political subjects of Albanians in Macedonia are opposed to the idea of granting Macedonia membership to the Council, as they do not enjoy all basic rights.
Yesterday Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov received Albert Turot, head of the EU monitoring mission in the former Yugoslavia, to present Macedonia's position and activities concerning relations with neighboring countries. The independent development, peace and stability of Macedonia and the wider region would be considerably enhanced by the establishment of mutual diplomatic relations between Macedonia and the European Union, negotiations on cooperation and closer links, as well as the improvement of political and economic cooperation, Gligorov underlined. Turot was also received by Defense Minister Blagoj Handziski.
As authorized by the Macedonian Ministry of Finance, the Macedonian representative to the United States, Ljubica Acevska, yesterday signed an agreement at the World Bank's main office in Washington to obtain a $24 million credit for Macedonia. The finances are to be used for construction and reconstruction of the Tetovo-Gostivar and Kicevo-Botun road sections, as well as for technical facilities at border- crossings with Bulgaria and Albania. The first installment of $10 million is to arrive in Macedonia in the next few days.
A delegation of the Macedonian Ministry of Health, led by Minister Ilija Filipce, yesterday arrived on a two day visit to Slovenia. Filipce discussed cooperation in the public health with his Slovenian counterpart. Today they are to sign a protocol on mutual cooperation, which will include treatment of patients, medical specialist training, exchange of medical information and trading of medicines and medical equipment.
Representatives of the Macedonian Chamber of Commerce took the opportunity during the current visit of Mr. Donaggio, head of the Chamber of Commerce of Trieste and Italy, to discuss economic cooperation between the two countries. In attendance of the Italian ambassador to Macedonia Faustino Troni, the head of the Macedonian Chamber Dushan Petrevski pointed out the importance of the economic cooperation with Italy, which comprises 10 per cent of Macedonia's total economic exchange with foreign countries. The exchange with Italy involves cooperation in all branches of industry, and there is potential for developing cooperation in metallurgy, agriculture and transportation.
A delegation of the Belgium Ministry of Transportation arrived on a visit to Macedonia yesterday. Over the next few days they will meet with senior officials of the Macedonian Ministry of Traffic and Communications to discuss road transportation issues. Talks are expected to result in the signing of a draft-agreement on transportation of goods and passengers between Macedonia and Belgium which will determine the number of annual contingents, while the bus transportation of passengers will be carried out on a basis of ratified lists of passengers. Yesterday the Belgium delegates were received by Minister of Traffic and Communications Dimiatar Buzlevski.
Delegations from Macedonia and Poland have negotiated over the past few days in Skopje on changes and adoptions of a bilateral agreement on avoiding double taxation and on an agreement to mutually encourage and protect investments in the two countries. Both agreements were completely agreed on and ratified and are now only waiting verification by the Polish and Macedonian governments.
Tony Millson, ambassador of Great Britain to Macedonia, yesterday paid a visit to the joint-stock company "Zletovo- baterii" of Probishtip. The aim of the visit was to inquire about the progress of the ongoing transformation of the company which is likely to be included in the British Government's program for technical aid. Efforts will also be made to find foreign purchasers for the company's products (car batteries).
Nikos Grilakis, former Chief-of-staff of the Greek army, arrived two days ago on a visit to Macedonia, A1 Television reports. Grilakis is the man to whom all rumors of secret negotiations between Macedonia and Greece are connected. The visit comes right after Grilakis had been freed from charges of involvement in the affair of tapping-telephones of top Greek politicians. According to A1 Television, he crossed the border at the Gevgelija and was met by an official car from the Macedonian Ministry of the Interior. The visit has initiated various speculations as Grilakis is a close friend of both the ex- and current Prime Ministers of Greece, Mitsotakis and Papandreou.
The Macedonian Trade Union Association will suggest DM 190 as the lowest amount for a legal guaranteed minimum wage in Macedonia, during negotiations with the Government and Chamber of Commerce. The latter suggested a sum of DM 120. It is the government which will make the final decision, A1 Television says.
Following a decision by the Ministry of City Planning, the Macedonian police secured workers to tear down two buildings in Debarska Zhupa and Golem Papratnik, in which classes had been taught in the Turkish language without approval from the Ministry of Education. The prevention of further activities by these schools is in compliance with the Law on Elementary Education and in accordance with last year's decision by the Macedonian Government.
The Macedonian public electricity company issued a statement yesterday to explain that the latest increase in the price of electricity was introduced only to adopt the price set by the recent decision of the Constitutional Court, which abolished all previous increases. The price of electricity for industry will go up by 5 per cent, the company says, and the price for general consumers has been considerably lowered by the Court decision. This puts the company in an extremely difficult financial situation.
The Government re-included "Palair" and "Mat" in the air traffic yesterday, following their settlement of part of their debt to the state and the public enterprise for airport services.
In a European Cup qualification match against Belgium, Macedonia lost 5:0 in Skopje. The junior team won by 3:0.
The former communist block of countries, including Macedonia, was characterized by an utmost, almost xenophobic fear of democratic institutions which are fundamental to the West. The widely used thesis of the danger of "western spies" used to function perfectly in intimidating the domestic public. Despite all the measures of precaution, however, the Eastern communist block failed to fight back the wave of capitalism and fell for the democracy and human rights offered by the West. All previous communist regimes welcomed the western system which is marked by an open market and parliamentary democracy; yet they also had to accept all the responsibility of the international community in which they yearn to become included.
Western democracy is mainly based on the principle of mutual control, and there is an awareness that no system, including capitalism, is perfect and that individuals or groups of politicians in the administration will abuse their power and position at the cost of others. In fact, the large world organizations such as the UN, OSCE, EU, GATT and the World Bank were established to secure such control at all levels of world society. Also, all Western countries - without exception - have non-governmental organizations engaged in the protection of human rights, the development of democracy and freedom of expression, along with specialized committees of the world institutions mentioned above. Therefore, the act of opening the former communist countries to the West means, in principle, to undertake wide responsibility for the governing a country and for securing a system that functions equally for all. Of course, this can by no means completely eliminate the practice of having one or more countries, which are likely to use their position for interests narrower than those of the entire community, dominate in these institutions. Moreover, the domination of great powers and their mutually conflicting interests often cause damage to other countries and this is the exact reason for today's efforts to reduce their influence and power. The example of the former Yugoslavia and even more of Bosnia- Herzegovina are very obvious examples of this.
In this context the case of Macedonia has several specific features which are mainly due to the internal chaos in the country itself. Several international institutions, such as the UN, OSCE and the Council of Europe, are currently present in Macedonia, accompanied by numerous non- governmental international institutions which are specialized in various fields. The funny thing here is that Macedonia is not a member of these institutions - indeed, it is a UN member, but admitted without its name and national symbols. All this has created conditions for relative international control, that is, the two-way manipulation with Macedonia. The first is the fact that Macedonia, despite all promises so far, has still not been granted a full OSCE membership due to a veto by Greece, and the second is the fact that the principle of consensus, functioning the way it does, puts candidates for membership in a far from equal position. Moreover, the control conducted by the OSCE in Macedonia seems irrelevant, as Macedonia can freely neglect all objections and remarks by this organization of which it is not a member.
The case with the Council of Europe is even more specific. Regardless of the real situation in the country, Macedonia was eager to accept the advice of the Council in regard to its new Constitution, especially those reflecting the rights of minorities. All this was accepted with blind-folded eyes and without a consideration for the possible consequences of such a constitutional definition of the minorities living here, which continue to present one of Macedonia's biggest problems today.
In fact, the attention of international missionaries in Macedonia is mostly turned towards the minorities, particularly the Albanians in the country, who act as if they were the only population in the country. The Macedonian government policy of constant concessions toward them resulted, among other things, in an urgent population census conducted in as many as 6 languages. Although the census was verified by international monitoring teams who were able to see for themselves the concrete domination of the Macedonian population, the very same monitors continue to speculate and manipulate with the number of Albanians living in Macedonia. The so-called Albanian-language university in Tetovo brought to a paradox the involvement of the international missionaries, especially through Gert Arens and Max Van der Stoel who, depending on the position from which they speak, tend to relate the right of such an institution to the extreme. At times, they call on the government to allow such a university, while at other times they warn that the established educational system must be respected. The report of an OSCE official immediately after the incident in Mala Recica is especially interesting; he hastened to report of a large number of injured and killed Albanians (?!). The Macedonian government allows itself to be blackmailed by almost all sides, but the roots of this are the officially admitted promises to the Albanians for a university in their mother tongue; the promise was confirmed by the British Foreign Office and the PDP leader himself, who revealed that Gligorov had promised the Albanians a university. What is otherwise characteristic of the Council of Europe is that it kept saying, over the past two years, that Macedonia will be admitted to the Council "by the end of the year", since such issues are not resolved by a consensus there. Nevertheless, the impression is that the relations between the current Macedonian government and the international institutions changed after the second elections. The official delegations of OSCE, the Council of Europe and others served as a perfect cover for the thwarted elections with their reports on "regularity" of the elections. The authorities in Macedonia maximally used the fact that the international community closed one eye to the elections. But the boycott of the opposition was obviously something no one counted on. As a result, the report of the UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali questioning the regularity of the elections aroused bitter attacks on the Secretary General's report (explained, by the way, by no regime media) and on international factors in general, which, as they said, "are not necessarily objective". So, as long as Mr. Gligorov and the other segments of the government were able to make use of the international factors in covering their misdoings, everything was quite all right. But all of a sudden, the Macedonian public saw a television interview of Mr. Frckovski in which he explained, in an expert way, that the international observers, having considered the Macedonian case only 20 minutes before they landed at the Skopje airport, are not competent to state objective opinions on the situation in Macedonia. Mr. Frckovski went even further and entered an argument with the international observers, because some of them (like Mazowiecki, for example) described the Macedonian police force as overstepping its legal authority on a quite regular basis. One of the most recent examples is the visit of members of the Parliament of Great Britain.
Comments in certain regime media, attacking the British MP's for stating "standpoints prepared beforehand", resembled attitudes often met in comments made by the Serbian ruler Milosevic, who could not care less for what the world thinks of his acts. What seems to be forgotten here is that the same world is unanimous in attacking Milosevic for his role and his actions. Regime- inclined papers even attacked members of the Macedonian parliament for failing to coordinate their views prior to the session. It sounded like all of them were supposed to say that life in Macedonia is just wonderful. And like foreigners coming to Macedonia must not have "standpoints prepared beforehand" on the fact ,easily seen from far away, that the Macedonian Parliament has no opposition. In conclusion, Macedonian public opinion is not only manipulated by all kinds of world missionaries (some of them are indeed to be skeptic about), but also by the Macedonian government. The latter manipulates the nation through the international community, but it also manipulates within the community, which at times serves the purpose of deceiving the public, only to be brought down the next moment for "not being competent" to bring judgments about Macedonia.
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