MAK-NEWS 15/11/95 (M.I.C.)

From: "M.I.C." <mic@ITL.MK>

Macedonian Information Centre Directory

CONTENTS

SKOPJE, NOVEMBER 15, 1995 (MIC)

[01] DEBATE IN NATO OVER NAME OF RM

The Macedonian delegation, led by Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski arrived in Brussels, at NATO headquarters yesterday afternoon, to place his signature on the general agreement for the "Partnership for peace" programme.

The Italian diplomat Sergio Valanzino, acting NATO Secretary-General, will receive the Macedonian Prime Minister on a half-hour long discussion, which will be held on the occasion of the formal ceremony of the signing, together with the ambassadors of the 16 member-states of the NATO pact.

This will make Macedonia the 27th signatory of this military partnership, which is regarded as a guarantee of the stability and security in Macedonia, its territorial integrity and political independence.

However, in the whole procedure of signing of the Macedonian-Atlantic partnership, it still remains to persuade the high NATO officials that the Republic of Macedonia can not place its signature on the document which, instead of the constitutional name of the country, would contain the temporary name - former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The Macedonian diplomacy stepped up its activities to resolve this problem yesterday, while it is unofficially informed that one of the possible solutions is the protocol exchange of letters in which the Macedonian document will contain the constitutional name Republic of Macedonia, while the one signed by the NATO pact will contain the temporary name, as the Greek delegation in the NATO pact insists.

[02] EVANS EXPLAINS POSITION OF AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT

The Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans has sent a letter to the Macedonian Council of Western Australia, explaining the position of the Australian Government in relation to the "Macedonian question." Evans emphasizes that Australia has recognized Macedonia under the same name which is in temporary use in the UN, adding that the Australian Government supports the recent agreement between Macedonia and Greece for the restoration of normal relations, and expresses hope that the problem over the nomenclature will be resolved through dialogue between the two countries. At the end, minister Evans expressed satisfaction with the establishment of diplomatic relations between Australia and Macedonia.

[03] "PARTNERSHIP FOR PEACE" - BASIC PRINCIPLE OF SECURITY

The Macedonian Security Council held a meeting yesterday which was chaired by Parliamentary Speaker Stojan Andov, as a temporary replacement of the President of the Republic.

The Council reviewed the presentation documents which were submitted by the Government, in relation to Macedonia's accession to the "Partnership for peace" initiative, and assessed that they successfully represent the basic principles of the security policy and defence of the country, is said in the announcement of the President's cabinet.

[04] GREEN CARDS VALID FROM FRIDAY

Following intensive and coordinated activities of the Interior Ministry and the insurance company "Makedonija," the secretary-general of the Bureau for Green Cards in London has announced that the Uniform agreement has been signed by all member-states of the EU, and that the 17th of this month has been set as the date from which the green cards, issued by the Macedonian National Bureau for Green Cards, will be valid for all EU member-states.

[05] MACEDONIAN-ALBANIAN TALKS ON EAST-WEST CORRIDOR

The delegations of the Macedonian and Albanian transport ministries met in Struga yesterday to discuss the East- West corridor. The Macedonian minister Sundovski emphasized that Macedonia has construction groups that is prepared to carry out capital projects and are free to take on construction jobs in Albania, or to work together with Albanian construction companies in third countries. Sundovski stressed that Macedonia is giving special attention to the construction of the East-West corridor, and that it is necessary for Albania to modernize its border crossings.

Albania is ready to get included in the realization of the study of the protection of the Ohrid Lake, which is being prepared by a Swiss firm, and which will be financed by the World bank. The two countries will soon prepare a protocol on all open questions.

[06] MACEDONIAN-GREEK TOURIST EXCHANGE

At the international catering and tourism fair in Thessaloniki "Filoksenija," which was held these days, Macedonia was represented, for the first time, by the Gevgelija Tourist agency "Putnik-Euro Dolar," as a guest of the Association of Tour Operators of Northern Greece.

A number of agreements on cooperation were signed. It has been agreed for Greek tourists to visit Macedonia during the Christmas and New Year holidays, as well as winter vacations on Popova Shapka. Hotel "Slavija" on Popova Shapka has already been booked for the Greek tourists.

[07] PARLIAMENT: ALBANIANS ASKING FOR LEGALIZATION OF TETOVO UNIVERSITY

At yesterday's session, with 73 votes "for," the Macedonian Parliament expressed support of the Proposal for the adoption of a Law on denationalization, and instruction the Government to prepare a draft-law to incorporate the suggestions of the MPs, expressed in the discussion.

In the general debate on the Proposal for the adoption of a Law on high education, the MPs from the Albanian nationality in Macedonia dominated the discussion. Although a part of them assessed the new elements in the initial text of the law as positive, nevertheless all of them criticized the legal provisions in articles 9 and 117, which determine the language in the which the high educational activities will be held, i.e. the Universities in the Republic. That, according to them, presents a a pure legal discrimination of domestic production. Namely, article 9 suggests that the high educational activities be carried out in Macedonian language, i.e. that the classes be conducted in the languages of the nationalities only at those faculties at which teaching staff is educated, which is unacceptable to the Albanians and therefore, they asked for the text of the proposal to be returned to the Government in order to be supplemented with a formulation that will allow the use of the languages of the nationalities at all educational institutions.

In relation to the second, for them, controversial article, which proposes that the two existing universities "Sts. Cyril and Methodius" and "St. Clement of Ohrid" continue with their work with the status of public universities, founded by the Macedonian Parliament, they want the Tetovo University to be added to these two. This would imply its legalization and inclusion in the high educational system, because the Tetovo University presents a reality for the Albanians, to which the eyes should not be closed.

If these requests are not incorporated in the draft-law in this phase, the Albanian MPs warned that it could easily lead to the destabilization of Macedonia, to the increasing of the gap between the Macedonians and Albanians, and that it would be a historic mistake.

The discussion is continuing today.

[08] IMRO-DPMNU AND DP TO BOYCOTT ELECTIONS

One week after the scheduling of the additional parliamentary elections for one member of Parliament from election unit 114 in the Skopje municipality Center, the parties from the Alliance for Macedonia will appear jointly again, announcing that their candidate will be from the Socialist Party, the same as at the regular elections more than a year ago.

The largest opposition parties IMRO-DPMNU and DP will not nominate any candidates since, as they explain, otherwise, that would verify the election results which, according to them are falsified, just like the mandate of the illegitimate Parliament.

IMRO-DP and the Labour Party, on the other hand, will be nominating their candidates.

MACEDONIAN PRESS REVIEW:

[09] "NOVA MAKEDONIJA": INSTEAD OF NEW DEVELOPMENTS - A WALL OF SILENCE

A month and a half has passed from the assassination attempt against the president of Macedonia and twenty days since the minister of the interior's news conference, but the investigation on the assassination attempt is still wrapped in mystery. In this context, Minister Frckovski's long awaited public presentation did not give the expected results, because aside from some pieces of information which intrigued the public opinion, he did not present any full data on the assassination attempt so as to indicate to the organizers and executors. We must recall that on that occasion the minister of the interior promised to reveal more data in the sequence of the investigation or, as he himself said: "We will leave it for another meeting with me or with my successor to define these data more precisely." The data that the journalists had asked for were related to the person who stayed in Macedonia a few days before the assassination attempt somewhere in the vicinity of Skopje and who assembled the explosive device and, as Frckovski said, if the Interior Ministry receives additional information, it will ask for his extradition from the country in which he is staying presently.

We are reactivating the announcements of the minister of the police in relation to some data that he presented at the news conference. Aside from saying that a financial and economic grouping from a neighborly country had been involved, and at the first moment this was the most exploited topic in the domestic and foreign mass media, Minister Frckovski exposed a detail that also requires additional explanation. It has to do with the claim that there had been Macedonian citizens in the group of the executors. Is it possible for a minister of the interior to come out with such a finding without presenting concrete evidence? Does he know who these domestic executors are and has anyone of them been arrested? If we know that investigations on assassination attempts always start from the executors and then lead to the organizers (inspirers and instigators are rarely discovered), then it is more than clear that Frckovski owes the public opinion some additional information. Not only such data have not been presented at all, but there are not even any such announcements and the impression is that the Ministry of the Interior is closed within a wall of silence, and that it is very careful not to let "leak" any news on the identity of the executors of the assassination attempt. We must admit that in this context the Macedonian police is making special efforts with success. This arises the questions and the dilemmas whether the silence is due to ignorance or because what has been discovered so far is not meant for the public opinion. In any case, the burden of unofficial speculations, constructions, and assumptions is becoming all the heavier, and the phase in which silence can become counter-productive, in the sense that details are hidden from the people, is reactivated.

When we talk about the police-public opinion relations that are stereotypical in our ambience, according to which when we hear that "it is in the interest of the investigation" it means that there is nothing to be said, I would herein like to make a comparison. In this context, there can be made several comparisons with the assassination of Israeli premier Rabin that was committed one month after the attempt on the life of the Macedonian head of state. Disregarding the essential differences in the technical operation of the two assassination attempts and the fact that in the Israeli case the executor was immediately caught, after which a fast action for discovering the other plotters and inspirers followed, the similarity is that in the Macedonian and the Israeli cases serious slip-ups in the security service had been affirmed. Both states reacted in a different way to this common element: While the Israeli [Shin Bet] (security service) resigned a few hours after Yitzak Rabin's assassination and many of its associates were replaced, including the full security service of the Israeli premier, in our case the first elements of the investigation were exposed by the minister of the police only 23 days after the assassination attempt against President Gligorov, in which he informed about his offered resignation. By the way, the premier has not yet decided about it [the resignation]. In this case, avoiding to compare the political responsibility in the two different cases, we would like to stick to the factor of the public opinion in the investigation of the Israeli police. Not only they immediately revealed the name of the assassin, but the public opinion was informed about every further step and phase of the investigation up to the smallest details. In other words, the democratic mechanism of public information was in full function, particularly in reference to matters of such key events of a prior importance for the nation and the state, as is the attack against its leader.

The Macedonian case is totally different and, as we said, it has been based on some different stereotypes in which one can eventually see the established attitude of the official state bodies toward the public opinion. Everybody is aware that an expanded elaboration is not needed to see that the assassination attempt against President Gligorov was perpetuated in an indirect way (car bomb activated by remote control), with all the necessary precaution measures for the executors not to be caught on the spot. Moreover, it is known that such terrorist attacks are the most difficult to be uncovered and evinced and they usually end up without a clue, that is nothing is discovered. However, if the minister of the interior comes out, like he said, with real evidence that the assassination attempt was backed by a multinational grouping from a neighboring country, that one of its members "shaped" the explosive in the vicinity of Skopje on 28 September and some of our citizens were the direct executors, he undertakes the responsibility to go till the end. Facts are either exposed or not, but they are never announced. This is the reason why we go back to Minister Frckovski's promise that the answers will be presented to the public successively. Normally, this cannot be postponed for ever.

(END)