New conflict in Macedonia
FRESH CONFLICT in Macedonia and southern Serbia is
threatening to tear the Balkans apart once again. At the beginning of June,
Slav-based parties in the Macedonian government were threatening to declare a
state of emergency to give themselves powers to try to crush Albanian rebels.
Anti-Albanian riots flared up, most intensely in the southern town of Bitola.
Human rights groups reported that police had taken part in this new wave of ‘ethnic
cleansing’.
For over a month government troops have pounded Albanian
rebel held villages in north-east Macedonia. After spending weeks huddled in
basements thousands of refugees fled the fighting. Macedonian police separated
out the men who were then ‘subjected to severe beatings’. Slav civilians
have also suffered. A number have been forced out of ethnically mixed areas by
Albanian nationalist hard-liners.
Worsening ethnic clashes will place the very existence of
the state of Macedonia in jeopardy. If civil war and the break-up of Macedonia
unfold, neighbouring countries, such as Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia, with
historical claims to the territory, would intervene. This would also embroil
Turkey. A fifth Balkans war in a decade is a real and horrifying possibility.
The roots of the recent fighting lie in the inability of
capitalism to solve the national question in the Balkans. The re-introduction of
the market economy saw the ruling elite of each republic of the former
Yugoslavia using nationalism to carve out as much territory and resources as
they could at the expense of other nationalities and ethnic groups. Macedonia
managed to avoid becoming directly embroiled in the wars that afflicted the
peoples of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia between 1991-1995. But since it was formed
in the early 1990s, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has been an
extremely fragile entity. An influx of 300,000 Albanian refugees from Kosova
during the 1999 conflict greatly increased the tensions between Macedonia’s
Slav majority and the ethnic-Albanian minority.
The Slav elite claim that the Albanians suffer nothing like
their cousins did in next-door Kosova under Milosevic and point to their
official minority status. But none of this dispels the feeling of Albanians that
they are a discriminated-against minority. They are massively under-represented
in public sector jobs and in industry, and everyday have to contend with the
bigotry of the Slav-dominated police. A mood to fight for full democratic,
cultural and language rights has grown, which the right-wing Albanian guerrillas
and nationalist parties play on.
Two new Albanian guerrilla movements became engaged in armed
action this year: the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanonvac (UCPMB),
named after the three main towns in the predominantly Albanian region in south
east Serbia, and the National Liberation Army (NLA), which came into the open in
Macedonia. The UCPMB occupied the demilitarised buffer zone between Kosova/Kosovo
and Serbia, from which the Serb armed forces were banned after the end of the
1999 NATO bombings. Similarly, the NLA occupied a number of Albanian villages
along the borders of Macedonia, Kosova and Serbia.
The Western powers oppose plans by Albanian nationalists for
a ‘Greater Albania’, which they understand would provoke new larger
conflicts. Therefore the containment of Albanian nationalism is one of their key
aims in the region. To this end, K-For troops have attempted to stop guerrilla
arms and personnel moving across the porous borders between Kosova and southern
Serbia and Macedonia. Western military backup has also been given to the weak
and under-resourced Macedonian armed forces.
In May, after UCPMB leaders agreed ‘to lay down arms’, a
joint NATO and Serb army operation captured former rebel strongholds in the
Presevo valley. The return of the hated Serb army led to an exodus of some
20,000 terrified Albanian civilians. It is scarcely believable, but only two
years ago NATO member states claimed they were going to war with the Serb regime
precisely to prevent such events. The reality is that the Western powers are
prepared to not only tolerate, but also actually participate in a certain degree
of ‘ethnic cleansing’ if they believe it can further their strategic and
economic interests.
In Macedonia, despite Western backup, government forces have
failed to dislodge the NLA from a number of villages. Furthermore, the
guerrillas have opened up a new front and have launched attacks from around
Tetovo.
Despite the fact that all the governments in the Balkans are
pro-capitalist and dominated by the West, ‘stability’ in the region is
proving consistently elusive for the big powers. Successive wars and the
restoration of capitalism have led to a huge drop in living standards throughout
the region and exacerbated the national and ethnic issues.
In recognition that there can be no long-term military
solution to ethnic problems in Macedonia, the EU and US administration are
pressurising the ruling Slav elite to enact ‘reforms’. They forced the
governing party, the pro-Slav Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation-
Democratic Party of Macedonian National Unity, to form a new ‘grand coalition’
in March, which includes the main ethnic Albanian party, the Democratic Party of
Albanians.
The coalition government has been under enormous strain from
day one and could fall at any time. The Albanian parties feel the pressure of
the minority population, which rather than see any meaningful reforms, endure
pogroms and military attack. The Slav elite, however, fears that Macedonians
will see any concessions made to Albanians as a ‘sell-out’. As the crisis
has deepened in June, the prime minister, Ljubco Georgievski, publicly reneged
on his promises of constitutional reforms.
It is no surprise that politicians coming together at the
‘top’ should fail to provide a solution. The Slav and Albanian parties base
themselves on continued ethnic divisions. They are all right wing,
pro-capitalist parties and offer only neo-liberal policies of cuts in services,
pay and jobs. Unemployment (including underemployment) amongst Albanians is
around 60%. But the situation facing Macedonian workers is also bleak. Overall
unemployment is officially measured at 32%. The economy contracted every year
from 1990 to 1996 and then it grew only marginally. The sell-off of former state
run industries has led to mass lay-offs, especially hitting Slav workers.
Privatisations, unemployment and growing poverty are endemic in the market
economy and in the absence of a socialist alternative these factors greatly fuel
ethnic tensions and divisions.
The NLA can offer no solution either to the plight of ethnic
Albanians. Their military adventure in Macedonia has only increased state
repression against the minority, deepened divisions and driven sections of
Macedonians into the arms of reactionaries.
The demand for a ‘Greater Albania’, like the idea of a
‘Greater Serbia’ or a ‘Greater Croatia’, is a cruel illusion for workers
and the poor. It can only mean the attempted annexation of majority Albanian
areas into one ‘ethnically pure state’, which entails wars, refugees and the
mass slaughter of minorities.
Up until now the vast majority of Albanians in the region
have shown little enthusiasm for the idea. In elections in Kosova last year the
hard-line Albanian nationalist parties, which evolved from the KLA, lost out to
moderates. Kosovars do not want renewed conflict and have bitter experience of
the KLA, who have been heavily involved in criminal activities, attacks on
ethnic minorities and oppose trade unionists organising.
Both the NLA and UCPMB have been frustrated by their limited
appeal. But this can change. A surge of conflict in Macedonia and increased
state repression can lead Albanians there to believe that salvation lies only by
linking up with Kosova, the Presevo valley and eventually Albania. In Kosova,
the head of the UN administration has enraged Albanians by blocking demands for
self-determination. He announced on May 15 that a decision on genuine
independence is now put off until ‘an appropriate future stage’.
Socialists support the struggle to end discrimination
against all minorities in Macedonia and support the right of the ethnic Albanian
population to full democratic, cultural and language rights. We stand for a
socialist confederation of Balkan states, on a free and equal basis, where all
minority rights are guaranteed.
Even if the Macedonian conflict is contained for the moment,
the underlying social and economic problems will intensify and at some point,
without a class alternative, a new all-out war will become a reality. Workers
therefore urgently need to unite to oppose the bigots on both sides and to
prevent a slide into civil war. This includes forming democratic cross community
self-defence committees, and building a mass socialist party that can oppose the
reactionary nationalists on all sides, the capitalist elites and the meddling
big powers.
Niall Mulholland
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