BDI In Offensive Against Ohrid Agreement
With such calculating policies of the BDI, which is a total opposite of all principles and specific points of the Ohrid Agreement, a crisis in Macedonia, political and security crisis, is unavoidable
by Saso ORDANOSKI
Forum, Skopje, Macedonia, September 15, 2003
The umbilical cord connecting the BDI and current criminal flows in the country is so short that a political action against certain "commander Breza [Birch]", who with a group of still wet behind the ears but well armed teenagers control(led) the most important smuggling route near Tanusevci immediately prompted collective boycott by ethnic Albanians of the commemoration of the Macedonian statehood day, on September 8, and demands for a complete "reform of the security and defense system" in the country! Surprised by the success and professional execution of the police-military action they say that the problem is that the action included military forces in addition to the police, while the state boundary passes along bunkers of ethnic Albanian criminals who were dispersed in the action and shot on the security forces from heavy weaponry; now the criminal-profiteering logic is supposed to be "covered" by the wide "coattails" of the Ohrid Agreement and lost in the "endless sea" of the general Albanian depression in the Balkans and wider, whose horizon stretches from dissatisfaction with weather forecasts to inadequate representation in state institutions.
Main Victims: Albanians
Macedonia faces a sad future if the price of an all-Albanian blackmail for undisturbed criminal activities is the existence of the country itself. The compromise they seek is dangerous: if police must take steps against worst types of crime in which their compatriots are engaged - weapons trade and smuggling, drugs, human trafficking, abductions, murders etc. - then ethnic Albanian politicians must be informed about such actions in advance so that they could, purportedly, "prepare the ground". Otherwise, political representatives of the Aracinovo-Lipkovo-Tetovo criminal gangs are prepared to engage in a monstrous deception, whose main victims are ethnic Albanians; they claim that the biggest enemy of ethnic Albanians is the Macedonian (multiethnic) police and the (multiethnic) military, although the biggest and most numerous victims of criminals are precisely ethnic Albanians living in this country, taking into account number of victims, wounded and material losses that have exceeded those from the 2001 military conflict. However, Mr Ahmeti does not care that since the beginning of the year in various criminal attacks, carried out by his fellow ethnic Albanians, carrying weaponry Ahmeti had brought to Macedonia, hundreds of ethnic Albanians have died or been wounded (many of them children); he is only concerned with the protection of the business of his buddy Breza whom, God forbid!, the Macedonian police has had the gall to chase before previously informing Ahmeti. He seems to have forgotten that the Ohrid Agreement does not only envisage "proportional representation in state administration", which seems to have been the only preoccupation of his ministers over the last twelve months. It was expected that the BDI would show capability to grapple with all, instead of a few carefully selected problems facing ethnic Albanians in the country. If as guerrillas they obtained a general amnesty, as politicians they have no excuse for their inability, opportunism, or crime, which they practice while in power.
Business Takeover
However, another fact indicates close links between the BDI and the current criminal establishment: the new authorities haven't investigated or prosecuted a single one out of many serious representatives of organized crime in the ranks of ethnic Albanians participating in the previous government, apart from the comical Besnik Fetai. That forces one to conclude that instead the BDI has taken over their "business ventures" and profits. Ethnic Macedonians had the fortune to watch that film already when the VMRO (and its satellites) after coming to power in 1998, despite great expectations in the electorate, simply took over criminal activities of SDSM (and their satellites) on the state and local level. We all know how that transfer ended: with military conflict and chaotic economy, although Ljupco and comrades have in the meantime joined ranks of the wealthiest individuals in the Balkans. Then, Ljupco decided to find blame elsewhere: "It's not that I am a criminal, but Macedonia must be divided, because there can be no life with Albanians!"
The current climb of the BDI on the criminal "peaks" of their political predecessors from the PDP and the DPSh hides a serious danger for the peace and stability in the country. Namely, criminal structures with which the BDI is always prepared to sincerely negotiate - without presence of ethnic Macedonians, as in Vaksince, for example, which essentially means that the former commander Shaqiri probably drank tea and had a pleasant chat with uniformed and armed bandits Cakala, Xhejmi Shej etc. and they put together a list of demands to be presented to the Macedonian authorities that pretty much include a demand that they be guaranteed a lottery win and paid in cash - therefore it is unclear for whom such structures, apart for themselves, work - what Balkan and other secret services, what criminal and other interests in Kosovo and Macedonia, for what tribal and clan interests etc. Thus, the BDI clams that Cakala is a fool, but who is paying him? Or, who does "commander Kuksi" work for? Apparently, he is supposed to be the next entertainment for the masses in the process of destabilization of Macedonia.
Federation Better Than Division
With such calculating BDI policies, a total opposite of all principles and specific points of the Ohrid Agreement, a crisis in Macedonia, political and security crisis, is unavoidable. Overthrown criminals from the competing DPSh (whom the BDI approaches with awe, as a younger and much poorer brother) are aware of that and are already advocating creation of a grand coalition government by the end of the year that would include the current opposition as well. With such "crisis" government, weak and already "on its knees", Macedonia is supposed to "enter" negotiations between Pristina and Belgrade, and maybe even become the topic of some future Balkan conference currently advocated by Russians (supposedly with the goal of confirming the current borders in the Balkans). Unlike in the Serbian extremist plans in which Macedonian territory is to be offered as compensation for territories Albanians may lose in the division of Kosovo, plans of "moderate" and "constructive" Albanian criminal-extremist circles in the Balkans and Macedonia envisage federalization of Macedonia (in addition to independent Kosovo and high degree of autonomy for Albanians in the south of Serbia proper). Such a "cumulative" Macedonian government in a given moment and in "package" with other regional solutions will attempt to offer a less radical option (federation) than the division of the country, advocated by AKSh [Albanian National Army], DPSh [Democratic Party of Albanians], and the leader of the DPMNE, Ljupco Georgievski.
Therefore, all of us are aware that reforms of the Macedonian security forces will have to take place at great speed over the next ten and more years. However, if that continuity of reform is exploited as a political pretext to avoid fight against crime (even including criminals carrying heavy weaponry) - and it seems that since joining the new government the BDI has consistently advocated such a solution - then we are right to wonder whether such a policy actually hides a more dangerous political agenda, which includes divisions, federalization and other fates envisaged for Macedonia. If we are to "close the door" to such options, the BDI must get its foot out of the way.
Translated on November 4, 2004
