Europe, Headlines, Human Rights

MACEDONIA: Tensions Simmer After Police Raid

Apostolis Fotiadis

TETOVO, Nov 28 2007 (IPS) - At first sight, the ethnically mixed city of Tetovo, 40 kilometres northwest of the Macedonian capital of Skopje, seems like an average, if economically depressed, town.

The streets are filled with young people who roam around killing time, a sign of the high unemployment that plagues the city. Crowds gather at the bazaar in the northern part of town, where one can find everything a household might need, from vegetables to handmade traditional wedding dresses.

According to the latest census in 2007, Albanians represent about 85 percent of the 90,000-member community, Macedonians 11 percent, Turks two percent, and Roma and “others” the remaining two percent.

And the issue on most people’s minds these days is the revival of ethnic tensions between Albanians and Macedonians.

Since Nov. 7, when Macedonian police raided the remote village of Brodec on the northwestern edge of Tetovo municipality and next to the administrative border of Kosovo, killing seven and capturing 13 “extremist criminals”, rumours about a resurgence of tensions similar to those that led to the 2001 ethnic conflict between Albanian and Slavo-Macedonian elements have been spreading.

Macedonia’s social fabric was profoundly damaged by the 2001 Albanian rebellion, which worsened poverty and underdevelopment, and led to the Ohrid agreement that extended minority rights for Albanians.

Police raids in Brodec have turned up an amazing number of weapons and ammunition, described by Interior Minister Gordana Jankuloska as “the largest amount of [heavy] weaponry… seized thus far in Macedonia”. The cache was deemed “sufficient to equip a battalion of 650 soldiers”.

Improvised bunkers containing weapons and ammunition hidden by paramilitaries during 1999-2001 conflicts in Kosovo and Macedonia are discovered regularly in the forests of the municipality.

“We really don’t know what is going to follow,” Eyup Selmai, head Imam of Tetovo’s Muslim religious authority, told IPS. “There are 13 people held in custody but not charged yet. The day of the skirmish in Brodec, the Albanian satellite TV didn’t operate around Tetovo. Police are questioning people about their whereabouts and their ties with extremists. To a great extent, Albanians feel insecure and unwanted. It is like when clouds gather before a storm.”

Macedonian police spokesman Ivo Kotevski told IPS that the situation around Tetovo was under control and that the majority of the population supported the crackdown. He also claimed that the operation was executed successfully without civilian losses, and that the government will pay for any damage caused during the “Mountain Storm” operation.

Still, some villagers in Brodec do not accept the official version. According to Iraiet Ahmeti from Brodec, two local men who were among the dead – Ferat Sahini, 20, and Fidan Fejzulahu, 24 – were unarmed. “The police say there were no dead civilians, but this is not true,” Ahmeti told IPS.

The majority of the Albanian population here anticipates that Kosovo will unilaterally declare its independence from Serbia after Dec. 10, when negotiations between Belgrade and Kosovar Albanians about the status of the region are supposed to end, should they be unable to reach a compromise.

Meanwhile, many Macedonians express uncertainty about the region’s future.

“Things were good until the war in 2001; 2002 and 2003 were very tough years for us. Now we control the area, but personally I believe that independence of Kosovo will bring only further destabilization,” Vladimir I., a police officer working in the municipality of Tetovo who wished to use only his first name, told IPS. “The dissolution of Yugoslavia brought us back decades.”

Macedonia is currently seeking membership in both NATO and the European Union.

However, the poor social and economic conditions in Tetovo appear to be fuelling rapid radicalisation of the population. The municipality hosts a vast young population, combined with high unemployment – the national official rate is above 30 percent.

At the school in Brodec, there are just 200 children enrolled, the majority of whom, according to their teachers, will not continue to high school or university mostly because their families do not have the means to support them.

They will either follow the migration path towards the west, or join the largely unoccupied local adult population with the feeling they live in a state they do not belong to.