MACEDONIA: Paradise Lost, Instability Beckons

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Oct 11 1995 (IPS) - Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov used to call his nation “an oasis of peace” in the embattled Balkans — until an assassination attempt last week nearly cost him his life.

Macedonia is the only republic of the former six-member Yugoslav federation that managed the transition to independence in 1992 without bloodshed.

Now, while Gligorov, 78, is slowly recuperating from the attack, acting president Stojan Andov is promising that the “perfidious act” will not be permitted to destabilise the fragile nation.

Investigators still have no clues as to who was behind the explosion that rocked the capital Skoplje’s city centre last Tuesday, and no organisation has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The 60-year-old Andov — parliamentary speaker and leader of the Liberal Party, part of Gligorov’s ruling League of Macedonia coalition — became acting president under Macedonian law following the assault.

Macedonia is a landlocked country in the southern Balkans with a population of two million. Although the tiny nation has experienced rivalry between its ethnic Slav majority and 40 per cent Albanian minority, so far it has managed to stave off war.

It has also withstood an 18-month blockade by neighbouring Greece, caused by a dispute over its name and flag, and United Nations sanctions against Serbia imposed since May 1992, which together cost Macedonia more than four billion dollars, according to official statistics.

Many analysts in Belgrade and Skoplje believe Macedonia’s stability remains one of the key indicators of hope in the troubled Balkans.

“I have no doubts that the country will survive,” says Sasho Ordanoski of Macedonian television. “This was a professionally organised attempt to destabilise Macedonia, but it has not worked. Everything is working normally and the attack has had the effect of rallying the people to the state,” he adds.

But this could change if experts from Britain, Germany and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are unable to determine who planted the 20 kilos of explosives in a parked Citroen Ami 8 that destroyed Gligorov’s passing limousine, injuring him and killing his driver and a pedestrian.

So far, the investigation has prompted much speculation and little hard evidence.

Last week Macedonian television showed a composite picture of a man believed to have bought the Citroen in Skoplje and ‘Nova Makedonija’ daily reported that witnesses remember him speaking with a Croatian accent.

According to Macedonian police expert Zoran Petrov, the attack was “undoubtedly the work of a professional”. Like other police and military professionals here, Petrov believes it was easy to obtain the explosives outside Macedonia and bring them into the country. “It’s a classic case of imported work,” he adds.

Other police experts have suggested that the perpetrators may have engaged retired professionals from dissolved intelligence services in eastern Europe — possibly the East German Stasi or Yugoslav Udba.

“They are cheap executives for the money offered by certain circles,” a senior police source in Skoplje told Belgrade independent weekly ‘Vreme’.

Retired Macedonian politician Krsto Crvenkovski has no doubts as to the identities of Gligorov’s would-be assassins: “The handwriting is clearly recognisable,” he told ‘Nova Makedonija’.

“It looks as the deed of grandchildren of (nationalist) Ivan Mihajlov. Gligorov received threatening letters from them from Australia, saying that he would be sentenced to death for treason of Macedonian national interest.”

Mihajlov was head of the Macedonian nationalist organisation VMRO between the two world wars. The wing of VMRO led by Mihajlov viewed Macedonia as part of neighbouring Bulgaria. Together with Croatian ‘Ustashi’ nationalists, VMRO orchestrated the 1934 assassination of Yugoslav King Alexander in Marseilles, France.

Several hundred thousand Macedonian emigres live in Australia and it is no secret that VMRO’s non-parliamentary successor party — called VMRO-DPMNE — has many sympathisers among them.

VMRO-DPMNE routinely organises fund-raising campaigns among emigres in Australia for its activities. According to ‘Vreme’, Macedonian police were warned recently that VMRO-DPMNE activists there were collecting money openly for Gligorov’s assassination.

Belgrade independent media report organised crime syndicates as another suspect in the murder attempt. In recent years, Macedonia has become one of the important links in the European drug smuggling and money laundering chain. According to Interior Ministry official Tomislav Nikolovski, police seize 19 million dollars worth of heroin yearly in Macedonia.

Macedonia’s admission to the Council of Europe last week and its overtures to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were conditional on passage of tough anti-crime legislation, and Gligorov had mounted an aggressive crime-busting campaign.

Meanwhile, attention has turned to the possibility of early presidential elections if Gligorov dies or is forced to retire.

Political pundits see two potential candidates for the post. One is Andov himself and the other is Vasil Tupurkovski, 46, a university professor with an impressive political background in the former Yugoslavia.

Andov — who maintains powerful print and television media contacts — is backed by the burgeoning Macedonian business community, including groups that have benefitted from economic dislocation created by the regional trade embargoes.

Andov held a succession of posts in the federal Yugoslav government, including the ambassadorship to Iran in the turbulent 1980s, and is known for introducing market reforms.

Tupurkovski began his career as one of the youngest politicians ever in Yugoslavia, first as a communist party leader and later as part of the Macedonian cadre in federal institutions. At the time of the federation’s disintegration, he was a member of the collective presidency.