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The New York Post March 28, 2001 George Szamuely The Bunker Poor Macedonia Evidently, Washington has decided to wind up the state of Macedonia-or, rather, to give it its proper name, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). This may seem jolly ungrateful on our part. Macedonia has been nothing if not the most loyal of client-states. It supported the bombing of its fellow Slavs in neighboring Serbia. It dutifully adhered to the sanctions regime against Belgrade even though its effects were economically disastrous. It swallowed its bitter dose of IMF medicine, zealously privatizing and shutting down "uneconomic" factories, even as unemployment soared above 30 percent. For years, Macedonia was touted as an example of multiethnic cooperation-a multicultural paradise in the strife-torn Balkans. Suddenly it is tottering on its last legs as its armed forces flail around helplessly against Albanian gunmen entering the country from NATO-occupied Kosovo. NATO, which had been ready to smash Belgrade into the ground two years ago on behalf of the Kosovo Albanians, today abjectly declares that it cannot do anything to help the Skopje government because that would be.well, interference in another country's internal affairs. U.S. ingratitude should come as no surprise. NATO littered Kosovo with tens of thousands of depleted uranium shells. This is what the United States does for people it professes to love! Imagine what it is ready to do for people it couldn't care less about. FYROM is one of the artificial phony states that the West created out of the wreckage of Yugoslavia. "Macedonians" were a nation alongside other newly discovered nations like "Bosniaks" or "Kosovars." Devoid of national or historic reality, FYROM naturally won the heart of financier George Soros. Starting in the early 90s, Soros poured millions of dollars into Macedonia. But the billionaire and Ruritania eventually fell out. The Macedonians got fed up with Soros telling them what to do. Soros was even telling them that they should rename the country Slavomakedonija. Soros decided Macedonia was not such a multiethnic democracy after all. Macedonia stood in the way of ethnic Albanian irredentism, whose chief sponsor for the past decade has been the United States. NATO and the Albanians have been chummy since at least 1992. The CIA created the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Then, having driven the Serbs out of Kosovo, the United States promptly decided to drive the Serbs out of Southern Serbia as well. The KLA was armed, trained and instructed to launch an insurgency in the Presevo Valley and also in Macedonia. According to a recent article in the Observer of London: "The United States secretly supported the ethnic Albanian extremists now behind insurgencies in Macedonia and southern Serbia. The CIA encouraged former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters to launch a rebellion in southern Serbia.according to senior European officers" with KFOR. Thus U.S. professions of horror at lbanian "extremism" are a fraud. NATO will dismantle Macedonia by steadily demoralizing and undermining the Skopje regime. Officials denounce Albanian "extremists" one day and express sympathy for their plight the next. EU security affairs chief, Javier Solana, announces one minute that the Macedonian government should not negotiate with the terrorists. Next minute he announces: "The solution has to be political. The Balkans have suffered too many wars already." French President Chirac denounces Albanian "terrorists" one day. French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine pontificates about the need to make Macedonian Albanians "feel more at ease in Macedonia and [to] play a greater role in national life" the next. Insane former NATO Supreme Commander Wesley Clark splutters in The Washington Post: "We must make clear to the government of Macedonia that it.is under close scrutiny. The use of force alone will only worsen the underlying problem." The Macedonian government must address the grievances of the Albanians then. What are these grievances? Albanian should be recognized as an official language. There should be a state-funded Albanian-language university. This is laughable. Macedonia already has Albanian-language schools, Albanian media and Albanian political parties who are in the government. Yet this has not, to put it mildly, made Albanians feel "Macedonian." The KLA does not want Albanians to feel "Macedonian." It wants to create a Greater Albania incorporating Albania, Kosovo, as well as large parts of Serbia, Macedonia and Greece. Encouraging even more ethnic Albanian separatism hardly sounds like the most effective way of thwarting this project. In the meantime, NATO claims to be making a serious effort to seal the border to prevent terrorists entering Macedonia from Kosovo. In reality, NATO is doing nothing. Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski recently attacked NATO for creating a "a new Taliban in Europe." The analogy was entirely apt. The KLA and the Taliban are both CIA creatures. According to Georgievski: "You cannot convince us that the chieftains of these gangs are unknown to your governments, nor can you persuade us that they cannot be stopped." He is absolutely right. The Kosovo-Macedonia border is no Rio Grande. A recent story in the Times reveals just how much effort the U.S. is really making to stop the Albanian gunmen: "Despite assurances from NATO officers.the guerrillas' cross-border supply routes appear brazenly obvious. In the U.S. sector, mule columns of supplies have been climbing almost nightly in the past weeks through beech forests up the mountains to reach" the Albanian villages. Western diplomats are already putting out the line that the Macedonian government is too feeble to win this war. This is but a prelude to NATO's takeover of Western Macedonia. The Albanians will set up a de facto state there and join up with Kosovo. Greater Albania rolls on. |
