The new Republic of Macedonia, just now being recognized by the international community, is less than a third of geographical Macedonia. Immediately after the Ottoman Turks were defeated in the first Balkan War, a second Balkan War divided up geographical Macedonia between Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia.

Both the Greeks (who got 51 % of geographical Macedonia) and the Bulgarians (who got about a third) promptly began a kind of non-violent ethnic obliteration. The Greeks denied there was such a thing as a "macedonian" nationality but only Slavophone Greeks and they began to change the names of peoples and places to Greek names. Meanwhile, the Bulgarians, whose language is very close indeed to Macedonian, simply announced that the Macedonians were really Bulgarians.

The remaining Macedonians who found themselves in Serbia (which became a part of Yugoslavia in 1924) got a break after World War II because Marshall Tito permitted them autonomy in one of his six Yugoslav republics. There they nurtured that sense of identity which, with the breakup of Yugoslavia, led them to a sovereign Republic of Macedonia.

On FAS's arrival in March, Macedonia had three major problems. The Greeks were trying to force the Macedonians to change the name of their state by "vetoing" recognition of Macedonia in the European Community and by blockading trade from Greece to Macedonia. And, inside the country, there were serious strains between the 20% to 40% of the country which was ethnic Albanian and the Macedonian nationalists over the treatment of the Albanians. Meanwhile, without recognition and with a fragile sense of statehood, the Macedonians risked being caught up in the war raging to their north in Bosnia. The most likely vehicle for such an expanded war would have been fighting in Kosovo, but there was also the possibility of Serbian aggression directly into Macedonia. Indeed, there were rumors of talks between the Greeks and the Serbs about dividing up Macedonia if it began to decompose, for one reason or another.

As the FAS PIR went to press, the United Nations had accepted Macedonia with a temporary name, for U.N. purposes, of "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" and had assigned its two Balkan mediators to resolve the question of a permanent name and such related issues as Macedonian symbols in its flag to which the Greeks objected.

From a historical point of view, the Greeks were right that the name Macedonia arose from the time of Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, in a period long before the 6th or 7th century when the current occupants of Macedonia, who are Slavs, not Greeks, entered the area. But the notion that this use of the name implied an irredentist attitude by the only 2,000,000 Macedonians, to seize back parts of the much larger Greece seemed absurd and the Macedonians had, in fact, amended their constitution to deny any such intention.

Center for Ethnic Relations

At the Center for Ethnic Relations of the Institute for Sociological, Political and Juridical Research, Dr. Emilija Simoska and colleagues provided a seminar-like briefing. Macedonia's political context had similarities to the problem in Kosovo. The counterpart to the Serb nationalists under Milosevic was the VMRO Macedonian nationalists-both had little sympathy with their ethnic Albanians, whom they considered separatists who preferred Albania and whose major weapon was a rapid rate of population increase. VMRO wanted to emphasize the "duties" of the Albanians rather than the "rights".

The Albanians, on the other hand, wanted to be a "state-building element," in a multi-ethnic state, rather than a mere "minority" which, in the Balkan context meant being treated as equal rather than being a guest in a Macedonian house. They wanted a separate university and separate schools, which could be expensive. The Albanians had refused to participate in the last census, which the citizens of Slav origin had decided was simply a device to hide their uncertainty of actually having 40% of the Republic of Macedonia population and, perhaps, their effort to hide the number of illegal immigrants that had joined their midst.

The Macedonian parliamentarians of Albanian origin had an unsettling habit of boycotting votes which they found unfair.

With regard to Kosovo, Macedonian scholars said that the local Albanians had guns and might go to help their friends in Kosovo. They feared that the Serbs could use the help as a pretext to act against Macedonia. Worse, Macedonian nationalists might seize the moment to deal with the Albanians in Macedonia. And a parallel reaction in Macedonia might overthrow the government.

They felt that Rugova's cabinet was losing patience with the Serbs. And they feared that the Serbs had an intelligence service in Macedonia that could become a nest of agent provocateurs. Already it had upset cooperation in Tetovo. The Serbs might be testing Macedonian resolve. They also believed that Macedonia was included in President Bush's letter to Milosevic deterring further Serb aggression. But they agreed that subsequent actions in Bosnia undermined the credibility of this threat.

The Liberal Party Of Macedonia

At the Parliament, a Vice President of the Liberal Party (IRLFP), Ace Kocevski, described the range of parties. At the far left was the SPM (Socialist Party of Macedonia), then the SDLM (founded in 1990 by former members of the Communist Party); then the ethnic Albanian Party of Democratic Prosperity (PPD), then the RFLP and, furthest to the right, the VMRO nationalists. The Liberal Party wanted to stay out of NATO and out of other blocs. It had 17 members of the 120 in Parliament.

Next the chief of the Group of Ethnic Albanian Parliamentarians, Muhamed Halili, described the Albanian perception:

In Kosovo, there was an unseen, secret, war every day. It was occupied and, each week, in different villages, they were searched for arms. If the war became open, it would have implications in Macedonia, whether one wanted them or not. The citizens of the two regions were mixed. Albanian refugees would come to Macedonia and would involve Macedonia directly. It would mean a new Balkan war and both Albania and Bulgaria might want pieces of Macedonia. Already "we" [he meant Albanians] had sent food. But weapons? "We have none to send there."

If war came, how many ethnic Albanians would want to seize the opportunity to join Albania by trying to join Western Macedonia with Albania? This, he said, was hypothetical, but "if war comes, Macedonians may not want to live with us. Possibly, we would not want to live with them. It depends on the war. In the case where Albanians and Macedonians kill each other, it will mean they do not want to live together. But if they cooperate, then they can live in one state together."

So war would be a test of what lurked in the hearts of both groups. He said that "only if everyone fails to join together to defend Macedonia," would the ethnic Albanians consider a division of the country. In his view, VMRO secretly wanted to be part of Bulgaria. As to whether it was a "terrorist" organization, he said that it had killed only one person, with a rock during a demonstration and the killer had not been found. But if VMRO got power, it would be like Bosnia. Halili's family, living for five generations in Macedonia, had no known relatives in Albania. May/June 1993

CSCE in Skopje

Sources in CSCE in Skopje thought that recognition would solve only the external problem. Inside the country, VMRO and the Albanians just did not understand each other. The structure of the country was weak with a leadership that had the old communist mentality and young people with no experience. But Gligorov was a clever man and the right man for his country at the moment.

IREX & Obrad Kesic

Obrad Kesic, who speaks Serbo-Croatian, is the splendidly well-informed IREX expert on the area. He felt the banks in Belgrade would fail when the war was over and profits from gun-running failed to support the high interest rates promised. In Kosovo, the Serbs were getting the quiet ethnic cleansing they wanted with 200,000 to 300,000 male Albanians leaving in the last few years. This emigration could be seen at the Skopje airport where they passed through; many tourist agencies had sprung up promising to get them into foreign countries.

Seven Macedonian Albanians had been killed running AK-47s and grenades to Kosovo. VMRO thought the government's days were numbered and that it could bring down the government while avoiding civil war. VMRO had often denounced the Serb nationalists and the Serbs did not like VMRO.

In the parliament, there was much name calling ("Communist", "Fascist," etc.) with most members eager enough to avoid having to vote on the volatile "name" issue that there might be a state of emergency to put parliament out of the line of fire, but this would require the support of the Army. If Macedonia is not recognized, the sooner there will be fighting in Macedonia.

President Kiro Gligorov

In a largely off-the-record meeting, the President and I discussed the problem of the "name", canvassed at least a dozen possibilities and persuaded the President to try at least one approach which FAS recommended.

President Gligorov is the statesmanlike person that all reports had suggested. He is dignified and very moderate. Despite the many indignities the Greek approach to Macedonia has visited on his country, he said he was "sincerely interested in having good relations with Greece." Macedonia wanted to be "equidistant" from all neighbors. So none has any reason to intervene or interfere out of fear of others. Macedonia had no territorial claims.

The "New Macedonia" Publications

The editor-in-chief of the New Macedonia, Georgi Ajanovski, believed the Government would fall if it accepted the U.N. proposal. If the Government fell, "everything will go to hell and nobody can predict what will happen in the region." But if the name problem were resolved, Greek-Macedonia relations would improve rapidly and so would Albanian-Slav relations, because both sides knew they had to live together.

As for VMRO, it was now run by the "first cast" but moderate forces would follow with a nationalist color but not so extreme, and free of influence abroad.

Greek Suppression of Macedonians

For 50 years, Greece has not permitted Macedonian citizens to go to Greece if they, or their parents, were born in Northern Greece. The situation is so extreme that Ajanovski, whose passport notes that he was born in Northern Greece, had to get a Greek Ambassador colleague in Moscow to give him a visa to visit Greece. Notwithstanding the visa, Greek border guards refused him entry unless he would sign papers changing his name to a Greek name and accepting the change of his birthplace to a Greek name. (24,000 names of places were changed from Slavic to Greek names in Greece.)

VMRO-DPMNE is the major nationalist party holding 37 of the 120 seats in the Macedonian parliament. It uses a name with high-potency nationalist meaning-a name associated with a group who tried to overthrow the Ottoman Turks and once succeeded, at least for 11 days, in establishing an independent state.

The President of VMRO is a cherubic and long-haired 29-year-old. In his intellect and style, he seems like a "high-honors" Swarthmore student with a counter-cultural bent. Asked is it possible for Slav Macedonian and Albanian Macedonians to live together, he said "We are not "Slav" Macedonians but just Macedonians, which expresses our natural heritage. Our battle is to show that we are just "Macedonian."

According to Georgievski, the Albanians do not want to be called "Albanian Macedonians" anyway, but just Albanians, although both sides concede that they are Macedonian citizens. (It is as if, in America, white Americans and black Americans agreed that the black Americans should just be called "Africans" and not "Afro-Americans".) (continued on page 12)

He said that VMRO was the first to oppose Milosevic and did not want to follow the policies of pushing Albanians out. Asked what the biggest fears were of the two groups, he hesitated and, at first, just said "We do not talk in this way." Encouraged by an associate, he conceded that the birth rate of Albanians and their immigration to Macedonia from Albania alarmed the Macedonians. As for the biggest fear of Albanians, vis-a-vis Macedonians, he could not-or, in fact, would not-say despite prodding.

Georgievski made no bones of the fact that VMRO was using the issue of the name against the government. Asked if he were trying to unseat the Government on this issue, he said "Isn't that what opposition parties do?"

Risto Blazevski, Ministry Of Foreign Affairs

The Macedonian diplomats, with their long experience as former Yugoslav diplomats, are much older and more sophisticated than the VMRO parliamentarians-sometimes 40 years older. The Secretary-General of their Foreign Ministry, Risto Blazevski, described the region's history. The Serbs, he felt, "were overbearing toward Macedonia". And each of Macedonia's neighbors-Bulgaria, Albania, Greece and Serbia-once had a part of Macedonia and harbored desires to return. The Greeks had been trying, for 80 years, to assimilate Macedonians and this was why the Greeks were so nervous. The Macedonians also had been repressed in Greece because they had the misfortune, after World War II, to be on the losing side of the Greek civil war.

Lunch With Two Sisters

Two sisters, one 16 years of age and the other 20, shared a table with me at a disco fast food outlet. The elder, who had elegantly frosted hair and the look of a movie starlet, was going to medical school, with difficulties, after the death of her father six months before. She said her class of 200 students had only 5 Albanians. As we talked, 25 soldiers from the U.N. force (UNPROFOR), assigned to prevent the war in Northern Yugoslavia from moving south, strolled by.

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