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UN recognition of Macedonia is key to restraining Serbs by Eric
Bourne

Europe and the United States would do well to follow up the
United Nations General Assembly's expulsion of Serbia and
Montenegro by recognizing Macedonia.

It is the only breakaway independent Yugoslav republic the West
has yet to recognize. Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina
have been and are now seated in the UN.

Serb reactions to expulsion from the UN may well be to hasten
what has been feared likely all year: Serbia could resume an
effort to force Macedonia into its rump federation.

Any such move would surely provoke Macedonia's already restive
400,000 Albanians to revolt. This in turn would surely ignite an
explosion in Serb-controlled Kosovo, where 90 percent of the
population is Albanian. Then the whole Balkan region could be
drawn into the conflict.

Macedonia's recognition has been blocked all year by Greece,
which objects to the republic's calling itself Macedonia.
Yugoslav Macedonians, the Greeks argue, are Slavs without
cultural or historical background on which to claim the name.

The "Macedonian question" is a longstanding one which has kept
classical scholars in the West as well as in Athens and Skopje,
the capital of Yugoslav Macedonia, busy with debate for a
century, for example, as to whether Alexander the Great (who died
in 323 BC) was Greek.

The conservative, nationalistic government in Athens is
precarious and says if it yields on the issue of Macedonia, it
will fall.  The government in Skopje has similar problems. It is
a cialition of three parties--rightist, Social Democrat, and
Albanian-- each with a strong nationalist feeling about
Macedonia.

Apart from Albanians, most Macedonians are Muslim [sic! SZ].
Recent reports of Serb "ethnic cleansing" of Muslims in the
Sendjak region in south Serbia immediately stirred their fears.
Sendjak's Muslims have already experienced discrimination in
education, jobs, and religious intolerance. Reportedly up to
10,000 Serb troops have been sent there. In Kosovo, worse
repression has stiffened under an even greater Serb military
presence.

Macedonia's president, Kiro Gligorov, says that to back down over
the name is unthinkable. It would certainly cause his coalition
to collapse. Most Western diplomats think Mr. Gligorov is worth
helping with recognition. For many years he was a leading
economic figure and identified with Yugoslavia's first major
moves toward a market economy. The same diplomats acknowledge the
moderation and calm good sense with which he has held the
government together.

But rejection by the West and a steadily deteriorating economic
situation in what has always been the poorest of the Yugoslav
republics are not helping.

The Greeks claim that by calling itself Macedonia the republic
implies territorial aspirations to northern Greek territory by
the same name. Most EC members found it absurd to suggest that so
small and weak a country, without an army, would attack a
neighboring country with NATO behind it.  Yet under Greek
pressure they witheld recognition, saying it would help
"stabilize" the unsettled Balkan region. The opposite effect is
more likely.

Gligorov points out that Macedonia has met all Western criteria
for recognition of former communist states. A new constitution
commits it to multiparty elections and a market economy.  When
the Greeks objected to recognition, a clause was added
unequivocally disavowing territorial claims anywhere.
Recognition would give Macedonia access to sorely needed aid
through Western institutions and bring it into the international
security community.

These factors might offer a degree of protection sufficiant at
least to cause Belgrade to think twice before embarking on more
"Greater Serbia" adventures.

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Sasa Konecni                     e-mail: sk@sunbim.be           
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