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This is an article from  Columbus  Dispatch,  the  largest  daily
newspaper in Ohio, USA.


BALKAN HORROR THREATENES TINY, TOLERANT MACEDONIA


     Kiro Gligorov was speaking in his beautifuly accoutered  of-
fice in Skopje, Macedonia. "If you help us tell the true story of
the inflamed Balkans," he said, "if nothing else the  world  will
know  that there is someone in the Balkans thinking rationaly - a
small country in the Balkans thinking differently then  the  oth-
ers".

     Gligorov is the handsome, dignified president of  Macedonia,
which  historically has been squeezed among Serbia, Albania, Bul-
garia and Greece. Elected when  Macedonia  declared  independence
from  Yugoslavia  earlier this year, Gligorov was courageous pro-
ponent of free-market reforms as early as the 1960s.

     He is highly respected, both inside his new state and inter-
nationally, for his elegant, commonsense approach to the xenopho-
bic Balkans. He and his colleagues refused to join Serbia when it
started  oppressing  first  the  Croations,  and then Bosnians 16
months ago.

    "Serbia absolutely counted upon our joining  the  war,"  Gli-
gorov  said.   "They were gratly dissapointed when we that theirs
was an ethnic war, one of the most terrible types,  with  neghbor
shooting  neghbor  -  and that, in such a war, we do not partici-
pate!

     "The second disappointment for them was when we refused also
to provide draftees for thir war. We did not make the mistakes of
Croatia which put the Serb barracks under  siege.  We  just  said
that  they  could leave peacefully, and we put into our constitu-
tion that, after six months, there should be no forign army rema-
nining here. They left peacefully".

      So little, vulnerable Macedonia, with barely 2 million peo-
ple,  should  be  rewarded  by  the  world, right? So storied Ma-
cedonia, from which sprang Alexander the Great, Kemal Ataturk and
even Aristotle, should be gratefully embraced by the community of
nations, correct?

      Not at all! Macedonia remains  unrecognized  by  other  na-
tions. Its economy is grinding to a halt. Its tiny throw-together
army of 6,000 men is no danger to anybody, least of  all  Greece,
with  a well-equipped army 25 times larger. Finally, the Gligorov
government's heroic and successful effort to keep all its hostile
minorities  (Albanians,  Romanian  Vlachs,  Bulgarians, Serbs and
Greeks) living in peace is ever more threatened.

     Macedonia remains floating alone in the stormy  Balkans  be-
cause  Greece  refuses  to let it use its historical name and has
vetoed recognition of the republic by the European Community.

     In trying to maintain control over the  history  of  ancient
Greece,  the weak government of Prime Minister Constantine Mitso-
takis is attempting to prove that Macedonia was and is Greek.  It
denies  the  reality that today's Macedonia speaks a Slav dialect
closest to Bulgarian and that the Macedonians have  constitution-
ally  renounced  any claim to land outside their borders, in par-
ticular the Macedonian part of northern Greece.

     Perhaps most disgraceful of all, the Greek  government  even
has been negotiating with Serbia for oil deliveries, according to
reliable reports. This would  mean  not  only  bypassing  Western
sanctions against Serbia but also making Greece and accomplice in
the Serbian slaughter of other Slavs.

     Meanwhile, the EC, which looks more craven  and  incompetent
daily,  has  given in to the Greeks as it reels from the problems
of the Maastricht treaty. The United States  will  not  recognize
Macedonia  because  of the upcoming elections and the presures of
the Greek-American lobby.

     Gutsy little Macedonia  has  fulfilled  every  international
criterion  for recognition and has organized its minorities in an
exemplary fashion. Its government  cannot  change  the  country's
name,  if  only  because that would unleash the fanaticism of Ma-
cedonian nationalists.

     The famous American journalist John Reed,  a  specialist  on
this  area,  wrote in 1916, "The Macedonian question has been the
cause of every great European war for the last 50 years, and  un-
til  that  is  settled  there will be no more peace either in the
Balkans or out of them".


by Georgie Anne Geyer,

article presented to NewsNet by:
S. Konecni