Skopje,
Macedonia – For ten years, Macedonia's
vice president, Dosta
Dimovska, and Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski were the closest
of allies. Tonight in Skopje, however, that alliance was severed by
Dimovska's abrupt resignation from the vice presidency, as well as
the Crisis Coordination Body, which she had chaired. There has not
yet been time for the implications to sink in, and there is still
an official "no comment" from the spokesmen of Macedonia's
ruling party, VMRO-DPMNE. The word on the street, however, is that
the falling out has to do primarily with divergent views on the issue
of police checkpoints and redeployment in Albanian-controlled areas.
Georgievski has sought a robust and full return of Macedonian security
forces to the crisis areas, whereas Dimovska has tended to side with
the OSCE and EU monitors, who have sought to remove the checkpoints.
It may not be coincidental that earlier today a major meeting of OSCE
representatives took place in downtown Skopje, and that on the same
day the signers of the Framework Agreement (Treaty of Ochrid) also
met.
While the international community downplays the significance of the
checkpoints issue, there is no more important topic for Macedonian
security right now. I will discuss this topic further in a few days,
but for now the following can be said: the NLA has control or partial
control of large areas of northwestern and north-central Macedonia.
What they don't have is the space between – one which is occupied
by Macedonian villages and police. If the Albanians succeed in convincing
the OSCE that their fears of intimidation by the Macedonian police
are justified, then they will have achieved a major strategic goal
of the NLA: to form a Tetovo-Kumanovo axis, which would allow transportation
of heavy weapons, unhindered access to the entire Kosovo border, and
the ethnic cleansing of the remaining Macedonian villages in their
way. It is in this context that we must analyze the burgeoning crisis
in the Macedonian government, and the role of other intervening forces.
Christopher
Deliso is a journalist and travel writer with special interest in
current events in the areas of the former Byzantine Empire –
the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, and Caucasus. Mr. Deliso holds a master's
degree with honors in Byzantine Studies (from Oxford University),
and has traveled widely in the region. His current long-term research
projects include the Macedonia issue, the Cyprus problem, and ethnography
of Byzantine Georgia.
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