Macedonia Rift May Be Irreparable

Macedonia is dividing along ethnic lines, and it may be too late to stop it.

Regardless of the outcome of ongoing peace negotiations among political leaders trying to halt a rebel insurgency, the divisions on the ground are becoming so stark that it is hard to imagine how the nation’s two main ethnic groups will be able to live together again.

Already there are forced migrations, ensuring that areas of the country are populated by a single ethnic group--either ethnic Albanian or ethnic Macedonian. And in those areas of the country that are majority ethnic Albanian, government armed forces have little control.

“We did not consider this conflict to be ethnic to begin with, but the longer it takes for the peace process, the more likely that the results will be the same as those you would see in an ethnic conflict,” said Maki Shinohara, a spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency.

James Pardew, a U.S. mediator trying to bring the two sides together, expressed optimism Tuesday that an agreement could be close. One of the ethnic Albanian negotiators, Imer Imeri, told the Reuters news agency that agreement on the main sticking point--the use of Albanian as an official language--was near.

But even if the political leaders’ peace talks succeed, questions remain about whether the two sides can sell the agreement. Macedonia’s parliament, feeling pressure from nationalists, may not be willing to implement it. Furthermore, leaders of the ethnic Albanian guerrilla movement have not been included in the negotiations and may not support an agreement.

Diplomats say that in the best of circumstances, Macedonia will be more divided in the future. And it could be in for a long period of sporadic fighting and ethnic instability.

Elsewhere in the Balkans, ethnic groups have been driven at gunpoint from their homes, especially from areas where they were in the minority. Macedonia had escaped that fate, and it still is not happening on the scale it did in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s dominant republic.

Ethnic Albanians make up at least 25% of Macedonia’s population, while ethnic Macedonians account for roughly two-thirds.

Forced migrations and the successful display of firepower by ethnic Albanian guerrillas have undermined the confidence of the ethnic Macedonian population.

“Life together is probably impossible from now on,” said Slavko Mangovski, editor of the Macedonian weekly magazine Makedonsko Sonce (Macedonian Sun). “It is my belief that what the Albanians want is not language rights--as they are saying in the peace talks--but territory.”

Each side has lost control of territory to the other through what both term “ethnic cleansing.” Often, a relatively small, albeit intimidating, incident is used to send a message. In the current atmosphere of rising distrust and suspicion, it does not take much for people to feel vulnerable.

“One day I recognized my neighbors on television in a uniform with guns,” said Boban Bogdanovski, 25, a native of the village of Aracinovo, near the capital, Skopje. “With a gun, you go to fight. How can I live here?”

Aracinovo was taken over by the National Liberation Army, the ethnic Albanian guerrilla movement, and then was taken back by the government.

Bogdanovski and his family, who lived in adjacent houses, decided to stay away from the village when the guerrillas first took over. Now, even though it has been recovered by the government, he does not plan to return. His house was destroyed during the fighting, and he said he cannot imagine rebuilding there.

“I’ll never feel safe in my village again,” Bogdanovski said.

Human rights groups and observers tell other, similar stories.

In Tearce, a village in a northern area that is predominantly ethnic Albanian, several houses were burned, sending a clear message to ethnic Macedonians to get out. It appeared to work.

“We brought back a group of ethnic Macedonians after the guerrillas were expelled, and as the buses were unloading, those ethnic Macedonians who had stayed in the village told us they wanted to board the buses and leave as soon as possible,” said a Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “That worries me.”

Shinohara, of the U.N. refugee agency, said there has been “fairly deliberate forced movement in the areas around Skopje directed at the ethnic Macedonians” and noted that official figures, probably on the low end, show that 8,000 ethnic Macedonians have left that area.

Similarly, there was looting and vandalism in the southern city of Bitola that was directed at ethnic Albanians. The London-based International Crisis Group reported that as a result of the Bitola incidents, about 10,000 Albanians migrated from the city.

Altogether, about 44,000 people have been displaced within the country of 2 million, according to the Macedonian Red Cross, and 121,000 more have crossed the border into Kosovo and other areas of Yugoslavia to wait out the conflict. It is unclear whether they will return to the areas they fled.

There have long been fears that if Macedonia divides, it could drag neighboring countries into conflict.

“Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece all have particular historical interests in the region--the first two Balkan wars prior to World War I were fought over the territory--so that any violence there risks the possibility of escalation to a wider region,” said Ivo Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington.

Diplomatic sources say the ethnic Albanian rebel army in Macedonia is far better armed and organized than its counterpart in Kosovo was two years ago during the war there.

If a peace agreement is signed, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization force is to be deployed in Macedonia to disarm the guerrillas.

But ethnic Macedonians believe that the guerrillas will never fully disarm and will remain an intimidating force that will continue to control the mountainous areas to the east and west of the capital.

Guerrillas shot two soldiers at an army checkpoint Sunday. Such incidents in ethnic Albanian territory have become almost daily occurrences, even after a cease-fire was restored last week.

The deaths of soldiers and police have attained a symbolic significance among ethnic Macedonians.

On Monday in Skopje, the cavernous St. Clement’s Macedonian Orthodox Cathedral was filled to overflowing and a crowd of hundreds thronged outside for the funeral of an army reservist. He was from the Tetovo area, a town about an hour from the capital that is at the center of rebel activity.

The funeral was held in Skopje because ethnic Macedonians did not feel comfortable holding it in an area dominated by ethnic Albanians.

On the other side, ethnic Albanians say they fear intimidation by largely untrained police and army reservists, who have recently been put on active duty. They say the government has given arms and ammunition to ethnic Macedonian civilians in mixed areas and encouraged people to defend themselves.

“If there is going to be a demilitarization of the NLA, then there should also be a demilitarization of paramilitary Macedonian groups,” said Emin Azemi, publisher of Fakti, an Albanian-language daily newspaper. “Otherwise, Albanians feel there will an imbalance that could result in violence toward Albanians.”

Despite the evidence of forced migration, diplomats hope it can be contained because there has been far less brutality and violence here than elsewhere in the Balkans. They say that so far, there have been few atrocities and no use of such brutal tactics as systematic rape.

Still, they acknowledge that the distrust and suspicion as well as the beginnings of forced migration are the seeds of a bigger ethnic conflict.

“Even in the best case, the country will be more divided,” said a senior Western diplomat. “Ethnic Macedonians now, compared to a year ago, are much more hardened against the Albanians. The signing of a peace agreement will not be the end of the story.”