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Date:         Tue, 14 Apr 1992 18:18:59 EST
Reply-To:     Eleni Horaitis <s893937@MINYOS.XX.RMIT.OZ.AU>
From:         Eleni Horaitis <s893937@MINYOS.XX.RMIT.OZ.AU>
Subject:      Ar0ro sto "The Age" gia Makedovia
Comments: To: HELLAS <HELLAS@brownvm.brown.edu>

Avtigrafw apo tnv efnmerida "The Age" 14-4-1992

MACEDONIA, THE NEW CHAPTER IN BALKAN INTRIGUE
----------------------------------------------
By TONY BARBER,
Skopje, Monday

Macedonia is emerging as the next challenge for European Community diplomacy
in Yugoslavia. While battles are raging in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina,
 tension is increasing in the southern republic, which borders Serbia, Bulgaria,
 Greece and Albania.

The EC has recognised the independence of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, but has
withheld recognition from Macedonia because of Greek objections. Greece accuses
Macedonia of harboring territorial ambitions on the northern Greek province of
 the same name, and says the Macedonian Constitution contains allusions to a
"Greater Macedonian State".

There are mounting signs that the patience of the other 11 EC states with
 Greecewill not last much longer. Last week, Germany established a consulate in
 the
Macedonian capital, Skopje. Italy has been pressing for recognition of
 Macedoniasince January.

Above all, the United States - which recognised Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia
last week - has thrown its weight behind the campaign for recognition.

But recognition of Macedonia poses other problems than that concerning Greece.
For the republic of two million people contains a large ethnic Albanian
 minoritythat is clamoring for autonomy and, ultimately, unification with
 Kosovo, the
neighbouring Serbian-ruled province whose population is 90 per cent Albanian.

Since Kosovo's leaders are in favour of merging with Albania, the ingredients
are there for a Balkan imbroglio similar to that which sparked two wars over
Macedonia is 1912-13.

Estimates differ on the size of Macedonia's Albanian minority. The 1981
Yugoslav cencus put it at 378,000. But Mr Nevzet Halili, the leader of
Macedonia's main Albanian political group, the Party for Democratic Prosperity,
said the true figure is 800,000 or 40 per cent of Macedonia's population.
The Albanians are concentrated in western Macedonia, and half of Skopje's
population is Albanian.

In a referendum last January, declared invalid by Macedonia's authorities, an
overwhelming majority of Albanians in Macedonia voted in favour of autonomy. It
was the most important sign yet that they were no longer prepeared to tolerate
 the policies of Macedonia's rulers towards them, in place since 1987.

A purge of ethnic Albanian officials in that year was followed by the
 destruction of the traditional walls  around Albanian homes. Apart from their
 symbolic importance for the Muslim ALbanians, the walls had an economic value
 since they
were used for drying tobacco and other crucial products.

As communism collapsed in Yugoslavia in 1990, Macedonian politics became a
 battleground between Macedonian and Albanian nationalists. Macedonian
 nationalism
emerged partly in reaction to the stridency of Serbia. Many Serbs, like the
Greeks, do not recognise Macedonians as a separate nationality. Some Serbs
even talk of annexing the republic.

Macedonains, Serbs and Greeks have one thing in common : they regard with equal
horror the prospect of the unification of all Albanians in one state.

The Macedonian crisis also affects Bulgaria. Bulgaria never accepted
 Yugoslavia's recognition in 1945 of the Slavs of Macedonia as a distinct
 nationality. That
was because the Yugoslavs said an identical group lived in Bulgaria; the
 Bulgarians saw this as an implicit claim on their territory.

In January, however, Bulgaria recognised Macedonia's independence, calculating
that such a conciliatory move would limit the potential for future Macedonian
expansionism. Greece, infuriated, denounced the move as a threat to stability
in the Balkans; but now the tide is running strongly in favour of general
international recognition of Macedonia.

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Gia tnv avtigrafn

Elevn
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