Controversial Military Law Tests Macedonia Coalition

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By Darko Duridanski

Albanian party’s threat to quit faces crucial test as ruling party pushes on with a law that it bitterly opposes.

A controversial law concerning the rights of members of the Macedonian armed forces and their families was put before parliament on Friday.

The draft law has provoked a serious crisis in the Macedonian government between the main ruling VMRO-DPMNE and its ethnic Albanian coalition partner, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, which has threatened to leave the government over the issue.

Macedonia
Macedonia

The DUI has said that it will quit the coalition if the same rights and privileges are not extended to members of Albanian guerilla forces that fought in the 2001 conflict.

“If our amendments are not accepted and the law on the rights of the security forces is passed, we will take into consideration all the options that we have,” Bujar Osmani, the DUI spokesperson, said.

The draft law provides a range of privileges for members of the armed forces that fought in 2001, their families, and also those of deceased fighters.

The draft law encompasses the period from January 1 until December 31, 2001 and covers all those who participated in defending the country.

It specifically states that members of paramilitary groups are not entitled to the privileges in question.

Some of the privileges that the draft law addresses are free health services, employment rights, rights to free education, housing and family pensions, various others financial compensations, honors, medals and other issues.

The DUI said that the eventual fall of the coalition does not necessarily mean early general elections, as it says it could form a new parliamentary majority with the biggest opposition party, the Social Democrats, SDSM, and the second largest Albanian party, the DPA.

Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, the leader of VMRO-DPMNE, has admitted that his government is in crisis, adding that if DUI wants early elections, his party is ready for them.

Gruevski’s VMRO-DPMNE has led the government for the last six years and has been in coalition with the DUI for the last four, since 2008.

By tradition, Macedonian governments include one major political party representing the ethnic Albanian community, which makes up about 25 per cent of the population of 2.1 million.

The latest crisis erupted 10 days ago after the Defence Minister, Fatmir Besimi, an ethnic Albanian, accompanied by other ethnic Albanian ministers and persons in army uniforms, laid flowers before monument to Albanian guerilla fighters killed in the 2001 conflict in Slupcane, a village near the northern town of Kumanovo.

The act outraged many Macedonians, and President Gjorgje Ivanov and Prime Minister Gruevski both criticized Besimi.

Tensions increased after VMRO DPMNE then announced that it would put before parliament the draft law increasing the rights and privileges of members of the Macedonian military.

Balkan Insight

The Balkan Insight (formerly the Balkin Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN) is a close group of editors and trainers that enables journalists in the region to produce in-depth analytical and investigative journalism on complex political, economic and social themes. BIRN emerged from the Balkan programme of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, IWPR, in 2005. The original IWPR Balkans team was mandated to localise that programme and make it sustainable, in light of changing realities in the region and the maturity of the IWPR intervention. Since then, its work in publishing, media training and public debate activities has become synonymous with quality, reliability and impartiality. A fully-independent and local network, it is now developing as an efficient and self-sustainable regional institution to enhance the capacity for journalism that pushes for public debate on European-oriented political and economic reform.

5 thoughts on “Controversial Military Law Tests Macedonia Coalition

  • August 28, 2012 at 2:28 pm
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    Sam,you are dreaming.I asked you once,are you better off in the Republic of Macedonia,or the Macedonians in occupied Mala Prespa in Albania since 1913?.The indigenous Macedonians under Albanian rule have not even 1% the rights you have in the Republic of Macedonia.People like yourself caused the problems in 2001 with the involvement of the kosovar guerila.You are making false accusations my friend on who was the terrorists.If you want to fight,fight for Chamia Greece took from you.Macedonians are the indigenous people in the Republic,as they are in Aegean,Pirin and Mala Prespa and don’t you ever forget!
    On the subject of celebrating of heroes from 2001,the government is right to object or give the same recognition to a bunch of terrorists who wanted to destabilize the country.You recognize those who fight and defend the nation.Your ideas are no different than that of Greece”Megali Idea and Greater Albania”.
    I like to ask you,who gave the largest support to the Albanians during Milosevic attack in Pristina?.Here you are boasting hate againts the hand that feed you.

    Reply
    • August 28, 2012 at 2:59 pm
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      Mountains of ultra nationalists like Peter….who constantly references parts of Albania as “occupied” (as well as parts of Bulgaria and Greece)… shows the sort of fascism that nut Gruevski is quietly encouraging.

      Reply
  • August 28, 2012 at 2:28 pm
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    Denko Malevski(1st minister of foreign affairs in FYROM):

    The creation of the “Macedonian” nation, for almost half of a century, was done in a condition of single-party dictatorship. In those times, there was no difference between science and ideology, so the “Macedonian” historiography, unopposed by anybody, comfortably performed a selection of the historic material from which the “Macedonian” identity was created. In those years, we lost our capability for strategic dialog. With Greeks? No, with ourselves. Since then, namely, we reach towards some fictional ethnic purity which we seek in the depths of the history & we are angry at those which dare to call us Slavs & our language & culture Slavic? We are angry when they name us what we are if we have to define ourselves in such categories, showing that we are ppl full with complexes which r ashamed 4 ourselves.
    The idea that Alexander the Great belong to FYROM,was at the mind of some outsider political groups only!!These groups were insignificant the first years of our independence..the big problem is that the old Balkan Nations have been learned to legitimate themselves through their history. In Balkans,if you want to be recognised as a Nation,you need to have history of 3000 years old.Since Greeks made us to INVENT a history..we did invent it…

    24 February 1999:

    In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Gyordan Veselinov, FYROM’S Ambassador to Canada, admitted, “WE ARE NOT RELATED TO THE NORTHERN GREEKS WHO PRODUCED LEADERS LIKE PHILIP AND ALEXANDER THE GREAT. WE ARE SLAV PEOPLE AND OUR LANGUAGE IS CLOSELY RELATED TO BULGARIAN.” He also commented “THERE IS SOME CONFUSION ABOUT THE IDENTITY OF THE PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY.”

    Reply
  • August 30, 2012 at 1:12 pm
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    Sam please refrain from writing ridiculous statements here.
    From your 40% Albania population of Macedonia to the far fetched Bulgaria ancestry. To your indigenous statement. I find you morally disturbed. You do know that the entire balkan is a complete melting pot of different people or tribes, but you chose to twist it into your own demented version. You do know that over half the population of your homeland is of Macedonian,Albania,Turkish,Vlah,Armenian,Jewish Decent.
    You do know about the population exchange that took place in Greece dont you. Why do you come here to make problems and make crazy statements? You should be at work with your head down to repay the Germans for keeping the people of Greece from turning into canibals.

    Reply
  • August 31, 2012 at 10:00 am
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    Please stop portraying as a Greek Mr Greek (previous message) we are not imbeciles as the your skopjian leadership think. Your Slavic roots are deep in the Ukrainian steppes, maybe you should return to your caves.

    You must feel so small in the Balkans! But as usual your megalomanic heads like our skopjian leadership under Gruevski have their heads so far up their backsides all they can see is stars.

    Maybe one day while your dancing to traditional Albanian music it will not feel so bad. Especially when we are the skopjian leadership and your people tuck tail and run back to their Bulgarian motherland over the border.

    So if you want an exclusive Slavic land you better start soon, otherwise we will outbreed you in a few more years.

    Reply

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