ADDRESS TO THE MACEDONIAN PEOPLE SPIRO MAVROVSKI’S COMMENTARY ON THE 2016 ELEC - Part 01

ADDRESS TO THE MACEDONIAN PEOPLE: SPIRO MAVROVSKI’S COMMENTARY ON THE 2016 ELECTIONS IN THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

Dear brothers and sisters, and all the other people who live among us in this affluent Macedonia.

I feel the need to speak out about what has been going on all around us here in the Republic of Macedonia.

I am disappointed with the intellectual capacity of the leaders in this madness that has gripped us for the last two years.

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To the Gentlemen of SDSM or whatever name you have been calling yourselves in the past, you have always been the same and based on things you said lately again confirms that you are still the same. I am not referring to what you did in the past as a party to the detriment of the Macedonian people; I am referring to your commitment and conviction to the statements you made implying that we were better off with Tito because “he gave us many things”. You however declined to speak of the bad things that Tito did such as the coup, in the creation of Macedonia and the complete extermination of the Macedonian intelligentsia and all those who loved our Macedonia. But you say nothing about that. Our ancestors and more current predecessors fought for that Macedonia – in the Ilinden Uprising and in the second Ilinden Uprising. No Macedonian would have fought in the Greek Civil War had it not been for the names of the Macedonian partisan detachments such as Gotse Delchev, Dame Gruev, Jane Sandanski and others. Do you think that only the villages in Macedonia had the many Communists who waged the social struggle? Certainly not! It all began with the dismissal and persecution of CPM secretary Metodia Shatorov Sharlo as early as 1941. Shatorov was born in Prilep in 1897 and died in battle leading a partisan unit fighting the Bulgarian army near Pazardzhik, Bulgaria, just five days before fascist Bulgaria capitulated on September 4, 1944. He immigrated to Bulgaria right after World War I ended. He joined the Communist Party of Bulgaria (CPB) in 1920 and immigrated to the USSR in 1929 where in the Comintern he attended political school. He declared his ethnicity in the USSR as Macedonian and his citizenship as Bulgarian. Sharlo was an active participant and one of the organizers of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War that took place from 1936 to 1939. From the spring of 1940 to September 1941 he was secretary of the CPY Political Committee for Macedonia. He advocated for the formation of a Macedonian state and the unification of Macedonia, emphasizing the Macedonian national individuality. He was removed from his position as secretary (at Tito’s behest) after resolving the dispute between the CPY and the BRP - via the Comintern, for his Political Committee affiliation to Macedonia for Yugoslavia or for Bulgaria. After the war he was anathematized and condemned as a pro-Bulgarian not following the Yugoslav line. But no one in the CPM said what he fought for. Your understanding of democracy and Macedonianism continued to be applied immediately after ASNOM’s First and Second Sessions when all the intelligence that Macedonia had, people who had completed higher education in Vienna, Prague at the Sorbonne in Paris, all who possessed love for Macedonia and the Macedonians, were eliminated from the political scene, and some unfortunately from their worldly life. These people had great merit and not only felt Macedonian but fought for Macedonia, the kind of Macedonia the Macedonian people wanted. We must not forget Metodia Andonov - Chento, Emanuel Mane Chuchkov, Lazar Sokolov, Dimitar Vlahov, Vladimir Polezhinovski, Panko Brashnarov, Petre Piruze - Maiski, Venko Markovski, Pavel Shatev Gemidzhiata, Kiril Petrushevski, Blagoi Hadzhi Panzov... And let us not forget personalities like Kosta Solev Ratsin, Chede Filipovski -Dame and many others who were liquidated because they strayed from the Party line. This is why the workers, students, housewives, clerks, took over the power offered to them by big brother, and as top officials, manage to reach the very high political and state positions that they themselves knew they did not deserve, but the consequences of everything they did were disastrous and we see them to this day.

However no one from your Party wants to talk about its past wrong doing! You go on talking about the fighters, the anti-fascist struggle, our great role in the liberation of Macedonia, the Srem Front, the liberation of Zagreb by a Macedonian Brigade, (which really

happened, but the Macedonians had to wait for the Lichka Brigade to march into Zagreb), etc. And with all that you claim that we participated in the liberation of all of Europe! For the sake of clarification Berlin capitulated on May 9, 1945, and Zagreb was liberated on May 15, 1945, so much for us liberating Zagreb. By the way you also claim that Tito liberated us. No, that is not true! Tito’s partisans, together with our own armies liberated us. So much talk about our liberation by someone else. So, if you want to find out who participated in the final operations for the liberation of Macedonia you will need to read from those who fought in the battles, i.e. Traiche Gruevski, and with whose army they cooperated?

You never want to talk about how Vukmanovich Tempo defeated ASNOM in order to set up his own vassals. These vassals operated in a closed circle from which we can’t even get out to this day. Each decision they made tightened the loop on the noose around our Macedonian neck. And with that we will continue to erase our future off the world map and become Albanians. In the past these same vassals turned us into the biggest Yugoslavs, and what did that get us? Freedom?! Certainly not! We have always fought for ourselves unfortunately everyone else fought against us - a dark part of our Macedonian history about which no one wants to talk. No one wants to talk about the fact that today’s Republic of Macedonia was invaded, occupied, annexed and colonized by Serbia with aims at turning Macedonians into Serbians… with the help of these vassals, of course. No one wants to talk about the fact that everything that was Macedonian was turned into Serbian. Our names were changed, our language was polluted, our Macedonian worship services were replaced and brother was turned against brother. These were tragic things done to us… These were the merits of old Yugoslavia. And lest we forget, after the death of this artificial Yugoslav state we Macedonians have the “honour” (greatest shame) of bearing the name “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”. After the war when the said vassals helped cleanse our Macedonian intelligentsia, the next big incursion to occur in the People’s Socialist Republic of Macedonia, was the beheading of the Macedonian businesses and military. Almost all company directors by default were Serbs and the army commanders all throughout Macedonia were

Montenegrins. We again became the sand through which water passes… We were left “on our own” again.

When Civil War broke out in Greece, in Greek occupied Macedonia, Yugoslavia again interfered, allegedly to assist the Macedonian people, aiding the war, forming units on Yugoslav territory, and together with the CPG, transfering them back and forth between CPY and CPG so that in the end all these fighters can be labelled traitors by both sides on account of the Informbiro resolution. Most of these Macedonians ended up in camps in Russia, handed over to the Russians as Tito’s spies.

To clarify matters, from the very beginning of the Civil War in Greece Tito, under orders from his superior Generalissimo Stalin, began to organize this war and directly participates in it. The then CPG Armed Resistance leadership moved to Belgrade, which together with the Yugoslav military staff worked to organize aid for the war effort, open hospitals to look after the wounded and help them cross in and out of Yugoslav territory. Yugoslavia was also a major supplier of weapons, ammunition and other military equipment which eventually ended up on Macedonian territory in Greek occupied Macedonia, where the entire Civil War was basically fought. If you thought that there were Macedonian leaders leading the Civil War, even one, you are incorrect. Despite the fact that the Greek leadership, Markos, Ioanidis and other members of the CPG Central Committee Politburo, were located in Yugoslavia of which the Republic of Macedonia was an integral part, there was not a single Macedonian in charge. Military units which fought in the Greek Civil War were created in Yugoslavia from the Macedonian population that left Greek occupied Macedonia. These military units were sent back to Greece to fight in the Greek Civil War. Even NOF, AFZH and NOMS were created in Yugoslavia, in Skopje on April 23, 1945, and sent back to organize an uprising in Greek occupied Macedonia. Then, when the Greek Civil War was running red hot, the CPM/CPY abandoned the Macedonian organization they created and handed them over to the CPG to do with them as it liked. This was done under orders from Tito and Kolishevski. Tito and Kolishevski agreed with Zahariadis, CPG Secretary General, that as of April 2, 1946, NOF, AFZH and NOMS would be under CPG control and all Macedonian fighters would be

transferred to DAG. Some of the fighters were sent to the deep south of Greece where the Greek government, their enemy, had the upper hand and most of them were killed. Even the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece was created in Yugoslavia, on the territory of the Republic of Macedonia in Prespa Region in a village called Asamati. The Provisional Democratic Government of Greece was formed on December 23, 1947 but, unfortunately, no one in the world recognized it. In other words, the war strings in the Greek Civil War were pulled by Stalin from the USSR and by Tito from Yugoslavia. But this only lasted until the infamous Informburo resolution after which Yugoslavia abruptly stopped assisting the Greek Civil War.

After abruptly stopping its assistance to the Greek Civil War, Yugoslavia also abruptly closed the artificial border between Greek occupied Macedonia and the Republic of Macedonia causing an unprecedented massacre of DAG fighters and civilians trying to flee the war from Greek occupied Macedonia. Almost the entire refugee population fleeing to Yugoslavia was civilian. So against whom were the borders closed and why?

Beyond that, sometime in April 1949, Yugoslavia reached an agreement with Britain to no longer assist the DAG fighters with weapons and food in exchange for compensation from the West. As a result DAG was destroyed at the end of August 1949. All remaining DAG fighters moved to Albania along with a large number of civilians, who then ended up in distant Tashkent, USSR and other Eastern European socialist countries. The majority of refugee children, who crossed the Yugoslav border, did so in the spring of 1948. After that, in 1953, Tito’s Yugoslavia entered into a military alliance with Greece and Turkey as the southern wing of NATO and as the southwest wing for the protection against the Warsaw Pact states. The only “benefit” (another blow) to the Macedonian people was that Tito, for a certain amount of millions of dollars, was obliged to close the Macedonian Question with Greece and no longer wanted to discuss our burning problem. As a result the Macedonian people who were scattered around the world as refugees were left in limbo. Consequently DAG fighters, at least most of those who survived the war, were accepted by the Republic of Macedonia and moved there to be closer to their hometowns, but

unfortunately they were never allowed to visit them. And those who died in the Republic of Macedonia died not as Macedonians but as “Aegeans”. Another unfortunate thing that had befallen them on Macedonian soil was that each one was forced to spend time in the Idrizovo prison. Upon entry into the Republic of Macedonia, while being interrogated at Idrizovo Prison, each was asked if they were “for Tito or for Stalin”. On top of that they were told that they were Yugoslavs now and that it was not politically correct to be Macedonian and to talk very little to none about their identity. Even we children of the DAG fighters as well as all the “Refugee Children” who were separated from their parents and grew up in boarding houses in the socialist states shared the fate of our parents. Some of us were born in the socialist bloc countries (Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, East Germany, Bulgaria…) but still we were not allowed to go to Greece. I was born in Poland and it took me thirty years to get my visa to travel to the birthplace of my parents, and that was only by mistake. I wanted to visit the villages where my mother and father were born and light a candle on the graves of my ancestors who laid down their lives for the freedom of Macedonia. Unfortunately, those who died fighting were either not buried at all or were hurriedly buried in unmarked graves and no one knows where they are. And this gentlemen, was the legacy you left behind from your engagements for the development of the Macedonian spirit in this region. Of what were we guilty? We, the next generation, grew up in the Republic of Macedonia and were educated there. Later we were drafted into the Yugoslav National Army where we took an oath to defend the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Yugoslavia to the last drop of our blood. This oath was not much different from the oath the Macedonian fighters joining ELAS and DAG had to take, about which Stoian Kochov wrote: an oath that abliged them to defend the integrity and sovereignty of Greece… to their last drop of blood. We worked and paid taxes in Yugoslavia and had the same passports as all other Yugoslav citizens, but unlike them we could not cross the Greek border even though we, by law, had been erased from ever existing in Greece… Even with all that going on Yugoslavia never accepted us as regular and normal Yugoslav citizens and never dealt with our concerns. I am sad to say that there are Macedonians who were born in Greece, who to this day have not officially been allowed to enter

Greece. Not as Yugoslavs, not as citizens of FYROM and now not as citizens of Northern Macedonia. And that is the truth.

As the other Yugoslav Republics evolved, they gradually improved their lives and modernized their economies. We Macedonians, on the other hand, were content with our rural life as farmers with an added tractor here and there. But the time came when your or their determination led to the building of large industrial facilities in the cities, primarily in Skopje (Zelezarnitsa, Tsementarnitsa, OHIS, Alkaloid, Alumina, OKTA - Refinery), in the central city areas. Why there when everyone knew that the resources needed for manufacturing were far from Skopje? “Yugohrom” was built in Tetovo, “Topilnitsa” in Veles, “FENI” in Kavadartsi, so that today your children and grandchildren can fiercely protest against the air pollution and the difficulties with their health from living there. It might be nice to know when and how these things were done, but unfortunately after the Republic of Macedonia gained its independance, YOU closed down most of the industry.

Then the time came when the other republics left Yugoslavia, when their leaders encouraged and urged their citizens to borrow foreign currency from the banks and at the last moment before their independence, transferred the money to the branches of the Ljubljanska Bank, JIK Bank, Komercijalna Bank and others. As the war in Yugoslavia fueled up, our Macedonian troops were again sent to the second “Srem Front” to participate in the liberation of this Yugoslavia. When everyone was running away as fast and as far as they could from the war, we, i.e. YOU were orchestrating the platform; yes the “Gligorov-Izetbegovic” platform, from whose constraints we cannot escape to this day. When the referendum was held to separate from Yugoslavia our SKM PDP comrades were again afraid to sing the Macedonian anthem without first singing “Hey You Slavs”. For you it was a normal thing to sit in a hall with no future with three portraits hanging on the walls, one of YOUR great leader Tito, and two little ones in the corridors, of our heroes and legends Gotse Delchev and Nikola Karev. So much for the ambience, feelings and desire for our homeland! Let us not forget that our respected Albanians did not join us during the anthem, and did not vote for any state-building documents including the Constitution, which they now so strongly call upon to change. For a

week YOU argued that there should be no referendum, no need for it. But then you added a question on that referendum asking ordinary people if we should “ally ourselves with the rest of the Yugoslav states”. Why didn’t you ask if we should ally ourselves with your current allies such as America, Germany, England and the rest to whom you cry now! You said you were “always” for Macedonia, like you were when VMRO DPMNE won the first election, even though your proud and proudly independent media predicted that your party was going to win by somewhere around 2.17%. But it didn’t because the Macedonian people still know who they are; they know their own ancestry and still owe their debt to them. They are still more Macedonian than Yugoslav, but unfortunately that was short-lived. Aided by the old but now foreign services (UDBA), you succeeded in taking power from the ones who won because they did not want to form a coalition with the “Albanian” parties in Macedonia, and you as great “constituents”, “statesmen” and dissidents will do everything it takes to take us to NATO, the European Union and who knows where else. And here is YOUR greatest betrayal: You went to white collar capitalists to seek recognition, but you knocked on the wrong doors, because those countries have been linked to royal families in Greece for centuries. What you have achieved has not brought you into the United Nations, even though Kiro Gligorov, President of Macedonia, promised: “Macedonia’s provisional reference will be temporary and will last no more than a few months!” Let us also not forget that it is possible for YOU comrades to be presidents of the Republic of Macedonia without a Macedonian ID or without a Macedonian citizenship. Gligorov never convinced us that he had assurances from the Great Powers that the “reference” was just a formality… And now we all know what really happened and the problems we having facing us to this day. Was it impossible for Kiro Gligorov to come out and say that the Great Powers had simply betrayed him or that he never received such a guarantee? YOU then went ahead and changed the name and the flag, which meant a lot to us, as the first flag set in the first independent state of Macedonia. You then adopted a new flag that looks like the former imperial Japanese army (navy) flag that was flown during the Second World War. We fought against that flag… but I guess you have forgotten that…

When we sent our Olympic athletes to compete at our first Olympic games we were forced to use the label “FYROM” on the Olympic flag, which YOU agreed to, and instead of feeling great joy, pride and dignity, we felt humiliated. Another thing YOU gave up, which was a betrayal to all Macedonians, our care and concern for the Macedonian people living in Greece, Bulgaria, Albania and the world over. YOUR renunciation of our people who had lived on those lands for centuries, now occupied by those countries, was catastrophic. And now you dare speak, without even thinking, about the tyrannical platform adopted in a neighbouring country that directly interferes in the affairs of our Macedonia? What do you think will happen if Macedonian parties from the neighbouring countries adopted a platform in the Republic of Macedonia and with the same desire ran an election in their current countries? That would never happen. The party would be destroyed before it had such a chance.

Another shameful thing all YOU have done is buy your votes. Someone gave away 150,000 citizenships to outsiders, to people who at some point or another would be needed to elect a president (Kiro Gligorov). Unfortunately these people never were and never will be citizens of this country. Those are the “phantom voters” that you like to talk about non-stop. It was YOU who gave these people passports and citizenships who are now causing problems for all of us. You constantly demand to know who these people are and where they are… as if you did not know. Unfortunately you continue to commit these high profile betrayals. In 1994 when your then President Petar Goshev formed the Democratic Party he spoke about criminals and traitors in the ranks of the SKM PDP, from where he came out some time ago. Perhaps the biggest betrayal was when the opposition did not come out and vote in the elections but that did not bother you at all. And then when a large crowd took to the streets, demanding justice, you set up snipers at the Parliament building and the Department Store in Skopje, and you were ready for everything. Then when people collected 250,000 signatures to sway you, you did absolutely nothing to honour their demands; you crossed over and made huge amounts of money from breaking the embargo with Serbia. YOU sold, or more precisely, handed over Macedonia to several oligarchs, who to this day do what they feel like. You left 200,000 people out on the street without work and what

responsibility did you take for this? Unfortunately none! In these 4 years from 1994 to 1998, you did everything, without any opposition, by passing any laws you felt like and made crime legal and you were proud of it. You caused permanent damage to our country and as you like to say “It was all legal” and sustainable, but the consequences from it are permanent and exist to this day.

Once something is broken it is difficult to fix. You definitely need to think about what you do today because what you damage today may take generations to undo.

After your stole everything from Macedonia, VMRO DPMNE won the elections and, along with the Democratic Alternative, finally brought the long-awaited democracy to Macedonia. And today when people ask you when the best time for Macedonia was, you tell them 1998 to 2002, but unfortunately you destroyed that too. You started working against everything that was positive. You even worked against the rights of the Albanians, with a belligerent rhetoric, that you are the ones who defended and will defend Macedonia. You again deceived your way back into government but how much did your “victory” help this country? After the “capitulating” Ohrid Agreement was signed in which you, of course, wholeheartedly participated, you immediately left the Government, of which you were so eager to be a part. You did this so that someone would again bring you to power in 2002. And behold, YOU, who yesterday spoke against the rights of the Albanian people in Macedonia, suddenly formed a government with Albanians. And not just any Albanians but the then outlawed bandits later labeled “human rights fighters”, making them ministers, officials, directors of public enterprises and so on. You did this to receive their thanks and the thanks of Guru Ali Ahmeti, as he did thank you during the NLA and KLA partisan times. This was confirmed by Hari Kostov, who spoke up about it during his resignation. During YOUR time you also passed a law to allow the formation of the University of Tetovo, to federalize the state again in 2004, and to hand over Liube Boskovski to The Hague and cry crocodile tears for his fate. Now you need new victims. YOU have always played with the map and with the short memory of the people, but the consequences of all your doings are permanent and extremely negative for all the Macedonian people. Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski, during his visit to Struga,

almost paid with his life for the federalization of Macedonia. Those who had previously voted for him wanted to kill him. Today, 14 years later, we are still seeing the consequences of your decisions. In order to neutralize this and devalue the entire referendum decided by our citizens, we again received assistance from the international community, this time from the United States of America who recognized our country by its constitutional name and has done nothing ever since. They say Greece is a big problem for the USA, and even as a Great Power the USA cannot solve it. They say because of this problem with Greece the USA cannot deliver on any of the promises it made to us for which we thanked them prematurely. We received our answer for the changes we made to our name, flag, the 1998 privatization for which accountability was demanded as to why it was done the way it was done, and that answer was: “Do not dare to touch the private property and the way of its acquisition, because it is the greatest benefit ever made to Western civilization”, and we have accepted this… (One of Liupcho Georgievski’s biggest mistakes.)

We surrendered our territory to NATO in order for their forces to pass through Macedonia. They were carrying materials from the port in Solun to Kosovo so that they could build facilities to house NATO equipment and troops. Their heavy vehicles damaged our roads but we were assured that our companies would build the facilities in Kosovo with our materials. But that did not happen. We allowed NATO to fly over our airspace while bombing Serbia, allowing them to dump their jet fuel in Lake Ohrid and depleted uranium bombs everywhere. No one thought to seriously analyze the effects of all this and foresee its consequences and the damage it would cause in Macedonia. Sadly, according to more recently acquired information, the then Prime Minister Liubcho Georgievski agreed to allow NATO ground troops to pass through Macedonia and attack Serbia. This, in fact, was a declaration of war against a neighbouring state. But unlike us, Bulgaria and Croatia, which were already NATO allies, would not allow ground troops to pass through their territory. The KLA aggression against Macedonia was carried out from Kosovo, a foreign country, but it was the Americans who took the NLA and UCK fighters out of Arachinovo and declared them “winners”. The Americans claim that by removing the so-called UCK fighters from Arachinovo they saved Skopje which was

in danger of being attacked. Attached by whom? By those in Arachinovo who were afraid to leave their houses and get on the buses escorted by NATO during the daytime? The reason for all this was to humiliate the Macedonian people and pressure the Macedonian politicians to sign the treacherous Ohrid Agreement. Worst of all, our greatest loss occurred at the time when the ceasefire was in effect, which the Americans said they would guaranteed. Macedonian troops were attacked and killed in Veitse, Karpalak, Liubantsi and other places. What kind of guarantee was this? It was a guarantee that would force the Macedonian side to the negotiating table, to not only concede to every demand made but to also agree to amnesty all those involved in the war against Macedonia. They were all pardoned for the war crimes they committed for which there should not have been a pardon. So, what can we say about the 90 year old fascists who survived World War II and are now brought before the courts to receive their punishment? Well, justice serves only the mighty! In all former Yugoslav republics, except in Macedonia, all those convicted of war crimes were brought to justice. So, all this that took place here: was it aggression, was it a civil war, was it a conflict, was it a human rights struggle, or was it nothing at all? Liube Boskovski, then Minister of the Interior in the Republic of Macedonia, and General Iohan Tarchulovski, were the only two people from Macedonia who ended up in The Hague, who in my opinion did not deserve to be there. There were many others who committed far worse war crimes, genocide and many other abominations, who deserved to be sent to The Hague, but instead were pardoned. Why were these two men sent to The Hague? Was it because “someone” wanted to place the Republic of Macedonia on the pillar of shame? And by doing so Macedonia would be seen as an aggressor? All Macedonia did was what every other country would do, protect its citizens and preserve its territorial integrity and sovereignty. Were these the actions of an aggressor? If that is it then it is unheard of, a historical first. But despite these damning charges laid by the West against Macedonia and against our people, The Hague found us not guilty. Here I see the mistake of succumbing to such unprincipled pressures. On the other hand, for all that we did, they repeatedly said: “Resolve the name dispute and we will see what we can do for you”. In other words “for the 27 years of your existence we have been monitoring and controlling you… We have been writing reports and watching

your progress but there is nothing we can do about your inclusion in the World Club because Great Greece, to whom we owe so much for giving us democracy, does not want you to join the World Club…” And I say to that, “If this is what you call democracy”, then thank you very much; I don’t want any part of it! My feeling is that we will be better off without it. Unlike them, we the Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia know what the true Great Greek “democracy” looks like. We lived in it. But have we said anything in protest to how we have been treated? NO! Perhaps this is why these Westerners are treating us like children. What have we asked to get in return for the concessions we made during all these negotiations? Nothing! All these negotiations have been about “giving up” things and never about “getting” things! And whose fault is that?

There were mistakes made. The first big mistake was to allow the artificial separation of the modern VMRO party into two factions VMRO-DPMNE and VMRO-Narodna. This artificial separation was unnecessary but at the right time fulfilled its purpose; VMRO-DPMNE came to power and is still functioning as the largest party in Macedonia. During the 2006 elections, when times were hard, it had the support of the Western world. In 2008 VMRO Narodna decided not to run in the elections and VMRO-DPMNE won the biggest and most convincing victory with 63 (out of 120) elected MPs. But unfortunately in order for Nikola Gruevski to be acknowledged as Prime Minister by the West, he had to accept a partnership with a party that should not have been accepted into the government at all. There was great pressure to partner with the Albanian party DUI, even though DUI and VMRO-DPMNE had differing policies. Gruevski had enough seats, a majority, to finally set up and implement real party policies, without the blackmail from his partners. But there was pressure again, with some agreements still unfortunately not fully confirmed. So the current victory of 63 MPs, at least, did not give him the right to govern with its own program, with its own platform that could succeed in accomplishing everything. How and where else in the world this was happening, I don’t know. Show me one instance and I will believe you. But I don’t know if such an instance even exists where say communist parties had to work in coalition with capitalist parties? It’s absurd…

There was a case in neighbouring Bulgaria with a Turkish party led by Ahmed Dogan, who entered every government because of minority rights, until Boiko Borisov’s GERB party won an absolute majority and required no coalition support. As a result Borisov rejected the Turkish party because their policies differed. One would have expected great reactions from the EU and others, but that did not happen. What I can’t understand is if a party has a landslide victory with a majority why would it need a coalition partner? All the minorities in Macedonia have rights, the highest rights of all of Macedonia’s neighbours. No minority right can be touched by parliament unless there is a “Badinter majority”, which means that in addition to the entire parliament at least one extra lawmaker must take part in the voting of a minority law. No one has such rules anywhere where Macedonians live, not even in the Republic of Macedonia itself where Macedonians are a majority. This also applies to the Macedonians in the municipalities where they are a minority. But unlike in the Macedonian Parliament where minority rights are fully respected, it is definitely not the case in the municipalities. It is left to the Republic of Macedonia to take care of that. In some municipalities the minority has the right to govern over the majority, and that is not right. It does not exist anywhere else, so why should it exist here? Why worry about this? Because if you are to go through Western Macedonia, you get the sense that you are not in Macedonia, especially when you see non-Macedonian flags, the two-headed Albanian eagle flying everywhere and no Macedonian flags anywhere. You encounter all kinds of signage all in the Albanian language, without the official Macedonian language and Cyrillic alphabet to accompany it. So when Westerners “force” us to include minority Albanian parties to govern as coalition partners in our government because of “minority concerns”, about whom are we talking about?

Let us not forget that much writing and signage exists here in Bitola where hundreds of companies advertise in Greek and English, because their businesses are here. By the same token we have Macedonian businessmen working in Lerin, Kostur and Voden to mention a few cities in Greece, but there are no Macedonian articles and Macedonian signage anywhere. There is Serbian and even Russian writing and signage but not Macedonian. The questions that we posed during the establishment of the Tetovo University were:

“Who in Macedonia would employ students who did not want to study in the Macedonian language? How would they interact with the Macedonian speaking people? Will the local Albanian speaking economies be able to absorb all these graduates who don’t speak Macedonian? Could they get jobs in Albania or Kosovo or in the EU? And if they do get employed in Macedonia in companies like REK Bitola, how would they be able to communicate; make decisions, follow orders etc.?” What is happening here is an absurdity. We are a small society living in a small state with limited resources, and we will definitely have to be rational and pragmatic about how we use them. We gave our minorities everything they asked for, I just don’t know what more we have to give them. We are robbing the majority to accommodate the minority and as a result more and more Macedonians are leaving Macedonia. Has anyone thought about this? Or is there only a bitter struggle for power and nothing more. We are robbing our future generations of their basic right to be here, in their own state.

Above all that was mentioned earlier, the latest thing to surface were the bombs that Zaev unleashed with which he shook the political scene and brought everything to the brink of civil war. He made outrageous claims that he had heard recordings of damning conversations that had allegedly taken place among members of the opposition regarding their dealings, negotiations, etc., which may or may not have taken place. He said he had heard everything from everyone, conversations that had taken place between the people in government, the prime minister, the ministers, the directors and a whole slew of other officials. But Zaev would not say why these conversations were not made public or released to the media so that they could be further investigated. When asked why the “monster” was not released, Zaev wisely replied that sufficient material evidence has yet to be found to present to the public and if he did this it would have unintended consequences for both the Macedonian people and the Albanian minority. The fact that he first refused to disclose the actual wiretapped conversations, refused to disclose where he got them, and that he boldly announced that he had heard them, caused chaos and a coup in the country. So as far as I understood these talks took place in 2011, and as for those from 2014, there is nothing; so I don’t know what to think.

Gruevski’s big mistake was his acceptance of the Prizno Agreement which only he knows why he accepted it. Gruevski was played several times; he appointed SDSM ministers in his government with no approval from the citizens. And all the time these ministers worked against the government, blocking the implementation of government policies and stifling the country. All this was done so that the government would call early parliamentary elections. Then Gruevski resigned as prime minister. And what did Zaev do? Seeing that he was not going to get the votes that would “guarantee” him a win he postoped the elections by using the Prizno Agreement, not once but twice until his guarantors were sure that he would get enough votes to win. And where did he get those “extra” votes? His guarantors know but they won’t talk. It will be interesting to hear the conversations Zaev had with his guarantors and coalition partners. Hopefully someone else will talk and hand over the recordings so that the people can make a fair judgment of Zaev and his party and vote appropriately without pressure.

In regards to the two batches of wiretaps, the first has no justification for some of those conversations, the second I don’t know what will happen if and when they are revealed, how many are white (benign) and how many are black (malignant). As someone said many years ago both parties regardless of being white or black, are either vermin or mice, which unfortunately causes harm to the state and the people. I think grey is the most prevalent colour in our politics, and that is the most dangerous colour. When the election was over YOU were mourning your loss again, but then you remembered that you had the Joker up your sleeve, the “guarantor” of the Prizno Agreement. And during the negotiations with DUI, a blackmail message was sent out several times warning everyone who had committed crimes in the past would now be accountable to the Special Prosecutor’s Office (SPO), including Ali Ahmeti, about whom nothing has been said in the talks so far. The way to stop the Macedonians from forming a government this time was by rejecting the joint platform of all Albanian parties in Macedonia. This joint platform was negotiated in Tirana, which of course the Macedonian parties immediately rejected, without any talks or negotiations. But what happened next was very curious. Counting the votes by gathering them together like they would be cast by sheep and not by humans, Zaev figured he had 700,000 votes he could count on. He

was very proud of that and showed his pride by being the only Macedonian who cared more for his Albanian compatriots than for the Macedonians in his own party. But unlike his fellow Albanians and citizens of Macedonia who had two other homelands, Zaev, at any moment, was prepared to give up his own Macedonia and unite it with the other two Albanian states for the sake of winning in the elections. There was nothing that Zaev would not do to take control of the government of the Republic of Macedonia… But, in spite of all the negative things he had done against Macedonia, Zaev in public kept referring to the Republic of Macedonia as “Mother Macedonia” and “look at Mother”.

I spoke to him about that and suggested that he stop calling the Republic of Macedonia “Mother Macedonia”, because he was offending everyone including Macedonia’s best sons who fought and died for her. I told him, how dare you call the country you want to destroy and cut its roots “Mother”? Words are nothing, deeds speak for themselves. If you continue like this, Mr. Zaev, history will have a place for you in its darkest chapters and you will be referred to as the one who destroyed Macedonia from its foundations. From my own experience and from what I learned from our own (VMRO-Narodna) history and the history of other governments, six months, a year, two or five, or even ten from now, you will be nothing more than the greatest traitor in Macedonian history. There will be nothing for you in the future except for the legacy of shame which you will leave for your descendants to bear. As you often say, only you and your party are accountable for what you have done so why are you keeping the deals you made with Macedonia’s neighbours a secret. Why not reveal them in your next election platform and see how much support you will get from our voters. If you do get their support then we are working with the wrong national code, we are working on our self-destruction. But please do check this out and confirm it for yourself and for everyone in Macedonia. As you said you are now the favourite and you have the advantage, show me. If you are right, I will help you, I will set up the same platform for which you wholeheartedly fight. I will now conclude with a glimpse into Stoian Kochov’s writing about our Macedonian codes in post-WW II:

“The foreigners did not allow the Macedonian people to foster healthy nationalism, but they demanded from the Macedonians subconscious awareness, and without the consciousness of the nation it is impossible to know how to create a strategy for their own country. So, we accomplished the strategy of strangers flawlessly. And so the fact is that we Macedonians (in an integral sense), could not see ourselves...”

Unfortunately, this is what is happening to us today. So here is the platform that “someone” said he saw but did not read, so let us try and read it together, with a few comments of mine.

“We, the representatives of the Albanian political parties in Macedonia: “Democratic Union for Integration” (DUI), “Renaissance Coalition with BESA” and “Alliance of Albanians”;

Respecting the free and democratic will of the Albanian voters expressed at the early parliamentary elections in the Republic of Macedonia on December 11;

In the spirit of the Ohrid Agreement, consensual democracy and the need to fulfill the normative obligations arising from constitutional changes;

Reaffirming the joint program and strategic commitments of the Albanians and all citizens of the Republic of Macedonia;

Committed to the prosperity and long-term stability of Macedonia;

Guided by a shared commitment to peace, stability, security, inter-ethnic coexistence, in a spirit of equality and dignity, in accordance with European and international conventions, religious harmony and cooperation in the country and region;

Committed, with no alternative, to NATO and EU integration;

We agree on mutual support for a common political agenda that provides for the achievement of the following objectives, in the future government mandate and / or in any further mandates;”

Reading the introduction - I don’t know what to say - I haven’t read anything better than this. There is some kind of coexistence, European, world conventions, and while respecting the will of the Albanian voters, who absolutely did not see this platform, we come to the main issue. If Zaev read this and only this, then I can understand why he approved it.

“1. Achieving full equality in accordance with the Ohrid Agreement and the Constitution