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Anastasia Balezdrova

A heavy shootout between the police forces and members of an "armed group" in Kumanovo a week ago killed 22 people and injured 37. The town is located near Macedonia’s border with Serbia and Kosovo and is one of the places where the Albanian community has the strongest presence.

The events sparked violent developments inside the country, where the demand for Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski to resign is increasingly resounding. After last night's mass protest of the supporters of the opposition that ended with the formation of a protest camp outside the government building in Skopje, today the government organized a demonstration in its own support too.

Meanwhile, the Albanian community blames the events in Kumanovo on the police and the risk of Macedonia’s destabilization is very real, as stated by the analysts. One of them is Greek journalist Stavros Tzimas. As the correspondent for the newspaper Kathimerini, he has covered all military conflicts in the western Balkans over the last 25 years which he describes in his book "The breakup of Yugoslavia and the Greek illusions."

In an interview with GRReporter Tzimas relates what he saw in Kumanovo during his visit there a few days after the bloody skirmish and how this could potentially destabilize the entire Balkan Peninsula.

Mr. Tzimas you returned from Kumanovo and Skopje a few days ago. Would you tell us what you saw and learnt there about the events?

There must have been a fierce gunfight there, namely in a 100-metre- long street where no stone remained unturned.

According to the available information, these people had arrived in Kumanovo some time ago and brought heavy weapons. They were equipped with bazookas, shells and heavy machine guns. It is unclear whether they had rented the houses where they had stayed or if some residents had sheltered them in their own houses.

Obviously, the police were aware of their presence in Kumanovo and organized the operation to eliminate them, this bloodshed being the result of it. It really was a massacre. Literally, there were shootings from room to room.

It is significant that the residents are not talking about the events. Only Albanians live in the neighbourhood where the houses there were illegally built. This is the "heart" of the Albanian community in FYROM, as 30 percent of Kumanovo’s residents are Albanians. Nobody answered my question as to who the people were who took part in the shootout with the police. All claimed that they had seen, heard or learnt nothing. And all this in a typical closed Albanian community in which everyone knows everything about everything. Moreover, they were adamant that they knew nothing about the arrival of the 70 heavily-armed outsiders. They said they knew nothing, but some of them had let out their houses to them or accommodated them free of charge.

This shows many things in my opinion, especially that there was an order for everyone to maintain absolute silence about the events and blame everything on the Macedonian police as they call them.

The second thing that made a significant impression on me was that this street, where 22 people were killed and whose blood was still there, had turned into a tourist attraction. People from the surrounding villages and probably elsewhere went there, including women and small children, took selfies and smiled, and the locals even showed them around and described the events to them. I was surprised by the fact that the police had not closed off the area to investigate what had happened and to gather further evidence.

This is what I saw on the site of the shootout. In addition, I spoke with Kumanovo's mayor who is a member of the opposition Social Democratic Union of FYROM and I think it is the only mayor's position won by the opposition in the entire country. He attacked Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski but said he had no specific opinion on what exactly had happened.

At the end of my journey and after talks with foreign and local diplomats, observers, analysts and other officials in Kumanovo and Skopje, I could not understand the reasons for this bloodshed.

Many varied scenarios are commented on in FYROM, depending on the perspective and interests of each side. There is a view that the case was a provocation organized by the government to distract the public from the dramatic turn of the phone tapping scandal and the political crisis. Personally, I doubt very much that this was so, not because I think the secret service would not do such a thing but because it is out of all proportion to cause such bloodshed on such an occasion.

Another scenario that is under consideration suggests that it was a criminal offense. It is believed that, because the Kumanovo region is a crossroads of trafficking in various commodities, the case could have involved drug traffickers, etc. Although this scenario is not to be rejected, it seems excessive. If this were the case, why would the armed men be in UCK uniforms?

The efforts by the international community, the Albanian leaders and, recently, by the government in Skopje to denationalize what has happened are particularly impressive. Because there are already talks, though still subdued, that armed groups of new extreme Albanian nationalists have been out in the mountains.

It is known that the idea of ​​creating a so-called "Greater Albania" has been recently circulating among the Albanian communities. They do not call it this because the name is provocative. They do not even call it "Natural Albania" as they did a few years ago. Now they are talking about a "national unity" that means Albania’s unification with Kosovo, as stated by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and why not unification between Albanians from Presevo and Bujanovac in Serbia with Kosovo and between Albanians from Tetovo and other regions in Macedonia with Albania and Kosovo at a later stage.

What would the unification of Albanian communities mean to the rest of the countries in the region?

Undoubtedly, none of those countries would tolerate this because it would cause a change of state borders from the time of the Balkan wars. I think the intervention of Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borisov was not at all accidental. It made a great impression and I would interpret it in the following way: The issue is not so much that the 90 thousand people with Bulgarian identity and holders of Bulgarian passports could be in danger. Anyway, I do not think these people would be at risk. However, this is a very good excuse for Bulgaria to intervene in the possible crucial events and enter Macedonia. I have read that Sofia is now transporting troops and carrying out training on the border with FYROM. I do not mean that Bulgaria is a factor of instability. But when the map of the Balkans is about to be redrawn all countries are preparing for this eventuality.

It is no coincidence that Serbia is increasing its troops in Presevo and Bujanovac too. Athens has also issued a verbal response. No country could be indifferent to the likelihood of such a development because it would cause a domino effect. The Serbs in Bosnia have already openly announced that their aim is to unite with Serbia and I am asking myself how the Serbs from northern Kosovo would accept the national unification of Kosovo with Albania after its announcement by Edi Rama. Clearly, they would turn to Belgrade.

The holders of Bulgarian passports and the people with allegedly Bulgarian identity who are currently living in the regions between Bulgaria and FYROM would also want to join Bulgaria. The Greeks in southern Albania might wish to unite with Greece, which is their historical demand.

In such a situation, things would inevitably lead to a redistribution of the deck in the Balkans, and that has never happened without bloodshed.

FYROM’s Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski is highly responsible for this situation. He may become a detonator because his nationalist hysteria has caused the unification of the Albanian communities on a firm nationalistic basis.

There are other factors and these include Russia which is trying to regain positions in the region mainly through Serbia. Moscow’s attempt aims to benefit from the dissatisfaction and disappointment of the Slavic population with FYROM’s delayed accession to the EU and some other actions on the part of the West. In Skopje, they even call Prime Minister Gruevski "the little Putin" because the system that supports his government is a copy of Russia’s authoritarianism and corruption.

Under some scenarios, the events were provoked by the United States and the aim was to support the construction and passage of the Turkish Stream pipeline through FYROM. That is ridiculous to me because those who follow the events in the region know that the developments associated with Nikola Gruevski did not start a few months ago, which was the case with the discussion on the pipeline. The commotion associated with him started at least 3-4 years ago.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that I remain firmly behind the view that one of the new factors that are threatening the stability of the Balkans is the operation to radicalize Islam. The countries of the Arabian Peninsula are financing the operations in Albania, Kosovo, FYROM and Bosnia to spread radical Islam.

On the other hand, the mosques are in conflict with the so-called "Erdogan’s Islam", i.e. the Islamic model popularized by Turkey.

All those details are the components of a mixture that could rapidly become explosive and my concerns are that, if not addressed, the Balkans could very soon face heavy turmoil again.

What could we expect to happen in FYROM in the coming days?

I do not know whether Bozhidar Dimitrov’s forecast that the government of Nikola Gruevski would fall within 10 days will materialize. What I know is that Gruevski is in an extremely serious position. He is under complete isolation on the part of the international community, he is facing the conflict between the communities and bearing the burden of the sins of his governing, which are corruption, manipulation of justice, silencing the media, the authoritarian way of government. Therefore, he is now fully aware that if he continues to govern in this way his country will never cross the EU and NATO’s threshold. A large part of the Slavo-Macedonian public opinion has also realized this and the first signs of a split between the Macedonians in the country are already apparent. In my personal opinion, the countdown for Nikola Gruevski has begun. I do not think he will be able to remain in office for long.

What would happen afterwards is a matter of another discussion. In all cases, as regards the relations between the different communities in FYROM, he is paying the price for his incredible nationalism and arrogance and for his desire to form a national identity among Macedonians thus turning the entire Albanian community against himself.

This is the most important issue for the international community. It does not regard the conflict over the name between Athens and Skopje, it is not its concern. It fears that the relations between Slavo-Macedonians and Albanians inside the country might become the wick to set fire to the Balkans again.

In this sense, Gruevski has caused enormous damage to the stability in the region. He has done so because, on the one hand he believes in this idea and because, on the other, he has based his hegemony precisely upon it. He was elected prime minister three times with the flag of patriotism and irredentist Macedonism. For example, the former Foreign Minister came to Greece and put the flag of "Greater Macedonia" on Olympus. These actions are ridiculous but also dangerous for the stability of the Balkans.

Is the international community ready to cope with such a course of events this time?

I feel, albeit I cannot prove it, that it aims to normalize the situation inside the country and alleviate the nationalist rhetoric by isolating Gruevski. After tensions ease and with a more moderate government in Skopje, it would be able to accelerate the country’s accession to the EU and NATO. This is because the dream of all the peoples of the Western Balkans today is to become European citizens. This was the strategy of the West after the collapse of former Yugoslavia as well as the creation of national states when it chose the prospect of the EU and NATO membership with regard to these countries in order to eliminate the issue of borders and alleviate nationalist attitudes.

In the current situation in Europe, however, namely the economic crisis and the rise of xenophobia and racism, my concerns are that it would be very difficult to persuade European citizens to take out more money from their pockets to accept economies such as Albania, Kosovo and FYROM. With regard to Serbia, things are different because of its relations with Russia. That is why the West is quick in accepting it in the EU.

I think the plan is as follows: completion of the Kosovo issue by accelerating the process of Serbia’s accession to the EU, Gruevski’s fall and establishment of a more moderate government in exchange for concessions in order for FYROM to be closer to EU membership.