KIRO GLIGOROV ALWAYS WORKED FOR

AND DREAMED OF GREATER SERBIA

It was clear by the following year that at the London Conference on ex-Yugoslavia, considerable pressure was put on President Gligorov by British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd and other leaders, to keep FYROM as close to Serbia as possible with a view to its future possible reintegration within a future Yugoslav federation, once the northern Balkan wars were over. This option remained open for the country, despite the independence decision in 1991, and was privately favoured by many of the Skopje elite.

Considerable practical help was given to the Skopje Ministry of the Interior by British and French government intelligence and security experts who were very active in FYROM in 1992-3. British policy was the decisive influence in Skopje in this period, with President Gligorov having a further meeting with Hurd to discuss security issues in May 1993. But inter-ethnic relations continued to deteriorate, and Britain and the other EU powers involved in advising the Gligorov government did not address themselves to the serious human rights problems suffered by the Albanians and other minorities.

In practice this meant important material support was given to the Interior Ministry security apparatus at a time when it was rent with political divisions, and a purge or pro-IMRO nationalists in the Interior Ministry was taking place. They were replaced by pro-Serb, pro-Yugoslav, figures who remained in control of the Ministry until Autumn 1998. The Interior Ministry had a strong residual pro-Belgrade orientation after the purge of IMRO sympathisers and other alleged pro-Bulgarian personnel in 1993.

Foreign influence over the government has remained very strong, with a small committee of European Union and American ambassadors acting in a highly interventionist way over many policy and practical issues. This takes place under the symbolic leadership of President Gligorov. As the FYROM government is wholly dependent on external funds from these countries for survival, it is usually possible for Skopie policy to be manipulated in any direction the foreign ambassadors see fit.

At the uncertain juncture of 1990-91, Macedonia communists planned for two scenarios: one in case Yugoslavia survived as a state, and one if it disintegrated. When Slovenia and Croatia began making to leave the federation in late 1990, Kiro Gligorov and Bosnia's president, Alija Izetbegovic, presented a proposal to make Yugoslavia into a confederative association of sovereign republics. At the same time, Macedonia was gaining its independence through a popular referendum in September 1991. However, the question presented to citizens

"Are you for a sovereign and independent Macedonia, which may enter into an association of sovereign Yugoslav states?"

was deliberately made ambiguous. It left the government free to make a deal for confederation or to pursue independence, depending on the course of events. The only party pushing for Macedonia's unconditional and full independence in 1990 was the VMRO-DPMNE.

At www.antiwar.com they knew the Truth
The make-believe country of Macedonia is a Yugoslavia in miniature: with all the built-in problems of the latter even more deeply embedded in its origins. Its first President, Kiro Gligorov, was a longtime Communist bureaucrat who served under Tito and, like Milosevic, made the transition to the post-Communist political scene. Unlike old Slobo, however, Gligorov obtained the invaluable support of billionaire speculator and international do-gooder George Soros, who literally bailed out Macedonia with a generous loan and became the country's de facto ambassador-at-large, lobbying for international recognition in the face of an embargo declared by Greece.
   The Macedonian branch of the omnipresent Soros-sponsored "Open Society Institute" became the ideological nerve center of the Gligorov government, and Soros proclaimed in public that he would go to Macedonia if necessary and personally campaign for the President to ensure his reelection. To Soros, Macedonia - a completely made-up nation, without a history or a real cultural basis - was the ideal vessel in which to pour his dreams of the perfect model of modern multi-culturalism.

James Pettifer at the Wall Street Journal knew
President Gligorov may play his role as last heir of Tito, presiding over a mini-Yugoslavia for a while yet, but that is about all the international community can hope for.

Christopher Hitchens at the NATION had no doubts
It suddenly became clear to me why Gligorov is not in a position to make many concessions about the titles and symbols that he has annexed from the Hellenic past. While he himself is not much stirred by antiquity or nationalism - he was booed at a rally when he admitted that his chiefly Slavic republic did not descend from Alexander the Great - he would be nameless and claimless if he abandoned the "Macedonian" insignia. His is a republic with no economy, no tradition, no identity and no standing except that conferred on it by others. An imagined, provisional entity is the best he can do.