MAK-NEWS 11/07/95 (M.I.L.S.)

From: "Demetrios E. Paneras" <dep@bu.edu>

Macedonian Information Liaison Service Directory

CONTENTS

M I L S N E W S

Skopje, 11 July 1995

[01] BOUTROS-GHALI SEES HOPE FOR GREEK-MACEDONIAN TALKS

'Negotiations between Skopje and Athens under the mediation efforts of Syrus Vance are continuing and I believe we are close to a solution. I hope, in the interest of peace and stability not only in the Balkan region but wider as well, that we will find a solution to the problem,' UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali stated following yesterday's meeting with the Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou and Foreign Minister Karolos Papoulias.

Macedonian Radio reports Boutros-Ghali added the talks were to continue at a lower diplomatic level, that the so-called 'small package' is being discussed at the moment.

Media in Greece say Ghali also met with ex-prime minister Constantin Mitsotakis and the latter repeated several times that the problem might have easily been resolved during his office at much more favorable terms for Greece.

[02] GERMAN SPD SECRETARY VISITING SKOPJE

On invitation of Branko Crvenkovski, Macedonian Prime Minister and leader of SDSM, Secretary of the German Social-Democratic Party Gunter Ferheugen arrived today in a three-day visit to Skopje. He will meet president Gligorov, Parliament President Andov, Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski and Foreign Minster Stevo Crvenkovski.

[03] ALBANIAN MP's COMING WITH CONCRETE SUGGESTIONS

A parliamentary delegation of Albania, led by Foreign Committee chairman Eduard Seljami yesterday arrived in an official visit to Macedonia. Prior to leaving Tirana, Vecer and A1 television report, Seljami stated, 'The talks are of a decisive importance for the overall relations between Albania and Macedonia, which have deteriorated lately, especially after the events surrounding the university in Tetovo. One of our goals will be to lift the relations at a higher level. We will insist on further efforts to reach mutual understanding between Albanians in Macedonia and the authorities there, as we see no other way to improve Albanian-Macedonian relations and cooperation. We are going with concrete suggestions regarding the rights of Albanians in Macedonia, to request only what is safe-guarded by international conventions.'

[04] CONVICTED 'PARASOLDIERS' RELEASED ON PAROLE

In regard to the recent news item released by Radio Tirana which cited a high official of the Albanian minister of justice and a top PDP representative as saying the ethnic Albanians convicted in the 'paramilitary affair' are to be released sometime next month, Macedonian Minister of Justice Vlado Popovski issued a statement to say the court has decided to release on parole all convicted on August 1, except Mithat Emini and Hasan Agushi. The statement is to deny speculations of the convicted having been pardoned, which can be done only by the president of the country himself.

[05] WHAT GENEVA TALKS REALLY INCLUDED

Bedredin Ibraimi, secretary of the People's Democratic Party (NDP) of Albanians in Macedonia, told a Vecer reporter that the talks in Geneva between representatives of parties of Albanians in Macedonia and the government focused on education rights of minorities. The two other issues on the agenda, local self-government and use of minority languages, were not discussed, he added. He confirmed that the viewpoints on education issues were polarized, saying the Albanian side suggested that the Higher Education Act includes the right of establishing higher education institutions in the mother tongue of minorities.

The government, on the other hand, will allow only training of teachers in minority languages at the Pedagogical Faculties, to teach in elementary schools, first to fourth grade only. The training courses suggested by the government do not offer course completely in the minority language.

[06] MACEDONIAN RADIO COMMENTS ON TALKS IN GENEVA

In regard to the recent talks in Geneva between officials of parties of Albanians in Macedonia and senior government officials, Macedonian Radio broadcast the following statement: 'It is becoming a practice to keep silent about problems and activities of our politicians. The public in Macedonia is already used to swallowing news items on the Greek-Macedonian relations as served by the media in Greece, or to being informed of Macedonia's official standpoints by media in the neighboring countries. A similar practice is being imposed as of recently when it comes to Albanian-language media in the country. With the 'only' difference that the political subject of Albanians in Macedonia regularly announces its stances in Albanian- language media, being completely disinterested for any media in Macedonian. Whether we admit it or not, there is already a sharp division into 'they", 'we' and 'the rest'. This is also confirmed by the international factor which is treating us as two separate worlds, or more precisely, dividing us into Skopje and Tetovo sides. Why the phrase 'Western Macedonia' sounds more and more natural at parliament debates, when no one refers to any cities in the east of Macedonia as to 'Eastern Macedonia'? The territory seems to have already been divided by those coming from outside in their short messages or visits, and this is even accepted and further developed by those inside Macedonia. Despite the fact that we like to refer to our country as to 'the oasis of peace', having declared it a democratic country, it still remains hard to grasp and unreasonable from a diplomatic point of view how Macedonia is unable to deal with its own internal problems at home. An independent and sovereign state, out of the former Yugoslavia, Macedonia still accepted to sign a document at the 1992 London Conference, appointing Mr. Gert Arens a mediator in ethnic disputes in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. To have a mediator, you have to have at least two sides in a dispute. Whenever you agree to negotiations under mediation instead of through your own institutions, it means that there is something wrong with your state as a whole. And if such a step was necessary in 1992, this is now 1995.

Still, many things are clear. Did the Macedonian side, represented by Interior Minister Frckovski and Education Minister Simovska, really have to go - not even bothering to inform the public - all the way to Geneva to meet with the political subject of Albanians from Western Macedonia? And all the participants in the talks are members of one and the same parliament. Or, did Mr. Arens and the OSCE become tired of traveling to Macedonia and summoned the negotiators to Switzerland? Even if this is so, why all the Macedonian-language media received information through Radio Tirana, with the exception of Macedonia Radio which, digging throughout Geneva, succeeded to get first-hand information from its own sources and even a statement by minister Frckovski. Does this mean that issues like higher education, requests for legalizing the university in Tetovo, local self- government and use of minority languages should be kept secret from the media? Is the Macedonian Parliament so small that officials have to go to Geneva and hold fruitless talks full of antagonisms?

Europe, the United Nations and the great power are constantly showing in Bosnia and Chechnya their 'ability' to reach compromise solutions. All they seem able to come up with are experiments, promises and appeals to reasonable policies. Did negotiators really have to go as far as Geneva to hear that wishes do not always coincide with the real abilities? What is the cost of this 'flirt' and how much longer will it last? As soon as tomorrow, or a day after tomorrow, someone's document may easily present Macedonia's independent and sovereign status as quite different than what we are told it is.

The world showed how much it is on our side. It pointed its finger toward Macedonia, but we somehow failed to understand whether it is to be a Macedonia with or without us. Yes, the world will defend us if necessary.

[07] SCIENTIFIC BRIDGE THROUGH SLOVENIA

In Ljubljana yesterday, a delegation of the Macedonian ministry of science, headed by Minister Sofia Todorova, discussed bilateral cooperation in the field of science with Slovenia. A protocol is top be signed tomorrow to set the type and dynamics of the cooperation, as well as a joint appearance in various projects and in front of international institutions. This is especially important for Macedonia, as it is disabled to directly participate in international programs of the type of TEMPUS, PHARE and others.

[08] ECONOMIC BRIEFS

The State Statistics Bureau informs June retail prices have declined by 1.7 per cent against the previous month, mainly due to a 24.3 per cent decrease of agricultural products. This lowered living costs by 2.9 per cent.

[09] POLICE REVEALS BRUTAL KILLER

The Macedonian Ministry of the Interior arrested 29- years-old Idrizi Daut for having brutally murdered two underage girls of the village of Radolishte, near Struga.

He was an uncle to one of the girls, killed on May 14. Daut is taken to custody and charges are brought against him.

MILS SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT:

[10] PAINFUL REFORMS IN PROGRESS

(Financial Times, 7 July 1995) That Macedonia has an economy at all is a triumph, given the hammer blows inflicted by fate and malevolence over the past four years.

That economic policy makers are pushing ahead with a painful privatization and restructuring programme to complete the transition to a market economy in such difficult circumstances is even more remarkable. But hat is what is happening, and the international financial institutions are standing behind the reforms with advice and hard cash.

This year should see a resumption of economic growth, but from the low level reached after a series of external and internal shocks which have cut per capita income from about $2,200 in 1992 to $700 at present and slashed industrial output by nearly 50 per cent over the same period.

The shocks began with the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the 23m-strong internal market. Since then, the standard of living of most Macedonians has dropped sharply while a small minority have grown rich on the proceeds of smuggling and other illegal activities which have helped both Macedonia and its neighbor Serbia to survive, but at a high economic and moral cost.

Serbia and the other Yugoslav republics used to take more than 70 per cent of the output of Macedonian farms and the large 'socially-owned' enterprises which dominated the economic scene. Most raw-materials, semi-finished products, meat and other foodstuffs came from the same source. But normal trade, already reduced by the fighting in Croatia and Bosnia, collapsed when the UN imposed an economic embargo on Serbia in 1992.

The UN embargo was followed in February 1994 by the virtual closure of Macedonia's southern border with Greece. Overnight, this blocked access to the port of Salonika, through which Macedonia received oil, bulk raw- materials and other imports, and from which Macedonia exported more than 2m tons of products annually to world markets.

The double embargoes effectively cut the main north-south international road and routes from Belgrade to Salonika which pass through Skopje and along the Vardar river valley. Macedonia, bounded by high mountains to the east and west, has become a bottle with two corks.

After an initial 25 per cent drop from pre-war levels, Macedonian exporters have managed to maintain exports of about $1.1bn a year for the past three years, but only at great cost. Most exports, including perishable early fruit and vegetables, now have to be transported by long and tortuous alternative routes through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary while vital oil imports are carried over 500km by convoys of road tankers from a Bulgarian refinery just outside the Black sea port of Burgas.

The main side effect of the twin embargoes has been the encouragement of widespread smuggling which has created mafia-style economic gangs throughout the region. A new brash and violent 'business class' has emerged which poses a long-term threat to the development of legitimate, taxpaying business in the Balkans as a whole.

Such is the unpromising general background to what, astonishingly, is one of the most determined economic reform programmes in the region.

'Our situation is so bad that we had no choice but to go ahead with radical reforms,' says Mr. Jane Miljovski, the ebullient economics professor who has been minister of finance for the past three years. 'But our main economic problems are connected with the closing of borders which has had a far greater impact than our restructuring of the economy. This is why we criticize the European Union for not having the guts to tell Greece that normal transport links cannot be used as a political weapon,' he adds.

Despite the impact of the trade embargoes, however, the economic policy team has managed to restore macro- economics stability. Inflation, which soared to 2,200 per cent in 1992, dropped to 55 per cent last year and is currently running at about 1 per cent a month, ahead of the target 18 per cent inflation for the year.

'We have paid for stabilization with a 50 per cent decline in production over the last four years. But this year we expect zero growth and the start of recovery,' the minister says.

But it is hard to reconcile hopes of a return to growth with the prospect of large-scale lay-offs stemming from privatization and a 'quarantine' scheme which places 25 of the country's biggest loss-making enterprises under an obligation to restructure, return to profit or close down.

Unemployment already affects more than 30 per cent of the workforce and thousands of workers formally still in employment have to wait months to be paid and make out a living in the parallel economy or subsistence farming.

The wave of privatisations now sweeping through the economy is expected to lead to further lay-offs as managements strive to cut costs.

Pellagonia, one of Macedonia's four big construction groups is, for example, expecting to lay off 4,000 of the company's 7,000 workers this autumn.

'The time for sentimentality is over,' says Mr. Ivan Dicev, the general director, as he prepares to make cuts which were simply unthinkable under the Yugoslav self- management system where workers and managers combined to keep wages and payrolls artificially high.

It is a similar picture at the over-sized metallurgical and engineering concerns and other important loss-making enterprises rendered hopelessly non-viable in their present shape by the seismic changes of the past four years. A year ago, the 25 enterprises included in the special restructuring programme employed 57,000 workers - and accounted for 80 per cent of the total losses of all Macedonian enterprises which amounted to 16.3 per cent of the gross social product - the old communist-style calculation of national income which does not include services - in 1993.

All the enterprises in a scheme recommended by the World Bank and IMF have been obliged to draw up their own restructuring programme. They are not required to service their existing debt while in the programme but are only allowed to borrow from the banks under tight constraints.

Critics complain that the scheme will worsen the bad debt situation of the banks and other enterprises and delay investment which will be needed if parts of the slimmed- down enterprises are to become viable in future.

The government hopes that about 200 smaller but potentially viable companies will emerge from the painful downsizing, asset sales and closures. But cutting out loss-making enterprises and restructuring the banking system are essential elements in the shift away from the old system under which 1,856 'socially-owned' enterprises dominated the economy.

The future lies in a largely privatized economy. But to really take off, Macedonia needs foreign investors from Greece and elsewhere who can bring in capital, know-how and, above all, an end to the double barriers which block its integration into the wider European economy.

(end)

mils-news 11 July '95