MAK-NEWS 15/08/95 (M.I.L.S.)

From: MILS - Skopje <mils@ITL.MK>

Macedonian Information Liaison Service Directory

CONTENTS

M I L S N E W S

Skopje, 15 August 1995

[01] CHANGES IN UNPREDEP MANDATE UNDER UN AUTHORITY

Asked by Radio Skopje reporters whether changes in the UNPREDEP mandate are likely after the latest events in Croatia and the withdrawal of UNCRO, Chief of UNPREDEP Mission in Macedonia Henri Sokalski said the UNPREDEP operation has been determined by a UN Security Council decision and it is the Council that can decide on any changes in the status of a peacekeeping operation in a country. To redefine or change the UNPREDEP status, he said however, would have to undergo two stages - re-evaluation of the agreement with the Macedonian Government and a session of the Security Council on the issue.

Sokalski said UNPREDEP is closely following the overall situation and is in constant contacts with the Government of Macedonia. He added he is aware of the importance of the evaluation of the situation stated by Defense Minister Handziski, who said the mandate, number and structure of UN troops in Macedonia would have to be re-examined in order to prevent any destabilization of the southern Balkans.

[02] VECER COMMENTS ON NEWLY DEVELOPED SITUATION

The Skopje daily Vecer published a comment on the latest development of the situation in former Yugoslavia, wondering if it was time to re-examine the mandate, number and structure of the UN peace-keeping troops in Macedonia.

Should this be done in a timely fashion and, naturally, upon an agreement with international factors and the UN Security Council, it could help avoid the mistake made by UNPROFOR in Bosnia and UNCRO in Croatia, which failed to prevent the war from spilling over and to fulfill their humanitarian mission.

Although UNPREDEP has so far successfully completed its primary mission of monitoring Macedonia's borders, Vecer continues, a question is raised whether it is necessary to wait for escalation of the situation at the very border of Macedonia to the north in order to react by deploying an additional number of troops, or should preventive steps be undertaken at this very moment to psychologically defer any ideas for destabilization of Macedonia.

As the West claims it is in its interest to preserve stability in Macedonia, it would seem that the idea to have the UNPREDEP Mission's status redefined should be welcomed by the Security Council. Nevertheless, having in mind the relations within the United Nations, it should not come as a surprise if a UN member country, the US for instance, deploys an additional contingent of troops under their own flag or possibly under a NATO command.

The possibility is not unlikely, especially because Robert Dole, leader of Republicans in Congress, insisted on several occasions that US troops be included in UN peacekeeping missions only under an American flag.

On the other hand, depending on the nature of agreements with the Western factors, an option of deployment of NATO forces on the borders of Macedonia is also in the game, Vecer concludes.

[03] HOW MACEDONIA IMPLEMENTS SANCTIONS ON YUGOSLAVIA

Dermot A. Jennings, Assistant Chief of the OCSE Mission in Macedonia that monitors the implementation of the UN sanctions against Yugoslavia, spoke on Macedonian Radio about how much the country respects the embargo. He said the OSCE has registered no cases of violation of the embargo in terms of strategic goods such as ammunition or weapons, but added computer equipment is transported and oil is smuggled into Yugoslavia. The OSCE has had great cooperation from the Macedonia authorities in fighting the oil smuggling, Jennings said.

[04] WARNINGS AGAINST SETTLEMENT OF SERBIAN REFUGEES IN KOSOVO

Settling Serbian refugees from Kraina in Kosovo (670 have so far reached Kosovo and a total of 20,000 is expected to arrive soon) is a question often raised lately.

'Serbs should not accommodate refugees in Kosovo because of the danger of a potential escalation of the war to include Tirana and Skopje as well,' said Greek Deputy Minister of Defense Nikos Korious, who added even then there would be no danger of involving Greece in the conflict.

Political parties of Albanians, including Kosovo political leader Ibrahim Rugova, bitterly condemn this move of Belgrade, warning that it could lead to an armed conflict. Two days ago, Albania and the US also expressed concern with Serbia's plans to settle Kraina refugees in its southern province, populated mostly by Albanians.

[05] ALBANIA AND MACEDONIA ABOLISH VISAS FOR DIPLOMATS

The Albanian Government accepted an offer of the Macedonian Government to mutually abolish entry visas for diplomats and government officials, as well as to unify visa issuing fees. The government in Tirana also agreed to a bilateral regulation of movement of people in border areas.

[06] LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT ACT TO BE PASSED IN SEPTEMBER?

Nova Makedonija writes that the Local Self-Government Act, having been approved by the cabinet earlier this summer, is likely to appear on the agenda of a Parliament session sometime in September.

Justice Minister Vlado Popovski said all cabinet ministers, including ethnic Albanian ones, have supported the text of the draft-law, expressing hope that it will be finally be passed by two-thirds of parliament votes, after several rejections so far.

Provisions of the draft-law expected to arouse bitter debates are certainly those that determine the terms majority and minority. The text says that, in municipalities populated by at least 50% of some of the minorities living in Macedonia, their language will be used on an equal official level with the Macedonian in local self-government offices. Signs, firms and street names will also be written in both languages. In municipalities where minorities comprise up to 20% , however, both languages will be in use only in local self-government offices.

[07] ECONOMIC BRIEFS

-Macedonian exports have increased by 10 per cent over the first quarter of the year against the same period in 1994. Yet, imports have exceeded last year figures by 39.2 per cent, creating a trade deficit of roughly $120 million. Should trade exchange keeps such a pace until the end of the year, a deficit of $480 million can be expected, which will be $110 million more than government's projection on the annual trade deficit.

- The average May wage in Macedonia amounted to 8,752 denars. An average family of four needed 9,958 denars to satisfy basic monthly needs.

[08] TRUCK LOADS HEADED FOR MONTENEGRO STOPPED IN MACEDONIA

A large quantity of raw materials for production of home appliances, aimed for the 'Obod' factory in Cetinje, Montenegro, are currently held up in Macedonia by OSCE monitoring missions that will not permit the cargo to cross the border.

The 'Obod' factory says the trucks carrying polystirol are stopped somewhere near Skopje. Being an oil derivative, the polystirol is banned from entering Yugoslavia's territory.

[09] HEMORRHAGIC FEVER IN KOSOVO

Health centers in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo registered cases of hemorrhagic fever. The disease has not yet crossed the border to Macedonia, but great caution is recommended, as it is a disease belonging in the same group with the ebola and Argentinean and Bolivian fever. It is characterized by high temperatures, dizziness, red face and eyes color, bleeding, swelling of the stomach and other symptoms. The disease will mainly attack the kidneys and nervous system.

The hemorrhagic fever is not unknown in Macedonia, as individual cases have been registered over the past years, and it grew into an epidemic in the Tetovo region in 1971. It is spread mainly by rodents and parasite insects.

The prevention against the fever is hygiene and control of drinking water.

[10] MILS SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT: HOW WE SURVIVE - PART III

Zana Hismana, 45, is an economist from Tetovo. Although she works for Inter-Impex as chief of the financial department, it has been 16 months since she received her salary. She lives with her two children, her husband and his parents. Her husband makes 6,000 denars per month and she works privately as a book-keeper to make extra money.

'I don't make very much but at least the kids are not hungry,' claims Zana.

This is an average woman in Macedonia. She has some kind of job. Her income is very low and her salary is often late. She is trying to work in the growing private sector. She lives with the family and in-laws. She's struggling to raise her children.

Just as clean white sheets [hanging on the verandah] are a testament to the character to the people who own them, so Zana Hismani and other women like her are the mirrors of the state in which they live. In this case, this is Macedonia, a state that is passing through great turmoil and faces severe economic troubles. That is reflected in the lives of all citizens, and although some might find the idea farfetched, it could be argued that women fell it most of all.

Women comprise 40% of the Macedonian workforce, according to the latest figures as well as statistics compiled by women's groups in Macedonia. But women comprise almost 50% of the total 220,000 unemployed, and this figure is growing. More than 60% of the people looking for their first job are women.

Unemployment, work furloughs and delayed wages attack women in many ways. Her family is getting poorer, the intellectual capital she possesses goes unused and thanks to traditional relationships between men and women in marriage, she seems to be excluded from the public sphere and is losing her already tenuous personal freedom and hard-won independence.

That's why Nadezhda Mitkovska, 48, a member of the City Women's Organization, says: 'The wheel is running backwards. Women are facing new difficulties.'

This is especially true for women who, for different reasons: divorce, death of a spouse or personal choice, must care for their families and children alone. This is the single mother, who comprises one of the most threatened social groups today. Almost 90% of single mothers are in a poor economic situation regardless of their education. They are unemployed or have been laid-off. Many don't have their own flats.

The state and humanitarian organizations give a small number of them social help and provide basic food, soap and other personal products. But most of these women are forced to manage by themselves.

Not long ago, an association of single mothers in Macedonia was founded to try to help these women. Association President Dijurika Georgevska, 48, says the purpose of this association is to protect the rights of these women, help their children and provide social support and camaraderie.

The group is organizing a baby-sitting service and an employment agency through which single mothers will be able to find work to improve their financial situation.

As a lawyer and a single mother with a 13-year-old child, Dijurika knows what it means to be alone and faced with the problems of everyday life. For those reasons, she does pro- bono work for women who need legal help, which is prohibitively expensive today in Macedonia.

Slavka Konevska, 38, divorced with a 6-year-old child, lives in a rented flat and gets a disability pension of 3,700 denars and alimony of 1,700 denars. She is ready to do any kind of work to make a better life for her child.

'During my divorce, I had problems getting alimony and if Dijurika hadn't helped me I would not have been able to get a decent settlement, because going to court [with a private lawyer] is too expensive and my income would not have allowed it.'

Dijurika says she is an ordinary woman who tries to be a mother and a father to her daughter. She works 16 hours per day as a lawyer and in a trade company she owns. She can't remember the last time she had an evening to herself to read a book and her absence from home hurts her daughter, who needs her mother at this critical age.

But there are so many needy women. Women like Asija Rashiti, 44, who doesn't know what the future will hold. After her divorce in 1989, she lived on the streets of Kumanovo for a while, then moved to Germany in search of a better life, only to be sent back by German authorities. She was one of the lucky ones - she moved into one of about 150 trailer homes in Shutka that the Germans built for returned refugees.

Her small home is spotlessly clean. She lives there with her 13-year-old son and is happy that he attend school. Caritas, the German charity, found her a job as a cleaning woman that brings 8,100 denars per month. But Rashiti says she is frightened that her stability may not last. In five years, the German-built trailers will revert to the Macedonian government, which is expected to start charging rent.

Rashiti wonders whether she will be able to afford it or have to fight again for bare survival.

Life is much more grim for Imran Kerim, 47, who lives with her two grown daughters, her 13-year-old son and a grandson in a two-room shack near the Bit Pazaar. Both Imran and her two daughters are divorced and receive no alimony from their former husbands.

The family survives on a disability pension of 3,200 denars and aid they receive from El HiIal, a Muslim charity that distributes staples like flour and oil as well as medicine.

'We eat once per day, and every morning we ask ourselves what we will eat today,' Imran says. 'Sometimes we eat only bread and salad.'

One of Imran's daughters has epilepsy. The other has been confined to a wheelchair since 1980, when she broke her back while doing gymnastics at school. An operation might help this girl walk again, but the family has no money to pay the hospital bill.

'I don't believe it will get better for us. It only gets worse every day. I have no hope and the only reason I live are my children,' Imran says with sadness in her voice.

The Association of Albanian Women in Macedonia tries to help women in these economic bad times. Shpresa Sinani, 46, president of the Tetovo branch of this organization, thinks that women - especially Albanian women - are neglected by the state and by their husbands.

'It is very difficult for them to find a job regardless of their education level,' Sinani says. 'They stay at home and they're more tied up with raising their families.'

Nijare Jusufi, 28, graduated in chemistry at Prishtina University several years ago but is still waiting for her diploma to be verified by Macedonian authorities so she can get a job. Jusufi says this sends a bad signal to other Albanians because if such an educated woman cannot find a job, then why should families bother sending their children to school.

In some villages outside Tetovo, women don't even venture outside the walls of their family compounds. The patriarchal way of living is very strong in the countryside. That's why the association organizes different activities including courses on topics such as birth control and obtaining humanitarian aid. Sometimes the association merely brings these women into contact with the outside world so they can feel a part of it.

Sinani says the village women look forward to her visits and are envious of her freedom of movement, which they don't yet posses. For these women, she is a role model.

Her work is paying off as the economic situation of some village women improves. For instance, the association has trained them in handiwork such as embroidery and sewing and organized them to sell their wares at the weekly market in Tetovo.

(to be continued)

(end)

mils-news 15 August '95