MAK-NEWS 27/10/95 (M.I.L.S.)

From: "M.I.L.S." <mils@ITL.MK>

Macedonian Information Liaison Service Directory

CONTENTS

MILS NEWS

Skopje, 27 October 1995

[01] A MULTINATIONAL ORGANIZATION FROM A NEIGHBORING COUNTRY ORGANIZED THE ASSASSINATION

The assassination attempt on President Gligorov was organized by a well-known multinational corporation based in a neighboring country. This was announced at the press conference of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Ljubomir Frckovski. He added that in the interest of the investigation he could not announce the name of the corporation and the country. The Minister announced his resignation as a result of political responsibility.

During the press conference, the Minister said that the assassination attempt was done on three levels- the inspirers, the organizers and the executors. The investigation has results about the organizers and the executors and in that sense the Minister added that a representative of the suspected corporation had arrived in Skopje on September 28 and prepared the explosive in an building in the Skopje periphery. The executors are citizens of the Republic of Macedonia.

According to the Minister the motivation of the assassins was to eliminate the President and to create a so-called controlled instability. That means weakening the political and the economic sovereignty and imposing the influence of the inspirers. The next step of the inspirers would be removing the existing government and replacing it with another. The assassination attempt was done when Macedonia was close to its economic recovery. The indirect aims of the assassins are complete disturbance of the State Institutions and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But, as the Minister stressed, the Institutions will continue their work which will make future assassination attempts unprofitable.

Talking about his resignation and the political responsibility, the Minister said that he had not hesitated to resign, but, as he said, he wanted to concentrate on the investigation and place it on a strong base. In that sense he feels responsible as a leader of the Intelligence Service which was supposed to have information about the attempt.

Considering the Security Service of the President, Frckovski said that these kind of actions cannot be prevented by the Service. Only information of Intelligence services may prevent the attempt.

The investigation was helped by 25 experts from the U.S.A., Great Britain, and Germany. The Macedonian Intelligence Service had cooperation with 12 world Intelligence Services.

Here are not included the services of Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Russia. During the investigation 6 persons have been brought in but nobody was arrested. The Ministry has not been accused of irregular treatment during the investigation.

Macedonia is not an exception when it comes to such events, but the culture in the security should also become a political culture of the citizens. Then, such events will be unprofitable and defeated.

The Government has a plan to fight this kind of de stabilization. In that sense, the fight against crime will intensify in some forms.

[02] THE LAW ON LOCAL MANAGEMENT ADOPTED

After the long session, the Macedonian Parliament adopted the Law on self-management with 83 votes for, 8 against (6 deputies from PDP and two independent deputies from Albanian origin) and two sustained from voting. The Law, according to the Vice-President of the Assembly, Tito Petkovski, completes the political system so the local elections may start soon.

Immediately before the voting, the deputies from PDPA and NDP left the session saying that they do not accept the responsibility of adopting the law. These parties suggested PDP to vote against and to withdraw their Ministers in the Government if the Law comes to force. The coordinator of PDP, Ismet Ramadani, said that his party is not satisfied with the Law and that they will vote against it. "It seems like the Parliament cannot accept the fact that this country is multiethnic", said Ramadani.

The deputies, during the session discussed the 91st article of the Law which regulates the use of the language in the units of the local government. After many discussions the proposed version by the Government was not changed. The Government proposed double use of language where nationalities are in a large number, but only if the Council of the unit decides so. The names of inhabited places, designations of services and institutions and other public designations will be bilingual, in Macedonian and in the language of the nationality.

[03] THE TRANSPORT CONTINUES

As Macedonian TV reports, all the railway tankers from Gevgelija are headed toward the Salonica port where 120 000 tons of oil have been unloaded for the oil refinery in Skopje. The zinc- concentrate has been unloaded in the Chemical Industry 'Zletovo'. The transport traffic also continues without any problems.

According to the information of the Macedonian Radio, there are certain problems in the railway transport. Only 15 wagons have arrived of the planned 250 for the Chemical Industry, which is less than planned.

[04] INSURANCE TAXES FOR MACEDONIAN VEHICLES

The entrance of Macedonian vehicles in Greece was conditional on paying special insurance taxes at the border.

As Macedonian radio reports, the Greek authorities demanded 150 DM for automobile insurances while the transport vehicles had to pay 500 DM. The director of the Insurance Company, 'Magdebourg' from Salonica stated that the taxes may be withdrawn today after the meeting with the Macedonian insurance companies.

[05] THE NAME PROBLEM WILL BE SOLVED AT THE END OF THE YEAR, GREEK PRESS REPORTS

The problem of the name of FYROM will be solved after three or four months. This was said by the Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs, Karolos Papoulias. This statement, according to the Macedonian radio, was given after the meeting with the Greek Prime Minister, Andreas Papandreou, about the Greek-Macedonian relations. The daily 'Ta Nea' says Washington has pursued the two sides to find a solution by the end of the year as it is in the interest of the whole region.

[06] WISHES FOR FULL AND QUICK RECOVERY OF THE PRESIDENT

At the annual meeting of the French association- 'Friends of Macedonia', the French Foreign minister de Charet gave a speech about the French foreign policy and in that manner he mentioned the Macedonian policy and President Gligorov. He voiced hope that the Macedonian President will continue to contribute for the dialogue among the neighboring countries.

He also wished a quick and complete recovery of President Gligorov, saying at the same time that the violent act must not stop the democratic processes in Macedonia and its integration in the international community.

[07] MACEDONIAN DELEGATION AT THE SESSION OF OSCE

The two-day session of high officials of OSCE started yesterday in Prague. Macedonian delegation participated at the meeting in the framework of the general theme of European security as well as the issue of human rights and rights of minorities.

[08] EXPORT OF BUSES TO RUSSIA

The delegation of the Trade Union of Macedonia ended a visit to Russia. Both Unions signed an agreement in Yaroslav as well as an agreement between 'FAS 11 Oktomvri' and the Russian 'Tutaev Combinate'. According to the agreement the '11 Oktomvri' will export 10 busses to Russia at the beginning and in the long term about 500 busses.

[09] MODERNIZATION OF THE TELEPHONE LINKS

The Macedonian PTT and the companies 'Arkatel Teletra' from Italy, and 'Erikson' from Sweden signed an agreement for importing digital systems in the PTT. The whole equipment is worth 3,5 million$. Macedonia PTT expressed pleasure on the agreement which will realize the investment plan until the 2000 year . It is planned to introduce about 340 000 new telephone lines.

[10] MACEDONIAN-BULGARIAN TALKS ON TRAFFIC CONNECTIONS

A delegation of the Macedonian Ministry of Traffic and Communication led by Minister Buzlevski had talks with his Bulgarian colleague concerning the railway toward Bulgaria, the Corridor East-West, and several practical measures have been agreed for improvement of the situation at the Macedonian -Bulgarian border crossings.

MILS SUPPLEMENT:

[11] UNPROFITABLE ASSASSINATION (PULS, 27 October 1995)

Nothing is possible without people and nothing is eternal without institutions-Jan Mone has said in an occasion. In the case of the assassination attempt on President Gligorov, both solutions were present: Gligorov as a creator of the policy, and Gligorov as a head of the institution- President. If that was the aim of the assassins, they surely won't get much profit. Not because the President survived, but because his policy showed that it is much more than an idea without strong root.

The information given at the press conference of the Internal Affairs Minister, Frckovski, implies that the main idea of the assassins was creating controlled instability, weakening the sovereignty of the state which will make it easily-influenced, politically and economically. As Frckovski said, the assassins planned to ruin the Presidents policy of 'equi-distance'. The Minister could not point to the organized group and its leader. The investigation stops at the first two levels - the organizers, and the executors, but not the inspirers. The Minister said just what he thought was enough. We cannot make stories about the assassins, said Frckovski, but, according to the world experiences, these kind of assassinations are organized by intelligence services, so it is almost impossible to find the inspirers.

We will not make up stories about the inspirers, but we will review the political atmosphere in Macedonia. First- the intention of the assassins was to change the political orientation of the state (political and economic independence, not oriented to local unions, pro-Western), and turn it to pro-eastern unions.

Does Gligorov go too fast toward the west, toward new Europe, toward U.S.A. as a strong ally? He does not, nor does he threaten the western countries to associate with Macedonia, otherwise it would turn to 'oci ciornie' (Russia). Even Greece, which is 'a traditional American ally' at one moment tried to get too close to Russia in order to realize its aims. Macedonia did not offend Russia's pride directly, but it refused its help even when Russia tried to send UN soldiers, to mediate in the Macedonian- Greek negotiations, to make Defense Agreement as the one between Macedonia and Pentagon and so on. It is obvious, no matter what, that the inspirers are among those who are turned toward east, those who are politically defeated in Russia itself and the other former East-European communist countries. Those are associations who dream about by- polarity and who base their political orientation on it.

The Minister pointed out the cooperation with twelve intelligence services, but later, he said that Serbian, Bulgarian and Russian are not among those. Two of those intelligence services are from neighboring countries and maybe that is the reason that the Ministry has not received any information about the 'financial-economic corporation', a multinational group with a base in a neighboring country.

A person from that group had arrived in Macedonia on September 28 and in the Skopje periphery prepared the explosive which was used for the assassination. The Minister stressed that the corporation does not have economic interests, but political. These kinds of corporations are formed by former intelligence services and they have the capacity to make such an action. Basically, the former intelligence services who lost their jobs after the collapse of the communism turned to business.

The chief of 'Securitate' in Romania even though was sentenced to 12 years in prison, has been released.

'Securitate' had more than 15.000 spies. The Bulgarian chief of the former Intelligence service had spent only 10 months in prison for destroying certain documents. Dimitar Ivanov, a former high official in the Bulgarian Police is now in the top of the private economic conglomerate "Multigroup". There are many affairs in the Czech Republic in connection of the former members of the STB. Many officials of the Hungarian Intelligence Service were forced to withdraw after the elections in 1990. Polish former spies are now businessmen.

The Albanian ex- Minister of Internal affairs had been sentenced to 5 years imprisonment and has already been released while the Vice Minister, Hisen Shahu, gained wealth from his cafeteria in Tirana. So it is easy to find an organizer who will use citizens of Macedonia to assist him in the attempt. As Frckovski said, they belong to several origins, and there are criminals as well as former officials from intelligence services. Yet, he did not imply that all the pieces from the mosaic could be connected. He believes that the organizers and the executors can be found, but not the inspirers.

If we suppose that Macedonia decides to defend its independence through the western systems of defense and security, we may assume that the attempt was aimed to prevent it. If Macedonia joins NATO, it definitely means that the former 50/50 division of Yugoslavia in eastern and western spheres of influence has been readjusted.

Accordingly, the part of the Russian 50% joins the other half. Yet, Macedonia clearly made a decision. Bulgaria, for example, still has not defined its position whether to join NATO or not. Although President Zhelev is oriented to NATO, the new pro-Communist government has a different strategy.

The Prime Minister, Videnov, supports the Russian position on NATO as an organization with global qualities and a new and important relations with Moscow. This was said in April this year when Videnov talked before the Council of the Alliance. Two days later, the Czech President Havel supported this idea even though both Czech Republic and Poland are first to be associated to NATO. However, the Russian daily, 'Nezavisimaya Gazeta' says: The Russian Army is ready to direct nuclear projectiles toward these two countries if they join NATO. The answer will soon be announced: The Alliance will not accept new members until 1997. Moscow is satisfied because the acceptance of Poland and the Czech Republic in the NATO will mean loosing the traditional partners.

Maybe, the change of the political atmosphere in Bulgaria was an inspiration to some people to force Macedonia to change its strategy. The question is: Why does the West remain silent? Were the French accusation toward the U.S.A. about not protecting Macedonia as its ally only accidental?

And, at last, is it possible that the western intelligence services had no idea about the attempt if it was organized by such a large group with a concept of changing the political map of influence? Let's say that maybe Macedonia is put on testing again. If the moment of the attempt had been chosen to de stabilize the economic recovery of the state, it is clear why Frckovski mentioned several times that the state needs clear capital which will prevent the economy of associating to the former "economic allies".

Macedonia is yet to pass the "exam". Europe and U.S.A. will have to pass the "exam" also. In this respect we should mention President's speech at the West European Union last summer in Paris: "The Balkans is tempted by options of some states who were part of the Cold-War. Many concepts of by- polarity are present as well as concepts of dividing the region. The Balkans is the test for the European security."

(end)

mils news 27 October '95