BATTLEFIELD MACEDONIA-have the Bulgarianists made their move?

By Sasha Uzunov

A controversial "Agreement for Good Neighbourly Relations" being pushed by Bulgaria and accepted in principle by Macedonia's new Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has raised concerns about a hidden agenda with the aim of undermining Macedonian identity and statehood under the guise of Euro-Atlantic integration. TEAM UZUNOV surveyed some influential figures about the Agreement:

Do you wish to comment publicly on the following: Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev’s alleged policy of “Bulgarianisation ?” The Agreement for Good Neighbourly Relations” between Bulgaria and Macedonia, the joint Ilinden commemoration, Bulgaria’s World War II legacy and the Genocide of the Jews in Macedonia, and the status of ethnic Macedonians in the Pirin region of Bulgaria. What will be the consequences of Macedonia signing this agreement?

Dr Chris Popov, longstanding Australian-Macedonian activist:

"PM Zoran Zaev’s agreement on 20 June 2017 with Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov to jointly commemorate Ilinden- the foundation stone of Macedonian identity and statehood-in Macedonia this year and to sign an Agreement on Good Neighbourly Relations with Bulgaria on 2 August (the ultimate insult) is a new low point in Macedonia’s short post-independence history. His capitulation effectively means that Bulgaria has achieved many of its foreign policy goals in Macedonia and cemented its claim that “Macedonians and Bulgarians are one people”, as they are wont to tendentiously, incorrectly and ahistorically claim. Macedonians have never claimed that Bulgarians are Macedonians, so the claim “Macedonians are Bulgarians” and the lack of opposition to such a formulation by Zaev, who in May this year stated that Macedonians and Bulgarians are “brotherly peoples, the same people”, in effect means that he accepts or at least does not oppose this Bulgarian chauvinist thesis. Whether Zaev truly believes that we are one and the same people or not is irrelevant as his capitulation has one goal, dictated to him by his EU/USA backers: to get Macedonia into NATO and then the EU as quickly as possible by making the necessary concessions to those who hold the key in the region to such membership-Bulgaria and Greece. 

"While the content of the proposed Agreement has not been made public as yet, enough details have leaked out to allow us to conclude that it is a serious attack on Macedonian identity, history, culture and language, based on the long-standing tenets of Bulgaria’s policy of complete denial of Macedonians as a distinct ethnic group and nation. Some of what has been reportedly proposed is truly scandalous. While the Macedonian language has been internationally recognised and codified, it is being reported that the Bulgarians will insist on the formulation “the language indicated in the Constitution” to avoid mentioning that the agreement will be written in the Macedonian language as well as Bulgarian. In addition, it is being reported that Macedonian history books for students will be “modified” to exclude language and events which “hinder the new spirit of good neighbourliness”. Will this mean that the Bulgarian thesis that Macedonians are in essence ‘‘Bulgarians who are unaware of their Bulgarian roots” or the “product of the Comintern and Tito” will now feature prominently in such texts? Will Kiril and Metodij, their disciples (Kliment and Naum etc) and the Old Church Slavonic language be proclaimed as Bulgarian?”

Ilinden, or St. Elijah’s Day, 2 August 1903, the day that Macedonia attempted to overthrow the Ottoman Empire after 500 years of brutal occupation. The uprising was brutally suppressed by the Ottomans and with Bulgaria sabotaging it even before it was launched. link here

In 2014, there was an attempt to hold a joint Macedonian-Bulgarian commemoration of Ilinden but it met with fierce resistance. The idea was first proposed by a then Macedonian Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski over a decade ago.

Dr Chris Popov:

“Will VMRO [the Ilinden era VMRO], the Ilinden rebellion and the Ilinden leaders and revolutionaries ( Goce Delchev, Nikola Karev, Jane Sandanski, Pitu Guli) also be deemed Bulgarian? What of Nazi ally, fascist Bulgaria’s occupation of Macedonia during WWII, during which it committed numerous atrocities and rounded up Macedonia’s Jews and sent them to the Nazi death camps? Will that also be relativised and presented as some form of liberation in order not to prevent the development of “good neighbourly relations? It is also being reported that Macedonia will once again have to commit to “not defending the rights in Bulgaria of persons who are not citizens of the Republic of Macedonia” which is code for the Macedonians in Pirin Macedonia and the rest of Bulgaria. This formulation was also used in the Declaration of Good Neighbourliness signed in 1999 between the two countries; however being a declaration it did not have the force of law of the current agreement which will have to be ratified by the respective parliaments of both countries.”

Macedonia’s World War II Partizans marching through the liberated city of Bitola, November 1944. From 1941-44 the Partizan resistance fought the Germans and its allies, Fascist Italy, the Kingdom of Bulgaria and Albanian Balle Kombetar, who had occupied Macedonia.

Dr Chris Popov:

"This Agreement, if ratified with the current reported content, will represent a dagger at the heart of Macedonian identity, language, culture and history and contribute to the weakening of the Macedonian character of the Republic of Macedonia which is under enough pressure as it is from Albanian separatism and Greek nationalist calls for a name change. It will effectively leave the Macedonians in Bulgaria completely defenceless and without any legal protection at all, although it must be said that since independence the Republic of Macedonia has done next to nothing to date to protect their rights. Moreover, given that it represents a complete capitulation to the interests of Bulgaria, it will embolden Greece, Kosovo and Albania and eventually possibly Serbia to seek further concessions from Macedonia until the state has been reduced to a vassal which compliantly implements the agendas of its USA/EU masters and the regional “good neighbours”. I sincerely hope that this ant-Macedonian “agreement” is not ratified in the Macedonian Parliament, however no one should expect a breaking of ranks by the MPs of the “reformist government”.”

Dr Popov's 2014 article on the controversial "Agreement" can be read in full at this link here

 

-----------

Mark Branov, Canadian-Macedonian activist, former media director of the United Macedonia Diaspora lobby group and one of the editors of a popular Social media page on Macedonia - link here

"Zaev's orders seem clear - to confirm and make permanent Macedonia's status as a Kosovo-like protectorate territory, fully subservient to foreign interests. Firstly, Macedonia’s political system has been undermined with the violent installation of UCK [Kosovo Liberation Army] Komandant Forina [Talat Xhaferi] as Speaker of the Parliament of Macedonia, via a sham election process pushed through without a constitutionally required consensus. The terrorists of the UCK, other Albanian separatists, and their George Soros Organisation activist allies have been installed in all the various ministries, with the shared agenda of turning Macedonia into a state of anonymous citizens that have no shared culture, history or identity.

"Secondly, the country is being undermined diplomatically, with Macedonia’s Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov’s grandstanding for the cameras in Athens, where he has signalled a new willingness to surrender Macedonian sovereignty, sparking a loud campaign to re-baptise the country, once again against the will of the vast majority of Macedonians, including those who live under the domination of Athenian bigotry, as second-class citizens in the Aegean region. And thirdly, in Bulgaria, Zaev has undermined Macedonia culturally, by acquiescing to a public humiliation spectacle, where Macedonian dignitaries will celebrate the St. Ilija's Day Uprising alongside dignitaries of the country that historically sabotaged that uprising in the first place, and which continues to violate the human rights of its Macedonian ethnic minority in the Pirin region. Zaev's overall role is to weaken Macedonia's position in the world by siding with the interests of every country except his own, and working to eliminate what is left of Macedonia's sovereignty and independence. And all of this is based on the false narrative that entering NATO and the EU must proceed at all costs.”

-----------

Borjan Jovanovski, leading pundit in the Republic of Macedonia, asked by TEAM UZUNOV for a comment but declined.

1995 GREEK FINGERPRINTS ON GLIGOROV HIT?

PREFACE: The revelations of a Serbian Intelligence officer under formal and open diplomatic cover inside Macedonia’s parliament during a violent showdown kicked up enormous controversy in the international media with allegations of Serb-Russian collusion against “pro West” Macedonian leader Zoran Zaev.

But what of Serbia and its traditional ally Greece and their history of joint intelligence operations in destabilising Macedonia? Was the failed assassination attempt on Macedonia’s President Kiro Gligorov in 1995 one such example?

GREEK “SIGNATURE” ON GLIGOROV ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT?

by Sasha Uzunov

On 3 October 1995, in Skopje, the Macedonian capital, a parked car filled with plastic explosives detonated by remote control exploded as the official limousine of Macedonia’s president Kiro Gligorov drove by, killing his driver and wounding his bodyguard and passersby. President Gligorov sustained serious head injuries, losing his right eye and was lucky to survive. To this day, no one knows who was behind the failed hit. TEAM UZUNOV research has uncovered some interesting circumstantial evidence pointing to a Greek connection with possible Serb intelligence links.

THE BASIC FACTS OF THE CASE -the attempted hit on President Gligorov- modus operandi: 

A parked car--a French Citroen Ami 8 purchased in Macedonia by a still unknown person--packed with plastic explosives, believed to be PETN, and weighted down with something heavy in order to push the blast in a particular direction, namely towards the oncoming Macedonian Presidential limousine, and detonated by remote control.

The shrapnel, flying pieces of deadly metal, produced by the explosion, would do the actual killing or maiming, much like, a US Army Claymore mine operates - it uses a plastic explosive to push out numerous ball bearings within a “killing zone” which shred a target to pieces.

SERB-GREEK EXPLOSIVES?

The plastic explosive, PETN, was not produced in Macedonia in 1995, and was believed to have been obtained from outside the country. PETN is manufactured in Serbia and is also available in Greece, which produces another plastic explosive C4. PETN can also be used as a detonating cord for high explosives such as C4.

After the attempt on Gligorov’s life, a statement was issued by the Macedonian authorities:

“…security chief Blagoja Nikolovski told journalists on Wednesday that forensic experts from the United States, Britain and Germany were on their way to Skopje to help their investigation.

"Early police reports said that the kind of explosives used in the attack were not produced in Macedonia. Nikolovski told journalists that over 150 people were questioned during the investigation, but no arrests have been made."

BACKGROUND - MOTIVE BEHIND GLIGOROV ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: 

The Republic of Macedonia declared its independence from rump Yugoslavia in 1991 after Slovenia and Croatia had earlier decided to secede from the federation leaving only Serbia and Montenegro to remain in the rump. In 1992 Serbia’s ruler Slobodan Milosevic after negotiations with President Gligorov decided to withdraw the Yugoslavia Army from Macedonia, taking, in fact stealing, anything that wasn’t bolted down in terms of military hardware and leaving Macedonia defenceless. Milosevic was at the time waging a ruthless war in Croatia and Bosnia to carve out a Greater Serbia from the wreckage of Yugoslavia and could not afford to open up a third front in Macedonia. Milosevic refused to recognise Macedonia until 1995.

Milosevic and successive Greek governments conspired to destabilise Macedonia and have it either “return” to defacto Serb-Yugoslavist rule or partition the country between Serbia and Greece. A joint intelligence operation named “Samaras’s Pincer was formulated that would involve all sorts of destabilisation tricks, just short of full scale war. (see link here). Greece still refuses to recognise the existence of a Macedonian ethnic identity and has waged a long diplomatic war to block the country from being recognised under its constitutional name. There is a sizeable Macedonian minority within Greece that Athens has denied basic human rights to.

GREEK BRIBE?

According to Gligorov’s autobiography, “Macedonia is all that we have," he, President Gligorov had been offered a bribe by Greece if he agreed to change Macedonia’s name.

Neighbouring Bulgaria, despite rushing to recognise Macedonia’s independence in 1991, has long held the view that Macedonians are “Western Bulgarians” and that a Macedonian state should eventually gravitate towards Sofia. Bulgaria, too, has since 1991 been busy trying to infiltrate into the political affairs of Macedonia with the aim of taking over Macedonia. Accusations were made that Bulgaria together with Albanian separatists provoked war in Macedonia in 2001 in order to partition the country (see link here). There is also a sizeable Macedonian minority in Bulgaria.

Killing President Gligorov would have plunged Macedonia into a crisis, perhaps even a war.

Above photo - Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou- PASOK (Greek Socialist Party) -1981-89 and 1993-96

GREEK WAR FOOTING?

In 1994, according to the Washington Post, Greece planned for war in The Republic of Macedonia:

"The contingency planning parallels Greek moves that increase the chances for upheaval in Macedonia. The Greeks are pursuing a slow-motion military buildup on their northern frontier. And an economic blockade of Macedonia ordered by Papandreou on Feb. 16 is depleting Macedonia's scarce foreign reserves.

"Papandreou's brinkmanship has revived suspicion that Greece and Serbia have already agreed to carve up Macedonia if the conflicts of the other ex-Yugoslav republics spill over there. Both Belgrade and Athens strongly deny these suspicions, initially passed on to Washington by European governments.”

BIZARRE BRITISH OFFER ?

In 1993, British Foreign Minister (Foreign Secretary) Douglas Hurd, whilst on a visit to Skopje, proposed to Gligorov that Macedonia should “return” to Serb Yugoslavist rule once the wars were over, meaning once Milosevic had quickly wrapped up his objectives, which never came to pass.

Gligorov didn’t take up the British “proposal.”

MODUS OPERANDI - Following the evidence…?

MODUS OPERANDI - Greek calling card? 1988 William Nordeen assassination - exactly the same as 1995 Gligorov hit?

A number of terrorist groups/insurgents/rebels have used car bombs to devastating effect - the Provisional Irish Republican Army (aka PIRA, The IRA, the Provos) in Northern Ireland against the British, Basques separatists in Spain (ETA), and even various foreign intelligence services the world over. But we can discount the IRA, the Basques and a multitude of others, for the simple reason there is no motive to attack Macedonia, a tiny country and itself a victim of colonialism and imperialism by neighbouring states.

A shadowy Greek terrorist group by the name of 17 November sprung up in the mid 1970s after the collapse of the right wing military dictatorship (1967-74). The group was said to be extreme leftist, Trotskyist but later became extreme nationalist though opposed to American “imperialism” and the capitalist system.

17 November, in a reign of terror lasting nearly 30 years murdered over 20 people, namely Greek political figures, and some US intelligence officials and diplomats. The last assassination was of the British attaché in retaliation for the US and NATO war in Kosovo against Serbia.

TERROR SIGNATURE / CALLING CARD?

The 1988 assassination of US Naval Attaché, Captain William Nordeen, by Greek terrorist group 17 November resembles the attempted Gligorov hit in 1995 almost down to the finest details, such as Gligorov’s route by car, timings, etc.

The Los Angeles Times story on the Nordeen hit:

"A police explosives expert who refused to be identified said the bombing was "perfectly planned and very well executed. . . . They thought of every detail.

“The expert said bags of cement were piled against one side of the booby-trapped vehicle so the explosion’s full force would be directed toward Nordeen's car."

And this from the US Defense Department - link :

"After weeks of surveillance the terrorists made plans. They stole a blue Toyota, put counterfeit plates on it, and placed 50-pounds of high explosives in the trunk with a radio-controlled firing device. They lined the left side of the trunk, which would be nearest the curb, with bags of cement to direct the blast to the roadway.

"On the morning of the attack, Captain Nordeen left for work in his lightly armoured Ford Grenada and turned left onto a one-way street as he always did. At 6:00 AM, as he passed the blue Toyota on his left, the terrorists detonated the bomb, throwing the armored car 18 feet, flipping it onto its roof and lodging it in a steel fence. The blast threw the Toyota 25 feet up the street. Nordeen died only 100-yards from his residence as his body was thrown 30 feet from his car.”

But 17 November did not take part in any “foreign operations” and stayed in Greece, the experts have all concluded. Was the Gligorov job the group’s first external venture? Or did someone simply copy the group’s method? Any terrorist group in the world has probably used the same method of bombing but not all terrorist groups have motivate in killing a President of a tiny Balkan nation in South-eastern Europe. However, 17 November was fanatically anti Turkish over the Cyrpus issue and pro Serb and regarded the US and NATO involvement in Kosovo as “Western Imperialism.” In 2000, the Greek terror coup assassinated the British Defence Attaché in Athens, Brigadier Stephen Saunders, in retaliation against NATO over Kosovo.

Accusations were raised about possible collusion between the Greek government of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou- PASOK (Greek Socialist Party) - and 17 November but were dismissed as outright wild conspiracy theory. Papandreou was Prime Minister from 1981-89 and 1993-96. His rival, Conservative, Konstantin Mitsotakis was Prime Minister from 1990-93. Both pursued anti Macedonian policies and colluded by Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

Former US diplomat,  E. Wayne Merry was the Deputy Political Counselor in Athens from 1987-1990. and raised some important points - link:

"I said then and later that Greece did not have the world’s worst terrorism problem or anything like it, but Greece did have the world’s worst counterterrorism problem. It became quite clear to me and to others that not only were the Greek police lacking in modern constabulary competence, but politically there was almost no motivation to stop the terrorists. In fact, they were tolerated by the PASOK government, which regarded them as fellow comrades from the struggle against the colonels’ regime who had simply not yet given up the armed struggle, but would in time.

"The Greek police were not very competent. For example, on a number of cases, the officer in charge of the scene of a political assassination would give expended shell casings to his journalist friends as souvenirs. Basic ballistic evidence, shell casings on the scene after somebody had been shot, would be given away as souvenirs.

"One of the senior uniformed police officers held me back so that he and I would be the last. As we were going down he hit the button to bring the elevator to a stop so we could talk but nobody could hear us. He proceeded to unload on me.

"He said, “Look, we’re not Sherlock Holmes here, but we’re not idiots. We can catch these bastards. But we’re handcuffed.” And he put his hands in front of him as if his hands were in handcuffs. “The political leaders don’t want us to get these guys. The only way we’re ever going to get these bastards is if you Americans get our political orders changed. We’re not complete idiots here. We can do the job if we’re given an opportunity.”
-------
DOMESTIC ACCOMPLICES?

The very technique in the bomb making would exclude any domestic group or individual in Macedonia as being beyond their capabilities. This then leads to a disturbing conclusion that the group or individuals who did carry out the attempted murder of President Gligorov would had to have had “inside information” from high ranking Macedonians as to the President’s routine. There would have to have been helpers, accomplices.

There is the purchase of the vehicle in Macedonia itself and used as the bomb. Hiding it presumably somewhere in Skopje, the capital, rigging it up and so on before parking it into place until President Gligorov’s car drove by and then detonating it. Smuggling the explosives into Macedonia would not have been difficult considering Macedonia’s government and its Interior Ministry, which runs the country’s police, border guards, and intelligence services, was heavily corrupt and involved in busting UN sanctions for Serbia, which had as the rump Yugoslavia waged war in the Balkans. -see link here

All of this, a combination of hard and circumstantial evidence and speculation on the part of TEAM UZUNOV, points to a joint Serb-Greek operation. The Macedonian Interior Ministry-- with German assistance--constructed a “dummy” or mannequin (left) believed to be of the buyer of the Ami 8. It is alleged he spoke in Serbian. Moreover, Serbia inherited the federal structure of Yugoslavia including its army (JNA) and the federal intelligence service (SDB or UDBa), which had a ferocious reputation in liquidating opponents abroad. UDBa had the technical expertise to mount the assassination attempt upon President Gligorov.

----
ODD STATEMENTS: After the failed attempt to murder President Gligorov

"One Macedonian official said that even if a culprit is found the person's identity or origin may never be released."  - (The question is why?).

Then another odd statement (and generalisation), 'this one from journalist Vladimir Petreski:

"A lot of people don't want to know as they are scared of what might happen."

- (Scared of what happening?).

 PERSONS OF INTEREST - those who might be able to throw more light on the attempted assassination of President Gligorov:

1. Ljubomir Frckoski - the controversial politician, “public intellectual,” was Macedonia’s Interior Minister during the Gligorov assassination attempt. His portfolio included the Police, Border Control and Intelligence Services. He was a senior member of the then SDSM (Social Democrats) government of Macedonia led by Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski. A government that was one of the most corrupt in recent Macedonian history, heavily involved in illegal smuggling in breaking United Nations sanctions imposed upon the Slobodan Milosevic regime in Serbia. That corruption reached the very top, the Prime Minister Crvekovski himself,  as this declassified 1995 CIA report shows:

Frckoski was very close to Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic during the UN sanctions busting era of the early 1990s as Serbia kept its war machine ticking over in Bosnia and Croatia. 

British academic James Pettifer writing in the Wall Street Journal, 1994 

BULGARIAN RED HERRING - Multigroup affair?

Frckoski was one of the first to push the view that a Bulgarian company with links to former Bulgarian Communist Intelligence Service (KDS) was behind the attempted murder of president Gligorov. This line of “investigation” led nowhere, into a dead end street, pardon the pun. The result was the suspected “suicide” of Ivo Jancev, Multigroup’s representative in Macedonia.

This photo and the one above of the Police mannequin are from the book “Atentat” by Zoran Petrov, Nova Makedonija, Skopje, Macedonia, 1996. The book is in Macedonian and is an excellent summary of the details then known about the assassination attempt. 

It includes the lines of enquiry pursued, various theories then circulating about the attack on President Gligorov.

In an interview for a US think tank, ex Macedonia President Gligorov slammed the then Interior Minister Frckoski for poor investigation into the attempted assassination and for deliberately indulging in fruitless speculation - see link here 

International Affairs Forum: Mr. President, in 1995 you survived an assassination attempt. The initial investigation failed to bring the perpetrators to justice. Do you have any new information about who may be responsible for this terrorist act? 

President Gligorov: There is still no real progress in the investigation, only speculations in the press. Before the assassination attempt, I was insisting on less guard protection. I often traveled with minimal security. It was my fault, in a way. I should have been better protected. When the interior minister gave a speech about the progress of the investigation, he had no facts to present. He said that one multinational organization operating from a neighboring country might have been involved. Another speculation was that the Serbian ultranationalist Zeljko Raznjatovic (Arkan) was involved. Our Interior Ministry was presenting only speculations, but speculations are not facts. The interior minister should have resigned at that time. You can not prosecute anybody based on speculations. Ten years have passed since the assassination attempt and there is still no progress. 

IA-Forum: Did the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) or other foreign intelligence agencies help with the investigation? 

President Gligorov: During one of my meeting with the (former) CIA Director George Tenet, I decided to ask him if the CIA has any new information regarding the assassination. He told me that he had no information but said: "I will call you and let you know about any new information we may have". He never called me. He resigned recently over Iraq. The European intelligence agencies were also not helpful. 

IA-Forum: Mr. President, right after the re-election of President George W. Bush, the U.S. decided to recognize Macedonia under its constitutional name. In your opinion, what were the reasons for this decision? 

President Gligorov: The U.S. decided to recognize us under the constitutional name primarily for two reasons. First, we are one of the countries in the "coalition of the willing". Second, we complied with the U.S. request to sign a bilateral agreement that exempts them from the International Criminal Court. Nowadays, our politicians follow and comply with almost everything the Americans request. I don’t think this is good, despite the fact that we are a small country. 

Frckoski in an act of high political theatre tendered his “resignation” after the assassination attempt but it was not “accepted” by the then Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski and so he remained Interior Minister. The whole charade, going by the comments above, the ex President did not buy.

MILOSEVIC AND WASHINGTON’S MAN

2. Jovica Stanisic - Stanisic was Slobodan Milosevic’s intelligence chief and also the United States CIA’s man inside. If Serbia was involved then he would know. Furthermore, as a high level CIA informer, it raises the disturbing possibility did the US know before hand of the attempted hit on President Gligorov? If it did, why did it allow the attack to play out and not warn the Macedonian President in advance? Was this to protect Stanisic as a source or something more sinister?

Dr John Schindler, ex National Security Agency analyst, explains:

"One of the facts which may complicate the new trial is Jovica Stanišić’s longtime relationship with American intelligence. Throughout the 1990s, when he headed Serbia’s sinister secret police, The Iceman was an agent of the CIA, as Langley has admitted. His CIA case officer maintains that having such a valuable back-channel to the very top security circles in Belgrade “did a whole lot of good” at preventing ugly Balkan wars from getting even worse. That may be true, but one hardly need be a congenital skeptic to have questions about what Washington knew about war crimes as they happened in something like real time…

"[Stanisic began his career in]…Communist Yugoslavia’s secret police, the notorious UDBA. Although Marshal Tito and his renegade Red regime got good Western press during the Cold War, when Yugoslavia was valued by NATO for its usefulness in blunting Soviet aims in Southern Europe, UDBA was every bit as unpleasant as the KGB.

"Indeed, Yugoslav spies were in many ways even nastier than their Soviet counterparts during the Cold War. When the KGB got out of the assassination business abroad in the late 1950s—what Kremlin spies termed “wetwork”—because the associated political risks were too great, UDBA went into that sinister field with gusto.

"Between the mid-1960s and the collapse of Yugoslavia a quarter-century later, UDBA assassinated about a hundred Yugoslav émigrés in the West. Most of these hits took place in Western Europe, but they spanned the globe, including a dozen assassinations in the United States (none of which were ever prosecuted). Western intelligence services, including American ones, averted eyes to this unpleasantness since Tito was strategically useful in the Cold War.

"In a nasty innovation, UDBA outsourced much of its wetwork to Balkan mafiosi, who were skilled at murder and were perfectly content to kill for Belgrade in exchange for leniency about other crimes. Tito’s secret police thereby created cadres of career criminals experienced in state-sanctioned murder—a development which would have fateful consequences when the country fell apart a decade after Tito’s death in 1980.”

STEVEN LALAS - CIA MAN TURNED GREEK SPY

3. Steven Lalas is an American of Greek ancestry and a former US State Department communications officer. Charged with espionage-related offences in connection with passing sensitive military and diplomatic information to Greece, he was arrested in northern Virginia in 1993 - two years before the Gligorov attack.

Lalas pled guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit espionage, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Later paroled, Lalas immigrated to Greece to serve out the remainder of his parole.

During his active years as a spy, Lalas passed an estimated 700 highly classified documents, that included U.S. gathered intelligence information of Turkish military strategy in the Aegean Sea and Cyprus, and U.S. diplomatic assessments and views on the Republic of Macedonia. see link here and here 

US top secret information that Lalas was feeding to his Greek intelligence handlers about the Republic of Macedonia would have been invaluable in formulating an assassination attempt. Whoever his Greek handlers were may point to the alleged assassin or assassins.

UPDATE: 

GENERAL GRYLLAKIS - the last piece of the puzzle? 

Greek General Nikos Gryllakis - Was he the operational brains behind the attempted Gligorov hit in 1995?

The former Greek General, a military intelligence specialist trained by the CIA, has passed away at age 91. A controversial figure who fled Greece and sought “sanctuary” in the Republic of Macedonia in 1993 to avoid prosecution in a wiretap scandal involving Greek politicians.

General Gryllakis was close to then Greek Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis and was the go-between Athens and Skopje.

When the Mitsotakis government fell the General came running to Macedonia with allegedly suitcases full of “documents” relating to Greece’s position on Macedonia’s name and other tantalising intelligence tidbits.

According to a report in a Macedonian website, expres, Macedonian President Gligorov had a falling out with his then Interior Minister Ljubobmir Frckoski, who unbeknownst to the President, had given General Gryllakis “sanctuary” in exchange for intelligence.

A Greek report in 2001 claimed that President Gligorov had named the General as the man who had tried to bribe him over Macedonia changing its name. 

General Gryllakis eventually returned to Greece and was never prosecuted for his alleged role in the wiretapping scandal nor for subsequently passing secret information to the Macedonian government after he fled in 1993. 

This raises the possibility of him being a double agent and the man on the ground in Macedonia --together with assistance from Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic and local helpers in Macedonia --who could have orchestrated the unsuccessful assassination attempt on President Gligorov in 1995.

He had the know-how, the motive, and the means to pull it off… But we will never know now!

OF PROTESTS, FALSE FLAGS & MACEDONIA

Interview with Tony Kitanovski, grass roots Australian-Macedonian activist, social media pundit, family man, building designer by profession, one of the behind the scenes organisers of a large pro Macedonia rally held in Melbourne, Australia, on 9 April 2017. (see link here).

1. Tony, how did you get involved in the Macedonian cause? What’s your background? You don’t come from the traditional “elite” but a regular man of the people.

Tony Kitanovski: This is an interesting question to ask a Macedonian. “How does one become involved in the Macedonian cause?” Well, I first encountered an attack on my identity as a somewhat combative pre-teen by a diatribe regurgitating Greek boy who professed to me, that I too was Greek (obviously misunderstanding the previous night’s conversation at their dinner table). There began a long line of questions, research, arguments, blood noses, debates and a general belligerence towards any reference to the Macedonian question from the myriad of Serbs and Greeks I grew up around. My story is not unusual; I just refused to go quietly. I’m the child of Macedonian immigrants who worked double overtime in factories to try and eek out a better future for their family all the while being unwavering in their pride for being Macedonian. I’d suggest that someone cannot help but to be involved in the Macedonian cause if they consider themselves Macedonian. The more appropriate question to put to the general public is why are so many people willing to work against it? Why are so many willing to forego self-determination and national pride in exchange for aligning themselves with an alternate nationality that ultimately looks to extinguish everything Macedonian from the face of this earth

2. You’re one of the Administrators of a hugely popular social media page with over 9,000 members which acts as a clearing house of information, as well as venue for debate about Macedonia and its place in the world. What has been the impact of this page known as Viva Macedonia? (see link to Viva page)

Tony Kitanovski: Viva,…. wow. This quaint little page started by Zhivan Rendev that I joined to see if I could find some people to discuss what was happening in our homeland with. In my humble opinion, I’m not sure I can capture what this page has done for the Macedonian cause here in Australia and internationally. Let me try and put it into perspective. One of the biggest problems that the Macedonian cause has always had is unity or more precisely lack of unity. A fundamental distrust of the community and politically motivated organisations in the diaspora that profess to represent us. Viva has gone a long way to giving these organisations a neutral forum where they can put their views forward to the Macedonian public and it has opened up debate (in real time) as to whether they are on the right path. More importantly though, I think its building bridges and starting to allow dialogue between these as they progressively realise their personality clashes are tiresome and often seen as embarrassing by the general public. 

Many are lifting their game when they see how much other organisations are doing, but the most heartening thing of all is that I think these potentially fantastic organisations are starting to realise we are all on the same team. World Macedonian Congress (WMD), United Macedonian Diaspora (UMD) and Macedonian Human Rights Movement International (MHRMI) regularly post or have their posts shared on Viva and we always actively promote all other Macedonian pages and any posts that originate from them. 

We don’t feed any rivalry or allow resentment to permeate into our fundamental ideology of Macedonian Unity. Viva is also a noticeboard for Macedonian community events, politically motivated gatherings and social functions without fear or favour which cannot be said for some of our ‘official’ media representatives who have refused to promote causes because of their political bias and fear of compromised standing in the community.  

Media organisations in the Republic are also taking notice. Anecdotally I’m hearing that Viva is one of the avenues being used to gauge sentiment in the diaspora about the affairs in Macedonia and is often used to post media reports and articles from both spheres of the political spectrum. Viva from this perspective is unbiased and does not censor the posting of these pieces and we leave it up to the public comments to help disseminate what is propaganda and misinformation. By virtue it has also become the go to venue to get updates on breaking news and is allowing all of us 24 hour contact with our homeland. 

3. Your thoughts on the crisis in Macedonia?

Tony Kitanovski: The path has been set towards a cataclysmic shift in what we currently recognise as Macedonia. IIt is potentially the end of the Macedonian people as a distinct ethnic group and of the current unitary Macedonian state. A state which was brought about through the succession of wars and by the ultimate sacrifices of many generations of Macedonians. Macedonia is all we have and without her we are nothing. Irrespective of where Macedonians live, the existence of the Republic defines our identity, none more so than in Greek and Bulgarian occupied parts of Macedonia where an entire ethnicity disappears because the references to ‘the nation to the north or east’ change and the genocide becomes complete….but why? Why is the Macedonian identity, nation and its people facing so much political turmoil? What is the motivation behind this weak stance in the face of adversity? It is undoubtedly external pressure. An EU/NATO accession driven agenda that panders to the demands of existing members with anti-Macedonian foreign policies. We are being dismantled for an EU territorial gain that the existing members can palate. One where their ill-gotten gains from 100 years ago cannot be questioned. We are bit players in the globalisation symphony currently sweeping the world.

4. You hold the view that the West is pushing for the federalisation of Macedonia and eventual partition of the country between Kosovo and Serbia. Why have you reached such a conclusion?

Tony Kitanovski: The Kosovo-Serbia-Montenegro-Bosnia tensions are a larger source of unease for the EU than Macedonia is. It is my belief that the US, Serbs and Kosovars are currently in negotiations regarding a long term territorial exchange where northern Kosovo is earmarked to be given back to Serbia in exchange for Kosovo’s acquisition of north western Macedonia to be later consolidated as a ‘Greater Albania’. I believe this is with the view to a Serbia/rump Macedonia alliance or federation moving forward. Macedonia will struggle to be a viable state on its own with such a substantial territorial loss. Recent visits to Pristina and Belgrade by US Senator JohnMcCain, anti Macedonian statements by Serb President elect Alexander Vucic and Serb Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic as well as regular discussions between Serbia and Greece have only strengthened my views regarding this.

- FALSE FLAG? POLITICAL FIX?

5. What do you make of the alleged Serb-Russian spy scandal in the Macedonian parliament? Is it a deliberate false flag? We all know Serbia and its long time ally Greece have together for decades spied on Macedonia but are you concerned that the objective here is by implication or inference that people who oppose newly appointed Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev will be deliberately branded as Serb or Russian stooges event though they might be sceptical of the West, Russia, Serbia, the EU, allowing Zaev a free hand to change Macedonia’s name and place it on the path of federalisation? Is this spy scandal a clever attempt by both Greece and Serbia to distract attention from Athens’s long standing campaign to destabilise Macedonia? 

Tony Kitanovski: There’s a concerted effort by SDSM (backed by the usual suspects) to paint VMRO-DPMNE as a pro Russian entity. VMRO-DPMNE was a significant roadblock for Macedonia’s progression into the EU’s debt abyss and the last thing that NATOs cronies want is a resurgence of Gruevski’s politics back into the mainstream. Negotiations about the Russian pipeline undoubtedly had a severe effect on the then government’s standing in the EU and gave weight to the argument that they had a pro Russian agenda which translates in the mainstream media as an anti-EU outlook. This obviously hampered EU negotiations badly and polarised the people in the Republic.

 The Serb/Russian plant in the parliament was a deliberate attempt to reinforce this message. There is no way any secret service would put a known operative in full view, front and centre of the cameras unless they wanted the world to know they were there. An absolute false flag that throws a smoke bomb in front of SDSM’s critics for the moment and reinforces the Slav alliance template the Greeks, Serbs and Bulgarians have been trumpeting as part of the denial of Macedonian identity. It is also a push along to the anti Gruevski sentiment bubbling away in Athens, Brussles, Nato, the EU, Sofia, Belgrade, Tirana and wherever else you can think of. 

With the change of government you can bet your bottom dollar that all critics of SDSM moving forward will be automatically labelled as VMRO-DPMNE sympathisers by the pro EU media and by default, as Russian stooges or even operatives. We are seeing this already in articles from Balkan Insight and Deutsche Welle (Macedonian).

Is this a joint effort by Greece and Serbia to manipulate the Macedonian public?… I think so, but I also think some qualification needs to be applied here. Serbia itself is in the midst of its own neo-liberal shift towards the globalisation agenda of the EU/NATO. The current government there is under attack the same way Macedonia was during the ‘colour revolution’ and they are not the preferred candidate for a complete Balkan capitulation to the EU. The negative statements from SDSM towards the current Serbian government should be seen as a move towards supporting the current Serb opposition and not as any form of pro Macedonian nationalism nor a reaction to any negative Serb statements regarding Macedonia. 

What this highlights, I suppose, is that both parties are intrinsically compromised and attached to destructive politics in one way or another. The current political crisis we face is a disaster facilitated by SDSM today, but it is far from being an exclusively SDSM construct. VMRO-DPMNE was the party which started the plunge into the abyss by yielding to the ‘Ohrid Framework Agreement’ in 2001 and appointing the known terrorist and current speaker of the parliament Talat Xhaferi as the Minister of Defence in 2013… after he led a military invasion from Kosovo oton Macedonian soil as a Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) commander in 2001 no less. It is my belief that there has to be an alternative political movement in Macedonia. A third option that will operate solely in the interests of Macedonia and resist political allegiances to anti Macedonian causes and interests.

- PRETEND CONFLICT? The major clue - no protest outside the Serbian Embassy in Skopje, the Macedonian capital?

6. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that the people who are claiming that there is Serbian-Russian intelligence collusion in Macedonia, such as leading pundit Borjan Jovanovski, steadfastly, stubbornly and aggressively refuse to protest against Serb nationalism and intelligence “interference” in Macedonia outside the Serbian Embassy in Skopje, and even go to the extreme of calling for Macedonia to give up its independence and return to defacto Serb-Yugoslavist tule? see link here

Doesn’t this give the game away - that there is a hidden agenda in all of this; some kind of behind the scenes political fix going on, involving the US, EU, Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, Albanian and Kosovo? 

Tony Kitanovski: People like Borjan Jovanovski are full of ideological contradictions and are mercenaries for a greater agenda that is playing out behind the scenes. Borjan’s comments over the last few years have had a distinct anti nationalistic stance that appears to come directly from the Greek and Serbian playbook for Macedonian destabilisation. He and others like him tell us they are disgusted by Macedonian “nationalism" because it is offensive to Albanians, but not once have we heard him speak out about offensive Albanian nationalism, Serb nationalism or Greek nationalism. His “I’m an internationalist” façade would only ever be credible when he has the same stance towards all nationalistic movements in Macedonia and realistically he should be completely opposed to political parties in Macedonia that are based on national identity full stop, i.e. DUI [Albanian partly led by Ali Ahmeti, terrorist turned politician in Macedonia] but guess what? They’re fine [for Borjan]. The longer he and others like him hold out in not condemning our neighbours for their stance towards Macedonia the more obvious it is that he and his posse is in some level of collusion with foreign entities.    


- GREATER ALBANIA? 

7. Why has the West pandered to Albanian separatists in Macedonia? 

Tony Kitanovski: Albania is completely and utterly a NATO vassal state that is a key part of NATOs strategic military presence in the Balkans. Camp Bondsteel is only 15km from the Kosovo/Macedonian border and is the largest military base in southern Europe. Albania allows sea access from the Adriatic and is currently huge agents of arms shipments throughout all of the Balkans. It completely facilitates the geopolitical imperialism that is NATO. Albanian separatists are willing, able and eager mercenaries and are being aptly rewarded for their pro Americanism. Their spiritual leader Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama is an unwavering neoliberal Soros puppet and the Albanian leadership is always happy to supply cannon fodder as enforcers of shady EU deals and agreements. The ultimate henchmen from the day of their fabricated inception, they will fight and die for any power that perpetuates the black market economy they utilise to fund the steady stream of ISIS fighters being churned out 10km from Camp Bondsteel.

- BULGARIAN PASSPORTS

8. Your thoughts on Bulgaria and its aggressive campaign in trying to Bulgarianise Macedonians by offering EU passports?

Tony Kitanovski: This is the elephant in the room. This is an attempt by Bulgaria to lay claim to as many Macedonians as it can in order to ‘save its people’ when the excrement hits the ventilator so to speak. This is an interesting strategy because I can’t quite figure out where they sit in the big picture. There has been very little posturing during the political crisis by them and if they have been operating behind the scenes they have been very quiet… although they have been vocally  offended as of late by Vladimir Putin’s comments about the origins of the Macedonian language. They are the ‘smokey’ in my opinion and the proposed Serb/Macedonian alliance I spoke of earlier can easily be exchanged for a Bulgar/Macedonian one because they, Bulgaria,  are already members of the EU and NATO. 

There is one thing that I hold above everything else. If we do not stand together as one we will fall into the mire that happened to us in 1913 with the partition of Macedonia amongst Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria. Stand strong brothers and sisters. Da Zhivej Makedonija.  

Caption: Macedonia has been very loyal to the West - some Macedonians see that loyalty as a one way street where the West is forcing Macedonia to change its name to accommodate NATO member Greece for nothing more than Greek chauvinistic reasons against the Macedonian state and people. No successive Macedonian government has ever strayed towards Russia, despite hysterical claims to the contrary. 
  

MACEDONIA: SERB SPY SAGA - is there more to it?

 --------

SERB SPY SAGA - is there more to it?

by Sasha Uzunov

The revelation that an intelligence officer, Goran Zivaljevic, from Serbia’s Embassy in Skopje, Macedonia was spotted inside that country’s parliament on 27 April during a physical confrontation which saw leader of the Social Democrats (SDSM) Zoran Zaev attacked and bloodied and his deputy Radmila Sekerinsa yanked violently by the hair has set off tongues wagging about Russian involvement in allegedly provoking the incident. see link here to NOVA TV story.

The British newspaper The Guardian has picked up the story quoting a snippet of a Macedonian intelligence report alleging Russian influence. see link here

But a number of things don’t add up. Why would the Russians send a Serb intelligence (BIA) officer to “monitor” the situation in the parliament when he is a designated intelligence office within the Serbian  Embassy and is known? If anything it would be more logical for the Russians to send someone who is not known, thereby providing no link. Could there instead be a Greek intelligence link? But the story in Macedonia is more complex that just mere alleged Russian meddling - both of Macedonia’s major ethnic Macedonian parties, both VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM have “cooperated” with Serbia in varying degrees. Moreover, the United States since 1992 has been the major international player in the Republic of Macedonia and the cause of the ethnic Albanian uprising in 2001.

The deliberate selection of Talat Xhaferi as Macedonia’s Parliamentary Speaker:

LEAD UP TO PARLIAMENTARY VIOLENCE 27 January 2017-

The Tirana Platform - weeks after the Macedonian election had ended - was announced on 7 January 2017 - Macedonian Orthodox Christmas, deliberately designed to provoke anger within the wider ethnic Macedonian community. To say it lacked cultural sensitivity is an understatement. You have to ask why was it not announced before the election to give voters of all ethnic backgrounds a time to digest it instead of accept is as a fait accompli?

Without going over old ground here - the Tirana Platform is designed to federalise and partition Macedonia. The demands are deliberately unjustifiable and unreasonable, meaning they can never be fully met unless the Macedonian state ceases to exist. see links here and here.

In one of the oddest- downright stupid- political moves of the Nikola Gruevski government (2006-16)--a coalition of the nominally Macedonian “nationalist” VMRO-DPMNE and Albanian DUI led by Ali Ahmeti, the man who with US backing invaded Macedonia from Kosovo in 2001 and later “amnestied,--placed another Albanian insurgent and suspected war criminal Talat Xhaferi as Defence Minister in 2013.

The AUSTRALIAN Macedonian Human Rights Committee (AMHRC) story on ex terrorist Talat Xhaferi and its strong opposition to then Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's decision to appoint him as Defence Minister.

 see link here

It came as no surprise that Xhaferi would then be “selected’ in a controversial manner as the new Parliamentary Speaker by the Opposition SDSM led by Zoran Zaev in 2017. The reasoning would go if VMRO-DPMNE was willing to have Xhaferi as Defence Minister despite ordering an ambush that killed Macedonian security forces in 2001 known as the Vejce Massaccre on, ironically, 27 April 2001 - timing ! - why can’t he be Parliamentary Speaker? The West was quick to recognise Xhaferi as speaker.

All of this was guaranteed to raise the temperatures. The rest you all you know, the storming of the parliament by “nationalists” and attacks on Zaev, his deputy Radmila Sekerinska having her hair violently by a “wild man” and the inflammatory Albanian nationalist Ziadin Sela, pictured with a bloody face attacked allegedly by “evil Slav-Macedonians”- but according to sceptical Dutch journalist Treist made Sela made a very “speedy recovery.” Violence of any sort should not be condoned or used in parliament. Falling for provocation is no excuse either. Needless to say the violence in the Macedonia parliament ended up favouring the SDSM and Albanian coalition. In effect Macedonia has become a defacto Macedonian-Albanian bi-state. Why Macedonians are being forced to give up their state is breathtaking considering there are already two Albanian states in the Balkans already - Albanian and Kosovo. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the ethnic Albanians in Macedonia are no more than 17% of the total population. An accurate census is desperately needed. There are three Serbian states in the Balkans - Serbia, Montenegro, and the Republika Srpska in Bosnia.

JOINT SERB-RUSSIAN OPERATION?

One of the Macedonian journalists who, paradoxically, has pushed a Serb-Russian intelligence “joint operation” is an unusual character by the name of Borjan Jovanovski, a half Macedonian, half Serb who is married to an ethnic Albanian woman, and scion of a powerful political dynasty set up by his late father the writer Meto Jovanovski during Macedonia’s Yugoslavist era pre 1991.

The story sounds like a public relations exercise in trying to tone down Jovanovski’s long standing Serbian Cultural Hegemony hiding behind internationalism” routine (pardon the long winded phrase!) or “Cultural Belgradism” (for short) and bolster his “Macedonianess” and “pro western” behaviour, which poses a serious problem to his public image, especially amongst the Western donors funding his tv station, NOVA as well as the ethnic Albanian political bloc. The interesting thing is many who are “pro West” are also openly pro Serb or pro Serb Yugoslavist in Macedonia and some have called for Macedonia to “return” to defacto Serb control or in some kind of federation, with the western part of the country handed over to Kosovo. Some have advocated partition of Macedonia between Kosovo (or Albania) and Bulgaria. 

Borjan Jovanovski has oddly called for Macedonia to return to defacto Serb-Yugoslavist rule but simultaneously pushes for Albanian to be made a compulsory language in all Macedonian primary schools. It’s a very unusual ideology, considering the vast majority of Albanians oppose Yugoslavism. He also peddles a pro Serb and pro Greek, in fact a traditional Russian, view that Macedonians are “Slavs.” A view now being called into question by mainstream academics such University of Florida Professor Dr Forian Curta. This deliberate “polarisation” being pushed by Jovanovski can only lead to partition of Macedonia between Kosovo and Serbia…

Jovanovski regards Macedonians as being “Slavs” - a pro Serb and pro Greek ideology, popularised by both Tsarist Russia and later by Stalin’s Soviet Union and accepted as “gospel” in Tito’s Communist Yugoslavia (1944-91). Mainstream academics such Dr Florin Curta of Florida University in the US argue that there was no “Slav Migration” into the Balkans. see link here

Despite being an anti nationalist, Jovanovski hasn’t called for protests outside the Serb Embassy in Skopje over recent events even though he has over 11,000 followers on Twitter and could mobilise 50 to 100 people within minutes. Not even a protest outside the Serbian Embassy over the blatant interference by the Serb intelligence officer being in the Macedonian Parliament. Odd. Very odd !

BORJAN’S SELF-HAGIOGRAPHY - apocryphal tale of a dissident? 

He tells of an incredible story about being an inadvertent dissident of the Yugoslav system, despite being the privileged son of a prominent Macedonian Yugoslavist writer, Meto Jovanovski, who was a trusted member of the Yugoslav regime as head of the foreign news / language department of the then Radio Televizija Skopje (RTS), the forerunner of Macedonian State broadcaster during Yugoslavist era. In 1995, his father Meto then decided to set up his own Helsinki Watch committee in Macedonia, despite having no history as a human rights advocate in the Yugoslavist era. A prominent Helsinki Watch committee board member and a close associate of Borjan Jovanovski is ex Macedonian Interior Minister Ljubomir Frckoski, who was accused of being very close to the Serb nationalist regime of Slobodan Milosevic in the early 1990s, especially in turning a blind eye to UN sanctions busting imposed upon Serbia at the time. British academic James Pettifer once described Frckoski a hardliner who was close to Belgrade.

Wall Street Journal - 1994

Borjan Jovanovski in his hagiography claims the following: 

“Now, my mother is Serbian and I grew up in my mother’s family. My grandfather and my grandmother are Serbian and the first language I learnt was Serbian. But I found this very strange, to say the least. Why shouldn’t we be able to sing in Macedonian? That was the first time in my life I realized some of the problems of the Yugoslav federation.”

After finishing secondary school in 1984, Borjan was required to serve in the Yugoslav People’s Army. Young recruits usually were stationed far from home, in units comprised of young men of all of Yugoslavia’s different nationalities. Obligatory military service was an important pillar of Yugoslav identity formation. Borjan was transferred to Zagreb in Croatia and faced another unpleasant experience with the joint state.


“I was declared a Macedonian nationalist. Why? There was a regulation in the army that if you are Macedonian, you could take your classes in the army in the Macedonian language. That was a clearly stated regulation, but nobody wanted to implement it. When I asked why, the captain declared me a Macedonian nationalist and a “Serbophobe”. I was hurt, also because due to my mother I felt part Serbian myself. It was a huge frustration for me.”
---
Why is it that those who claim to be anti nationalist in Macedonia and attack so called Macedonian nationalism with ferocity (are themselves of Serb background) never protest against Serb nationalism but to cover themselves will write a clever formalistic criticism in which so called Macedonian nationalism is lumped in with genuine Serb nationalism?

The answer to that is by making Macedonian “nationalism” as bad as Serb nationalism you let Serb nationalism off the hook - you turn a people, the Macedonians, genuine victims of brutal colonialism - into perpetrators. It’s also a good “career move” when it comes to questions of USAID funding for “media projects.”


This 1930 article link - Daily Standard (Brisbane, Australia) Sat 1 Feb 1930 Page 2 DEATH AND TERROR IN YUGO-SLAVIA. “Croatia and Macedonia are the most ruthlessly suppressed nationalities…” by Serbian monarchists.

The same technique is used by Lithuanian extreme nationalists and anti Semites who liken Soviet rule with Nazi Germany in order to excuse the targeting of Jews in Lithuania during World War II. 

The same strategy is used by Macedonia's "internationalists" in lumping in Macedonian so called  "nationalism" with others - it gives Greek, Serb, Bulgar, Albanian nationalism & colonialism an alibi or lets it off the hook ! 
-------------

Link to Slate article: 

By positing twin genocides, Lithuanians become victims—and “Judeo-Bolsheviks” become perpetrators—in a second, mirror-image holocaust. As Ephraim Zuroff of the Wiesenthal Center summarised, “If everyone is guilty, then no one is guilty.”

 To Leonidas Donskis, a part-Jewish Lithuanian intellectual who has served in the European Parliament in Brussels where he has opposed official Nazi/Soviet equivalence resolutions, the ultimate purpose of the “double genocide” theory is to allow Eastern European ultra-nationalists to “portray the people who were killing the Jews as people who fought the Soviet regime. [It is] dangerous nonsense.” 
----

TEAM UZUNOV contacted the Croatian State Archives in Zagreb, requesting if any documentation from old Yugoslav Army records, Zagreb command, existed, relating to Borjan Jovanovski’s alleged incident, and because of its “serious” nature would have been noted in a file somewhere.

No documents were located. Furthermore, Amnesty International was keeping detailed records of dissidents in the then Yugoslavia. Illustrated (right) is an Amnesty International booklet.

If anything all of this sounds like a well crafted media release designed to soften Borjan’s “Serbianess” post 1991, should it become an issue later over his attacks on so called Macedonian “nationalism.” As you will see below the above story doesn’t quite tally with his truly feelings and actions (or deliberate in-actions): 

Some time ago TEAM UZUNOV was contact by Jovanovski who complained we were not asking him for his views and comments on public affairs in Macedonia. Since then we have tried to accommodate his demand.

On 20 March 2017, we posed some question concerning Serbian cultural hegemony in Macedonia, a touchy subject, as well as raising the link between Russian and Serb intelligence in the Balkans. As you can see below. But he didn’t respond. And we did raise the link between Russian and Serb intelligence (circled in red ) !

We also asked about the Draskovic Double Act (circled in blue) - the Draskovic Double Act is explained here - see link. It means saying one thing for public consumption but meaning something different privately. For example - publicly acting like an “internationalist” but really being a Serb cultural hegemonist in private and just saying enough to cover your tracks without really meaning it. That’s the Draskovic Double Act in a nutshell. Put in practice it would be a refusal to protest against Serb nationalism.

-------

On April 14 and April 15, we followed up with similar questions, some two weeks before the Parliamentary violence, we broached the issue of Serb intelligence and nationalism posing a threat to Macedonia. His response, to say the least, was bizarre, as you can see from the messages below. We even cited Western experts such as Dr John Schindler. 

Jovanovski refused to entertain the idea of Serb intelligence interfering in Macedonia as well as protesting against Serb nationalism. Why? We posed a relevant question “why are you not organising protests outside the Serb Embassy in Skopje over rising Serb nationalism which poses a threat to Macedonian Security?”

BUT HERE IS BORIS MALAGURSKI: Canadian Serb nationalist film maker Malagurski who hides behind “anti globalism” with this preposterous documentary film, The Weight of Chains, which more an apologist for Slobodan Milosevic, is a staunch critic of the West yet his views reflect “pro West” Borjan Jovanovski’s view of Macedonia being in some kind of “federal union” with Serbia…interesting, hmmmm !

Jovanovski portrays himself in the media as an “anti nationalist” and Albanian “rights” activist. So his reaction, his stubborn refusal to protest outside the Serbian Embassy in Skopje, puts him at odds with this public image that he cultivates as well the story he is now peddling. Again we ask, if he is an internationalist why is Serbian nationalism and Serbian cultural hegemony such a very very sensitive subject? Young people in Macedonia can openly discuss drug addiction, political corruption, gender and gay rights issues but Serbian cultural hegemony remains a taboo. Very odd indeed !

The purpose of the story which has also splashed across the pages of the esteemed Guardian is to make all those who oppose the new government in Macedonia as stooges of both Serbia and Russia, even if you are critical of both Serbia and Russia; and critical of both SDSM and VMRO-DMNE. You’ve been boxed in deliberately in a cunning Check Mate.

It is not about examining or chastising Serbian nationalism - as you can clearly see by Borjan Jovanovski’s words and actions or lack of actions in NOT protesting against Serbian nationalism and interference in Macedonia but by bludgeoning you into submission - the change of Macedonia’s name, federalisation and ironically partition between Kosovo and Serbia. Again that polarisation technique. Moreover, the purpose of the story is also to take attention off those in the SDSM ranks, including Borjan Jovanovski’s close associate Ljubomir Frckoski and his extensive links to Serbia during the 1990s and breaking the UN and EU sanctions imposed upon Slobodan Milosevic’s rump Yugoslavia as it fought the wars in Croatia and Bosnia (see below).

IN 2012 - Macedonia’s President George Ivanov snubbed Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic’s inauguration over Nikolic’s comments about a Greater Serbia. see the link here . It’s hardly the behaviour of a Belgrade “stooge.” Ironically, The Macedonian Democratic Party of Serbs kicked up a stink.

MIROSLAV LAZANSKI - is he freelancing for the Greeks? US? Russians? Serbia?

We are told of a grand conspiracy involving a Serb journalist Miroslav Lazanski, who we outed on Facebook a year ago on 9 March 2016 (see link here) as having an intelligence background before this NOVA story, which didn’t draw any interest from Jovanovski and NOVA. Lazanski is also a Serbian member of Parliament who is aligned to the same political party, Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) of newly elected Serb President and outgoing Prime Minister Alexander Vucic. Vucic has been endorsed by the West. This is the strangest part. if he is colluding on whose behalf is he colluding? Is it Russia? 

Team Uzunov outed Martin Trenevski, a handpicked Gruevski appointee as NATO Ambassador, as being a former Yugoslav Intelligence officer under journalistic cover in Australia (1986-89) for the then Yugoslav state news agency Tanjug. see link here

Into this parliamentary conspiracy involving Lazanski, we have Ivan Stoijlokovic, an ethnic Serb who is a member of the Macedonian Parliament and aligned with ousted Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski. Into this mix are thrown the usual suspects, the Russians. To say Russian intelligence is not operating on Macedonian soil is to say that Father Christmas (Santa Claus) is real. And for that matter, Greek, Bulgarian, US, British, German intelligence are also operating on Macedonian soil. But did the Russians engineer the violence in the Macedonian Parliament? We can’t say for sure either way.  However on the balance of probabilities, if having a known Serbian intelligence officer inside the Macedonian parliament is an indicator of Russian involvement, then it sounds, smells, looks amateurish from Moscow’s end.

Jovanovski tells us that Ivan Stoijlkovic is a hardened Serb nationalist who is anti west. Yet surprisingly within Prime Minister elect Zoran Zaev’s camp is the controversial Dragisa Miletic, who is an even bigger and harder Serb nationalist, a Chetnik, and who in 1994 acting on the orders of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic tried to destabilise Macedonia.

The Canberra Times newspaper, Saturday 18 June 1994, page 12, running a Guardian article by Helena Smith: 

"But Macedonians are increasingly afraid that the Serb violations are also linked to the forthcoming and long-awaited census.

"Radical Serb leader- Dragisha Miletic appealed this week to members of Macedonia's Serb minority to boycott the population count on Tuesday.

"His move was quickly interpreted as an attempt by Serbia to further destabilise Macedonia, Which is still referred to as Southern Serbia in Belgrade.

"There are growing fears that the Serbs want to close their front in Bosnia and open up a new one in the south," journal ist Vladimir Petrevski said. “They still feel very angry and betrayed that we Macedonians didn’t remain part of rump Yugoslavia.” link here to the full article 

------

That’s an odd coalition partner to have, to say the least? Keeping the back door open to Belgrade?!            

So what can we make of the story of the alleged Serb-Russian collusion? The story revolves around a number of alleged “leaks” and sources including telephone intercepts of conversations detailing communications between Lazanski, Stoijlokovic, and Zivaljevic, the BIA agent. The most obvious thing to ask is are they not acting like Serb nationalists? Probably yes? Is that how Serb nationalists behave, probably yes. If that is the case, is it relevant if their patron is Moscow, Washington or even Athens? No. Because a Serbian nationalist agenda is a Serbian nationalist agenda. Something deliberately downplayed, hence no protests in Macedonia. That’s the odd part in all of this. As US Senator John McCain (see below) has revealed Vucic is deliberately playing a balancing act between Russia and the West. Could using the events in Macedonia not also be part of that strategy? Macedonia as a bargaining chip? Serbian intelligence has been very active in Macedonia since it Macedonia became independent from Yugoslavia in 1991. 

If anything, these recent revelations are simply a continuation of an old policy. But in those 26 years of independence there has been largely silence and no protests, even when the US Embassy in Skopje was vandalised in 1999 by those with links to Serbian intelligence. Odd.

2010 - EX US AMBASSADOR BECOMES ADVISOR TO SERBIAN PROGRESSIVE PARTY - playing off East and West 

In 2010 the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) to which Tomislav Nikolic (Serbian state President 2012-17), and his successor Alexander Vucic and Miroslav Lazanski belong or are aligned to, hired an ex US Ambassador William Montgomery, the man who took down Slobodan Milosevic, as a lobbyist. This is strange “pro Russian behaviour !” link here 

Montgomery was a Clinton appointee. He advocates the partition of Bosnia with the Republika Srpska component joining Serbia. see link here. You can read the agreement / contract here between Nikolic and Montgomery - link here

VMRO-DPMNE’S JOINT SERB-MACEDONIAN EMBASSY IN 2014 & SDSM’S SERB SPINNERS

In a puzzling move for a Macedonian government which likened itself to be patriotic, a joint Serb-Macedonian Embassy sharing agreement was reached in 2104. Why Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski pushed such an idea remains strange. What is even stranger is there were no opposition protests in the streets against it. Borjan Jovanovski, Branko Geroski, and the other assortment of “internationalists” did absolutely nothing. Why? As you can see from the comments above, Borjan becomes aggressive when asked why he chooses not to protest outside the Serb Embassy in Skopje.

There have been other incidents, such as Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic’s nasty racist comments about Macedonians and largely silence from both sides of Macedonian politics. You have to ask why?


Gruevski and Dacic get up close and personal. Absolutely no protests in the streets in Skopje from anyone, nationalist or internationalist, during the joint Serb-Macedonian Embassy deal. How odd? 

In early 2016, Zoran Zaev’s SDSM (Social Democrats) engaged a controversial Serbian Public Relations firm, Ruskin and Hunt, known for spinning news and for close connections with Serbia’s political elite.  TEAM UZUNOV followed up by contacting both the Australian and United States Embassies for Macedonia. The Australian Ambassador responded whilst the US Embassy didn’t respond:

Ruskin & Hunt Managing Director Milan Scepic was a close advisor to the Serbian “Iron lady” Maja Gojkovic, a hardcore Serb nationalist and one time defender of extremist Vojislav Seselj.

Our email to the US Embassy (redacted):

COLOUR REVOLUTION - SERB ASSISTANCE?

Story from April 2016: TEAM UZUNOV contacted the Serbian Foreign Ministry, and Canvas, as well as Canvas founder Srdja Popovic to comment. But as yet no responses have been forthcoming.

However, the Canadian Embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, which also covers Macedonia did release a statement to TEAM UZUNOV over the alleged involvement of Serbian activists from Canvas:

Canadian Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, Amy Mills:

"Canada is closely monitoring developments in Macedonia, including the recent protests.

"We call on the Government of Macedonia to respect the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.

"We are aware of reports of vandalism, and urge all protestors to demonstrate peacefully."

Australian Embassy in Belgrade has sent two staff to Macedonia for the crisis.

The Australian Ambassador to Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, and stationed in Belgrade, Mrs Julia Feeney made this comment to TEAM UZUNOV:

"I have two staff in country at the moment monitoring the overall situation,” she said. "There are many issues [to deal with]."

Link 

PRETEND CONFLICT BETWEEN VUCIC AND ZAEV? US endorses Vucic, US endorses Zaev. What conflict? 

US Senator John McCain visit to Belgrade, Serbia:

"One lesson from this visit — they want Western attention,” McCain said. “There is nothing they would appreciate more than high-level visits.

"That attention, he said, should come in the form of increased commercial, cultural and diplomatic ties to keep countries such as Serbia from drifting deeper into Russia’s sphere.

“It is particularly important to engage with Serbia, the largest country in the region and its political fulcrum, said McCain, who held extensive discussions with the country’s prime minister and soon-to-be president, Aleksandar Vučić. See link here 

SERBIA - POLITICAL FULCRUM FOR THE US

“I think Vučić is trying to walk a very fine line between East and West,” McCain said. “He realizes that his population, particularly the young population, are western oriented. They don’t want to be like Russia. Yet at the same time, the orientation historically has been to Russia.”

There has been over the past two to three months “tensions” building between Serbian President elect Alexander Vucic, who is endorsed by the West, and Zoran Zaev, also endorsed by the West. Is this real or some deliberate stage managed incident to throw up red herrings? The Serb media is largely controlled by Vucic, who remains one of the most corrupt and authoritarian politicians in the Balkans, far worse than any in Macedonia, with the exception of Ali Ahmeti, (pictured, greying hair shaking hands with NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson) who started the Kosovo invasion of Macedonia in 2001 and because of western arm twisting was granted an amnesty by the Macedonian government instead of facing war crimes charges in The Hague.

Vucic, in typical hyperbole, claimed that he too would be the target of a “Macedonian Style” Colour Revolution aimed at toppling him, even though the Colour Revolution was western backed and Serb assisted in the first place by Serb “internationalist” NGO Canvas run by the controversial and enigmatic Srdja Popovic, banned from entering Russia but who has lobbied on behalf of the Serbian state against Kosovo’s recognition and has aligned with nationalist politicians in the past.

What gives the game away is that there is no real conflict between Belgrade and Skopje is there have been absolutely no protests held outside the Serbian Embassy in Skopje by Macedonia’s leading “internationalists” including Jovanovski, Branko Geroski, Colour Revolutionaries Pavle Bogoevski, now a government MP. and Zdravko Saveski of the Levica (Leftist) Movement. Not one ! Strange internationalism !

SOAP OPERA - SPY SCANDAL - HIGH FARCE - RED HERRINGS:

Bogoevski only goes 25% Belgradist !

Pavle Bogoevski denies Serb Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic’s claim of fomenting protests against Serb President Vucic in Belgrade. Pavle Bogoevski has no history of protesting against Serb nationalism. He didn’t even throw a paintball at the Serb Embassy in Skopje during last year’s Colour Revolution protests in Macedonia. He is more likely to give Serb nationalism a free pass in Macedonia. He did nothing when Dacic made racist comments about Macedonians and Macedonia. Therefore the Dacic claims against Pavle Bogoevski were odd to say the least!

The whole saga is bizarre on a number of levels - first a Serb intelligence officer inside the parliament (but no protest outside the Serb embassy in Skopje over that by Bogoevski or Borjan Jovanovski or Branko Geroski or Vlatko Vasilj, Mirjana Najcevska and other leading Macedonian “internationalists” etc etc), which is obvious foreign interference; Dacic then justifying it by crazily blaming Bogoevski who then adds to the circus by admitting that as an “anti nationalist” he doesn’t protest against Serb nationalism but instead tells Dacic he is a “quarter Serb" (what relevance does that have?)

These are very strange “anti nationalists” in Macedonia who get attacked by the Serbian state with false accusations but don’t protest instead reveal their family tree has a Serb connection, hoping for some “empathy” and “cultural connection” with those in Belgrade. Truly truly bizarre, tv soap opera material ! Comedy Gold ! Seinfeld material 

In contrast these so called “internationalists” were willing at the drop of a hat to protest against a Croatian MEP Marijana Petir who barely just arrived in Skopje last year to endorse Nikola Gruevski. Vucic has endorsed Gruevski many times yet not one protest outside the Serbian Embassy in Skopje nor when outgoing Serb President Tomislav Nikolic was in Macedonia late last year. How odd?

THE CONTROVERSIAL LJUBOMIR DANAILOV FRCKOSKI:

Macedonia’s ex Interior and Foreign Minister, Frckoski, remains an enigma - a man with fingers in many pies: politician, pundit, “public intellectual” but a controversial figure, nonetheless. During his time as interior Minister in the 1990s he was accused by prominent British academic James Pettifer (see link) of being too close to Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic and Serbian intelligence in sanctions busting during the Yugoslavist wars. Frckoski is also a close associate of Borjan Jovanovski and a fellow member of the Helsinki Watch Committee in Macedonia. A strange place for a politician known for his heavy handedness in dealing with “dissidents.” during his time as Macedonia’s Interior Minister - see link here

According to a 1995 report compiled by 1st Lieutenant Preston V Murray, US Army’s 432d Civil Affairs Battalion, there was widespread corruption amongst Macedonia’s Border and Customs officials, who come under the control of the Interior Ministry. The US together with some Scandanavian nations were part of the UNPREDEP (United Nations Preventative Deployment mission in Macedonia) to monitor Macedonia’s border and to ward off possible Serb aggression. There were UN sections imposed upon the Milosevic regime coupled with a deliberate and nasty illegal Greek blockade against landlocked Macedonia in an attempt to strangle the nation to death. In order to survive, Macedonia partook in massive smuggling on behalf of Serbia. Serb intelligence was very active on Macedonian soil and as Pettifer explained (see above) there was collusion between Belgrade and Skopje. Moreover, there was collusion between Serbia (rump Yugoslavia) and EU/NATO member Greece during the Yugoslavist wars aimed at destroying Macedonia (see below).



MILENKO NEDELKOVSKI - Borjan Jovanovski’s nemesis.

The larger than life, bombastic Milenko Nedelkovski, a TV shock jock close to ex PM Gruevski, despite Nedelkovski’s fierce rivalry with arch-nemesis Borjan Jovanovski; he too like Jovanovski is also for Belgrade culture. That doesn’t really give you much “diversity” in modern Macedonian culture.

Here is a social media comment from Nedelkovski at the joint Vucic-McCain media conference - Nedelkovski expresses fury at Vucic “selling out” to the US and Vucic acquiescing to a Greater Albania at Macedonia’s expense.

THE RISE, SLIGHT FALL IN PARLIAMENT AND RISE AGAIN OF SELA!

Firebrand ethnic Albanian nationalist politician in Macedonia, Ziadin Sela, who coincidently threatened to burn down the Macedonian Parliament in 2012, in playing the tough guy went off script and revealed the following to Balkan Insight website:

“He is not worried, either, by Zaev’s statement to the Belgrade-based paper Kurir, in which he called the Serbs “our brothers”, which has upset many [non-Slavic] Albanians, few of whom view Serbia so benignly. 

“I don’t care if the Serbs are his brothers or his nephews as long as he respects the agreements he has made with his Albanian partners,” Sela added.

Meaning he didn’t buy the Vucic-Zaev showdown. What’s also interesting is despite being “attacked” during the parliamentary showdown on April 27 and images of his bright red bloody face and dragged out of the Assembly, he has miracoulsy and suspiciously made a very very speedy recovery despite the alleged severity of the assault.

Here Dutch journalist based in Tirana, the Albanian capital, Vincent Triest, tweets:

OTHER SCENARIOS EXPLAING THE SERB INTELLIGENCE OFFICER PRESENCE:

-- Belgrade going rogue - as in acting on its own in mischief making. Serbia deliberately playing off the Russians against the West in order to get the best possible deal, and using the Macedonian “scenario” to do so; or

-- a joint Greek-Serb intelligence operation in deliberately planting the Serb intelligence officer in the Macedonian parliament; this fits in with standard Serb intelligence operations of using agent provocateurs or false flags, inherited from the federal Yugoslav intelligence service, the dreaded UDBa (or SDB) which successfully planted agent provocateurs abroad in undermining the emigre Croatian and Macedonian communities. Belgrade and Athens have a long standing relationship in intelligence sharing and cooperation. 

PAST FALSE FLAG OP

Bilateral defence consultations Greece-Serbia - 25 May 2016

Quote: “[Serbian] Captain Konjikovac thanked Greece for the continued support to the strategic goals of Serbia’s foreign policy.” link here 

PAST ACTIVITIES:

In the early 1990s, Serb and Greek intelligence conspired in what was known as Operation Samaras’s Pincer to destabilise Macedonia. see link here

link here 

In 1985 the then Australian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, of which the Republic of Macedonia was a federal unit until independence in 1991, found there was collaboration between Athens and Belgrade in trying to undermine the Macedonian independence movement based in Australia. see link here 

-- What the Macedonian parliamentary incident reveals, and it is not mentioned in the Jovanovski article, is the internal conflict that exists within Serbian intelligence between those who are pro Russian and pro West. At the end of the day, both factions are “nationalistic” in their attitudes towards Macedonia. The leaking of material to NOVA by either Serb intelligence and or Macedonian intelligence (most likely source) may simply be an attempt by the pro West faction within Serb intelligence to undermine and destroy the pro Russian faction. Macedonia is simply a convenient pretext for achieving this and also implementing the Tirana Platform - killing two birds with one stone. Also, the Macedonian intelligence file mentioned in the Guardian newspaper story leaves out the long standing involvement of Serbian intelligence in Macedonia which predates Russian and Putin involvement. It sounds complicated when it shouldn’t be. In other words making the Balkans a nice neat package where borders can be changed much easily….which leads us to…

END GAME? Name change? Federalisation? Partition? GREATER ALBANIA?

What is the end game of all of these red herrings, stage-managed conflicts, false flags?

A number of clues exist. Firstly, by removing all effective opposition,  changing Macedonia’s name becomes easier; and 

Secondly, by tarring all opponents of the Albanian nationalist Tirana Platform, agreed to be implemented by Zaev, as Russian stooges, it allows for the platform to be rammed home and promulgated under the guise of pro western reforms to the judiciary, bureaucracy etc. with the end result of turning Macedonia into a federation: an Albanian republic in the west of the country which surely will seek to break away when a pretext is found or some other “crisis” manufactured, whilst a rump Macedonia is subsumed by Serbia or Bulgaria. In other words, “tidying up” the Balkans to US tastes. see link here 

In a throw away line at a US Congressional Sub-committee hearing, Balkan expert Professor Daniel Serwer posited an interesting scenario:

Hearing on The Balkans: Threats to Peace and Stability House International Relations Committee Subcommittee on Europe, Asia and Emerging Threats May 17, 2017 - link here 

Quote:

"Arrange for ethno-territorial partition of Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. The U.S. and EU could conclude that state-building in the Balkans within existing borders is impossible and embark instead on an effort to negotiate ethno-territorial partition of Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia, with the right of the resulting states to join neighboring states. This would require heavy diplomatic lifting on the part of the U.S. and likely also a deployment of thousands of U.S. and European troops to minimize the likelihood of associated violence. They would likely need to stay for that purpose for many more years, if not decades."

Going back to 1992 -  The United State’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) briefing paper on conflict in the former Yugoslavia - CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) “solution” is to change borders and exchange populations in the Balkans. link to CIA assessment paper here 

Ex CIA Chief in the Balkans and an advocate for Republika Srpska in Bosnia, Steven Meyer, made the following comment recently:

In Serbian:

Na pitanje kakva sudbina očekuje Makedoniju, Mejer odgovara: 

"Ako Crna Gora i Kosovo mogu da tvrde nezavisnost, smanjena Makedonija bi mogla takođe. Ali, to možda nije najbolji pravac delovanja za tu - manju Makedoniju. U tom slučaju bi za njih bilo mudro i da razmotre federalnu zajednicu sa Srbijom.”

English Translation: 

When asked what will happen to Macedonia, Meyer responds:

"If Montenegro and Kosovo can claim independence, rump Macedonia could also. But it might not be the best course of action for that - rump Macedonia. In that case the order for them to be wise is to consider a federal union with Serbia.” see link here 

US INTELLIGENCE TURF - Macedonia

The Russian presence in Macedonia remains at strong influence peddling level, which is what most nations do anyway, especially if they have a specific foreign policy agenda.

Macedonia is firmly in the Western camp. You might recall the Khaled El Masri rendition / torture scandal from 2003.

The innocent German Lebanese man arrested in Macedonia at the behest of the United States and handed over to the CIA. El Masri was taken to Afghanistan and “rendered" on the mistaken belief he was an Islamic terrorist. 

The European Court of Human Rights later awarded El Masri compensation when he sued the Republic of Macedonia and was scathing in its judgment of El Masri’s mistreatment. link here 

2012 EUROPEAN Court on Human Rights ruling on the Khaled El Masri case: Macedonian intelligence (UBK) routinely consulted with the CIA…over counter-terrorism. 

THE 2001 ETHNIC ALBANIAN UPRISING IN MACEDONIA - who engineered it?

According to the same Guardian Newspaper, the war in Macedonia was the consequences of US support for the Kosovo Liberation Army, which then decided to “chance its arm” and grab territory in adjoining Macedonia. see link

When that failed, as in the Macedonian security forces got the upper hand after starting on the back foot, the US and NATO intervened to save their political clients in Macedonia. A lot of the current tensions, traumas in The Republic of Macedonia come from this period. Ali Ahmeti the ringleader was never brought to justice, instead rewarded for starting a war. The point is now largely irrelevant if he has aligned with VMRO-DPMNE or SDSM.

The Ohrid Framework Agreement, nothing more than a face saving gesture for the US support of the KLA in Macedonia, is death by a thousand cuts for Macedonia. see link

The Tirana Platform is the coup de grace to the Macedonian state - the road to federalisation and partition between Kosovo and Serbia -  or if that doesn’t tickle you fancy, then Kosovo and Bulgaria.

LOYALTY TO THE WEST - the notion that successive governments of the Republic of Macedonia have “strayed” towards Moscow is a fantasy, considering the tiny nation’s contribution to NATO missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. But that loyalty has been a one way street. Macedonia is now being forced to change its name to accommodate NATO member Greece for no other reason than Greek chauvinism towards Macedonia. 

 UPDATE -

The Life of Brian and the False Flag - but wasn't there an alleged "Russian-Serb" intelligence link in the Macedonian Parliamentary violence on April 27?

After all Borjan Jovanovski and his crew from Nova TV and the Serb KRIK said so! Ironic & symbolic it was a joint Macedonian and Serb reporting effort (hint at cultural "union" here?)

Isn’t it odd for young Brian Hoyt Yee of the US State Department to be attending the inauguration of Serb President Vucic? After all Vucic’s intelligence officer is allegedly at the centre of the “controversy." 

The officer in question couldn’t have gone rogue but was following orders from his government in Belgrade. You would think young Brian would “boycott" the event not endorse Vucic's inauguration unless..... of course the whole incident was......heaven forbid.....

....a red herring, a false flag set up by Greece & Serbia at the US's behest? Could that be a plausible "explanation?"