Beware this Macedonian Crisis … It could grow into another Balkan Tragedy
As summer ended, Macedonia declared a state of emergency and temporarily closed its borders with Greece and Serbia. The small Balkan nation joined much of Europe in a panicked, poorly considered and awkwardly implemented response to the asylum tragedy. Macedonia is a bit player in that crisis, which is assuming the dimensions of a new Voelkerwanderung – a mass movement of people the scale of which has not been seen on the continent since the Roman Empire crumbled. But as summer turns to fall, Macedonia must quickly and constructively address its own domestic crisis, or risk violent confrontations.
Two shocks hit early this year: a scandal over leaked wiretaps that revealed a state apparatus captured and corrupted by the leading party; and a battle in the ethnically-mixed town of Kumanovo between police and ethnic-Albanian gunmen, many from Kosovo, that produced the region’s largest loss of life in a decade.… Seguir leyendo »