Macedonia del Norte (Continuación)

Macedonia at the Crossroads

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“Have you ever been stuck in an elevator?” a Macedonian politician asked me recently. We were in Skopje, his country’s capital, where huge public protests have raged over the last year, including demonstrators occupying the government square and, in the Parliament, a nearly yearlong boycott by the political opposition. “Can you imagine being stuck like this for 20 years? This is what happened to us.”

He had a point. Macedonia, a Balkan country of some two million people, roughly 30 percent of them ethnic Albanian, managed to steer clear of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, but that doesn’t mean it has been tranquil.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Last year, I turned down an ambassadorial posting to Moscow and ended my 18-year diplomatic career. Serving my government and my country, Macedonia, had become very different things, and I felt there wasn’t much I could do from within to make a difference. Recent events have only reinforced this view. Once praised as a success story in a region riven by war, Macedonia is in crisis and urgently needs European Union intervention.

In February, Zoran Zaev, head of the opposition Social-Democratic Alliance for Macedonia, or SDSM, accused Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski of orchestrating the illegal surveillance of some 20,000 people, including judges, foreign ambassadors, opposition politicians, journalists and police officials.…  Seguir leyendo »

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In reacting to Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine, President Obama has reassured exposed NATO members Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia of firm U.S. support, but he has shown little inclination to show needed leadership by putting another integral element of NATO policy on the agenda of September’s Cardiff summit: enlargement of the alliance. Obama’s hesitation, which has allowed NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to put off the question of enlargement until next year, is unwise and unnecessary.

NATO enlargement, a bipartisan effort that has spanned the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, has been one of the most successful U.S. foreign policy achievements of the past two decades.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Angelina Jolie’s new film, “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” is about the ethnic tensions that produced the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II. The film has already won two awards and is an emerging box-office success, attesting to the enduring interest – and perhaps mystery – that the Balkans hold for international audiences who were as horrified as they were confused by the events of the 1990’s.

For those of us who lived and worked in the region during that turbulent decade, the post-Yugoslav wars remain fresh wounds. As Jolie’s film so ably shows, neither the international community nor local leaders made a concerted effort to prevent bloodshed.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Por Gregorio Morán (LA VANGUARDIA, 29/07/06):

Si a Ankara hay que verla como ciudad musulmana emergente y centro de un planeta en expansión como es Turquía, ¿qué pinta Tetovo? ¿Dónde demonios está Tetovo? Para acercarse a Tetovo, primero hay que situarse en los Balcanes, un volcán de erupciones periódicas. Luego ir a Macedonia, ese país cuyo solo nombre provocó una confrontación con Grecia, que tiene por capital una bonita ciudad provinciana llamada Skopje, y que constituye una de las sociedades más conflictivas de la explosiva región balcánica. Porque Macedonia es un país con dos sociedades, dos religiones, dos lenguas, dos maneras de ser, dos tradiciones, y así sucesivamente en todas las facetas de la vida, y eso sin contar otras minorías de turcos, búlgaros, gitanos...…  Seguir leyendo »