Comment: Sasha Uzunov, Editor, Alternate Comms
The Vienna Convention (Article 41) of 1961 regulates diplomatic relations. It forbids foreign diplomats from interfering in the host nation’s internal affairs.
ARTICLE 41
– “Without prejudice to their privileges and immunities, it is the duty of all persons [diplomats] enjoying such privileges and immunities to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State. They also have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State.”
The US Ambassador to Macedonia, Ms Angela Aggeler, continues commenting on Macedonia’s elections for th its Presidency and Parliament. It is blatant psychological pressure being applied. The US wants whoever comes to power both as Head of State (President) and Head of Government (Prime Minister) to accept changes to Macedonia’s constitution being demanded by neighbouring Bulgaria, so that Bulgaria would drop its veto – tantamount to blackmail – over Macedonia’s push to join the European Union, of which Bulgaria is a member.
The first round of the Presidential election was held on April 24. A second round – a run off – will be on May 8 which also have the parliamentary elections to form a government. The first round of the Presidential election was won by Gordana Siljanovska-Dakova, sponsored by main Macedonian opposition party VMRO-DPMNE but as she fell short of obtaining 50% it will go to a second round. In second place was the incumbent Stevo Pendarovski, backed by SDSM.. The other candidates were eliminated. More on them later.
Pendarovski will probably receiving the backing of the ethnic Albanian vote. He is a US intelligence asset.
The current government, a coalition of SDSM (Macedonian Social Democrats) and a right wing Albanian nationalist party DUI came to power in 2017 in a soft coup sponsored by the US via an earlier so called “Colour Revolution.”
On 27 April 2017, a riot erupted in the Macedonian Parliament. This remains controversial, as to whether it was a false flag engineered by the US Embassy to discredit VMRO-DPMNE or not. But a coalition government of SDSM and DUI was formed, and DUI’s Talat Xhaferi elected as Parliamentary speaker under murky circumstances. Questions remain over whether there was a sufficient quorum to do so. The riot distracted from this.
That coalition government that emerged, was first led by Zoran Zaev as Prime Minister and later replaced by Dimitar Kovacevski. It has been deeply mired in crime and corruption. Polls suggest that SDSM / DUI coalition is on the nose with the public and VMRO-DPMNE is poised to win government. But it needs a minimum of 61 parliamentary seats to secure a majority. If it falls short, it will have to coalesce with other parties. General practice is for the leading ethnic Macedonian party to pair off with the leading ethnic Albanian party to form the government. DUI for the past 20 years has managed to be in government by coalescing alternatively with both VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM.
DUI’s leader by Ali Ahmeti, the man who launched a war in 2001 in Macedonia, ostensibly to carve our territory in western Macedonia, as part of a Greater Albania but then when the strategic initiative swung against him reinvented himself as a champion of Albanian civil rights in Macedonia.
Both DUI and the other Albanian parties, such as Besa and Albanian Alliance demand as their price for forming government constitutional changes demanded by Bulgaria and making Albanian the second official language in Macedonia, as well as elevating Albanians from being just a minority, which is what they are – to the level of a nation within Macedonia, which in effect means federalising the country and putting it on the path of partition.
VMRO-DPMNE: to win government?
The most important political question for Macedonia and Macedonians is not how many parliamentary seats can VMRO-DPMNE win on 8 May 2024 but will its leader Hristjan Mickovski accept the Bulgarian blackmail for EU entry? Yes or No?
“The elephant in the room,” so to speak, is the powerful US which demands that Macedonia accept the Bulgarian blackmail because it suits Washington’s strategic needs.
How Mickovski and VMRO-DPMNE will resist US pressure remains to be seen. Going on past events, in 2016 the US engineered a soft coup d’état to remove VMRO-DPMNE leader Nikola Gruevski under the guise of a “Colour Revolution” because Gruevski did not change Macedonia’s name to satisfy Greece, another important US ally.
Gruevski, to avoid jail time of “corruption,” fled to Budapest, Hungary (EU & NATO member) not Moscow, Russia meaning that he wasn’t a “Russian puppet” as some nonsensically claimed.
We know that SDSM is a US captured political party and its ally Albanian nationalist party DUI is a Neo Nazi party and US puppet.
The likely scenario is for VMRO-DPMNE to form a coalition government with an ethnic Albanian political grouping called VLEN, led by Arben Taravari who fronts his own party called Alliance of the Albanians, a right wing Albanian nationalist party.
VLEN is seen as a challenger to DUI’s Ahmeti but it is not over any great ideological disagreement or even economic policy but who can outdo each other in extremist Albanian nationalist demands, asking more and more “rights” from the majority Macedonia which in reality can never be met, in fact those demands not meant to be met. The objective is not Albanian “civil rights” – which are already guaranteed – but to make demands that can never be met and if they are met will lead to the disintegration of Macedonia.
SIGNALS
The US’s support of right-wing Albanian Neo Nazi extremists, DUI, is tacit support for a Greater Albania. US Embassy in Macedonia refuses to condemn the WW2 Albanian Nazi statues built in Macedonia by DUI. These statues symbolise a Greater Albania project which was put into brutal realisation in WW2 by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.
US forced Macedonia to change its name, give up an ethnic Macedonian minority in Greece and place prohibitions on what history can be taught in order to satisfy Greek demands for NATO and EU entry. US supports Bulgaria’s blackmail; and if fully accepted and implemented by any Macedonian government after these elections will set the country on the path of partition. There can be no doubt about this.
The intention was to put in place proxies who were willing to change Macedonia’s name in order to appease Greece to lift its veto of Macedonia joining both the EU and NATO. This is more to do with US strategic needs in keeping Russia out of the Balkans, rather than the national interest of Macedonia.
US NOW HOLDS “COPYRIGHT” ON MACEDONIA’S NAME?!
US through US Presidential Executive Order 14033 “criminalises” any attempts at criticising the Prespa Agreement signed with Greece and the 2001 Ohrid Framework Agreement which has embedded Albanian Neo Nazi ideology into the Macedonian state. And if the Bulgarian demand is accepted, that too will probably be included in a future US Presidential Executive Order.
US Presidential Executive Order 14033 can place foreign individuals on a “blacklist,” can freeze any assets held in the US; can in effect ban them from global banking and financial system, such as SWIFT.
In practical, everyday terms that means a “unique” Macedonian history can only be taught from 1944 onwards, because the US has deemed it to be “criminal” to teach outside these parameters. It is pure colonial arrogance, Orwellian.
No link to antiquity or even pre WW2 can be shown as being Macedonian but must be linked to Greece and Bulgaria. If you control educating the future generations of Macedonians, you’re in effect indoctrinating them to become “Bulgars.” That is the objective of Bulgaria’s demands. Getting control of the education system.
The US and EU support this. In fact demand that it be accepted if Macedonia wants to join the EU.
US State Department mandarin James O’Brien has been busy with some mini-shuttle diplomacy meeting with ethnic Albanian politicians from Macedonia on a visit to Washington and O’Brien visiting Macedonia in January 2024 to meet with Macedonia’s leadership.
The purpose of this is to make sure that whoever comes to power in Macedonia, whether it is the coalition of SDSM (Macedonian Social Democrats) and their right-wing Albanian Neo Nazi party DUI partner retaining power or the main Macedonian opposition party VMRO-DPMNE winning the election they obey the US diktat that they all support the constitutional changes that Bulgaria has demanded of Macedonia, in essence blackmail. Bulgaria has blocked Macedonia’s entry application for the European Union until it meets a set of demands: change its history to Bulgaria’s taste, include a Bulgarian minority, even though it has protections under the existing laws, into Macedonia’s constitution as a state-forming nationality!
The strategy is to use lawfare, eat Macedonia from within by using the constitution by making deliberate demands that can never be met.
Once Bulgaria is given what it wants, then it stands to reason the ethnic Albanian minority in Macedonia which officially stands at 25%, according to a controversial census held last year, will demand special status, most probably making Macedonia into bi-national state or a federation. The real figure of the ethnic Albanian minority is probably closer to 16 or 17% but the number has been inflated.
Everything in Macedonia in terms of government services and the bureaucracy is now bilingual even though there is no practical need for it. But this is what the US wants, which is why its proxies started the 2001 war. The US uses the ethnic Albanian factor as a way of blackmailing Macedonians into obedience.
It is not a new strategy. The Ottoman Empire, which ruled Macedonia for nearly 500 years until 1912, used the Albanian factor to keep Macedonians under control. In World War II, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany sponsored a Greater Albania which included a large slice of western Macedonia. Fascist Italy also initiated ethnic cleansing of Macedonians in that part by bringing in Albanian colonial settlers to change the ethnic composition.
If Macedonia does accept these constitutional changes, which means inserts a Bulgarian minority, then it sets Macedonia on the path of partition between a Greater Albania entity and Bulgaria. Make no mistake about it.
– MORE TO FOLLOW