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Forget Federalising Macedonia, Says Albanian Party Chief
Forget Federalising Macedonia, Says Albanian Party Chief
Ethnic Albanian party leader Ali Ahmeti told BIRN that calls to federalise Macedonia are impractical, and dismissed claims that his DUI is a poodle of the ruling VMRO DPMNE.
Ali Ahmeti, leader of the Democratic Union for Integration, the long-term junior party in the Macedonian governing colaition, has come out against growing calls in the ethnic Albanian community for federalisation, calling the idea impractical.
Ahmeti said dividing Macedonia into two federal units would be tricky because so many people live in ethnically-mixed environments.
“To discuss such topics, you must know the configuration, the geography of a country, its settlements,” he told BIRN in an interview.
“How can you create a federation or confederation in which these two [federal units] have defined borders and territories?” he asked.
Ahmeti, who led an ethnic Albanian guerrilla force in Macedonia during a six-month insurgency in 2001, said the best solution remained full implementation of the internationally-brokered Ohrid Framework Accord of 2001, which guaranteed more rights to Albanians who comprise at least a quarter of the population.
The Ohrid Accord, in theory, Ahmeti said, should solve the main problems between Macedonians and Albanians, “so that the two communities are equal”.
However, Ahmeti concedes that 15 years after the signing of the deal, implementation in some areas has become stuck.
“We still have so much work to do,” he said. “In reality, it’s normal to face difficulties, obstacles.”
Regarding calls to make Albanian an official language throughout Macedonia, not just in areas where Albanians are numerous, Ahmeti predicted that this will happen “very soon” and is “just a matter of time”.
He dismissed accusations that ethnic Macedonian politicians have duped his party into accepting the current solution whereby Albanian is the second official language only in those municipalities where Albanians make up more than 20 per cent of the population.
Not a ‘servant’ party
Ahmeti, whose DUI party entered the government led by Nikola Gruevski's VMRO DPMNE party in 2008, says his party rightly decided to stay in government, even after the opposition last year revealed wiretaps which suggested top officials had engaged in a range of serious crimes.
“People voted for us to represent them. They do not vote for us to walk the streets… Our absence from this government would cause a completely different situation... with uncontrollable, chaotic implications for Macedonia and for the DUI,” Ahmeti said.
Ahmeti denied ethnic Albanian opposition claims that the DUI had become a servant of the main ruling VMRO DPMNE party.
Last month, DUI MPs joined those from the main ruling party in voting to dismiss opposition ministers from the interim government, which had been tasked with organizing early elections, now postponed.
“The DUI is not a servant to VMRO-DPMNE or to the SDSM [the opposition Social Democrats]. The DUI tries to fulfill its own platform,” Ahmeti said.
He said the party’s actions on the ground showed that its policies were not always in line with those of VMRO DPMNE.
“We did not support VMRO over June 5 [the early election date sought by VMRO DPMNE],” he said.
“After the presidential pardon [controversially issued on April 12] we sat with international representatives and VMRO-DPMNE on and told Gruevski that the DUI will not participate in the June 5 elections because our party does not want to participate in internationally disputed elections.”
The Kumanovo clashes
Turning to the bloody shootout in May 2015 in the town of Kumanovo between ethnic Albanian gunmen and police, which left 18 dead, Ahmeti says there was not much he could do to halt the two days of violence.
“It’s still a mystery to me who organized, planned, encouraged it. I have stated several times that I know some of them [the gunmen]. They were my soldiers [in the 2001 conflict]. I feel sorry for them, their lives and their families,” Ahmeti said.
Ahmeti said the group had contacted him on the day, as the clashes started, but by then it was too late for him to prevent an escalation.
“They called me and I did as much as I could do,” Ahmeti said. However, he added: “By 10am, three policemen had been killed and things had already gone too far. Afterwards, all efforts were focused on how to halt the fighting but those [the gunmen] inside had to take that decision… And they asked to surrender.”
Ahmeti repeated that if the gunmen had contacted him earlier he would have advised them not to resort to armed action.
However, he dismissed speculation that Gruevski’s embattled government in effect staged the shootout, to distract attention from the mounting pressure on VMRO DPMNE created by the opposition’s release of the wiretaps.
“I do not believe the rumours, many of them being directed against me,” he said.
“They say Ahmeti betrayed them [the gunmen] and Ahmeti was the traitor. Had they contacted me and asked me… they would not have made such a move because it was not a well-thought or analysed move,” Ahmeti said, regarding the shootout.
He also denied that he was not welcome in the Albanian part of Kumanovo that was devastated by the fighting, and said he had not visited the area because of his busy schedule.
“The important thing is that the houses [damaged in the shootout] have been reconstructed,” Ahmeti insisted.
Ahmeti said it was also not the DUI’s fault that no ethnic Albanian judges are involved in the sensitive trial of the Kumanovo gunmen. Ethnic Albanian judges had themselves hesitated to become associated with the trial, he said.
“In highly dangerous [court] processes, people hesitate before getting involved,” Ahmeti noted.
Regarding claims made by lawyers of the 29 suspects, that their clients have been physically abused in detention, Ahmeti insisted that his party is monitoring their treatment through the Justice Ministry and the Ombudsman’s office, which the DUI controls.
“We have taken measures so that this [abuse] does not occur. According to the information I have from the Ministry of Justice, such cases can’t occur. If there are any, they [the police] can be punished,” he said.
While admitting that past court cases against ethnic Albanians in Macedonia had “looked suspicious” because the trials “lacked transparency” and seemed like “political set-ups”, Ahmeti insisted that the judiciary in Macedonia was not under political pressure, and that his party was doing its best to reform this sector, acting on EU recommendations.
- See more at: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/arti....QQWqTLu7.dpuf
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Originally Posted by Aemilius
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