Macedonia: Media Coverage of Relations between Macedonians & Albanians

Monitoring Period (April 1 - 30, 2001)

By the Institute for Sociological, Political and Juridical Research

Coordinated by Mirjana Najcevska, PhD Production team: Marija Stankovska, Sasko Todorovski, Blerim Koljali

The ongoing armed conflict in Macedonia dominated all other issues in the local media during April

Events such as Macedonia's signing of a "Stabilisation and Association Agreement" with the European Union, as well human rights issues, have been widely under-reported. For instance, the accession to the Council of Europe's conventions, related to regulations of the interstates' relations concerning the legal status of children, was marked with a rather short report. International Roma Day, on April 8, was reported by only a few quotes of Roma politicians on the position of Roma in Macedonian society. In all the fuss, the media even "forgot" to take proper note of the 10-year anniversary of the World Press Freedom Day.

Ethnic issues dominated media coverage, yet with a disappointing result: in all the analyses and comments, the human rights and freedoms were last on the list of subjects of interest.

The topic of the month is, no doubt, the government daily Vecer (Evening), which adopted the role of a "crusader" against the "bad Albanians" and their international collaborators in the general "Anti-Macedonian Conspiracy". Vecer journalists visited the infected areas in Macedonia and Kosovo, their April visits including Preshevo Valley (Serbia), Albania, and Montenegro. These "truth missions" clearly revealed the inevitability of Albanian aggression on Macedonia from all possible directions.

For Vecer, the only issue to be resolved is whether the final goal is a "Greater Albania" or a "Greater Kosovo". They claimed that the ethnic Albanians in the region were united in their hatred of ethnic Macedonians, and blamed too "Dutch mercenaries" and UK and German instructors of the Albanian paramilitary "gangs".

The Vecer list of "anti-Macedonian international collaborators and sponsors" is very long. Most prominently featured are: EU commissioners - Javier Solana, Chris Patten, the German "axis" - Joshka Fischer, Bodo Hombach, followed by the ambassadors in Macedonia - Ajnic, Tesheira, but also KFOR and UNDP etc. On the "good" side firmly stands the British coupling - Lord Robertson of NATO and British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, supported by US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, who stand out against such an international enterprise of fraudulent fantasy.

The demonisation of Albanians basically goes along two lines. One is via stereotypes, and the other is by exposure of their so-called ultimate goals. The Albanians are portrayed through their archetype: the backward and criminal factor in the society, deeply involved in trafficking human sex slaves (not only women but children as well) and in smuggling just everything - from drugs to weapons. As a pretext, always used are the quotes from Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilisations (and the Remaking of World Order), which conclude that Muslim-Orthodox Cohabitation is simply - impossible. Subsequently, one makes a great discovery: "...The same people at one moment pose as warriors, and the very next - they appear as terrorized Albanians. At one moment they are shepherds, but the very next - they are the people deploying landmines...".

Subsequent observations reached are that it isn't only Macedonia which is befogged and befooled by these "double-faced devils", but the entire international community. Their end is clearly a rogue state without any laws except for the rule of Mafia. Unfortumnately, this rogue state incorporates a significant part of Macedonia.

At the beginning of April it was also very visible that the intention of Vecer was to appeal to all Macedonians to unite themselves against the coming war and forget all the scandals that were shaking the government coalition. At the end of April, this took the form of discrediting anyone who spoke against the Government, by labeling their criticisms as "filthy lies", calling them "war profiteers" and in case of critics coming from the then opposition party - SDSM - that party's "mistakes" were dug up from the past. This approach was "balanced" with by now unrecorded favorable treatment of other national and ethnic minorities - Turks, Roma and even Serbs (previously treated as perpetrators of the Milosevic regime). All of a sudden these minorities were presented as very constructive in their requests for avoiding bi-nationalism of Macedonia, as well as deserving of more attention.

The independent daily Dnevnik is a different story. In accordance with the newspaper's routine, they have been reporting on the current events in a rather neutral way, yet giving them clear attention by posting them on the first four pages. Nevertheless, they never stopped informing about numerous, mostly financial, scandals of the ruling coalition. Their criticism, as well as that by other media (TV A1 and daily Utrinski Vesnik), had a strong impact on the overall public opinion, thus forcing the government Cabinet to undertake certain (political, not legal) procedures against its members.

Ongoing terrorist activities and their armed conflicts with the Macedonian security forces raised questions with regard to interethnic relations. Dnevnik hinted at three intriguing topics: the links between terrorists and the (Albanian) Mafia, the damage caused by these events and how they are reflected in all the areas of the still fragile Macedonian economy, and the strong comparison of the position of the Albanian minority in Macedonia to the position of Macedonian minorities in neighboring states.

Utrinski Vesnik emphasized the ex-president Kiro Gligorov's slogans "We should implement everything that is written in the Constitution; and not go beyond", and "Generations fought for this State; now we witness occupation" (it is not clear by whom). The conclusion made by one columnist was: "Only the Macedonian people live on their home territory - Macedonia; others are minorities and ethnic groups".

The fairest debate concerning the interethnic relations in Macedonia was conducted in Dnevnik, and saw a number of articles written by independent columnists, and published especially in its Saturday editions, as well as in its Citizens' Letters.

A similar recipe, however, was also used by Utrinski Vesnik and the Albanian language weekly Lobby. All three paid careful attention to having as many representatives of the "other side" as possible - Lobby looked for ethnic Macedonians, while the other two looked for Albanians as well as Vlachs, Serbians or Roma.

But the practice and success of this formula could be interpreted differently. In Dnevnik the opinions or letters by ethnic Albanians were quite often burdened with strong language, always incorporating open insults or threats. There are numerous examples of wording such as "if the requests are not accepted the terrorists would strike again" or "if not, there would be unthinkable consequences for all the people in Macedonia". Some of them were even justifying the terrorist acts, while the statement (given to Lobby) by a Hisni Shakiri contained an open declaration of the capacity for activating their "army" (not if, but when) the political dialogue fails. According to Mr Shakiri, "...the duty of every Albanian in good health is to pick up a gun and seek a solution through the gun-sight, because the Macedonian side has been deaf for ten years to the rights and demands of Albanians...".

One of the alleged leaders of the NLA, one Mr. Xavit Hasani, is more formal in his declaration for Fakti (April 27): "...I appeal to all Albanians wherever they are to respond to the NLA Headquarter's call for mobilisation for war and deliberation and equality of the Albanian people in the FYR of Macedonia...".

The only exception was a letter, printed both in Dnevnik and Utrinski Vesnik, by the Saiti couple, which openly stressed their unwillingness to be identified with the terrorists, condemning the use of force and insisting on early prevention of the conflict in order to safeguard the interethnic cohabitation. In Utrinski Vesnik this letter provoked a lot of response by ethnic Macedonians advocating harmonious interethnic relations based on their own positive experiences.

Among Macedonian contributions to the debate in print, prevailing were the positive thinkers and those with constructive suggestions, although all were generally burdened with emotions. Yet one of the published articles by an occasional columnist, Mimoza Ristova-Vasova, teetered on the very edge of "hate speech". She "discovered" that the ethnic Albanian women live in a sort of sex and family slavery. Even if the article was meant to be an appeal for liberation and emancipation of the ethnic Albanian women, the timing of its writing was , to say the least, very dubious. A week later it met with a very bitter, insulting response by an ethnic Albanian, Fahrija Morena.

Despite their efforts to report events neutrally, Lobby and the government paper Fakti, which are both published in Albanian, could not resist the temptation to present the ongoing events from the stand-point of "victimized" ethnic Albanians, and the ethnic Macedonians as the "usurpers of their rights". In Fakti 's issue of April 28, there is an interview with a representative of the Islamic Community who, inter alia, says:

"...the then fascist Serbian politics wanted to present the discontent of the Albanian population - stemming from Serbian colonialism - as Albanian fundamentalism. Naturally, these politics failed and the same politics of some Macedonians trying to fulfill those Serbian goals will fail also..."

Fakti went further by presenting some of the terrorists (always using terms such as "armed Albanian forces or groups") as heroes of the Albanian cause. For instance, the edition of April 17th reveals a speech delivered during the funeral of two "NLA fighters":

"...This blood, that made the freedom altar red, is blood of the sons and daughters of this area and an oath of our ancestors; an oath showing us how goals should be realized and fulfilled entirely...".

Lobby was more sophisticated and analytical and in some articles expressing clear disappointment with the "fact" that it took the armed conflicts in order to turn the Macedonian attention to the difficulties ethnic Albanians meet in their everyday life. Yet, exactly in Lobby a very offensive line was taken with regard to discrediting "the minorities in Macedonia" (Albanians, by the way, in their opinion, are not a minority), accusing them of raising their voices against the ethnic Albanians' requests for a bi-national approach after having kept silent during the entire period of Macedonian injustices against ethnic Albanians.

The government TV-station, Macedonian Television (MTV), mainly tried to report on the government's stand point without any attempts to at least project an image of a neutral approach. But things got worse with the end of the month killing of eight ethnic Macedonians, members of both the Police and the Army, in an ambush near Tetovo. These news went unreported in the news normally broadcast in Albanian language by the MTV's late night "Program in Albanian Language", so the slot was cancelled as a result. This was followed by the suspension of the programme's ethnic Albanian news-editor, based on claims that he was supporting terrorist activities.

The independent TV-station A1 tried to be quite informative, neutral but critical over the government's policy. The ongoing events were predominantly covered both by direct reporting and by reporting on all the issues related to the ongoing crisis. Although on only one occasion, they still invited one of the Vecher's "crusade" journalists, Miss Natasha Dokovska, to report on her "discoveries in Albania" directly in A1's top-news. Nevertheless, they could still be commended for their reporting, especially if compared to MTV.

source: http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr/bcr_20010608_4_hr_eng.txt 
published by: Roland Brunner rbr@medienhilfe.ch date of release on this site: 16-08-2001

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