Dear Sir/Madam

On behalf of the League for Democracy, I take the liberty of drawing your attention to the following points, which are relevant for solving the problem about the international recognition of the Republic of Macedonia as a sovereign and independent state:

1) The Eurepean Community has been given the mandate by the United Mations and the Council of Security and Cooperation in Europe in order to contribute towards a peaceful, civiled and just outcome of Yugoslav crisis by its arbitration in controvervial matters which might appear in the process. It has not been authorized to get mixed and involved in anything concerning the international affairs of the republics, which constitued former Yugoslavia, such as - the existent borderlines, their governmental structures, statutes, etc., including the name of each republic. As an arbiter, the Community had to be completely impartial in all of its decisions.

2) With its Lisbon Declaration, the European Community exceeded the limits of the given mandate, by insisting that the Republic of Macedonia should change its name as a requirement for its recognition. The community also broke its own principles and criteria for recognition of the former Yugoslav republics and did not respect the conclusions the conclusions of its appointed Commision for Arbitration, presided by Mr. Robert Badinter. (May I remind you that this Commision had affirmed that the Republic of Macedonia did satisfy all the requirements for international recognition, stating that the name Macedonia did not imply territorial aspirations towards its neighbours).

3) Since it had often been explained that this Declaration was justified for taking account of interests pledged by only one of its own members, i.e. Greece, the European Community disqualified itself for its role as an impartial arbiter in solving the Yugoslav crisis, according to the old rule of law that "Nemo judex in causa propria" (i.e. No one could be a judge in its own cause). When the community started to solve some of its own problems, instead those emerging by the disintegration of Yugoslavia, it had changed itself from an arbitrary into a party in dispute.

4) In the light of commonly accepted and traditional priciples of the rule of law and international law, this fact imposes an extempion of the European Community for further arbitration in the procedure for international recognization of the Republic of Macedonia. Moreover, there is hardly need for such arbitration any longer: it nedds only to accept the conclusions already made by Mr Badinter's Commision. Namely, that

(1) the Republic of Macedonia satisfies all the requirements for international recognition and

(2) its name does not imply any territorial aspiration for its neighbours (which comprise provinces with the same name).

This will offer an opportunity for each state to consider its separate recognition of the Republic of Macedonia, within or without the European Community.

5) It is further necessary to stress the fact that even Greece, the most persistent adversary against the recognition of the Republic of Macedonia, by stating the precise proportion in which the territory of Macedonia was divided after the Balkan Wars in 1913 - 51% taken by Greece, 39% take by Serbia (and, consequently, by Yugoslavia in 1919), 9,5% by Bulgaria, etc. - has itself recognized the right to the Republic of Macedonia to have that name. Namely, if the divided country has been named Macedonia as a whole, it is quite clear that even this part of 39% of its total territory has legitimate right to be under that name. Furthermore, there is no other state in Europe, or - indeed - elzsewhere in the world, with the same name. Consequently, according to the maxim: "Qui prior est in tempore, potior est iure" (the prior in time, the stronger in right), the state which was first constitued by this name has older right to be called by it. Now there is doubt that the Republic of Macedonia is the first and the un

ique state constitued under this name.

6) It should be equally stressed that, if the requirement for changing its name were satisfied, the Republic of Macedonia would face a cultural genocide of its own people, followed by, as a consequence, loss of its own identity, for it would have been left without name, with nameless language, culture and tradition. If the Republic of Greece is accused, in the Annual Report of the USA State Department for 1991 and 1992, for human rights violation of the local Macedonian population (they are not allowed to cxall themselves Macedonians, and neither to speak their old native tongue - which once was the root of old Slavonic language, culture and civilization - nor to form their own organization for preserving their ethnical and cultural identity), the European Community is now to blame for the same offence, with its Lisbon Declaration, extendig the practice of Greek cultural genocide on all Macedonian nation.

I do hope that you will spare time and pay attention to these arguments. If so, please do everything you canand find necessary to avoid this formal "abolition" of an old, however small and helpless, European nation and this shameless humiliation of its state, which is forced to find a new, and stay without its own, name.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Georgi Marjanovic, President of the League for Democracy