3 - 28 August 1998

Agenda item 8

Prevention of discrimination against and the protection of minorities

Statement by the Transnational Radical Party

NGO in general consultative status

18 August 1998

Delivered by Olga Cechurova

Mr. Chairman,

We are living in times when fundamental ideological and structural changes are under way on the international scene, when the interethnic conflicts prevail more and more, when there are strong tendencies for domination of one ethnic over the other. Therefore, the term of minorities is quite disputable and the protection of minorities is very sensitive issue today.

In the states, which are now passing through the transition, the rights of minorities is understood as somehow limited, minimized rights, less than the usual rights. In these new countries, where the interethnic relations are in difficulties, the rights given to national minorities are limited and are in fact the segregation rights while the dominant community enjoys the standard rights. On the other hand, the scheme for the national minorities is disputable. The relativity of this aspect leads often to paradoxical conclusions.

For example, the Albanians in former Yugoslavia were living in their compact territories, where they were in absolute majority. Although in total numbers they were the third nation after the Serbs and Croats, politically they were treated as a minority. Besides the Albanians, also Slavic Macedonians, Montenegrins, Bosnians or other nations were in minority. This example shows that ephasizing one nation as a minority is leading to domination by and segregation from the ruling nation.

After the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, the Albanians are split into several new administrations: Montenegro, Serbia, Kosova and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. This engineering resulted in the situation that one nation, formerly living in two compact territories - Albania and the former Yugoslavia - is today dispersed into the different administrations where it is treated as a minority.

Albanians in Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) represent 23% of the whole population according to the official registrations; according to other sources they amount at least 1/3 of the population. In some regions, geographically linked with Albania and Kosova, Albanians are autochthon nation and constitute an almost absolute majority. Though the FYROM is a multiethnic state, the government of FYROM declares itself as a national state of Macedonians, where the only official language is Macedonian and the only official religion Orthodox. According to this concept, Albanians are treated as a minority, it means as a community, for which the rights are segregated, limited.

The interethnic crisis in this State are caused by the strong tendencies attempting the categorization of the ethnic: The majority and the minority, in means those given more rights or less rights.

In some multiethnic States where one ethnic intents to dominate the other, some nation is by purpose caricaturized as minority, despite the fact that neither the history, amount, nor the other elements can legitimate the concept of giving more rights or limited rights

The aim of such tendencies in FYROM appears to be to deny the rights of Albanians, restrain their cultural and national development and speed up the process of their definitive assimilation.

The Parliament of FYROM is functioning on the basis of the over-voting system, where the Macedonian majority always over-votes the Albanian minority. So the dominant Slavic Macedonians are winning the right to coordinate and plan the way in which Albanians will develop their identity in FYROM.

In the multiethnic systems, this majoritarian democracy legitimizes the right of the national majority to marginalise national minority, bringing back the segregation in political scene. For example in FYROM, Albanians are obliged to communicate with the government officials only in Slavic Macedonian language, write their names in Cyrillic alphabet which is phonetically less advanced than Albanian Latin alphabet. In this way, not only the right to use Albanian language is denied, but also the phonetic structure is changed.

This linguistic hegemony in FYROM is only the top of the iceberg. The human rights abuses are legitimized on the pretext of different standards for national minority. There are clear discriminatory practices regarding education. The University of Tetova is not recognized by the authorities, because the courses are in Albanian language, despite the fact that this institution respects and works according to regulations of the education system of the FYROM.

In FYROM all the institutions are presented as Macedonian: television, opera, theatre, football. These tendencies generate the continuing crisis and create antagonism in the interethnic relations. This national point of view is creating national possession, which leads to legitimized segregation of the national that is characterized as a minority and opens the door for the ethnic conflict.

Because of this engineering, Albanians, who amount to 1/3 of the population of FYROM, are present by 1/30 in the public life and in state administration. FYROM is an example of the legal segregation of one nation on the basis of the status of national minority, or in another worlds the category of the population which has to have less rights regarding linguistic, institutions, democratic presentation in the administrations, and work

In this relation, the roots of the discrimination and segregation should be found to put an immediate end to the situation, which creates the tensions that destabilize FYROM and the entire region. The solution, which prevents the conflict effects of the national engineering in the multiethnic countries, is the principle of the consensual democracy or that of the federalization.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.