Commission on Human Rights

Fifty-fourth session

Item 16: Rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities.

National engineering in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)

Oral statement submitted by the Transnational Radical Party, a non-govermental organization with general consultative status

Geneva, March 30th, 1998

Mr. Chairman,

Let me first mention the resolution of the last session of this Commission, which reaffirmed the obligation of States to ensure that persons belonging to minorities may exercise fully and effectively all human rights and fundamental freedoms without any discrimination and in full equality before the law in accordance with the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (E/CN.4/1997/16).

It is a well-known fact that there is discrimination of citizens in the world on racial, national, religious or linguistic grounds, it is also known that there are international standards aiming to prevent this repulsive phenomenon. But it remains very difficult to prevent the drastic, systematic or hidden human rights violations. This kind of violations are usually justified by claiming to protect the sovereignty of the state and its juridical system which legalizes the domination of a race, nation, religion or language over the others.

The state systems which are built on principles of racial, national, religious or language exlusivity are xenophobic ones where "the other" is considered and treated as a potential enemy who must be kept under surveillance or must be weeded out, marginalized or eliminated.

In the postcommunist countries with a multiethnic structure there is a process of replacing ideological exclusivity with national exclusivity. These social systems only pretend to be democratic since there is a metastasizing nationalism which causes the degeneration of democratic values: democracy is reduced to a mere voting procedure where the majority and dominant ethnic communnity eliminates or marginalizes the minority. In these transitional systems, the national engineering is applied in a legal way by the social system which works for the development of only one ethnic community and chokes down the other one.

These states which exclude some groups of citizens because of their different identity are anachronic states and are at odds with the global historic tendency that asserts the plurality of values, where "the other" ought to be tolerated and ought to have equal opportunities for progress. In these multiethnic, multinational, multireligious countries in transition, a battle is going on between the idea of a unitary centralized state and the idea of a federalist decentralized state. The Ex-Yugoslavia fell apart because the idea of national engineering met with serious obstacles; FYROM is experiencing the Ex-Yugoslavia disease for the same reason.

2. Ex-Yugoslavia

The Former Yugoslav Federation began to dissolve when the Serbian president Milosevic indulged in national engineering. He started replacing the consensed mechanisms with outvoting by the introduction of the "one man, one vote" principle according to which the Serbian majority would take the dominant position over the federal system. The other members of the Federation impossed this and the war broke out. The question of self-determination came about. The Yugoslav army, led by the Serbian majority's nationalistic ambition, supported the Serbian interests. So it attacked Croatia, ethnic cleansing was carried out in Bosnia, apartheid was installed in Kosova, all in line with the fatal national engineering.

3. FYROM

FYROM is a state in transition that enjoys benevolent support of all for its independence and its entering of European structures. But the FYROM can carry neither the conditions of the European standards nor the interior challenges. Let us focus your attention on the following problems, which obejectively cause the infringement of human rights over national and language basis.

FYROM has a multiethnic structure, where according to the last official reports at least 1/3 of the entire population are non Slavic Macedonians, mainly ethnic Albanians. In contrast to this interior diverse, the state according to its constitution is defined as the national state of Macedonians, while the others are categorized as citizens to whom according to the national climate the state cannot belong to.

According to article 7 of this constitution the official language in FYROM is the Macedonian language and its cyrilic alphabet, while the Albanian language and its latin alphabet are used only in the offices of the organs of the self-administration, but not in the offices of executive organs in the regions of the state where the absolute majority of the population are Albanians.

This definition is in collision with the inherited right of Albanians who in the previous constitutions used to be a constitutive element of the Republic, they used to have the right to use officially the Albanian language, in the Parliament too, to use their national symbols and to be represented proportionally in the government. But nowadays they do not have these rights anymore, or they have them in a very reduced way.

This definition is also in collision with the document of the Hague Conference and especially with the second chapter of Lord Carrington's Document on human rights which was approved by the government of FYROM, as was demanded by the Badinter Commission sent to Macedonia before it was accepted the right of FYROM for secession.

So after the falling apart of Yugoslavia the multiethnic FYROM became the national, unitary and centralized state of Macedonians. In this state it is systematically applied the national engineering in the functioning of the state, in the election system, in the division of the executive power, in the decision-making mechanisms, in employment, in planning, in urbanism, etc:

In the central executive organs the domination of the Macedonians is absolute. Because of the special provisions according to which an Albanian must gather three times as many votes as a Slavic-Macedonian in order to be elected into the Parliament, the Albanians are represented in the Parliament only with 1/6 of the seats. This obviously complicates the decision-making mechanisms, since the important decisions of the Parliament are approved by majority, when the Macedonian majority overvotes the Albanian minority and so the majority always achieves in a legal way to eliminate or marginalize the minority, even infringing the elemetary human rights.

In the local administration level, the most important attributes of the municipality are absent. The decisions of the Lord Mayor or the municipality have to be approved by the central executive organs. This situation is complicated in the multiethnic environments, since the central executive power is held mainly by Macedonians who take the position of the supervisors over the municipality, which means over the Albanians who are elected in these positions by the free elections.

It is also interesting to note that the Albanians take part in the public administration only with 3%. Also the planning and urbanism show that the regions inhabitted by Albanians are marginalized both in the aspect of the technological development and also in the infrastructure.

The tendency for the marginalization of Albanians which is applied through national engineering is also obvious in the sphere of education, culture and information.

After the secession of Yugoslavia, all Albanians objectively won the right of selfdecision. The Albanians of Macedonia are ready to cooperate fully in creating an independent Macedonia, but they insist that this state is defined as a multiethnic one, where the national and citizens equality is guaranteed. They are asking to be included in the system as citizens, as culture, as national value.

But also the last years' events, which were included in the final report of Ms. Elizabeth Rehn, such as the attack on the University of Tetova, killing a citizen, the imprisonment of the rector and other intelectuals, then the massive police violence in July the 9th 1997 towards citizens of Gostivar, killing of 3 Albanian citizens, the sentences over the deputies of the towns of Gostivar and Tetova for their will to return the inheritted right to use freely the national symbols, obviously show that the system of FYROM systematically exludes or marginalizes the Albanian value which seems to be incompatible with the national state of Macedonians.

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 which destabilize FYROM and all the 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.

The Transnational Radical Party therefore fully supports the final recommendations of the Special Rapporteur, Ms. Elizabeth Rehn, and requests this session of the Commission on Human Rights to take all the necessary steps to encourage the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to put in law and practice the equal rights of all its citizens.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.