The Referendum Further Away

The document was also signed by Gerd Arens, the President of the CSCE Commission for the rights of national communities and the CSCE representative in Macedonia. Ristic promised that Macedonian Serbs will solve their problems within Macedonian institutions, but it was also proposed that education will be conducted in Serbian in primary schools where there are 15 and in secondary schools where there are 25 applicants. The Government also accepted a possibility for having the media in Serbian. A principal agreement was reached that Serbs are included in the Republic's Constitution, but it was stressed that this falls under the competency of the Parliament.

Nebojsa Tomovic, the President of the Association of Serbs and Montenegrins in the Former Yugoslav Republic Macedonia stated that the members of the Association were somewhat confused since they were not sufficiently informed about what had been agreed and signed. The Association issued an announcement in which it was said that the Serbs will hold meetings in all places where they live and analyse the document, which they consider not to be obligatory until the Association has adopted, i.e. ratified it.

The document contains several technical traps. E.g., the quota of 15 students applying for education in the Serbian language is certainly acceptable, but what if there are only 12 applicants? The authorities could simply ignore them, but if the state truly cares about the rights of the national minority it should provide transport to the place where there are enough Serbian students. This document does not represent the act of law, but it could be a show of good will both on the part of the Macedonian authorities and of the local Serbs. The Government has basically found a solution to one ethnic problem, although it is not by far as burdensome for this young state as the Albanian question. If Serbs realise their other rights the authorities will be able to refute all claims that Serbs are second class citizens in the Former Yugoslav Republic Macedonia. By the same token, a demand to hold a referendum where inhabitants of Kumanovo and the region of Skopska crna gora would decide in which state they want to live would become unjustified. International recognition of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, future economic prospects and the Americans, as safeguards of not only the country's northern border, have significantly changed the situation. However, it is of crucial importance for the stability of this country in the heart of the Balkans that it solves its interior problems, more specifically ethnic relations, independently and according to the highest European standards.

What do Serbs in Macedonia want? Ristic appealed to a number of Macedonian and international institutions with evidence that in 1960/61 there were 36 primary schools in Macedonia with education in Serbian, whereas there were only 15 thirty years later. Today there is not one secondary school in Macedonia where classes are taught in Serbian. Secondary education stopped being conducted in Serbian in 1986 with a false explanation that no one was interested in it. Not one paper is published in Serbian since `the press arrives from Belgrade.' However, Belgrade papers can be obtained only in Kumanovo and in the centre of Skopje. It is apparently in the interest of this country that the local population of Serbian nationality is informed exclusively about the local, that is Macedonian affairs. Serbs are also denied TV and radio air time, the Democratic Party of Serbs pointed out. They demand a high degree of cultural autonomy, such as is already granted to Turks and Gypsies, but the Macedonian side perceives this once to often as ``an integral part of the well known Greater Serbian scenario.''

The Democratic Party of Serbs, together with some hard line nationalist parties from Serbia, claims that there are more than 200,000 or even 300,000 Serbs in Macedonia. According to data from the publications of the Federal Statistics Bureau there were 44,159 Serbs in Macedonia in 1991, which means that every 45th citizen of the present Former Yugoslav Republic Macedonia declared himself a Serb. Meanwhile, with the pull out of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) the number of Serbs was reduced, but got eventually enlarged by the number of those who formerly declared themselves Yugoslavs, or the awakened nationalist feelings of children from mixed marriages... In any case, true figures will be established in the announced 1994 census, which will be monitored by the international community.

In the late seventies, the number of Macedonians in Serbia exceeded the number of Serbs in Macedonia. There were 48,986 Macedonians registered in Serbia in 1981, and 47,577 during the last census. It means that 0.05 per cent of the entire population in Serbia are Macedonians. They have not founded their own association, nor have they demanded that Macedonian be used in affairs of the church.