Macedonia looks forward to arrival of marines

Mercantile recalculations and dramatic geo-strategic forecasts sprang up on Thursday after U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher's statement that the U.S. would send several hundred troops to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as part of a "UN observer mission", with the aim of preventing a possible "spilling over" of the war from the north. The Macedonian Government said on the very same day that it "accepted U.S. President Bill Clinton's initiative" and that its agreement was "an expression of the consensus among political parties and the mood of the Macedonian people".

Even before it became obvious that this was not just another insufficiently thought out verbal promise by the U.S. regarding the Balkans, Albania, Bulgaria and Serbia were quick to stress their interests. The most serious consequence of the diplomatic confusion which resulted after the announcement of Washington's new move, and following the wrangling over the Vance-Owen plan, is the second feebly disguised American-Russian conflict over the Yugoslav mess in a short time.

Russian Ambassador to Belgrade Genady Shikin visited Skopje in late May and tried unsuccessfully to persuade Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov not to accept the U.S. offer. "Our policy sometimes changes very quickly", Russian collocutors told VREME, explaining why Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev had first left the impression that he was agreeing unconditionally to the arrival of American troops to Macedonia, while Shikin a few days later practically threatened Gligorov to drop his new U.S. friends.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic did not have better luck on May 31, when, allegedly risking the ire of Greek Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis (his only benignant collocutor in NATO and the European Community), he offered Gligorov mutual recognition in exchange for Skopje's refusal to allow the deployment of U.S. troops in Macedonia within the UN framework.

Stabilization will not take place all that quickly, as can be seen from the latest Albanian warnings to the effect that Tirana has not agreed to the name "Slav Macedonia" as proposed by Athens in order to overcome the conflict which had arisen over Macedonia's change of name. The Albanian Government sent a letter to the UN Security Council President on June 8 saying that this name, "openly neglected the existence of a very strong ethnic Albanian community which accounted for practically 40% of the country's population."

Albania and Bulgaria both have strong "ethnic interests" in Macedonia and have often been suspected of eyeing it with territorial pretensions. Both countries, however, insist that Macedonia's greatest threat comes from the north. Albanian President Sali Berisha underlined the importance of America's military presence in Kosovo for preserving peace in the region in an interview to the "New York Times", and asked that the U.S. and NATO use their military force in order to turn the province into a "neutral area under UN control and free of the Serbian army".

Bulgarian Prime Minister Lyuben Berov is also seeking the key to peace in Macedonia. At the end of his visit to Skopje last Monday, he said that the eventual presence of U.S. troops in Macedonia would be "useful". Berov added that "the final preserving of peace depends on the further behavior and relations of the authorities in Kosovo". The Americanization of Macedonia could turn out to be an unpalatable step for Macedonia's territory-hungry neighbors.

Compared to Berov and Berisha who place the focus on a foreign, preferably U.S. intervention in Kosovo, the joint plan of action adopted by the UN Security Council's four standing members and Spain (Security Council president for April) in late May, takes a decidedly different approach. Item 10 says that it is of vital importance that all in the region realize that an aggression against Macedonia would have serious consequences, and underscores support for strengthening the presence of international factors in Macedonia, adding that the U.S. are considering their contribution to such an effort. The next item only requests the strict observing of human rights in Kosovo and cautions that "they do not support a declaration of independence".

Long term consequences of the first deployment of U.S. troops in a Slav country cannot be foreseen precisely, because as Svetozar Stojanovic, until recently advisor to former Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic, pointed out, various goals are possible, of which some "are now undefined but by starting a new process, open up new possibilities". Stojanovic told VREME that it made sense that the U.S. wished, with its presence, to achieve a balance in the new division of influences in the south of the Balkans which have arisen after Germany's emergence as a "dominant power" in the north - in Slovenia and Croatia.

The start of a new arrangement of Balkan states after the Cold war and their coming under of the sphere of influence outside political camps which resulted from the 1945 bargaining in Yalta between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt are greatly reminiscent of 19th century geopolitics.

Belgrade Institute for International Politics and Economy Director Predrag Simic believes that America's involvement in Macedonia could be viewed as ensuring a place in an area dominated by three factors: the Moslem, Russian and Central European (German). Simic underscored that top U.S. global goals include preventing "a return of vampires in Russia" and keeping the "Moslem threat" under control. Simic told VREME that America's presence "would change the environment and leave its stamp". He added that Washington's latest "Macedonian gambit" including the majority of U.S. moves with regard to the crisis in the Balkans did not contain sufficient "momentum" (internal energy). A small initial number of U.S. troops in Macedonia seem to bear him out.

Parts of the Sixth Fleet in the Strait of Otranto and in Albanian territorial waters could easily ensure total air superiority in the event that U.S. or NATO troops, starting from northern Albania and Macedonia were moved with the aim of cutting off Kosovo from the rest of Serbia. Several hundred Americans have arrived in Macedonia as "UN observers". Thirty-five "military advisors" entered Vietnam in 1950.

Serbia and its President are currently the international community's most hated apostates. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is looking down the barrel of the U.S. colt, just like Cuba, North Korea or Iraq. If new spheres of influence in the Balkans are determined, and a new "Berlin Wall" dividing the "'Red' Orthodox believers" (Russians, Romanians and Serbs) from the rest of the world is erected, Yugoslav citizens could find themselves living in a permanent fear of war with the United States.