FYROM "Leading Anti-Bulgarian Campaign"

[akritas]

Top news: 13 January 2007, Saturday.

A deliberate anti-Bulgarian campaign has been going on in Macedonia over the past five months, Krassimir Karakachanov, head of the VMRO nationalist movement said.

Karakachanov talked to Darik News about an incident from Saturday morning, when a group of Bulgarians commemorating a local patron were attacked in Macedonia. Some 40 people attacked those gathered to mark 79 years since the death of Mara Buneva, a revered fighter for the rights of the Bulgarians in Macedonia. The attackers were yelling "Die Bulgarians," and "Go away." They used rocks and metal pipes, hitting the people gathered to celebrate, who were mostly elderly. Most of the injured have already prepared medical statements, describing their injuries, so they can take the matter to court.

The attack was organized, Karakachanov said, adding that Macedonia's authorities are seriously ticked by the fact that more and more of their citizens apply for Bulgarian passports. He also commented that the number of Bulgarian unions in Macedonia is increasing and that bothers the government. "People start to openly express their Bulgarian national self-awareness and the government is helpless to do anything but lead campaigns against Bulgaria," he said.

Bulgaria should ask the EU and NATO to cut all talks with Macedonia until the Saturday attackers are identified, arrested and tried, Karakachanov added. The first thing that the country should do is serve Macedonia a very firm letter of protest, demanding that the organizers and perpetrators of the attack are caught, he added.

Someone in Macedonia has already carried the hatred too far in organizing such an action, but the question is why doesn't Bulgaria react firmly, Karakachanov fumed.

At present, police have increased their presence before Bulgaria's embassy in Skopje to prevent more violence.

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=75334

[Flipper]

Originally Posted by akritas

The attack was organized, Karakachanov said, adding that Macedonia's authorities are seriously ticked by the fact that more and more of their citizens apply for Bulgarian passports. He also commented that the number of Bulgarian unions in Macedonia is increasing and that bothers the government. "People start to openly express their Bulgarian national self-awareness and the government is helpless to do anything but lead campaigns against Bulgaria," he said.

I was talking to a guy working at our embassy, during the vacation. He told me that the problem are not the skops in FYROM but the diaspora. In FYROM, people have other things to bother about rather than posting about "Artificial Greece" and shit. If you gave some of those a greek passport they wouldn't hessitate considering the situation there.

[akritas]

Top news: 14 January 2007, Sunday.

Anti-Bulgarian moods in Macedonia are rapidly escalating with a second violent act just hours after a group of Bulgarians commemorating their local patron were beaten up in Skopje.

This time the culprits targeted patron Mara Buneva's monument, and they have pilfered the stone and burned all the flowers and wreaths laid Saturday to ashes.

Despite the harsh statements from the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, police in Macedonia seem to have done nothing to stop the anti-Bulgarian moods in the country and the second violent act has driven many Bulgarians to call for strict measures in return.

Macedonia's envoy to Sofia has been summoned to the Foreign Ministry to explain what is going on in his country, and he should appear before the authorities on Monday.

Skopje police have already questioned several youngsters, but there are no identified attackers, bTV reported. Macedonia's Interior Ministry refused to comment they didn't do anything to stop the violence on Saturday. The Bulgarians gathered to commemorate Buneva were attacked with pipes and rocks by an organized group of Macedonians yelling at them to "die" and "go home."

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=75361

[Tsontos]

Bloody Incident over Mara Buneva, the Assassin of Velja Prelich, Shocks Skopje, Stuns Sofia Again

A gang of extreme-nationalist bullies and thugs attacked Saturday a large group of mainly elderly people laying flowers on a plaque honoring - in the heart of downtown Skopje, the capital of Macadonia - a most controversial young woman, Mara Buneva. Focus News Agency wired that the Macedonian Interior Ministry has confirmed the incident. The police was, allegedly, alerted by anonymous call at 11:40, and it investigated "the case" in which, according their report, one person was slightly injured and was rendered medical assistance. The same wire reported from Sofia that the former Bulgarian Ambassador to Skopje Angel Dimitrov (1989 – 2002) stated to their correspondent that the fact this Bulgarians were brutally attacked during memorial service in honor to Mara Buneva was a part of the permanent anti Bulgarian campaign in Macedonia.

(Top pic: Graduating class of Macedonian Police Academy: You do not allow thugs beat people, especially not helpless people, and you act swift and sharp to prevent it, officers!)

It is a blatant fact that everybody, thugs, authorities, the diplomatic corps, the police, all parties: position and opposition, had to know and probably very well knew, that there will be wreath-laying and commemoration which probably will result with some sort of mess up. There is no shred of doubt about it.

The Macedonian Government is fully responsible for this incident and it has to accept the responsibility stoically.

The minister of interior of Macedonia (who probably was still in The Netherlands at the time, has either to get rid of the chief of Skopje Public Security or resign herself. The minister of foreign affairs has to extend the most acceptable form of diplomatic excuse for what had happened.

The Police has to detain the culprits and the justices rule against the gangsterism with swift action.

The confrontation flared when the spokesman of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry Dimitar Tsanchev told FOCUS News Agency. that tomorrow, Monday, January 15th, the Macedonian Ambassador to Bulgaria Abdurahman Aliti summoned to clarify the incident in Skopje,

“The incident proves that circles in the Republic of Macedonia continue conducting an active propaganda against Bulgaria. It clearly shows three things. First, some circles in neighboring Macedonia obviously prefer to live in the spirit of the past and to stay closed to the European values and standards. Second, today’s act of violence is a consequence of the anti-Bulgarian hysterics in the Macedonia media, which has been escalating recently and which insults the dignity of all Bulgarian citizens living in Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia, although the non-violation of human dignity is one of the fundamental human rights. Third, the tolerance of such acts against Bulgaria and Bulgarian citizens creates an unfavorable climate for the development of good neighborly relations. Such a behavior is unexplainable for us, having in mind the foreign policy priorities of Skopje�, Tsanchev stated.

The Bulgarian media published that: The envoy will have to tell the ministry why the local police didn't protect the Bulgarians and how come they allowed an organized attack on them. The gang that beat up the people gathered to commemorate Bulgarian revolutionary Mara Buneva had agreed to thwart the celebration through text messages in a TV show, media claim. Some of the witnesses told private bulgarian TV channel that among the thugs were many fans of the local Vardar football club. They were targeting the elderly people, the one who couldn't really protect themselves, a witness said.

The internet buzzes with most outrageous statements about Mara Buneva and her place in Macedonian or, better, Balkan history. Even YouTube dedicated a film clip taken during last year commemoration of Mara Buneva, a regular annual event of the past 5-6 years . That one features a "folk" (newly composed?) song about Buneva.

The question is: Why should Macedonian police during a VMRO hold on power and the Ministry of interior, allow thugs (or anybody) go beat up elderly or other people expected to be placing flowers on the spot where a young woman, Mara Buneva, herself a hero of the VMRO, took her own life? Why indeed

Is this a signal for badly worsening Macedonian-Bulagarian already delicate and somewhat burdened relations? Macedonian government was already rebuked and humiliated for the untrustworthiness of its police by the Tribunal in The Hague. How could such a government that cannot have its police effectively prevent this sort of open-day attacks on people be trusted that it will return Ljube Boshoski, also a VMRO top-gun, face court proceedings? What is the meaning of the minister of interior asking the Tribunal how to best phrase its own law on co-operation with the ICTY when the very next day the Macedonian police is not alert enough to prevent an international scandal triggered by unruly thugs and vandals? Is the Macedonian history really so complex and impossible to untangle without a brutal conflict?

Eventually, what is the meaning of Mara Buneva and her suicide?

Mara Buneva was a young well-educated young lady, born 1902 in Tetovo. She went to study in Sofia and graduated from Kliment Ohridski University there. Her brother introduced her to VMRO (albeit Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization or IMRO, in English). The policies of the VMRO at the time are quite confusing and riddled with inter-party fractions, ordered assassinations of political opponents and obvious hemorrhage of which it did not recuperate for decades. In the fall of 1927 the Serbian occupiers of Vardar Macedonia decided to send Ivan Mihailoff (IMRO leader) a clear message, so they executed his father and brother. However IMRO was not an organization easily intimidated. Shortly thereafter in Shtip, IMRO freedom fighters assassinated the Yugoslav general, Kovachevich, precipitating a major diplomatic crisis. But much more was to follow.

Buneva was carefully picked from among hundreds of VMRO members trained as assassins. On Mihailoff's orders she left Sofia and travelled to Skopje. While there, Buneva somehow managed to acquaint herself with Velimir Prelich, a police colonel and the legal counselor of the Serbian governor of the Skopje district known as "Vardarska Banovina". Velimir Prelich was notorious for his brutal methods against the Macedonian population, in particular his torture of Bulgarian students. He was her target. On January 13, 1928 at 12.15pm, Mara met Prelitch on one of the most populous streets in Skopje, right at the banks of River Vardar. She approached him, then drew her revolver and executed him as ordered to. Minutes later she took her own life rather than be tortured by the Serbs.

This was the 79th commemoration of the event. (This is the pic showing the heart of the town. The incident happened some 30-40 meters downstream, left of the tree on the right bank of River Vardar, with thousands of weekend-strollers and morning-coffee customers at the numerous establishments meters away with usually very heavy police visibility)

FOCUS News Agency correspondent reported that the attack has been planned. The attackers came from three directions. The largest group came from the side of the Holiday Inn Hotel, the second from the old stone bridge across the Vardar River and the third came from the direction of the trade center. The incident happened at about 11:30 local time before the speech of Pande Evtimov. Miroslav Rizinski, candidate for MP from Dosta Dimovska’s DRUM Party, was beaten up. Young and older people were also beaten up. Rayna Draganova, member of the VMRO and granddaughter of Col. Boris Drangov, in an interview with the same wire service said ’I saw a crowd of brutal boys, led by several people with red and black masks in a neat, perfect formation, arriving armed with laths, bats, and pieces of concrete. They started beating people NOT randomly. They were primarily targeted older people and those with double passports. It is very strange that the police did not interfere. I find it strange that cell phones were off, none of us, who were trying to contact police, succeeded. Two policemen came after it was all over and the attackers were gone’, she said.


‘Die, Bulgarians, this is Macedonia, Bulgarian Tatars’ – these were the phrases when the gangs attacked with bats and bars a group of Bulgarians during a commemoration service to mark 79 years since the death of Mara Buneva, the Macedonian TV channel Kanal 5 also reported.

Volkskrantblog - Harvesting Dutch Absurds - Bloody Incident over Mara Buneva, the Assassin of Velja Prelich, Shocks Skopje, Stuns Sofia Again

[Tsontos]

FOCUS Information Agency

Makfax: Sofia Calls for Correction of Macedonian History
17 ÿÃ*óÃ*ðè 2007 | 16:06


Skopje. The leader of the Bulgarian VMRO called for making corrections in the Macedonian history schoolbooks by omission of qualifications on the Bulgarian occupation during the WWII, the Macedonian agency Makfax reported.
"Removing ideology from the textbooks in order to get rid of the falsified facts about the national character of the historic figures belonging to the Bulgarian majority in the population that lived in the region of Macedonia in 1944", reads the draft-declaration tabled in the Bulgarian Parliament by the leader of the Bulgarian VMRO, Krasimir Karakachanov.
The document was tabled in response to the recent attack in Skopje against a group of Bulgarian citizens who gathered to mark the 79th anniversary of Mara Buneva's death.
Karakachanov, who uses the acronym FYROM when referring to Macedonia, demands that Bulgaria impose measures aimed at protection of the Bulgarian minority and cultural and historic heritage in Macedonia.
"Forming a commission comprised of European officials, tasked to monitor and present annual reports on the progress of the democratization process in FYROM, and reform of the repressive special services, inherited by the totalitarian Yugoslav regime", Karakachanov says.
The leader of the Bulgarian VMRO explained that Macedonia's "disrespect of the basic human rights" prompted his move.