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Macedonia: Views from Abroad on Protests Against Police Violence

Filip Stojanovski — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 00:18:50 +0000

This post is part of our special coverage Macedonia Protests 2011.

Ordinary people's reactions to the protests against police brutality in Macedonia indicate the strength of the grip of the traditional media, which is not very keen on relaying such “unpopular” news, and highlights the opportunities for solidarity once the information gets through.

Jovana Tozija, a Macedonian woman residing in Germany, wrote [mk, en] about the reactions of her friends:

Many of my international friends asked what’s going on in Macedonia after they saw me spamming on Facebook with links to sites with strange letters and when they saw that I'd changed my profile picture. I briefly explained to them the incident with the murder of Martin Neshkovski. Here are their responses and my personal analysis of their initial instant reactions.

A Russian woman: So? The police killed a man. Why are you making such a big deal out of it? There is nothing you can do about it.

Obviously, the awareness about freedom of speech in this country is not on the highest level. I don’t know if it is because they are afraid or because it is not developed enough. But I do know that there is over-centralized power of the oligarchs and there is literally nothing you can do about it.

An Iranian man: Only one person was killed?

This was his instant reaction. It’s not easy for him as well. He has seen worse. Last year, during the green revolution in Iran, the government was killing young people, just because [Ahmadinejad] would not recognize the electoral fraud. A bunch of progressive young people were protesting and they failed. Many of them were killed and Ahmadinejad is still in power.

A German woman: How can it be that for 2 days it was not known who the boy was and the case was not reported?

The people of this country are used to the fact that the institutions do their job by default. She was not interested in how a member of the special police units could kill a young man, but how the case could stumble throughout the institutions.

A Croatian man: OMG, the police is going to send us to our graves.

I don’t have a comment on this and don’t know what to think about it. I suppose he is a proponent of the [ACAB] theory.

Bulgarian blogger Yurukov wrote [bg] on his blog several days after protests started:

Why no Bulgarian media have informed about this protest for a week? Why do I have to learn about it from Twitter, and only because by chance I follow several Macedonians? What are they waiting for? An official position from the Ministry of the Interior or from [Prime Minister Boyko Borisov]? Has it come that far? Are we afraid that the media would be blamed for inciting unrest if the protests spread to Bulgaria? Why even the publications that are considered freer keep silent? Or should we wait for the news to become popular, so we can talk about it?

Yurukov noted that in the week after the protests started, only two internet portals published information in Bulgarian: Dir.bg and News.bg. (In addition, these two exceptional media outlets did not post follow-up articles in the next few weeks.)

The website Stop police violence published an article [mk/sr] about the support for the protests from the female choir “Kombinat” [sl] from Slovenia:

We are sending a photo of support, taken during our concert in [Celje], dedicated to you, who protest against police brutality in Macedonia. We'll send you [a petition] signed at the concert. People in Slovenia have no idea what's going on in Macedonia, because the media do not write or speak about it… Accept our solidarity and support, we are with you in our thoughts and hearts…

No Pasaran!

Kombinat concert in Celje, Slovenia. Photo by Kombinat, used with permission.

Macedonian protesters keep inviting people from abroad to show their support for the protests by writing or making videos about them.

This post is part of our special coverage Macedonia Protests 2011.

Japan: Earthquake, “how to protect yourself” in 30 languages

Scilla Alecci — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:43:59 +0000

TUFS students launched a website with advices on risk management translated in more than 30 languages.
The website provides “a basic guide in several languages to what to do when you have to evacuate because of the earthquake.”

Slovenia: Severe Floods and… Surfing?!

Filip Stojanovski — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 23:07:43 +0000

While severe floods plague Slovenia [SLO], Balkan portals from Croatia to Macedonia keep republishing a video clip named “wakeboarding in Ljubljana at 1am,” showing a car towing a surfer through the streets and passing by a dry cleaning sign.

Croatia: At Odds with Slovenian Borders

Miquel Hudin — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:55:14 +0000

Since the breakup of former Yugoslavia nearly 20 years ago, ongoing issues have dogged Croatia's progress as a nation headed towards eventual membership with the European Union. The most public of these issues was the arrest of former general Ante Gotovina at the end of 2005; he is now standing trial in The Hague.

Unknown to most are more transparent issues that involve the borders of Croatia. When looking at a map, it's understandable why such issues would arise, given the twisting layout of the country. The building of a bridge to the Pelješac Peninsula to bypass Bosnia and Herzegovina where it bisects Croatia in Dalmatia is one issue. Another is disputed ownership of islands in the Danube River where Croatia and Serbia meet. While these items are still very much in need of resolution, it's Croatia's border with Slovenia that is posing one of its largest problems due to EU enlargement considerations.

At the forefront have been the maritime issues involving Slovenia's access to the Adriatic Sea. Currently, Slovenia is seeking a corridor in the Adriatic through Croatian waters (by way of waters claimed outside their current borders), to give them access to International Waters:

Image from Wikipedia

The issue is contentious, to say the least, with each side in the dispute citing historical foundation for why they're right, as was written (SLV) in the Slovenija RTV forums:

- We should organize an international conference on the division of the Adriatic Sea, which has never belonged to Croatia.
- Croatia did not exist until after World War II.
- Istria has always been Slovenian.

Another border issue that is slightly less pressing in Istria concerns the demarcation set by the Dragonija river, which was rerouted in Yugoslavian times. This change poses a problem as the borders of the former Yugoslavian countries were set by the Badinter Arbitration Committee to be as they were while each current-day country was a state in Yugoslavia. This naturally causes strife when historical borders were placed along rivers that no longer run where they used to.

The issue of river-based borders rises again when moving to the northernmost area of Croatia. Specifically, the border formed by the Mura River creates an issue near Sveti Martin na Muri. The debate surrounding this reached a troublesome point in 2006, when Slovenian journalists were captured for supposedly trespassing into Croatia due to the area being contested. Again, the issue revolves around historical borders not corresponding with geographical borders and the borders as they were set at the demise of Yugoslavia. Dragutin Lesar, a member of the Croatian Parliament, writes (HRV) on Nebu Išlo (”It will not go”) in more detail about the situation:

…Slovenes believe that the borders must go through the middle of the river beds Mura. […] the borders between Slovenia and Croatia (formerly part of the Republic of Yugoslavia) were identified by the old mapped boundaries of municipalities. This was the existing situation on the day of June 25, 1991, when Slovenia declared independence.

The Badinter Committee confirmed these borders as the borders newly formed States.

In addition to this, Lesar points out:

From the statement of Pogačnika Rudolf and after that meeting, it could be clearly known that Slovenia remains with about 22 disputed points on the common border between Croatia and believes that only 8 of them are controversial.

The 14 “non-controversial” points of contention with Slovenia (which include the nuclear power plant, Krško, that suffered a small leak last month) show that there will be continuing negotiations as Croatia gets closer to its current target date of 2010 to join the EU. Of course, frustrations rise for the Croatians as they see this date get closer, but see very few resolutions, as Hyeronimus writes (HRV) on Pollitika in regards to the situation of the Mura River border:

…the Croatian public, the Croatian politics, Croatian diplomacy, the Croatian police and the government are simply silent.

Photo of the Slovenia Border Crossing in Istria from Hudin

While these issues have been around for years, they had light shed on them again with Slovenia becoming part of the Schengen Agreement in 2007 and the border becoming not just the border to Slovenia, but also to the EU. New issues arose out of agreements left over from both countries' independence declarations that had to be addressed. Of course, the Slovenes and Croats are not without a sense of humor in this, as Balkan Insight reported last year:

…customers in a pub which lies across the Slovene-Croat border at Obrezje, have joked that they will need their identity documents before they are allowed to go the toilet on the other side of the official border.