Reporter's Notebook

Macedonia struggles to avoid Kosovo's deadly legacy

Macedonia's capital, Skopje, reflects the country's cultural diversity

By Steve Nettleton
CNN Interactive Correspondent

ARACINOVO, Macedonia (CNN) -- Four police officers, their automatic rifles poised for action, nervously watched traffic passing along a quiet stretch of road leaving the Macedonian capital of Skopje.

They had good reason to be tense. One month earlier, on January 11, three policemen were gunned down when they stopped three cars at this checkpoint in the predominantly ethnic Albanian village of Aracinovo.

Suspicions in media reports immediately fell upon Albanian criminal gangs believed to have made the village the hub of a booming smuggling trade in weapons, narcotics, cigarettes and automobiles since the war ended in Kosovo.

Ethnic Albanians sit outside a mosque in Tetovo

Police responded by sweeping into the village, ransacking homes and beating dozens of ethnic Albanians. Though police leaders later apologized for the attack, the damage was done. The ethnic rift between Macedonia's Slav majority and Albanian minority was ripped open again.

Albanians feel persecuted

"The Aracinovo incident destroyed the stability between Macedonians and Albanians," said Kole Casule, a political journalist for the independent daily newspaper, Dnevnik. "The killings were most likely tied to organized crime, but now they've become an ethnic problem."

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK • Reporter's journey reveals the prospects for peace are as elusive as ever • Macedonia struggles to avoid Kosovo's deadly legacy • Still missing: Albanians seek relatives in Serbian jails • Mitrovica: Symbol of divided Kosovo • A sprawling enclave of Americana in Kosovo • House arrest: Kosovo's segregated Serbs feel stranded, abandoned • The Coca-Cola patrol: On the beat with U.N. police in Kosovo • New tragedies burden historic Serb city • Montenegro press avoids Belgrade's big chill • Montenegro president: We will not compromise with Serbia • One faith, two churches: Religion splits again in Yugoslavia • Sarajevo: A city searches for its lost soul

"Why for murder must the whole village suffer?" asked one villager, whose house was raided by police. "They should go find the killer."

"The government treats us like terrorists," said another ethnic Albanian man. "If something bad happens, everyone thinks the Albanians are guilty."

Macedonia's Albanians (who number between 25 percent to 40 percent of the country's 2.3 million people, depending on your source), claim they are victims of discrimination in virtually all facets of life. They say they are underrepresented in public institutions, shunned by employers and barred from teaching higher education in their own language.

Defying the government, ethnic Albanian leaders established their own university in 1994 in the city of Tetovo, in western Macedonia. The university initially sparked widespread protest from Slavic Macedonians, who feared it was a step down the road to Albanian separatism.

By February 2000, however, the university had made remarkable progress toward becoming an official institution. On February 7, Dnevnik reported perhaps a significant step: A government body had proposed public support of higher education for minorities in their own languages, though it is uncertain how such a plan would be financed.

Solution may be more jobs

But the university question presents a mild challenge when compared to other Albanian aspirations, including the recognition of Albanian as an official language.

"If that goes through, there will be conflict," Casule predicted.

Many Macedonian Slavs feel ethnic Albanians have already won too many concessions.

Students at Tetovo University in western Macedonia

"I don't like them. Nobody likes them," said one young Macedonian man in Skopje's central shopping district. "You give them a finger, they take an arm."

"The Albanians have even more than they deserve," said another man. If this continues, "I'm afraid there could be civil war."

Most political observers doubt Macedonia's ethnic troubles will explode into full-scale war, at least not yet. Having witnessed the bloodshed and devastation of Serbia's crackdown on Kosovo and the ensuing NATO air strikes, Macedonian Slavs and Albanians are taking pains to avoid a violent confrontation, Casule said.

"The only solution for Macedonia is economic prosperity," Casule said. "When people are unemployed, ethnic problems stir up a lot of anger."

"There will always be tension between Macedonians and Albanians," he said. "But as long as they are afraid of a [Kosovo-style] conflict, they will not start a war."