1 It’s no wonder that, after the mayor of Struga, Ramiz Merko, was put on USA’s black list, it’s been discovered that there’ve been six active cases against him, raising suspicions of organised crime and corruption. It’s also no wonder that some of the investigations haven’t even started yet, but rather have been shelved by prosecutors for more than 8 years. And yet, it is a wonder how we got ourselves into a situation where the prosecutors and the judges are being paid with taxpayers’ money of two states to do their job – their salaries being paid by us, while their study trips are paid by the US – and still Ramiz Merko is the one who was put on that black list? What have the prosecutors and the judges learned on those study trips across America? How to shelve cases against officials?
And why are DUI now wondering what their mayor has been doing, when a ton of prosecutors, judges, forensic experts and public officials that were protecting the mayor of Struga, have actually been put there as their own party staff? Namely, they were going to ask for a “comprehensive investigation” and a complete vetting of everyone… My God, those poor, immaculate, morally innocent souls… How come, then, you’ve put forward Merko for a mayor with six active cases against him on corruption and crime?
Why is the Council of Public Prosecutors now acting all confused, and is yet to send out teams in Struga which will investigate how it came to the dismissal of the charges against the senior DUI official? The ones from the Judicial Council, on the other hand are not even surprised, because someone has been hiding the complaints from the Anti-Corruption Commision. Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski himself has been wondering how come America saw crime in Struga, and yet our local judiciary did not. Apparently, VMRO-DPMNE are wondering as well, even though the oldest case against Merko is from 2015. They were not wondering however, how come while they were in power, the president of the Judiciary Council was making little lists of judges along with the Prime Minister’s secretary, according to the notebooks of the Minister of Internal Affairs.
And now what? The Prosecutor’s Office for Prosecuting Organised Crime will also wonder who’s responsible for initiating investigations against everyone who has been protecting Merko – prosecutors, judges, politicians, public officials… They all have first and last names. Will the prosecutor for prosecuting organised crime file charges for organised crime against his fellow colleagues?
When one takes a look at the whole network, at how the crimes were committed and how they were being kept hidden, it turns out that Merko having been put on USA’s black list is the least of our problems. It’s a much bigger problem that we are all on the black list of our own country. We were put there by our own politicians, which we elected at our own elections, the parties that make our heads spin with promises of fighting corruption, the judges and the prosecutors that we pay to deliver justice, the police officers that we expect to protect us from criminals and thugs.
Our lives have been put on a black list.
2 Forget about Merko, he wasn’t even hiding what he was doing and was toying with us all, so the Americans found out about him too. But I’m worried that, if they start digging a bit deeper, a few bigger fish than Struga’s mayor will turn up. There are others who lie to us, steal from us, laugh in our faces, and their wrongdoing can be seen thousands kilometers away from Macedonia. But if their names do come up, the Government might fall, and we have a Constitution to change, negotiations with the EU to begin, and with the European parliament elections coming up next year, who knows what forces shall prevail then and there…
Ramiz Merko had the honour and the privilege for the Americans, as strategic partners to Macedonia, to choose precisely his name to send out a political message. It’s a shocking message for DUI, considering the fact they’ve made a big deal out of USA’s support back in 2001 when they operated as ONA. To this day, that support has remained their argument that they are untouchable. And it is indeed so. At home, DUI’s officials are indeed untouchable.
If nothing else, let’s at least hope that this is the first step in busting the myth that American support for DUI is unconditional. Who knows, this might even prove to be a good omen, and from now on, besides the American flag, DUI will finally wave some Macedonian flags, too.
3 A while ago, the police stopped me for a traffic violation, which I confessed. The two traffic officers were extremely polite and as they were jotting down some basic data, they asked me about my ethnicity.
“Toyota!” – I replied.
“But sir, you misunderstood me, I didn’t ask about your car, I asked what are you?”
“What do you mean ‘What am I?’? I am Toyota. Write down ‘Toyota’. That’s how I feel today.” Truth be told, every time a state official asks me about my ethnicity, I keep telling them I feel like a Toyota.
Well, since then the Ministry of Justice has adopted a regulation to include the ethnicity in the birth registers. I’m grateful to the Government that now when I see an official document, I can finally identify myself as a Toyota.
And then, since the Registry Office will have a registered member of the Toyota ethnic group, the Ministry of Information Society will also have to add a “Toyotan” field into the tool for equitable ethnic representation. So what if I’m Toyotan? Does that mean I shouldn’t have access to a job in the public sector? I shall have to identify myself as Macedonian. Or as Albanian, or as Aromanian, or as Romani… So when the state gets suspicious of my ethnic purity, instead of abolishing the tool for equitable ethnic representation, a new regulation shall be brought in. Because, imagine this, Macedonians have apparently been abusing the ethnical equity tool by declaring themselves as Albanians just to get a job in the public sector.
And who gives the state the right to investigate how you feel when you apply for a job?
The director of a scientific and research institution, and a very professional and sensitive one, received a threat from the Ombudsman that he would be fined because he wouldn’t provide data on how many of the employees were Macedonians, Albanians, Aromanians, Serbs, Romani, Bulgarians, Bosnians, Croats, Montenegrins, Chinese, Klingons, Toyotans… He replied: “All employees are citizens of the Republic of North Macedonia, they are all engineers, some of them are doctors and masters of science, and if you do not feel ashamed of asking what they are, feel free to do so, because I am ashamed.”
It’s a shame, indeed. It’s also foolishness, just one instance of the many we face in Macedonia. What if you change your mind at some point in your life? What if your parents have a different ethnic origin? How do you prove your ethnic origin in order to enrol at a school or apply for a job? The person who has come up with this has definitely been in school, however I’m wondering what they were thinking when they imposed a classic form of discrimination.
The right to self-determination is inviolable. That is precisely what we’re trying to prove to the EU when we are fighting against the Bulgarian veto that denies us that right. But, having to prove to your own state what ethnicity you are just to get a job and live, that is a classic form of Nazism.
I don’t know why no one has filed a case before the Constitutional Court yet. Probably because the ruling won’t secure them a 78% higher salary.
4 The citizens of the German town of Schwangau in Bavaria have decided on a referendum that they want the local castle of Neuschweinstein to become part of UNESCO’s world heritage, in support of the provincial government’s efforts to persuade UNESCO’s commission of the great importance of the Bavarian’s royal castles as monuments of world importance.
Since 1979, UNESCO’s commission is convinced that Ohrid and the Ohrid Lake possess a huge world importance. And yet, if a referendum was to be made, the people of Ohrid and Struga would vote against UNESCO protecting them. Because that prevents them from raising floors on the coast. Because that prevents them from putting air conditioners and solar panels on top of the roof tiles in the old town. Because that prevents them from erecting metal constructions inside the lake…
“This UNESCO will be the death of us”.
“We have to make a living, too.”
That’s how the people of Ohrid complain. Because despite all the natural beauty, despite the centuries-old civilization, despite all the multi-ethnicity and multi-confessionalism, despite all that unique history, despite all those crossroads of civilizations, despite all that authentic worldly and spiritual architecture, despite the climate, despite the air bath, they have decided to make a living out of those particular metal platforms inside the lake, the bricks on the beaches and the boats which are banned at Swiss and Austrian lakes due to the high amount of pollution they produce, so they are sold here as waste.
Those poor citizens of hundreds of UNESCO-protected cities across the world. They must be dying out of poverty.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
