Polyparty-ism - Search for Common Ground

Petrushevska.
There are 600
Macedonians from
Arachinovo who are displaced
from their homes
at the moment. Most of
them are accommodated
in the shelter center
"Senich" in the settlement
Avtokomanda in Skopje.
Ljubcho Georgievski's
Government made a plan
for the construction of
new dwellings for the
Macedonians from
Arachinovo. The new
homes were supposed to
be built on a location in
the settlement Hipodrom in Skopje,
but after the idea was publicly
announced, the plan received severe
criticism and was called "an act of
weakness that helps the ethnic cleansing
of the Macedonians." The whole
project was stopped immediately.
More than a thousand orthodox
inhabitants of the Kumanovo crisis
region have been living as IDPs for
106
one year now. They are accommodated
in the collective centers Kristal
and Cuba, two hotels in Kumanovo.
They are villagers from nearby Opae
and Matejche. They refuse to go back
to their villages because, as they say,
they are afraid of the Albanian population
who are behaving violently
towards the youth who were members
of the Macedonian security forces
during the conflict. These IDPs asked
the Government to provide them with
new dwellings. According to the
Kumanovo IDPs, some inhabitants of
Opae have already started to sell their
houses to their Albanian neighbors.
"We are not going back. That is
for sure. Our children who joined the
army and the police are receiving
threats from the local Albanians,
advising them never to come back. I
have two sons who fought during the
crisis. If they can't go back to
Matejche, there is nothing for me to
go back to there," says one older villager
form Matejche.
The conditions in the public shelters
are desperate, they claim
"There are five of us sleeping in
one room, and sixty of us using the
same bathroom. That is not life, it is
torture. We are not guilty for what
happened in Macedonia and we are
looking for help. We can't go back
because, first of all, our houses are
demolished and also it is not safe. The
State has to resolve our situation and
build us new homes," - says M.S.
from the village of Opae.
The IDPs staying at the hotel
Cuba say that the living conditions
there are endangering their health.
" The roof is leaking, it's wet
everywhere. We got bronchitis. The
hygiene is terrible. Tens of us are
using the same toilet. We are washing
by hand, in plastic buckets, but they
haven't given us washing powder for
more than two months now," complains
a displaced woman from
Matejche, who together with her husband
and her three children has been
living in the hotel Cuba for more than
a year .
The doctors are warning that the
number of psychological and cardiovascular
diseases is increasing among
1,833 IDPs in the country. In addition,
many are also suffering from
chronic bronchitis.
"The conditions in which they
live are unusual and that is why it is
possible that some of them may catch
tuberculosis," says Dr. Nikola
Milanovski from the Institute for
Pulmonary Diseases
in Skopje.
The situation of
the IDPs from Tetovo,
who live in the Shar
Planina mountain villages
located above
the Tetovo-Jazhince
highway, is similar.
Most of them are staying
at the collective
centers in Skopje.
"My house is
razed to the ground, I
have no place to go
back to. I live with my
family in the student
dorm Stiv Naumov in
Skopje. The internationals keep lying
to us about the reconstruction of our
houses. They are only promising and
announcing, without realizing anything.
Even if they build our homes
we wouldn't have a chair to sit on, or
a bed to lie in. Everything we had has
been damaged or stolen," says B.S.,
an IDP from Tetovo region.
IDPs from Tetovo, Kumanovo
and Skopje regions have been away
from their homes for a year and a half
now. They say it is high time the state
resolved their situation , so that they
can continue with their normal lives.
According to the authorities
responsible for IDPs at the Ministry
of Labor and Social Affairs, the situation
is improving and the IDPs are
expected to return to their homes
soon. Similar assessments are carried
out by the internationals who are in
charge of implementing reconstruction
of the damaged homes.
"We know they are having a difficult
time and we understand their
troubles. That is why we would like
to apologize for the accidental delay
of the reconstruction activities. We
are doing our best to help them return.
We have provided the money for the
reconstruction, and by the end of the
spring all the houses will be reconstructed,"
says EU Counselor Vasilis
Maragos.
(The author is a journalist
with Dnevnik)
A new beginning, November 2002