Polyparty-ism - Search for Common Ground

Matejche three months after the war conflict
The police is back; the confidence
is still in a proces of forming
Isen Saliu
Sashko Dimevski
After 8 months, the police have
returned to Matejche, but unfortunately
the process of reestablishing the trust
among the local Albanian, Macedonian
and Serbian population still needs a lot of
efforts. It is not extremely important
whether these efforts will be coming
from the state representatives, the representatives
of different political parties, the
local authorities or even the international
organization. What is truly important is
that the reestablishment of the trust
among common people, despite their ethnic
diversity, needs to be approached seriously.
This was stated with the intention
to present the lack of alternative in the
process of returning of the dislocated
families to their homes and to their normal
way of living, which now for a lot of
them seems rather impossible.
On Sunday, January 26th the police
has returned to Matejche. One mixed ethnic
patrol has started its three-and-a-half
hours of patrolling through the main
streets of the biggest village in the municipality
of Lipkovo. On the fifth day of the
patrolling, during our visit to the village,
the police officers, from which one was
Macedonian and the other three were
Albanians, had identical evaluations
about the situation - it's stabile, and they
are accepted well by the local people.
The culmination of the war conflict
in June 2001 was the main reason for the
complete desertion of the village by all its
inhabitants: Albanians, Macedonians and
Serbs. Soon after that period, the
Albanians were the first ones that started
returning to their homes or to what has
left of them, while Macedonians and
Undoubtedly, Matejche is
the most important test
for testing the functioning
of the newly established
multicultural and multiethnic
concept in the area
of Kumanovo
Serbs were still scattered around different
refugee shelters throughout Kumanovo.
For the time being, they don't have homes
to come back to. Albanians are embittered
and disappointed, Macedonians and
Serbs are frightened. The first ones are
embittered because of the destroyed
homes and they've come up with several
terms that need to be realized before they
will allow their orthodox neighbors to
return to the village; among those terms is
also the passing of the amnesty law or a
complete realization of the Ohrid agreement.
The second ones are too frightened
to return to their homes, which are now
ruined, burned and robbed, for which
they blame their Albanian neighbors. All
of these events together create a hard-todeal-with
obstruction for the returning of
the dislocated families to their homes and
their common lives by which the village
was well known. Although, this is a period
of crisis and distrust among people, it
has to be admitted that the people from
Matejche nostalgically remember events
from the past, from the real, politically
liberated, mutual everyday life that they
had once. Even though, now, from this
point of view, this idyllic and, up until
now, realistic picture, looks so strange
and distant, once, not so long ago, it was
visible in every corner of the every day
life.
The scars from the war, the loss of the
members of the family or friends, the loss
of homes and everything else that was
built and cherished for years, are the main
reasons that effect negatively the process
of reestablishing the trust and the harmony
that Albanians, Macedonians and
Serbs from Matejche had until recently.
The devastation that the war brings
with itself still can be felt in this village.
There is not a single house in the village
that hasn't been attacked, burned and
damaged in the military actions. A great
number of houses are still without roofs,
with damaged facades and broken windows,
and another solid number of other
facilities is partially or completely
destroyed. The only mosque in the village,
built two years ago, is now without
its top part called minaret, and its interior
is completely ruined. The rituals now take
place in the adapted basements. The old
Culture house is now nothing but a huge
ruin. The same picture can be seen in the
police station yard where only burned
and destroyed vehicles can be found. The
church from the outside doesn't appear
like it has suffered a great damage,
though its interior is equally demolished
as a testimony of the horrible war. The
main attraction, though, is in the center of
the village and is the upturned and
destroyed military vehicle.
At the entrance of the village, we
were encountered by the fitters that were
installing the new electricity poles. The
village has a lack of electricity from May
6th, 2001, when the electricity grid was
completely destroyed. The new installations
are built with the help of some foreign
humanitarian organizations, and the
construction work was done mainly by
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Will there be peace?, February 2002