Polyparty-ism - Search for Common Ground

Tearce: the returning of the coexistence
What one fool can spoil, not even a
hundred smart people can mend it
Xhelal Neziri
Igor K. Ilievski
The mixed ethnic Local community
of the village of Tearce, in
the Tetovo area was formed on
December 6th, 2001. Jusuf
Huseini, a Turk, was elected for
its president; Pavle Todorovski,
Macedonian, was elected for its
vice president and Safet Khamili,
Albanian was elected for a secretary.
Tearce is inhabited by 4200
people, from whom 2500 are
Albanians, 1100 are
Macedonians, 500 are Turks and
about 70 people are Romas.
- This initiative was realized
with the help of the OSCE monitors.
The main objective of this
body is to create the needed conditions
for the returning of the
dislocated families from the village,
most of which are
Macedonians. They have abandoned
their homes on their own
will. As the members of the leadership
of the Local community of
Tearce, we are obliged to inform
our people, which are currently
not in the village, that there are
conditions for their return and for
the safety in their home village -
claims Safet Khamili, the secretary
of the Local community of
Tearce.
He adds that before the war in
Tearce, there were two Local
communities - one consisted only
of Macedonians and the second
one consisted of the members of
the other ethnicities in the village.
The village also had two
football teams.
- During the war, the Ministry
of internal affairs has mislead our
Macedonian neighbors by giving
them weapons and encouraging
them to use them against their
Albanian neighbors, and unfortunately
that is exactly what it happened.
But, besides all of these
separations and anomalies that
have appeared in the multiethnic
relations before the war and now,
we will make efforts to reestablish
the coexistence and we will
try to put everything that happened
during the war, behind us -
declared Khamili.
The Macedonian story is different,
quite the opposite from
the one that we heard from the
Albanians. Macedonians claim
that during the fights they were
driven out of their homes by
some armed Albanians. But, they
also want to leave those things in
the past and to continue with their
lives.
In the tea-restaurant in the
center of the village, Joshe
Ristovski and some other retired
inhabitants of Tearce are waiting
to collect their pension money.
Some Macedonian pilgrimers
have asked Ristovski to take care
of the houses they have left
behind. Last week one of those
hoses was robbed and Joshe was
planning to make an inspection
on the spot, for which he called
the police, OSCE and the NATO
officers from the TFF.
- Tensions are slowly easing,
but there still some incidents happen.
Last Saturday in the next village,
in the middle of the day,
four people were seen robbing a
house. The robbers were familiar
to the people in the village. Two
of them were wearing fire
weapons and the other two - axes.
They robbed the house, didn't say
anything to anyone and they left.
Now the police are here and for
now it's safe, but people are
afraid that there are going to be
other fights - says Joshe
Ristovski.
Alirami Seljmani works as a
postman for the villages of
Tearce, Prshovce and Slatino, for
more than
two years.
Up until two
moths ago,
he was carrying
the mail
by a motorcycle,
but
now, because
of the snow
he has to go
Albanians and
Macedonians
have different
stories for the
reasons of their
separation, but
they are all trying
not to think about
the bad things
and to continue
building their
future together
by foot.
Recently, one
of his colleagues
was
attacked and
robbed while
he was carrying
money.
- So far,
thank God, people have always
been fair to me. Maybe someone
has strayed from his path and has
picked up the wrong way in life,
like the ones that have robbed my
colleague. People are different
and one should really be careful -
Alirami while giving the pension
money to the people in Tearce.
He proudly says that even though
he walks, he can still manage to
distribute the money in only three
days, one day per one village.
People from the village recognize
him and when they hear that he
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Will there be peace?, February 2002