Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2015 9:07:22 GMT -5
Gruevski Has Made a Nightmare out of Macedonia
A government that conducts spying operations on this scale has not only lost credibility; it has lost the right to govern.
By Erwan Fouéré
Brussels
For the past few weeks, Macedonia has been rocked by revelations of massive wiretapping of its citizens, over a period spanning several years. The surveillance operation covered over 20,000 people - including ministers, judges, business people, journalists and even foreign diplomats - in a country of only 2 million. The fact that the government seemed to be spying on its own ministers speaks volumes about the nature of the regime.
The wiretapped conversations, in voices that are clearly identifiable, provide vivid examples of alleged corruption in every sector and level of government.
The Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski, has tried to lay blame for the wiretapping on foreign intelligence services - which he has refused to identify - and has accused the opposition leader, Zoran Zaev, of plotting a coup. Zaev is charged with espionage and has had his passport removed.
This is not the first time that the government has invoked espionage as a convenient excuse for locking up those it considers undesirable. It begs the question why the Prime Minister is obsessed with foreign intelligence services, as if spies were lurking at every street corner in Macedonia, when all he can offer of any, admittedly dubious, strategic value are oversized statues of Alexander The Great.
It does not require much imagination to point to the Prime Minister together with the chief of the state security, Saso Mijalkov, as the likely masterminds of this vast exercise in wiretapping.
A sinister figure, who is also the Prime Minister’s cousin, Mijalkov is always seen shadowing the Prime Minister and wields powers beyond any judicial control or parliamentary oversight. He is seen as the alter ego of the Prime Minister and as the power behind the ruling Internal Revolutionary Organisation - Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity, VMRO-DPMNE, which Gruevski leads.
This is a government which, over the nine years that it has been in power, has strengthened its repressive grip over the country. Its ethno-nationalist and populist brand of politics, a throwback to the era of Slobodan Milosevic, has resulted in the re-emergence of deep tensions in a country that already witnessed a bloody ethnic conflict in 2001.
After peace was restored following the Ohrid Framework Agreement, brokered in August 2001, reforms were pursued in the succeeding years in line with the objective of joining the EU. The international community hailed Macedonia as a success story in terms of multi-ethnic cooperation in the Balkan region, so much so that the EU granted it candidate status in 2005.
All of that changed with the election in 2006 of the current Prime Minister and his VMRO-DPMNE party. Since then, Macedonia has lurched from one crisis to another, with periodic flare-ups of inter-ethnic violence and growing polarization in society.
The early parliamentary elections of June 2008 saw outbreaks of violence with one fatality and many injuries. In December 2012, violence erupted in parliament itself, with the forcible eviction from the chamber of all the opposition MPs together with journalists present. Following the last parliamentary elections of 2014, which were marred by intimidation and other serious irregularities, which the OSCE election observation report highlighted, the opposition decided to boycott parliament, a boycott that continues to this day.
The Prime Minister has failed to resolve the ongoing parliamentary crisis and restore some semblance of political dialogue. On the contrary, he has pursued a ruthless campaign against all those who openly criticize him, with many languishing in prison, often on fabricated charges, as revealed in the wiretapped transcripts.
The ruling party does not tolerate any minority or dissenting views, and uses fear and intimidation to exercise its repressive authority over society. It has the worst media freedom record in the Balkan region; the latest Reporters Without Borders index ranks it in 123rd place, just above Angola, a drop of almost 90 places from 2009, when it was ranked 34th.
Civil society organisations that speak out in defense of human rights and greater tolerance in society have also been the target of vitriolic government attacks. As if that was not enough, incidences of hate speech, incitement to violence and homophobic sentiments are a common feature of the popular TV talk shows that are periodically graced with the presence of the Prime Minister and even the President.
The government, meanwhile, tries to burnish its business-friendly image with glitzy advertisements on CNN and vaunts its high rating on the World Bank Doing Business Index. Under this veneer of normality, however, lies a corrupt system of public tendering for contracts.
This latest scandal shows the deep-seated corrupt and evil nature of the regime. Regardless of who is behind the wiretapping, the transcripts provide ample evidence of a ruling party that deliberately ignores the institutional process and separation of powers, operates by its own rules and violates all basic standards of democracy and even of decency.
The coarse and even profane language used by party officials in some of the released taped conversations would not be out of place in a Banana Republic.
A government that conducts a spying operation on such an industrial scale on its own people and even on members of its own party has lost all credibility and indeed any legitimacy to remain as a government.
That one man and his party can turn a success story into such a nightmare underlines the fragility of Macedonia as a functioning state.
It is high time the international community, in particular the EU, paid more attention to what is happening. Merely calling for institutions to function as we expect them to is not enough, when faced with such a regime.
It should offer support to those citizens who are courageous enough to continue the fight for dignity and basic human rights, despite extensive harassment, intimidation and even imprisonment. They are the only hope for preserving the soul of Macedonia from further erosion by a discredited regime, which has put its own narrow party interests ahead of the interests of the country and its citizens.
Erwan Fouéré is Associate Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, and was the EU Special Representative in Macedonia from 2005 to 2011.
www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/gruevski-has-made-a-nightmare-out-of-macedonia
A government that conducts spying operations on this scale has not only lost credibility; it has lost the right to govern.
By Erwan Fouéré
Brussels
For the past few weeks, Macedonia has been rocked by revelations of massive wiretapping of its citizens, over a period spanning several years. The surveillance operation covered over 20,000 people - including ministers, judges, business people, journalists and even foreign diplomats - in a country of only 2 million. The fact that the government seemed to be spying on its own ministers speaks volumes about the nature of the regime.
The wiretapped conversations, in voices that are clearly identifiable, provide vivid examples of alleged corruption in every sector and level of government.
The Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski, has tried to lay blame for the wiretapping on foreign intelligence services - which he has refused to identify - and has accused the opposition leader, Zoran Zaev, of plotting a coup. Zaev is charged with espionage and has had his passport removed.
This is not the first time that the government has invoked espionage as a convenient excuse for locking up those it considers undesirable. It begs the question why the Prime Minister is obsessed with foreign intelligence services, as if spies were lurking at every street corner in Macedonia, when all he can offer of any, admittedly dubious, strategic value are oversized statues of Alexander The Great.
It does not require much imagination to point to the Prime Minister together with the chief of the state security, Saso Mijalkov, as the likely masterminds of this vast exercise in wiretapping.
A sinister figure, who is also the Prime Minister’s cousin, Mijalkov is always seen shadowing the Prime Minister and wields powers beyond any judicial control or parliamentary oversight. He is seen as the alter ego of the Prime Minister and as the power behind the ruling Internal Revolutionary Organisation - Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity, VMRO-DPMNE, which Gruevski leads.
This is a government which, over the nine years that it has been in power, has strengthened its repressive grip over the country. Its ethno-nationalist and populist brand of politics, a throwback to the era of Slobodan Milosevic, has resulted in the re-emergence of deep tensions in a country that already witnessed a bloody ethnic conflict in 2001.
After peace was restored following the Ohrid Framework Agreement, brokered in August 2001, reforms were pursued in the succeeding years in line with the objective of joining the EU. The international community hailed Macedonia as a success story in terms of multi-ethnic cooperation in the Balkan region, so much so that the EU granted it candidate status in 2005.
All of that changed with the election in 2006 of the current Prime Minister and his VMRO-DPMNE party. Since then, Macedonia has lurched from one crisis to another, with periodic flare-ups of inter-ethnic violence and growing polarization in society.
The early parliamentary elections of June 2008 saw outbreaks of violence with one fatality and many injuries. In December 2012, violence erupted in parliament itself, with the forcible eviction from the chamber of all the opposition MPs together with journalists present. Following the last parliamentary elections of 2014, which were marred by intimidation and other serious irregularities, which the OSCE election observation report highlighted, the opposition decided to boycott parliament, a boycott that continues to this day.
The Prime Minister has failed to resolve the ongoing parliamentary crisis and restore some semblance of political dialogue. On the contrary, he has pursued a ruthless campaign against all those who openly criticize him, with many languishing in prison, often on fabricated charges, as revealed in the wiretapped transcripts.
The ruling party does not tolerate any minority or dissenting views, and uses fear and intimidation to exercise its repressive authority over society. It has the worst media freedom record in the Balkan region; the latest Reporters Without Borders index ranks it in 123rd place, just above Angola, a drop of almost 90 places from 2009, when it was ranked 34th.
Civil society organisations that speak out in defense of human rights and greater tolerance in society have also been the target of vitriolic government attacks. As if that was not enough, incidences of hate speech, incitement to violence and homophobic sentiments are a common feature of the popular TV talk shows that are periodically graced with the presence of the Prime Minister and even the President.
The government, meanwhile, tries to burnish its business-friendly image with glitzy advertisements on CNN and vaunts its high rating on the World Bank Doing Business Index. Under this veneer of normality, however, lies a corrupt system of public tendering for contracts.
This latest scandal shows the deep-seated corrupt and evil nature of the regime. Regardless of who is behind the wiretapping, the transcripts provide ample evidence of a ruling party that deliberately ignores the institutional process and separation of powers, operates by its own rules and violates all basic standards of democracy and even of decency.
The coarse and even profane language used by party officials in some of the released taped conversations would not be out of place in a Banana Republic.
A government that conducts a spying operation on such an industrial scale on its own people and even on members of its own party has lost all credibility and indeed any legitimacy to remain as a government.
That one man and his party can turn a success story into such a nightmare underlines the fragility of Macedonia as a functioning state.
It is high time the international community, in particular the EU, paid more attention to what is happening. Merely calling for institutions to function as we expect them to is not enough, when faced with such a regime.
It should offer support to those citizens who are courageous enough to continue the fight for dignity and basic human rights, despite extensive harassment, intimidation and even imprisonment. They are the only hope for preserving the soul of Macedonia from further erosion by a discredited regime, which has put its own narrow party interests ahead of the interests of the country and its citizens.
Erwan Fouéré is Associate Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, and was the EU Special Representative in Macedonia from 2005 to 2011.
www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/gruevski-has-made-a-nightmare-out-of-macedonia