PCG's Ron Fraser: The EU Will Divide Macedonia (2001)

National Flag of Macedonia

In 2001 an armed group called the National Liberation Army, an offshoot of the Kosovo Liberation Army, rose up to launch an armed insurgency against Macedonia. Exploiting various ethnic tensions there between the Macedonians and ethnic Albanians within it, the NLA advanced into Macedonia. This led to war against Macedonia which raged during the course of 2001.

During the course of this war PCG's Ron Fraser wrote an article about the war in Macedonia entitled "The Final Pieces Fall into Place" for the August 2001 issue of the Philadelphia Trumpet. Here Fraser irresponsibly speculated that this insurgency by the NLA was engineered by the Germans in order to divide Macedonia and carve out an Albanian enclave from it as part of a plot to somehow "conquer" and "colonize" what used to be Yugoslavia.

The PCG leadership's stance in supporting the Milošević regime was always superficial. The turbulent and bloody events of the Yugoslav Wars were simply exploited by PCG's writers to demonize Germany and the Pope by claiming they caused the Yugoslav Wars by recognizing Slovenia and Croatia as independent states in December 1991. Fraser repeats that accusation here.

For it has been the cunning efforts of this German-led European Union which, by the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia in 1991 as sovereign nation-states separate from the Yugoslav republic, inspired the cruelty of “ethnic cleansing” via the politico-religious Balkan wars that followed in quick succession in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania/Kosovo and now Albania/Macedonia. This has broken in pieces the century-old amalgam of Yugoslavia. 

("Albania/Kosovo"? "Albania/Macedonia"? What is Fraser talking about? What a clumsy way to talk about the ethnic Albanians in those areas.)

In fact by that time Slovenia was already de facto independent after an armed struggle in June-July 1991 after which Belgrade agreed to withdraw Federal forces from Slovenia, which was done as agreed in October 1991.

Also Croatia and the Milošević regime were already in the crucible of war. The fighting had been raging for months in Croatia by December 1991. The Belgrade government had already seized Vukovar from Croatia after a three month siege which killed about 3000 people (August 25-November 18, 1991). All this occurred before December 1991.

Also in January 1992 a ceasefire was agreed between Croatia and Serbia which lasted for about a year. Although fighting did continue intermittently until 1995. 

But despite these important facts which complicate the picture Fraser continued to repeat the accusation that Germany and the Vatican City's acts of recognizing Slovenia and Croatia in December 1991 somehow began the Yugoslav War.

Actually Yugoslavia was only in existence about 73 years after the end of World War I by the time the Yugoslav Wars started. While this in and if itself is not a problem it shows how superficial Fraser's knowledge of Yugoslavia actually is. His flawed knowledge is only shown in how he describes the history of Yugoslavia.

Marshall Tito established a new Constitution for Yugoslavia which, between the wars, was known as the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. [The name Yugoslavia was actually adopted in 1929 -- Redfox712.] The Serbs had initiated this first union of these three nations, following the collapse of the Hapsburg-ruled Austro-Hungarian empire at the close of World War I in 1918. Following World War II, Tito aligned himself with the Soviet Union in 1946. Two years later he broke with the Soviets, enacting his own brand of national socialism, popularly known as Titoism. Within five years he created a new federal constitution, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was born.

Yugoslavia was never named that during Tito's time. After World War II Yugoslavia was reconstituted as the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. Later in 1963 it was renamed the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. That was its name until 1992 when in the midst of its disintegration it was renamed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Strangely how Fraser never uses the word "Communist" to describe it in a heavy handed attempt to idealize Yugoslavia. 

Cleverly, the EU has let NATO do all the grunt work in Macedonia, with the result that if things go wrong, the egg will be, once again, as in Kosovo, all over NATO’s face, and a classic opening will ensue, at the right moment, for the new EU rapid reaction force to deploy and to “enforce” the “peace” in that ethnically and politically divided country.

By dividing Macedonia into separate Albanian and Macedonian enclaves, as U.S. think tank Stratfor points out, NATO will have been the unwitting accomplice in achieving the Albanian rebels’ goal. “The Albanians, emboldened by NATO protection, will strengthen their hold on Kosovo and one third of Macedonia while expanding their Greater Albania campaign over other parts of the Balkans, such as southern Serbia, Montenegro and northern Greece” (www.stratfor.com, June 27).

And soon afterwards Fraser even invokes Columbia in fear mongering about the ethnic Albanian guerrillas in the NLA and the KLA.

Why is Albania so favored by NATO?

Remember, they are the ally of Germany, the leading nation in the EU. The huge illegal drug- and gun-running scams of the Albanian mafiosi could not operate without German cooperation. Their illegal drug- and gun-running corridor runs from Berlin through Kosovo and Tirana, via the Adriatic, across the North Atlantic Ocean, clear through to Colombia. Remember, many Albanian insurgents in Kosovo were trained in Germany and supplied with German arms. The Albanians are simply in the pay of Berlin, operating under the umbrella or protection of none other than Anglo-American-led NATO!

In fact many KLA fighters who fought in Kosovo came from other countries, such as France and the United States. But facts like this are not allowed to get in the way of exploiting the suffering of this Insurgency in Macedonia to demonize Germany and the Pope in order to convince readers that Germany and the Pope will lead the world into World War III.

The latest triumph of the shattering divide-and-conquer diplomacy of the EU and its lackeys, NATO and the UN, will not secure peace in the Balkans. What it will guarantee, however, just as it has in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, is a continuing external military presence to enforce the will of the rising beast power upon this final set-piece of Germany’s ten-year campaign to colonize the Balkans.

What actually happened?

Soon afterwards the Macedonians overcome this insurgency and the NLA came to terms with Macedonia and ended the armed struggle. 

After the Ohrid Agreement, the rebels agreed to a ceasefire in June, however there were other agreements in August, before both sides settled on a final one in January 2002. Under the Ohrid Agreement, the Macedonian government pledged to improve the rights of the Albanians of the country. Those rights included making the Albanian language the second official language, increasing the participation of ethnic Albanians in government institutions, the police and the army. Most importantly, under the Ohrid Agreement, the Macedonian government agreed to a new model of decentralization.

The Albanian side agreed to give up any separatist demands and to fully recognize all Macedonian institutions. In addition, according to this agreement the NLA was to disarm and hand over their weapons to NATO....

Just hours after NATO wrapped up the operation [of disarming the NLA], [NLA leader] Ali Ahmeti told reporters attending a news conference in the rebel stronghold of Šipkovica that he was dissolving the National Liberation Army and that it was time for ethnic reconciliation. (Wikipedia.)

Macedonia to this day remains a unified state.

Ron Fraser failed to foresee that Macedonia would overcome the insurgency and remain a unified state.

Ron Fraser failed to foresee that NATO would actually disarm the NLA.

Ron Fraser failed to foresee that peace would return to Macedonia. Just a few months later the insurgency came to an end and there has been no war in Macedonia since then.

Clearly Ron Fraser did not know what he was talking about. He does not know the future. And neither does any of PCG's leaders.

They are false prophets. There is no need to fear that they have some kind of special knowledge. They are mortals who merely try to convince people into paying three tithes to PCG.

There is no need to please PCG's leaders.