Heading Off War in the Southern Balkans

BOSNIA AND MACEDONIA: TWINS

In the month prior to late June 1991, when war engulfed the former Yugoslavia, the presidents of two constituent republics, Alija Izetbegovi'c of Bosnia and Kiro Gligorov of Macedonia, spared no effort trying to close the widening chasm between Serbia and Croatia. Both men understood that in the event of armed conflict their republics could be the bloodiest theaters of war. Bosnia was especially threatened because it formed a wedge between Serbs and Croats as they attempted to establish the borders of their new nation?states by force.

Macedonia, so far, has escaped the horrors that its twin, Bosnia, has suffered. Yet if war continues in the northern Balkans, a gradual destabilization of Macedonia is almost certain to magnify the threat to its existence and to the wider security of the southern Balkan region. Even with relative peace in the northern Balkans, the tensions between ethnic Albanians and Macedonians make for a fragile state.

The political problems facing Macedonia are remarkably similar to those that destroyed Bosnia. Throughout the Cold War, both republics depended on the Yugoslav federation to ward off the territorial claims of their more powerful neighbors. The majority populations of Bosnia and Macedonia are relative newcomers to the Balkan drama. The Muslim and Slavic Macedonians have assumed the character of a modern nation only since 1945, partly due to a gradual historical maturation and partly due to Marshal Josip Tito, the former Yugoslav dictator, who encouraged Macedonian development to dilute the influence of Serbs and Croats in Yugoslavia. Macedonians are no longer satisfied to be cast as extras, the role allotted them during World War II. This time they have claimed center stage by asserting the right to form the core of two new nation?states in the Balkans. This makes the current conflict more complicated than its predecessor of 1941?45.