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Europe
Macedonia: Ethnic Albanians demand a separate Albanian state
2007-08-16
Skopje, 16 August (AKI) – An ethnic Albanian movement in Macedonia, known as Ilyrida, has called for the country to be federalised and has appealed to all ethnic Albanian deputies to quit the Macedonian parliament and to form their own.
This is not a new issue. Almost from the moment Macedonia gained its independence, the ethnic Albanians have been agitating for a separate state. They've come to blows a couple times but each time a political compromise was achieved that was supposed to settle the issue once and for all. Worked well, huh?
Ethnic Albanians make about one-quarter of Macedonia’s two million population and have 29 MPs in the 120-seat parliament. But in a statement carried by Macedonian media on Thursday, Ilyrida demanded that the country be divided into two equal federal entities – one Macedonian and the other Albanian.

Ilyrida recalled that 99 percent of ethnic Albanians in Macedonia voted at a referendum in 1992 for the creation of an autonomous Ilyrida in the western part of the country.

The movement's statement called on ethnic Albanian MPs to proclaim the Republic of Ilyrida in the western city of Tetovo and to quit Macedonian institutions. But Ilyrida president Nevzat Halili told the media he saw nothing new in the statement “which has been sent in our name,” and distanced himself from it.

Commenting on the controversy, government spokesman Ivica Bocevski said tersely that “the state institutions keenly follow the situation in Macedonia." Meanwhile, police refused to comment on Ilyrida’s claim that its “armed members” controlled a part of Macedonian territory.

Ethnic Albanians rebelled in 2001, demanding more rights and regional autonomy, but the dispute was ended by the Ohrid peace accord, which met most of ethnic Albanian demands.
As I said, it was supposed to, but didn't, because the ethnic Albanians never intended it to. This is the kinder, gentler form of hudna.
Ohrid granted more rights and local self-rule to the Albanians, providing for the redrawing of electoral boundaries in some municipalities to give ethnic Albanians a majority in these areas.
And what did that buy for Macedonia? Answer: More demands, backed by violent threats.
Noticed that, didya?
The accord also made Albanian the second official language in several cities, including the capital, Skopje. Acknowledgement of ethnic-Albanian rights was formalised in amendments to the Macedonian constitution approved by parliament in late 2001.

While historians differ on the origin and historic role of Ilyrians, it is generally believed they inhabited the western Balkans around 1,000 B.C. Present day Albanians claim to be their descendants, which would make them one of the oldest people in the area.
Of course, they're also Muslims, which you'd think would make any other ancestral claim irrelevant.
The Ilyrian movement was a strong unifying force in the Balkans in 19th century when South Slavs, who have inhabited the area since the fifth century, strived for liberation from Austro-Hungarian and Turkish occupation. But the movement has died away with the creation of the kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1918.

With the breakup of the former of Yugoslavia during the 1990s Balkan wars, the Ilyrian movement continued to symbolise the striving for unification of ethnic Albanians in several Balkan countries.
There's the key graf: what the Albanians want is a 'Greater Albania' consisting of Albania, Kosovo, western Macedonia and parts of Bosnia.
It has gained strength since SerbiaÂ’s breakaway Kosovo province - with a 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority - started to drift towards independence in 1999. Belgrade, which opposes independence, has repeatedly warned it would have a domino effect on Macedonia, Montenegro and northern Greece, which have sizeable ethnic Albanian populations.
Warnings. Kosovo, the gift that keeps on giving.
Posted by:mrp

#3  "Ethnic Albanians demand a separate Albanian state"

Of course they do....

I'm beginning to think we're the only country where most of the people get along. (A condition the Lefties are working nonstop to destroy.)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2007-08-16 18:55  

#2  Catatonia is nice this time of year.
Posted by: Seafarious   2007-08-16 18:37  

#1  I say let's give them the state of Rigor Mortis.
Posted by: Glaviper B. Hayes1496   2007-08-16 13:30  

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