Smilkovci Lake Killings

[VMRO]

Okay. Was there any reason as to why they were marching to the DUI headquarters? What do they expect them to do?

From what i gather they are unhappy at DUI's inadequate or lack of response to the rulings, they see DUI as lapdogs of DPMNE.

[VMRO]

Some Hundred People Gathered in Kumanovo to Protest


Some Hundred People Gathered in Kumanovo to Protest Albanian protesters. Photo: Telegraf.mk/Radovan Vujovic
Quiet protests have been held today in Kumanovo, where some hundred citizens voiced their disagreement with the "Monster" case verdict, several media have reported.

The protesters, gathered at the center of the town, headed towards the building of the Basic Court.

Kumanovo is one of towns where protests were held in the past few days. Protests started in Skopje on Friday, July 4. During the violent mass rallies, around thirty police officers were injured, while criminal and misdemeanor procedures have been initiated against 34 individuals.

The Skopje protests have continued over the weekend, and rallies were also staged in Tetovo, Gostivar, Struga and Debar. Except in Tetovo, when a group of demonstrators tried to attack the seat of DUI in Mala Recica clashed with the police, incidents have not been registered in the other towns.

[VMRO]

Interior Minister Jankuloska Condemns Burning the Macedonian Flag in Pristina


Interior Minister Jankuloska Condemns Burning the Macedonian Flag in Pristina Minister Jankuloska explained the Foreign Ministry is in charge of sending an official reaction to Kosovo. Photo: Radovan Vujovic
Macedonian Interior Minister Gordana Jankuloska strongly condemned Tuesday’s act of setting of Macedonia’s flag on fire during the protests held in Pristina.

“I expect for the institutions in the relevant country to take appropriate legal measures for disclosing the case and to appropriately sanction the perpetrators,” Minister Jankuloska stated after the destroying of seized weapons and narcotics in the stoves of Tetovo-based “Jugohrom”.

Minister Jankuloska, answering a journalist question, explained the Foreign Ministry is in charge of sending an official reaction to Kosovo.


Regarding the announced protests planned at the end of this week, Minister Jankuloska has urged peaceful behavior for all the participants, since MoI is prepared to respond to violence adequately and professionally and to prevent obstruction of public peace and order on the streets and in the cities where this protests will occur.

She informed 24 criminal and 10 misdemeanor charges have been filed against suspects for provoking violence in the protests of last Friday. The criminally charged citizens are facing prison term of 3 months to 5 years.

[DedoAleko]

The Ministry of Interior posted some new videos from the demonstrations the other day

Ekstremna agresija na nasilnite protesti 1 - YouTube

Еkstremna agresija na nasilnite protesti 2 - YouTube

[Volokin]

All this is reminiscent of Kosovo. They repeat their actions because they know it always works.

What baffles me though, is that how do they personally justify their protesting here?
They have everything they want in Macedonia bar outright annexation or independence. How do they have the nerve to claim they are being oppressed and are having their rights violated.

We have to realize now that we can't do much anymore, the Albanians will always get what they want, even if they have to lose all dignity. Sickening "people" Shiptari are.

[George S.]

the same thing happened in Kosovo.Call it the calm before the storm.The uck had accumulated quite a lot of arms.The talk is they got access to the complete arms corpus of nato in Kosovo.Thats whuy cache's of arms a significant amount was found and quite a large amount of arms and exlosives are foundcontinuously.If it wasn't for our secret service these arms were mean't to be used in downtown skopje to kill as many people as possible.The five killed will sound if I can put it a mild matter compared what the Albanians want to bring down the Macedonian state.When will the Macedonian govt finally get it theuuy ar playing with fire,the Albanians are just looking for a pretext to start another war.Looks like that is coming.Whilst people are watching protests the Albanians are fully ready and armed do not underestimate them.How come the Macedonian citizens aren't armed & ready for the onslaught.Too little too late.Its like having a war and the Macedonian govt is waiting for the invitation.Can someone tell me if oil and water mix??it doesn't that is how it has become completely untenable.
These??people are just animals in the late 1980s my cousin went with their school to Kosovo prishtina and about 70 Albanians tried to tip over the buses over.Lucky they got out quickly otherwise they could have got killed.
In the final analysis its been luck that the Albanians haven't gained complete control.I hear they got now surface to air missiles.Also they got rocket launchers like in Afghanistan to bring down Macedonian aircraft like helicopters and planes.etc.The govt hasn't learn't its lesson to be ready at all times.They should stop pandering to the Albanians.They should revoke all their priveleges and only be given normal citizenship rights if they don't like it they should leave.Doin't forget who started the 2001 war it was ali ahmeti.They won't have any qualms about starting another one.

[Volokin]

Today should be an interesting day. Macedonian Protest in front of the Government and Albanian Protest in Cair. As well as apparent protests in Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and even Istanbul.

...and why are the Albanians protesting again?

[VMRO]

Facebook Ultimatum by the so called Liberation Army.


Translation: Share Share Share!! Date has been announced 15/07/014, the armed forces will act Liberation Army in Macedonia, for the protection of Albanians in Macedonia, and I pray for all the Albanians, not to stop the protests until the release of innocent prisoners. If by the 14/07 date the Albanians prisoners are not released until this ultimatum date, the guerrilla army would take severe measures, and tremendous attacks against Macedonian Slavic gendarmerie. Signed Staff of the Liberation Army.

[Macedonian_Nationalist]

Facebook Ultimatum by the so called Liberation Army.


Translation: Share Share Share!! Date has been announced 15/07/014, the armed forces will act Liberation Army in Macedonia, for the protection of Albanians in Macedonia, and I pray for all the Albanians, not to stop the protests until the release of innocent prisoners. If by the 14/07 date the Albanians prisoners are not released until this ultimatum date, the guerrilla army would take severe measures, and tremendous attacks against Macedonian Slavic gendarmerie. Signed Staff of the Liberation Army.

Lol good luck with that. Probably some 16 year old pimply ship tar teenager

[EgejskaMakedonia]

Some footage of today's protest (Albanians)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qknwQ6d9dr4

I had a few images as well but the link doesn't seem to be working properly. I also read that a group of the Albanian protesters began to throw stones and other projectiles at police (as we saw earlier in the week), and a few scuffles broke out between Albanians when others asked them to stop.

I still can't find anything on the Macedonian protest that took place a few hours ago. Hopefully something emerges soon, but my guess is that it was a complete flop...as per usual.

[EgejskaMakedonia]

Here's some additional footage.

Protesta ne Shkup 11.07.2014 - YouTube

It's clear that the court decision is simply an excuse/proxy for the Albanians to mount a protest. These protests have morphed into a completely different purpose. As you can hear, chants like 'UCK,' 'Greater Albania' and so on demonstrate their true intentions, with barely a reference at all in regards to the court case. Yet these protests will always be associated with the judgement by the media. At the end of the day we all know what they want, and they will use any kind of leverage to achieve it.

[George S.]

in my view they should have bought back capital punishment.A life for a life.The famwill never get a complete closure knowing the scum that killed their relative is alive and well.By their standards and their law they would have been dead sooner than later.Life imprisonement is far too good for them.Also there is no contrition on their part at all.Think about what thiscum tried to do is start another war & destabilize Macedonia.

[Volokin]

The Macedonian capital of Skopje saw its second angry Albanian demonstration in as many weeks on Friday. A week earlier, on July 4, the city’s Albanian minority rioted against the outcome of a politically-charged murder trial, dubbed the “Monster Case.” So, come the weekend, everyone was expecting another round of hurled concrete, baton swings, and burned trash cans.

Macedonia is a divided country. Slightly less than two thirds of the population are ethnically Macedonian. The second largest ethnic grouping, accounting for just over a quarter of the population, is Albanian.

In 2001, tensions between the two groups escalated into an armed conflict between government security forces and the Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA). The conflict was short lived and brought to a close with the Ohrid Agreement, a peace treaty that saw NLA commanders rebranded as legitimate politicians and enhanced social and political rights being granted to Macedonia’s Albanian citizens.

While armed hostilities ended nearly 13 years ago, relations between the different groups are still not all that friendly. Albanians still feel disadvantaged, neglected, and that their rights are unequally applied.

The “Monster Case” has become the latest shitty banner for disaffected Albanians in Macedonia to rally around. The case saw seven Albanians tried for the execution-style murder of five ethnic Macedonians. The prosecution framed the murders as acts of Islamic terrorism, designed to destabilize the country.

On Monday June 30, the court found six of the seven guilty, sentencing them to life imprisonment. The verdict enraged the Albanian community, who saw the trial as a mockery. Commentators from both sides of the ethnic divide have observed that the evidence against most (some say all) of the defendants would not have held up in any other court.

"The NLA is not DUI. The NLA is with the people." Essentially, what they're saying is "Even if the DUI's leadership is made up of former NLA members, you no longer represent us. The NLA represented us."

The Albanian community was even more pissed off by the support lent to the case’s outcome by senior Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) politicians. The DUI was formed from the ashes of the NLA, and since 2008 has been in a ruling coalition with the Macedonian nationalist VMRO DPMNE. For many Albanians this is seen as a betrayal, which is manifested in endless neglect of Albanian interests in the party’s governance. Support for the conviction of the six Monster Case defendants was seen as typifying the sellout.

So, on Friday, July 4, the city exploded. Thousands marched the short distance from a mosque in the city-center Albanian neighborhood of Bit Pazar to Mavrovka shopping center. They were met by dozens of armored vehicles and row upon row of body-armor-clad, riot-shield-bearing, faceless-under-visor riot cops.

Fighting soon broke out between crowd and cops. Tear gas and rubber bullets were deployed. Protesters responded by hurling crates of beer bottles and chunks of concrete. The police pushed the protesters back into the narrow alleyways of central Skopje’s Albanian neighborhoods. Every street was bitterly fought for until the protesters had been spread so thin throughout the labyrinth of side streets that all momentum was lost.



Macedonian-language media was joined by DUI and VMRO politicians in denouncing the violence. However, DUI’s leadership acknowledged that a repeat of that violence would be even more damaging than making concessions to its actors. So, while the protesters planned another Friday of protest, DUI officials began denouncing the trial and its verdict, while calling on protesters to refrain from further violence.

Meanwhile, ethnic-Macedonian soccer fan groups, known for being militant supporters of VMRO, planned a counter-protest. Many feared the Macedonian protesters would clash with their Albanian counterparts.

So it was that last Friday, July 11, Skopje city center was once again full of police and armored vehicles.

Lunchtime prayers ended and thousands of Albanian men gathered once more outside the mosque in Bit Pazar. Many concealed their faces. Those whose faces weren’t hidden displayed bitter anger. Red and black flags bearing the Albanian eagle were waved high alongside banners bemoaning the DUI and the Monster Case. As they marched forward it looked certain that things would kick off.

After less than half a mile police and protesters were toe to toe. More precisely, nose to riot shield. Angry nationalist slogans were screamed and chunks of concrete were sent hurtling over police lines and into the gathered press pack, which found itself scrambling for cover between photographs.

Unlike the week before, however, the legions of police with their panzer division of riot-suppression vehicles remained remarkably calm. Behind the scenes, officers dashed back and forth with preparatory fire extinguishers; but at the frontlines, cops maintained poker faces.

Then, after an hour or so had passed and sufficient anger had been displayed, the protesters started marching back the way they came, with only a handful of testosterone-pumped adolescent stragglers lingering to throw a few last taunts at the police and assemblage of journalists. Strangely, the Macedonian counter protest had failed to materialize also.

Just 30 minutes later and no one would have been able to guess Skopje had been on the brink of chaos.

A tight lid, manifested in the detention of political prisoners, is kept on dissidence in Macedonia for an important reason. This is the second instance in as many months of ethnic issues boiling over into violent action. The first, in May, saw Macedonians destroying Muslim and Albanian property following the fatal stabbing of a young Macedonian. During the 2001 conflict it seemed at times as though the only solution would be federalization, effectively splitting the country into two nations. Now, as tensions rise to the surface again, there are commentators that fear federalization—or worse, war—might be the ultimate outcome.

If that happened, the repercussions could spread beyond just Macedonia, across the Balkans. If Macedonia’s Albanians are allowed to form their own state, why not the Serbs in northern Kosovo, or Bosnia’s Republika Srpbska?

As with Macedonia, there has never been a proper resolution to these divided countries that emerged following the disintegration of Yugoslavia. And just as Yugoslavia began to fall apart following seemingly innocuous secessions, there is a fear that boundary changes in Macedonia could trigger serious unrest across the Balkans.

http://www.vice.com/read/albanians-in-macedonia-are-pissed-off-jack-davies-777

[Volokin]

We have seen a definite change in the Albanian public's view on the DUI recently, they have seriously come out of favor. Whether this is necessarily a good thing or not remains to be seen. May cause the Albanians to resort to violence to get their messages across rather than government.

[George S.]

we know who the the perpetraitors were caught that killed the 5 Macedonians.Has anyone know who the political perperaitors were??The organizers??THey wanted to destabilize Macedonia.