[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 139 (Wednesday, October 7, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1933]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




``ARBEN XHAFERI ON PEACE AND DEMOCRACY IN THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC 
                             OF MACEDONIA''

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. BENJAMIN A. GILMAN

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, October 7, 1998

  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Arben Xhaferi is the Chairman of the 
Albanian Democratic Party of Macedonia, one of the leading parties 
representing ethnic Albanian citizens of the Former Yugoslav Republic 
of Macedonia.
  Mr. Xhaferi visited Washington last week and delivered a speech at 
the United States Institute of Peace concerning developments in the 
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the situation in the Balkans 
in general. I would like to provide for the Members' review the 
introductory portion of Mr. Xhaferi's presentation, in which he 
outlines his argument that a people's right to self-determination 
should supercede a state's right to territorial integrity if that state 
does not guarantee democratic and human rights for all its citizens, 
regardless of ethnic background.
  Mr. Speaker, while attention has been focused on the conflict that 
has raged in the Kosovo region of Serbia, we should note that the 
future of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is just as 
important for the development of peace and democracy in the Balkans. 
The creation of a unitary state with equal rights for all it citizens 
is an important process in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. 
The United States Department of State and Agency for International 
Development should pay full attention to the problems in that new 
country and re-double on-going efforts to support democratization, 
economic growth and educational opportunities there.
  Mr. Speaker, the introductory portion of Mr. Xhaferi's speech 
follows.

             Challenges to Democracy in Multiethnic States

                           (By Arben Xhaferi)


                              Introduction

       Since the fall of communism, the economic, social, ethnic, 
     and cultural problems that previously were concealed and 
     suppressed by Communist ideologists have reemerged, and often 
     in tragic ways. Five decades of the suppression of ethnic and 
     social conflicts in the service of Communist ideology have 
     resulted in the ``revenge of history over ideology,'' which, 
     in post-Communist states, has manifested itself in two 
     troubling phenomena: the creation of ``ethnic States'' and 
     the creation of colonial relations, and in some instances, 
     apartheid relations, among different ethnic groups.
       Consequently, in post-Communist States, there is and there 
     will be for the foreseeable future a struggle between the 
     forces that seek to affirm and cultivate diversity and 
     democracy and those that seek the ethnic, religious, 
     economic, and political domination of one group over another. 
     The attempt of dominant ethnic groups to achieve hegemony is 
     being orchestrated through the misuse of Western values. 
     Democracy is proclaimed and then subverted by officials who 
     have transformed it into an instrument of elimination, a 
     method for marginalizing non-dominant ethnic groups. In the 
     Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), for example, a 
     parliament that represents the dominant group of Macedonians 
     ``votes'' to legalize their ``right'' to dominate the 
     minority.
       With the shattering of the former Soviet Union and the 
     corresponding rise in ethnic wars of secession, two competing 
     claims in the sphere of international law now confront each 
     other: the right of self-determination, including 
     emancipation and decolinization, and the right of 
     sovereignty, including the inviolability of borders. The 
     former right is in alienable, whereas the latter right is not 
     absolute--it simply defines the ways in which borders can or 
     cannot be changed. The right to self-determination is under 
     attack by those who would replace the ideological 
     totalitarianism of the Communist system with ethnic 
     totalitarianism. In Bosnia, we have witnessed ethnic 
     cleansing. In Kosova, we have watched a apartheid unfolds 
     into genocide; in FYROM, we have seen the second largest 
     ethnic group, the Albanians, marginalized; and in Russia, a 
     Slavophile diplomatic policy prevails.
       The efforts of dominant ethnic groups in the post-Cold War 
     world to deny individual liberties and ethnic, cultural, 
     linguistic, and religious rights among ethnic groups seeking 
     freedom and self-determination have been justified using 
     arguments of Legality, the inviolability of borders, 
     conspiracy (unfounded speculations about attempts by 
     ``foreign enemies'' to overthrow the State), racist or 
     ethnocentrist theories, history, including fictitious claims 
     of national destiny, and the threat of instability posed by 
     false comparisons between, for example, the demands and 
     status of American Hispanics, Aborigines in Australia, 
     Basques in Spain, Arabs in France, and Albanians in the 
     former Yugoslavia.
       Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and his staff resort 
     to most of these arguments when they discuss the factors that 
     led to the disintegration of Yugoslavia. The blame foreign 
     agents, the West in general and former U.S. Congressman 
     Robert Dole and former German Minister of Foreign Affairs 
     Hans Genscher in particular, as responsible for the 
     disintegration of their country. Simultaneously, the hold 
     aloft Serbia as the bastion of Orthodoxy preventing the 
     penetration of Catholicism in the East and Islam in the West. 
     In order to justify their hegemony, the Serbian regime 
     oscillates between the ethnic argument (Bosnia and 
     Hercegovina) and the historical argument (Kosova is Serbia's 
     ``Jerusalem'').
       Similarly, in FYROM, when the Albanians called for more 
     extensive use of the Albanian language and the official 
     recognition of the Albanian University of Tetova within the 
     Macedonian educational system, the government of Koro 
     Gligorov dismissed these demands by arguing that if such 
     rights were given to Albanians, then the same should also be 
     given to Hispanics in Texas and Arabs in Marseilles.
       Nevertheless, we stand at the beginning of a new era in 
     which old federations are dissolving, their constituent parts 
     are seceding, and the right to self-determination is emerging 
     as a defining issue on the historical stage. In the face of 
     massive human rights abuses and economic, cultural, and 
     political disenfranchisement, a people's right to self-
     determination must have priority over territorial integrity. 
     Emerging new States should be recognized only if they 
     guarantee human rights, freedom, equality, peace, and 
     democracy for all groups.

     

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