“Malok” Albanian Taliban cultur in Macedonia
Picture: FOCUS News AgencyThere is anti-Serbian, fascist, Taliban camarilla in Macedonia: Ivan Stoilkovic
Skopje. “There is some anti-Serbian, fascist, Taliban camarilla developing in Macedonia,” said Ivan Stoilovic, leader of the Democratic Party of the Serbs in Macedonia speaking for the online edition of Nova TV commenting on the latest events in the Macedonian capital city Skopje connected with the monument to Serbian Tsar Stefan Dusan.
In his words, everything starts from the behaviour of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), while the initiative was taken up by the Albanian extremists.
“Why should the Serbian monument be demolished, at the background of a whole sea of monuments in Skopje? Whom does it disturb so much,” the Serbian leader remarked.
09 Dec 13
Macedonia Albanians Attack Bronze Serbian Tsar
Serb politicians in Macedonia have called for calm after ethnic Albanians vandalised a recently-erected statue of the Serbian Tsar Dusan in Skopje at the weekend.
Skopje
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| The statue of Tsar Dusan in Skopje | Photo by: Sinisa Jakov Marusic |
A group of Albanians seriously damaged the statue of the medieval Serbian emperor as they attempted to topple it from its pedestal on the new ‘Bridge of Civilisations’ in central Skopje on Saturday night.
Earlier on Saturday, a group of Albanian opponents of the Serbian monument had tried to cover it with a black shroud, which they said represented “shame”, but were prevented by police.
While many Serbs honour Tsar Dusan as a national hero, his statue, which was erected last week, angered some representatives of the country’s Albanian minority that makes up a quarter of the country’s population.
An ethnic Albanian NGO in Macedonia called Wake Up described the emperor as an “occupier” and said that his statue has no place in Skopje.
“Erecting a monument to a Serbian occupier speaks of an identity crisis, or of the Serbophilia of those who put it there,” the NGO said in a press statement on Friday.
The small Democratic Party of Serbs, which is part of the government coalition, condemned Saturday’s attack.
“The Bridge of Civilisations, which portrays in a unique way the dignitaries of all the peoples and communities that live in Republic of Macedonia, witnessed in action the core difference between our two civilisations, ours and theirs,” the party’s leader Ivan Stoiljkovic said in a statement.
“I call upon the Serbian community members to calmly continue their everyday communication with all the peoples in Macedonia, to be calm, peaceful and not to succumb to any provocations,” he said.
Albanian-language media in Macedonia published video footage of the incident, adding that some of the highest representatives of the junior ruling party, the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, were present during the incident, while the police did nothing to stop it.
The DUI has not yet issued a reaction to the claims, nor has the main ruling VMRO DPMNE party of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.
Dusan was one of Serbia’s most successful rulers and under his reign Serbia became the paramount state in the region. According to historical records, he was crowned Serbian Emperor in Skopje in 1346, where three years later he promulgated a constitution for the Serbian Empire.
Albanians in the Balkans, however, do not recall Serbian rulers with nostalgia or sympathy, largely because the Kingdom of Serbia made off with significant amounts of territory in which Albanians were the majority community following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in Europe in 1912.
Police have said that they will check video surveillance tapes to identify the perpetrators of Saturday’s attack, while the Democratic Party of Serbs said it would see that the statute was restored as soon as possible. http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/albanians-demolish-bronze-serbian-tzar-in-skopje
no gas pipeline, with talibans and albanians
