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80 马其顿--另一个巴尔干半岛
Macedonia: Another Balkan Conflict in the Making?
Laurie Kassman
London
28 Jun 2001 02:18 UTC
Clashes have continued between Macedonian forces and ethnic-Albanian 1)guerrillas 2)despite a cease-fire brokered by NATO on Sunday. Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski is pushing hard for a peaceful settlement. But fears are increasing of another 3)conflict in the Balkans.
Most analysts agree the crisis in Macedonia is the result of decades of simmering 4)hostility between the country's Macedonian majority and its ethnic-Albanian 5)minority.
Balkans expert Hans Stark of the Paris-based International Relations Research Institute says ethnic Albanians are tired of being treated as second-class citizens. They 6)account for one third of the country's population of two million. "For the moment," said Mr. Stark, "they still want to be a part of Macedonia but from their point of view this Macedonia should be a multi-ethnic one based on 7)equality between Macedonians and the Albanians and this is something the Macedonians have some difficulty to understand and to accept. For them, Macedonia is a Slavic state."
Professor Sumantra Bose of the London School of Economics says tensions in Macedonia were fueled by the conflict in neighboring Kosovo and the flood of ethnic-Albanian refugees into Macedonia, which fueled fears that many would stay and tip the 8)demographic balance. "Despite the 9)fragility of the internal relations in Macedonia between the majority and minority populations, the sharp 10)deterioration we've seen this year 2001 has largely been a delayed fallout of the Kosovo episode and the NATO intervention there in 1999," said Sumantra Bose.
According to professor Bose, NATO's operation in Kosovo also 11)emboldened the ethnic Albanian 12)radicals who now threaten Macedonia's stability. "Whether intentionally or not, NATO's 13)intervention on behalf of the Albanian majority in Kosovo has had the effect of encouraging the most radical Albanian elements throughout that region, including in Macedonia. And since KFOR took over the administration of Kosovo in the middle of 1999, two years ago, Kosovo has unfortunately become a base of regional destabilization, a safe haven in this case for Albanian extremists."
Few experts believe Macedonia's 14)ethnic Albanians want to 15)secede from their state. Most agree what they do want are more civil and political rights. The question for the Macedonian majority is how much.
Mark Thompson is Balkans program director at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. He says reforming the constitution should aim at preventing the partition of Macedonia. "One problem at the moment is the direction of constitutional reform - which the ethnic Albanian leaders, and to some extent the ethnic Macedonians are pushing, is 16)in favor of making Macedonia a state of two nations, the ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians. In our view this is a 17)recipe for future disaster. The 18)precedence in Croatia and Bosnia make it very clear that this would pave the way for secessionist moves."
Analysts say President Boris Trajkovski's efforts to resolve the crisis through dialogue are being 19)undermined by 20)hard-liners in his own camp who refuse to make any concessions to the ethnic-Albanian community.
The European Union and NATO are trying to help. The EU has dispatched a special envoy and a legal 21)consultant on constitutional reforms. But NATO's effort earlier this week to remove Albanian guerrillas from a suburb of the capital has undermined its 22)credibility. The action sparked violent protests by those who view all international intervention as secret support for the Albanian minority.
Mr. Thompson says Washington's silence also sends the wrong signal. "Ethnic-Albanian factions believe Washington's current 23)stance shows it supports them," he went on to say. "What they say is, look if Washington were against what we're doing, it would clearly come out and say so."
For now the European Union and NATO are 24)scrambling to help Macedonia's leader resolve the crisis. But analysts warn that help may be too late and too discredited to 25)avert yet another civil war in the Balkans.
(1) guerrilla[^E5rIlE]n.游击战, 游击队
(2) despite[dI5spaIt]prep.不管, 尽管, 不论
(3) conflict[5kRnflIkt]n.斗争, 冲突vi.抵触, 冲突
(4) hostility[hR5stIlItI]n.敌意, 恶意,敌对, 对抗
(5) minority[maI5nRrItI; (?@) -5nC:r-]n.少数, 少数民族
(6) account for v.说明, 占, 解决, 得分
(7) equality[i:5kwRlEtI]n.等同性, 同等, 平等
(8) demographic[demE5^rAfIk]adj.人口统计学的
(9) fragility[ frE`dVIlEtI ]n.脆弱, 虚弱
(10) deterioration n.变坏, 退化, 堕落
(11) embolden[Im5bEJldEn]vt.使大胆, 使有胆量, 使勇敢
(12) radical[5rAdIk(E)l]adj.根本的,激进的n.激进分子
(13) intervention[IntE5venF(E)n]n.干涉
(14) ethnic[5eWnIk]adj.人种的, 种族的, 异教徒的
(15) secede[sI5si:d]vi.正式脱离或退出, 分离
(16) in favor of adv.赞同, 有利于
(17) precedence[5presIdEns]n.优先, 居先
(18) recipe[5resIpI]n.处方
(19) undermine[QndE5maIn]v.破坏
(20) hard-liner[`hB:d`laInE(r)]n.不妥协者
(21) consultant[kEn5sQltEnt]n.顾问, 商议者, 咨询者
(22) credibility[kredI5bIlItI]n.可信性
(23) stance[stR:ns, stAns]n.姿态
(24) scrambling 不规则性
(25) avert[E5v:t]v.转移
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