Ohrid Agreement, was it implemented?

13/08/2011 20:05

The Ochrid Agreement was signed on 13 August 2001, giving an end to the
wide interethnic conflict in Macedonia. Its full implementation was
predicted to be realized by the end of 2004.

But in the first four years, the interested parties apparently lost in the translation of what they had signed in English. The Macedonians made everything possible to slow down its concrete implementation, while the Albanians were striving through their incapacities. Many analysts think that this race was won by the Macedonian political elite.

Even after 10 years, the country continues with the disagreements regarding its implementation. Some think that since this document was not implemented until 2004, it must be considered invalid, and for this reason they are proposing a new Albanian-Macedonian agreement.

Macedonian analysts and historians are trying to understand if this conflict came from Kosovo or not, while Albanians are trying to explain if this uprising had anything to do with the liberation of ethnic lands, as KLA leaders confirmed in their first communications, or if it aimed to protect the rights of the Albanians in Macedonia, as declared in later declarations.

Between these dilemmas there are some Albanian political circles assessing in the conflict of 2001 there was no war for liberating Albanian lands, nor uprising for collective rights, but only an armed battle for bringing Ali Ahmeti and his allies to power.

Whatever the truth was, today, 10 years after this agreement was signed, the elites in Macedonia are still discussing the same issues of one decade ago. Some international organizations’ reports don’t even exclude the possibility of this country’s disintegration, while quality of life is decreasing day by day and the Macedonian national-romanticism is going higher.

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