Macedonian analysts blame downplayed security threats for Kumanovo unrest/
by Daniela Trpcevska*/
The attempts to destabilize Macedonia following the Kumanovo operation, during which police officers have been killed and many more have been injured following a shootout with an armed group, have increased concerns about the country’s security. Security experts put the blame on the downplayed security risks that the country has been facing for some time now and they have remarks about the police operation, too, in which eight policemen were killed. Yet, experts say that, given that the armed group leaders have been eliminated, it is hardly likely that similar acts of resistance would happen any time soon, particularly because they do not have the local residents’ support. The fact that all the Macedonian residents, notwithstanding their ethnic, political, or any other affiliation, have condemned the armed incidents in the Kumanovo-Lipkovo region also goes in favour of the claims that the situation is calming down.
Retired General Blagoja Markovski believes that the MVR’s [Interior Ministry] operation against the Kumanovo armed group was “both badly planned and badly conducted” given its outcome and consequences. Markovski believes that, when this operation was planned, a number of other aspects, primarily the rationality aspect and the economical principle, should have been heeded.
“In this particular case, they attained the set goal, but there are too many victims and wounded police officers. We have the impression that the policemen were dispatched on the field like ‘sitting ducks’ without the use of certain tactical procedures that are applied during urban warfare,” Markovski says.
He believes that the civilians should have been extracted first and this armed group should have subsequently been isolated and forced to either surrender or be eliminated through other means and tactical moves.
Hence, the MVR should assume responsibility for these horrifying consequences and for allowing this group to enter Kumanovo from a neighbouring country, to position itself, to provide weapons and logistics, and thus enable long-term resistance and protection of its location, Markovski assesses.
Given that the leaders of this armed formation have been killed, it is less likely that there will be similar resistance any time soon because they do not have wider support from the local residents. Still, the analysts warn that caution is required because individual and other smaller armed groups may cause unwanted consequences among the local residents.
“We cannot say that conditions have been met for this incident and conflict to succeed. They will not succeed because regional peace and stability are the strategic interests of the Albanians in Macedonia, Kosovo, and beyond, so that they should not be regarded as the key culprit for the undermined stability. On the contrary, their strategic interest is for Kosovo and all the other parts to be peaceful and stable,” retired General Ilija Nikolovski assesses.
He has told Kanal 5 TV that the Kumanovo armed group consisted of mercenaries and that the mastermind behind this crisis has lost control.
“Given the serious regional economic crisis and given that mercenaries go to Syria, Afghanistan, and other countries, it is much easier for them to come and act in Macedonia for a certain amount of money and the retreat. I do not know who the organizer is and who controls this crisis, but I have a feeling that the organizer has failed to predict a few things, so they have gone out of control,” Nikolovski has said.
University Professor Vladimir Pivovarov, who lives in Kumanovo, says that, a day before the incident, his Albanians friends from the Lipkovo region warned him that there was an armed formation on the ground, but that the local residents did not support it and instead expelled it, after which the group positioned themselves in Diva Naselba.
“I believe that the services have been informed of this,” Pivovarov says. The armed group has found an asylum precisely in Diva Naselba because it is mostly populated by ethnic Albanians.
According to Pivovarov, in this specific case the intelligence and counterintelligence services have not done their job properly, given that they have been deprived of the basic instruments to gather information, which undermines the pillar of country’s security.
“We need not all behave like generals in a battle, but how can such a large armed group appear in an urban area and in an area where the local residents do not support it. I also do not understand why the police have chosen this assault tactic, when they could have surrounded the district first, called on the residents to leave, evacuated them, and then neutralized the area without any casualties,” Pivovarov says.
He believes that large-scale attacks are no longer possible because no one supports such incidents, but he warns of the danger of individual attacks.
“The latest developments suggest that we have not learned our lesson from 2001. If there are victims, then some oversights must have been made. The operative findings are not taken seriously enough and timely measures are not taken to thwart incidents. Politics should take its hands off security forces because they are the pillar of the country and a guarantee of its peace and security,” the analyst says.
*Utrinski Vesnik, Skopje, in Macedonian 11 May 2015