Republic of Macedonia
Republic of MacedoniaThis is how Boro Ristic, the first president of the Democratic Party of Serbs (DPS) answered the question on how the party came to birth, in his interview for the first issue of "The Serbian Word", a bulletin of the city committee of the Association of Serbs and Montenegro's in Macedonia. The appearance of a new political party was yet again connected with ambitions by certain outcasts of ethnic groups to represent those nationally classified groups, this time of the Serbs and Montenegro's in Macedonia. These ambitions were immediately turned into a public cry against another allegedly endangered ethnic group in Macedonia, faced with "national and spiritual destroying and assimilation."
This was the political program serving as a basis for the entire activity of the party, naturally connected with certain political and religious subjects in Serbia. Consistent northern orientation of the party, its open dislike for authorities in Macedonia, refusal to accept the newly emerged situation following the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, continual insistence on some new Yugoslavia...were one of the main characteristics of the party. Just one proof was the much wider co-operation of the party with Serbian papers' reporters in Macedonia, then with domestic media journalists. As a result of such a "political" activity, the Macedonian public witnessed several conflicts between the police and the militant part of the party membership, most frequently and by no accident in the Skopje village of Kuceviste. Immediately following the known "New Year's Eve case at the merry-go-round in the village", DPS held a press-conference, to announce "unless the discriminating situation of Serbs in Macedonia is resolved through democratic means, we will be forced to undertake measures of self-defense, counting on aid from the homeland." They even mentioned forming of some kind of a "Crisis Headquarters". According to the party, one of the possible solutions for this "spiritual and cultural assimilation of Serbs in Macedonia" was to organise a referendum, at which the "citizens in Macedonia will decide for completion of the second part of the 1991 referendum question and defining of Serbs in the country as constitutive people." A day before the press-conference (15 January, 1993), in the midst of riots in the village of Kuceviste, accompanied with slogans like "Long live Arkan!", "Long live Seselj!" and "Serbia, Serbia!", the party mentioned a possibility of initiating a "referendum on the type of self-defense for Serbs in Macedonia."
In such an atmosphere, the "politic" evolution of DPS went on in the same tone, led with the then still first man of the party, Boro Ristic. The party contacts with the Serbian Orthodox Church, especially with the Bishop of Vranje, Pahomie, continued and resulted in a DPS report (signed by the president himself) to the Macedonian govt on the situation and demands of Serbs in Macedonia. This was the first sign of losing political consistency and unclearly defined demands. The report also stated a request for defining and resolving the legal position of Serbs in Macedonia, "introducing equality of Serbs with all other nationalities in Macedonia." The previous demand for a status of a constitutive people left, and is still leaving, a space for simulating a constant dissatisfaction and completion of a picture of endangered Serbian population in Macedonia, as well as everywhere. In the same report, DPS demanded churches to be open and provide services in Serbian language (e.g., "in the church community of the Porec-Ohrid region"), even in places inhabited by one, and often not even one, Serb (villages around Makedonski Brod -- referred to as "Brod" only by the Serbs -- where the 1991 census registered 34 Serbs). In accordance with this and depending on the place and period in which this was said, the party was and still is dissatisfied with statistic figures on the number of Serbian population in Macedonia (official figures of some 40,000), insisting on a "realistic" figure of between 200 and 300,000 Serbs in Macedonia.
Surprisingly enough for many, an agreement was signed last year, between the Macedonian Govt representative Ljubomir Frckovski (DPS demanded his resignation after the "New Year's Eve incident") and the party president Boro Ristic, under mediation of Gert Arens, responsible for ethnic relations at the Conference on Former Yugoslavia. The agreement dealt with resolving disputable issues concerning the position of Serbs in the country. One of the main Serb demands -- inclusion of Serbs in the constitution -- was assigned an 18-months dead line. Immediately afterwards, after "Serbia and Montenegro criticised the agreement" (as stated in the U.S. State Department annual report), a "radical stream" (as Boro Ristic called it) appeared on the scene, describing the agreement as a "betrayal of Serbia". This "radical stream" became stronger by the day and resulted in a resignation by Ristic, "on grounds of too strong influences from outside and interference in creation of the party's politics, especially by the Socialist and the Radical Party from Serbia, as well as by the Serbian Church, whose 5 senile old leaders cannot comprehend the fact that there is a Macedonian nation, Macedonian state and Macedonian Orthodox Church" (as stated by Boro Ristic).
After Dragisa Miletic was appointed new president and after a short period of true politic activities and orientations, the party is now again turned towards old goals. Macedonia (for them only FYROM) again shows disrespect for basic human and religious rights, and the party again holds press-conferences for Serbian media reporters only (following last January's refusal to permit entry to two Serbian priests), they again precondition their inclusion in the constitution with a status of a constitutive people, in renewed conditions of "national and spiritual destroying and assimilation"...
