Balkananalysis.com has published an interview (link) conducted yesterday with the Minister of Interior, Gordana Jankulovska (GJ) by Chris Deliso (CD). Some rather uncomfortable questions were asked:
"CD: Another recent provocative issue that has been suspected of having political involvement was this clash in the Skopje square between protesters and counter-protesters arguing about the idea of building a church there. [T]he EU Ambassador Fouere got especially worked up about this, while US Ambassador Reeker noted that such incidents don’t help improve Macedonia’s image abroad. What can you say about this incident, and the police’s handling of it?
GJ: I agree that this incident was terrible for the perception of Macedonia abroad, and it was unacceptable … [T]he most important thing for us was to stop the situation from escalating, and in investigating to clear up the incident as soon as possible. To now, 23 people have been charged already for participation in violence-
CD: Yes, but are these only from the side of the protesters, these students?
GJ: I can’t say specifically to which group all of these individuals belong, but I believe they must come from both. We are looking at all the available evidence, such as videos made by the media, and we can see that way if someone was directly involved … [L]ooking at certain names of people involved in the protests, it is clear that this event was not completely separate from the elections …
CD: It has also been said that the police were slow in reacting- your thoughts?
GJ: Actually, a further and more serious escalation of violence was prevented by actions of the police. And another fact, though it doesn’t really matter any more, was that the organizers of the protest only announced their intention to the police 24 hours before the event-
CD: How much before should it have been?
GJ: Well, the law says such public events should be announced at least 48 hours in advance, to give the police sufficient time to create an appropriate security plan. And, another part of this bad planning, though also not really relevant now, was that the organizers gave us an incorrect assessment about the number of expected participants - we received a note from them saying there would be 200, though actually there were many more.
CD: Yes, but I understand this was because of the large number of counter-demonstrators? And did they give any advance notice for their presence?
GJ: That is correct, they had many more. And they didn’t give any notice in advance of their intentions.
CD: So, this is part of why people have suggested it was an organized political affair?
GJ: Perhaps, but I don’t want to speculate, as the police is not interested in politics, whether political parties were ultimately the organizers or not. What is important from our side, was that the situation was not allowed to escalate. But I would like to restate that it looked very bad and gives a very bad image of our country …"
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