Macedonia's New Mystery: The Death of a President and What It Portends

Barely two weeks ago Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski met his death in the foggy hills of Bosnia, and already a charged debate has arisen regarding not only the cause of the crash but also Trajkovski's posthumous remembrance. Some foreign and Macedonian critics are charging their leaders with hypocrisy for allegedly sanctifying a president who was until recently "despised." Then there is the "international community," whose reaction of undying praise has decisively shaped the mass media's portrayal of the man, perhaps forever.

Yet through all this sound and fury, underlying everything is the recklessness with which interested parties are rushing to oversimplify things. Regardless of their differing reactions, these parties (who have multiplied exponentially since the president's death) seem to be united in the desire to justify the past and shape the future of Macedonia's political horizons by extracting meaning from the event.

The Crash: a Synopsis

Thus far, fact is almost inseparable from speculation. What we do know is this: The president's plane crashed approximately 10-15 kilometers south of its destination, Mostar, while beginning its final descent in the midst of a heavy storm. On the 1.5 hour flight from Skopje, the plane had to cross the airspaces of 5 countries – Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, and, briefly, Croatia, before landing in Bosnia. Macedonia's civil aviation authority soon claimed that it had warned the pilots not to fly because of treacherous weather conditions in Bosnia. The storm did indeed cause other conference delegations to turn back.

The plane's black boxes are undergoing examination in Germany, and in about a month the final report will be released. Preliminary findings are on their way, the government announced Tuesday. Now, in the absence of solid information, the whole amorphous affair is already taking on uniquely Balkan conspiratorial tones.

Pilot Error?

While a Bosnian newspaper blamed the crash on pilot error, the son of lead pilot Marko Markovski, civil aviation official Zoran Markovski rejected this possibility. Experienced Macedonian pilots surveyed by Dnevnik newspaper agreed that Markovski Sr. was "one of the best," a flight instructor and pilot with 30 year's flying experience in both military and civilian aircraft, a man who had wide experience flying intercontinental and European routes.

The expertise of co-pilot Branko Ivanovski, an experienced officer in the Macedonian air force, is supported by a leaked US Air Force document that I have seen. Dated April 7, 2000, the document records Ivanovski's attendance at a 5-week squadron officer course at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. Signed by a USAF colonel, the document commends Ivanovski's abilities, stating that he displayed "top analytical and decision-making skills," and also "excelled in extremely challenging, dynamic leadership situations."

Communication Breakdown?

Alternatively, some have argued for a communications error between the ground controllers and the plane's pilots. On February 26, French NATO Stabilization Force (SFOR) military officers were operating Mostar's control tower. Bosnian media who spoke with investigators claim that audio tapes record 25 minutes of recorded ground-pilot conversation – followed by a seven-minute silence preceding the crash. An aviation expert told Skopje's Dnevnik that:

"…seven minutes is too long a period of time [to be out of contact]. The position of the airplane in that time could change. The local Mostar control team must inform the regional air control team that they have lost contact with the plane. For sure the regional control would then intervene. They shouldn't have waited so long to get in contact again."

According to Kire Kaevski, a former Macedonian government pilot, Markovski and Ivanovski were relying on a combination of DME (distance measuring equipment) and Mostar Airport's VOR (very high frequency omni-directional range), a commonly used navigation aid operating in the 108-118 Mhz band. This system allows the control tower to transmit a two-phase directional signal which is picked up by the aircraft's VOR receiver. The pilot can then identify his radial or bearing, and changes his location upon instruction from the ground controllers. The pilot depends on the control tower to "…give him permission to fly to other points on the [aeronautical] map." Adds another pilot,

"…when it is very foggy there, you have to land 'blind.' You should listen very carefully to the flight controller. …Mostar airport is very difficult for landing."

Did NATO Kill the President?

On Friday, February 27, the day after the crash, a Bosnian Interior Ministry official raised a provocative question:

"…at the moment when the plane hit the hill, it was 650 meters lower than the minimally allowed flight height. Also, during the fall, the plane of the Macedonian Government was only 15 air kilometers away from the airport in Mostar. That radius vector is under direct control of SFOR's navigation team."

The implications were apparent. Mladen Ivanovikj, Foreign Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina, stated ominously on the 27^th that "SFOR will be requested to provide more information." The media jumped at the chance to confirm NATO's biggest Balkan blunder.

The most controversial, and, therefore, most popular, charge is that SFOR air traffic controllers demonstrated negligence either by ignoring the incoming Macedonian plane or by allowing it to fly too low. This theory has been aired by various Bosnian Interior Ministry officials, Macedonian investigators, and the media in both countries.

Some also allege that the plane was locked into a dangerous air corridor, too close to another, safe, corridor. Mostar was a popular destination on February 26 because of the international investment conference to which President Trajkovski and other regional leaders were headed. Several of the delegations, including that of the Albanians, who shared the Macedonian's flight path turned back because of the bad weather. Is it possible that the SFOR controllers mistakenly allotted a dangerous route to the Macedonians in their haste to prepare for so many planes all arriving nearly simultaneously?

Another much less credible possibility – that the pilots couldn't communicate with the ground controllers because the latter were French and speaking in their own language – was thankfully laid to rest in Tuesday's statement from the government.

The Apparent Justification: A Late and Faulty Search

The principal evidence against SFOR, for Macedonian and Bosnian critics, is the fact that it took over 24 hours for the wreckage of the plane to be found. The plane disappeared at 8:20 AM on the 26^th, and for an entire day, SFOR, citing dangerous weather conditions, didn't allow air searches. Only ground searches were conducted, but slowly and ineffectually (the area remains heavily mined from the Bosnian War). SFOR Spokesman Captain Dave Sullivan stated on Tuesday, March 2, that, "…because of the bad weather, the investigation was limited to visual searching of the area. Even infrared searching was not possible."

This explanation was attacked at once. Given that the air traffic controllers knew the plane's last coordinates, and that it should have automatically emitted an emergency radio signal upon crashing, critics argued, why did SFOR fail to locate the wreckage quickly? And why were the Bosnian search teams – the world's best at working in minefields – prevented from searching?

According to the above-mentioned Bosnian official,

"…the question arises as to why SFOR, being the direct controller of the flight during the whole day and night, didn't announce the exact location of the plane crash and why the search for the missing plane took 24 hours, if they saw on the navigation system where the plane had crashed."

Zoran Markovski, himself an air traffic controller, agreed:

"…they [Mostar's SFOR controllers] can register the exact geographic position of the plane, its height and speed. Yet the plane was found 26 hours after the accident and was only 10 kilometers from the airport, and crashed during the landing phase. Why wasn't the Bosnian search team activated – the one which during the war found a crashed plane and saved the pilot in just 17 minutes?"

Rising Tensions

The mutual mistrust was compounded by unverified statements that the French air traffic controllers in question had fled Bosnia after the crash. On 1 March, Macedonian Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski thundered, "…I don't know whether they are out of Bosnia or not but wherever they are they cannot avoid being investigated."

Two days later, SFOR spokesman Norbert Hoerpel was claiming that the French air controllers had already been interrogated by investigators. However, Bosnian State Prosecutor and chief of the investigation Vaso Marinkovic rebuked him: "…no one from our team has talked with them. I do not have information [as to] whom they have…talked [to], but certainly they have had no talks with us."

In response, Hoerpel stated, "…I know that they [the alleged interrogators] were members of the Air Accident Investigation Committee, but I do not know their names." Simultaneously, damage control was being carried out by Bosnia's Europolice spokesman, Kirsten Haupt, who "…denied accusations that Europolice might be responsible for the disinformation…on the day of the accident."

A Conspiracy – Or Just a Bad Plane?

A final explanation offered was that the 26-year-old Beechcraft King Air 200 suffered mechanical failure. A former foreign minister, Slobodan Casule, claimed that the windshield of the very same plane had once blown out during a flight over Romania. In fact, it is said that President Trajkovski himself once refused to take the plane, deeming it unsafe. There was also a mysterious claim of a pre-clash explosion on the plane.

Slobodan Casule, a former Foreign Minister, claimed that the crashed plane had almost endangered his life on one occasion. Stojan Andov of the Liberal Party is on his right.

Yet although less conspiratorial this explanation is just as politically charged as the others. Indeed, even if a Macedonian president could never hope to have a jet like the one George W. Bush enjoys, should he really be condemned to fly on a twin-engine relic? Casule claimed that "public outcry" had prevented the country from spending more money on a better plane.

No wonder then that the government has diverted public attention by taking the offensive against SFOR. If it turns out that mechanical and not human error was behind the crash, it will be hard to avoid the embarrassing conclusion that, all heartfelt expressions of sympathy aside, the country actually cares very little for the well-being of its leaders. And this is where we leave the investigation behind and enter into the still more shadowy realm of symbol.

Sympathy for the Deceased

Macedonia is a small and vulnerable country, whose very future remains an open question. No matter what individual Macedonians may have felt about Boris Trajkovski, the sudden elimination of their most visible public leader could only increase the latent pessimism of a people who feel their country is living on borrowed time.

PM Crvenkovski (center) with Speaker of Parliament and Acting President Ljubco Yordanovski (left) and Supreme Court head Ljiljana Ristova-Ingilizova (right)

It is nevertheless remarkable that the president's death has sparked so much emotion. Despite his oft-criticized pandering to Albanian interests, and apparent clownishness, Trajkovski was neither controversial nor hated. Those who loved him in both life and death are the exception – and that is why the mass outpouring of emotion has been so remarkable.

President of the European Commission Romano Prodi addresses the funeral crowd.

In actuality, the public's widely sympathetic reaction to the president's death indicates that no one was particularly offended by him. In fact, even the criticism of Trajkovski over his frequent concessions to the Albanians, such as the recent Tetovo university legalization, were meted out with a grain of salt. Embittered Macedonians know the score. Any president of their compromised little country is duty-bound to serve the United States and European Union. And if ethnic federalization is part of the larger plan, then not even he can stop it.

Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski speaking at President Trajkovski's funeral last Friday

Still, the charge of "hypocrisy" has been levied. Yet for the majority of Macedonians, jaded, despairing and fatalistic as they are, their posthumous about-face amounts to merely a display of regretful embarrassment. Of course, we can be sure that plenty of other regular citizens suffered true remorse of conscience for having once disparaged the deceased. Yet this is a thoroughly universal reaction that can be observed when anyone dies, anywhere in the world. As such, there was little worth interpreting so far as Macedonia's public reaction went.

Pallbearers of the military guard salute and carry the president's casket towards the grave.

Diverging Laments

What was telling, however, was the differences between foreign and local laments. Macedonians repeatedly voiced their sadness for Trajkovski, "first as a man, and then as a president," – the implication being that they felt sympathy for the president as a person, and for his father, brothers, widowed wife, and two children. Yet judging from the Western reaction, one would think that the sublime Boris Trajkovski was instead fond of kissing Human Rights and Ethnic Tolerance on the cheek before tucking them in to bed at night.

Thousands of people from all over Macedonia waited to watch the president's casket be brought out from the parliament building.

True, the president's cooperation with Western plans for hackneyed inter-ethnic harmony made him a butt of jokes in the Macedonian'media. One weekly magazine's cartoon often depicted Trajkovski in his bed, dressed in red white and blue boxer shorts, taking his orders by phone from Washington. This allegiance to American wishes was seen when the "peacemaker president," as the Western media has eulogized him, gave his full support for the Iraq War. Yet, when not even larger and more established countries don't dare oppose the Empire's will, who could really hold this against him?

Sadly, this compliance did little for either Trajkovski or for Macedonia. In the weeks before his death, the president was increasingly being regarded as politically irrelevant, and was even forgotten by the fickle Americans. According to Dnevnik, Trajkovski had recently solicited the major Macedonian and Albanian parties, and found no one willing to support his candidacy for re-election in November.

The funeral procession gets underway from the Parliament.

Yet now that the president is truly gone, the Western media and diplomatic corps are not willing to let him go. He has just too many uses. And so a man whose political survival was in doubt only two weeks ago has become unbeatable in death. The legacy of Boris Trajkovski is now being manipulated, with neither fairness nor reason, to symbolize every abstract valuethat the West would like to instill in the Balkans. And the president's successor will be obliged to adhere to these values, and the rhetoric employed in their defense – regardless of the effect on Macedonia's future existence.