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Archived Articles
Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Serbia: The Fragile Balkan EquilibriumIt couldn't have been a worse time for the West to see the Serbian nationalists showing their strength in a new attempt to remodel the Balkan frontiers. The Afghanistan war has become interminable. The occupation of Iraq begins to de-escalate without reaching its main goals - finding WMD or at least eliminating Saddam. The terrorists around the globe attack Western representatives and interests. And now the Serbian population has shown its disrespect to the so-called democratic forces that ousted President Milosevic from power some 3 years ago. Why have the Serbs distanced themselves from the democrats? Is this because they are democrats only in words or is it because they didn't follow the Great Serbia projects of the 90's? Could it be a mixture of the both? For the third consecutive time the Serbian voters in November 2003 weren't able to elect a president of the republic because of the low turnout. With no president, no functioning parliament, no ruling majority and no unity among the democratic forces that ousted Milosevic in 2000, Serbians preferred to put on the extreme nationalist candidate Tomislav Nikolic, better known as the deputy prime minister in the 90's during the Milosevic reign. As de facto leader of the Serbian Radical Party (SRP), Nikolic won almost 50% of the popular vote this month. The previous strong man in the party, the famous Vojslav Seselj now is detained in The Hague on trial for war crimes in former Yugoslavia. A brief look at the SRP program, unfortunately available only in Serbian, reveals its main political goal as no less and no more than creating Greater Serbia by uniting the following territorial units: present Serbia (of course including Kosovo), Montenegro, and also Republic Srpska (now part of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and to so-called Serbian Krajna, which will mean in fact annexation of parts of Croatia. The attempt of SRP to get the Serbian presidency failed, but for how long? In December 2003 the Serbians will elect their new parliament and with no major shifts in the public opinion and no major move in the democratic camp toward some form of union the results perhaps will copy those of November. Then the Radicals could easier get the presidency following the famous Milosevic recommendation that what matters in the politic isn't the way people vote but the way the government counts the votes. In the democratic camp the news are less than pessimistic in what concerns its unification, so the Western concerns about the Balkan security are more than appropriate. What went wrong in Serbia? Is the West the main culprit to blame or the real problems come from Serbia itself? Perhaps it's some mixture of both. I think that the West, looking at Milosevic and Seselj sitting behind bars in The Hague, has considered its mission in Serbia accomplished. Demonizing particular individuals like Milosevic was easier than trying to understand what stands behind these personal political choices. The elections in November showed that the Serbian nationalism wasn't a product of the wicked brain of few politicians and that it had deep roots in the mentality of millions. Milosevic finally lost power not because he was nationalist, but because he was perceived by many as not being sufficiently radical and efficient nationalist (losing the wars in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo). For the West it will be more difficult to deal with the Serbian nationalism if the SRP wins the power, because the time now for a new military intervention on the Balkans is more than inappropriate. The European Union and the United States are more distanced on the international arena than 3-4 years ago; Russia may wish to take revenge for the lost position in the Balkans; unfortunately some new Serbian atrocities (you can't unite so many territories without new atrocities), especially against Muslim population in Bosnia or Kosovo will be less negatively perceived by the West because of the global war against the terrorism. Indeed, it couldn't have been worse time for the West to see again the Serbian nationalism threatening its neighbors.
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