Fall from Grace

Boris Trajkovski believes in the power of prayer. During a recent visit to the White House, the hulking 45-year-old Macedonian President prayed with George W. Bush. He prayed with an American adviser on the telephone at 2:30 a.m. before launching a recent military offensive against Albanian rebels. These days, in fact, he is praying all the time. "Psychologically it is very difficult for me," he told Time at his parliament building office in Skopje last week. "I have everything in my hands right now. You have to make the choice between right and wrong. I am asking God to give me the right answers."

Trajkovski, who as a Methodist lay preacher believes he is "chosen by God" to lead his country and who also happens to be the Balkans' first Protestant President, has good reason for appealing to a higher power. In the past two months Macedonia has gone from multiethnic success story to the latest tinderbox in a region haunted by ethnic war.

Last week, at least, Trajkovski's prayers were answered. A new coalition government made up of every major ethnically based political party met for the first time to try to work out a political solution for the country's deepening crisis. A threatened government offensive to "eliminate" the insurgents operating in the northern part of the country was called off to allow more civilians to leave the area. But most observers agree that the calm — at least in the Shar Mountains bordering Kosovo — won't last long. Politicians representing the country's 60% Macedonian Slav and roughly one-third ethnic Albanian population are still fundamentally divided over how to deal with the new insurgents, or even what to call them: rebels, terrorists or brothers-in-arms? There are also serious doubts as to whether the coalition will be able to introduce changes quickly enough, or whether those changes will have much impact on the ground, where some ethnic Macedonians are now threatening to take the "defense of the country" into their own hands.

As has been true for almost three months, the 500 to 1,000-strong rebel group that calls itself the National Liberation Army (NLA) is driving the agenda. Last week the rebels were dug into eight villages across a swath of territory in the hills along the Kosovo border preparing anxiously for a threatened government offensive. But the longer-term outcome still depends on the new government's handling of the crisis, militarily and politically. President Trajkovski's amiable, earnest manner has won praise among cynical Macedonians and Western leaders. But beneath him, the divisions are starkly apparent.

"These rebels are monsters who have massacred our people and who are occupying our territory," says Ljubco Georgievski, 35, Macedonia's combative Prime Minister, arguably the most influential voice for the ethnic Macedonian majority. He and Trajkovski are temperamental opposites. Where the President is conciliatory and perhaps a little vague, the more hands-on Georgievski exudes bitterness at what the rebels have done to his country and at how NATO has failed to cut off their supply lines. Western diplomats say he is "poorly advised," but at least some Macedonians welcome his directness in denouncing the insurgency. In an interview last week, Georgievski, a portly man with a scraggly goatee, called the rebels "Talibans" trained and armed in Kosovo by Western democracies as part of their war against Slobodan Milosevic. He scoffed at the notion that they were fighting for equal rights. "Name one single state in Europe or North America where minorities have such huge rights as Albanians in Macedonia," he said, ticking off a list of reforms introduced over the past 10 years. "Only two months ago we were a model of multiethnicity and now we are 'dictators.' Frankly, we are astonished."

Dressed in a crisp white shirt and gray suit, and hunched over his chair after a full day of meetings with fellow politicians and European diplomats, the amateur poet is ready to do battle. Indeed, earlier this month Georgievski almost scuttled attempts to woo Albanian parties into the new coalition by calling for a "state of war" — a threat he said he may repeat if there is another "massive assault" by "beastly terrorists" on a major town. Civilian casualties that may result from ongoing government offensives are a necessary evil, he says. "We have to defend our country."

For Georgievski, and many ethnic Macedonians, the real outrage is the notion shared by many rural Albanians that the men with Kalashnikovs in the hills are some sort of freedom fighters battling for equal rights. The reality is murky at best, but that noble image is what many ethnic Albanians in Macedonia have come to believe. It is also the line energetically promulgated by ethnic Albanian leaders like Arben Xhaferi, 53, the ailing head of the largest Albanian political party. A sphinx-like figure with Parkinson's disease and frozen features that bely considerable eloquence, Xhaferi condemns the NLA's tactics but not its goals. Interviewed in his cramped office in Tetovo last week after meeting with the new coalition, he said Macedonia must find a way to "democratize" the NLA. "Call them fanatics or extremists, but they are not terrorists," he insisted in a hoarse whisper. "They are not killing civilians. The fact is they are there, and they need to be accommodated." Xhaferi, a spiritual father of Albanian rights across the former Yugoslavia, often speaks of his people as "unselected." Says he: "We Albanians were the third-largest group in Yugoslavia, but since the country broke apart we have been in a kind of suspended state. We are waiting for the issues to be solved."

Specifically, Xhaferi is pushing for a series of reforms including local spending powers and proportional representation for Albanians in the police and other state bodies. He also wants a revamping of the constitution to recognize Albanians as equal partners in the country, a change ethnic Macedonians may not be willing to accept. The military impasse is equally worrying. Georgievski insists that his government is intent on "eliminating" what he considers an invading army, but most observers question whether that is feasible even with NATO intelligence and logistical support.

Meanwhile, frustration is percolating dangerously among ordinary ethnic Macedonians. Earlier this month, rioters took to the streets of Bitola and several other towns, smashing windows of Albanian businesses in retaliation for a rebel attack that left eight policemen dead. Xhaferi and others say the police, dominated by ethnic Macedonians, deliberately stood by and watched while rioters rampaged through the neighborhoods. Last week, a leading member of a paramilitary wannabe organization calling itself the Macedonian Lions claimed not to be involved in the rioting but added, "the Shiptars [a derogatory term for Albanians] need to be taught a lesson." A burly 26-year-old with a shaved head, the "general" said the model for his outfit is "Arkan's Tigers," a notorious Serb paramilitary unit in Bosnia and Kosovo that helped invent the 1990s version of ethnic cleansing. "We have to show the Shiptars we're ready to defend our nation," he said. Another hard-liner in Tetovo, a former M.P. known by friends as the Bomb, predicted the new government would soon fall, triggering elections and a tougher, more hard-line regime. "We need a firm hand," he said, sipping Pepsi in a local café.

The miracle, perhaps, is that Macedonia so far has managed to escape civil war. That is tribute to politicians' restraint — despite the inflamed rhetoric — as well as uncharacteristically determined shuttle diplomacy by such Western leaders as E.U. foreign policy chief Javier Solana. Most Macedonians may be cynical about their leaders, but they are not, it seems, eager to take up arms. "There would be no winners if the all-out war starts here," says former Defense Minister Ljubomir Frckoski. The President for his part continues to hope that somehow a solution can be found. "We have to win the war without victims," he says. And he continues to pray.