Tilting the scale

Slavs and ethnic Albanians cohabit in Macedonia but they do not mix. The influx of refugees from over the northern border with Kosovo has increasedmistrust among the traditional Slav majority here.

The refugees8217; arrival has produced not only social and economic crises but existential angst among Slavs.

Professor Elka Dimitriyeva of the Skopje Economic Institute says that many refugees are likely to stay on, especially among the 150,000 who have managed to find proper lodgings and avoid the makeshift camps.

8220;The refugees now make up more than 10 percent of the entire population and have swollen Macedonia8217;s Albanian minority by 50 percent,8221; she said. 8220;This creates a risk that the demographic map of Macedonia and its national structure will be upset.8221;

But Arben Dzaferi, leader of the Albanian Democratic Party in parliament here, disagrees. 8220;The refugees are not here to modify the ethnic map of Macedonia to the advantage of the Albanians,8221; he said.

Dzaferi, whose party has five ministers in the Macedonian government and 11 deputies in parliament in Skopje, insisted that after the Kosovo conflict was over the refugees would 8220;quickly returnto Kosovo8221;.

Professor Slav Risteski of the economic faculty of Skopje University expects the Slavonic and Albanian populations will be equal in numbers around the years 2030 and 2050.

The birthrate of the Albanian minority which forms 22 percent of the 2.2 million population of Macedonia is four children per family compared to 1.7 children on average in Slavonic families.

Between 1961 and 1994 the Slav population increased by only 26 percent while the ethnic Albanian population grew by 139 percent.

This was also partly due to the fact that many Slavs emigrated after the fall of communism in Yugoslavia, while Albanians from Macedonia8217;s western neighbour Albania crossed the border and settled here for economic reasons.

8220;Look at reports in the newspapers,8221; said Vlado, a taxi driver. 8220;You8217;ll notice that people being charged with offences very often have Albanian names.8221;

In the capital Skopje, the Vardar River divides the Albanian and Slav districts. 8220;They don8217;t communicate with each other andthere were only 14 mixed marriages last year,8221; a diplomat said.

The Albanian minority has Albanian-language schools, their own programmes on radio and television and a guaranteed number of university entrance places.

However the authorities have so far refused permission for an Albanian university proposed for the town of Tetovo, intellectual capital of the exiles.

8220;The presence of the 225,000 refugees threatens the stable development of Macedonia,8221; the pro-government newspaper Vetcher said a week ago.

It warned that the Albanian minority might sooner or later seek to change Macedonia into a federation in which they would no longer be a minority but a separate entity.

Press reports say ethnic Albanians have been buying large numbers of houses in towns like Skopje with strong Slav majorities, while the Slavs are in the process of deserting Tetovo.

The press has raised two other important questions:

8212; How will the educational system cope, since the majority of the refugees are in factchildren?

8212; And how will available work be shared out in a country in which the unemployment rate was 36 percent even before the refugees arrived?