Thousands flood Macedonian capital for anti-government rally; Color/Spring tactic goes live

Thousands flood Macedonian capital for anti-government rally – YouTube

Crowds of anti-government protesters have taken to the streets in the Balkan state of Macedonia, as unrest unfolds in the country over a wiretapping scandal, involving the country’s current leader, Nikola Gruevski.

Over 20,000 people took part in protests on Sunday in the country’s capital of Skopje, marching from the government building to the Macedonian parliament, AFP reported. The protesters demanded the resignation of PM Gruevski’s government, following opposition leader Zoran Zaev’s accusations against them and recent ethnic clashes in the ex-Yugoslav republic.

The crisis, which has already been named the worst political unrest in the country since 2001, started to unravel in February, when the opposition leader released illegally gathered wiretaps alleging the government has been breaking some fundamental democratic rules. The prime minister said the tapes were doctored.

Calling Macedonia a “tinderbox,” political analyst Aleksandar Pavic said the current crisis “is not the first time we’ve seen such unrest that is ethnically motivated and instigated from the outside.” Macedonia suffered a similar situation in 2001, “after which America and the Western powers came in and brokered peace that gave Albanians much more power than they had before,” Pavic told RT.

“We must remember when the South Stream gas pipeline was on board, Bulgaria was also a target of destabilization, there were also people in the streets, and as a result Bulgaria was the key country that withdrew support from South Stream. That’s when Russia turned to Turkey for the Turkish Stream, and as soon as Russia and Turkey made a deal, we have unrest in Macedonia,” Aleksandar Pavic told RT.

Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow “can’t help thinking” that the recent terrorist attack in Macedonia has something to do with the country’s objection to anti-Russian sanctions and its possible role as a transit country for Russian gas through Turkey.

During his visit to Serbia on Friday, Lavrov expressed concern that events in Kumanovo “were the result of a well-planned terrorist act,” and said the situation in Macedonia “does not give us any grounds for optimism.” Officials in Brussels are apparently embarrassed that all their efforts to stabilize the situation in the former Yugoslavia have been ineffective

http://rt.com/news/259421-macedonia-opposition-rally-gruevski/

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