[QUOTE][U]Epirot to Vangelovski:[/U]

[B]I highly doubt that you have read a single paragraph of that framework.[/B] [/QUOTE]

Epirot you should be banned for saying that. The man wrote his PhD on the framework agreement, how dare you say that!

In today's news:

School authorities have destroyed the bust of Jane Sandanski in the yard of a school in Skopje after replacing his name with some Albanian figure.

Epirot

[QUOTE]You and your compatriots have miserably failed to find out any case when Albanians by exercising their veto powers have blocked decisions of 'national' importance...

[/QUOTE]

Have you checked the Macedonian passports recently?
Which other country in the developed world is required to recognise the language of a different ethnicity on it's passport? Tell me this is not a matter of national importance.

Epirots behavior is nothing short of a dumb retard of a shiptar a typical response one of denial & one of attempting to deny the obvious.Trying to hide from the truth.Regarding pasports albanians wanted their own its like a country within a country thank goodness the rom govt knocked that on the head.Can you imagine one set of laws for one lot of people & another set of laws for someone else.ridiculous claims of them being illyrian. when they are nothing of the sort.Look at the way they get away with virtually immmunity to justice.They have been given far too many priveleges etc without consultation with the macedonia people who are the majority.

Niko how dare you say that the albanians destroyed the bust of yane Sandaski that was just a mark of respect for us slavo macedonians can't you. see that?This is typical retard behaviour from those who think we don't understand that they respect us but slowly are pulling the rug from under us.
How about where niko you showed that children are learning at school about a greater albania being taught by albanians at their school.No they are simply respecting us.Also the uck monuments is mean't to provide us with reconciliation so why are we agains't all this because it's mean't to be better for us.Thats the retarded view of albanians who think they know better what's good for us.

Wmc
 

Military academy enrolment discrimination of Macedonians!

[QUOTE]September 9, 2012, Skopje, Macedonia – The Macedonian World Congress (WMC) strongly protests the Minister of Defense, Besimi’s decision to enroll a number of Macedonians and Albanians in the Military Academy which is contrary to the equality of citizens before the Constitution and the law, regardless of ethnic origin, and contrary to equitable representation in the ethnic communities. The WMC would like to point out that discriminatory measures are applied by the Defense Minister: despite their higher ranking in the preliminary list, Macedonians are not found in the final list for admission to the military academy. They are replaced by Albanians with very poor results.

The WMC, therefore, demands that the government take action to nullify the admission results from the final competition and allow registration to take place in accordance with the results of the preliminary list, and not according to the decision of the Minister of Defense.

Military Academy Law does not specify how many candidates from the ethnic Communities are needed to be admitted, however if equitable representation is employed, it should be used in accordance with census results and without discrimination and segregation, and the number of Albanians in Macedonia is certainly not 50% but around 15%.

The WMC would like to advise all candidates dissatisfied with the way the new selection of students - cadets is conducted, to take all legal measures to prove the injustices carried out by the Military Academy’s admissions office and to protest to the Government of the Republic of Macedonia. [/QUOTE]
Whilst I do not agree with the affirmation of the Ohrid Agreement by WMC. I still think it necessary to highlight the level of complicity the Defence Minister has descended into. He is yet to answer for his actions in relation to honouring the terrorists recently. The DPmNE led coalition government is the only one responsible.

After all is said & done it defies logic that nothing will happen to him he gets to keep his job.The whole thing makes a mockery of our system of fairness & justice.The last thing the politicians want to offend the albanian side so they have perhaps provided a way out for both.No one will do anything about it end of story hoping it will all go away.It will turn out that the albanians are the victims in all this.
Niko, Tom was running rings around the worm epirote & Tom had far more sophistication & real knowledge & evidence to wipe the idiot out completely with one fell swoop.Tom is an authority on the ohrid framework agreement he certainly knows his stuff what he's talking about.Also epirote has insulted Tom as he has a PHD on all this.The Ohrid framework agreement is Tom's specialty.Epirote is the one who hasn't read it properly & you could see he was at complete odds.
Let that be a lesson to other albanian morons who think that they can come on this forum & insult us think again,as Tom will make you eat your words he is the best there is on the subject of ohrid framework agreement Also he is fully versed on all the albanian issues unlike the albanians who are onesided..

[QUOTE=Vangelovski;133606]Epirot,

No one has any problems with civil equality, but that is not what is happening in Macedonia. Under the Framework Agreement, Albanians have been provided with special privileges, not rights. For example, under the Framework Agreement's Badinter principle (which is now a constitutional provision), Albanian parliamentarians are able to veto parliamentary decisions. This effectively provides individual Albanians with a greater vote than any other individual in Macedonia. In fact, if Albanians are 25 per cent of the population, their collective vote is worth more than the other 75 per cent. On an individual level, this would equate to one Albanian vote being worth more than three Macedonian votes.

This is not civil equality. This is a racist ideology of Albanian superiority and a claim to the Macedonian state.[/QUOTE]

To be accurate, this "veto" basically only relates to legislation that deals with matters of ethnicity and culture, which arguably makes sense in a society that has had ethnic strife AND in a society that is trying to safeguard minority rights.

This is what the text in the Ohrid Framework Agreement actually states:

"For laws that directly affect culture, use of language, education, personal documentation, and use of
symbols, the Assembly makes decisions by a majority vote of the Representatives attending, within which
there must be a majority of the votes of the Representatives attending who claim to belong to the
communities not in the majority in the population of Macedonia."

If this is not in place, then it is possible that the Macedonian majority, through the legislative process, could easily revoke any protection for Albanian cultural/language rights that the state has, especially if hardline-nationalist Macedonians come into office.

The 25% Albanian vote is only worth more than 75% of the vote when it comes to preventing something (related to culture and ethnicity) from becoming law (keep in mind, as an FYI, in the US, one man can veto what 100 have agreed to). However, if the 25% Albanian vote wants to pass a law that relates to ethnicity or culture, they still need at least one-third of that 75% Macedonian majority to get that in the law; or rather, a majority of the entire Assembly. This safeguards the majority from being ruled by the will of the minority.

Does this amount to civic inequality? I do not think so. Could there be a better system or process to safeguard everyone's rights while maintaining a true "majority-rule" democracy? Probably, yes. But much of the time, majority-rule and protection of peoples' rights do not necessarily go hand-in-hand.

Vicsinad why can't the albanians behave like other minorities in macedonia.If they abandon their greater albania idea imagine the prosperity etc that awaits them.Why do they have to be antagonists.No one is taking their culture or their ethnicity least of all macedonia .You should try living in other countries where culture & ethnicity are suppressed.Again i reiterate what sali berisha said on a visit to macedonia to your albanian politicians.Behave you never had it so good.You all got it wrong macedonia is the last country in the world to take away your rights to cultrure or ethnicity.Not unless you want a greater albania at the expense of macedonias soveregnity.Think about it you'll see i'm right.

[QUOTE=vicsinad;133659]To be accurate, this "veto" basically only relates to legislation that deals with matters of ethnicity and culture, which arguably makes sense in a society that has had ethnic strife AND in a society that is trying to safeguard minority rights.

This is what the text in the Ohrid Framework Agreement actually states:

"For laws that directly affect culture, use of language, education, personal documentation, and use of
symbols, the Assembly makes decisions by a majority vote of the Representatives attending, within which
there must be a majority of the votes of the Representatives attending who claim to belong to the
communities not in the majority in the population of Macedonia."

If this is not in place, then it is possible that the Macedonian majority, through the legislative process, could easily revoke any protection for Albanian cultural/language rights that the state has, especially if hardline-nationalist Macedonians come into office.

The 25% Albanian vote is only worth more than 75% of the vote when it comes to preventing something (related to culture and ethnicity) from becoming law (keep in mind, as an FYI, in the US, one man can veto what 100 have agreed to). However, if the 25% Albanian vote wants to pass a law that relates to ethnicity or culture, they still need at least one-third of that 75% Macedonian majority to get that in the law; or rather, a majority of the entire Assembly. This safeguards the majority from being ruled by the will of the minority.

Does this amount to civic inequality? I do not think so. Could there be a better system or process to safeguard everyone's rights while maintaining a true "majority-rule" democracy? Probably, yes. But much of the time, majority-rule and protection of peoples' rights do not necessarily go hand-in-hand.[/QUOTE]
To be entirely accurate, this ensures Macedonia will never be the homeland for Macedonians. Lending support or justification to anything like this can only be construed as anti-Macedonian.

I could happily ignore Epirot & co. for hours but to have a Macedonian painting this in a comfortable hue is disgusting.

I have even less patience for Macedonians who defend the Framework Agreement.

A few points I want to address in vicsinad's post. Civil inequality, no matter what the intention is, is still inequality. When it is based on ethnic and/or racial background, it only makes it worse.

When you provide the example of that 'one man' who can veto what 100 have agreed to in the US, it is completely irrelevant and as usual, completely ill-informed. Firstly, that 'one man' power is not based on ethnic background. Secondly, that 'one man' is elected by the same people who elected the 100. Thirdly, that 'one man's veto can be overridden by the Congress. That makes it an effective 'check and balance'. This has absolutely no bearing on the Macedonian case, where the ethnically based Albanian veto is final and way out of proportion to their actual numbers.

To be exact, the Banditer Principle in the Framework Agreement applies to constitutional provisions dealing with the Preamble, language, religion, use of minority symbols and national identity, culture, the Public Attorney, the Committee for Inter-Community Relations, the Security Council, the Republican Judicial Council, the Constitutional Court, local self-government and the provisions dealing with constitutional amendments themselves, see Framework Agreement, Section 5.1 and Annex A. In addition, it applies to at least 48 statutory laws.

The veto is a power which can and has been abused to pursue nationalist and party political interests. For example, after the 2006 elections, DPMNE formed a coalition with DPA instead of DUI. Given its numbers in Parliament, DUI was able to block all legislation requiring passage through the Badinter Principle, which it did as a response to not being invited to form a coalition government with DPMNE. In addition to creating obstructions at the central level, it ignored the observance of the Badinter Principle at the local level where it held control of municipal councils and where the Badinter Principle would have advantaged other minorities or even Macedonians. DUI only unblocked this legislative impasse after it had secured an agreement with Gruevski on a number of key issues that formed a part of its own political platform and blackmailed its way into government.

Minorities in Macedonian enjoyed their legitimate rights before the Framework Agreement. Now they have special privileges and the veto power is there to protect these, not minority rights.