By: Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
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Before 212 years, Turkey controlled an area of almost 8 million km2 in Africa; under its antecedent state form, e.g. the Ottoman Empire, vast African territories from the confines of Algeria to Somalia and the East African coast down to Tanzania were reporting to the Sultan at Istanbul, who was the Caliph of all Muslims worldwide. Ottoman-controlled territories and lands ruled by principalities that recognized the imperial authority of the Sultan totalled no less than one third of Africa.

Ottoman Empire: the Sole African Superpower

If we take into consideration the fact that at those days, the colonial penetration (Spain, Portugal, Holland, France and England) had not covered more than narrow coastlands, and if we bear in mind that the other two thirds of Africa were divided into hundreds of small African kingdoms, principalities, and independent realms, we safely conclude that the Ottoman Empire was indeed the sole African Superpower.

Quite unfortunately, the Sultan himself did not realize this geo-strategic evidence, and worse, his administration failed dramatically to conceptualize first and contextualize afterwards the ensuing policy tasks and practices.

Before Napoleon’s arrival in Alexandria (or to put it better, Abuqir), more territories were under the Sultan’s control on African soil than in Asia. The Ottoman dominions throughout the Black Continent were more sizeable than the Asiatic landmass that was under the control of the Sublime Porte.

From Oman’s and Yemen’s coasts to the Mediterranean shores of Phoenicia (criminally re-baptized ‘Lebanon’ as per the evil colonial, Freemasonic interests) and Palestine,

from the Emirati and Kuwaiti coasts of the Persian Gulf to the mountains of Georgia and Abkhazia,

from Basra to the Black Sea shores of Turkey, and

from the Sinai peninsula to the Asiatic coast of Istanbul, the Ottoman territories totalled ca. 5.5 m km2 — only.

The European territories of the Ottoman Empire (the Balkans) were even smaller, although they irreversibly consisted in a very large of the European continent.

But in Africa, either directly or indirectly, the Sultan represented the supreme political and religious authority for populations undeservedly scattered today to so many fake states: Algeria, Tunisia, Mali, Niger, Chad, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Abyssinia (the modern fake state of ‘Ethiopia’), Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania.

Certainly, not the entire territory of all the aforementioned modern states reported to the Istanbul Caliphate; but this does not reduce in anything the reality that the Ottoman rule controlled ca. 8 million km2 in Africa.

We have good reason to believe that they were all happy and voluntarily ascribed their lives and fates to a state that they deeply felt as theirs, although — paradoxically — its capital was outside Africa.

African Love for Islam and the Ottoman Empire

Indicatively, I mention here that the Egyptians rejected the French in 1798, and rightfully hated the cruel and criminal soldiers of Napoleon; they decisively opposed them, and when the Freemasonic tyrant of France imposed an Albanian soldier, named Muhammad Ali, as chief ruler of Egypt, the entire body of Egypt’s supreme religious, judiciary and educational institution, Al Azhar, opposed the villainous schemes and plots of the French and their puppet of Muhammad Ali. In one voice, all the sheikhs of Al Azhar denounced the French conspiracy that provided for Egypt’s secession and colonization. And all the sheikhs of Al Azhar were indigenous, Egyptians — not from another continent like the traitor Muhammad Ali…..

The aforementioned situation and the characteristic love of Africans for the civilized, peaceful and benevolent Ottoman rule was attested in dozens and hundreds of cases; in Algiers, indigenous Berbers rejected and actively opposed the French curse of colonialism that befell on them in 1830.

In Somalia, indigenous Somali elders and sheikhs opposed the evil Freemasonic English colonials and called East Africa’s greatest, most civilized and most radiant nation to epic rebellion against the barbaric soldiers and agents of the Satanic queen Victoria. This explains only partly the evil US — UK intentions of revenge carried out against Somalia over the past 20 years.

In the last years of the 19th century, the Russian officer and explorer Bulatovich who visited one of the last Oromo Kings, Aba Jefar, reported the great affection, love, esteem and respect that the faraway King had about the Ottoman Empire to which his faith and allegiance as Muslim was eternally given.

”We renewed our interrupted conversation. The king asked me about Stambul (Turkey) and Mysyr (Egypt). He wanted to know if it was true that Stambul was the most powerful state in the world”. More analytically: ” The Oromos Need Aba Jefar’s Mysticism and Piety, not an Alliance with the Incestuous Amhara” (http://www.buzzle.com/articles/the-oromos-need-aba-jefars-mysticism-and-piety-not-an-alliance-with-the-incestuous-amhara.html).

This situation is not strange at all; there was no racism and no discrimination under the Ottoman Empire throughout its African territories. Black people moved often to the Ottoman province of Arabia for pilgrimage, and there they were greatly respected; Africans travelled often to Istanbul to study and they were so respected that they were promoted to positions of instructors, professors, scholars and leading academics.

Perverse History and Falsifications: All Due to Anglo-French Freemasonic Colonialism

There is another hidden reality: colonialism in Africa is basically tantamount to a war undertaken by the Freemasonic gangsters of England and France against the Ottoman Empire. This statement would have been wrong, if at the times of the colonization there had been other African states as sizeable as the Ottoman territories on African soil; but there was none.

This hidden reality has indeed a double face; the aforementioned describes only one part of the reality. The rest is summarized as follows: colonialism in Africa is basically tantamount to a war undertaken by the Freemasonic gangsters of England and France against Islam. This statement would have been wrong, if at the times of the colonization there had been other African religions as widespread as Islam in Africa; but there was none.

Added to the number of falsifications diffused by the Anglo-French and American academia is also the false mapping of Ottoman provinces in Africa. Well-prepared in Freemasonic ateliers and Orientalist institutes, these false maps depict the Ottoman provinces of Africa as extending only alongside the Mediterranean and the Red Sea coasts; they thus exclude from the Ottoman control the inland territories that were very wide indeed. The fake Western cartography of the African Ottoman territories helped the Freemasonic vicious plans of discord dissemination, cultural disintegration, and identity loss for the hundreds of millions of people who happen to live on the said territories.

A more crucial fallacy diffused by the Anglo-French colonial authorities among their few, selected and promoted, African subordinates who helped them implement the colonial subordination of Africa is the falsehood that Islam is not an African religion. This was due to the accurate knowledge of the indigenous perception of them, of which the colonials were fully aware; the Anglo-French have always known that they were and still are alien to Africa. They have perfect understanding of the fact that they have no right to exist on African soil, and they feel indeed guilty for the dreadful, criminal and absolutely inhuman deeds they had planned to perform and did actually perform on African soil; simply they manage to hide this feeling of theirs, which is an additional revelation of their evil nature.

Islam is indeed a genuine African religion; contrarily to Islam, Western Christianity is alien in Africa. Only Orthodox Coptic Christianity has a real historicity on African soil; but the Coptic literature is abundant in rejections, refutations and anathemas against Constantinople and Rome. This irrevocable reality concludes the case for the fake missionaries who preached a fake Jesus among Africans.

Even worse for them, their initial preaching was a systematic and evil lie; they promised a moral Christian society in Africa, and they delivered colonization, natural resources’ exploitation and robbery, immorality, cultural disorientation, westernization, Freemasonry and corruption, fallacious Greco-Romano-centrist dogmas, racist Humanities, and anti-African History for Africans.

The coverage was Christian preaching and the end result was the propagation of the Freemasonic incestuous practices in Africa. The Anglo-French criminals targeted at the same time the core of African Identity and the political — religious prevalence of Islam in the African North.

Why the Ottoman Empire Lost Control of its African Provinces?

Before examining the case for a Turkish African Policy, one has to confront a key question; the response to this question is the only criterion to apply on today’s possible Turkish Africa policy making. The question concerns the reasons for which the Ottoman Empire lost control of its most sizeable part — the African provinces.

This subject was never discussed in Modern Turkey; and this reality is part of the problem, because as situation, it contradicts the new ideas and the spirit brought forth by Kemal Ataturk.

In fact, the decadence of the Ottoman Empire had started long before Napoleon anchored at Abuqir. For long historical processes like that of the rise and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, it is almost impossible to identify a date — turning point with accuracy. When the Ottoman army besieged Vienna in 1683, Istanbul was still viewed as a powerful and vast state. In reality, it was not. At that very moment, the Ottoman Empire was left behind in many sectors, particularly research and knowledge. In fact, it had already stopped coping with the rising forces of the West.

The reason the African provinces of the Ottoman Empire were lost and the reason Istanbul entered into a long period of decadence are absolutely identical. An anti-Islamic conception of the world, of Islam, and of human life itself, an evil and barbaric pseudo-theological system, and a lewd and coarse behavioural system had gradually risen to prominence.

This process was slow, and in the beginning, it did not concern the Ottoman Court; however, as the system was greatly propagated, it infiltrated the Sublime Porte and imposed its viewpoints on the Sultans, who could not (or rather feared to) oppose it without creating a great schism within Islam. This theological system is totally unrelated to the Seljuk sultanates and the early period Ottoman Empire.

But when the Sultans incorporated Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Arabia, and Yemen, and furthermore expanded in Africa in 1517, the socio-religious milieu of the backward and anti-Islamic theological group became part of the Ottoman Empire and could therefore most easily and almost uninterruptedly spread throughout the vast territory.

This barbaric system was founded by a heretic and ignorant sheikh, named Ibn Taimiya, whose faith was based on an earlier ignorant, heretic, and barbaric sheikh, named Ibn Hanbal.

Both Ibn Hanbal (780 – 855) and Ibn Taimiya (1263 – 1328) were imprisoned in their times respectively, which shows that they were overwhelmingly rejected by the rulers, the intellectuals, the scholars, and the religious leaders of the peak times of Islamic Civilization.

So viciously heretic Ibn Taimiya was that the elite of the then Islamic Scholarship and Philosophy described him as introducing anthropomorphic concepts into Islam which is tantamount to sheer polytheism and reflects an effort to christianize Islam.

For a theoretical offspring of Ibn Hanbal, such darkness could only be normal.

What was even more disastrous for Islam was Ibn Taimiya’s enmity for Knowledge, Research, Erudition, Art, Imperial Power and World Hegemony. Similarly catastrophic was his disregard and ignorance of the others, his admonition for self-focus his call for ignorance of the rising competition with the West, and his behavioural reductionism which is at the origin of today’s idiotic sheikhs who teach that Islam is limited into the Coran, the Hadith, and the so-called five pillars of Islam.

The ideas of Ibn Taimiya are not ideas, and at his times, he was dealt exactly in this way.

Ibn Taimiya’s ‘ideas’ turn empires to dust, Erudition to barbarism, Art to cannibalism, and desecrate any mosque and medressa (religious and academic school of the Islamic times) whereby they happen to be discussed.

It is not mere coincidence that today’s uneducated extremist sheikhs, who have read not a single page of Ibn Sina or Mohyeldin Ibn Arabi, speak with so high esteem of the ignorant and silly sheikh of the 13th century.

The diffusion of Ibn Taimiya’s pseudo-theological school in the expanded Ottoman Empire is the central reason for the Caliphate’s decadence. Although we cannot select a specific date as beginning of the decadence, we can certainly indicate a symbolic date as that of the prevalence of Ibn Taimiya’s school among the ruling elite of the Ottoman Empire.

The destruction of the Istanbul Observatory by the filthy, barbaric and pseudo-Islamic mob is the date of End of Islamic Civilization, and marks the beginning of the End of the Ottoman Empire. This occurred in 1580, just three years after the chief astronomer Taqi al din Effendi had convinced the Sultan to have it erected so that the Caliphate preserves its competitive edge over Western Europe.

The Sultan, despite his great admiration for Taqi al din Effendi, did not dare to use military force and exterminate to the last these barbaric animals, as he should have done. By opting for social peace, the Sultan allowed the flowers of evil propagate further and further until they covered the entire vast empire whose days were unquestionably numbered.

However, so great the empire was that it took more than 340 years to completely disintegrate. In parallel, the Islamic Civilization gradually disappeared, and the interest for knowledge was replaced with the misery and the barbarism of the impoverished mob — all those who limit Islam into five prayers per day, fast during Ramadan, and abstention from alcohol and premarital sex.

With the darkness of Ibn Taimiya spreading overwhelmingly, no correct judgement could be effectuated as regards the possible targets of the French and the English, the internal socio-political and cultural developments in the two countries, and the eventual effective defence line that the Ottoman Empire could adopt against them. The sheikhs of darkness advised the Sultan to stupidly disregard England and France but Allah would save him…….

When the first Orientalists reached India, Iran, Egypt and Africa, it was too late for the Sultan (as well as the Shah and the Great Mogul) to react and preserve their territories from the foreign attack which was fed by the ignorance spread throughout the Caliphate (as well as Safevid / Qajar Iran and Mogul India) by the idiotic followers of Ibn Taimiya. In few decades, the Orientalists collected an enormous amount of data and information about the historical past and the terrible situation of darkness that prevailed over all the territories controlled by Istanbul, Ispahan and Delhi.

It would merely take a few more decades for them and their disciples to setup an environment of total dependence of the undefended and ignorant Muslim populations who were thus exposed to colonialism, further dependence, lack of identity, and impossibility to react due to ignorance.

This situation has prevailed until today; it was only opposed by Kemal Ataturk in the Ottoman territories that he managed to save out of the vicious Freemasonic control of the Anglo-French. But the founder of Modern Turkey ruled peacefully only for ca. 15 years, and dedicated his energy into the rebuilding and the reassessment of the territories under his control.

Unfortunately, his associates, disciples and followers failed to expand his thought and use it as an analytical instrument for understanding what happened in the other Ottoman territories that were under colonial control in 1935 or 1945, and what Turkey’s response to that situation should be.

Conventionalism and conformism prevailed, and convenient modesty became the supreme advisor; subsequently, the Kemalist establishment denied to study how to carry out Kemal Ataturk’s policies on Ottoman territory outside Turkey. Quite unfortunately, this would be badly needed not only for the political establishment of Ankara but also for the colonized populations in Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, Jerusalem, Sanaa, Medina, Algiers, Tunis and elsewhere.

The Turkish secular establishment, by disregarding Africa, simply betrayed Kemal Ataturk himself; had they made of him the example of modern state founder for the Berbers, the Tuareg, the Hadhramawtis, the Aramaeans of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, the Palestinians, the Egyptians, the Oromos, the Somalis, the Afars and the Sudanese, they would have offered really strong chances for development and independence to those nations whose ancestors shared the same, wealthy, politically independent, highly civilized and human state as theirs.

Today’s Turkey has an obligation to the Black Continent (if not in its entirety, at least for all the Ottoman territories in Africa): to help all these nations achieve identity preservation, cultural integrity, national self-determination, and historical reassessment without the presence of the evil Anglo-French colonials. In this regard, the Turkish government will be an auspicious ally of oppressed nations, persecuted ethno-religious groups, and all those who reject the fake borderlines that currently exist in Africa.

There is only one wish for all the African Muslims whose ancestors lived on Ottoman territory or Ottoman dependencies’ lands: One Secular State for the entire North-eastern Africa that underscores its Hamitic — Kushitic historicity and its Islamic faith. On this subject, I will expand more specifically in a forthcoming article.

Note
Picture: the fake borders of the Ottoman Empire in Africa have been drawn by colonial historiographers in their evil and desperate effort to minimize the unprecedented Ottoman prevalence throughout Africa. From: http://staff.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/~cwalton/World%20Two/ottomanmap.jpg

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I. Introduction

On February 17, 2008, Kosovo became a new state by seceding from Serbia. It was the second time in less than a decade that Kosovo declared its independence.

Pundits warned against this precedent-setting event and foresaw a disintegration of sovereign states from Belgium to Macedonia, whose restive western part is populated by Albanians. In 2001, Macedonia faced the prospect of a civil war. It capitulated and signed the Ohrid Framework Agreement.

Yet, the truth is that there is nothing new about Kosovo’s independence. Macedonians need not worry, it would seem. While, under international law, Albanians in its western parts can claim to be insurgents (as they have done in 2001 and, possibly, twice before), they cannot aspire to be a National Liberation Movement and, if they secede, they are very unlikely to be recognized.

To start with, there are considerable and substantive differences between Kosovo’s KLA and its counterpart, Macedonia’s NLA. Yugoslavia regarded the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA or UCK, in its Albanian acronym) as a terrorist organization. Not so the rest of the world. It was widely held to be a national liberation movement, or, at the very least, a group of insurgents.

Between 1996-9, the KLA maintained a hierarchical operational structure that wielded control and authority over the Albanians in large swathes of Kosovo. Consequently, it acquired some standing as an international subject under international law.

Thus, what started off as a series of internal skirmishes and clashes in 1993-5 was upgraded in 1999 into an international conflict, with both parties entitled to all the rights and obligations of ius in bello (the law of war).

II. Insurgents in International Law

Traditionally, the international community has been reluctant to treat civil strife the same way it does international armed conflict. No one thinks that encouraging an endless succession of tribal or ethnic secessions is a good idea. In their home territories, insurgents are initially invariably labeled as and treated by the “lawful” government as criminals or terrorists.

Paradoxically, though, the longer and more all-pervasive the conflict and the tighter the control of the rebels on people residing in the territories in which the insurgents habitually operate, the better their chances to acquire some international recognition and standing.

Thus, international law actually eggs on rebels to prolong and escalate conflicts rather than resolve them peacefully.

By definition, insurgents are temporary, transient, or provisional international subjects. As Antonio Cassese puts it (in his tome, “International Law”, published by Oxford University Press in 2001):

“…(I)nsurgents are quelled by the government, and disappear; or they seize power, and install themselves in the place of the government; or they secede and join another State, or become a new international subject.”

In other words, being an intermediate phenomenon, rebels can never claim sovereign rights over territory. Sovereign states can contract with insurrectionary parties and demand that they afford protection and succor to foreigners within the territories affected by their activities. However, this is not a symmetrical relationship. The rebellious party cannot make any reciprocal demands on states. Still, once entered into, agreements can be enforced, using all lawful sanctions

Third party states are allowed to provide assistance – even of a military nature – to governments, but not to insurgents (with the exception of humanitarian aid). Not so when it comes to national liberation movements.

III. National Liberation Movements in International Law

According to the First Geneva Protocol of 1977 and subsequent conventions, what is the difference between a group of “freedom fighters” and a national liberation movement?

A National Liberation Movement represents a collective – nation, or people – in its fight to liberate itself from foreign or colonial domination or from an inequitable (for example: racist) regime.

National Liberation Movements maintain an organizational structure although they may or may not be in control of a territory (many operate in exile) but they must aspire to gain domination of the land and the oppressed population thereon.

They uphold the principle of self-determination and are, thus, instantaneously deemed to be internationally legitimate.

Though less important from the point of view of international law, the instant recognition by other States that follows the establishment of a National Liberation Movement has enormous practical consequences: States are allowed to extend help, including economic and military assistance (short of armed troops) and are “duty-bound to refrain from assisting a State denying self-determination to a people or a group entitled to it” (Cassesse).

As opposed to mere insurgents, National Liberation Movements can claim and assume the right to self-determination; the rights and obligations of ius in bello (the legal principles pertaining to the conduct of hostilities); the rights and obligations pertaining to treaty making; diplomatic immunity.

Yet, even National Liberation Movements are not allowed to act as sovereigns. For instance, they cannot dispose of land or natural resources within the disputed territory. In this case, though, the “lawful” government or colonial power are similarly barred from such dispositions.

IV. Internal Armed Conflict in International Law

Rebels and insurgents are not lawful combatants (or belligerents). Rather, they are held to be simple criminals by their own State and by the majority of other States. They do not enjoy the status of prisoner of war when captured. Ironically, only the lawful government can upgrade the status of the insurrectionists from bandits to lawful combatants (“recognition of belligerency”).

How the government chooses to fight rebels and insurgents is, therefore, not regulated. As long as it refrains from intentionally harming civilians, it can do very much as it pleases.

But international law is in flux and, increasingly, civil strife is being “internationalized” and treated as a run-of-the-mill bilateral or even multilateral armed conflict. The doctrine of “human rights intervention” on behalf of an oppressed people has gained traction. Hence Operation Allied Force in Kosovo in 1999.

Moreover, if a civil war expands and engulfs third party States and if the insurgents are well-organized, both as an armed force and as a civilian administration of the territory being fought over, it is today commonly accepted that the conflict should be regarded and treated as international.

As the Second Geneva Protocol of 1977 makes crystal clear, mere uprisings or riots (such as in Macedonia, 2001) are still not covered by the international rules of war, except for the general principles related to non-combatants and their protection (for instance, through Article 3 of the four 1949 Geneva Conventions) and customary law proscribing the use of chemical weapons, land and anti-personnel mines, booby traps, and such.

Both parties – the State and the insurrectionary group – are bound by these few rules. If they violate them, they may be committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

V. Secession in International Law

The new state of Kosovo has been immediately recognized by the USA, Germany, and other major European powers. The Canadian Supreme Court made clear in its ruling in the Quebec case in 1998 that the status of statehood is not conditioned upon such recognition, but that (p. 289):

“…(T)he viability of a would-be state in the international community depends, as a practical matter, upon recognition by other states.”

The constitutional law of some federal states provides for a mechanism of orderly secession. The constitutions of both the late USSR and SFRY (Yugoslavia, 1974) incorporated such provisions. In other cases – the USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom come to mind – the supreme echelons of the judicial system had to step in and rule regarding the right to secession, its procedures, and mechanisms.

Again, facts on the ground determine international legitimacy. As early as 1877, in the wake of the bloodiest secessionist war of all time, the American Civil War (1861-5), the Supreme Court of the USA wrote (in William vs. Bruffy):

“The validity of (the secessionists’) acts, both against the parent State and its citizens and subjects, depends entirely upon its ultimate success. If it fail (sic) to establish itself permanently, all such acts perish with it. If it succeed (sic), and become recognized, its acts from the commencement of its existence are upheld as those of an independent nation.”

In “The Creation of States in International Law” (Clarendon Press, 2nd ed., 2006), James Crawford suggests that there is no internationally recognized right to secede and that secession is a “legally neutral act”. Not so. As Aleksandar Pavkovic observes in his book (with contributions by Peter Radan), “Creating New States – Theory and Practice of Secession” (Ashgate, 2007), the universal legal right to self-determination encompasses the universal legal right to secede.

The Albanians in Kosovo are a “people” according to the Decisions of the Badinter Commission. But, though, they occupy a well-defined and demarcated territory, their land is within the borders of an existing State. In this strict sense, their unilateral secession does set a precedent: it goes against the territorial definition of a people as embedded in the United Nations Charter and subsequent Conventions.

Still, the general drift of international law (for instance, as interpreted by Canada’s Supreme Court) is to allow that a State can be composed of several “peoples” and that its cultural-ethnic constituents have a right to self-determination. This seems to uphold the 19th century concept of a homogenous nation-state over the French model (of a civil State of all its citizens, regardless of ethnicity or religious creed).

Pavkovic contends that, according to principle 5 of the United Nations’ General Assembly’s Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation Among States in Accordance With the Charter of the United Nations, the right to territorial integrity overrides the right to self-determination.

Thus, if a State is made up of several “peoples”, its right to maintain itself intact and to avoid being dismembered or impaired is paramount and prevails over the right of its constituent peoples to secede. But, the right to territorial integrity is limited to States:

“(C)onducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples … and thus possessed of a government representing the whole people belonging to the territory without distinction as to race, creed, or colour.”

The words “as to race, creed, or colour” in the text supra have been replaced with the words “of any kind” (in the 1995 Declaration on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations).

Yugoslavia under Milosevic failed this test in its treatment of the Albanian minority within its borders. They were relegated to second-class citizenship, derided, blatantly and discriminated against in every turn. Thus, according to principle 5, the Kosovars had a clear right to unilaterally secede.

As early as 1972, an International Commission of Jurists wrote in a report titled “The Events in East Pakistan, 1971″:

“(T)his principle (of territorial integrity) is subject to the requirement that the government does comply with the principle of equal rights and does represent the whole people without distinction. If one of the constituent peoples of a state is denied equal rights and is discriminated against … their full right of self-determination will revive.” (p. 46)

A quarter of a century later, Canada’s Supreme Court concurred (Quebec, 998): “(T)he international law right to self-determination only generates, at best, a right to external self-determination in situations … where a definable group is denied meaningful access to government to pursue their political, economic, social, and cultural development.”

In his seminal tome, “Self-Determination of Peoples: A Legal Appraisal” (Cambridge University Press, 19950, Antonio Cassese neatly sums up this exception to the right to territorial integrity enjoyed by
States:

“(W)hen the central authorities of a sovereign State persistently refuse to grant participatory rights to a religious or racial group, grossly and systematically trample upon their fundamental rights, and deny the possibility of reaching a peaceful settlement within the framework of the State structure … A racial or religious group may secede … once it is clear that all attempts to achieve internal self-determination have failed or are destined to fail.” (p. 119-120)

VI. The Cases of Kosovo and Western Macedonia

In former Yugoslavia (SFRY), Kosovo was an autonomous province within the Socialist Republic of Serbia. The Albanians in Yugoslavia were not recognized as a “people” (narod), merely as a “nationality” (narodnost).

In January 1990, the Constitutional Court of SFRY ruled illegal a unilateral secession from the Yugoslav Federation. The right to secede belonged to “the peoples of Yugoslavia and their socialist republics (and autonomous provinces)”. Kosovo was an autonomous province, but the Albanians were not a “people”. Indeed, in a later decision, dealing specifically with Kosovo’s first declaration of independence, the Constitutional Court
spoke:

“(O)nly peoples of Yugoslavia had the right of self-determination.”

Western Macedonia has always been an integral part of the Republic of Macedonia within the SFRY. It had never acquired the status of an autonomous province, let alone a Republic. Albanians in Macedonia are a minority. They are well-represented in government and law enforcement and have equal access to education and the institutions of the State. Their rights are guaranteed by multiple constitutional, legal, and international instruments. They have no leg to stand on if they choose to unilaterally secede from Macedonia (for instance, in order to join Kosovo).

The Albanians of western Macedonia may, however, successfully secede from Macedonia within the framework of a realignment of borders between Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, and, perhaps, Greece, and Bulgaria. While Macedonia is extremely unlikely to welcome such a move, it may be coerced into acquiescence by the international community. Macedonia was strong-armed into the Ohrid Framework Agreement in 2001. There is no guarantee that this scenario will not repeat itself.

Macedonia should urgently adopt steps to change the demographic composition of its western territories. This is not without precedent. Israel has done the same in its northern territory (the Galilee), Poland with its Ukrainian Borderlands, Germany in its east, the USA in its “wild” West.

Macedonia should offer economic incentives to anyone willing to relocate from the rest of its territory to its west: jobs, free land and agricultural inputs, subsidized credits, housing, infrastructure, and educational opportunities. The government should move many of its ministries, agencies, and facilities from Skopje to western Macedonia.

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