Macedonian American Council

Macedonian American Association Detroit

Skopje, Sept, 12 2001

Tonight in Skopje some 40,000 Macedonians gathered in the square Macedonia to express their support to the delegation of the Macedonian Diaspora in their stand against the shameful "framework agreement", as well as in their demands to reestablish law and order in Macedonia as a nation state.

There were many speakers at the rally both from Macedonia and from the Diaspora who were warmly greeted by the people. This peaceful protest demonstrated once again that Macedonia and the Macedonians are against terrorism to which Macedonia has been subjected for over nine months and which now begins to show its ugly face in the United States.

Mr. Misko Vasovski, at the beginning of his speech, relayed to the audience the warm greetings from Professor Nestor Oginar and Dr. Stojadin Naumovski who were unable to attend the meeting because their flight from New York had been canceled on account of the horrible terrorist attack on the World Trade Center which paralyzed all flights, in and out of the United States..

Among the speakers was Mr. Svetozar Stamevski, a member of the Macedonian delegation, which had been received by the State Department on August 9^th of this year during a Macedonian rally in Washington. Among the other speakers were Cene Ristovski, Kalce Magdevski, Kole Mangov, Mrs. Nada and others who, one after another, expressed the common views held my Macedonians in their rejection of the framework agreement and the terrorist invasion of Macedonia.

The member of the Macedonian bloc political party, Mr. Tomislav Bombaj, spoke in the name of all Macedonians, especially those expelled by way of ethnic cleansing from their homes, as well as in the name of Macedonians in Tetovo, and he elaborated on the terrible situation in which those people find themselves as victims of ethnic cleansing. He also expressed their demands that Macedonia be freed from the terrorist invasion and ask for the release of all kidnapped Macedonians.

This peaceful protest demonstrated once again to the domestic and world public that the Macedonian people love and respect peace and will never tolerate terrorism and violence as means of gaining any political gains. It also demonstrated that the Macedonian people will not accept the imposition of foreign will and interests by way of force and blackmail.

This rally showed that the peaceful and Democratic means of expressing the will of the people is the only way in which permanent peace can be established in Macedonia.