Bulgaria’s
decision to send troops to the Macedonian border raises disturbing
questions about its true intentions over the country that it last
occupied as recently as World War II.
Bulgaria announced
the decision to reinforce its border with Macedonia last week in the
aftermath of the Kumanovo terrorist attack, publicly stating that it has
to defend itself from possible terrorist infiltration (no matter that
Eastern Macedonia has never in its history experienced this problem
before) and prepare for the (unlikely) possibility that the 90,000
Bulgarian passport-holders in the country could flee across the border.
Suspicions
about Bulgaria’s intentions were raised from the get-go, but now other
developments and statements coming from the country appear to confirm
what’s really behind their seemingly mystifying move.
Bulgaria,
implicitly supported by the US and EU, is possibly attempting
to reassert its de-facto claims over the territory and people of the
Republic of Macedonia as a means of further destabilizing the country,
sidelining Russia’s Balkan Stream project, and distracting from its own
domestic malaise.
Latest Developments
Annexation Talk:
The sending
of more troops to the Bulgarian-Macedonian border didn’t occur in a
vacuum, as certain domestic forces have been pressing for Sofia
to involve itself in its neighbor’s domestic and sovereign affairs. Take
for example the Director of the National History Museum, Bozhidar
Dimitrov, who provocatively hinted
that Bulgaria might be confronted with the choice to re-annex its
former Fascist-era conquest if asked to do so by the country’s dual
Bulgarian citizens.
It should be noted
that his call was made half a week prior to the buildup of Bulgaria’s
military presence along the Macedonian border, so it’s feasible that
this influential and well-connected academic and cultural personality
may have had an impact on that decision.
Additionally,
Dimitrov is widely known for his radical anti-Macedonian views, having
even gone as far as publishing a book in which he asserts that his
country’s internationally recognized neighbor is really part of Greater
Bulgaria and that there’s no such thing as Macedonia, Macedonians, or
the Macedonian language.
Direct Political Interference:
Concern
about Bulgaria’s influence over Macedonia’s domestic crisis hit an alarm
bell on Sunday when former Bulgarian Prime Minister and current
President of the Party of European Socialists Sergey Stanishev attended
the Color Revolution inauguration and revved up the anti-government
crowd by speaking in both English and Bulgarian.
During his speech, he neglected
to even mention the word “Macedonians”, thereby committing a common
racial slight by Bulgarians who refuse to recognize the existence of the
ethnicity. It was all the more startling, however, that he had the
gall to do so center-stage as a distinguished guest of the Color
Revolutionary ‘opposition’, showing that neither he nor his hosts have
the slightest care about the issue that forms the core of the country’s
identity.
Lead From Behind:
Finally, it’s also telling that it was Bulgarian Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov who was chosen
as the individual to announce the EU’s plans in crafting a unified
approach to the Macedonian Crisis. This indicates that Brussels has made
a conscientious decision to capitalize off of Bulgaria’s historically
nationalist attitude to Macedonia in crowning it as the West’s Lead From Behind proxy.
Such
a designation will likely only embolden Bulgaria and the nationalist
forces active in its government and society; a calculated move that now
increases pressure on Macedonia from the country’s previously calm and
stable eastern border, which, when combined with the pressure coming
from Albania, creates a type of political pincer movement against the
democratically elected and legitimate government.
History Of Hegemony
Bulgaria has
historically attempted to physically dominate Macedonia and erase any
reference to the Macedonian ethnic group, and it’s tried doing so three
times in the last century:
The Second Balkan War:
Less
than one month after the Balkan League of Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria,
and Greece liberated the vast majority of the peninsula from Ottoman
control, Bulgaria betrayed its allies and tried to conquer their newly
acquired territory on 29 June, 1913.
One
of Sofia’s main goals at the time was to push Serbia out of the
modern-day territory of the Republic of Macedonia and annex the country
to Greater Bulgaria. Although the month-long campaign ultimately failed,
Bulgaria didn’t lose an ounce of its expansionist desire, which would
soon be rekindled with World War I.
World War I:
Bulgaria’s
insatiable territorial ambitions against Serbia and Greece were the
primary reason why it chose to join the Central Powers in World War I.
This saw it temporarily succeeding in its quest to occupy Macedonia and
forcefully claim it as part of Greater Bulgaria. The historical tragedy
that the Macedonians had to endure during this time was lifted only
by the war’s end in late 1918, after which it was liberated
from Bulgarian control for over the next two decades.
World War II:
History has
an odd way of constantly repeating itself in the Balkans, and the last
global catastrophe was no different. Bulgaria sided with Nazi Germany
partly because it still desired to dominate Macedonia, and right
after Hitler defeated Yugoslavia in April 1941, it sent its troops
to annex the sought-after territory. The Macedonians proudly resisted
and launched their National Liberation War against the occupiers, which
continued until all Nazi and Bulgarian soldiers were finally evicted
from the land.
Current Context
Bulgaria is
currently in pretty poor shape, both economically and politically. It
holds the unsavory spot of being the EU’s poorest country, and hundreds
of thousands of its citizens live as economic migrants in Western
Europe.
Bulgaria’s
government is also unstable, regularly undergoing various reshufflings
and resignations. The current Prime Minister, Boyko Borissov, returned
to office in November of last year and has since then placed his country
on a dedicated anti-Russian course.
In fact,
it’s because of his and the previous government’s obstinate stance
in siding with Brussels and its restrictive Third Energy Package
legislation that Russia was forced to cancel the South Stream pipeline
and spearhead the Turkish and Balkan Stream projects instead.
The
Bulgarian public is understandably upset that the project was scrapped,
since their impoverished country suddenly lost out on billions
of dollars of revenue and investment. An exclusively commissioned Sputnik poll
revealed that 64% of Bulgarians thought that the move would have a
negative effect on their economies, and 66% of them believed that their
country, not the European Commission, should have had the final say
on whether or not Russia should have been allowed to build the pipeline.
Faced
with such a growing revolt to his government’s economically suicidal
anti-Russian policies, Borissov felt compelled to safeguard his
administration by channeling the public’s growing outrage away from the
authorities and towards an external crisis that could easily distract
them, ergo Bulgaria’s growingly assertive stance and increasingly vocal
nationalism vis-à-vis Macedonia.
It’s likely
that Bulgaria’s resurgent nationalism is even encouraged by the West
itself, which looks to have promised to turn a blind eye to such loud
rhetoric in exchange for the country’s position against South Stream.
After all, Brussels didn’t offer any economic relief to compensate
for the gargantuan loss of investment that Bulgaria suffered when South
Stream was cancelled, so it’s quite possible that distracting intangible
benefits such as a carte blanche for nationalist expression were
promised instead.
Furthermore,
by returning to its role as one of the agitating actors in the Balkans,
Bulgaria helps the West achieve one of its key geopolitical objectives
in destabilizing Balkan Stream-affiliated Macedonia. The combined threats of Greater Albania
and Greater Bulgaria weigh heavily on the Macedonia’s political
leadership, which now finds itself between two pseudo-expansionist
powers that evidently have a nationalist stake in the multicultural and
unified country’s collapse.
The
views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do
not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.
Bloomberg
