SCIENTIFIC CENTER FOR BULGARIAN NATIONAL STRATEGY
146B, Blvd. SLIVNITZA, SOFIA 1303, BULGARIA
PHONE (+359 2) 318 328; FAX (+359 2) 328 125; MOBILE 088 202 560

PRESIDENT
Prof. Dr GRIGOR VELEV

VICE-PRESIDENTS
Prof. Dr GEORGY BAKALOV
Prof. Dr GEORGY MARKOV

SCIENTIFIC SECRETARY
Ass. Prof. Dr EMIL ALEXANDROV

PRESS DIRECTORS
Ambassador CHRISTO HALATCHEV
NIKOLA KITSEVSKI

SCIENTIFIC COUNCIL
Prof. Dr. ANGEL GALABOV
Prof. Dr. IVAN KOTCHEV
Prof. Dr. VESSELIN TRAYKOV
Prof. Dr. DIMITER GOTSEV
Prof. Dr. KARYO KAREV
Prof. Dr STEFAN VODENITCHAROV
Prof. Dr ORLIN ZAGOROV
Prof. Dr SAVA PENKOV
Prof. Dr NIKOLA ALTANKOV
Prof. Dr PETKO GANTCHEV
Prof. Dr JORDAN FILIPOV
Prof. Dr BOGDANA MANEVSKA
Prof. Dr. ILIA MANOLOV
Ass. Prof. Dr IVAN KOTSEV
Ass. Prof. Dr RAYNA GAVRILOVA
Ass. Prof. Dr DIMITER ZAFIROV
Ass. Prof. Dr TRENDAFIL MITEV
Ass. Prof. Dr PLAMEN PAVLOV
Ass. Prof. STOYAN GERMANOV
Ambassador IVAN GARVALOV
D-r IVAN NIKOLOV
D-r ZOYA ANDONOVA
D-r JORDAN KOLEV
D-r VESSELIN TSANKOV
ALEXANDER KAMENOV,
MSc. EMIL TEPAVITCHAROV

February 22, 2002

Dear General Clark,

I take the liberty of writing to you because the International Crisis Group, of which you are one of its distinguished members, published a report Macedonia’s Name: Why the Dispute Matters and How to Resolve It (December 10, 2001). It focuses on Macedonia’s relations with Albania, Bulgaria and Greece.
Evidently, the report addresses an important question concerning the Republic of Macedonia. It is well - intentioned in respect of Macedonia’s positions. It also covers sufficiently enough the positions of some of Macedonia’s neighbors, namely, Greece in the first place, Albania, and Yugoslavia. It, however, fails to give due credit to the Republic of Bulgaria’s position. It goes, unfortunately, even further by distorting it.
The report cannot but be construed as being biased when one reads about the “condition”, or shall we say, the direct threat to Bulgaria of not being admitted to membership in NATO and EU, if it does not “take steps for affirm…recognition of Macedonian symbols”. Moreover, Bulgaria is warned to “demonstrate its full disavowal of any claim express or implied on Macedonian language, nation or state.” (C. 1. Ancillary Issues, p. 21, ICG Balkans Report No. 122,10 December 2001). The report, however, does not demand that the Republic of Macedonia disavows its false claims on the history of the thirteen-century long Bulgarian state, nation, and the Bulgarian language, which the Bulgarians spoke and developed long before their state was established!
There is another demand that the Republic of Bulgaria “should consult the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities to ensure that the position of (its) Macedonian minority meets all European standards”. (C. 2. Ancillary Issues, p. 21, ICG Balkans Report No. 122,10 December 2001).

General Wesley Clark
Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe,
International Crisis Group
Brussels

One is certainly left puzzled as to why the ICG report does not require the same of the Republic of Macedonia, namely, to abide by “all European standards” in respect of the Bulgarians in that country. There is not even the normal request to the Republic of Macedonia to conduct a census complying with all international standards, not only European, by guaranteeing a genuinely free and unimpeded right of everyone in that country to declare his or her ethnic self-identification, under the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the two International Covenants on Civil and Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Unlike the Republic of Macedonia, the Republic of Bulgaria conducted two completely free and unimpeded censuses in 1992 and 2001. Whereas full results of the 2001 census will be available in the Republic of Bulgaria this coming summer, as is the case with all EU member states that conducted population censuses in 2001, the results of the 1992 census openly showed that 10 803 Bulgarian citizens identified themselves as Macedonians, and 3 109 of them picked Macedonian as their mother tongue, the rest stating that their mother tongue was the Bulgarian language. These results were officially communicated to the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities. Other sources, such as the US State Department Reports on Human Rights, in their sections on Bulgaria (1993, 1994, 1995, and 1996) stated that “ thousands of Bulgarians, mainly in the southwest, identify themselves as Macedonians, most for historical and geographic reasons.” No comparable data were ever announced in the Republic of Macedonia in respect of the Bulgarians there.
So, the ICG report’s demand to Bulgaria to “consult the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities to ensure that the position of (its) Macedonian minority meets all European standards” is most irrelevant. Why did ICG not demand that the Republic of Macedonia comply in the same degree with “all European standards” in respect of the Bulgarians living there?
The ICG report would have greatly benefited if it reflected Bulgaria’s position to the same degree of objectivity, as it did with Greece, Yugoslavia, Albania, and of course Macedonia.
It is a sine qua non for the report to be even-handed. There is nothing more damaging to its moral integrity, since it endeavors to assess a highly politicized and sensitive question, such as Macedonia, than to favor one side at the expense the other, callously disregarding history. The ICG report, regrettably, does that. All the more so, because its recommendations are thinly veiled ultimatums.
We take the liberty of presenting the position of the Scientific Center for Bulgarian National Strategy, led only by the desire to serve history and facts, and to contribute to a better understanding and knowledge of this particular Balkans question.
We would very much like to hope that you will recognize the imperative of knowing all the facts, and positions of all states which your report involves in dealing with the Macedonian issue, and of maintaining an even-handed approach. Politically tainted ultimatums serve no purpose at all.
1. On the “implied claim” that the Republic of Bulgaria has withheld recognition of the Republic of Macedonia as a sovereign and independent state.
This is not true. Such a baseless lie leaves us no other choice but to conclude, albeit reluctantly, that you have been misled by those who drafted the report. For your information, as early as January 15, 1992, even in the face of the negative position of the USA and the European Union, which the ICG report admits, the Republic of Bulgaria formally, through an act of its Parliament, recognized the Republic of Macedonia as a sovereign and independent state. Bulgaria was the first state in Europe and the world to do so. It took other states six months to decide to follow. What is more, for us the independent and sovereign state was and is the Republic of Macedonia, and was no recognized under any other name, such as FYROM, as others did. The Republic of Bulgaria has most categorically refused to take part in any schemes by neighboring states to split Macedonia several ways and to annex it. Bulgaria has always and consistently championed Macedonia’s independent existence and its territorial integrity. This most be understood once and for all.
2. On the “implied claim” that the Republic of Bulgaria has withheld recognition of the “ Macedonian nation” (ICG Report, p.p. 8, 21).
The nation is a scientific category, and not a political one. This means that a nation can neither be created, nor recognized, by an act of political declaration. It takes centuries of multifaceted processes for nations to be formed. The nation is a stable category. History shows that states disappear, but nations prevail.
The so-called Macedonian nation was technologically created by Joseph Stalin by a decision of the Communist International in 1934. Later on in 1945, following this decision, the Politburo of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and Marshal Tito announced the appearance the so-called Macedonian nation, replacing the then existing Bulgarian one. This fact actually must be construed as a recognition Serb chauvinistic forces failed in their brutal long-standing efforts to run Macedonian Bulgarians into the so-called Southern Serbs. This fact also comes to confirm Yugoslav communist schemes to push with their policies of denationalizing the population in Macedonia, and to alienate them and pit them against the Bulgarian nation. In order to materialize this idea, the population of the Republic of Macedonia, which until 1945 always identified itself as Bulgarian by origin, was subjected to unheard-of persecution. 24 000 Bulgarians were summarily executed, 144 000 were herded and repressed in jails, concentration camps, or interned. More than 200 000 were forced to free the country and immigrate to Canada, USA and Australia. One may ask, why? Because these people did not want to give up their affiliation to the Bulgarian nation, and to be forced to declare themselves Macedonians. After 1945, not one single person in Macedonia was allowed to identify freely as an ethnic Bulgarian. Today the international democratic community considers all these facts as constituting a genocide. Against Bulgarians.
The ICG report, however, lends its support to practices in which the mere noun ‘Bulgarian’ is automatically subjected to all known repressive means. Just for your information, a Bulgarian Cultural and Educational Society, RADKO, was registered in Ohrid in 2001. Six months later, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Macedonia banned it under the pretext that there were no Bulgarians in Macedonia.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace constituted in July, 1913, an International Commission of Inquiry “to study the recent Balkan wars and to visit the actual scenes where fighting had taken place”. The residency of this Commission was entrusted to Baron d’Estournelles de Constant, and with him were “men of the highest standing, representing different nationalities, who were able to bring to this important task large experience and broad sympathy”. The International Commission’s report was prepared and published on February 22, 1914. It abounds in statistics about the populations in the Balkans where the wars were fought. Though the numbers differ, none of them mentions Macedonians. The ethnic affiliation of the local populations listed in the report is Bulgarian, Servian, Greek, Turkish, Albanian, etc.
3. On the “implied claim” that the Republic of Bulgaria has withheld recognition of the “ Macedonian language “.
We, on our part, defer by asking you the following. Is it possible for people who have been living in the geographical region of Macedonia for some 13 centuries, and whose mother tongue has been Bulgarian all the time, to convert to speaking a “ Macedonian language “ immediately after 1945?
You may check with renowned linguists, and they, as scientists, will tell you that the so-called Macedonian language, is in fact a dialect of the Bulgarian language. I recall that the outstanding Austrian linguist, Dr. Otto Kronsteiner, once said that this artificially created language ‘ is actually the Bulgarian language, typed on a Serb keyboard typewriter ’.
This brings to mind a question: why do you, Americans, not come out and openly tell the whole world that the language you speak is American, and not English, although it is the same language being spoken by the British and other nations?
Incidentally, with a view to satisfying the European Union’s requirements, both the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia have reached a mutually acceptable arrangement on the language issue. Both states have agreed to sign bilateral treaties in the official languages of the two states under their Constitutions. This arrangement suits the Macedonian government and Parliament. It does not, however, suit pro-Serb, Yugoslav communists in Macedonia, against whom you, General, fought in Yugoslavia. Why does it not suit them? For one simple reason. They want to retain Macedonia under Serb nationalism, anticipating an opportunity to again incorporate it, or shall we say annex it, into a future Yugoslavia. Cases in point: Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. In this way, they will continue to generate tensions and armed conflicts in the Balkans.
If we are, however, to judge by what is stated on page 10, footnote 51, the drafters of the report seem less than satisfied. Is it really so?
4. On the direct accusation that the Republic of Bulgaria is pursuing a ‘one nation, two states’ policy in both Bulgaria and Macedonia (ICG Report, p. 8).
The ICG Report is confused, to say the least. It states that “Sofia’s stated policy of ‘one nation, two states’ may sound relatively reassuring, but is not, for it subverts the essential Macedonian claim to statehood…” Well, shall we repeat what we said earlier in our letter, that the Republic of Bulgaria was the first state to grant official recognition of the Republic of Macedonia as a sovereign and independent state! So, the ICG report is trying to advance a lie. But what is it that really bothers you? Is it the case of the German nation, one nation in two independent and sovereign states, namely, Germany and Austria? How about, the Greeks in both Greece and Cyprus, or the Romanians in both Romania and Moldova, or the Finns in Finland and the Karelian Republic within the Russian Federation? I can go on listing similar cases. Certainly the one-nation in two states formula is not ours. It has sprung up spontaneously among the population living on both sides of the Bulgarian-Macedonian border. Why do you want us to give up this formula, and why do you not ask the above-mentioned states to do the same? Are we singled out to endure double standards in politics offered to us as a truth of expediency?
On the Congress of Berlin (1878) (ICG Report, p. 11).
The report omits to mention the San Stefano Treaty between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, signed on March 3, 1878, whereby Bulgaria was restored as an independent and sovereign state within the confines of predominantly numerous ethnic Bulgarian population, under the Exarchate of the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Church. The treat recognized the Bulgarian ethnic territory, defined through a plebiscite, organized by the Ottoman authorities, and re-affirmed by a decree by the Sultan in 1870 for the creation of the Bulgarian Christian Orthodox Exarchate, a deed subsequently accepted by the then big powers. The territory included Mizia (Lower Mizia), Thrace, Macedonia, and Upper Mizia. It was recognized by the Constantinople Conference of ambassadorial level (December 1876-January 1877), with the participation of all the then big powers. The Congress of Berlin, held three and a half months later, under the pressure of the superpowers of the day, destroyed the newly-established state, a heinous deed, cutting it three ways: one part the Princely State of Bulgaria, another a vassal state under the Ottoman Empire, third, the southwestern part, namely Macedonia, was returned to the Ottoman Empire, the fourth, Northern Dobrudja was given to Romania as a compensation Russia taking over Bessarabia ( today’s Moldova), and the fifth, Bulgarian Upper Mizia was given to Serbia.
One could understand the politically vested interests of the powers of the day to eliminate a newly-established state, Bulgaria, because of its potential of becoming a strong ethnic Bulgarian state and nation in the region. One, however, fails to understand why the report would ignore the restoration of the Bulgarian state as a sovereign and independent state on March 3, 1878, under the San Stefano Treaty!
The reference to the Bulgarian law on citizenship (ICG report, pp. 8 and 9, under asterisks 43).
The Republic of Bulgaria is a sovereign and independent state, fully entitled under its Constitution to pass legislation on all specifics and field of human rights, including the right to citizenship. This is one of the requirements of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights. Bulgaria’s Constitution, and its Citizenship Law, have most carefully been scrutinized by all international treaty bodies dealing with human rights, as well as the Council of Europe and its bodies. The Law is in full conformity with all the above-mentioned international human rights treaties. If there are persons, living in other states, who would like on their own volition and free will to obtain Bulgarian citizenship, the Bulgarian legislation provides for a procedure to do so. If there are circles that do not like this particular Bulgarian law, it is their right. To question it, however, and to imply as if it violates the internal affairs of another state, is in itself a gross interference in Bulgaria’s internal affairs with no justification whatsoever.

General Clark,
You are well known in Bulgaria for your distinguished career, your military leadership, and for declaring your friendship with Bulgaria and its people. And last, but not least, you are a cavalier of the Madara Konnik (Madara Horseman), lst Degree, with Swards medal, the highest Bulgarian military distinction, bestowed upon you by the Bulgarian President on March 13, 2000 for ‘establishing, strengthening and promoting friendly relations with Bulgaria’.
We are worried that you have been given a prepared report to affix your name unto it, not taking into consideration irrefutable facts. The report by all counts cannot be construed but as an affront to the Bulgarian nation and state. We would like to believe that once you know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, you would find a way to repair the damage. We would like to believe that you would not lend your support to biased claims, distortions, even fallacies, which only serve the interests of communist activists in Macedonia.
Neither the Bulgarian people nor their state deserve to be tarnished for vested political purposes. Bulgaria, the Bulgarian people and the Bulgarian language have been part and parcel and, lock, stock and barrel, of the Balkans, for much longer than other neighboring states. We shall remain so.

Yours truly,
Professor Grigor Velev
President,
Scientific Center for Bulgarian National Strategy