Another Western-sponsored attempt at color revolution? Violent anti-government protests strike Macedonia's capital
© REUTERS/OGNEN TEOFILOVSKI
Protestors clash with police in front of the Macedonian government building in Skopje, Macedonia May 5, 2015. Several thousand people protested in front of the building on Tuesday demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who was accused by the top...
The demonstrators set rubbish containers on fire and threw stones at police who were guarding the building, during a rally calling for the resignation of Nikola Gruevski and his cabinet.
The interior ministry said at least 10 policemen were injured during and after the two-hour rally. Police in riot gear dispersed the crowd after the rally, a Reuters witness said.
Gruevski, a Conservative in power for nine years, has been involved in a conflict with Social Democrat opposition leader Zoran Zaev that threatens Macedonia's fragile democracy.
Zaev has in the last few months published wire-taps of voices purported to include those of Gruevski and senior officials discussing how to employ members of the ruling rightist VMRO-DPMNE party in state jobs, pick judges and massage elections.
Gruevski has denied the allegations and dismissed the wire-taps as a plot by foreign spies. A state prosecutor indicted Zaev on Thursday for "violence against representatives of the highest state bodies".
Zaev published a new set of audio files on Tuesday and accused Gruevski and his interior minister of attempting to cover up the death of a 22-year-old man, who was beaten to death by a police officer during a post-election celebration in 2011.
The officer was later sentenced to 14 years in prison for murder.
The ministry denied the accusation against Gruevski and his minister and accused Zaev of exploiting a tragic death for political gain.
The protesters gathered outside the government building hours after Zaev's news conference.
Comment: It also seems that this isn't the first attempt from Western powers to attempt a color revolution in Macedonia:
Yet the our government officials would have us believe that the illegal spying is for our benefit and for protection against terrorism.The Failed Color Revolution
This wasn't supposed to happen, at least not if the US had gotten its way in Macedonia last month.Understanding that it's the crucial bottleneck through which Balkan Stream must run, Washington wanted to stage a coup in the country in order to install a new leader that would reject the project and put an end to the region's plans for reliable energy transit. Nikola Gruevski, the Prime Minister of Macedonia, had earlier broke ranks with his EU partners by refusing to sanction Russia, in a show of rebellion that the US felt it had to absolutely put down. For the few past couple of years, it had contracted the services of former intelligence chief Zoran Verushevsky in order to illegally wiretap over 20,000 people in the tiny country of 2 million, including politicians, journalists, and regular citizens. When it became clear at the end of last summer that South Stream was being stonewalled by Bulgaria and a new route would likely have to be streamlined (which geography dictates would obviously have to go through Macedonia), it activated its intelligence cell in order to preempt these plans, just in case they would go forward sometime in the future.
Zoran Zaev, the leader of the opposition, was given copies of these illegal tapes in order to blackmail the government, which he attempted to do from September to November. When Gruevski refused to give in to the blackmail, Zaev threatened to go public with the wiretaps and accuse the government of carrying them out, alleging that they also contained embarrassing political information and insinuating that this would lead to a Color Revolution. At the end of January, the Macedonian security services finally arrested Verushevky and a few other conspirators for plotting a coup, and Zaev had his passport taken to prevent him from fleeing while the investigation was ongoing. Verushevsky's son even attempted to destroy his father's computer before police stopped him, yet authorities were able to access the salvaged hard drive and recover Skype conversations where Verushevky and another plotter even spoke of starting a civil war in the country as a result of the blackmail 'revelations'.
While Zaev attempted to create an actual Color Revolution last month by encouraging people to amass in the streets and protest the government, he failed to garner a consistent and sizeable following, showing that most Macedonians saw through the gimmick for what it was — a Ukrainian-styled soft coup attempt. Taking matters further, both Albanian parties in the country (whose affiliates are estimated to possibly constitute a quarter of the population) loudly distanced themselves from Zaev, thereby diminishing the prospects of a return to the 2001 interethnic violence that rocked the country and could have set the stage for the civil war that the conspirators previously discussed. Russia evidently feels that the combination of government action, Albanian loyalty, and popular support has finally stabilized the situation, since it would not have gone forward with the pipeline's construction through Macedonia had it thought that it could be endangered by the Color Revolution attempt. Accordingly, one can interpret this as Moscow's recognition that Washington's plot ultimately failed.
Putin: There are reports that a number of world leaders are getting undisguisedly blackmailed
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