Impunity as an anti-principle


Nikola Popovski

Many in and out of Macedonia warn that the anti-principle of de facto impunity for serious crimes in the country has been deeply rooted, that justice cannot be reached for anyone, or only a few, and that the procedures leading to open abuses and open crime by state authorities are most often covered by appropriate criminal laws and other acts, so those who (miss)use such regulations are de jure untouchable. It causes situations in which citizens’ trust towards the authorities is not being tested for too long. On the contrary, it is sufficient for the citizens to notice this in one or two examples of any ruling government at the state or local level and to erode the confidence in them very quickly and completely with a very firm suspicion that “they are the same as all previous “.

Unfortunately, these days it’s yet again on stage. We see how activities of state or local institutions and their managers about something that has recently been done are being revealed and found out ex-post, and that is wrong or not in the interest of the society as a whole, and then there are naive explanations and excuses in which almost no one believes, so the citizens are tested with possible stupid explanations for the theses that the government was placed in front of a committed act, and then blame the previous authorities (which, by the way, will drag the country to the bottom for a long time with its previous one-decade rule) and finally, the state of the citizens’ brief memory is being used, prompted by a new similar or the same appropriate case.

This happens constantly and it seems that it is some kind of remedy for everything in order to go on. But it does not seem like that. Probably the fuse of citizens’ patience has already burned out and there is no room for it to continue burning. They have the patience to see something seriously different and give it additional time and support, but they seem to have no patience at all to tolerate similar behaviors that only could be “sold” as different verbally and as propaganda and that the citizens should wait constantly with a tendency to become eternal.

There are many illustrations for this. Too many. But let’s set aside at least three examples. The first is the much elaborated, discussed and written escape of the already convicted and sentenced to serve his prison sentence, the former president of the government. This escape before our eyes, this first-class political event in the country as a ghost will persist and haunt all the persons and institutions involved until the end of their existence. No one should fool themselves that the event will soon fall into oblivion. That man who inflicted such a great evil on Macedonia, the Macedonian society and the Macedonian people, and who destroyed so many people, families, children, destinies, perspectives, hopes, businesses, identities, desires, communities and collectivities, who probably stole so much that we cannot even imagine it, and at the same time it enabled thousands of others around him, who abundantly and criminally rewarded many of his closest associates from the country and the world, with his escape made a terrible earthquake at the bottom of the open ocean. The waves of that event in the form of a terrible tsunami will move towards the Macedonian mainland for a long time. Long enough and powerful to wipe out everything that enabled this escape in the form of a political earthquake to happen. Anyone who hopes it will not be so, is simply lying or fooling himself.

The second illustration is the events with the destruction of the open parking space opposite the GTC in Skopje and its conversion into a huge concrete zone for housing with two or three mega buildings of 60-storey floors that will store a huge number of business premises, shops, apartments and similar content, in the hope of the authorities that the way in which this condition was reached is supposedly far less political than that of the escape. It’s a very naive and misinterpreted. It is now the litmus through which the citizens of Skopje will test the power and its behavior. Probably a little noisy, a little more meek and much, much more revanchist. It is simply inconceivable at a time when, besides unemployment and poverty, the quality of the environment, especially the breathing air, has reached the peak of the problems pointed out by the citizens, and for that they are right, the authorities at all levels and all their institutions, including those the religious institutions, are only interested in how to drain another benefit plus on someone else’s account and sacrifice everyone because of it. It looks like political suicide, and even not only political, but also personal degradation of the authorities, and probably that will happen, this determination with which they are moving towards the situation to build objects and to seek excuses why it must be done. If everyone is aware that collective and urban life becomes unbearable in Skopje, and the air that citizens breathe is, de facto, polluted and even fatal and in the long run will contribute to the citizens gradually leaving the city (Skopje moves towards a type of city in the category of tyrannopolis – cities that can provide their basic functions and services to citizens and gradually begin to terrorize their daily lives, with a possible scenario to become a city of type necropolis – semi-deserted or abandoned towns that are turned into a kind of “tomb” of the former urban life and are practically unusable), then we need to openly ask ourselves what do those who make decisions, directly or indirectly in the creation of that situation, think. They probably do not think too much. For them the tsunami is moving at an enviable speed, although they don’t see it or don’t even care about it.

The third illustration is very simple and is called not solving already negligible and easily visible various scandals which, like long tails, are beginning to drag around certain holders of power at central and local level. Naming them is unnecessary. Informed citizens follow them through various media and know them well. These are serious and dangerous problems that threaten to become a great example of scams that go unpunished and are often legally good, but politically poorly covered by the justification that these events occur “according to the laws.” Which, what kind and by whom laws are passed, is already clear to everyone.

P.S.

Following what was happening at the G-20 summit last weekend in Buenos Aires, the question arises whether the G-20 meetings have actually become a very serious alternative and even a replacement for the UN. On these weekend-summits of the 19 important countries of the world, plus the EU, held twice a year, very important bilateral, regional, multilateral, and universal questions about the future of the world have been resolved at the last summit, it was clear to see. Bearing in mind that the G20 participates in geographically logical and proportionate countries representing over 61 percent of the world’s population, about 85 percent of world GDP and about 75 percent of world trade, and probably as much of the military, diplomatic and political power in the world, it seems that their meetings are becoming more important and more resolute than those in the UN, no matter how frustrating it is for other UN members.

Views expressed in this article are personal views of the author and do not represent the editorial policy of Nezavisen Vesnik