ISBN 325.254.4:355.45 (497.7)
NEW SECURITY THREATS OF MIGRANTS FROM CRISIS AND MILITARY REGIONS TO DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR MISSIONS IN REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA
Mrs. Valentina Vchkova, MSc
Mr. Aleksandar Nacevski, MSc
Mr. Mladen Trajkov, MSc, a retired senior police advisor - trainer in Education center, MOI
ABSTRACT:
The paper is an attempt to raise awareness and the level of security services and the public because of the threats from rising tide of refugees of crisis and war areas in the Middle East. Especially important is the protection of facilities and representatives of the diplomatic and consular headquarters (DCH), of those countries that are leaders and participants in the coalition that is fighting for the restoration of peace and the protection of citizens from particularly aggressive attitude of fighters of Muslim organization Islamic state (IS). Through the presentation of the importance of missions of foreign states in the country, their security, threats, protection and preventive measures and activities, is given own accord to overcome the problem of migrants and the possibility of a security breach of foreign representatives and the facilities in which are they accommodated. This is especially important after recent threats made by IS to states fighting against them. Finally, conclusions are drawn by presenting possible ways to prevent and solve these problems.
Keywords: diplomatic and consular missions, threat, safety, prevention, protection, immigrants
ABSTRACT – English
INTRODUCTION
The modern world since the end of last century until today is burdened with the phenomenon of terrorism threats worldwide, carried out by terrorist groups, individuals terrorists and terrorist organizations. The society affected by the principles of globalization, is establishing growing space for the migration of population, capital, funds, techniques and technologies is a worldwide trend of sustainable mobility of people seeking better living conditions. However, migration processes can be influenced by many conditions: lack of basic living conditions, lack of work, lack of potable water, lack of schooling conditions, threats to public security, political processes, wars, etc. In this context, for this scientific text, is threated the phenomenon of emigrant movements from endangered areas due to the military actions of the armed clashes and the part of the economic-existential immigrants. There is no possibility of separation of these two key and very close emigration movements even if they seem utterly opposed. The both processes are burdened with economic, social and existential problems caused by two common factors: the war and the lack of basic living conditions. The war has a direct connection to endangering the lives of people for many reasons: the possibility to be killed, destroyed homes, factories, institutions, infrastructure, and inability to work and earn, and a high exposure to risk of loss of life. These are the reasons that are forcing population to run away from the horror of war. Lack of basic living conditions means lack of water resources, food, facilities and working conditions, having no funds, lack of education opportunities, political and other pressures. According to these elements, it is expected to begin some emigration processes of population from threatened areas to ones that are much safer and offer better opportunities to the population.
1. Diplomatic and consular missions - role, significance, security characteristics
Each country establishes cooperation with the neighboring and other countries in the world, depending on their interests and needs. The cooperation is based on mutual interests of two or more interested states to establish relations at diplomatic consular level or some other agreed level. To speak of diplomatic and consular missions (hereinafter will be used shortcut DCM) is necessary to present their conceptual determination:
According to Barston, diplomacy is tied to the managerial relationship between the two countries and between the state and other actors, which is advising, shaping and implementing foreign policy.
In contemporary literature, according to Markovski, the term diplomacy is associated with the greek word diploma, meaning formal mediation in mutual communication between countries; provisions and rules applicable at the time; official bodies which carry out those activities; and capability to running public and secret negotiations between separate governments. The other meaning of this term is a wise, prudent and respectful behavior.
The term diplomacy began to be used in situations when a special representative of the sovereign, carrying a folded (hidden, inaccessible to everyone) document itself empowered to deliver to another sovereign. Carrier of the diploma began to be called diplomat.
The presented concept of diplomacy itself indicates that it is a person in another country who presented their own country, in facilitating process of cooperation, consultation and negotiation, and received authorization from their own country that is accepted by the host country where he is a diplomat. For the smooth operation of these individuals to the level of International Relations, a separate convention is adopted. This Convention defines the operation of the diplomacy of States Parties. This Convention is Vienna Convention on the law of contract which was concluded on March 23, 1969 in Vienna. Republic of Macedonia as an independent state has ratified this convention and accepted its application with: Decision on accession of the Republic of Macedonia to the Vienna Convention on contractual right. With the ratification of this Convention the Republic of Macedonia took over the obligation to respect and apply the diplomatic representatives from other countries. Because of the significance of the diplomats and DCM, DCM are treated as objects of particular interest of security. These facilities are properties of the Republic of Macedonia which are used by the representatives of another country and these objects are treated as territory of the foreign country because of implementation the principle of extraterritoriality. Extraterritoriality is very important from a security perspective for the country in which is the DCM, because every single security threat means endangering the country that they represent. According to this established scheme of security and threat, we can conclude that today there is an increased security risk to the DCM in Republic of Macedonia and in general, especially for the missions of those countries which are leaders and participants in the coalitions fighting terrorism worldwide.
2. Security risks worldwide
General security in the world until the attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and today, are in increasing risk and the threat to the security of the entire world population. Several key regions worldwide: conflicts in the Arab world and the Arab peninsula: the fight to al Qaeda in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, the consequences of the Arab Spring on the African continent and the new terrorist organization Islamic state, which is harsher than Al Qaeda. Geopolitical and geostrategic position of Republic of Macedonia, in such a constellation of security risks and threats, at the crossroads between East and West in the Balkan and of course between the north and south of Europe, feels these movements daily. On the other hand, as a candidate for membership in the European Union and NATO, like it or not, joins those positive trends for establishing peace and security in the Middle East. With the joining and participating in these security coalitions, Republic of Macedonia increases the risk to its own safety by members or supporters of these terrorist movements. To the fact that the Balkan region is unsafe or needs to be unsafe and cannot be calm, remind us the recent developments: several shelling of the building of the Government, the attack on border police in the village Goshince and freshest example of 08.05.2015is the attack on police in Kumanovo from mixed armed terrorist group by members of Kosovo, R. Macedonia and R. Albania. If previously we were somehow threatened, these events should trigger all alarms and cause increased security at the highest possible level. It is crucial security services, conscientious professional, daily, comprehensive and thoroughly carry out the tasks and to prevent endangering future. It is particularly important to take every commitments to avoid endangering the DCM foreign states in the country. In the context of all that is written above, and the dark figures of immigrants entering and moving through the territory of the country of which some remain in Macedonia, most continue to European countries and some of them lost their lives on railway lines throughout the Republic Macedonia. It is crucial to note that the trajectory of movement of migrants is from the Greek border to Kumanovo village Lojane following the railroad or highway. For this direction, they do not need a guide, they should only monitor and track contacts with people from the village Lojane, which is on the border with Serbia. The other key element is the organizers of these trips that are Macedonian and foreign nationals transporting these individuals to Hungary and later in Europe. The third element is that organized criminals from Macedonia are attacking these people during their journey in order to take the cash they carry. However we can highlightfew moments from this picture:
- People who organize transport or carry out and accept immigrants;
- Persons who stay in the Balkans and are part of these immigrant tours,and
- Persons who are undercover as immigrants but they are religious fanatics, fighters, terrorists and members of Al Qaeda, ISIL and other movements that move with these groups and join various formations on the Balkans.
To be able to analyze this problem, let's review a numbers of these migrants whichmoves and resides in the Republic of Macedonia. At the beginning we will present total numbers of persons released from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Republic of Macedonia.
Table. 1 Revealed illegal migrants in the period 2001-2011
year / Total number / Illegal migrants discovered on the border line / Illegal migrants discovered inside the R. Macedonia2001 / 12660 / 3033 / 9627
2002 / 1192 / 684 / 508
2003 / 1185 / 477 / 708
2004 / 1608 / 732 / 876
2005 / 2358 / 1632 / 726
2006 / 4234 / 1866 / 2368
2007 / 2402 / 1919 / 483
2008 / 1448 / 1080 / 368
2009 / 1415 / 1111 / 304
2010 / 1103 / 766 / 337
2011 / 469 / 209 / 496
Total No. / 30 074 / 13509 / 16565
Rreviewing the numbers will notice that the greatest movement was observed during 2001, after that there was stagnation for three years and during 2005-2009 there is a range between 1080 to 1919 people. In the 2010 and 2011 years the numbers are decreased, but the figures for 2012 - 2014 are missing, and this is the time of conflicts in the Middle East. This overview does not give us many indicators, but you can see belowthe table with the figures for persons according to the country of origin.
Table. 2 Number of illegal migrants detected at the Macedonian border or in the territory of the Republic of Macedonia, according to countries of origin, 2002-2009
Prevented attempts for illegal crossing of the state border - 9509
state / 2002 / 2003 / 2004 / 2005 / 2006 / 2007 / 2008 / 2009 / totalAfghanistan / 3 / 36 / 39
Albania / 510 / 328 / 604 / 1473 / 1529 / 1481 / 824 / 1019 / 7768
Bosnia and Hercegovina / 4 / 4
Bulgaria / 19 / 5 / 13 / 6 / 5 / 48
Greece / 6 / 19 / 8 / 4 / 4 / 41
India / 11 / 6 / 4 / 1 / 22
China / 4 / 8 / 11 / 11 / 2 / 36
Moldavia / 28 / 19 / 3 / 50
Nigeria / 20 / 20
Macedonia / 28 / 76 / 53 / 52 / 210 / 323 / 140 / 99 / 981
Peru
Romania / 6 / 3 / 9
Serbia / 15 / 4 / 19
Kosovo / 29 / 23 / 33 / 8 / 79 / 84 / 43 / 38 / 294
Turkey / 10 / 9 / 12 / 1 / 32
Ukraine / 10 / 10
Palestine
other / 40 / 21 / 3 / 56 / 11 / 7 / 6 / 3 / 147
Table. 3 Discovered people inside the Republic of Macedonia who successfully passed the state border -9237
State / 2002 / 2003 / 2004 / 2005 / 2006 / 2007 / 2008 / 2009 / totalAfghanistan / 24 / 24
Аlbania / 332 / 553 / 1294 / 1201 / 2623 / 581 / 278 / 236 / 7098
Netherlands / 2 / 2
Bulgaria / 26 / 41 / 14 / 11 / 1 / 93
Greece / 3 / 1 / 4
India / 4 / 4
China / 19 / 19 / 38
Moldavia / 21 / 7 / 28
Nigeria / 14 / 14
Macedonia / 31 / 88 / 62 / 69 / 601 / 441 / 64 / 1388
Peru / 3 / 3
Romania / 76 / 26 / 3 / 3 / 108
Serbia / 3 / 5 / 8
Kosovo / 90 / 27 / 44 / 58 / 71 / 36 / 6 / 2 / 328
Turkey / 4 / 4
Ukraine / 8 / 8
Croatia / 1 / 1
others / 72 / 25 / 4 / 3 / 7 / 4 / 4 / 119
Following and analyzing both tables we can see that most of the persons are from Albania and Kosovo. The participation of these people in the total number of persons isincluded in the tables which are presented in the following two tables.
Table. 4 Number of illegal migrants detected at the Macedonian border or in the territory of the Republic of Macedonia, according to countries of origin, from 2002 to 2009, only countries with the largest share
State / Number of persons / Percentage of participation in total numberTotal number / 9509 / 100%
Albania / 7768 / 81,69%
Kosovo / 294 / 3,09%
Маcedonia / 981 / 10,31%
Total of three states / 9043 / 95,09%
Table 5. Discovered persons inside the Republic of Macedonia who successfully passed the state border only from countries with the largest percentage
State / Number of persons / Percentage of participation in total numberTotal number / 9237 / 100%
Albania / 7098 / 76.84%
Кosovo / 328 / 3.55%
Маcedonia / 1388 / 15.02%
Total of three states / 8814 / 95.41%
These two tables give us the true reflection of the problem that have most citizens of the two neighboring countries and participate with a percentage of about 85% in the first table and 80% in the second table. Following the trends in the world of joining the ranks of Al-Qaeda and ISIL and unofficial statistics that appear on the participation of people from the Balkans, their death in Syria and eventually return to their native countries is important source of risk and threat for general security in the Balkans. Certainly these official figures from the state institutions should be taken with caution because thereare a large number of undetected and unreported figures of emigrants and their activities on the territory of the Republic of Macedonia.
3. Possible security threatsfor DCM in Macedonia
In the text above were presented risks by migrants who move and retain the Balkan region and specifically the territory of RM. Now is the moment of presentation of possible threats from these activities. In terms of threats, as usual, they are: visible and invisible (latent) threats.
Visible threats are threats that indicate certain individuals, organizations, communities, butmuch more dangerous arethose who we do not know and have not been published and it can be assumed that they exist. In this context it is particularly important that the role of SIA according its function has the following responsibilities:
Carrying out internal works related to security and intelligence and they are:
- Counterintelligence activities;
- Resistance and protection against terrorism;
- Protection from other activities aimed at jeopardizing or undermining of democratic institutions established by the Constitution;
- More severe forms of organized crime aimed to the democratic institutions of the system established by the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia which could lead to their endangerment or affect to the safety of the state.
Irrelevant of what kind they are, when it comes to threats, significant is that they appear in the form of: verbally expressed threats through different kinds of declarations, by thematic video message, by taking concrete actions that show a possible threat, etc. . . . Typically, the threats are directed towards: certain individuals or certain facilities or countries. Lately there are more such threats that have been made by members of the terrorist organization Islamic state, and are directed towards more secular actors. More can be seen in the following text: "Threatening letter from Islamists", ISIS threatens Balkan"and the announcement of the Croatian Security Intelligence Agency (SOA),"Washington worried about jihadists from Macedonia."As confirmation that Islamists are wider in Europe and elsewhere there are the published photos:
Photograph No. 1: "counting down to zero hour," reads the description of photographs showing an inscription in the Arabic language which is located behind the Roman Colosseum, writes daily Mail
Photograph No.2: On the social networks several photos are already published showing signs with the logo of the Islamic State that are made in Italy, in Rome and Milan. The text says "Islamic state in Rome", "We are on your streets", "We arrived in your town."
RM and other Balkan world is not immune from these threats that come from inside and from outside. That the Balkans is a fertile ground for such activities, we saw in Sarajevo, specifically October 28, 2011 when Mevlid Jasarevic attacked the US Embassy in Saraevo, for which he was sentenced for 18 years in prison for terrorism.
Photo No.3: Mevlid Jasarevic of the attacks on the US Embassy in Sarajevo on October 28, 2011
That this is not an isolated case showed the event of 04/27/2015, when Zvornik was attacked and a policeman was killed outside the police station
The events have their chronology, which is linked to political and security developments both in RM and in the wider environment, It was shown on 4/21/2015, when a police facility of border police in village Goshince was attacked and taken by members of the armed group UCK, whereby four policemen weredisarmed and allweapons were confiscated. Police officers were free to go on foot to Kumanovo.
In Macedonia the last events of 05/09/2015 year that occurred in Kumanovo "Wild settlement" where terrorist group composed of members from several countries including the Republic of Macedonia was stationed and which led the members that have been on the battlefields in Syria. This context is the one who should concern the general public and especially the security services. If the later part of the pre-investigative and investigative activities revealed the purpose of this group, attacks on government and other institutions, it is necessary to increase the level of security in the country. All these threats pertaining to employees in DCM and the premises of the DCM and their residences, are forcing the security structures to take over a very tough position to be placed primarily preventive and repressive to such activities. In terms of possible threats to the security of RM we will show tabular presentation of the research at the Faculty of Security, where the assessments are made by respondents on possible threats to the security of the Republic of Macedonia from the inside:
Table 6: Rate of respondents for which of the following situations can jeopardize safety of Macedonia.
Evaluate whether some of these situations can jeopardize the security of the Republic Macedoniafrom the inside / Strongly disagree / Disagree / I can`tevaluate / Agree / Completely agree1)Secession of Western Macedonia / 3,34 / 6,94 / 13,31 / 40,87 / 35,73 / 100,00
2) increase in political tensions in the national mixed environments / 3,03 / 10,05 / 25,04 / 8,45 / 53,43 / 100,00
3) social shocks and strikes / 2,31 / 9,34 / 18,25 / 41,13 / 28,96 / 100,00
4)Financial indebtedness of the Republic of Macedonia / 3,68 / 9,08 / 19,54 / 40,96 / 26,74 / 100,00
5) violent change of thedemocratic government / 1,71 / 6,51 / 12,51 / 40,53 / 38,73 / 100,00
6) local terrorism and armed rebellion in the country / 2,66 / 12,17 / 25,71 / 35,22 / 24,25 / 100,00
7) privatization of security / 1,71 / 8,05 / 11,40 / 41,73 / 37,10 / 100,00
8) unemployment / 1,71 / 7,11 / 11,14 / 40,45 / 39,59 / 100,00
9) poverty / 2,74 / 9,00 / 26,14 / 36,25 / 25,88 / 100,00
10) level of democracy / 3,34 / 6,94 / 13,11 / 40,87 / 35,73 / 100,00
4. Preventive measures