Introduction

Од Wikibooks

Right now, it is March of 2006, and Austria is midway through a six-month honorary presidency of the European Union. Among its key stated goals are the “stabilization” and “integration” of the West Balkans into the EU. Kosovo, presently divided up into pieces controlled by today’s Great Powers, is being administered by an international body, UNMIK, following claims of atrocities and human rights violations in 1999 caused the West to intervene on behalf of the Albanians there.

Yet while no one speaks of it today, there was a UNMIK before UNMIK- way before. It existed 100 years ago today, and was located not in Kosovo but in neighboring Macedonia. It was known as the Mürzsteg Reform Programme, and it too was sparked by allegations of massacres, and criticisms about the misrule of the Ottoman Empire, then the sovereign power in Macedonia.

Incidentally, Austria (as one half of the Dual Monarchy, it was much more powerful than it is today) had a crucial role in setting it up. The original Balkan peacekeeping mission ended in disaster, and was followed by cataclysmic war that changed the world. Today’s interventionists have more modest aspirations for the UNMIK and its legacy. But give them time.

Over the next few days, we will take another look at this curious, neglected and vital episode in Macedonia’s past- one that is ineluctably bound up with developments today and which should be seen as a warning and admonition regarding the dangers and unforeseen consequences of intervention. Today’s article summarizes, in broad strokes, the narrative that we will embark upon in more detail in the coming days.