[ALBSA-Info] [AMCC-News] Macedonia: U.S. Embassy on a 'Sacrosanct' Hill? It's a Balkan Battle

[Albanians in Macedonia Crisis Center News & Information]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/28/international/europe/28EMBA.html

May 28, 2004
U.S. Embassy on a 'Sacrosanct' Hill? It's a Balkan Battle
By NICHOLAS WOOD

KOPJE, Macedonia . At first glance, the northern tip of Gradiste hill here 
appears less than impressive. Old plastic bags pepper its grassy slopes. 
Dogs sniff for traces of food among discarded litter. Its only apparent 
saving grace is a view of this capital and the surrounding mountains.

Within a few weeks time, American diplomats here believe, good use will be 
made of the site, which they describe as "wasteland," when construction 
starts on a $50 million United States Embassy.

Barren as it may appear to the Americans, the Gradiste hill is regarded by 
many Macedonians as one of the most important historical sites in the 
country, as well as home to a recently discovered 300-year-old Muslim 
cemetery that may hold as many as 2,000 graves.

"It's a sacrosanct site for our people," said Kalina Bunevska Isakovska, 
who for the last three months has led a campaign opposed to the embassy 
development. "It has a cultural and spiritual value."

The first human settlements on the hill, which is roughly a mile long and 
half as wide, can be traced back more than 4,000 years, and it is widely 
regarded as the heart of Skopje. Macedonia's most-used paper currency, the 
100-denar note, features the walled medieval city of Skopje situated on the 
hill.

But the hopes of Ms. Bunevska Isakovska that the Macedonian government, 
which is selling the land to the United States government, will cancel its 
deal and designate the area as a national heritage spot appear unlikely to 
be fulfilled.

The United States is buying a nine-acre site on the hill for "a 
multimillion-dollar figure," diplomats here said, because it was decided 
that the current embassy was too small and insecure for American needs. 
Mobs twice breached the walls of the current embassy building, situated in 
a converted kindergarten, during anti-American protests in 1999 and 2001.

The Gradiste hill site, according to Macedonian and American officials, 
offers the possibility of a 100-foot radius around the embassy to protect 
it from bomb attacks, as well as providing a prestigious location 
overlooking the city.

"There are so many places in the world where the United States Embassy is 
situated in an exclusive position," Macedonia's deputy prime minister, Musa 
Xhaferi, said in a recent interview. "In my opinion, this shows respect for 
their state and their people."

In some ways the dispute over whether a foreign government should be 
allowed to take possession of part of the hill . embassies are the 
sovereign possessions of the nations they represent . is nothing new. 
Romans, Byzantines, Slavs, Turks, Austrians, Serbs, Bulgarians, Italians 
and Germans have all at some stage controlled the hill, making it one of 
the most disputed pieces of territory in the Balkans, local historians say.

American officials point out that most of the valuable traces of those 
conquests, including an Iron Age settlement, are found at the southern end 
of the Gradiste, where an Ottoman fortress still overlooks the city.

The United States ambassador, Lawrence Butler, denied in a recent interview 
that the proposed building would damage historical remains or artifacts. 
"We are committed to building an embassy that respects Skopje and 
Macedonia's heritage and cultural tradition," he said.

To allay concerns that the new mission might disturb archaeological 
remains, the embassy paid for part of the site to be excavated. It was that 
sample digging that discovered the Muslim cemetery. A total of 203 bodies 
dating as far back as the 18th century were uncovered. A 
six-and-a-half-yard-long stretch of aqueduct and part of an Iron Age jug 
were also discovered. Archaeologists overseeing the excavations estimated 
that the burial ground, which extends beyond the proposed American Embassy 
site, could contain more than 2,000 bodies.

"It would be preferable if the graves remained untouched," Jakup 
Selimovski, Macedonia's senior Muslim cleric, said in a recent interview 
upon hearing of the discovery. He warned that "the message from the United 
States to the world would be negative," if the embassy did not take heed of 
the view of Muslims. They make up about 30 percent of the country's 
population.

The Institute for Protection of Cultural Monuments, in Skopje, has ruled 
that the findings were not significant enough to prevent the construction 
of the embassy, and American diplomats were formally notified recently that 
they could go ahead with construction.

The approval has been greeted with criticism by some local commentators. 
"Governments don't always care about culture," said Danilo Kocevski, a 
columnist with the Macedonian daily newspaper Dnevnik who opposes the 
development. "People are very sentimental about this issue regardless of 
whose embassy it is."

He noted that the same institute that approved the embassy plans had 
permitted concrete to be used in the renovation of a medieval stone bridge 
in the center of Skopje.

American officials said discussions were under way with Muslim leaders here 
that could lead to the reburial of any remains found at the site. A senior 
American official also said the embassy would not be the first institution 
in Skopje to be built on the site of a graveyard. Macedonia's Interior 
Ministry was built, he said, on the site of a Jewish cemetery.
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