Alfa TV aired a report from Vatasa, near Kavadarci, which was the site of a horrific massacre of 12 young men in 1943. The men were suspected of collaborating with the partisans and were shot by the Bulgarian forces. It’s one of the worst atrocities during the course of the war in Macedonia.

The citizens of Vatasa are bitter as Bulgaria is exerting pressure on Macedonia to revise its history, to the point of declaring the World War Two occupation as mere “administration” and an end to using the word “fascist” when describing the then Bulgarian rule. In an interview last week, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev accepted all these demands, but they are yet to be put into a legally binding document.

There is no dispute. We know who it was. The Bulgarian occupiers during the Second World War, after they occupied Macedonia. They were not administrators, and can’t be administrators. They can twist and turn history but it will all come on its own. “Bulgarians were fascists, they can’t avoid it, it was in the past and they need to own up to it. And our side needs to stop giving way. Enough already!”, the citizens told Alfa TV.

Others remembered the circumstances of the massacre – how the Bulgarian military unit detained the suspected partisan supporters. The group was detained in the village in, tortured and taken to a site outside of the village, shot, and the survivors were then stabbed to death. Even several girls were rounded up, but they were released while the group was carried to the execution site.

The massacre is the subject of songs and poems, monuments and sites around Kavadarci are named after it. Bulgaria pressured Zoran Zaev to sign a treaty in 2017 which includes a provision that institutions and even individuals can be prevented from spreading comments that Bulgaria sees as unfriendly. This can easily be expanded to cover reports of this and other massacres. The monument to the 12 men names the “Bulgarian fascist occupiers” as their executors.