Kumanovo Mayor Maksim Dimitrievski said that the construction of the memorial tower dedicated to the UCK in the near-by village of Slupcane is seen in Kumanovo as a provocation. The large, ethnically mixed city was besieged by the UCK during the civil war in 2001, and left without water for months, during the peak summer season.

Dimitrievski is now proposing the construction of a memorial to the eight Macedonian soldiers who were killed during the UCK attack on Kumanovo in 2015, at the height of the Colored Revolution.

I can’t be a nationalist if I’m proposing a monument that was asked for by the union of the police and the association of veterans – both multi-ethnic organizations that honor fallen fighters for Macedonia. When comparing this proposal to what happened in Slupcane, we can say that the Macedonians in Kumanovo feel that the UCK was a occupying force. This was said by NATO Secretary General George Robertson at the time, who referred to them as a terrorist organization undermining the constitutional order of our country, Dimitrievski said.