With Macedonia’s Independence Day (September 8th) only days away, opposition leader Hristijan Mickoski asked the Zaev Government if it will have the courage to say which country is it that is celebrating its independence? Mickoski was referring to the official logo and video announcing the celebration organized by the Government, which does not contain the name the country.

Has it come to this? Will we be silenced for saying the word Macedonia? I call on Zoran Zaev to tell us, whose independence are you celebrating? Which country declared its independence on September 8th? What did the citizens decide then? Is it so terrible to say that, on September 8th 1991 a huge majority of our citizens voted for an independent and sovereign Republic of Macedonia, Mickoski asked Zaev during his speech at an Independence Day event in Gazi Baba.

The VMRO-DPMNE President said that the day belongs to all, including the members of Zaev’s SDSM party who still believe in an independent Macedonia, and went on to paint a bleak picture of crime and political persecution under Zaev.

Is this the country we dreamed of, the country we wanted to leave for our children? Let me be brutally honest, we are on the verge of failure. That’s the painful truth. We have become a criminalized society, led by a caste of people who want to run our lives. Apathy and depression is spreading among the people as they see that, in 28 years, we were unable to build a mechanism which would guarantee law, justice and honesty. I don’t want to excuse anyone involved. The current Government promised life, promised justice, and we have a stolen, captive state. The people feel like they are intruders in their own country, Mickoski said.

He listed the attempts to thwart Macedonia’s independence, which, he added, were often led by the ancestors of the officials of the SDSM party. He named dissidents from the Communist regime such as Pavel Satev, Panko Brasnarov, Dragan Bogdanovski, and Metodija Andonov Cento, whose great-grandson is now arrested on “terrorism” charges by the Zaev regime.

The prohibition to use the word Macedonia was not used even in the darkest days of the Communist regime, when people were sent to the Goli Otok gulag for speaking about Macedonia. Now those who fight for Macedonia, who dare to have a different opinion, are sent to the judiciary led by Recepagic and Ruskosa, and to the Sutka prison by the heirs to the same Communists, Mickoski said.