And this is where Macedonia made a mistake. It did not manage its public relations properly. It absorbed as many refugees as Albania (10% of the population - the equivalent of 25 million Mexican refugees in the USA) and treated its refugees with reasonable decency - under hellishly impossible circumstances. The USA and the EU reneged on all their commitments: financial as well as humanitarian. It costs Macedonia (UNHCR figures) c. 300,000 US dollars a day in direct expenses to host the human outcome of the NATO blunder. That's 15,000,000 US dollars in direct costs since the war started - or almost 1% of the GDP. Add to this a drop of 50% in exports and 26% in industrial production and the costs are already at least 10-15% of the GDP. These are surreal, mind-boggling numbers. It is the equivalent of the Great Depression in the USA. Macedonia received hitherto 3 million US dollars (2 from Taiwan and 1 from UNHCR after a LOT of pressure). Oh, I forgot: and a gigantic pile of promises - to reschedule debts by one year (not to write them off, which would have constituted real help). The West lies through its teeth and when exposed it wags a moral finger at this poor, crumbling, neophyte of a country. It is a disgrace of unprecedented proportions. Albania behaved more slickly - perhaps because its government is more veteran and perhaps because it really empathized more heartily with its suffering kin. They made the right noises and posed to the camera using the right, complimentary, angles. It won much more help than Macedonia and is universally accoladed by the West. This is what Macedonia SHOULD have done. Open its borders in a great display of camaraderie and human passion. Wine and dine the bored, frustrated journalists on its turf, pose for the cameras, hair dishevelled, Tony Blair-like. Instead its leadership went about the business of absorbing a human wave of unheard of proportions while, at the same time, trying to defuse tensions from within and from without. No one informed them that in today's world it matters not what one does - as what one is SEEN to be doing. This is the vital lesson. Albania will rebuild its future on the back of the serendipitous refugees of Kosovo. Macedonia will pay the price of its lack of savvy. (Article published July 26, 1999 in "Central Europe Review" volume 1, issue 5) Return Black Magic, White Magic Managing our Future An address given to the Council of the VMRO-DPMNE, Macedonia's ruling party, chaired by Minister of Defence and Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia, Mr. Nikola Kljusev on July 16, 1999 Germany's economy collapsed following a reparations agreement, which sapped and consumed less than 10% of its GDP. America's economy collapsed, its unemployment soared, its stock exchange vanished and it entered a deflationary cycle, which necessitated the most pervasive federal intervention in its history - mainly because of multilateral trade restrictions.