The Next Nightmare

From the beginning of yugoslavia's violent dissolution a decade ago, the feared endpoint was war in Macedonia. Every knowing pundit said the conflict that first grabbed the international community's attention in Slovenia in June 1991 would roll inexorably eastward. In time, they said, it would run up against the uneasy ethnic mix in Macedonia, the Yugoslav republic cursed with a contested name and surrounded by historically ill-willed neighbors. Match Macedonia with "powder keg" on an Internet search engine and you'll get 1,340 matches; "tinderbox" yields 332. Plenty of less shopworn slogans were brought to bear by diplomats and human rights monitors...

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