Kiro Gligorov

The next President faces the most dangerous international crisis since the end of the Cold War. In the southern Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean, a real Greek tragedy is in the making, with Western spectators, so far, blithely ignoring the warnings offstage. Even today, all the political and psychological ingredients for what may be the third Balkan war of this century are present there.

The first great European conflict of this century began in the Balkans. Unless we are careful, so may the last. Three years after the beginning of war in Bosnia, international attention remains riveted on the fate of that tragic nation. But Macedonia is perhaps an even more dangerous flash point in the Balkans. Unless the international community takes strong action, we could see the outbreak of a general Balkan war that could draw in the European powers and even the United States.

It was hard to imagine feeling threatened by Spase Shuplinovsky, the slightly scruffy, middle-age co-president of the Assn. for the Protection and Spreading of Truth about Alexander the Great. An eccentric, undoubtedly. But almost unbelievably, conflicting theories about a history going back two millennia have brewed up a volatile cocktail of threats for this small, landlocked country now known to the world as the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia.

Kiro Gligorov is due to retire next year with a claim to Balkan fame: He's the only statesman who led his people to independence from the Yugoslav federation without a shot fired. But with combat raging in what's left of Yugoslavia, Macedonia's 81-year-old president admits to worrying about whether that legacy will outlive him.

It is a perforated, light blue swatch of mesh that represents the obstructed view of the world for a nation of people who were once free. Embedded in this piece of the burka is the story of the Afghan people--the story of the tears, suffering and suppression of millions of Afghan women, the denial of human rights and the history of a conflict that brewed for years.

Dagger-wielding goatherds and vintners lugging 50-year-old hunting rifles stalk the Pirin Mountains, listening as they tend their flocks and truss denuded vines for the starting shot of a fifth ethnic bloodletting this century. The summons will not come from the military high command in Sofia. The government has vowed neutrality in the conflict destroying this land's Yugoslav neighbors. This peaceful pose has drawn Western plaudits for Bulgaria as an island of stability in a tempestuous realm.