Boris Trajkovski

Boris Trajkovski
2nd President of the Republic of Macedonia
In office November 19 1999 – February 26 2004
Preceded by	Kiro Gligorov
Succeeded by	Branko Crvenkovski
Personal details
Born	(1956-06-25)June 25, 1956 Monospitovo, SFR Yugoslavia
Died	February 26, 2004(2004-02-26) (aged 47) Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina
Nationality	Macedonian
Spouse	Vilma Trajkovska

Boris (Kiril) Trajkovski (Macedonian: Борис (Кирил) Трајковски) (June 25, 1956 – February 26, 2004) was president of the Republic of Macedonia (1999 - 2004).

Born in the village of Monospitovo, in the municipality of Murtino, near the Macedonian town of Strumica, from a Methodist family, Trajkovski graduated in 1980 with a degree in law from the St. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. He subsequently specialized in commercial and employment law and made several visits to the United States, where he studied theology to become a Methodist lay minister.

After he finished his studies, the Communist government confined him for a time to a remote village owing to his religious activities. There he took care of an impoverished Roma parish of the Methodist Church. Following political liberalisation in the 1980s, he went on to head the legal department of the Sloboda construction company in Skopje. He served as secretary of youth work in the Methodist Church in the former Yugoslavia for over 12 years. Later he was President of the Church Council of the Macedonian Evangelical Methodist Church. In 1988 he took part in a Youth Exchange programme between the Methodist Church of Macedonia and the Berkhamsted and Hemel Hempstead Methodist Circuit in England. In 1991 he studied English at a Christian Language College in Bournemouth, England.

Career in Politics

Trajkovski became active in politics following the Republic of Macedonia's declaration of independence from Yugoslavia in 1992, when he joined the VMRO-DPMNE party. He played an important role in developing the party's relations with other European political parties and was appointed Chairman of the party's Foreign Relations Commission. In 1997, he became the Chief of Staff of the Mayor of Kisela Voda, a municipality in Skopje. He was appointed Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs on December 21, 1998 but served in this post for less than a year.

Largely because of his reputation as a moderate reformist, Trajkovski was selected as VMRO-DPMNE's candidate for president in the November 1999 election held to replace the outgoing president, Kiro Gligorov. In the presidential election of November 14 1999, Trajkovski defeated Tito Petkovski by 52% to 45%. He was scheduled to take office just five days later, on November 19, but because the results were disputed, parliamentary chairman Savo Klimovski became acting president until Petkovski's supporters lost their last appeal a month later.

Trajkovski's term was marked by tensions between ethnic Macedonians and the republic's large ethnic Albanian minority. The aftermath of the Kosovo War led to months of violent armed clashes between Macedonian security forces and Albanian rebels seeking improvements on their status as a legitimate minority and generally better economical, administrative and legal coniditons. Although his powers were limited and his role largely ceremonial, he presided over a NATO-brokered peace deal in 2001 that ended the violence and prevented a full-blown civil war in Macedonia. He was seen as a moderate in the ethnic dialogue, arguing for greater inclusion of ethnic Albanians, and has been credited with being a key figure in resolving the conflict.

In 2002 he was awarded the World Methodist Peace Award by the World Methodist Council for his role in promoting peace and political stability.

Death

File:BorisTrajkovski CrashSite.jpg

Occurrence
Date	26 February, 2004 at 08:00 a.m CET
Summary	Inclement weather
Site	Rotmilja, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Aircraft type	Beechcraft Super King Air 200
Operator	Republic of Macedonia
Registration	Z3–BAB
Passengers	7
Crew	2
Fatalities	9
Injuries	0
Survivors	0

Trajkovski died on February 26 2004 in a plane crash en route to an economic conference in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The aircraft crashed in very poor weather (thick fog and heavy rain) on a mountainside in southeastern Herzegovina, near the villages of Huskovici and Rotimlja some eight miles (15km) south-south-east of Mostar. Eight other people were also aboard but none survived the impact, which broke the aircraft into three pieces. It came down in an area that had been heavily mined during the Bosnian War of the 1990s, which significantly hampered the rescue and recovery efforts.

In the months that followed, significant controversy emerged surrounding the accident. Some residents of Rotmilja village, near where the plane crashed, have disputed the government's assertion that the field had been heavily mined, asserting that they were regularly using it themselves. One witness claimed that he saw people emerging from the aircraft after the accident. SFOR soldiers were on the scene within 30 minutes after the aircraft went down, yet emergency personnel and journalists were not allowed until later. Official records state that the aircraft was located 24 hours after the time of the crash, yet his successor, Branko Crvenkovski officially declared Trajkovski dead within hours. Lastly, new evidence suggests that the fire was not caused by kerosene, but a different substance. Admist growing concern that it may have been an assisination, the case has been re-opened by the present government of Macedonia.

Although the cause of the crash is not known, it seems likely that it was the result of a controlled flight into terrain, possibly exacerbated by alleged mistakes made by the SFOR air traffic controllers at Mostar Ortijes International Airport. The approach to the airport's Runway 34 has been criticized by pilots for being difficult to handle, and as the runway is not equipped with precision landing systems, it is especially challenging in bad weather. The crash is not the first major air accident to kill a politician in southern Herzegovina: on April 3, 1996, the United States Secretary of Commerce Ronald Brown was killed while en route from Bosnia to Croatia.

Boris Trajkovski is survived by his wife Vilma and their two children, daughter Sara and son Stefan.

External links

• Official website of the President of Macedonia
• The Boris Trajkovski International Foundation
• Ley Hill Methodist Church website - see their Macedonia pages