Terrorists and Freedom Fighters | Page 9

fascist organization. It traded opium. It hired out the services of
its skilled assassins (for 20 dollars a contract). It recruited members
among the Macedonian population in the slums of Sofia. Finally, they
openly collaborated with the Fascists of Mussolini (who also supported
them financially), with the Ustashe (similarly supported by Italy) and
with the Nazis (under Ivan Mihailov, who became the nominal quisling
ruler of Vardar Macedonia). It was an IMRO man ("Vlado the
Chauffeur") who murdered King Alexander of Yugoslavia in 1934. All
this period, the IMRO continued to pursue its original agenda. IMRO
terrorists murdered staff and pupils in Yugoslav schools in Vardar
Macedonia. In between 1924-34, it killed 1,000 people. Tourists of the
period describe the Yugoslav-Bulgarian frontier as the most fortified in
Europe with "entanglements, block houses, redoubts and searchlight
posts". Throughout the twenties and the thirties, the IMRO maintained
a presence in Europe, publishing propaganda incessantly and
explaining its position eloquently (though not very convincingly).

It was not very well liked by both Bulgarians and Macedonians who
got increasingly agitated and exhausted by the extortion of ever
increasing taxes and by the seemingly endless violence. But the IMRO
was now a force to reckon with: organized, disciplined, lethal. Its
influence grew by the day and more than one contemporary describes it
as a "state within a state". In Bulgaria it collaborated with Todor
Alexandrov in the overthrow and murder of the Prime Minister,
Alexandur Stamboliyski (June 1923) and in the appointment of a right
wing government headed by Alexandur Tsankov. Stamboliyski tried to
appease Yugoslavia and, in the process, sacrifice inconvenient elements,
such as the IMRO, as expediently as he could. He made too many
powerful enemies too fast: the army (by cutting their inflated budget),
the nationalists (by officially abandoning the goal of military
expansion), the professional officers (by making them redundant), the
Great Powers (by making THEM redundant as well) and the opposition
(by winning the elections handsomely despite all the above). By
signing the Treaty of Nis (allowing Serb forces the right of hot pursuit
within Bulgarian territory), he in effect sealed his own death warrant.

The IMRO teamed up with the Military League (an organization of
disgruntled officers, both active duty and reserve) and with the tacit
blessing of Tsar Boris and the forming National Alliance (later
renamed the Democratic Alliance), they did away with the hated man.

Following the murder, the IMRO was given full control of the region of
Petric (Petrich). It used it as a launching pad of its hit and run attacks
against Yugoslavia with the full - though clandestine - support of the
Bulgarian Ministry of War and Fascist Italy. From Pirin, they attacked
Greece as well. These were exactly the kind of international tensions
the murdered Prime Minister was keen to terminate and the IMRO no
less keen to foster. In the meanwhile, Alexandrov came to an end
typical of many a Bulgarian politician and was assassinated only a year
after the coup d'etat. The decade that followed did not smile upon the
IMRO. It fragmented and its shreds fought each other in the streets of
Sofia, Chicago- style. By 1934, the IMRO was a full-fledged
extortionist mafia organization. They ran protection rackets
("protecting" small shop- owners against other gangs and "insuring"
them against their own violence). Hotels in Sofia always had free
rooms for the IMRO. The tobacco industry paid the IMRO more than a
million British pounds of that time in six years of "taxation". Robberies
and assassinations were daily occurrences. So were street shoot-outs
and outright confiscation of goods. The IMRO had no support left
anywhere.

In 1934, it was disbanded (together with other parties) by Colonel
Kimron Georgiev, the new Prime Minister of Bulgaria and a senior
figure in the Zveno association of disgruntled citizenry. His rule was
brief (ended the next year) but the IMRO never recovered. It brought its
own demise upon itself. Colonel Velcev (Velchev), the perpetrator of
the coup, was swept to power on the promise to end all terrorist
activities - a promise which he kept. The modern Republic of
Macedonia is today ruled by a party called VMRO-DPMNE. It is one
of a few political parties to carry this name and the biggest and
weightiest amongst them by far. It is founded on the vision and ideals
of Goce Delcev and has distanced itself from the "Terrorist-IMRO".
The picture of Delcev adorns every office in both Macedonia and

Bulgaria and he is the closest to a saint a secular regime can have. In
1923, the Greeks transferred his bones to Bulgaria. Stalin, in a last
effort to placate Tito, ordered Bulgaria to transfer them to Macedonia.
Even in his death he knew no peace. Now he is buried in his final
resting place,