The Mayor of Veles, Ace Kocevski, participated in the working meeting “Communities Against Violent Extremism”, which CIVIL organized with the purpose of strengthening the resilience of local communities against violent extremism, by forming working groups in the communities, citizen education and strengthening public awareness.
Kocevski said that it is good that we live in a globalized world, but that it also carries challenges such as nationalism, chauvinism that afterwards fuels violent extremism.
“Prevention is better than cure. In Veles there is no massive extremism, there are some mild examples that usually occur through the abuse of social networks”.
He reflected on the conflict year of 2001, when he was mayor and when in that period there was abuse of the special unit “Lavovi” (Lions), who with bursts of gunfire frightened the residents of several Albanian villages.
“The President of the Buzelkovo local community called me then, who is now a council member in the Municipality of Veles, and I immediately headed there and the situation calmed down. Unfortunately, a young boy died then from a stray bullet”, he said.
Kocevski added that during the election campaign for the local elections, he had received threats against his life and against his family. He added that the police had managed to find the one making the threats, who was actually a young boy who later had come to his office with his parents to apologize.
“I accepted the apology and I will not lead a court procedure against him. It is good that he became aware that he made a mistake and that he will not do the same thing again in the future”, he emphasized.
The Mayor of the Municipality of Veles highlighted that everyone should work together on education and coexistence among young people, and only in this way there will be no hate speech and violence, especially at the sports competitions.
“People should be divided only into good and bad, into honest and dishonest, and not according to their ethnic, national and religious affiliation”, stressed Kocevski.
CIVIL is implementing the project “Communities Against Violent Extremism” with the support of the US Embassy in Skopje.
Dehran Muratov
Editing: Biljana Jordanovska
