Macedonia Pardons 11 Guerrillas to Launch Amnesty Posted December 5, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011205/wl/balkans_macedonia_amnesty_dc_3.html
Wednesday December 5 2:54 PM ET

Macedonia Pardons 11 Guerrillas to Launch Amnesty
By Mark Heinrich

SKOPJE (Reuters) - Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski pardoned 11 jailed ethnic Albanian guerrillas on Wednesday, launching an amnesty regarded as crucial to sustaining an August peace settlement.

Justice ministry sources told Reuters the 11 were freed from Skopje's grim Sutka detention center later in the day and another 77 on the pardon list would probably be released in daily batches of 11 over the coming week.

The amnesty is aimed at defusing ethnic mistrust, enabling a return of Macedonian police and refugees to the northern rebel heartland in coming weeks at minimum risk of violence, and helping reintegrate disaffected fighters in society.

It is to cover all former National Liberation Army (NLA) insurgents who voluntarily disarmed under NATO (news - web sites) supervision by September 26 and those captured before then, but excludes those who are indictable by the U.N. war crimes tribunal.

The broad amnesty was decreed under strong Western diplomatic pressure last month after weeks of nationalist obstruction within the coalition cabinet and security services.

Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski's cabinet issued an amnesty declaration in October but it was shot through with loopholes and rejected by the rebels and international peace sponsors as a sham.

``President Trajkovski decided today to pardon 11 members of the so-called (disbanded) NLA who were arrested before September 26,'' said a statement by his office issued by the state news agency MIA.

``The pardoning commission will continue to process others on the list of 88 pardoning proposals. The president will bring further pardoning decisions in the next few days.''

Macedonian television stations also said the first detainees on the list were out of jail but had no footage.

Skopje was not saying when and where detainees were being freed to minimize publicity for an unpopular move with elections due next year and to avoid exposing ex-prisoners to possible violence by Macedonians who suffered in the war.

CALL TO DISMANTLE POLICE CHECKPOINTS

Prisoner releases would provide the first evidence that the government was honoring the amnesty, easing fears of arrest among thousands of NLA veterans and their supporters that have deterred them from returning to jobs and studies in main towns.

But international peace officials told the government on Tuesday that for reconciliation efforts to work it would also have to dismantle intimidating army and police checkpoints maintained along former cease-fire lines.

A senior government official told Reuters the aim of the amnesty was ``to relax tensions'' and remove the last obstacle to reinstating police in the 10 percent of Macedonia taken by the rebels during a seven-month uprising.

It resulted in a Western-engineered peace accord that promised the large Albanian minority better civil rights and a devolution of power to municipalities in exchange for the dissolution of the NLA.

Rebels handed in almost 4,000 weapons to NATO collectors and disbanded in September. Parliament ratified constitutional amendments required by the peace accord on November 16.

Eight of the 88 jailed guerrillas were convicted of plotting or carrying out ``terrorist'' attacks on security forces while the rest were in pre-trial detention on similar charges.

U.N. war crimes tribunal chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte said in a visit to Skopje on November 20 that she had begun investigations against both Macedonian security forces and NLA fighters, but refused to give details.

However, analysts say the number of atrocities in Macedonia's conflict was very small compared with ethnic wars elsewhere in former Yugoslavia and only a few people on either side might have reason to fear indictment.