Macedonia Proposes Amnesty As Fighting Rages Posted May 30, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010530/wl/balkans_guerrillas_dc_54.html
Wednesday May 30 3:40 PM ET

Macedonia Proposes Amnesty As Fighting Rages
By Elisaveta Konstantinova

SKOPJE, Macedonia (Reuters) - Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski proposed a partial amnesty for ethnic Albanian guerrillas Wednesday as fighting raged in the Balkan state's northern front.

In a letter to NATO (news - web sites) Secretary-General George Robertson, Trajkovski suggested an amnesty for guerrillas -- excluding those involved in organizing the 5-month-old insurgency or those responsible for killing Macedonian soldiers.

The plan is modeled on a pact that disarmed and disbanded ethnic Albanian guerrillas in southern Serbia in a deal brokered by NATO, said Trajkovski's security adviser Nikola Dimitrov.

It will be welcomed by Western diplomats, who earlier Wednesday said such a proposal could be a crucial if a wider Balkan conflict was to be averted, although the proposal fell short of their hopes of a blanket amnesty.

``If the government of Macedonia takes a decision on this subject, then of course we will cooperate with the government,'' Javier Solana, the European Union (news - web sites)'s top foreign affairs representative, said at a joint EU-NATO meeting in Budapest.

Dimitrov said details of Trajkovski's proposal would be worked out over the coming days with NATO, which has troops stationed in neighboring Kosovo, a breakaway province of Yugoslavia, where guerrillas have rear bases.

CIVILIAN EVACUATION THWARTED BY FIGHTING

Macedonian security forces and the guerrillas, who say they are seeking to end discrimination against the country's Albanian minority, battled as darkness fell after a plan to evacuate civilians from the conflict zone was scrapped.

The Macedonian army had earlier said it would hold fire to allow safe passage for the thousands of civilians trapped in the northern hills, near the border with Kosovo.

But it said fighting began after its forces were fired on by rebels with mortars and machine guns. The army replied with tank and artillery fire in and around the contested village of Matejce.

Around 8,000 people have fled to the village of Lipkovo, 15 miles north of Skopje, from the surrounding hills where the army has been blasting suspected rebel positions in an effort to crush the guerrilla campaign.

The government has accused the guerrillas of using the mainly ethnic Albanian civilians as human shields.

But local ethnic Albanian community leaders said that despite dwindling food supplies the civilians had stayed put for fear of mistreatment by security forces.

``The offer of the Macedonian government (to evacuate) was not accepted by the people here because it does not provide security guarantees,'' Lipkovo Mayor Husamedin Halili told Reuters by telephone.

``The government did not give assurances that men will not be separated from the women and beaten at the police station.''

POLITICIANS PUT ASIDE DIFFERENCES

The fighting flared anew a day after Solana brokered an agreement between coalition parties from the Balkan country's Slav majority and large ethnic Albanian minority.

Solana succeeded in rescuing the fragile crisis coalition, which had appeared to be on the verge of collapse over a dispute about a secret peace pact ethnic Albanian leaders signed with rebels.

A joint NATO-EU statement Wednesday urged the unity government to press ahead quickly with reforms aimed at healing deep ethnic divisions in the former Yugoslav republic.

Macedonia's one-third ethnic Albanian minority says it faces state-backed discrimination in all walks of life, including education and employment.

Trajkovski has vowed the government will make substantial progress on addressing inter-ethnic tensions by June 15.

Skopje has been asked to submit a progress report to EU leaders at their summit in mid-June, or at the latest by the end of the month.