Macedonia turns back aid convoy but ceasefire holds Posted June 13, 2001
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Wednesday June 13, 3:21 AM

Macedonia turns back aid convoy but ceasefire holds
By Daniel Simpson

BEDINJE, Macedonia (Reuters) - A shaky ceasefire was holding in Macedonia on Tuesday, although the government blocked a deal to get aid to civilians in rebel-held villages after the guerrillas demanded journalists be allowed in too.

In a bid to keep the day-old truce going, ethnic Albanian rebels even expressed regret for an overnight attack in which several policemen were hurt and said they would extend a 24-hour ceasefire declared in response to a government move on Monday.

However, a convoy of 26 trucks laden with food and medical kits was turned back by the authorities after waiting seven hours in sweltering heat at the village of Bedinje in an attempt to reach another settlement which is held by rebel forces.

As a result, engineers seeking to restore water to the nearby town of Kumanovo were also denied access to a reservoir, which lies near the village of Lipkovo behind the rebel lines.

The food-for-water swap would have been a major development just days after ethnic Albanian rebels threatened to shell the capital, Skopje, and risk a full-scale civil war. This is the first bilateral truce in four months of the Albanian insurgency.

But Tuesday's cautious test of confidence was thwarted by official reluctance to give in to rebel requests that journalists accompany the aid convoy to check their assurances that Kumanovo's water shortage was due to a technical fault and not to the rebels deliberately shutting off the supply.

"The Macedonian government will not allow the convoy to pass because of the journalists," Labour Minister Bedredin Ibrahimi told reporters on the road to the battle zone from Kumanovo, which has gone without water for a week of Balkan summer heat.

CIVILIANS TRAPPED

However, the Red Cross was allowed to take three trucks up to Lipkovo, where thousands of civilians are holed up after fleeing other parts of a hillside battle zone scarred by five weeks of almost continuous fighting.

Although the trucks left with only basic medical supplies, they were expected to return full of civilians. A visit late on Monday evacuated a 44 people, two of them wounded.

"If we had been able to have more space yesterday, we had the impression that many more people would have come with us," International Red Cross spokeswoman Amanda Williamson said.

PEACE PLAN SUMMIT

Macedonia's government used the lull in the fighting, which has hampered slow progress in agreeing on reforms to address the grievances of the Albanian minority, to discuss peace plans.

The multi-ethnic emergency coalition gave its backing to an initiative proposed by President Boris Trajkovski last week and leaders of all the main parties will retreat to a lakeside resort this week for a crisis summit to flesh out the plan.

Both sides will discuss demands for Macedonia's constitution to be rewritten to improve the status of Albanians, who make up about a third of the population, and of their language. But agreement is unlikely on what would be the toughest changes to sell to a Slav majority which fears its country could collapse.

"This meeting will only be successful… if followed by concrete steps towards military stabilisation and productive finalisation of constitutional changes," warned Aziz Pollozhani, vice-president of the Albanian Party for Democratic Prosperity.

NATO leaders including U.S. President George W. Bush, who will meet in Belgium on Wednesday, are expected to urge Macedonia's fractious government, formed last month under international pressure, to speed up reforms in order to undercut support for guerrillas who claim to fight for ethnic rights.

Aside from the overnight incident in which six policemen were wounded by rebel fire near the northwestern city of Tetovo -- an attack the guerrillas said they regretted and put down to self-defence -- the MIA state news agency reported sporadic shooting in mountains near Tetovo on Tuesday.

The army, which unleashed helicopter gunships, artillery and tanks on rebel territory for four days in a row after a fatal rebel ambush last week, said it was continuing to hold its fire.

But 30 hours after the NLA matched a surprise Macedonian ceasefire, major humanitarian aid has yet to reach the hills.

A rebel commander codenamed Shpati said engineers from the Organisation for Cooperation and Security in Europe would not be allowed to turn on reservoir taps until aid was brought in.

Crowds in Kumanovo queued at tankers for water rations.