Macedonia hands West ultimatum as civil war looms Posted July 25, 2001
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Wednesday July 25, 8:56 PM

Macedonia hands West ultimatum as civil war looms
By Daniel Simpson

SKOPJE (Reuters) - Macedonia demanded on Wednesday that Western powers blame ethnic Albanian guerrillas for ripping up a ceasefire or be exposed as their backers, fanning fears of fresh rioting as the country slides towards civil war.

Germany, whose embassy was stoned in an anti-Western rampage in Skopje on Tuesday, quickly obliged. But Europe's top diplomat denied the West was abetting rebels, saying its sole aim was to restore stability to the divided former Yugoslav republic.

Nationalist mobs ran riot through Skopje after dark on Tuesday, stoning embassies and torching vehicles used by international peace monitors after the government accused Western mediators of helping rebels tear Macedonia apart.

A third straight day of fierce street firefights in the flashpoint town of Tetovo, 40 km (25 miles) to the west, ratcheted tensions a notch higher. Although fighting died down in the early morning hours, both sides were digging in.

National Liberation Army (NLA) guerrillas showed no signs of retreating from a road outside Tetovo, despite a government ultimatum to withdraw by noon and allow expelled Macedonian villagers to return or face an all-out military strike.

Western diplomats trying to broker an NLA withdrawal looked to have been unsuccessful as the government launched its second tirade against their peace mediation efforts in as many days.

"The government urgently appeals to representatives of NATO, the European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe to give a short, clear answer to the only important question: Who is guilty of breaking the ceasefire?" official spokesman Antonio Milosovski told Reuters.

"If they do not respond, then it will be clear that they are protecting those who attacked democratic Macedonia."


WEST HITS BACK

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana denied the allegation.

"That is not true," he said during a Middle Eastern peace mission. "What we are trying as the European Union in Macedonia is to help the country to help the people of the country."

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said the government outbursts were fanning a "violent internal political climate.

"The German government condemns in the strongest terms the break in the ceasefire by armed extremists of Albanian origin," he said in a statement, which also denounced Tuesday's riots.

The streets of Tetovo, from which carloads of Macedonians have fled towards Skopje, were largely deserted as police marksmen searched out rooftop positions in the town centre.

Angry protests in Skopje, by refugees from villages in the mountains above Tetovo who said the area was being ethnically cleansed, descended into Tuesday's riots.

The government had promised them that the rebels had been given a noon deadline to pull back. But an informed source said NATO envoys had not secured a deal with the guerrillas by 11:00 a.m. (0900 GMT), despite intensive negotiations with the NLA's political leadership.

On the ground, the NLA presence was conspicuous. Carloads of bearded guerrillas raced between a string of rebel checkpoints a few hundred metres (yards) from Macedonian lines on Tetovo's outskirts. Numerous NLA fighters were fortifying new positions.

Behind a sports stadium separating the two forces, four houses were burned out and a gaping hole in one building suggested a Macedonian tank shell had ripped it open.

Although the NLA has seized swathes of northern and western Macedonia, where most of the tiny Balkan state's large Albanian minority lives, it denies its five-month revolt in the name of Albanian civil rights has a territorial agenda.

"The war will go on until the Macedonians accept our demands," warned the burly, tattooed commander of NLA forces on Tetovo's eastern fringe, whose nom de guerre is Hamzi.


NATIONALIST AGENDA

Diplomats said the government appeared to be pursuing an outright nationalist agenda in preference to granting greater rights to Albanians, who comprise a third of the population, to end a rebellion that has widened Macedonia's ethnic divide.

NLA advances into Tetovo under cover of a ceasefire which held for 18 days have enraged the Macedonian majority. Losing territory in fierce fighting, which has forced hundreds from their homes, has strengthened the government's "war" camp. Milosovski's anti-Western outburst also targeted foreign journalists. He accused them of highlighting the plight of Albanians in neighbouring Kosovo in 1999, but ignoring the ethnic cleansing of Macedonians from NLA-held territory.

"It will be really odd if those free media, who noticed this happening in Kosovo, close their eyes to the facts," he said.

Police stood back and did little to stop Tuesday's rampage, which was fuelled by a deep-seated fear among Macedonians that their 10-year-old country is being ripped apart by the rebels.

Macedonians incensed by the failure of security forces to crush the NLA, which they blame on Western calls for restraint, were camped outside parliament demanding tougher action.

One man, who declined to give his name, repeated calls heard during Tuesday's riots for civilians to be armed.

"They should give us weapons. If they can't do it we'll take care of the terrorists. And not just in our village," he said.