Macedonia peace talks continue amid fragile truce Posted July 30, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010729/3/19up3.html
Sunday July 29, 9:35 PM
Macedonia peace talks continue amid fragile truce
By Philippa Fletcher
OHRID, Macedonia (Reuters) - Macedonian and ethnic Albanian politicians held a second day of talks on Sunday to end an Albanian guerrilla revolt while diplomats and monitors worked to maintain a shaky truce.
Two Western envoys are mediating in the closed-door talks, chaired by President Boris Trajkovski at the lake resort of Ohrid, on a draft plan to end five months of clashes between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and the security forces.
A breakthrough in the negotiations, deadlocked over the use of the Albanian language in Macedonia, where one third of the two million population is ethnic Albanian, is seen as crucial if a ragged ceasefire is to hold.
A source on the Albanian side said an agreement could be reached later on Sunday between the four mainstream parties -- two Macedonian and two Albanian -- that make up a fragile emergency government coalition.
But another source, close to the Macedonian side, suggested it may take longer. U.S. envoy James Pardew and his European Union counterpart Francois Leotard have made clear the talks are difficult but have given no further comment.
Around two thousand Albanians returned to the shattered village of Aracinovo near Skopje in the latest of a series of confidence-building measures diplomats hope will hold off a resumption of fighting that has so far killed dozens of people.
The return of the Albanians, allowed by Macedonian police who took over the village last month after a rebel withdrawal, followed a visit on Saturday by displaced Macedonians to homes they had fled near Tetovo to the west.
HOMES RUINED
In each case some people found their homes destroyed.
"Fifteen years of work gone in two minutes. It doesn't make a person feel nice inside," said a member of the Asani family returning to their home in Aracinovo badly damaged by fierce fighting between the rebels and the army.
In a village near Tetovo from where Macedonians say they were driven out by the guerrillas, burned out houses greeted some of the Macedonians returning on Saturday. Few stayed, fearing attacks from rebels still in the area.
A diplomatic source said that even if temporary and painful, the two returns were crucial to allow the talks to take place in a constructive atmosphere rather than one of mutual recrimination.
So far dozens of people have been killed since the guerrillas first appeared in February, but much larger casualties are feared if the clashes spark a civil war.
The basis of a peace deal is all but agreed, but the issue of language is a major sticking point. The Macedonian majority sees proposals to make Albanian an official language in some areas as the thin end of a wedge leading to the division of the country.
"They have not made any progress yet," said a source from the second biggest ethnic Albanian party, the PDP. "They are still working on the latest version of the draft, but it is not clear whether it will be signed."
The negotiations have frequently been interrupted by bouts of heavy fighting between government troops and fighters of the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army who now hold large swathes of northern and western Macedonia along the border with ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo.
Macedonian officials have accused the West of siding with the rebels and pressure for a military crackdown is growing.
Thousands of angry Macedonians protested in the capital Skopje on Saturday, calling the peace plan a betrayal of national interests.
A crowd of about 3,000 gathered in front of parliament carrying placards saying "NATO out!" and "NATO wants to completely Albanise the country!" and comparing the peace talks with the appeasement of Nazi Germany before World War Two.
(Additional reporting by Leon Malherbe in Aracinovo and Shaban Buza in Kosovo)
Macedonia Peace Talks Edge Ahead, Success Elusive Posted July 30, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010730/wl/balkans_macedonia_dc_204.html
Monday July 30 9:40 AM ET
Macedonia Peace Talks Edge Ahead, Success Elusive
By Philippa Fletcher
OHRID, Macedonia (Reuters) - Western-mediated talks to end an ethnic Albanian guerrilla revolt in Macedonia have edged forward, participants said as negotiations went into their third day on Monday.
But serious doubts remained over the chances of striking a deal and stopping a ragged cease-fire in the Balkan state -- the only republic to break away from ex-Yugoslavia without a shot fired -- from collapsing into civil war.
President Boris Trajkovski is chairing the closed-door talks, at a villa in the lake resort of Ohrid, between the leaders of four mainstream parties -- two Macedonian and two Albanian -- in a fragile emergency government coalition.
On the table is a draft plan to end five months of clashes between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and government forces by granting greater rights to the Albanian minority which makes up one third of the country's two million population.
After two days of talks, which one source said had come close to breakdown, sources on the Albanian side expressed optimism on Monday that the main issue as they see it -- the use of the Albanian language -- was close to a resolution.
``Yesterday's talks resulted in a feeling that the obstacles concerning the use of the Albanian language have been overcome, which leaves us hopeful that the talks will end successfully,'' a source from the second biggest ethnic Albanian party, the PDP, told Reuters.
The use of Albanian and ethnic make-up of police are the main remaining sticking points in a draft peace plan prepared by European Union (news - web sites) envoy Francois Leotard and his U.S. counterpart, James Pardew.
A Western source said the Albanian side had made ''significant concessions'' on Sunday over their two objections to the draft -- which he did not specify.
MACEDONIAN RELUCTANCE
But the Macedonian majority has balked at endorsing reforms it fears could lead to the division of the country and the source said Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, in particular, was being ``extremely inflexible.''
Georgievski's ally, Interior Minister Ljubce Boskovski, called on Sunday for ``determined action'' to prevent the guerrillas seizing more territory, implying he felt force was a better tactic.
Photos
Reuters Photo
In a move initiated by Boskovski, Macedonian prosecutors on Monday asked the courts to issue arrest warrants for 11 ethnic Albanian guerrilla leaders on charges of terrorism and crimes against the state.
A source close to the Macedonian negotiators said Pardew was pressuring them to accept the latest version by warning that Western financial support could be at stake.
But the source expressed fears that if they did sign up, the agreement would not get the required parliamentary approval.
``An agreement might be signed but that still leaves open the question of parliament,'' the source said.
A source on the Albanian side said later that the Macedonians had come up with a counter-proposal that was ''totally unacceptable.''
A government spokesman said a government session scheduled for Tuesday had been postponed, indicating that the negotiations would go into a fourth day at least.
Leotard, speaking to France Inter radio, was cautious.
``We've been advancing millimeter by millimeter, word by word. They're very tough negotiations because there's a heavy emotional charge, and daily clashes out on the terrain.
``We're trying to push things forward but I acknowledge it is very difficult. I'm not certain of success and it has to be said frankly. But we do not have the right to abandon this and leave things in a logic of war,'' he said.
The talks, begun in May, have often been interrupted by bouts of fighting between security troops and the guerrillas, who now hold large swathes of northern and western Macedonia along the border with ethnic Albanian dominated Kosovo.
Tens of thousands of people have fled the fighting, mostly ethnic Albanians but also some Macedonians.
The European Commission (news - web sites) said it would send emergency humanitarian aid to the more than 60,000 refugees who have fled from Macedonia to Kosovo and support for some 10,000 Kosovo families who are hosting them.
(Additional reporting by Shaban Buza in Kosovo)
Macedonian Cease-Fire Violated: Tension Builds as Insurgents Accused of Preventing Refugees From Going Home Posted July 30, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3929-2001Jul29.html
Macedonian Cease-Fire Violated: Tension Builds as Insurgents Accused of Preventing Refugees From Going Home
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 30, 2001; Page A10
SKOPJE, Macedonia, July 29 -- Ethnic Albanian rebels are violating the terms of a new cease-fire in Macedonia by remaining in areas from which they promised to withdraw, discouraging Macedonian Slav refugees from returning to their homes and increasing the risk of renewed fighting, international observers said.
Several houses and other buildings belonging to Macedonian Slavs were set afire Saturday -- apparently by rebels -- in a village northeast of Tetovo, Macedonia's second-largest city and a center of the insurgency, the observers said. A rebel commander denied the charge.
At least two people, whose ethnicity was not known, were killed today when the vehicle in which they were traveling drove over a land mine on a road near Lesok, a village about five miles north of Tetovo, officials said.
Gunmen sprayed bullets today at a car carrying Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski on the main road between Skopje, the capital, and Tetovo, news agencies reported. No one was injured in the attack, which Boskovski blamed on the rebels.
The general insecurity in the region dissuaded about 1,000 Slavic Macedonian refugees from returning to their homes this weekend. The refugees, most of whom fled their villages when rebels arrived about a week ago, had returned Saturday in convoys of buses, only to reboard the buses and leave again because they felt the area was unsafe, officials said.
That prompted renewed demonstrations in Skopje by thousands of Macedonian Slavs demanding the government facilitate their safe return, as called for in a cease-fire accord that went into effect Thursday.
"Most of the returnees are coming back to Skopje, and even the ones who had remained in the villages for the last week are taking the opportunity to leave," said one observer, speaking on condition of anonymity. "In the area around Tetovo, it's all running in the wrong direction."
President Boris Trajkovski is trying to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the six-month insurgency, but faces mounting opposition from hard-line nationalists in the government. Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski and Interior Minister Boskovski in particular have been calling for tougher military action to quash the rebel movement, which many Western observers fear could thrust Macedonia into civil war.
At the same time, hundreds of ethnic Albanian refugees returned today without incident to Aracinovo, the town 10 miles east of Skopje that was the site of intense fighting about six weeks ago.
Meanwhile, Trajkovski and ethnic Albanian and Macedonian political leaders held a second day of high-level talks. The group, along with two Western mediators, is trying to fashion an agreement that would increase the political, economic and cultural rights of ethnic Albanians, who make up about 30 percent of Macedonia's 2 million people. The talks have reached a stalemate over whether Albanian should be a second official language. The rebels are not a party to the talks, but they have indicated they would likely disarm if a political solution is reached.
Three days of fierce fighting broke out a week ago in and around Tetovo, a predominantly ethnic Albanian city about 25 miles west of the capital, when the rebels -- in violation of the previous July 5 cease-fire agreement -- took up more advanced positions and reportedly forced thousands of Macedonian Slavs from their homes. The July 5 agreement said the rebels could not move beyond the positions they held on that date.
The new cease-fire is actually a demilitarization agreement that calls for rebels to withdraw and remain 500 meters west of the main road -- and villages along it -- from Tetovo northeast to Odri, about 12 miles. Macedonian police and security forces are allowed to transit that stretch of road, but cannot stop or travel on it while armed. Their fixed positions must be 500 meters east of the road, officials said.
While the fighting has largely stopped, international observers said that other aspects of the agreement are being violated. But according to a Western observer, it was virtually impossible to police the new agreement, and minor infractions are to be expected by a rebel group that is increasingly supported by ethnic Albanian civilians in the region because of the "disproportionate" response of the Macedonian army.
Three other international observers, all of whom asked not to be identified, said that rebels, some in uniform and others in civilian clothes, were spotted by monitors Saturday in several towns in the demilitarized area. In one case, one of the observers said, several rebels drove through a town in a car that had no license plates but was marked with rebel insignia.
"They are still very, very close to the villages," said one observer. "We see them every day patrolling the streets. Some are in uniform, some are not. They are trying to show they've withdrawn, but they haven't. They are in the villages and ready to act."
"If they are not 500 meters away, then the Macedonians feel too insecure to return," another observer said. "The [rebel group] is saying that we need to be there to protect our civilians. But the fact is that the Macedonians are so outnumbered, outgunned and out-organized in the area north of Tetovo that they are in a defensive posture. I don't believe that the Albanian community is actually at risk."
Furthermore, the observers said, the rebels set fire to at least five buildings belonging to Macedonian Slavs in Tearce, a small, ethnically mixed community about eight miles northeast of Tetovo. The BBC reported that the rebels claimed to have torched the buildings because Macedonian Slavs were using them as sniper positions.
A top rebel commander in the Tetovo region who goes by the name Matoshi denied in an interview that guerrillas under his command were still operating in the area or that they had set fire to any buildings. He said he has videotapes of his men telling Macedonian Slavs they had nothing to fear.
He said the buildings might have caught fire when local officials switched on electricity that had been disrupted during several days of fighting.
A fourth Western observer agreed with this account. "It's very likely that some of the fires were deliberately set, but it's also very likely some were caused by faulty electric problems," he said. When electric service was restored, he said, "Almost instantly several bush fires started throughout the area from power lines that were down. In some cases with burned buildings in Tearce, there were power lines draped across the roof."
But one of the other observers said that in at least one of the burned Tearce buildings, the fuse box was found intact, and all the fuses apparently had been removed before the blaze.
Despite Truce and Talks, Pessimism Spreads in Macedonia Posted July 30, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/30/international/europe/30MACE.html
July 30, 2001
Despite Truce and Talks, Pessimism Spreads in Macedonia
By IAN FISHER
OHRID, Macedonia, July 29 Someone had blown up the house of an ophthalmologist in the village of Tearce. Timbers still smoldered on Saturday. Red roof tiles littered the street like blocks from a child's toppled tower. A retired professor who lived nearby, Mirko Krstevski, took a look around. Then he loaded up blankets, clothes, crates of eggs from his neglected chickens and left town.
"I am a pessimist," Mr. Krstevski said, just before he and about 100 other Slavic Macedonians abandoned Tearce for the second time in a week.
Pessimism is one of the few sentiments that people on both sides of the ethnic divide here share. And little happened to overcome that today here in Ohrid, where leaders of the majority Macedonian Slavs and the minority ethnic Albanians have been meeting for the last two days to try to end a five-month-old conflict that is rapidly dividing the country.
"It's very, very hard very, very difficult," a government official said.
Last week, hopes for a settlement rose after the government and ethnic Albanian rebels fighting for greater political rights agreed to reinstate a cease-fire and begin talking again.
But after two days of talks, in a villa in this resort town in the south, the leaders were unable to come up with a compromise. The parties were still stuck on the question of whether to make Albanian, which is spoken by about one-third of the population, an official language, as well as on the ethnic makeup of the police force.
In at least a small sign of hope, the talks have not broken down, as they did on July 20 during the renewed fighting around Tetovo, in the northwest. The leaders say they will continue negotiations this week.
But a new cease-fire seemed on shaky grounds today after a car carrying the nation's interior minister, Ljube Boskovski, came under what appeared to be rebel fire on the main highway from Tetovo to the capital, Skopje. Mr. Boskovski, a hard-liner against the rebels, was not wounded. The rebels denied responsibility for the attack. Tonight, there were sporadic clashes around Tetovo.
Moreover, many politicians, foreign diplomats and ordinary people in Macedonia fear that the room for compromise shrinks each time the familiar pattern of talk, impasse, fighting repeats itself. The stakes rise each time, they say, with a few more dead or expelled from their homes.
The area in the country's northwest, around Tetovo, has been the center of the fight. It began in February when ethnic Albanian rebels of the National Liberation Army began a military campaign aimed, they say, at greater political rights and recognition of their language.
But in the last week, the area has become more of a hardened front line. Before, the rebels moved in and out of villages still populated by Macedonian Slavs. Last week, however, 8,000 or more Slavs from the area fled the fighting, in what they contend is clear-cut "ethnic cleansing."
The ethnic Albanians deny any intention to clear the area of other Macedonians, saying they, like many ethnic Albanians, have been fleeing to get away from the bullets.
"Nobody had to leave," said Commander Leka, a tall, bearded rebel with a gun strapped to his side and a grenade pinned to his black vest. "I can say 80 percent of the adults were mobilized, and they left because they had blood on their hands."
But it is true that the rebels now hold a sizable swath of territory, with few Slavic civilians or government soldiers still there.
And they are increasingly angry. Commander Leka pulled out a pile of photographs of the nine civilians killed last Monday by what he said was indiscriminate government mortar fire in the village of Poroj. The niece of one of the dead men showed the blood stains on the wooden floor where she said her uncle, Idriz Ajdari, 51, and his wife, Hirijete, were eating when the shells started falling.
"I was there one minute and 30 seconds before," said the niece, Festime Ajdari, 21. She called out to them to run for a bunker "and they said, `We will eat and then come' " she said. "It happened so fast."
The mortar hit a concrete wall next to the garage, and shrapnel blasted into the couple's kitchen, killing them both at their table. Ms. Adjari said she now had very little hope of a political settlement.
"I'm sorry, but this is the truth," she said. "Always it is bitter."
This front line will, in theory, disappear if NATO comes, as promised, after a political deal is reached and 3,000 soldiers arrive to disarm the rebels.
But the Macedonians driven from this area last week put little stock in NATO, believing that it and other Western powers have taken the side of the Albanians. The government has been working to keep it ethnically mixed by sending busloads of displaced Macedonians back to their homes, under the terms of last week's cease-fire.
On Saturday, the government escorted about 350 Macedonians back to three villages, including Tearce. But most of them, like Mr. Krstevski, decided that it was not safe, after seeing their looted homes and, in Tearce, about a dozen houses that had been burned.
"Look what is happening," said a 63-year-old Macedonian woman in Tearce, who would not give her name. On her way out of town with a few bags full of clothes, she pointed to a new restaurant that had been burned down. "Albanians want territory," she said. "Macedonian people are getting thrown out."
Commander Leka argued that very few houses had been burned down, and that the rebels had cooperated with the government to let the Macedonian Slavs return.
Still, the woman said that she would not return because no one could guarantee her safety and that even a political deal was unlikely to help. The only solution was to force the rebels out. "The only way," she said, "is through the army."
Macedonia peace talks edge ahead Posted July 30, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010730/3/19wa1.html
Monday July 30, 9:54 PM
Macedonia peace talks edge ahead
By Philippa Fletcher
OHRID, Macedonia (Reuters) - Western-mediated talks to end an ethnic Albanian guerrilla revolt in Macedonia have edged forward, participants said as negotiations went into their third day on Monday.
But serious doubts remained over the chances of striking a deal and stopping a ragged ceasefire in the Balkan state -- the only republic to break away from ex-Yugoslavia without a shot fired -- from collapsing into civil war.
President Boris Trajkovski is chairing the closed-door talks, at a villa in the lake resort of Ohrid, between the leaders of four mainstream parties -- two Macedonian and two Albanian -- in a fragile emergency government coalition.
On the table is a draft plan to end five months of clashes between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and government forces by granting greater rights to the Albanian minority which makes up one third of the country's two million population.
After two days of talks, which one souce said had come close to breakdown, sources on the Albanian side expressed optimism on Monday that the main issue as they see it -- the use of the Albanian language -- was close to a resolution.
"Yesterday's talks resulted in a feeling that the obstacles concerning the use of the Albanian language have been overcome, which leaves us hopeful that the talks will end successfully," a source from the second biggest ethnic Albanian party, the PDP, told Reuters.
The use of Albanian and ethnic make-up of police are the main remaining sticking points in a draft peace plan prepared by European Union envoy Francois Leotard and his U.S. counterpart, James Pardew.
A Western source said the Albanian side had made "significant concessions" on Sunday over their two objections to the draft -- which he did not specify.
MACEDONIAN RELUCTANCE
But the Macedonian majority has balked at endorsing reforms it fears could lead to the division of the country and the source said Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, in particular, was being "extremely inflexible".
Georgievski's ally, Interior Minister Ljubce Boskovski, called on Sunday for "determined action" to prevent the guerrillas seizing more territory, implying he felt force was a better tactic.
In a move initiated by Boskovski, Macedonian prosecutors on Monday asked the courts to issue arrest warrants for 11 ethnic Albanian guerrilla leaders on charges of terrorism and crimes against the state.
A source close to the Macedonian negotiators said Pardew was pressuring them to accept the latest version by warning that Western financial support could be at stake.
But the source expressed fears that if they did sign up, the agreement would not get the required parliamentary approval.
"An agreement might be signed but that still leaves open the question of parliament," the source said.
A source on the Albanian side said later that the Macedonians had come up with a counter-proposal that was "totally unacceptable".
A government spokesman said a government session scheduled for Tuesday had been postponed, indicating that the negotiations would go into a fourth day at least.
Leotard, speaking to France Inter radio, was cautious.
"We've been advancing millimetre by millimetre, word by word. They're very tough negotiations because there's a heavy emotional charge, and daily clashes out on the terrain.
"We're trying to push things forward but I acknowledge it is very difficult. I'm not certain of success and it has to be said frankly. But we do not have the right to abandon this and leave things in a logic of war," he said.
The talks, begun in May, have often been interrupted by bouts of fighting between security troops and the guerrillas, who now hold large swathes of northern and western Macedonia along the border with ethnic Albanian dominated Kosovo.
Tens of thousands of people have fled the fighting, mostly ethnic Albanians but also some Macedonians.
The European Commission said it would send emergency humanitarian aid to the more than 60,000 refugees who have fled from Macedonia to Kosovo and support for some 10,000 Kosovo families who are hosting them.
Some Signs of Progress in Macedonia Peace Talks Posted July 30, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010730/wl/balkans_macedonia_dc_203.html
Monday July 30 5:34 AM ET
Some Signs of Progress in Macedonia Peace Talks
OHRID, Macedonia (Reuters) - Participants reported signs of progress on Monday as Macedonian and ethnic Albanian politicians went into a third day of Western-mediated talks to end an Albanian guerrilla revolt in this Balkan country.
``Yesterday's talks resulted in a feeling that the obstacles concerning the use of the Albanian language have been overcome, which leaves us hopeful that the talks will end successfully,'' a source from the second biggest ethnic Albanian party, the PDP, told Reuters.
The use of Albanian -- the language of one third of Macedonia's two million people -- has been the main sticking point in a draft peace plan prepared by European Union (news - web sites) envoy Francois Leotard and his U.S. counterpart, James Pardew.
President Boris Trajkovski is chairing the closed-door talks, at a villa in the lake resort of Ohrid, between the leaders of four mainstream parties -- two Macedonian and two Albanian -- that make up a shaky emergency government coalition.
On the table is a draft plan to end five months of clashes between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and government forces.
A breakthrough in the negotiations is seen as crucial if a ragged cease-fire is to hold.
The Macedonian majority has balked at endorsing reforms it fears could lead to the division of the country.
Leotard, speaking to France Inter radio, was cautious.
``We've been advancing millimeter by millimeter, word by word. They're very tough negotiations because there's a heavy emotional charge, and daily clashes out on the terrain,'' he said.
``We're trying to push things forward but I acknowledge it is very difficult. I'm not certain of success and it has to be said frankly. But we do not have the right to abandon this and leave things in a logic of war,'' he said.
``We are going to have a full day of talks and all options are open,'' said Aziz Pollozhani, deputy head of the PDP.
The negotiations have frequently been interrupted by bouts of heavy fighting between security troops and fighters of the National Liberation Army who now hold large swathes of northern and western Macedonia along the border with ethnic Albanian dominated Kosovo.
``For the moment, what counts is keeping everybody together where we are, that nobody walks out and slams the door and that we do everything to make progress and work for a signature on this constitutional reform in the coming days if possible,'' Leotard said.
(Additional reporting by Shaban Buza in Kosovo)
Breakthrough possible, time limited for Macedonia peace talks: envoy Posted July 30, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010730/1/19w4j.html
Monday July 30, 7:27 PM
Breakthrough possible, time limited for Macedonia peace talks: envoy
OHRID, Macedonia, July 30 (AFP) -
A top international mediator said on Monday a breakthrough in peace talks between Macedonian and ethnic Albanian political leaders was close, but that time was running out in efforts to avert civil war in the Balkan country.
European Union envoy Francois Leotard, one of two mediators brokering the country's peace talks, said he believed the crunch issue of the status of the Albanian language in Macedonia could be settled on Monday.
"Right now, on the language issue, we're at the end of the negotiations, I think," Leotard said. "It's possible it might be solved this evening."
However, he cautioned that "nobody is certain of success" and said time was running short for an agreement as a NATO-brokered ceasefire between ethnic Albanian rebels and government forces in the north was becoming increasingly marred by violence.
"We need time to negotiate, but by the same token, time is short because we're at the mercy of the problems on the ground," he said, as peace talks entered their third day at the summer residence of Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski in this southern lakeside resort town.
"Nobody is saying 'I'm going to leave if I don't get what I want'," Leotard said, adding that the participants were now aiming to have a final, full agreement signed by Thursday -- Macedonia's National Day.
Talks deadlocked Sunday over demands put forward by leaders of the main ethnic Albanian parties to their counterparts in the Macedonian parties. The four parties involved make up Macedonia's ruling coalition.
As the talks struggled to make headway, tensions were heightened in the flashpoint north of the country around the town of Tetovo, where recent fighting has been calmed by a renewed NATO-negotiated ceasefire.
Late Sunday, a convoy transporting Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski came under fire, four Macedonian soldiers were shot and injured and an army barracks was attacked in Tetovo in separate incidents.
Police in neighbouring Albania also said they had seized a truck loaded with weapons -- including four ground-to-ground missiles -- apparently destined for Macedonia's ethnic Albanian rebel National Liberation Army.
A peace accord is seen as the only way to stave off a new Balkan war. The trouble began in the former Yugoslav country in February.
The main ethnic Albanian demand -- and the main sticking point in the talks -- has been that Albanian be made an official language alongside Macedonian.
A source in Trajkovski's delegation said Sunday: "The talks are slow and tough and the major obstacle is the language demand."
The Macedonian parties fear conceding to this would create a de facto Albanian state in the northwest of the small republic along the borders with Kosovo and Albania. Many of the ethnic Albanians, who make up around 30 percent of Macedonia's population, live in this area.
Leotard said Monday before going into the talks that a compromise formula he and Pardew put forward, under which the use of Albanian would be restricted to areas where the ethnic Albanian population was at least 20 percent, could be accepted.
The atmosphere in the talks was good, he said, adding that each side seemed intent on reaching agreement and differences were narrowing.
Even if the question of language was agreed, that still left the one other outstanding issue: an ethnic Albanian demand that an independent ethnic Albanian police force be set up for certain areas.
"It's really progress millimetre by millimetre," Leotard said.
Both the rebels and some government officials have said they are ready to pursue the conflict if the talks fail.
One source close to the talks in Ohrid said: "You have people who think that a confrontation is inevitable. Me, I think that can be avoided -- but maybe I'll be proved wrong tomorrow."
Macedonia Seeks to Arrest Ethnic Albanian Leaders Posted July 30, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010730/wl/balkans_macedonia_dc.html
Monday July 30 10:30 AM ET
Macedonia Seeks to Arrest Ethnic Albanian Leaders
By Philippa Fletcher
OHRID, Macedonia (Reuters) - Macedonian prosecutors asked local courts on Monday to issue arrest warrants for 11 ethnic Albanian guerrilla leaders, overshadowing last-ditch peace talks that Western envoys are trying to mediate.
The guerrillas are not involved in the negotiations, which participants said had edged forward, but a draft peace plan under discussion is designed to persuade them to end their five-month-old rebellion and disarm.
This would also require an amnesty.
President Boris Trajkovski is chairing the closed-door talks, at a villa in the lake resort of Ohrid, between the leaders of four mainstream parties -- two Macedonian and two Albanian -- in a fragile emergency government coalition.
The move against the guerrilla leaders was initiated last week by the Interior Ministry headed by hardline Macedonian nationalist Ljube Boskovski.
Police said the minister and his convoy came under fire from the guerrilla National Liberation Army (NLA) on Sunday on a road outside Skopje, although no one was injured.
``The aim of the so-called NLA is to unite all territories populated by Albanians by organizing armed rebellion, committing acts of terrorism...forceful eviction of the population followed by military crimes against civilians,'' said a document from the prosecutors carried by state news agency MIA.
The talks, begun in May, have frequently been interrupted by bouts of fighting between security troops and the rebels, who now hold swathes of northern and western Macedonia along the border with ethnic Albanian dominated Kosovo.
There are widespread fears that if they fail, Macedonia -- the only republic to break away from the old Yugoslavia in 1991 without a shot fired -- will collapse into civil war.
ALBANIAN OPTIMISM ON TALKS
There was no immediate reaction from Albanian officials or the guerrillas to the call for arrest warrants.
After two days of negotiations, which one source said had come close to breakdown, sources on the Albanian side expressed optimism that the main issue as they see it -- the use of the Albanian language -- was close to resolution.
The use of Albanian and ethnic make-up of police are the main remaining sticking points in a draft peace plan prepared by European Union (news - web sites) envoy Francois Leotard and his U.S. counterpart, James Pardew.
A Western source said the Albanian side had made ''significant concessions'' on Sunday over their two objections to the draft -- which he did not specify.
But the Macedonian majority has balked at endorsing reforms it fears could lead to the division of the country and the source said Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, in particular, was being ``extremely inflexible.''
Georgievski's ally Boskovski called on Sunday for ''determined action'' to prevent the guerrillas seizing more territory, implying he felt force was a better tactic.
A source close to the Macedonian negotiators said Pardew was pressuring them to accept the latest version by warning that Western financial support could be at stake.
But the source expressed fear that if they did sign up, the agreement would not get the required parliamentary approval.
``An agreement might be signed but that still leaves open the question of parliament,'' the source said. A source on the Albanian side said later that the Macedonians had come up with a counter-proposal that was ``totally unacceptable.''
Leotard, speaking to France Inter radio, was cautious.
``We're trying to push things forward but I acknowledge it is very difficult. I'm not certain of success and it has to be said frankly. But we do not have the right to abandon this and leave things in a logic of war,'' he said.
Tens of thousands of people have fled the fighting, mostly ethnic Albanians but also some Macedonians.
The European Commission (news - web sites) said it would send emergency humanitarian aid to the more than 60,000 refugees who have fled from Macedonia to Kosovo and support for some 10,000 Kosovo families who are hosting them.
A government spokesman said a government session scheduled for Tuesday had been postponed, indicating that the negotiations might go into a fourth day at least.
(Additional reporting by Shaban Buza in Kosovo)
Macedonian rebels say they want peace but are ready to fight Posted July 29, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010729/1/19urf.html
Sunday July 29, 11:30 PM
Macedonian rebels say they want peace but are ready to fight.
NIKUSTAK, Macedonia, July 29 (AFP) -
Ethnic Albanian guerrillas in Macedonia say they want peace talks between the Skopje government and Albanian politicians to succeed so they can end their five-month insurgency which has brought the Balkan country to the brink of civil war.
But they say they are ready to resume fighting if their demands are not met at the negotiating table.
"I really hope that the political process will succeed and in this case we will be ready to lay down our arms immediately. But if they (the Macedonians) want war, they will have it," a rebel, Commander Hoxha, told AFP on Sunday.
"Nobody wants war here," said another, Commander Sokoli, from the "113 Ismet Jashari-Kumanova" brigade's base in Lipkovo.
"We have our political representatives and if there is a political solution, we will obey orders," said Sokoli, who has been involved in the insurgency since the first shots were fired in February.
All six brigades the self-styled National Liberation Army (NLA) claims it has operating in Macedonia, say they want to leave space for the peace process to work.
Internationally-brokered peace talks between Skopje and ethnic Albanian political leaders in the former Yugoslav republic resumed on Saturday, after the rebels withdrew from key positions in the northwest of the country under an accord with the NATO transatlantic military alliance on Thursday.
The rebels say they are fighting for greater rights for Macedonia's Albanian minority.
The talks, in the southern Macedonian town of Ohrid, far from the fighting, are focusing on demands that Albanian be made into an official language, alongside Macedonian, and also the establishment of an independent ethnic Albanian police force in certain areas.
Sokoli said that rebels would be vigilant to ensure that any deal would be respected, saying a previous agreement, which had prompted rebels to pull out of Aracinovo near Skopje, had not been respected by the Macedonian side.
On Friday another commander, Gjini, told AFP the ethnic Albanian rebels had so far used only 50 to 60 percent of their military potential.
The ongoing peace talks had been postponed for a day to relocate them to the south of the country because of security fears and concerns that the rebel withdrawal from key positions had not been completed.
However, the rebels also claim that they are ready to attack the capital Skopje and are present in the southwest towns of Ohrid, where the peace talks are being held, Bitola, Struga and Debar.
Macedonian ceasefire crumbles as peace talks stall Posted July 29, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010729/1/19uyp.html
Monday July 30, 6:04 AM
Macedonian ceasefire crumbles as peace talks stall
Macedonia's fragile ceasefire between ethnic Albanian rebels and government forces started to crumble as peace talks ran into deadlock on the issue of making Albanian an official language.
A convoy transporting Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski came under fire, four Macedonian soldiers were shot and injured and an army barracks was attacked in the flashpoint town of Tetovo in separate incidents.
Meanwhile, police in neighbouring Albania said they had seized a truck loaded with weapons -- including four ground-to-ground missiles -- apparently destined for Macedonia's ethnic Albanian rebel National Liberation Army.
And a Macedonian woman and her son were killed when a mine exploded under their vehicle on the road leading from Tetovo to Kosovo which the rebels and the army have fought over in recent days.
The violence overshadowed talks between Macedonia's ruling Slav and ethnic Albanian parties in the southern town of Ohrid that were showing little sign of progress despite intensive mediation by EU and US envoys Francois Leotard and James Pardew.
The office of President Boris Trajkovski, who is hosting the talks between Macedonia's four ruling Slav and ethnic Albanian parties in his summer residence, far from the unrest, said the talks would go into their third day Monday.
An accord is seen as the only way to stave off a civil war that has been threatening the Balkans republic since the armed ethnic Albanian rebellion began in February.
But a source in Trajkosvki's delegation said: "The talks are slow and tough and the major obstacle is the language demand."
In a sign of the differences still to be narrowed, Sunday's talks were conducted without a full roundtable session.
The Western envoys were holding the negotiations together by shuttling between both sides in bid to find a compromise on an ethnic Albanian demand that Albanian be made an official language alongside Macedonian.
The Slav parties fear conceding to this would create a de facto Albanian state in the northwest of the small republic, along the borders with Kosovo and Albania. Many of the ethnic Albanians who make up around 30 percent of Macedonia's population live in this area.
A source in Leotard and Pardew's entourage said the language demand was proving to be "a tricky issue".
Zahir Bekteshi, the spokesman of one of the parties, the PDP, confirmed that agreement was still some distance away, saying "nothing is settled."
He also pointed out that both sides had yet to discuss the other outstanding demand: that an independent ethnic Albanian police force be created in certain areas.
While a July 5 ceasefire rescued from extinction by NATO this week continued to hold, cracks were appearing.
A rebel commander known as Hoxha, who is based just north of the capital Skopje, told AFP late Saturday: "We are respecting the ceasefire, but we are not relaxing our guard. We're preparing for the worst if there's no political agreement."
He said that if an accord was reached, "we are ready to drop our arms immediately, but if they (the Macedonian authorities) want a war, they'll get it."
'Tricky' language issue deadlocks Macedonian peace talks Posted July 29, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010729/1/19usm.html
Monday July 30, 12:17 AM
'Tricky' language issue deadlocks Macedonian peace talks
OHRID, Macedonia, July 29 (AFP) -
Ethnic Albanian demands that Albanian become an official second language in Macedonia appear to have deadlocked peace talks being held over the weekend in this southern lakeside resort town.
Sources close to the Macedonian Slav parties negotiating with the two ethnic Albanian parties in the ruling coalition said little progress was being made on the issue and the talks, being hosted by President Boris Trajkovski in his summer residence, would likely drag on into Monday and maybe beyond.
"The talks are slow and tough and the major obstacle is the language demand," said one source in Trajkovski's delegation.
An accord is seen as the only way to stave off a civil war that has been threatening the Balkans republic since an armed ethnic Albanian rebellion began in February.
The rebel National Liberation Army (NLA) and the Macedonian security forces are currently observing a ceasefire rescued by NATO this week after pitched fighting around the northern town of Tetovo threatened to widen to engulf the whole country.
The talks opened Saturday with Trajkovski, the party leaders and EU and US envoys Francois Leotard and James Pardew all meeting around the same table.
But in a sign of the differences still to be narrowed, Sunday's talks were conducted with the Slav and the ethnic Albanian parties holding separate discussions with the Western envoys, who shuttled between both sides.
A source in Leotard and Pardew's entourage said the language demand was proving to be "a tricky issue".
The source added: "The talks are difficult, but we are making progress."
The ethnic Albanian party leaders are demanding that Albanian be made an official language alongside Macedonian.
The Slav parties fear conceding to this would create a de facto Albanian state in the northwest of the small republic, along the borders with Kosovo and Albania. Many of the ethnic Albanians who make up around 30 percent of Macedonia's population live in this area.
Leotard and Pardew presented a proposition that would limit Albanian to areas that had a population of at least 20 percent ethnic Albanians, but the ethnic Albanian parties are said to have rejected it.
Zahir Bekteshi, the spokesman of one of the parties, the PDP, confirmed this, saying "nothing is settled."
He added that the talks would probably go on into Monday, especially as the negotiators have not even started real discussions on the other outstanding demand: that an independent ethnic Albanian police force be created in certain areas.
While the talks went on, there was relative calm in and around Tetovo, although the area remained tense.
"The number of armed incidents has diminished, as is the regrouping of the terrorists," army spokesman Colonel Blagoja Markovski said, referring to the rebels.
Four rocket-propelled grenades were, however, fired at army barracks in the town early Sunday, but caused neither casualties nor significant damage, Markovski said.
A rebel commander known as Hoxha, who is based just north of the capital Skopje, told AFP late Saturday: "We are respecting the ceasefire, but we are not relaxing our guard. We're preparing for the worst if there's no political agreement."
He said that if an accord was reached, "we are ready to drop our arms immediately, but if they (the Macedonian authorities) want a war, they'll get it."
Macedonia Minister's Car Ambushed Posted July 29, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010729/ts/macedonia_ambush_1.html
Sunday July 29 2:47 PM ET
Macedonia Minister's Car Ambushed
SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - Gunmen ambushed a car carrying Macedonia's interior minister and several Macedonian journalists Sunday evening, but the car was able to evade the gunfire and no one was injured, officials said.
The attack happened at about 6 p.m. on the main highway linking Skopje, the capital, to Tetovo, Macedonia's second-largest city. Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski, accompanied by journalists with state-run television, was trying to visit returning refugees when the attack took place.
Gunfire rang out from both sides of the highway as the car was near the village of Grupcin. The ambush happened as key government and ethnic Albanian leaders were engaged in peace talks in the southwestern city of Ohrid.
In a statement, Boskovksi blamed the attack on ethnic Albanian rebels fighting an insurgency, and he called on ``the police and the army to establish control over the entire Macedonian territory.''
``Not a single smart man can trust terrorists any longer,'' the statement said. ``We have to prepare and be ready to regain lost territory.''
Macedonia talks stall over language Posted July 29, 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1463000/1463356.stm
Sunday, 29 July, 2001, 20:41 GMT 21:41 UK
Macedonia talks stall over language
The Red Cross has been helping returning refugees A compromise intended to settle the thorny issue of the status of the Albanian language was put forward at the second day of the Macedonian peace talks, sources at the negotiations say.
The western-mediated talks between Macedonian Government officials and ethnic Albanian leaders are aimed at ending an ethnic Albanian uprising that has left dozens dead since it began in February.
But the meeting was overshadowed by reports of an attack on a convoy carrying the Interior Minister, Ljube Boskovski.
A senior official for the ministry who was travelling in the convoy said it was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy automatic gunfire on the road between the capital Skopje and the mainly ethnic Albanian city of Tetovo. There were no reports of casualties.
BBC correspondent Chris Morris says that the Interior Ministry is treating the incident as a major breach of the Western-brokered ceasefire.
But he adds that there were no signs of damage on the road when he travelled that way shortly afterwards.
There has been no comment from ethnic Albanian rebels about the incident.
Language difficulties
A draft plan is being drawn up at the talks which envisages Albanian becoming an official language where ethnic Albanians make up more than 20% of the population.
But Albanians want their language to be officially recognised throughout the country, which Macedonians of Slavic origin say would be a first step towards the creation of a de facto Albanian state.
The talks have been described as difficult, and there have been suggestions that they will continue into Monday.
Some Macedonians and Albanians who were displaced by the fighting returned to their homes at the weekend, in many cases finding they had been destroyed.
Retreat venue
The talks have been taking place amid heavy security at the presidential retreat at Lake Ohrid.
President Boris Trajkovski has been joined by the leaders of the two Macedonian and two Albanian parties who govern in an emergency coalition.
A ceasefire revived this week seemed to be holding, despite some sporadic violence overnight.
The negotiations come a week after a previous attempt at peace talks collapsed.
Points of contention
BBC correspondents in Macedonia say that the final points still under discussion will be hard to resolve.
Albanian negotiators are also pushing for the creation of an independent ethnic Albanian police force in some areas of the country.
Albanian rebels who retreated behind lines agreed in the ceasefire were said to be ready to return to forward positions if demands were not met.
The negotiations picked up where they were abandoned last week, after the Macedonians walked out saying they were being forced into too many one-sided compromises.
Ethnic Albanians make up about a third of Macedonia's population of two million.
Two Macedonians killed in landmine explosion: police Posted July 29, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010729/1/19uuo.html
Monday July 30, 2:03 AM
Two Macedonians killed in landmine explosion: police
TETOVO, Macedonia, July 29 (AFP) -
A Macedonian woman and her son were killed Sunday when a mine exploded under their vehicle in the northwest of the country, the scene of recent ethnic fighting, police sources said.
The incident occurred at around 1:00 pm (1100 GMT) in the village of Ratae, on the Tetovo-Jazince road leading to the Serbian province of Kosovo, the sources said, adding that an investigation was underway.
The area has been the scene of recent fighting between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Macedonian government forces.
Police sources in Skopje had earlier said the victims were an ethnic Albanian couple.
Albanian guerrillas withdrew on Thursday from positions they occupied in northwest Macedonia, in particular the villages on the Tetovo-Jazince road.
Pressure builds for peace accord in Macedonia Posted July 29, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010729/1/19uc9.html
Sunday July 29, 8:53 AM
Pressure builds for peace accord in Macedonia
OHRID, Macedonia, July 29 (AFP) -
Pressure was building Sunday for peace talks underway in Macedonia to reach an agreement that will end a five-month ethnic Albanian rebellion in the north of the country.
President Boris Trajkovski, Prime Minister Ljubco Georgevski and the leaders of the two ethnic Albanian parties in the ruling coalition, Arben Xhaferi and Imer Imeri, were set to resume negotiations begun Saturday in Trajkovski's summer residence in this southern lake resort town.
Pushing the two sides along and working hard to narrow differences were EU and US envoys Francois Leotard and James Pardew.
Even though a July 5 ceasefire between the rebel National Liberation Army (NLA) and the Macedonian army and police had largely held since being brought back to life by NATO Wednesday, there was concern that it could again fall apart, this time sparking full civil war.
"We're under big pressure to have an agreement by Monday," one ethnic Albanian official close to the talks said late Saturday.
He warned: "This isn't a good time for strategic politicking because both armed parties are nervous."
The talks themselves were meant to have started Friday in Tetovo, Macedonia's third-biggest city and the focus of recent fighting, but were relocated to Ohrid because of security fears.
A government source said it was "tough going" in the negotiations, which are considering demands from the ethnic Albanian for more say in the country, particularly in areas where they have a significant population, against the necessity to maintain the social and political integrity of the multi-ethnic country.
The two sticking points are a demand for an ethnic Albanian police force which would operate in ethnic Albanian areas independently of state control, and a demand that Albanian be made an official language alongside Macedonian.
The Western envoys have come up with a proposal for the latter issue which would make Albanian an official language in regions where more than 20 percent of the population is ethnic Albanian.
But the ethnic Albanian parties have proved reluctant to compromise, and the Macedonian Slav parties have refused out of fear it would eventually lead to the ethnic Albanians creating a de facto state.
Around 30 percent of Macedonia's population is ethnic Albanian, mainly in the north, along the border with Kosovo, and the west, towards Albania.
The displacement of around 8,000 Macedonian Slavs from the scene of clashes between the NLA and security forces and the concern that they may not be able to reclaim their homes have sparked demonstrations in the capital Skopje.
One demonstration Tuesday turned into a riot filled with anti-Western and anti-Albanian sentiment in which the British, German and US embassies were targeted by angry mobs.
The situation has calmed since, with NATO restoring the ceasefire through an agreement with the NLA that saw its fighters withdraw from villages in and around Tetovo and reverse advances made since July 5 in return for restraint by the Macedonian army and police.
But, as the participants in Ohrid are all too aware, such a tense standoff cannot last forever, and the choice between war or peace is seen as hanging on the outcome of their talks.
Macedonians report attacks as peace talks go nowhere Posted July 29, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010729/3/19uyd.html
Monday July 30, 5:17 AM
Macedonians report attacks as peace talks go nowhere
By Philippa Fletcher
OHRID, Macedonia (Reuters) - Macedonian security forces said they were attacked twice around the western town of Tetovo on Sunday, clouding talks on ending an ethnic Albanian revolt that were deadlocked for a second day.
In the first incident police said Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski came under fire with shoulder-launched grenades on his way back from the town, the unofficial capital of the tiny Balkan state's Albanian minority.
Police chief Risto Galevski said the attack came from a hill above the road. The convoy was forced to return fire but there were no reported injuries, he told Reuters by telephone.
In a separate incident, two Macedonian civilians were killed when their car ran over a landmine. It was not clear whether the victims, a mother and her son, were targeted deliberately.
Two Macedonian soldiers were critically injured in a shooting incident, also near Tetovo. A source at the town's hospital confirmed that the two men had been brought in a serious condition.
It was the first serious violence since an outburst of fighting in Tetovo last week punctured a truce and led to a riot in the capital Skopje in which Macedonians attacked Western embassies, businesses and organisations.
Shortly before his convoy was fired upon, the hawkish Boskovski had urged the security forces, which have mainly stuck to a ceasefire brokered by Western envoys in May, to use force to end the rebellion, now into its sixth month.
"No sane person can trust the terrorists. We have to get prepared and be prepared to regain control over lost territories," Boskovski told Macedonian villagers forced from their homes by the guerrillas.
MINISTER BLASTS ARMY
"We can't let the terrorists occupy more territories and conduct ethnic cleansing. Generals from the Ministry of Defence are doing their own thing. The solution is in a determined action to establish a just peace." he said.
Western envoys struggling to persuade ethnic Albanian and Macedonian politicians to agree to a peace plan granting more rights to the Albanian minority said there had been little or no progress in the second day of talks on Sunday.
"Two words: 'Not much'," U.S. envoy James Pardew said on emerging from the closed-door talks on Sunday evening.
His European Union counterpart Francois Leotard, asked if there had been any progress, said: "No, but talks are continuing tomorrow."
President Boris Trajkovski is chairing the talks at the lake resort of Ohrid, on a draft plan aimed at ending clashes between the guerrillas and the security forces and paving the way to a NATO-facilitated disarmament of the rebels.
The talks are deadlocked over the use of the Albanian language in Macedonia, where one third of the two million population is ethnic Albanian.
A source close to the Macedonian negotiating team said on Sunday evening the talks were tough and that concessions still had to be made by both sides. Boskovski's criticism of the defence ministry had not helped, the source added.
Negotiations are between the four mainstream parties -- two Macedonian and two Albanian -- that make up a fragile emergency government coalition.
Around two thousand Albanians returned to the shattered village of Aracinovo near Skopje in the latest of a series of confidence-building measures diplomats hope will hold off a resumption of fighting that has so far killed dozens of people.
The return of the Albanians, allowed by Macedonian police who took over the village last month after a rebel withdrawal, followed a visit on Saturday by displaced Macedonians to homes they had fled near Tetovo to the west.
In each case some people found their homes destroyed.
A member of the Asani family returning to their home in Aracinovo badly damaged by fierce fighting between the rebels and the army, was bitter.
"Fifteen years of work gone in two minutes. It doesn't make a person feel nice inside."
Armed violence in Macedonia "diminished": army Posted July 29, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010729/1/19ul7.html
Sunday July 29, 5:28 PM
Armed violence in Macedonia "diminished": army
The number of armed incidents between ethnic Albanian rebels and Macedonian security forces has "diminished" although there was a rebel attack on troop barracks in the flashpoint town of Tetovo.
Four rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the barracks around 5:30 am (0330 GMT), but caused no casualties or significant damage, spokesman Colonel Blagoja Markovski said Sunday.
In comparison with the level of unrest over previous days, "the number of armed incidents has diminished, as has the regrouping of the terrorists," Markovski said, referring to the rebel National Liberation Army.
Macedonian state television reported that a police checkpoint near the stadium in Tetovo had come under fire but that no-one was hurt.
It also said that 18 houses in nearby Lesok and Neprosteno were burnt overnight by unidentified arsonists. The houses belonged to Macedonian Slav families who had fled the area during the worst of the fighting.
Tetovo, Macedonia's third-biggest town, has been the focus of recent clashes that flared into heavy battles a week ago despite a July 5 ceasefire.
But Wednesday, NATO managed to reinstate the truce after getting the rebels to reverse advances made and pull out of Tetovo and nearby villages in return for restraint by the army and police.
That paved the way for peace talks that began Saturday in the southern town of Ohrid involving Macedonian leaders, the two main ethnic Albanian parties, and EU and US mediators.
A statement issued late Saturday from the office of President Boris Trajkovski said that talks will be continuing Sunday so that a political agreement is reached as soon as possible.
The talks started in Trajkovski's summer residence in this lake resort town in the south of the country with EU and US envoys Francois Leotard and James Pardew acting as facilitators.
There are hopes that a binding settlement might be reached by Monday that would end the five-month rebellion.
A rebel commander around the Lipkovo region, near the capital Skopje, told AFP late Saturday: "We are respecting the ceasefire, but we are not relaxing our guard. We're preparing for the worst if there's no political agreement."
He said that if an accord were reached, "we are ready to drop our arms immediately, but if they (the Macedonian authorities) want a war, they'll get it."
Macedonia Peace Talks Resume Amid Doubts Posted July 28, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010728/wl/balkans_macedonia_dc_196.html
Saturday July 28 8:13 AM ET
Macedonia Peace Talks Resume Amid Doubts
By Daniel Simpson
OHRID, Macedonia (Reuters) - Macedonia's polarized politicians resumed peace talks on Saturday in a new bid to stave off civil war but Western diplomats gave them only an evens chance of success.
Macedonia's leaders agreed to restart the talks, which opened in May aimed at undercutting popular support for an ethnic Albanian rebellion, only after heavy pressure from top European Union (news - web sites) and NATO (news - web sites) officials.
In the capital Skopje, some 100 angry Macedonian villagers, who say they have been ousted from their homes in the northwest by guerrillas of the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army, staged a brief protest and blocked the center of the city.
President Boris Trajkovski is chairing the closed-door talks, at a villa in the lake resort of Ohrid, between the leaders of four mainstream parties -- two Macedonian and two Albanian -- that make up a shaky emergency government coalition.
``I would say that the odds are about 50-50,'' said a Western diplomat. ``This needs to work. The options are pretty slim if it does not work.''
Two Western mediators, U.S. envoy James Pardew and EU negotiator Francois Leotard, met Trajkovski on Friday to discuss the most difficult issue -- the future status of the Albanian language in the small Balkan republic.
Shortly before the talks began at around noon, two helicopters circled low over the secluded Villa Biljana, alarming tourists sunbathing on the beach.
The villa once belonged to Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, who died in 1980. Ten years later, the multi-national federation he led began breaking up in wars that killed tens of thousands.
Casualties in the five-month-old ethnic Albanian revolt in Macedonia, the only republic which broke away from Yugoslavia without bloodshed, are so far in dozens.
But the West fears it could quickly erupt into civil war and sees political compromise as the only way to prevent it.
LANGUAGE IS MAIN PROBLEM
On the table in Saturday's talks is a revised draft of peace proposals that would make Albanian an official language in the swathes of northern and western Macedonia where most of the country's one-third minority lives.
The regions are now rebel strongholds.
The basis of a peace deal is all but agreed, but the language issue cuts to the core of Macedonia's identity.
The Macedonian majority balks at endorsing a reform seen as the thin end of a wedge leading to the division of the country.
Imer Imeri, leader of the second biggest ethnic Albanian party, the PDP, told the Fakti newspaper after talks with Pardew and Leotard on Friday that he ``would like to be closer to peace than to war'' but was not ready for further compromises.
``The Albanian bloc has made all possible compromises, so there is no mandate for further compromises,'' the Albanian-language newspaper quoted him as saying.
Western involvement in peace talks has angered majority Macedonians, who staged violent anti-Western riots in Skopje on Tuesday and a brief protest on Saturday. Some top officials accused the West of siding with the guerrillas.
A diplomatic source said some 300-350 displaced Macedonian villagers left the capital in a convoy of seven buses to return to four settlements northeast of Tetovo, Macedonia's unofficial ethnic Albanian capital in the west of the tiny state.
In one of them, Tearce, from which the rebels retreated earlier this week, five Macedonian houses were burned overnight but now all four villages were deemed safe, the source said.
``The buses will stay there for three hours, our expectation is most people will come back (to Skopje) and then think about it, but that is their choice,'' the source said.
Tetovo and the area around it were buffeted by gunbattles between government troops and guerrillas this week.
The fighting jeopardized a 15-day-old cease-fire but it was reinstated through NATO mediation on Wednesday.
This allowed EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and NATO Secretary-General George Robertson to pay a flying visit to Skopje on Thursday to use the lull in fighting to restart wider inter-party political talks.
Success of Macedonian Truce Depends on Villagers' Return Posted July 28, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/A61619-2001Jul27.html
Success of Macedonian Truce Depends on Villagers' Return
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, July 28, 2001; Page A16
LESOK, Macedonia, July 27 -- After four days of terror, 85-year-old Kona Bogdanovski was so disoriented that at first she did not recognize her son when he walked through the door at 6 p.m. on Thursday. The frail, almost deaf woman had been hanging on in this largely deserted village with no electricity, water or phone, and her only visitors were armed strangers who broke down the door and ransacked her house.
"I held her and we both started crying," her son, Blagoja Bogdanovski, 50, recalled today.
"She was asking, 'Is it you?' and I was saying, 'Yes, it's me.' She said, 'The Albanians came with weapons and harassed me and I was very frightened and there was no electricity. I don't know how I'm going to continue staying here.'
"And I told her, 'From now on, I'm going to stay at home and take care of you and protect you.' " Bogdanovski said he had left the village on an emergency early in the week and could not return to get her because of security blockades.
Bogdanovski and his mother are among only a handful of people who remain in this hillside village, whose population in normal times is about 400 Macedonian Slavs. Many of the rest are camped out on the front steps of parliament in the capital, Skopje, about 25 miles to the east, protesting that the government did nothing when ethnic Albanian rebels drove them from their homes this week. Now, with the rebels gone under the terms of a new cease-fire, they say the government is doing nothing to guard the village so they can return.
Getting the villagers back in their houses is a top priority and a step toward ending a simmering six-month ethnic conflict before it explodes into full-scale civil war. The exodus from this and other otherwise inconsequential hamlets this week offered a chilling hint that the conflict might be veering toward the large-scale "ethnic cleansing" that solidified hatreds and fueled fighting in other Balkan wars of the past decade.
The success or failure of the new cease-fire could depend largely on villages such as Lesok, and whether fighting breaks out if and when their residents return.
Pinto Teixeira, the European Union's ambassador to Macedonia, visited Lesok today. He said it was important for villagers to return "to show it's possible for Albanians and Macedonians to live together." But he acknowledged it would take "courageous" people because the risks were so high. "That's why I felt it was important to come here today, so the people know they are not alone."
"If it is safe, everybody would like to come home," said Gligororska Violeta, 53, who stayed in Skopje four nights before returning Thursday. "But how can I persuade my children to come back when you can't even find bread here?"
High-level peace talks broke down nine days ago over whether Albanian should become Macedonia's second official language. The collapse and what international observers said were a series of provocative cease-fire breaches by the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army helped spark three days of fierce fighting this week in and around the city of Tetovo.
The town is a focal point of the revolt, whose leaders say they want greater political, economic and cultural rights for ethnic Albanians, who make up about 30 percent of Macedonia's 2 million people. Members of the Slavic majority say the real aim is to split up the country.
A new cease-fire was signed Wednesday. High-level talks have not resumed, although officials said they hope to convene them Saturday. Under terms of the cease-fire, rebels withdrew from villages they had seized around Tetovo.
On Thursday, about 100 people from Lesok were bused from parliament back to the village. But most merely picked up a few belongings and returned by the same buses to Skopje, residents here said, because there is still no water, power or security.
The new agreement requires government and rebel forces to stay about 500 yards away from most villages in a demilitarized corridor running northeast from Tetovo to the border of Kosovo.
"I will tell my friends to come back, but I'm not sure it's safe," said Filipovski Stojce, 60, as he took shelter from the sun with a neighbor under a cool grape arbor. "No one has told us it's safe, but it will be more secure if all of us are here."
"There are some things stronger than fear," said his friend, Kocevski Drakce, 50. He shrugged and stammered in English, "Home sweet home, let's hope."
Villagers here offered different versions of what had caused them to leave.
Stojce and Drakce, members of the Macedonian majority, said that about 35 rebels walked through the village in three groups firing into the air and ordering everyone to leave. One house was set afire "and they started shelling and shooting at houses and told us to leave or they wouldn't guarantee our lives," Stojce said.
Other residents said that rather than direct threats, it was the high level of personal insecurity that led them to head for the capital. While all of their homes had been ransacked in their absence, the town shows relatively little serious damage.
As often happens here, members of the opposing ethnic group had a much different account.
Llokman Elezi, 49, the ethnic Albanian mayor of a 13-village region that includes Lesok, denied that any Macedonians had been forced out.
"No, no, no!" he said. "No one has any reason to be afraid. They are 100 percent safe. The NLA came out with a declaration for this region saying no civilians should be harassed, and they should not be afraid, except those with blood on their hands."
The problem, he said, was that the Macedonian government had given small arms to the villagers to protect themselves. The villagers had fired indiscriminately, killing three people. "After they had used all of their ammunition, they left the village, and they were too afraid to come back," he said.
Macedonian Talks Are Moved Away From Heated Emotions Posted July 28, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/28/international/europe/28MACE.html
July 28, 2001
Macedonian Talks Are Moved Away From Heated Emotions
By IAN FISHER
TETOVO, Macedonia, July 27 — Western diplomats shuttled among the main political leaders in Macedonia today, laying the groundwork for direct talks over the weekend in a resort town far from the heated emotions that have prodded the country ever closer to outright war.
Still, tension here ran high a day after the NATO secretary general arrived to press the Macedonian government and ethnic Albanian rebels to end several days of intense fighting that has shredded a two-week cease-fire.
The renewed talks were to have been held here in Tetovo, a northwestern city that has seen most of the fighting. But officials said the atmosphere was still too fragile for full-fledged talks here.
Military officials accused the rebels of more than 30 incidents of gunfire overnight. This evening, there were reports of small-arms fire in the city, as well as a possible skirmish in a nearby village.
Instead, direct talks are now scheduled for Saturday in the south, next to Lake Ohrid, a popular holiday site that has remained largely unaffected by the conflict.
The talks will focus on the main issue still separating the two sides — whether Albanian will be designated an official language of Macedonia.
The question had tied up the talks. Slavic, Orthodox Christian Macedonians resist giving the language official status while ethnic Albanians, Muslims who make up perhaps one- third of the population, insist this as a crucial part of a package of expanded political and cultural rights.
In February, an Albanian guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army, launched an insurgency to end what they say is years of discrimination by the Macedonian Slavic majority.
Two weeks of talks had largely broken down before the NATO secretary general, Lord Robertson, and other top diplomats arrived on Thursday. After hours of negotiations, the leaders of all sides agreed to reinstate the cease-fire and begin talking again.
Today, the two main Western envoys, James W. Pardew of the United States and François Léotard of the European Union, met twice with President Boris Trajkovski. Later, they traveled here to meet the two leaders of the major Albanian parties, Arben Xhaferi and Imer Imeri.
All are to meet on Saturday in Ohrid, along with the leaders of the two main Macedonian parties, to consider a new compromise on the language question.
Diplomats expressed guarded hope for the talks in view of the week of skirmishes, ultimatums and the pushing of several thousand people from their houses.
"If people are talking to each other, that's a positive sign," said a Western official.
The State Department has "strongly urged" Americans to leave and ordered the removal of "nonemergency" employees and families of embassy workers. "The situation in Macedonia is unsettled and potentially dangerous," reads a new travel warning that also cautions about "rising antiforeigner sentiment."
One major source of tension had yet to be diffused today: how to return what appear to be thousands of Macedonians who fled their houses in recent days because of the fighting around Tetovo.
On Thursday, the government sent three buses of Macedonians back to their homes, but most returned to the capital out of fear of the Albanian rebels. The government reportedly expects to send another convoy on Saturday.
But many Macedonians camped out in front of Parliament in the capital, Skopje, said that with no political agreement in place, they were simply too afraid to go home.
"Only when it's safe," said Sasha Spirovski, 26, who left Dobroste on Tuesday. "When all of the Albanians lay down their arms. When they swear to respect the law and Macedonian authority."