NATO OKs Deployment of 3,500 Troops Posted August 22, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010822/ts/nato_macedonia.html
Wednesday August 22 7:06 AM ET
NATO OKs Deployment of 3,500 Troops
By JEFFREY ULBRICH, Associated Press Writer
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - NATO (news - web sites) authorized the deployment of 3,500 allied troops to Macedonia, hoping the mission to collect and destroy rebel arms will nudge Macedonians and ethnic Albanians along the road to reconciliation.
An advance party of 400 troops has been in place since the weekend, following an earlier decision by NATO's ruling council. Wednesday's authorization means the main body of troops can be underway within 48 hours. The full deployment, including several hundred U.S. troops focusing on limited logistical duties, is expected within 10 days to two weeks.
Once the entire force is in Macedonia, the clock will start ticking on NATO's self-imposed 30-day time limit for the mission.
Macedonia's government welcomed NATO's decision on Wednesday and pledged its cooperation.
``We have big expectations from NATO's mission,'' said Stevo Pendarovski, an adviser to Macedonian President Boris Trajkovksi.
An ethnic Albanian rebel spokesman known as Besniku also cautiously welcomed the decision, ``provided that NATO will be evenhanded with both sides.''
``If not, we still have arms in our hands - and more importantly, we have the will of the Albanian people to go until the end in order to gain their rights,'' he said.
The rebels took up arms six months ago, claiming they wanted more rights for the ethnic Albanian minority. NATO moves in under a peace accord signed last week by the country's ethnic Albanian and Macedonian leaders.
On Tuesday, the North Atlantic Council - made up of ambassadors from NATO's 19 member nations - authorized Gen. Joseph Ralston, supreme allied commander in Europe, to launch the full mission. But they gave members until noon Wednesday to object.
None did, and when the deadline passed the authorization was automatic.
Ralston will carry out the deployment, to be led by Britain, with about 1,800 troops, and another 1,700 drawn from 10 other European nations and the United States.
The Bush administration has made no secret of its desire to disengage from the Balkans, although it has promised not to make any dramatic troop reductions without consulting with its European allies. U.S. troops in Macedonia will likely play a behind-the-scenes role, such as monitoring unmanned reconnaissance flights, rather than collecting weapons
Roughly 9,000 Americans remain on patrol in Europe's most volatile region - 500 in Macedonia, 5,000 in Kosovo and 3,500 in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Ralston, who is an American Air Force general, and NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson assured the council that all the alliance's preconditions for deployment have been met, one diplomat said, speaking on condition he not be identified.
Ralston stressed that while nobody could promise the current cease-fire would hold, the risk of waiting was greater than the risk of moving quickly, diplomats and officials said.
Although violence has subsided since the cease-fire, an explosion early Tuesday rocked Sveti Atanasi Orthodox church in the town of Lesok, about five miles from Tetovo, Macedonia's second-largest city. Government officials blamed the rebels, who denied responsibility.
The Macedonian government claimed Wednesday that ethnic Albanian insurgents have an arsenal vastly greater than previously estimated, adding potential complications to NATO's arms-collection mission.
The Interior Ministry, which controls the police forces, said the rebels have 10 times more firepower than previously believed - about 85,000 weapons, not counting individual rounds of ammunition. The rebels say they have only 2,000 weapons.
``There's been no decision or agreement'' on how many rebel arms will be collected, said Maj. Barry Johnson, a NATO spokesman. ``The figure must be agreed by all sides involved.''
The NATO mission, known as Operation Essential Harvest, will deploy troops to several locations. Headquarters will be near Skopje. One battalion will be northwest of Skopje and others will be at Petrovec Airport, Kumanovo and Krivolak.
Several sites will be established for collecting weapons. Locations probably will change frequently. Most of the weapons will be transported to a central point, from which they will be taken to Greece and destroyed.
HRW: Police Abuse Against Albanians Continues in Macedonia Posted August 22, 2001
http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/08/macedonia0822.htm
Police Abuse Against Albanians Continues in Macedonia
Peace Agreement Doesn't End Violence
(Skopje, August 22, 2001) Police abuse against ethnic Albanians remains a serious concern in Macedonia despite the recent signing of a political agreement aimed to end the six-month old conflict, Human Rights Watch said today.
On August 13, 2001-the same day the Macedonian government and ethnic Albanian leaders signed a framework peace agreement-police officers in Skopje beat to death an Albanian man suspected of being a rebel.
"Persistent police abuse in Macedonia is simply shocking. Macedonia must urgently address the violence in its police stations. Ethnic Albanians are being severely abused, and in some cases beaten to death, without the slightest prospect of accountability."
Elizabeth Andersen
Executive Director
Europe and Central Asia division
"Persistent police abuse in Macedonia is simply shocking," said Elizabeth Andersen, Executive Director of the Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. "Macedonia must urgently address the violence in its police stations. Ethnic Albanians are being severely abused, and in some cases beaten to death, without the slightest prospect of accountability."
Human Rights Watch also urged that international organizations operating in Macedonia dramatically increase their human rights monitoring presence in the country.
On Monday, August 13, 2001, police officers guarding Skopje's main hospital arrested four ethnic Albanians who had come to the hospital to pick up an elderly Albanian relative undergoing kidney dialysis treatment. The police searched their car and claimed to find a bullet in the trunk. The police then proceeded to beat the four men in the street.
The men were then taken onto the hospital grounds and beaten continuously for several hours with heavy metal cables, baseball bats, police truncheons, and gun butts, amidst jeering from the civilian crowd that had gathered. Following this, the four men were taken to the "Beko One" police station, where they were subjected to more beatings, had urine and burning cigarettes thrown at them, and were threatened with execution. Following interventions from their ethnic Macedonian lawyer and a police officer who knew the men, they were released the next morning. One of the men, twenty-nine year old Nazmi Aliu, father of a six-year-old and a two-year-old, died that day at the hospital from the injuries he received from the police beatings.
Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed two of the surviving men, who gave consistent and credible accounts of their ordeal, and inspected their severe bruises from the beatings. One of the men, who was a week later still unable to stand because of the injuries he received during the beatings, told Human Rights Watch:
[After claiming to find the bullet], they started beating us right there. One police officer hit me with a thick wire cable and slammed my head into the wall. My front teeth were in great pain. They were beating us for about one hour in the street, all of them, with cables, rubber truncheons, baseball bats, gun handles. There were lots of civilians there looking, they were swearing at us.
We couldn't walk, so they dragged us inside the main gate [of the hospital] to some stores near a fountain. While they were dragging us, they were beating us very badly. I lost my consciousness there from the beating, and they took water from the fountain to revive us. . . .
Then they dragged us out and put us in a police van and took us to the police station. They dragged us out of the van, and the commander said, "Who wishes to beat the UCK [rebels]?" They formed a column of police officers, some on our left and some on our right, and one of the officers would drag us through the column and they would beat us . . . .
[In the cell,] the commander came and opened the door and everyone came inside. They beat us very badly, I couldn't move to protect myself, we were just lying like dead bodies there. Then the commander said, "OK, it's enough now, we will do it again after five minutes." He locked the door. . . . One police officer grabbed a long metal stick and started beating us through the bars. We couldn't move, we just lay there and couldn't protect ourselves. They took a basket of water and urinated in it, and threw it on us. They kept pouring water on us, just to keep us conscious. They would swear at us, saying, "You UCK motherfuckers, we are going to kill you slowly."
Police abuse is an endemic problem in Macedonia, and was one of the main grievances raised by the ethnic Albanian rebel National Liberation Army (NLA; UCK in Albanian)) to justify its resort to arms. The framework peace agreement signed last week provides for the gradual integration of ethnic Albanians into the predominantly ethnic Macedonian police force.
"The peace agreement lays out a long-term plan for addressing the problem," Andersen stated. "What is also needed are immediate measures to curb abuse, including international human rights monitors regularly visiting police stations and insisting on accountability in cases like these."
Human Rights Watch has issued two reports on police abuse in Macedonia, in 1996 and in 1998. (See A Threat to Stability, June 1996; and Police Violence in Macedonia, April 1998) The rights group has documented widespread abuse at police stations since the beginning of the conflict. (See Human Rights Watch release, Macedonian Police Abuses Documented, May 31, 2001).
Human Rights Watch also expressed concern about the safety of at least twenty-seven ethnic Albanian men who were detained on Sunday, August 12, 2001 by the Macedonian police during an operation in the village of Ljuboten. In addition to the detentions, the Ljuboten operation resulted in the deaths of at least ten ethnic Albanian civilians. The Macedonian police have claimed that the operation targeted an NLA stronghold, but they have produced no proof to counteract mounting evidence that the victims of the police action were civilians, not fighters.
On Saturday, August 18, relatives found the body of one man missing from Ljuboten, thirty-five-year-old Atulah Qaini, at the morgue in Skopje. The body of Qaini, who had last been seen in police custody in the village, bore clear signs of severe beatings and had a cracked skull when inspected by Human Rights Watch researchers. Most of the other men have been located alive in police detention, but bear clear signs of severe beatings according to relatives. A mother interviewed by Human Rights Watch who had a thirteen- year-old son detained in the village said that his entire face was bruised and swollen when she went to visit him in prison.
Cautious Nato determined to prevent yet another war in troubled Balkans Posted August 21, 2001
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2001290881,00.html
TUESDAY AUGUST 21 2001
Cautious Nato determined to prevent yet another war in troubled Balkans
FROM ANTHONY LOYD IN SKOPJE AND MIKE COLLETT-WHITE IN NIKUSTAK
DO YOU understand why Im here? Captain Gareth Hicks asked the rebel fighters from the National Liberation Army (NLA). I am a liaison officer.
Yes, we know the aim of the mission, Commander Adashi replied. His mobile phone hardly stopped ringing during the half-hour encounter in the badly bombed Macedonian village of Nikustak.
The aim of yesterdays first official contact between Nato troops and ethnic Albanian guerrillas was to shake hands and to gain assurances from the rebels that they would hand over their weapons if the alliance pushes ahead with deploying its force of 3,500.
Captain Hicks, in uniform but unarmed, took a small group up the 650ft of track to the headquarters of the 114th Brigade of the NLA, a large house guarded by nearly a dozen rebels in fatigues carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles. After tea and fli, a local pancake, the captain said that he would be back to build on the first sortie into rebel territory.
As the British liaison teams moved into action yesterday, Natos Supreme Allied Commander Europe arrived to assess whether to commit the alliance to its third Balkan mission. General Joseph Ralston stopped briefly in Skopje, the capital of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, to meet senior officers from the 400-strong vanguard before returning to Brussels to brief Natos 19 state ambassadors. Nato will meet today to decide whether to deploy the full force.
Assuming it approves the deployment, 600 British paratroops will move immediately to join the vanguard of British, French and Czech troops already in place, and the countdown will begin on the 30-day deadline that Nato has given itself to complete the disarming and leave Macedonia.
General Ralston was not thought likely to be influenced by the breakdown in the ceasefire since the weekend, the worst infringement of the week-old truce. Fighting began again on Sunday night in villages outside the city of Tetovo. Rebels and security forces clashed for more than an hour, small arms exchanges quickly escalating into mortar fire.
The ceasefire was reimplemented a week ago ahead of a political reform accord signed between Macedonian Slav and ethnic Albanian political leaders, but Western observers said that the regular night-time fighting would not be enough to deter Nato.
There is a degree of nervousness towards the operation in some Nato countries, a Western diplomat in Skopje said, but theres also a lot of momentum in the idea of getting the disarmament process up and moving before things fall apart of their own volition.
Fighting here always involves a lot of noise and activity, but the dynamic is . . . fewer people have died in six months of trouble here than car accidents. Its not a bloodless war, but almost, so Nato are unlikely to get put off deploying because of shooting at night.
The trend is that its calming gradually and these two sides havent torn at each others throats yet, like elsewhere in the Balkans.
Western diplomats and military commanders do admit, however, that if it is allowed to fester the Macedonian problem could slide into mob violence and ethnic persecution, destabilising an area of Europe only just recovering from a decade of wars.
Nato hopes that its Operation Essential Harvest disarmament mission, in which the guerrillas will voluntarily hand over their weapons, will halt the possibility of such violence while overdue political reforms in the Macedonian legislature improve the status of Albanians. Such reforms would remove the cause for a conflict that could otherwise become the fifth Balkan war in a decade.
Although on Sunday Ali Ahmeti, the rebels leader, insisted that they would hand over all their weapons as they no longer had any need for them, his words were rejected by Ljube Boskovski, the Macedonian Interior Minister.
He is nothing but a criminal responsible for crimes against humanity, committed against his people, Mr Boskovski said on Macedonian state television. Ali Ahmeti must be brought to the Macedonian independent courts and judged for crimes against humanity.
Rebel Leader Insists He'll Give Arms Posted August 20, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010819/wl/macedonia_480.html
Sunday August 19 4:20 PM ET
Rebel Leader Insists He'll Give Arms
By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Writer
SIPKOVICA, Macedonia (AP) - The reclusive leader of Macedonia's ethnic Albanian guerrillas stepped out into the open Sunday, inviting reporters to his mountain hide-out to declare that his fighters will hand their weapons to NATO (news - web sites) soldiers and honor a peace deal.
Dressed in a camouflage uniform and flanked by rebels armed with assault rifles, Ali Ahmeti, the political leader of the National Liberation Army, said the time had come to work for peace in this troubled Balkan nation.
``We will give up all our arms, because we will no longer have any need for them,'' he said of the rebels, who began fighting for more rights for minority ethnic Albanians in Macedonia six months ago.
Ahmeti told reporters crammed into a village school that he has begun contacts with a NATO advance team that began moving into the country this weekend to determine whether a tenuous cease-fire is holding well enough to deploy the full 3,500-troop mission.
Just hours after Ahmeti spoke, however, a firefight broke out between the insurgents and Macedonian forces in the village of Poroj, just outside the country's second largest city, Tetovo.
A senior police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Macedonian forces came under fire first, and he described the situation as ``rather serious.'' There was no word on casualties.
An ethnic Albanian rebel commander, also speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that ``very intensive'' fighting was under way, but he did not offer details.
The fresh attack comes at a sensitive time because NATO plans to decide later this week whether to move ahead with the British-led Operation Essential Harvest. The mission would collect rebel weapons - a key element of a peace deal meant to end the country's crisis.
NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, Gen. Joseph Ralston, was to travel to Macedonia on Monday to take part in an assessment of the security situation.
Also Sunday, civilians blockaded the main road to the border in the town of Stenkovac for a second day, preventing NATO-led peacekeepers from traveling back and forth to Kosovo. The support base for peacekeepers in Kosovo is located in Macedonia.
Amid anticipation of the deployment, the rebels sought their moment of attention. The usually reclusive Ahmeti promised that after the peace deal the rebels would no longer be so mysterious. The insurgents, he said, want to assimilate again into society and live normal lives together with Macedonians.
``We have to think about the future and we have to remember the past as something bitter,'' Ahmeti said. ``We have to create the conditions to accommodate both Albanians and Macedonians.''
Ahmeti deftly deflected questions about his own political future, but he clearly was king in his stronghold in Sipkovica, 25 miles outside the capital, Skopje.
Children lined up and cheered as he entered his car. Uniformed men guarded his every step in a village patrolled by rebels carrying assault rifles and grenades.
Four-wheel drive vehicles painted in camouflage colors and bearing registration plates with the NLA emblem sped through the village, ferrying rebels to checkpoints on the outskirts.
But Ahmeti insists he is willing to give up the territory his group holds for the sake of ensuring that the peace deal works.
``This is our territory and their territory,'' he said of the Macedonians.
NATO repeatedly has stressed that if the full multinational force is deployed, it will not act as a peacekeeping body separating the two factions in Macedonia and will only collect weapons voluntarily handed in by the rebels. The mission is to last only 30 days.
Many rebels say they want NATO troops to remain in the country much longer.
``I don't think they will leave. They will stay much longer,'' said Selman Sefeori, 46, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, but returned to his native Macedonia to fight about five months ago.
He admitted he is considering holding on to one of his weapons ``just in case,'' instead of handing it in to NATO.
``Nobody trusts the Macedonians,'' he said.
NATO supreme commander in Macedonia as fresh fighting erupts Posted August 20, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010820/1/1cjrb.html
Monday August 20, 4:25 PM
NATO supreme commander in Macedonia as fresh fighting erupts
SKOPJE, Aug 20 (AFP) -
NATO's supreme commander in Europe, US General Joseph Ralston, was to arrive in Macedonia Monday to decide whether to advise going ahead with a mission to collect arms surrendered by ethnic Albanian rebels.
Ralston was to assess the situation in Macedonia after the rebels, who have been waging a guerrilla war against Skopje government forces for more than six months, vowed on Sunday to hand over their weapons to a NATO task force.
The guerrillas, as well as Macedonian hardliners in the government, will have to convince NATO they can respect a fragile ceasefire before the mission can deploy.
Ralston's mission came after a last-minute hitch when Macedonian forces and rebels exchanged sustained gunfire late Sunday in the troubled northwestern region around the flashpoint town of Tetovo.
The full-scale, British-led mission is expected to win NATO's approval when the first contingent and Ralston give their backing to the deployment of some 3,500 soldiers.
The 520-strong NATO advance party was to assess the situation and take its decision within 48 hours on whether to deploy the task force to collect rebel arms.
Sunday's clashes erupted near the predoninantly Albanian town of Tetovo, an area of high guerrilla activity, at around 8:00 pm (1800 GMT), local witnesses and a Macedonian military source told AFP. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
A Macedonian military source said the rebels had opened fire first and that government troops had responded. Witnesses said at least five homes were in flames and complained that the army was firing on the village packed with civilians.
The firefight came afer a day in which a NATO-led plan to bring peace to the troubled Balkan state appeared to be gathering pace.
The rebels had vowed to hand in their weapons, and NATO officials reported no fighting overnight Saturday, for the first time since Macedonian and ethnic Albanian political leaders signed a peace accord last Monday.
Ali Ahmeti, political leader of the self-styled National Liberation Army (NLA), said earlier: "As far as the NLA is concerned there will be no problem. All of the NLA's combattants will hand over their arms."
"We have received strong guarantees from NATO and the European Union about the putting in place of a peace accord, and we have complete confidence in them," Ahmeti told reporters in the rebel stronghold of Sipkovica.
NATO's spokesman in Macedonia, Major Barry Johnson, responded: "The NLA's reaffirmation of their engagement is important, but we felt political conditions were already in place. The key now is for the ceasefire to hold."
The alliance has insisted that the conditions on the ground must be stable and a "genuine ceasefire" be in place before they would risk sending troops out to collect surrendered arms.
NATO commanders said Saturday that they could meet with both the Macedonian government and the rebels to judge whether they were serious about the ceasefire, and whether the rebels would live up to their promise to disarm.
But the fragile political process may also have suffered a setback late Sunday after Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski demanded that NLA leader Ahmeti be put on trial for "crimes" and "terrorism."
"Ahmeti must be held to account before Macedonian and international justice for his crimes," Boskovski told state TV, shortly after the guerrilla leader made his comments.
In the peace deal, the Macedonian government offered the rebels an amnesty if they met their commitment to hand over their weapons.
Any rebel who refused or who had committed a serious crime coming under the authority of the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague would not be pardoned, however.
The rebels did not take part in the political negotiations that have led to August 13 peace accord, brokered by the West, but their cooperation is essential for any agreement to succeed.
Macedonian Army Announces Pullback Posted August 20, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010820/wl/macedonia_485.html
Monday August 20 10:09 AM ET
Macedonian Army Announces Pullback
By ALEKSANDAR VASOVIC, Associated Press Writer
SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - Army troops will pull back from front-line areas where NATO (news - web sites) forces are to collect weapons from ethnic Albanian rebels, Macedonia's government said Monday, a sign of its commitment to ending six months of fighting.
The announcement of a ``redistribution'' of government forces came during a visit by Gen. Joseph Ralston, NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe. He is in Macedonia to assess whether it is safe to send thousands of NATO troops here.
Ralston was expected to discuss cooperation between the country's security forces and a British-led NATO mission, dubbed Operation Essential Harvest. The NATO forces are to gather weapons to be voluntarily handed in by the rebels, known as the National Liberation Army.
An advance party of about 400 NATO troops will determine whether the shaky cease-fire is durable enough to allow the deployment of the full 3,500-strong force. The alliance is expected to make a decision on the force this week.
Macedonia's military and police commanders have expressed concern over how the weapons handover would work. Security forces would be expected to pull back from areas around the collection points to create a ``friendly environment for the rebels' disarmament,'' said a Macedonian defense source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Macedonians fear the rebels might ``use the opportunity to sweep in and take control over the area cleared by the military and police,'' the source said.
Still the Defense Ministry announcement signaled willingness on the government side to create an atmosphere permitting NATO deployment.
The ``redistribution'' would permit NATO to ``carry on unhindered its action of disarming the terrorists,'' the defense ministry statement said, alluding to the rebels. As part of the move, military helicopters and airplanes would cease flying over areas where rebel weapons handovers were scheduled to take place, it said.
Fighting that lasted into early Monday aggravated tensions. A police official speaking on condition of anonymity said ethnic Albanian rebels opened small arms and mortar fire on Macedonian government positions near the village of Poroj, on the outskirts of the city of Tetovo.
An ethnic Albanian rebel commander, also demanding anonymity, said fighting was ``very intensive'' but declined to offer details. There was no immediate information on any casualties.
Hours before the cease-fire violation, Ali Ahmeti, the National Liberation Army political leader, insisted his rebel group will surrender all its weapons and disband, saying the time had come to work for peace.
``We will give up all our arms because we will no longer have any need for them,'' he said Sunday.
The rebels say their struggle, which began six months ago, is meant to give more rights for minority ethnic Albanians in Macedonia. The government says the insurgents are fighting for territory.
Ahmeti's news conference, which signaled the rebel leader's first foray into public life, outraged Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski.
``He is nothing but a criminal responsible for crimes against humanity, committed against his people,'' Boskovski said in a statement on Macedonian state television. ``Ali Ahmeti must be brought to the Macedonian independent courts and judged for crimes against humanity.''
Macedonia offers redeployment to help NATO mission Posted August 20, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010820/1/1cksi.html
Monday August 20, 10:28 PM
Macedonia offers redeployment to help NATO mission
SKOPJE, Aug 20 (AFP) -
Macedonia offered Monday to redeploy its forces away from the conflict area to make way for a proposed NATO mission to collect weapons from ethnic Albanian rebels.
The offer came as NATO's commander for Europe, US General Joseph Ralston, flew in for a close-up look at the situation ahead of a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday of alliance ambassadors who have yet to give the go-ahead for the mission.
"Macedonian security forces are ready as of today to change their position ... in order to create the necessary conditions to launch Operation Essential Harvest to disarm the Albanian terrorists," the defense ministry said in a statement.
As a confidence-building measure, helicopters and planes will be barred from flying over the frontline areas, it added.
But, the defense ministry warned that troops, fighter planes and attack helicopters will be dispatched to respond to an attack or a ceasefire violation.
The redeployment offer from Skopje followed a renewed pledge from the rebels on Sunday to hand over their weapons to the NATO task force.
Ali Ahmeti, political leader of the self-styled National Liberation Army (NLA), told reporters that "as far as the NLA is concerned, there will be no problem. All of the NLA's combattants will hand over their arms."
The NLA has been fighting government forces for the past six months to press for expanded rights for Macedonia's large ethnic Albanian minority, which lives mostly in the northwest of the Balkans country.
Political leaders from ethnic Albanian and Macedonian parties on August 13 signed a peace accord that provides for the deployment of the NATO force to collect the weapons and boosts minority rights.
NATO is insisting that a durable ceasefire be in place before the 3,500-strong British-led force can be deployed.
Ralston's trip went ahead despite weekend clashes in the troubled northwestern region around the flashpoint town of Tetovo, though the area was reported calm Monday.
Some 520 advance troops in Macedonia began arriving on Friday, tasked with assessing whether conditions on the ground are acceptable for the full NATO deployment.
While NATO officials have remained tight-lipped about the advance party's activities, they did confirm on Monday that the British commander of the task force, Brigadier Barney White-Spunner, had met Ahmeti on Friday.
The fragile political process was also jolted late Sunday when Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski said that Ahmeti should be put on trial for "crimes" and "terrorism."
Under the Western-brokered peace accord the Macedonian government offered an amnesty to rebels if they observed their commitment to hand over their weapons.
But rebels who refused or who have committed crimes which fall within the authority of the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague would not be pardoned.
The rebels did not take part in the political negotiations that led to the August 13 peace accord between Macedonian and ethnic Albanian political parties, but their cooperation is essential for any agreement to succeed.
In Brussels meanwhile, an official said NATO ambassadors are not expected to launch the full deployment of Operation Essential Harvest at their meeting on Tuesday.
NATO officials have declined to say how many weapons will be taken out of Macedonia but western sources estimate that number to be at 2,500.
Macedonian sources say howevern that at least 6,000 light arms are in the hands of the rebels and many more heavy weapons.
Macedonia moves forces, sets up no-fly zone to help NATO Posted August 20, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010820/1/1ckhh.html
Monday August 20, 8:12 PM
Macedonia moves forces, sets up no-fly zone to help NATO
SKOPJE, Aug 20 (AFP) -
The Macedonian defense ministry said Monday it would reposition its security forces and keep its warplanes grounded to help NATO move ahead with an operation to collect arms from ethnic Albanian guerrillas.
"Macedonian security forces are ready as of today to change their position ... in order to create the necessary conditions to launch Operation Essential Harvest to disarm the Albanian terrorists," the ministry said in a statement.
The new positioning of the forces will help NATO forces carry out its weapons collection mission, the ministry added.
"But the Macedonian army stands ready to act immediately in the event of a violation of the ceasefire by the terrorists," it added.
As a confidence-building measure, the defense ministry also said helicopters and planes would not fly over the crisis areas. NATO had specifically requested the creation of a no-fly zone.
NATO chief in crucial visit to Macedonia after clashes erupt Posted August 20, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010820/1/1ci88.html
Monday August 20, 9:29 AM
NATO chief in crucial visit to Macedonia after clashes erupt
SKOPJE, Aug 20 (AFP) -
NATO's supreme commander in Europe arrives Monday in Macedonia to decide whether to advise going ahead with a mission to collect surrendered arms from ethnic Albanian rebels, after a last-minute hitch when Macedonian forces and rebels exchanged sustained gunfire.
The supreme commander, US General Joseph Ralston, is to see the situation for himself and decide whether to advise the alliance's political masters to give the mission the green light.
But before such a decision could be taken, the ethnic Albanian rebels who have pushed Macedonia to the brink of civil war and Macedonian hardliners in the government will have to convince NATO they can respect a ceasefire.
Sunday's clashes came despite earlier assurances by guerrilla leaders that they would surrender their weapons to NATO troops and observe the ceasefire.
The clashes erupted near the Albanian-dominated town of Tetovo, an area of high guerrilla activity, at around 8:00 pm (1800 GMT), local witnesses and a Macedonian military source told AFP. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
A Macedonian military source said the rebels had opened fire first and that government troops had responded, while witnesses said at least five homes were in flames and complained that the army was firing on the village packed with civilians.
The firefight came afer a day in which a NATO-led plan to bring peace to the troubled Balkan state appeared to be gathering pace.
The rebels had vowed to hand in their weapons and NATO officials said there had been no fighting overnight Saturday, for the first time since Macedonian and ethnic Albanian political leaders signed a peace accord last Monday.
Ali Ahmeti, the political leader of the self-styled National Liberation Army (NLA), said earlier: "As far as the NLA is concerned there will be no problem, all of the NLA's combatants will hand over their arms."
"We have received strong guarantees from NATO and the European Union about the putting in place of a peace accord, and we have complete confidence in them," Ahmeti told reporters in the rebel stronghold of Sipkovica.
NATO's spokesman in Macedonia, Major Barry Johnson, responded: "the NLA's reaffirmation of their engagement is important, but we felt political conditions were already in place. The key now is for the ceasefire to hold."
The final elements of a 520-strong British-led NATO advance party were to assess the situation ahead of a decision within 48 hours on whether to deploy a task force to collect surrendered rebel arms.
But the fragile political process may also have suffered a setback late Sunday after Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski demanded that NLA leader Ahmeti be put on trial "for crimes."
"Ahmeti must be held to account before Macedonian and international justice for his crimes," Boskovski told state TV, shortly after the guerrilla leader's comments.
"I was shocked by the arrogance of the armed criminal Ahmeti who considers war as politics by other means," he said, adding that prosecutors in Skopje were drawing-up charges of "terrorism."
The rebels did not take part in the political negotiations but their cooperation is essential for any peace agreement.
The alliance has insisted that the conditions on the ground must be stable and a "genuine ceasefire" be in place before they would risk sending troops out to collect surrendered arms.
"The quicker we make our minds up the better," one NATO officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
A British defence ministry spokesman said late Sunday that another 100 soldiers had departed from Skopje and 70 more would follow on Monday.
Planners want to move quickly and seize the chance of peace, knowing that every day that passes could see a serious outbreak of violence that could spark a wider conflict and the latest round of Balkans bloodletting.
NATO commanders said Saturday that they could meet with both the Macedonian government and the rebels to judge whether they were serious about the ceasefire, and whether the rebels would live up to their promise to disarm.
"The eyes of the entire world are now on Macedonia, wondering if the people here have the moral courage to follow through with peace," Major General Gunnar Lange, the Danish commander of the task force, told reporters.
NATO mission in Macedonia gathers pace as rebels vow to disarm Posted August 19, 2001
http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/article.html?s=asia/headlines/010819/world/afp/NATO_mission_in_Macedonia_gathers_pace_as_rebels_vow_to_disarm.html
Sunday, August 19 7:48 PM SGT
NATO mission in Macedonia gathers pace as rebels vow to disarm
SKOPJE, Aug 19 (AFP) -
A NATO-led plan to bring peace to Macedonia gathered pace Sunday as ethnic Albanian rebels vowed to hand their weapons over to the Alliance's troops and a ceasefire appeared to be holding.
Ali Ahmeti, the political leader of the self-styled National Liberation Army (NLA), said: "As far as the NLA is concerned there will be no problem, all of the NLA's combattants will hand over their arms."
Speaking to reporters in the rebel stronghold of Sipkovica, Ahemti said: "We have received strong guarantees from NATO and the European Union about the putting in place of a peace accord, and we have complete confidence in them."
Macedonian and NATO officials had earlier said that there had been no fighting overnight, for the first time since Macedonian and ethnic Albanian political leaders signed a peace accord last Monday.
"The NLA's reaffirmation of their engagement is important, but we felt political conditions were already in place. The key now is for the ceasefire to hold," said NATO's spokesman in Macedonia, Major Barry Johnson.
The final elements of a 520-strong British-led NATO advance party were to arrive at Skopje's Petrovec airport on Sunday, and assess the situation ahead of a decision withing 48 hours on whether to deploy a task force to collect surrendered rebel arms.
"The quicker we make our minds up the better," one NATO officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
The alliance has insisted that the conditions on the ground must be stable and a "genuine ceasefire" be in place before they would risk sending troops out to collect surrendered arms.
But planners want to move quickly and seize the chance of peace, knowing that every day that passes could see a serious outbreak of violence that could spark a wider conflict and the latest round of Balkans bloodletting.
NATO commanders said Saturday that they could meet with both the Macedonian government and the rebels to judge whether they were serious about the ceasefire, and whether the rebels would live up to a promise to disarm.
"The eyes of the entire world are now on Macedonia, wondering if the people here have the moral courage to follow through with peace," Major General Gunnar Lange, the Danish commander of the task force, told reporters.
Brigadier Barney White-Spunner, the British head of the NATO force assigned to collect the weapons, said he would seek "an explicit consent from the ethnic Albanian armed groups that they are prepared to hand in their weapons to my weapon collection teams".
NATO's supreme commander in Europe, US General Joseph Ralston, was expected in Macedonia on Monday to see the situation for himself and decide whether to advise the alliance's political masters to give the mission the green light.
The advance party is made up of 400 British paratroops and the headquarters of the 16 Air Assault Brigade, backed up 120 Czech troops and a 16-strong team of French troops, including officers of the Foreign Legion.
But before such a decision could be taken, the ethnic Albanian rebels who have pushed Macedonia to the brink of civil war and Macedonian hardliners in the government will have to convince NATO they can respect a ceasefire.
The NLA, which claims to be fighting to promote ethnic Albanian civic rights, has signed an accord to hand over its weapons to the NATO force and respect a political peace deal signed Monday.
But clashes have continued throughout the week and at least two people, a 70-year-old ethnic Albanian civilian and a Macedonian policeman, have been shot dead since the peace deal was signed.
NATO insists that it cannot compel the rebels to disarm.
"We are not a disarmament mission, we are not a peacekeeping mission," White-Spunner said, emphasising that his lightly armed troops would only take weapons given up willingly under a peace deal signed by political leaders.
The fighting began in February when the NLA launched an armed rebellion.
Last week, under Western pressure, Macedonian political leaders signed up to a peace plan which would see constitutional changes boosting ethnic Albanian minority rights, and the disarmament of the rebel army.
Albanian Guerrilla Chief Extends Olive Branch Posted August 19, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010819/wl/balkans_macedonia_dc_341.html
Sunday August 19 1:04 PM ET
Albanian Guerrilla Chief Extends Olive Branch
By Mark Heinrich
SIPKOVICA, Macedonia (Reuters) - A reclusive ethnic Albanian guerrilla leader whom Macedonians want arrested for ''war crimes'' made his debut before the international media on Sunday and declared himself a man of peace and reconciliation.
But international correspondents noted that none of the four flags draped in the village schoolroom where Ali Ahmeti held his first news conference was Macedonian and that no Macedonian journalist dared travel behind rebel lines to attend.
Nonetheless, the emergence of the austere Ahmeti from his lair in Macedonia's ethnic Albanian mountain heartland signaled a new guerrilla offensive to win over public opinion after a risky commitment to disarm in exchange for minority rights.
``We believe the war is over,'' said Ahmeti as the advance elements of a planned 3,500 strong NATO (news - web sites) force charged with collecting weapons voluntarily surrendered by rebels assembled 50 km (30 miles) away in the capital Skopje.
``We are not going to be mysterious (any more) but rather open. We have courageously committed ourselves to disarmament, to being a part of a democratic Macedonia,'' he said.
``This war has made winners not just of Albanians but of Macedonians. Our message is that even in remembering the past with bitterness, we must think of the future, to create conditions for multi-communal life so that the European Union (news - web sites) and the United States will help Macedonia (develop).''
Behind Ahmeti hung the NATO, EU, U.S. and Albanian flags, evoking Albanians' abiding desire to be accepted by the West.
Asked why the Macedonian flag was absent if his National Liberation Army fighters really intended to demobilize and work within a democratic Macedonia, Ahmeti suggested feelings were still too raw to resurrect state symbols on rebel turf.
``For sure the Macedonian flag will be here in the future, not tomorrow or the next day but later...I am sorry to see no Macedonian journalists here,'' he said.
The mainstream Macedonian media habitually refer to the NLA as ``armed Albanian terrorists'' even after the August 13 signing of a milestone reform agreement coupled with the guerrilla commitment to disarm and relinquish occupied areas.
A cease-fire repeatedly shattered by tit-for-tat guerrilla ambushes and army artillery attacks has solidified since the double-barreled peace accord. NATO is due to decide this week whether the truce is stable enough to start collecting weapons.
MACEDONIANS SUSPICIOUS OF GUERRILLA INTENTIONS
The Skopje government, still smarting from major concessions on minority rights that Macedonians regard as the Trojan horse of separatism, believes rebels will try to provoke violence to bog down NATO as a ``protection force'' for occupied regions.
Macedonian authorities and some analysts, noting that NATO has ruled out a search-and-seizure mandate to avoid the risk of casualties, think it will be easy for the NLA to hide weapons for another uprising whenever Albanians feel wronged.
Ahmeti brushed aside such suspicions.
``The NLA guarantees the security of NATO troops. There will be no problems from our side. All of our fighters are behind this agreement. It requires great awareness and responsibility and we undertake the task with great courage,'' he said.
``We did not fight for a parallel army and police. There will be only one army and police in Macedonia and that is because Albanians will be part of them in proportion to their share of the population,'' said Ahmeti, referring to a crucial plank of the political reform accord.
``After we give up our weapons, all fighters will go home to their families, socialize, be retrained (for civilian jobs)...''
Some observers fear the peace agreement is vulnerable to political brinkmanship over the timetable for implementation.
The hard-line nationalist parliament speaker has served notice that he will not put major pieces of minority rights legislation and the guerrilla amnesty to a ratification vote before the NLA has completely disarmed.
Asked if the NLA would return to armed struggle in that case, Ahmeti said: ``The agreement we have signed with NATO is for disarmament and legislation to proceed in tandem.
``We have guarantees from the United States and European Union for this so it does not matter whether the legislation comes three days before the end of disarmament or three days afterward,'' he said.
``We also expect to see the disarmament of Macedonian paramilitary groups and for the army to return to their barracks. That is part of the agreement.''
A Western diplomat in Macedonia, asked to comment on Ahmeti's coming-out performance, told Reuters: ``If that's what he said, it's a strong and consistent message. He said all the right things and now he's got to live up to them.
``Press conferences are what normal leaders do and jaw jaw is better than war war.''
Macedonians Block Border Road in Anti-West Protest Posted August 18, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010818/ts/balkans_macedonia_dc_20.html
Saturday August 18 11:15 AM ET
Macedonians Block Border Road in Anti-West Protest
BLACE, Macedonia (Reuters) - Macedonian nationalists blockaded the main road to neighboring Yugoslavia on Saturday, vowing to prevent NATO (news - web sites) forces from using their main supply route to Kosovo unless Western powers met a long list of demands.
The protest, staged by a hardline group opposed to Western efforts to broker an end to a six-month Albanian guerrilla revolt, stopped traffic several miles south of the Blace border crossing, denying NATO peacekeepers' vehicles access.
A crowd of 50-odd demonstrators, including women and children, kept watch over a makeshift barricade of six old cars and piles of earth and sand from a nearby petrol station.
Todor Petrov, the head of the World Macedonian Congress, said foreign powers should crack down on the ethnic Albanian rebels who have seized swathes of northern territory and secure the release of Macedonians alleged to have been abducted.
The West should also pay Macedonia reparations because the NATO-led peacekeepers and United Nations (news - web sites) administration which run Kosovo had failed to stop guerrillas and weapons flooding into Macedonia to fuel the insurrection, Petrov said.
``These demands will be distributed to all international organizations and the blockade will continue until the demands are met,'' he said, adding protesters would block the only other road to Kosovo if NATO tried to use it as an alternative.
A lone police car and half a dozen officers were at the scene, but did not intervene as protesters stopped all traffic except Macedonian armed forces and emergency services vehicles.
NATO PROTEST
A spokesman for NATO, whose 40,000 Kosovo peacekeepers are supplied by a rear logistics chain stationed in Macedonia, said the Western military alliance would protest to the government.
``We are all from democratic countries and appreciate the right to protest, but we expect that blocking a road is not in accordance with Macedonian law,'' Major Barry Johnson said.
``Certainly it affects our supply line and we want it resolved, but we will do that through the official channels.''
Guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (NLA), whose revolt in the name of Albanian minority rights has driven the former Yugoslav republic toward civil war, agreed last Tuesday to disarm under a Western-mediated peace accord.
A fragile cease-fire has been in place for a week and NATO is due to send in troops to collect NLA weapons if it stabilizes.
But Petrov, who is believed to be considering standing for parliament in elections due to follow the peace deal, said the accord brokered by foreign powers failed to address key issues.
He said NATO members should draft an immediate U.N. Security Council resolution condemning acts of aggression launched from Kosovo, a Yugoslav province under U.N. control since NATO's 1999 air war to stop Serb attacks on Kosovo Albanians.
Despite NATO's hefty presence in Kosovo, it failed to fully disarm the Albanian guerrillas it helped fight Serb oppression and fear of casualties has prevented aggressive policing of mountainous border routes used to supply the NLA in Macedonia.
In addition to reparations and compensation for damage to Macedonia's economy from the conflict, Petrov said families of people killed in the fighting should be paid special benefits.
He also called on the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague (news - web sites) to prosecute NLA guerrillas on charges of genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity because of their eviction of Macedonians from their homes in rebel-held territory.
About 100 people have been killed and 125,000 displaced by sporadic fighting since the NLA surfaced in February.
NATO Advance Forces Assess Macedonia Posted August 18, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010818/ts/macedonia.html
Saturday August 18 10:00 AM ET
NATO Advance Forces Assess Macedonia
By ALEKSANDAR VASOVIC, Associated Press Writer
SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - A special NATO (news - web sites) advance team started its mission in Macedonia on Saturday, laying the groundwork for the arrival of several thousand troops charged with collecting weapons from ethnic Albanian rebels.
Isolated incidents overnight marred a tenuous cease-fire, but the situation overall was quiet. The most serious incident was a relatively minor attack on a Macedonian police position near the country's second-largest city, Tetovo, where two rocket-propelled grenades landed close to the site.
Defense officials also reported that they arrested a group of rebels crossing into the country from Albania, but that could not be independently confirmed.
Macedonian authorities shut down the main border crossing between Kosovo and Macedonia until further notice, Simon Haselock, a spokesman for the United Nations (news - web sites) in Kosovo, said Saturday. No official reason was given for the closure, but a Macedonian police source speaking on condition of anonymity said insurgents were spotted at around 3 a.m. near the crossing, prompting the closure.
Civilians later blockaded the main road to the border in the town of Stenkovac, stretching out concertina wire and piling sand on the highway to stop NATO-led peacekeepers from traveling back and forth to Kosovo.
Many Macedonians blame NATO for their troubles, in part because the alliance failed to choke off weapons and supplies from Kosovo that are widely believed to be supporting rebel forces.
British transport planes flying at about two-hour intervals ferried the first contingent of soldiers into this tiny Balkan country to study the military situation on the ground and complete plans for the British-led Operation Essential Harvest. About 350 soldiers are set to arrive this weekend.
The first troops arrived Friday, and included French forces, 40 members of Britain's 16 Air Assault Brigade and 120 soldiers from the Czech Republic sent to protect the advance party.
The alliance, meanwhile, announced plans to dispatch the supreme allied commander in Europe, Gen. Joseph Ralston, on Monday to take part in the security assessment. NATO said it will decide next week whether to send in the rest of the 3,500 troops envisioned for the overall mission.
``We can only do our job with the full commitment and support of everybody in Macedonia,'' said Brig. Barney White-Spunner, the 16 Air Assault Brigade's commander. ``We are not here on a disarmament mission. We are not here on a peacekeeping mission.''
NATO has said a lasting cease-fire must be in place before its troops can deploy to collect weapons from the ethnic Albanian rebel National Liberation Army.
Macedonian government spokesman Antonio Milososki said Friday that he doubted NATO could succeed without forcing the rebels to hand in guns, saying NATO's experience in Kosovo shows ``it is impossible without using force to succeed in collecting weapons.''
The troops are likely to face an icy reception from Macedonians and a hero's welcome from minority ethnic Albanians, underscoring the deep divisions in the troubled Balkan nation after six bitter months of conflict.
Macedonians like Dragica Vojnovska, whose 51-year-old son remains missing after being kidnapped last month, aren't hoping for much.
``NATO isn't going to help us,'' she said Friday, cupping her hand over her eyes and struggling to hold back tears. ``They're only helping the Albanians.''
The insurgents took up arms in February, saying they were fighting for greater rights for ethnic Albanians, who account for about a third of Macedonia's 2 million people.
Ethnic Albanians see NATO as nothing less than their saviors - and seem thrilled that the alliance is coming to town.
In Skopje's old market, Mustafa Arifi, 26, sat with his uncle in the cool shadow of the local mosque and gossiped about the deployment. Not only does he want NATO troops to come, he wants them to stay far longer than the 30 days envisioned by the alliance.
``I know the big powers are on our side,'' he said with certainty. ``I would love for them to be here for 20 years.''
U.S. to Fund Campaign for Macedonia Peace Plan-Post Posted August 17, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010817/wl/macedonia_usa_campaign_dc_1.html
Friday August 17 12:55 AM ET
U.S. to Fund Campaign for Macedonia Peace Plan-Post
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government plans to finance a media blitz in Macedonia in a campaign for parliamentary passage of the peace agreement signed by the Macedonian government and ethnic Albanian political leaders, the Washington Post reported on Friday.
Citing sources in the Macedonian capital of Skopje and in Washington, the newspaper said the United States could spend up to $250,000 on radio, television and newspaper advertisements.
U.S. officials were also considering direct mailings to every household, which would be the first such effort in the Balkan country, the Post said.
The newspaper said the campaign could be launched in the next few days with radio spots and would be coordinated with the office of Macedonia's president, Boris Trajkovski.
According to the Post, Trajkovski's involvement was regarded as critical, because U.S. officials said they were worried that the project would be construed as interference.
The International Republican Institute (IRI), a Washington-based nonprofit group that is partially funded by the U.S. government, has commissioned a nationwide voter survey to help Western consultants and presidential advisers tailor what they are calling ``public service announcements'' to legislators and the public, the Post said.
``We are trying to ensure that the peace plan is widely discussed and that the public is well-informed,'' a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Skopje was quoted as saying.
The campaign, organized by the U.S. Agency for International Development and several American nonprofit organizations, will be directed at the Macedonian Slav and ethnic Albanian communities in their respective languages, the Post said.
Nato troops land in Macedonia Posted August 17, 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1496000/1496438.stm
Friday, 17 August, 2001, 17:59 GMT 18:59 UK
Nato troops land in Macedonia
Czech soldiers will secure the operation's headquarters
Foreign troops have begun arriving in Macedonia as part of a Nato operation to collect weapons from ethnic Albanian rebels.
The first units of Czech paratroops landed around lunchtime, part of a 400-strong British-led vanguard whose job it will be to assess a shaky ceasefire.
"Nato has to send a clear signal to those who want to create a little Kosovo that this will not be permitted" - Macedonian spokesman
Small contingents of British and French troops are also on their way to Macedonia and are expected to arrive in Skopje later on Friday.
The Macedonian Government welcomed the arrival of Nato troops, saying the alliance should use the opportunity to prove to the world that it was acting in the interests of peace and stability.
But as fresh bloodshed on the ground cast doubt on the mission's chances of success, Nato's ruling council has put off until next week a final decision on deployment of the full 3,500-member force.
The disarmament of the rebels is a key part of the agreement between Macedonian leaders and ethnic Albanian politicians designed to end a six-month guerrilla insurgency that has raised fears of another Balkan war.
Common goal
In Friday's violence, a 70-year-old man reportedly died in clashes, hours after a Macedonian policeman had been killed by rebel gunfire in the town of Tetovo.
The British troops will concentrate on the logistics of weapon collection
Macedonian Government spokesman Antonio Milososki said Nato would help Macedonia overcome its crisis, but added that the troop's presence should not be interpreted as a step towards Macedonia's partition.
"Nato has to send a clear signal to those who want to create a little Kosovo that this will not be permitted," he said.
The alliance has been stressing that the full operation will only be launched if the ceasefire holds.
Advance party
The first 40 troops in the advance party left the UK from HQ Wattisham Station in Suffolk at 1500 (1400BST) for the flight to the Macedonian capital, Skopje. They will be joined there by their commander, Brigadier Barney White-Spunner.
Around 15 French troops from the Foreign Legion and other army units set off from the southern city of Nimes.
Over the weekend, they will be joined by more than 350 other British troops, who will work on establishing the force's headquarters in Skopje.
Click here to see a map of the region.
Despite misgivings in some Nato countries, most now appear willing to take part in the full mission provided there is a durable ceasefire between government forces and the rebels.
The troops are entering a volatile region, with reports of ceasefire violations on both sides.
Weighing risks
Nato ambassadors in Brussels have been weighing up the risks of moving quickly into an unstable country against the dangers of a further deterioration in the situation while they wait.
If the advance guard decide that conditions are not appropriate, the Nato mission will be abandoned and the rest of the troops will not be sent.
However, BBC correspondents say that momentum is building and it will be hard to change course now.
The plan is that the rebels will collect their own weapons and deposit them at pre-arranged collection sites.
Nato troops will then move in, seal the area, pick up the guns for destruction in a third country and leave.
NATO enters another volatile ethnic drama Posted August 17, 2001
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0817/p1s2-woeu.html
August 17, 2001 edition
NATO enters another volatile ethnic drama
Today, 400 British NATO troops head to Macedonia to begin rebel disarmament.
By Elizabeth Rubin | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
LJUBOTEN, MACEDONIA - Two months ago a council of elders from the Albanian mountain village of Ljuboten, above the Macedonian capital, Skopje, gave a besa - a binding Albanian verbal oath - to their Macedonian neighbors in the village of Ljubanc: They would not attack. The Macedonian villagers vowed the same.
It was the kind of neighborly gesture that people here have hoped would distinguish Macedonia from Croatia and Bosnia, which were ripped apart by ethnic wars in 1991 and 1992.
But as NATO troops begin arriving today to facilitate the rebel disarmament, many people fear that Monday's tenuous peace agreement will falter under continued ethnic strife. With an estimated 125,000 people having fled their homes, success in the peace effort will largely be measured by their ability to return.
"To return to villages, people need power and water supplies repaired, and a guaranteed security," says a European diplomat.
If that process, combined with the NATO disarmament, proceeds fairly quickly and is given favorable publicity, it will generate positive momentum, he says. "Will they be able or allowed to return? If they say 'We don't feel safe,' then you've got a spontaneous separation."
An incident between the Albanians and Macedonians who made the besa shows how easily Macedonia's pact for ethnic coexistence could dissolve.
Last Friday, several Macedonian soldiers were killed near the two villages by landmines planted by Albanian extremists. Two were from the Macedonian village Ljubanc.
The next morning, Macedonian civilians and reservists entered the Albanian village, Ljuboten, seeking revenge. For two days, armed reservists blocked off the village. They beat up Macedonian journalists, detained foreign journalists, and pummeled an Albanian taxi driver.
On Tuesday, Shaban and Hafet Jashari, two young ethnic-Albanian brothers coming from Skopje, made it past the checkpoints to visit their family home. They climbed the cobble-stoned streets of Ljuboten, passed their dead cows, lying outside the smoldering barn, and their shelled house.
They raced up the hill, where they found their brother lying next to rows of drying tobacco, shot dead in the back at close range. Thirty-three yards up the hill, they found their cousin's body. And near the top lay the body of their brother Kadri. He'd been visiting from Austria, where he lived with his new wife.
The Macedonian government says the action was retaliation against rebel National Liberation Army (NLA) soldiers who they accused of firing from the village, and that the dead men were terrorists.
But a Macedonian with close connections to the Macedonian village Ljubanc says the reaction was much more personal. "The people from Ljubanc were so frustrated. They wanted blood. They would have burned the entire village and massacred everyone if the Army hadn't stopped them."
Even as NATO prepares its 3,500-strong disarmament mission in villages like Ljuboten, extremists are having their way, and many here fear that, as in Bosnia and Kosovo, NATO will simply emerge as overseer of Macedonia's de facto ethnic partition.
For one thing, the peace agreement is politically unpopular. "If there's peace VMRO loses everything," says a Macedonian analyst in Skopje, referring to the political party of Prime Minister Ljubco Georgevski. Since signing the peace agreement, Georgevski himself has publicly disavowed it, calling it a shameful peace.
It is generally assumed that if NATO establishes the stability here that could allow early elections to proceed, Georgevski and VMRO would be voted out of office.
"So he wants to play war and come on as the Tigers who saved the country from the bad Albanians, meanwhile taking profits from military provisions and the financial system," the Macedonian analyst adds.
The question now is whether NATO will be held hostage to the whims of a Prime Minister widely seen as deeply unstable, corrupt, and inexperienced, and to a tiny rogue group within the Albanian rebels who recently appeared on the scene taking credit for the ambush of the Macedonian soldiers near Ljubanc.
They call themselves the Albanian National Army and have labeled Ali Ahmeti, the political leader of the rebel NLA, a traitor to the Albanian cause.
"Until a few weeks ago, the NLA - though running an insurgency - was behaving very carefully toward civilians. But in the past three or four weeks, we've seen Albanian attacks on old people [and] harrassments [of people] in flats," observes the European diplomat.
And two days ago, a factory that employed a few hundred Macedonians just outside Tetovo - where the NLA is concentrated - was burned down. If there's no employment, the villagers won't return.
"It's obvious that the NLA are doing everything to prevent the return of Macedonians to villages northwest of the Tetovo/Kosovo road," says Saso Klekovski, executive director of the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation.
A few days after the incident in Ljuboten, Mr. Klekovski was unsure whether to risk sending a humanitarian convoy to the village. In the past, when he sent aid to Albanians, the Macedonian media vilified him as a terrorist collaborator, and his office windows were smashed.
When he called the Macedonians in Ljubanc to secure safe passage to the nearby Albanian village, "people told me 'Only dead can you go there.' "
Though Ljubanc and Ljuboten are just two small mountain villages, the trouble there spread immediately into the capital where about 120,000 Albanians live.
All the Albanian shops in the northwestern part of town were destroyed. Frustrated by the tameness of demonstrations outside the American Embassy, angry young Macedonian men tried to charge the bridges to the old, Albanian part of Skopje, but were held back by police.
On Sunday, Klekovski went to the green market where he always buys his produce from Albanian traders.
"There wasn't a single Albanian. And this is how it begins: They stay away two days. They come back, get harrassed, and then they'll leave," he says. "My neighbors ... say they won't buy from Albanians anymore because they don't want to finance the NLA."
Albanian Rebels Say They'll Give Arms Posted August 16, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010816/wl/macedonia_461.html
Thursday August 16 3:37 PM ET
Albanian Rebels Say They'll Give Arms
By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Writer
DOBROSTE, Macedonia (AP) - Talking tough despite the imminent arrival of NATO (news - web sites) troops, an ethnic Albanian rebel commander said Thursday his men will surrender their weapons but could still defeat government forces if Macedonia doesn't keep its promises.
``We want to resolve the problem through peaceful means,'' said the commander, who goes by the name of Clirimi and heads the rebels' military police in the ethnic Albanian majority region near Tetovo, Macedonia's second-largest city.
``But if arms are needed, we can do that, no problem,'' he told The Associated Press in an interview that indicated his status - only rebel commanders with a significant amount of power will speak to the foreign press in Macedonia.
``We have been and still are in a position to deal with the Macedonian forces in any situation at any time,'' Clirimi said. ``We have the morale, sufficient numbers and the support of the people. We have no doubts of a victory over government forces.''
The warning underscored the risks that await American and European soldiers as they prepare to deploy on a mission to collect rebel arms. The first contingent of British troops - an advance team being deployed ahead of the full mission - was expected to arrive Friday in the Macedonian capital of Skopje.
In Brussels, Belgium, NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson called a special session of the alliance's ruling council for Friday to discuss when to deploy the entire 3,500-member force that is slated to go to Macedonia.
Sporadic cease-fire violations have been reported since the peace agreement was signed Monday between ethnic Albanian and Macedonian political parties. The accord aims to end an insurgency the rebels launched in February, saying they were fighting for more rights for minority ethnic Albanians.
A Macedonian police officer was killed by a sniper at a checkpoint near Tetovo on Thursday, authorities said. Police blamed the rebels for the attack, and the government also reported sporadic shooting around the Tetovo area overnight.
But Clirimi, whose name means ``Liberation'' in Albanian, insisted he will abide by an agreement that rebel political representative Ali Ahmeti signed with NATO this week on the surrender of weapons held by the insurgents' National Liberation Army.
``We will surrender and lay down our weapons and all other things that identify us as NLA on the condition that there will be peace for all citizens in Macedonia,'' he said in Dobroste, near Tetovo. He refused to discuss details of when and how the arsenal would be handed in.
Clirimi, who is in his early 30s and studied political science at Tirana University in Albania, had an AK-47 assault rifle, but the soldiers around him were equipped with grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons.
Just how many weapons the rebels hold remains unclear. The militants have declared they intend to give up about 2,000 weapons. But government estimates put the number at about 8,000.
The rebels also claim to have captured heavy weapons, including anti-aircraft guns, from the Macedonian army. Clirimi proudly displayed a Macedonian army armored personnel carrier, which he said rebel forces captured about two weeks ago during fighting in the Tetovo area. He said rebels had also captured another APC, two tanks and an anti-aircraft gun.
Clad in full camouflage uniform and a bulletproof vest, Clirimi said the vehicles would not be surrendered but would be destroyed and ``kept as monuments of the war.''
There is also disagreement over amnesty. The government has agreed to grant amnesty to rebels who did not commit war crimes but the militants are insisting on amnesty for all.
``There is not a single member (of the NLA) who has committed crimes,'' Clirimi insisted. ``We have not killed civilians. We have not burned houses.''
He welcomed the NATO deployment, saying the decision to involve the alliance was necessary, ``because otherwise the blood bath would not stop.''
Clirimi said the rebels will ``wait and see'' how things go.
``I personally want peace to be restored once and for all, so I can go back to my family and back to my life,'' Clirimi said. ``If the government in Skopje and the international community can keep their promise, I promise that I will never take up arms again.''
Macedonia Police Officer Killed Posted August 16, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010816/wl/macedonia_458.html
Thursday August 16 12:58 PM ET
Macedonia Police Officer Killed
By ALEKSANDAR VASOVIC, Associated Press Writer
SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - As NATO (news - web sites) experts started to assess whether Macedonia's cease-fire will hold, authorities said a police officer was killed by a sniper at a checkpoint near the country's second-largest city, Tetovo.
Police blamed ethnic Albanian rebels for the attack Thursday near the suburb of Drenovec outside Tetovo, where the army reported sporadic shooting by militants. A local hospital director confirmed the slaying, which underscored the tensions in the country and the risks the NATO troops could face.
Barry Johnson, NATO's spokesman in Skopje, said 15 experts from the alliance are working to establish when 3,500 British-led troops can start their disarmament mission. On Wednesday, NATO's ruling body authorized the deployment of a 400-man advance team that will start arriving Friday. The overall mission still requires final approval.
Overall fighting in Macedonia has died down since Monday's signing of a peace deal between ethnic Albanian and Macedonian political leaders. But Macedonian army spokesman Blagoja Markovski said rebels violated the cease-fire 10 times by shooting at troops overnight in Tetovo. The army did not respond to the provocations, he added.
Macedonian police officials said they were expecting NATO experts in the Kumanovo region, north of Skopje, on Thursday to establish collection sites where the rebels will voluntarily turn in their weapons under the peace deal.
On Wednesday, President Boris Trajkovski asked parliament to start the process of amending the constitution to grant ethnic Albanians more rights - a condition of the peace plan.
The plan gives ethnic Albanians a larger share of power in the police, parliament and educational system.
Parliament speaker Stojan Andov said he tentatively scheduled a parliament session to discuss the amendments for Aug 31.
In a separate statement, Trajkovski offered amnesty to rebels who voluntarily surrender and did not commit war crimes - the second major condition of the peace accord.
The amnesty law is an incentive for the rebels to disarm after battling government troops for six months.
Fighting has shaken Macedonia since February, when ethnic Albanian rebels took up arms to seek more rights for their community, which makes up one-third of the country's population. Macedonians say the rebels want to seize a chunk of the country and call it their own.
``There will be no peace with the Albanians, and NATO is in deep delusion if they believe they will disarm terrorists for real,'' Milco Gjorgjevski, 34, a salesman from Skopje said Wednesday.
Maj. Gen. Gunnar Lange of Denmark, a senior NATO representative in Skopje, said that once the full mission gets the go-ahead and a permanent cease-fire is established, the deployment of troops responsible for disarming the rebels will take 10 days.
``We will have preliminary training and we will establish (weapon) collection points,'' he said. ``Within 30 days, we expect to complete the mission.''
Simon Smith, a spokesman for Britain's 16 Air Assault Brigade, said an advance party of about 40 personnel, including the brigade's commander, Brig. Barney White-Spunner, probably would be on the ground in Macedonia on Friday. The rest of the initial group of some 400 British troops will go over the weekend.
Ethnic Albanians like Aslan Beqiri, 49, a shop owner, expressed hope NATO troops will safeguard their rights.
``I hope for something good. Shooting didn't do anything good to anyone, particularly not to Albanians,'' he said. ``We suffered so much.''
Shadowy Group Urges Ethnic Albanians to Fight On Posted August 16, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010816/wl/balkans_macedonia_extremists_dc_1.html
Thursday August 16 4:36 AM ET
Shadowy Group Urges Ethnic Albanians to Fight On
By Alister Doyle
SKOPJE (Reuters) - A shadowy new ethnic Albanian group urging war to split Macedonia could be anything from a lone extremist with e-mail to a guerrilla splinter group that could threaten a peace accord and a planned NATO (news - web sites) force.
Macedonia says that it is taking threats from the so-called Albanian National Army (ANA) seriously but no one knows if ANA, which has e-mailed statements to the media in recent days signed by the self-styled ``Major General Eagle of Sar,'' even exists.
ANA is telling ethnic Albanians to keep fighting for a ''Greater Albania'' homeland in the Balkans although Macedonia's ethnic Albanian guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army, agreed this week to disarm in return for political reform.
NATO governments on Wednesday approved a plan to send 400 troops to Macedonia as the possible vanguard of a larger force of 3,500 to collect weapons surrendered voluntarily by rebels.
``I don't know,'' Major General Gunnar Lange, head of the planned NATO mission, said when asked whether the ANA and the NLA were one and the same.
``We're not going to disarm any organizations which are not under the control of the so-called NLA,'' Lange said.
But the presence of a radical group could complicate disarmament. And any new clashes could inflame passions in the six-month-old conflict after a shaky cease-fire was agreed between Macedonia and the NLA on Sunday.
``NATO comes for the NLA; ANA threatens,'' the daily Vest said on Thursday in a front-page headline.
NO SPLINTER GROUPS?
The political leader of the NLA, Ali Ahmeti, has denied that there are any splinter groups. ``I have no knowledge (of the ANA),'' he said in a recent radio interview. ``Here in Macedonia only one emblem acts, and that's the NLA.''
The NLA agreed to disarm a day after politicians across the ethnic divide signed a peace scheme granting the one-third Albanian minority rights including more jobs in the police force and official recognition of the Albanian language.
An ANA statement, using language typical of Albania when it was under communist rule, rejected the accord.
``The ANA will be the leader and the standard-bearer of the fight for national liberation,'' it said. ``Agreements signed treacherously or under international pressure like this...are temporary and invalid.''
The ANA has said, for instance, that a joint ANA-NLA group was responsible for an ambush a week ago near Skopje in which 10 Macedonian soldiers died, the bloodiest attack of the conflict.
After denying ANA's existence, Ahmeti also denied the NLA was involved in the ambush. The ``Eagle of Sar'' apparently takes his name from the Sar mountains in northwestern Macedonia.
Macedonian Defense Ministry spokesman Marijan Gurovski said: ''According to our information this terrorist organization is a child of the monstrous NLA.''
He said its goal of carving up the country to unite with Albanian-speaking groups around the Balkans ``represents a grave danger to Macedonia.''
NATO planners reckon that the ANA, if it exists, is unlikely pose a threat that would trouble Macedonia's security forces.
But there are worrying parallels to the birth of the NLA.
Early this year, the then-unknown NLA sent a fax to an Macedonian television station claiming responsibility for a rocket fired at a police station in Tearce, northwestern Macedonia. No one was hurt.
Asked at the time, a diplomat said: ``Maybe this NLA is just a phone number.''
(with reporting by Shaban Buza in Pristina)
Fleeing Albanians shot in the back by police Posted August 15, 2001
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,537034,00.html
Fleeing Albanians shot in the back by police
Guardian gains access to site of alleged atrocity by Macedonian police force
Special report: Macedonia
Nicholas Wood in Ljuboten
Wednesday August 15, 2001
The Guardian
The discovery of the bodies of five men shot in the head and chest in a village five miles north of Skopje yesterday prompted the accusation of war crimes by the Macedonian police and further undermined the chance of resolving the country's conflict.
The bodies were found in Ljuboten, a mainly Albanian village, two days after teams of police swept though the village in what was described as an anti-terrorist operation.
Local people say the men were shot in the back as they tried to flee the police, and deny that they were members of the ethnic Albanian guerrilla group the National Liberation Army, a claim backed up by a western observer who was nearby at the time.
The observer said the police operation and the killing that followed may have been prompted by a clash between the NLA and the security forces close by.
It is the first time such a serious allegation has been made since the insurgency began in February.
The men were all killed on Sunday afternoon after the security forces shelled Ljuboten and the surrounding area.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the International Committee of the Red Cross had tried to enter the village but had been denied access by the Macedonian police. The Guardian was among the first to go into the village since Sunday.
Relatives of the dead say the police began to move into the village and set buildings alight once the shelling had stopped. They also forced people out of their homes.
Qani Jashari said he was hiding in his house with his two sons, Bajram, 30, and Kadri, 27, when the police arrived at about 3pm.
"They had black clothes and masks that covered their faces. I couldn't recognise them. They had Macedonian police insignia on their arms. They were shouting 'Come out, come out from the house', and were swearing at us."
He said the police then began to set alight to his house. "I ran and hid in a ditch, and I shouted to my sons to run away."
Both of his sons were shot dead. Bajram's body lay on a slope in a tobacco field. A British police officer working with the OSCE examined his and all of the bodies lying where they had been shot.
Bajram had been shot several times in the legs, and in the lower back. The exit wound by his neck suggested that the bullet had struck him as he lay on the ground facing away from his assailant.
"This one here they killed and the other one is further up," Mr Jashari said, looking at Bajram's body. A hundred metres up the hill in a straw field lay his other son, also shot in the back. He had returned from Austria 10 days earlier to bring money to the family.
Halfway between the two brothers lay the body of Xhelal Bajrami, a 25-year-old farmer. He had two small bullet holes in his back, another in his backside, and three more in his legs.
In the village another two bodies lay beside the road, one of them Xhelal's brother Syliman.
Villagers say the men were among a group of 12 ordered out of a basement; 10 were arrested by the police and taken away. Syliman was shot in the head. A piece of plastic sheeting covered the gaping hole in his skull.
Next to him was a long bloody tyre mark where an armoured personnel carrier had run over his body.
Fifty metres away Muharem Ramadani, 68, lay on his back with his mouth open. Two small holes in his back and wounds in his chest suggest that he, too, had been shot in the back and left to lie on a concrete slope. Next to his hand lay two cigarette lighters, a cigarette holder and a comb.
A statement by the ministry of the interior, the department responsible for the police operation, described the dead men as "terrorists".
Antonio Milososki, a government spokesman, dismissed the allegation that the men had been killed in cold blood.
"This is one more trap for Macedonia's democratic elected government to be accused about the repression of the poor Albanians who are fighting for their human rights," he said.
There is no other way to find justification for the rebel movement."
He added that Ljuboten had been too dangerous for the police to enter and launch their own investigation.
Shortly after the Guardian's visit, the police closed access to the village.
The rebels have agreed to hand their weapons over to the Nato soldiers who will be sent into Macedonia when promises of an amnesty and political reforms have been secured, a diplomatic source said yesterday.
The political leader of the NLA, Ali Ahmeti, agreed the deal with brokers: a breakthrough towards implementing the political peace plan was agreed on Monday.