[ALBSA-Info] Articles on Macedonia

[Agron Alibali]

August 21, 2001, Tuesday 

German commentator warns against "half-measure" NATO mission in Macedonia 

Die Welt web site, Berlin, in German 21 Aug 01 


Text of commentary by Herbert Kremp headlined: "No half-measures by NATO" from German newspaper Die Welt web site on 21 August 

Neither the government nor the opposition must view the decision on deployment in Macedonia as a prestige question of domestic policy. Only sober military analysis counts in the interest of both the issue and the troops. There is no guaranteed cease-fire. The Macedonians see NATO as the abettors of the Albanians, the guerrillas are split (following the IRA model). The agreement negotiated by the Skopje government under Western pressure, concerning an improved constitutional status of the Albanian minority, is nothing but a piece of paper. Chief of government Georgievski calls it a "shameful peace". The European detachment must expect to come under fire during the passive collection of weapons. This is an unreasonable (political) imposition on troops lacking massive battle gear and without prepared air cover. The USA provides only logistics and reconnaissance, not troops. They know why. The alliance axiom, not to conduct a war on land, nor secure peace by force, nor actively disarm the guerrillas, cannot apply in a hostile environment. NATO Commander-in-Chief Joseph Ralston (American!) will return from the field inspection with a split message. Politicians, if they are in their right minds, must not ignore the experience in the Balkans since 1991. Also, NATO has not yet decided about deployment. According to alliance rules, the decision must be made unanimously. Consensus is not ensured. Agreement to a "small harvest deployment" with 3,500 lightly armed soldiers for 30 days becomes less justifiable with every new breach of the cease-fire. The announcement that the troops would be withdrawn in case of fighting opens up an exit into humiliating disgrace - with nasty consequences for all of the Balkans. Only an effective combat unit is suitable for an open crisis. Even then, one must expect losses, but not embarrassing flight. The armed forces, for the effect and for their own security, must be capable of sealing off the borders to Albania, Serbia and Kosovo, and keeping the fighting cocks apart. If one does not want the full programme, one should refrain from trying doubtful experiments.

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THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON) 
August 21, 2001, Tuesday 


Disarmament in Macedonia: it's just a Balkan coffee break Mediators have been outflanked on all sides, says Andrew Apostolou. Now the involvement of Nato troops will make ethnic divisions worse 

By Andrew Apostolou. 


The Macedonian peace deal is a post-dated suicide note. All the elements of failure are present: futile disarmament and incentives for partition. Fumbling mediators have struggled to deal with venal and dishonest local politicians. The mediators have naively assumed that both the ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians want to keep Macedonia intact. 

In an unfortunate echo of 10 years ago, the cry has gone up that this Balkan calamity, like Yugoslavia in 1991, is an issue to be settled by Europeans. The EU and a reduced, British-led version of Nato under Lord Robertson have taken the initiative, due in part to a lack of interest in Washington. For all their griping, the Europeans crave American leadership. Without the committed weight of the US behind them, the mediators have been undermined. Great store has been set by what will probably be largely fraudulent disarmament, as in Kosovo and Northern Ireland. That new arms and explosives can be cheaply and easily procured has escaped the notice of the mediators. The ethnic Albanians can raise millions of dollars with ease from their American diaspora, to spend in the arms bazaar of Eastern Europe. The Macedonian police, supposedly now to recruit more ethnic Albanians, will probably be gradually disarmed while the army (dominated by ethnic Macedonians) goes on a buying spree. In Macedonia, disarmament is not the end, just a Balkan coffee break. 

The Western mediators have been manipulated and outmanoeuvred. Lord Robertson and Javier Solana's arrival provoked an outbreak of moderation from both sides. No sooner had this double act returned to Brussels, than the warring sides forgot their accommodating stance. 

Ethnic Albanians and ethnic Macedonians alike repeatedly lied to the mediators. For months, the mediators assumed that ethnic Albanian politicians in Skopje had no links to the Albanian rebel National Liberation Army (NLA). Lord Robertson loudly denounced the NLA as "terrorists". Then in May it emerged that the Albanian political leaders had agreed to give the NLA a veto over any agreement with the Macedonian government. Western diplomats still do not know if the rebels report to the politicians or the politicians to the rebels. Lord Robertson now calls the NLA "insurgents". 

The Macedonian government has called for an end to the fighting while handing out weapons to ethnic Macedonian civilians, knowing this means future atrocities. Similarly, the government encouraged attacks on Western embassies by blaming Nato for the NLA's military success, rather than admit the incompetence of its armed forces. The popular myth among ethnic Macedonians is that the NLA is simply the former Kosovo Liberation Army, trained and controlled by Nato. Although Nato failed to seal the Kosovo-Macedonia border, it provided military advice and training for the Macedonian army. It is the Macedonian army which decided to sit in the plains and shell the hills, rather than attempt to retake them. 

The mediators' clever gestures cut no ice with local politicians. A suggestion that the recent negotiations be held in the frontline city of Tetovo in north-western Macedonia, to concentrate the minds of ethnic Albanian and ethnic Macedonian negotiators, was rejected. Local politicians preferred the pleasant lakeside resort of Ohrid. Ethnic Albanian and ethnic Macedonian politicians may be willing to send others to pointless deaths, but they are not so stupid as to risk their own lives. 

Gruesomely, both sides secretly pray for the other to start committing mass atrocities so that they can call for foreign armed intervention. Restraining them so far is the sure knowledge that such atrocities will lead to indictments in The Hague. Although war-related deaths have been below 200, the conflict has displaced tens of thousands, laying the foundations of a future partition. 

The peace agreement will accelerate this trend towards ethnically concentrated populations. Under the agreement, Albanian becomes an official language in areas where ethnic Albanians are over 20 per cent of the population, a remarkably low threshold for a group which claims to be up to 40 per cent of Macedonia's inhabitants. There will now be endless arguments in some districts over whether ethnic Albanians meet the 20 per cent level. Macedonia's smaller Muslim minorities, such as Turks and gypsies, could be pressured to declare themselves ethnic Albanians. Tetovo, a mixed city, will become thoroughly Albanian. 

The EU will not wish to recall Javier Solana's promise on July 27 to defend Tetovo as a "melting pot of Macedonia". In ethnic Macedonian-dominated areas, such as Bitola, the intimidation of ethnic Albanians will continue, ensuring that they never reach the 20 per cent level. Each side wishes to dominate, not to co-operate, making partition a temptation for ethnic Albanians and ethnic Macedonians alike. 

The mediators failed to confront either side with the inconsistency of its position. The Albanians successfully demanded considerable minority rights. If, as many in Macedonia believe, the ethnic Albanians, who have a high birth rate, soon become a majority of the population, will these rights be transferred to the Macedonians? The answer is probably "no", but the question was not put. 

For years, the ethnic Macedonian majority strung the Albanians along with hints of changes which never materialised, with minimal pressure from the West. They have now conceded constitutional changes for no other reason than that they were losing the war. Wise after the event, Mr Solana claims that the EU had always told the Macedonian government that concessions were needed. According to Mr Solana, the ethnic Albanians are simply being given the rights of minorities in the EU - which will come as a surprise to minorities in France and Greece who receive almost no recognition. 

Kosovo was the catalyst for the conflict for the simple reason that it so publicly divided Macedonia. Many ethnic Macedonians cheered on the Serbs. The ethnic Albanians, unsurprisingly, supported Milosevic's victims. For ethnic Albanians in the former Yugoslavia, the Kosovo-Macedonia border will always be a meaningless boundary. 

There has been diplomatic babble about a "Belgian model" for Macedonia. Perhaps, if Macedonia becomes as boring as Belgium, then nobody will want to die for it. If only that were true. 

Andrew Apostolou is a historian at St Antony's College, Oxford Chicago Tribune 
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Chicago Tribune
 August 21, 2001 Tuesday, News; Pg. 3; ZONE: N 

NATO scoops up rebels' weapons; 
Troops battling supply lines from Kosovo, Albania 

By Alissa J. Rubin, Special to the Tribune. Alissa J. Rubin is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune newspaper. 

MACEDONIA-KOSOVO BORDER 


As NATO tries to broker peace between ethnic Albanian rebels and the Macedonian government, NATO-led troops known as KFOR have hauled in a startling number of rebel weapons, indicating that the guerrillas were well-armed and, despite the seizures, may have stockpiled a large arms supply. 

Interdictions by NATO's Kosovo force during the last few months have collected more than 600 rifles, including 45 machine guns, 48,829 small-arms rounds, more than 1,000 anti-tank weapons, 2,438 anti-tank rounds, 658 mortar rounds, nearly 1,400 grenades and mines, and piles of support equipment such as uniforms, boots, medical supplies and flak jackets, according to a report. The interdictions may represent about 15 percent of the arms and supplies being smuggled from Kosovo into Macedonia, said one Western official who has been monitoring guerrilla activities. 

Arms are almost certainly also coming from Albania, where there are no NATO troops to capture them, the official added. 

KFOR soldiers have detained 484 people--and nabbed a couple of dozen horses and mules. In the Balkans, weapons smuggling still relies on animal couriers that are able to negotiate rocky mountain trails that would defeat even the most rugged all-terrain vehicle. 

Arms interception is the latest mission of the Kosovo peacekeepers, who arrived two years ago after an 11-week NATO bombing campaign against the regime of then-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. 

The ethnic Albanian rebels who have taken up arms to fight for more rights for Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority have been getting some of their supplies from Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians are in the majority. 

The number of arms seized suggests the difficulty NATO faces when it tries to disarm rebels, as it has agreed to do in a deal with the Macedonian government and the rebels. 

Brief mission 

The full NATO deployment in Macedonia, which is slated to begin as soon as there is an enduring cease-fire, is designed to last only 60 days and is aimed solely at disarming the ethnic Albanian rebels by collecting and destroying weapons that the rebels voluntarily bring in. 

At least one trail from the Kosovo woods south into Macedonia is a key arms smuggling route for ethnic Albanian rebels, who call themselves the National Liberation Army. 

"They are moving vehicles, mules, horses, laden with arms," said Capt. Daxs Stadjuhar, a native of Lubbock, Texas, who commands a company of about 140 soldiers based in Vitina, Kosovo, who alternate weapons interception with peacekeeping activities in the separatist Yugoslav province. 

Hiding places 

For Stadjuhar, the mission has been a lesson in the subtleties of guerrilla armies. 

"We're the cops from out of town," Stadjuhar says. "We don't know all the hide sites and the places where you can't be seen." 

Despite the United States' technological advantages, the guerrillas have two huge assets: the utter loyalty and commitment of the ethnic Albanian villagers who live on both sides of the Kosovo-Macedonian border and a deep knowledge of the rough mountain terrain. 

The Albanian villagers in Kosovo fully support the NLA fight in Macedonia. 

Amid white plaster farmhouses with terra-cotta roofs and bucolic herds of sheep wandering the hillsides, the villagers have supplied NLA rebels with safe houses, food and vehicles. A recent search by U.S. troops of a farmhouse on a dirt road high in the mountains revealed 30 futons that military sources believe were sleeping quarters for NLA soldiers. 

Often, soldiers observe large numbers of men walking into the woods to cut down trees. Later they see only a few of the men return to the village. No one knows for sure if the others have walked over the border to join the rebels to the south or are cutting wood elsewhere. 

Rebels leave signs 

High on the border, signs of the rebels are scattered over the hillsides. On a ridge, Sgt. John Trevino points out a tree with a number of Albanian names carved into its trunk. 

"Probably a signpost," he said. 

There may have been a weapons cache nearby, and the instructions to a new recruit might have been to go to the tree, turn right, pick up an AK-47 assault rifle hidden under some leaves, and keep to the path that winds south over the border, Stadjuhar said. 

Other signs of the rebels are large piles of charred wood, suggesting that people built campfires when they stopped for the night. 

But it's tricky for the U.S. soldiers who patrol this area to figure out when they're observing covert shipments to the guerrillas in Macedonia and when it's merely signs of rural life. 

They have to make a judgment every day whether to search trucks of hay and wagons with sacks of grain that may actually contain bullets. 

"Up here, they are UCK fanatics," Stadjuhar said, pointing to the village of Buzobik and using the Albanian initials for both the NLA and the former Kosovo Liberation Army, which disbanded after NATO troops entered Kosovo. 

When U.S. troops searched one of the houses, they found UCK memorabilia, patches and posters. 

Several times a day, the U.S. soldiers do reconnaissance, following trails that wind over the mountains to Macedonia. They check for signs that someone has been there recently. They look for footprints, mule or horse tracks, or motor oil. 

For every trail they go down, they pass another. 

Sgt. Jeremy Johnston, 28, a native of Syracuse, N.Y., who was spending the night on watch duty early last week, said: "There are so many trails, God knows which ones they are using. There're not enough of us to cover everything." 

But the soldiers, who keep 24-hour watch on the main routes, don't leave their post. They feel sure that if they did, word would get back to the rebels that the coast was clear. 

 



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