[ALBSA-Info] Skopje crisis flares up as EU envoy rushes in

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Skopje crisis flares up as EU envoy rushes in

Bush moves to 'choke off' funds and mobility of Albanian guerrillasfollowing 
FYROM outrage over US armed protection of rebel convoy

Skopje 
THE EUROPEAN Union's new envoy to Skopje arrived on June 28 to launch a 
permanent mission aimed at finding a peaceful solution to the four-month-old 
crisis which has engulfed the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) 
as army clashes with ethnic Albanian guerrillas flared up. 

Meanwhile, US President George W Bush moved on June 27 to choke off the funds 
and mobility of Albanian rebels in and out of FYROM - part of what the White 
House called an effort to "face down extremists." The president signed an 
executive order barring Americans from any transactions involving the 
property or bank accounts of known Albanian warlords. In a separate 
proclamation, Bush restricted their entry into the United States. He took the 
action two days after a decision by General Joseph Ralston, the commander of 
all US forces in Europe and the top Nato commander, to use American troops to 
protect a convoy of buses carrying ethnic Albanian rebels from one FYROM 
village to another. 

Francois Leotard, a former French defence minister, arrived amid heightened 
tensions; Slavs rioted outside parliament this week to protest their 
government's Nato-sponsored ceasefire with rebels who had held a strategic 
village near the capital for two weeks. Under the ceasefire deal, some 300 
rebels were escorted out of the village of Aracinovo by Nato forces which 
were mainly comprised of US troops, and released on June 25 in the mountains 
of the neighbouring Nikustak village, along with their weapons. 

The FYROM army reported sporadic firing on government positions in the region 
overnight, an indication the rebels are regrouping in the same flashpoint 
area. Over 5,000 Skopje Slavs, enraged that the government had stopped its 
bombardment of the rebel-held village, expressed their anger by destroying 
the interior minister's car outside of parliament, and eventually firing on 
the building during the June 25 riots. 

Leotard, who will act as EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana's personal 
envoy in Skopje, told Europe-1 radio on June 27 that he will work to help the 
parties negotiate a peace. He also met with the FYROM ambassador in Paris to 
explain the EU's controversial stance on the crisis. 

"If this war develops in FYROM, it will call into question everything we have 
been doing for 10 years," he told Europe-1 radio in France, referring to a 
series of Balkan wars following the breakup of federal Yugoslavia. Leotard 
told the radio there was no question of altering the external borders of 
FYROM. (AP)