[ALBSA-Info] Still no Macedonia peace deal as haggling goes on

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Still no Macedonia peace deal as haggling goes on

By Daniel Simpson

  
SKOPJE, July 15 (Reuters) - Western efforts to end five months of guerrilla 
warfare in Macedonia showed few signs of success on Sunday despite intense 
haggling over peace proposals. 

U.S. envoy James Pardew, whose mediation has helped clear the table of all 
but the most disputed issues, said it would be "very difficult" to unite the 
leaders of Macedonia's divided communities behind a political deal before the 
end of the weekend. 

Pardew and European envoy Francois Leotard have spent a week leaning heavily 
on politicians across the tiny Balkan republic's ethnic divide, hoping 
reforms to grant its ethnic Albanian minority greater civil rights can end an 
Albanian guerrilla rebellion. 

But although parties on both sides say a revised U.S.-EU draft on 
constitutional changes comes close to resolving outstanding problems, debate 
on sensitive issues continues. 

"They prefer chatting about principles in this part of the world to signing 
up to binding deals," one diplomat mused. 

Ethnic Albanian leaders said their latest meeting with the two envoys had 
yielded progress on calls for Albanian to be made a fully fledged official 
language that could be used in parliament -- a demand resisted so far by 
their Macedonian rivals. 

"We are getting very close to a solution," said Menduh Thaci, the vice 
president of Macedonia's leading Albanian party. 

Although there is broad agreement on plans to strengthen local 
self-government, there are still other obstacles to a deal designed to 
persuade the guerrilla National Liberation Army (NLA) to hand over some of 
its weapons to NATO in exchange for an amnesty. 

NO GUARANTEES 

The issue of how to police the arc of western and northern Macedonia where 
most Albanians live is proving tough to resolve. 

Macedonians balk at the suggestion that local police chiefs should be 
elected, fearing this could allow the NLA, which has become widely supported 
by Albanians for putting their demands for equality on the agenda, to 
maintain its grip on the region. 

The question is closely tied to the amnesty terms being finalised by NATO's 
Balkans troubleshooter Pieter Feith. 

These are expected to have to cover rebel commanders if they are to be 
persuaded to surrender weapons to NATO, which will send in 3,000 troops if a 
political agreement is reached. 

Even if a deal can be struck, there is no guarantee that the NLA will agree 
to end an insurrection that has brought Macedonia to the brink of a civil war 
which could threaten its neighbours. 

Both the NLA and the Macedonian army have used a 10-day-old NATO-brokered 
truce, punctured almost daily by sporadic exchanges of fire, to resupply and 
realign troops in case talks fail. 

"They've had a few drinks and told their war stories. Now they're getting 
ready to go back for more," one diplomat said. 

Although Macedonia's politicians are closer than ever to a deal, diplomats 
caution that Western powers might have to commit themselves to the long haul 
if they are to secure lasting peace. 

This could also apply to NATO, which refuses to countenance an effective 
partition of Macedonia by policing military lines. 

"People tend to see each level of agreement as an end in itself yet despite 
all the optimism little changes on the ground," one diplomat warned. "It just 
buys us some more time."