[ALBSA-Info] Albanians take hard line on Macedonian peace plan

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Albanians take hard line on Macedonian peace plan

By Kole Casule

SKOPJE, June 17 (Reuters) - Leaders of Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority 
are taking a hard line in cross-party talks intended to avert another Balkan 
war, diplomatic sources said on Sunday. 

Politicians from both sides of an ethnic divide widened by a four-month 
Albanian guerrilla rebellion are struggling to agree on major constitutional 
concessions to Albanians under a Western-backed plan designed to persuade the 
rebels to disarm. 

"The tone is hard going and the Albanians are being tough but I don't think 
we're on the verge of breakdown," a diplomatic source said, adding the talks 
would probably resume on Monday. 

Another source said the summit was "best described as spasmodic." 

The main stumbling block is how to rewrite a constitution drawn up just 10 
years ago. Slav majority leaders are resigned to making sweeping changes, but 
not necessarily to meeting Albanian demands that Macedonia become a 
consensual democracy in which all sensitive decisions would have to be backed 
by the one-third Albanian minority. 

This and the elevation of the Albanian language to official status throughout 
public life are tough proposals for the Slav majority to stomach, especially 
with Albanian gunmen at large on Skopje's outskirts. 

"They don't seem to have made much progress," a diplomatic source said. "But 
at least they haven't gone backwards." 

NATO ROLE AWAITED 

The rebel National Liberation Army (NLA), which has called a truce until June 
27 while the politicians haggle, is waiting to see what role NATO will play 
after demanding troops be deployed. 

Diplomats expect the alliance to accept a government request for NATO help in 
disarming guerrillas and decommissioning their weapons, provided the rebels 
agree to the terms being debated. 

The talks could drag on for days, diplomats warn, and the carrot of a 
potential decision by NATO members to put troops in Macedonia under a final 
disarmament plan may prove decisive. 

"The irony is that the one thing the Macedonians and the NLA can agree on is 
for NATO to get involved," a Western envoy said. 

In Belgrade, Russia and Yugoslavia urged Western powers to disarm 
"terrorists" in Macedonia and neighbouring Kosovo, blamed for spawning 
Albanian guerrilla groups across the Balkans. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said failure to clamp down on armed 
extremists in the U.N.-run Yugoslav province meant the "Kosovo scenario," 
where gunmen wield power, was spreading. 

"The leadership of (Macedonia) is under serious pressure to force it to meet 
the demands of extremists," Putin warned later on a brief visit to Kosovo. 
"It is very important that nobody in the region has illusions that the 
international community will accept... attempts to solve political problems 
by force." 

HEADACHE 

In Skopje, politicians are under heavy European Union pressure to produce a 
deal by June 25 and have to grapple with a tough agenda that also includes 
more civil service and police jobs for Albanians. But the constitution is the 
biggest headache. 

Experts propose deleting ethnic references in its preamble, which Albanians 
say is discriminatory because it labels them a minority in a country of "the 
Macedonian people." 

The aim is to undercut support for rebels who say they are fighting for 
ethnic rights, and to sidestep the issue of direct talks with the NLA, which 
the government refuses to countenance. 

"The basic Albanian demands are essentially all the same, so I don't think 
this is necessarily a show stopper," one diplomat said. But the blanket 
amnesty rebels want is not on the agenda. 

Though both sides called ceasefires on Monday, the truce is punctured almost 
daily by exchanges of light fire. 

Sporadic shooting was audible near Aracinovo, a village on Skopje's fringes 
from which the rebels have threatened to shell the capital, and reporters saw 
smoke rising from burning fields. 

On Saturday night, the government authorised a cautious test of the truce. 
After five days of haggling over terms, it let aid take supplies to civilians 
behind rebel lines in exchange for access to a reservoir to reconnect a major 
town's water supply.