[ALBSA-Info] The Guardian: Police retake gutted town of seven people

[Iris Pilika]

  Police retake gutted town of seven people

Macedonia's interior minister says his forces will stay, despite an 
agreement for a demilitarised zone
Special report: Macedonia

Nicholas Wood, Aracinovo
Thursday June 28, 2001
The Guardian

Wearing bullet-proof vests and khaki fatigues, heavily armed Macedonian 
police yesterday moved back into the town of Aracinovo, 20 days after ethnic 
Albanian rebels had occupied it by simply walking into it.
Now the police were returning under a controversial deal brokered by Nato 
and the European Union.

Under the eyes of monitors from the EU and the Organisation for Security and 
Cooperation in Europe, they began the slow process of house-to-house 
searches early in the morning. Every 20 minutes or so, a low bang could be 
heard, perhaps the sound of a grenade being lobbed into a house, or the work 
of explosives experts.

In the centre of the town four elderly men looked on. "They didn't defeat 
them [the rebels]," said Raif Mehmeti, a 63-year-old Albanian who remained 
at home through the fighting in the town. "It was done under the agreement, 
otherwise they [the police] would never have been able to come," he said 
defiantly.

"It was a lie that the army troops got even half way into the village."

On Monday, up to 500 rebels left the area, accompanied by a US army escort. 
They were released into the mountains about seven miles away with their 
weapons. Behind them they left a scene that has almost become familiar in 
Macedonia.

Like almost a dozen towns and villages before it, Aracinovo looked 
devastated, a testament to three days of shelling by the Macedonian army.

The town lies on a hill overlooking the capital, Skopje. At the foot of the 
slopes is the area previously inhabited by ethnic Slavs. It was this that 
served as the NLA's front line and received the heaviest battering.

Bloated dead cows lay in fields, their feet stiff in the air from rigor 
mortis.

There were gaping holes in the side of houses, craters in the road and 
sprays of shrapnel marks along the walls. The main road leading to the 
centre of the town was strewn with rubble, collapsed telegraph poles and 
wires cut in two.

There was little direct evidence of the rebel presence apart from white 
sandbags marking the point where they had set up their checkpoints at the 
entrance to the town. In one house five rocket-launched grenades had been 
left behind; in another three berets lay amid mattresses laid out on a 
cellar floor.

The town's two mosques were both hit. Minarets are often the first targets 
of the Macedonian army in this conflict. Artillery teams use the towers to 
calibrate the sights on their guns.

Here and there teams of Macedonian police drove by in armoured vehicles, or 
parked outside a house. At one point two black jeeps with tinted windows 
drove at speed into the main square. Four body guards jumped out, followed 
by a balding man wearing dark glasses. The interior minister, Ljube 
Boskovski, had come to inspect the progress of the police.

"I don't want any journalist here. Move them away," he said, before jumping 
back into his vehicle and speeding off.

There was confusion over the exact role of the police. Under the 
Nato-brokered withdrawal, Aracinovo is meant to become a demilitarised zone. 
Western diplomats had interpreted that as meaning that the police would 
withdraw from the area after an initial inspection. But Mr Boskovski, an 
opponent of the deal with the rebels, later announced that his security 
forces were there to stay.

"We will remain in Aracinovo. We have not reached the drugs factory yet,"he 
said, referring to an alleged plant used by the rebels to process narcotics.

"We are here with international representatives who are monitoring the means 
we are using to do the searches.

"We have found a very large amount of weapons and ammunition The village was 
well fortified. The forces are here to restore peace and calm."

Except for about seven people, however, the town was empty. The last of the 
other families left when the rebels pulled out. And if previous Albanian 
villages retaken by the Macedonian army are anything to go by, Aracinovo's 
former residents are unlikely to return in large numbers soon.

Among those who had chosen to stay, was 71-year old Marika Panotova. She and 
one other woman were the only two ethnic Slavs to remain throughout the 
rebel occupation of Aracinovo.

She stayed in an Albanian neighbour's cellar for part of the time, to 
shelter from the army's shelling.

"Tell them about the NLA giving you bread," one of the Albanian elders 
standing nearby told Mrs Panotova as we spoke.

"Yes, they gave me bread," she said. Then she added under her breath as the 
men moved away: "I cooked my own bread, they only gave me bread one or 
twice... It wasn't enough. It was nothing."

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