[ALBSA-Info] Gunfire Erupts in Macedonia

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Gunfire Erupts in Macedonia

By FISNIK ABRASHI

  
DEBELDE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Guerrillas and Macedonian troops exchanged fire 
Monday in a mountainous border area, and U.S. peacekeepers stepped up patrols 
nearby in Kosovo, trying to stem an intensifying ethnic Albanian insurgency. 

Gun and mortar fire rang out in the hills near Tanusevci, a stronghold of the 
insurgents, where a day earlier three soldiers were killed by a mine and from 
which fighting spread to two new areas. 

Just shouting distance away, across the border in Kosovo, U.S. peacekeepers 
sent armored vehicles and two dozen humvees into the village of Debelde, 
patrolling and observing all movements on the other side of the line in 
Macedonia. Two American Apache helicopters and one unmanned drone spy plane 
swooped overhead. Journalists were ordered to leave town. 

``We're just trying to increase our presence,'' said 1st Sgt. Brian Thomas. 

After Sunday's intensified fighting, Macedonian Foreign Minister Srdjan Kerim 
said NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo would coordinate with Macedonia to comba
t guerrilla activity. He did not elaborate, but that was likely to mean 
tighter NATO security on the Kosovo side of the border - since they are not 
allowed to cross - to prevent guerillas from entering Macedonia. 

Fighting by ethnic Albanian separatists has become a common occurrence along 
Kosovo's boundary with the rest of Yugoslavia. But violence has erupted at 
Kosovo's southern border with Macedonia as well. 

In a setback to Macedonian and international efforts to contain the violence, 
fighting that had been centered on Tanusevci - 20 miles north of the 
Macedonian capital, Skopje - spread Sunday to another village, Malina, just 
to the east, and to the nearby Kodra Pura Mountain. 

About 200 insurgents battled Macedonian troops in those areas for hours 
Sunday, police said. 

Macedonia also started calling up reservists for duty with border guard 
units. Macedonia is a former Yugoslav republic which had so far escaped the 
bloody conflicts that have marked its neighbors. 

Macedonian police closed down both border crossings to Kosovo. Later, they 
reopened them - but only to Macedonian citizens wanting to leave the 
province. 

Kerim said Macedonia was demanding an urgent session of the U.N. Security 
Council and the establishment of a buffer zone within Kosovo abutting the 
Macedonian border. 

The latest surge in fighting around Kosovo has raised fears of another major 
crisis that could threaten the whole region, less than two years after NATO 
and the United Nations moved into the province. 

The fighting could be an attempt to provoke Macedonian troops into a massive 
response that could claim innocent lives of ethnic Albanian villagers. The 
guerrillas might be hoping that could radicalize Macedonia's ethnic 
Albanians, who make up nearly 25 percent of the population of over 2 million, 
and thus help their cause. 

The Democratic Party of Albanians, a partner in Macedonia's ruling coalition, 
condemned the ethnic Albanian insurgents operating along boundary with 
Kosovo, saying there were damaging Albanians' interests. 

The U.S. ambassador to Macedonia, Michael Einik, condemned the insurgent 
campaign as ``aggression ... that is coming into Macedonia and threatens 
stability.'' He said that the United States was helping authorities in 
Macedonia coordinate an anti-insurgent response with NATO. 

He and other diplomats urged restraint on the part of government troops. 

``We are bracing ourselves for a new flood of refugees,'' said Hamdi Hasani, 
the Debele mayor. Hundreds of ethnic Albanians from around Tanusevci fled to 
Kosovo last week, when violence first intensified. 

Macedonia's president, Boris Trajkovski, held an urgent meeting with defense 
officials and several ambassadors of NATO countries. 

Ethnic Albanian insurgents have launched offensives both in Macedonia and 
part of southern Serbia just outside Kosovo. The conflicts appear similar - 
both sparked by insurgents hoping to join heavily ethnic Albanian with Kosovo 
as part of the ultimate goal of independence. 

In southern Serbia on Monday, Yugoslavia's government-run press center in 
Bujanovac reported several shooting incidents. No one was injured. Serbian 
police reinforcements, transported in about a dozen of buses, were noted in 
the area Monday.