[ALBSA-Info] Macedonian border violence threatens Albanians

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Macedonian border violence threatens Albanians

By Philippa Fletcher
 
SKOPJE, March 5 (Reuters) - Albanian politicians say clashes between 
Macedonia's security forces and an armed group operating on the border with 
Kosovo threaten Albanian interests in the multi-ethnic state. 

In a statement issued after three Macedonian soldiers were killed on the 
border with Kosovo near a village where ethnic Albanian gunmen are believed 
to be holed up, Macedonia's main Albanian party urged all Albanians to 
condemn what it called a bid to destabilise Macedonia. 

"We regard this conflict-inciting provocation as damaging, primarily for the 
long-term interests of the Albanians, which have become a hostage of the 
will, ignorance and immaturity of a still unidentified group of suspicious 
legitimacy," the Democratic Party of Albanians said. 

In Kosovo, the party led by former guerrilla commander Hasim Thaci also 
condemned the use of force. 

"At a time when all national and international mechanisms are making efforts 
for stabilisation of the Balkan region there are tendencies that political me
ans be replaced by violent means, which is unacceptable for us," it said. 

The Albanian government added its voice to the chorus of criticism, saying 
the violence ran counter to the aspirations of Albanians in Macedonia and the 
wider region and calling on the Macedonian authorities to exercise restraint. 

VILLAGE NOT STRATEGIC 

Speaking in an interview before the latest outbreak of violence near the 
village of Tanusevci, Arben Xhaferi, the influential leader of Macedonia's 
Albanian minority, said it had no strategic significance. 

"It is a remote village abandoned by God and the devil where there are tired 
villagers, cows and other animals," said Xhaferi, whose party has five 
ministerial posts in the Macedonian government. 

"Tanusevci is not a metaphor for a wider destabilisation but it is a metaphor 
of how to destroy the image of the Albanians, making us the diabolical force 
sparking a domino effect in the Balkans," he said. 

Late on Sunday evening, Macedonian officials planned measures to clear the re
bels from the village with members of the NATO-led peacekeeping force in 
Kosovo. 

At the back of alliance minds is the fear that the gunmen, emboldened by the 
success of the armed struggle in Kosovo, might spread their revolt through 
Macedonia, a fragile ex-Yugoslav republic that has escaped recent Balkan 
wars. 

Speaking in the town of Tetovo in majority Albanian western Macedonia over 
the weekend, Xhaferi urged the international community and the Slav-led 
Macedonian government not to play into the rebels' hands. 

He said the gunmen were not threatening Macedonian sovereignty because it 
never really existed in Tanusevci but were harming Albanians' uneasy but 
improving relations with the Slav majority in Macedonia. 

Without naming names, he said "somebody" was trying to gain power through 
what he called "revolutionary procedures" and risked polarising Macedonian 
society. 

"They want to bypass the democratic procedure. They don't want to participate 
in elections. They want prompt legitimacy," he said. 

Asked if he, as a politician commanding wide respect among the Albanian 
population of Macedonia and neighbouring Kosovo, felt he could go to talk to 
the guerrillas, he said: 

"If they were politicians we would have the courage to go anywhere but nobody 
knows who they are, who commands them."