[ALBSA-Info] Macedonia's local difficulty getting out of hand

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Macedonia's local difficulty getting out of hand

By Douglas Hamilton

BRUSSELS, March 7 (Reuters) - Western allies sought a strategy on Wednesday 
to end the export of armed ethnic Albanian separatism to southern Serbia and 
Macedonia via "safe havens" inadvertently created by NATO's Kosovo buffer 
zone. 

It was likely to mean letting Serbia to resume security patrols on a short 
strip of the external border with Macedonia, where NATO currently excludes 
Serb forces, as well as similar moves on troubled parts of the internal 
boundary with Kosovo. 

But alliance sources said it was unlikely that full agreement on a 
comprehensive plan would be reached at NATO headquarters by the end of the 
day. 

The 19 permanent ambassadors were meeting without Secretary-General George 
Robertson, who was due to hold talks with the Bush administration in 
Washington later on Wednesday at which the issue was expected to be 
discussed. 

NATO has been engaged in talks with Serbian authorities for weeks on how to 
engineer a peaceful end to the separatists' armed occupation of ethnic 
Albanian villages and roads in the Presevo Valley region of southern Serbia. 

Several hundred armed insurgents moved into the area last year, exploiting 
NATO orders that Serbian security forces must not enter a five km 
(three-mile) wide buffer zone extending into Serbia from Kosovo's internal 
boundary. 

The infiltration spread across the border last month, with gunmen using the 
five-km strip where the buffer zone abutts the frontier as a "gateway" from 
southern Serbia into Macedonia, which also has a large ethnic Albanian 
minority. 

LOCAL DIFFICULTY? 

NATO is urging Macedonia to use its army to resolve what some sceptical 
allies regard as a localised policing problem. Macedonia has criticised the 
alliance for allowing the situation to arise and wants a solution involving 
international forces. 

Diplomatic sources say at least one key ally is not convinced that the time 
is ripe for allowing Serbian forces back into the "ground safety zone," 
created to keep the Yugoslav Army at a safe distance as NATO peacekeepers 
deployed in Kosovo following the bombing campaign of 1999. 

NATO should first see Serbia fulfilling its pledge to implement 
confidence-building measures for ethnic Albanian civilians now under the 
self-elected "protection" of the Presevo guerrillas, such as withdrawing some 
Yugoslav Army units. 

Speaking to reporters at the United Nations on Tuesday, Robertson said: "I 
hope a decision on that will be taken this week." A spokesman stressed that 
he meant "closing the gate" where the buffer zone meets the Macedonian 
border, not allowing Serbia to patrol Macedonia's long border with Kosovo 
itself. 

At least one NATO member, however, is concerned that allowing Serbian forces 
to block the corridor created by the buffer zone along the Macedonian border 
could "put the cart before the horse," said a diplomat. 

U.S. troops of the NATO peacekeeping force KFOR, who are responsible for the 
province's southeastern sector, have reinforced patrols on their side of the 
border and have been closely observing guerrilla movements from a distance. 

But on Wednesday they were drawn into their first firefight in the area, when 
five armed men were spotted in the Kosovo village of Mijak. The gunmen aimed 
at the U.S. troops, who opened fire wounding two, KFOR said. 

The Presevo Valley, with over 30 have been killed in clashes in the past 
months, was reported quiet. 

NATO is anxious not to trigger a panic. It does not want to cope with a flood 
of ethnic Albanians refugees from Presevo or a mass retreat of armed groups 
back into peacekeeping territory from their collapsing southern Serbia and 
Macedonia strongholds.