[ALBSA-Info] Albanian guerrillas outline demands to Macedonia

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Albanian guerrillas outline demands to Macedonia

  
BERLIN, March 10 (Reuters) - A group claiming to represent guerrillas who 
have clashed recently with Macedonian forces says it is fighting for "equal 
rights" for ethnic Albanians, according to a statement faxed to a German 
broadcaster. 

But the group, calling itself the National Liberation Army, says it respects 
the territorial integrity of the Macedonian state, according to the statement 
received on Saturday by Germany's Deutsche Welle radio and television 
broadcaster. 

At least five people have been killed in Macedonia in the past week in 
clashes with a guerrilla group which is presumed to be made up of ethnic 
Albanians. 

Saturday's statement appears to be the first declaration of the group's 
political demands. 

It calls for international mediation in the current conflict and for changes 
to Macedonia's constitution, Deutsche Welle said in a report citing the 
statement. 

The statement called for Macedonia to be defined as "a state of two peoples," 
Macedonians and Albanians. This would end the "discrimination against the 
Albanian population by the Slav-Macedonian majority." 

It also calls for a new census of Macedonia's population to be carried out by 
an international organisation. 

The exact size of the ethnic Albanian minority in Macedonia is a matter of 
some dispute, with most estimates ranging somewhere between one quarter and 
one third of the population of around two million people. 

Many ethnic Albanians have complained of discrimination by the Macedonian 
majority but both ethnic groups are represented in the current coalition 
government and the main ethnic Albanian parties have condemned recent 
violence involving the group. 

Western diplomats have praised the government for improving inter-ethnic 
relations in the former Yugoslav republic which has so far avoided being 
dragged into Balkan warfare. 

The aims of the group have been the subject of considerable speculation, with 
many Macedonians suspecting it wants to make ethnic Albanian areas part of a 
"Greater Albania" including neighbouring Kosovo. 

Another theory links them to groups of smugglers who operate relatively 
freely across unmarked, hilly borders between Macedonia, Kosovo and southern 
Serbia. 

The NLA has the same abbreviation in the Albanian language, UCK, as the 
Kosovo Liberation Army which fought against Serb rule in ethnic Albanian 
dominated Kosovo.