[ALBSA-Info] Shooting erupts, EU tries to prevent new Balkan war

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Shooting erupts, EU tries to prevent new Balkan war

By Fredrik Dahl

  
TETOVO, Macedonia, March 22 (Reuters) - Two ethnic Albanians were shot dead 
by police in Tetovo and one policeman was wounded in shooting not far from 
the Macedonian capital on Thursday as European powers tried to avert civil 
war. 

A Reuters cameraman said Macedonian police stopped a car and opened fire when 
its occupants appeared to hurl an object which looked like a hand-grenade. 

Macedonian guns started firing on rebel-held hills, ignoring a unilateral 
truce declared by the guerrillas on Wednesday in an effort to delay a 
threatened government assault. 

A rebel commander told Reuters rebel forces were respecting the ceasefire in 
the Tetovo area because they had received no orders to return fire. 

"The situation in the Tetovo area has been quiet. They only started shelling 
a while ago. But we shall attack if they try to climb up the hill to take our 
positions," he said. 

A delegation from the European Union arrived in Skopje for talks as the 
firing resumed. The boom of heavy dentonations could be heard at the airport 
40 kms (25 miles) away. 

Referring to the guerrilla truce, EU security chief Javier Solana -- on his 
second visit in three days -- told reporters he believed the situation was 
getting better and wanted to "check that impression" with Macedonian 
president Boris Trajkovski. 

SHOOTING CLOSER TO CAPITAL 

In the village of Gracani, northwest of the capital Skopje, police said 
gunmen had appeared and one officer was wounded in the shooting that ensued. 

Latest reports said clashes were continuing. 

The village is close to the border with Kosovo, some 15 km (10 miles) from 
Skopje and well away from the town of Tetovo, the unofficial capital of 
Macedonia's Albanian minority. 

Artillery fire in the stretch of mountainous territory bordering Kosovo began 
at 0900 GMT and appeared to be a rejection of the "unilateral, unlimited 
ceasefire" proposed by the rebel National Liberation Army on Wednesday night. 

Reporters heard a steady series of impacts, apparently targeting rebel rear 
positions in the Sar Planina range. 

The rebel offer had stopped short of meeting Macedonian demands that the 
guerrillas pull out of villages and a stretch of the mountain ridges they 
have occupied. 

The shells were striking in two directions, towards the Beltepe and Drenovats 
mountains, but one hit the slope immediately above the city, raising a plume 
of smoke. 

The resumption of violence will complicate the job of Western politicians 
seeking a peaceful solution to the crisis, which threatens to ignite a new 
Balkan civil war. 

Solana said it was not his role to advise the Macedonian government but 
added: "I always prefer for the guns to stay silent." 

The Belgian and Swedish foreign ministers were also in Skopje as part of an 
EU "troika" mission ahead of the EU summit in Stockholm this week. 

REBELS WANT TALKS 

The guerrilla truce, on the heels of truculent statements of defiance, was a 
surprise. 

It presented the government and the West with the difficult choice of 
acquiescing in rebel control of territory for the sake of calm, or carrying 
on fighting and risk alienating the Albanian community in fragile, 
multi-ethnic Macedonia. 

President Boris Trajkovski said the main political parties "agreed on the 
need to neutralise the terrorist threat quickly. 

"After the end of the operation to neutralise the armed terrorists, we have 
agreed to intensify the political dialogue with all legitimate political 
parties on the open questions in inter-ethnic relations," the president said 
at midnight. 

The government appeared to have been given a green light for tough action 
earlier this week by Western powers, who have strongly condemned the rebels 
as a small group of extremists bent on fomenting civil war in pursuit of 
separatist aims. 

Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini said six major powers that have dealt 
with Balkan crises for most of the past decade would show "zero tolerance" 
for deliberate ethnic violence. 

On Wednesday the U.N. Security Council denounced ethnic Albanian attacks in 
Macedonia and Yugoslavia and urged NATO to step up efforts to prevent 
guerrillas from smuggling in weapons from internationally-supervised Kosovo. 

Although the rebels say they are fighting to improve the rights of the large 
ethnic Albanian minority, Macedonia has blamed insurgents from neighbouring 
Kosovo for the attacks. 

The guerrillas insist they are ready to talk peace. 

"We think it is better to talk rather than start a fight between the two 
peoples because blood will be shed and then there will be no room for talks," 
said Ali Ahmeti, the political spokesman for the National Liberation Army 
(NLA). 

In Brussels on Thursday, a NATO official said the alliance gave permission to 
its top commander in Kosovo to allow Serbian forces back into several tracts 
of the buffer zone surrounding the province, an alliance official said. 

"The commander of KFOR now has released authority on Charlie West and Zone 
A," the official told Reuters. He said the Serbians would be allowed in on 
Saturday at the earliest.