[ALBSA-Info] Tetovo Albanians say rebels helped their cause

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Tetovo Albanians say rebels helped their cause

By Rosalind Russell

  
TETOVO, Macedonia, March 30 (Reuters) - Ethnic Albanian guerrillas may have 
held the hills above Tetovo for less than two weeks, but townspeople say they 
achieved more for their community's cause than years of political 
manoeuvring. 

"In 12 days on the hills the Albanian cause was advanced at least 10 years," 
said Besnik Jakupi, an unemployed teacher. 

"Now people are listening to us, they know about our problems and perhaps the 
government will do something about it." 

If it doesn't, the guerrillas will be back, another resident warned. 

The streets of mainly Albanian Tetovo are busy again with cars and shoppers 
after thousands fled or cowered indoors while Macedonian government forces 
pounded the hills with guns and mortars. 

Young Albanians in leather jackets and jeans drink Turkish coffee and smoke 
cigarettes at pavement cafes. Many are jobless, relying on cash sent by 
relatives working in Germany and Italy. 

"This is our country but we have no rights here," said 19-year-old Naim. 
"It's like we don't exist. We can't get jobs, or state benefits. The only 
right we have is to breathe the air." 

The insurgents say they are fighting for greater rights for Macedonia's 
roughly one-third ethnic Albanian minority who complain of second-class 
treatment in all walks of life. 

TACTICAL WITHDRAWAL 

Rebel supporters in Tetovo describe what looked like a military defeat as a 
"tactical withdrawal," saying they are giving political leaders from the 
ethnic Albanian and majority Slav communities a last chance to meet their 
demands. 

"We haven't lost the battle, we are just giving them a chance to negotiate," 
said one man. "But if they fail we are ready. The fighters are ready, in the 
hills, in this town, around this table." 

Moderate Albanian politicians such as Arben Xhaferi, a key coalition partner 
in Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski's government, feel the pressure to 
deliver quickly. 

All political parties say they hope to start talks next week to discuss the 
grievances of the ethnic Albanian community. 

The key Albanian demand is for a change to the constitution which names 
Macedonian Slavs as the primary nation. 

There are also calls for the Albanian language to be used in state 
institutions, an Albanian-language television station and state funding for 
an unrecognised ethnic Albanian university in Tetovo. 

The university under radical rector Fadil Sulejmani is seen as a breeding 
ground for the revolt, and some of its students left their studies to join 
the fighters. 

RADICAL STUDENTS 

Photographs of last year's graduates stare down from the walls in the 
entrance hall but the lecture halls are empty and silent. 

Sulejmani is holed up in the basement. He says police snipers are trained on 
his second-floor office from the building opposite. 

"Who knows where the students are? But they have the support of the Albanian 
people in whatever they are doing," he said. "We tried peaceful protests. Now 
we hope our youngsters in the hills will achieve our aims of equality and a 
better future." 

A handful of guerrillas are still dug in on the craggy hillsides further 
east, beneath the snow-capped mountains which mark the border with 
U.N.-governed Kosovo. 

In the battle to dislodge them, shellfire hit the Kosovo village of Krivenik 
on Thursday, killing two ethnic Albanian civilians and a British television 
producer. 

The Macedonian government denied responsibility, but the deaths stoked the 
anger in Tetovo. 

If their demands are not met soon, ethnic Albanians say Western fears of yet 
another Balkans war may be realised. Support and firepower would come readily 
from their ethnic kin in Kosovo, they say. 

"If they want peace they need to do something quickly," said Jusuf Mustafai. 
"Macedonia is surrounded by Albanians on all sides. Next time the war will 
not just be in Tetovo."