[ALBSA-Info] Macedonia gets unity government; guerrillas shrug

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Macedonia gets unity government; guerrillas shrug

By Douglas Hamilton
  
SKOPJE, May 14 (Reuters) - Macedonia on Monday marshals its first national 
unity government of Slav and ethnic Albanian parties in a bid to subdue an 
Albanian guerrilla uprising that could plunge the country into civil war. 

Approved by 102-to-1 in a national assembly vote late on Sunday night, the 
grand coalition has already been dismissed by guerrillas who say that only 
armed struggle can win genuine equal rights for the one-third Albanian 
minority. 

They vow to fight on until invited to negotiate. 

The former Yugoslav republic, which became independent 10 years ago, has had 
two Slav-Albanian coalitions. But this is the first team to include all four 
main parties. 

Ljubco Georgievski remains prime minister. The new cabinet was immediately 
sworn in before President Boris Trajkovski and relieved Western ambassadors 
in the gallery. 

Diplomatic representatives of the European Union and the United States worked 
to the last to broker the deal, persuading the country's number two Albanian 
party not to let concern about the army's handling of the guerrilla crisis 
block an accord. 

"We are aware of the risk we are taking by entering this coalition government 
in the interests of peace," Ismet Ramadani of the Albanian Party of 
Democratic Prosperity (PDP) told the assembly. 

"Our main motive in joining is our desire to achieve safety and security for 
the country, but only through peace and dialogue, not by killing and being 
killed," he said. 

Ratification earlier appeared on a knife edge when Georgievski angered the 
PDP with what Ramadani called a "militant" speech vowing to crush ethnic 
Albanian rebels. 

The party again conferred with Western diplomats before returning to the 
assembly to announce its acceptance. 

As parliament began Sunday's session, government forces opened fire with 
Soviet-built tanks on the rebel-held village of Slupcane northeast of the 
capital Skopje, ending a day of quiet that had followed a blitz on Saturday. 

BROAD-BASED GOVERNMENT TO COUNTER INSURGENCY 

The guerrillas, commanded by a Macedonian-born veteran of a decade of 
Yugoslav wars last active in neighbouring Kosovo, rejected army claims to 
have killed 30 of their number as lies. 

The new all-party bloc returns the Slav socialists to power with key 
portfolios and gives both Macedonia's Albanian parties ministerial posts in 
the hope of averting civil war. 

Georgievski said the new government's top priority was to defeat the 
insurgency, which has raised fears of a broader Balkan conflict dragging in 
Macedonia's neighbours. 

Western and Macedonian Albanian leaders say stability can be restored only by 
ending discrimination against ethnic Albanians in employment, education and 
language rights. Diplomats say reform legislation must be enacted swiftly to 
cool the uprising. 

"We are faced with well-trained forces coming from the other side of the 
border," Georgievski told deputies. "Parties should put aside individual 
interests and join together to defend the country. 

"We have no alternative but to respond fiercely to these attacks. We will 
make the maximum political and military preparations possible to break the 
enemy." 

In the battle zone around Kumanovo, 30 km (20 miles) from Skopje, a senior 
interior ministry commander said he believed troops could evict the rebels 
from their mountain hideouts within hours were it not for fear of civilian 
casualties. 

Residents of a cluster of hamlets occupied by the National Liberation Army 
(NLA) rebels have been crammed into sandbagged basement shelters with 
dwindling supplies for days. The NLA denies holding them as human shields to 
prevent an army assault. 

Despite battering the villages for the past 10 days, the Macedonian army has 
failed to advance any significant distance. The guerrillas say long-range 
shelling leaves them untouched. 

"We haven't had a scratch," a spokesman called Commander Hoxha told Reuters 
by telephone from the conflict zone.