[AMCC-News] Macedonia Brutality Fuels Rebels

[Mentor Cana]

   "It was not the cracked bones or the painful back injuries that made
    Nazim Bushi's teeth clutch with anger."

   "It was disappointment that the people who caused those injuries were
    fellow men in uniform, who he says turned against him solely because he
    belonged to the wrong ethnic group."

   "Supporters of Bushi, an ethnic Albanian officer serving with the
    Macedonian police at the military airport in Skopje, say he is a victim
    of police brutality that has proliferated since ethnic Albanian
    militants took up arms in February, demanding broader rights and
    claiming discrimination by majority Macedonian Slavs."

  ``No action is taken against police,'' said Saso Klekovski of the
    Macedonian Center for International Cooperation, a nonprofit
    humanitarian agency. ``Those in the higher levels of the government
    don't know what is going on in the lower levels.''

   "In a move expected to heighten tensions, authorities have started
    arming a number of civilians, apparently Slavs, as part of a
    ``mobilization of police reservists.''

  ``The distribution of weapons is done not only exclusively on ethnic
    basis but also on party basis,'' Klekovski said, suggesting that police
    were arming mainly supporters of the party of Prime Minister Lubco
    Georgievski.


http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010616/wl/macedonia_police_1.html

Saturday June 16 12:40 PM ET

Macedonia Brutality Fuels Rebels
By MERITA DHIMGJOKA, Associated Press Writer

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - It was not the cracked bones or the painful back
injuries that made Nazim Bushi's teeth clutch with anger.

It was disappointment that the people who caused those injuries were fellow
men in uniform, who he says turned against him solely because he belonged
to the wrong ethnic group.

Supporters of Bushi, an ethnic Albanian officer serving with the Macedonian
police at the military airport in Skopje, say he is a victim of police
brutality that has proliferated since ethnic Albanian militants took up
arms in February, demanding broader rights and claiming discrimination by
majority Macedonian Slavs.

The incidents not only undermine government promises to improve the
situation of ethnic Albanians, once the insurgency is dealt with. They
could also draw ethnic Albanians to the militants and away from political
parties willing to negotiate with the government.

Already, the rebels claim police harassment of ethnic Albanian civilians is
feeding them with new recruits.

``Young men who are beaten up by police are joining us every day,'' a rebel
commander known as ``Commander Hoxha'' told The Associated Press from the
rebel-controlled village of Aracinovo, barely four miles from the capital.
``They're more than we can supply with weapons.''

Independent agencies say authorities higher up are overwhelmed by the
crisis and often unaware of excesses by local police, themselves stressed
out by long hours and often the targets of rebel attacks.

``No action is taken against police,'' said Saso Klekovski of the
Macedonian Center for International Cooperation, a nonprofit humanitarian
agency. ``Those in the higher levels of the government don't know what is
going on in the lower levels.''

About a dozen Albanian friends and relatives came to visit Bushi last week
after they'd heard the bad news. They sat listening and smoking cigarettes
as he told how about 40 policemen broke into his house Sunday morning,
arrested him and searched the house for weapons.

None were found, he said, but he was taken to a nearby police station.
There, he said he was beaten by two masked policemen, who accused him of
collaborating with the rebels.

``They wanted me to admit that I had given the rebels airport maps and
flight schedules of the army helicopters,'' Bushi said.

About 35 hours after the arrest, police dropped him unconscious on a hill
outside Skopje, where his family found him.

Another ethnic Albanian serving with the Macedonian police at the airport,
1st Capt. Muhaedin Bela, was also allegedly arrested and beaten up by
police last week after rebels threatened to attack the airport.

Police spokesman Stevo Pendarovski said he couldn't confirm or deny the
reports.

A police source who spoke on condition of anonymity said some police units
``are completely out of control and take orders from no one.''

Government forces have led several offensives to dislodge the rebels from
their strongholds, contending they are separatists bent on carving up the
country.

In a move expected to heighten tensions, authorities have started arming a
number of civilians, apparently Slavs, as part of a ``mobilization of
police reservists.''

``The distribution of weapons is done not only exclusively on ethnic basis
but also on party basis,'' Klekovski said, suggesting that police were
arming mainly supporters of the party of Prime Minister Lubco Georgievski.

Similar measures helped fuel earlier wars in other former Yugoslav
republics like Croatia and Bosnia.

Ethnic Albanian parties in the coalition government have called on the
prime minister to stop arming civilians. Many Macedonian Slavs are also
frightened by the move.

A Macedonian cab driver who was afraid to give his name said police knocked
at his door at 4 a.m. to register his son as a reservist and hand him a
gun. He said he'd rather have his unemployed son find a paying job instead
of being a reservist, adding ``Give him a job, not a gun.''