[AMCC-News] NATO Chief Says No Macedonia Peace Without Reform

[Mentor Cana]

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011107/wl/balkans_macedonia_dc_11.html
Wednesday November 7 9:19 AM ET

NATO Chief Says No Macedonia Peace Without Reform
By Mark Heinrich

SKOPJE (Reuters) - The head of NATO (news - web sites) warned Macedonia
Wednesday it faced a relapse into ethnic fighting unless it quickly enacted
civil rights reforms and amnestied guerrillas who have demobilized under a
peace agreement.

Efforts to implement the Western-engineered plan devised to end an uprising
by rebels from the Albanian minority have been plagued by nationalist
point-scoring, sidetracking and disinformation.

However, there is new momentum toward ratifying the accord in parliament,
and NATO Secretary General George Robertson arrived in Skopje hoping to
capitalize on it.

``The (peace) agreement is now six weeks overdue for ratification in
parliament. That means there are sizable, real risks of a return to
violence,'' he told reporters before entering talks with Macedonian and
ethnic Albanian leaders.

``Inevitably there is going to be a rise in violence if the parliamentary
process is not concluded.''

European Union (news - web sites) shuttle diplomacy last month seemed to
settle Macedonian-Albanian disputes over emotive sovereignty issues in some
of the 15 constitutional amendments on the agenda. Parliament has set a
ratification vote for November 12.

ASSURANCES NEEDED

But Albanian MPs, unhappy with dilutions to two equal-rights amendments
made at Macedonian insistence, could withhold their support unless they get
assurances that demobilized guerrillas will be amnestied as promised.

The parliamentary delays, the lack of an amnesty, a government arms buying
drive and pointed displays on television of new firepower and special
forces have made ex-guerrillas nervous and suspicious.

Many of the ex-insurgents are stewing in dead-end, half-destroyed highland
villages or across the border in Kosovo, unable to resume jobs or an
education in the cities for fear of arrest at police checkpoints on the
way.

Although rebels handed thousands of weapons in to NATO under the peace
agreement, gunfire still clatters near truce lines after dark, though
Western monitors say it has been aimed at no one so far.

The threat of renewed fighting comes both from militant Albanian
separatists exploiting broader feelings of betrayal and from Macedonian
rightist hawks who oppose the civic democracy envisaged by the peace plan
and may count on further delays to provoke Albanian violence and justify a
new military offensive.

Tensions have been fanned by a grab bag of Macedonian gambits to stall
reforms -- diverting attention to issues such as alleged mass graves, or
planting media rumors saying rebels are rearming for war, as the top daily
reported Wednesday.

DEFINING WAR CRIMES

Robertson's main priority Wednesday was to pin the government down on a
strict, clear definition of war crimes echoing that of the International
Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), whose jurisdiction takes
legal precedence.

In signing the peace accord, President Boris Trajkovski committed the
government to pardoning all guerrillas who voluntarily disarmed and were
not indictable by the tribunal.

But an amnesty decree issued by the cabinet on October 8 was full of
loopholes, with ambiguous references to what constitutes a war crime, and
had no impact.

Fearing a popular backlash at elections due in January, the nationalists
who make up parliament's largest faction have balked at putting an amnesty
into law.

The Interior Ministry, a hotbed of anti-treaty sentiment, is prosecuting
224 ex-rebels and dozens are believed to be in jail on murky charges of
``terrorism'' or weapons possession.

Former guerrilla commander Ali Ahmeti and 10 top associates face domestic
``war crimes'' charges which they have denied and for which Western
diplomats believe there is no hard evidence.

``Robertson will follow up on a letter we handed to the government last
week advising that the only exceptions to the amnesty should be defined as
crimes covered by and processed by the tribunal,'' a European diplomat
said.