[AMCC-News] Macedonia MPs Mull Peace Reforms, U.S. Blasts Delay (fwd)

[Mentor Cana]

  "The U.S. envoy to Macedonia accused [the Macedonian] political
   leaders Thursday of distorting last week's hijacked airliner attacks in
   the United States to sabotage a peace accord with minority Albanians."

  "James Pardew, the U.S. special envoy to Skopje, said Macedonians in a
   position to influence public opinion were trying to discredit the peace
   accord by making invidious analogies with the assaults on New York and
   Washington."
  "``Comparisons between what happened in Macedonia (the guerrilla
   uprising) and the events in the United States last week are completely
   false,'' he told Reuters in an interview."


http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010920/wl/balkans_macedonia_dc_471.html
Thursday September 20 12:28 PM ET

Macedonia MPs Mull Peace Reforms, U.S. Blasts Delay
By Mark Heinrich

SKOPJE (Reuters) - The U.S. envoy to Macedonia accused political leaders
Thursday of distorting last week's hijacked airliner attacks in the United
States to sabotage a peace accord with minority Albanians.

After two weeks of obstructions by nationalist hard-liners, parliament met
for a preliminary vote on 14 constitutional amendments that would grant
Albanians better civil rights mandated by the Western-brokered agreement
signed in August.

But momentum toward implementing the pact generated by swift handovers of
weapons to NATO by Albanian guerrillas has broken down over the resistance
of legislators to crucial legal changes and a gambit to submit the deal to
a referendum.

Parliament, whose sessions on the peace plan have been plagued by
procedural chaos or canceled for lack of a quorum, decided at the last
moment Thursday to put off a referendum vote until Friday and look at
amendments instead.

Western officials fear a referendum could pitch Macedonia back into
bloodshed, given popular distaste for concessions to ''Albanian
terrorists'' and the guerrillas' readiness to resume armed struggle if
reforms are aborted.

James Pardew, the U.S. special envoy to Skopje, said Macedonians in a
position to influence public opinion were trying to discredit the peace
accord by making invidious analogies with the assaults on New York and
Washington.

'COMPLETELY FALSE'

``Comparisons between what happened in Macedonia (the guerrilla uprising)
and the events in the United States last week are completely false,'' he
told Reuters in an interview.

``I am informing the government that we object to the use of the (U.S.)
tragedy ... to attempt to delay or disrupt the peace process ongoing in
Macedonia,'' he said before going into talks with government leaders.

``There have been public statements about the U.S. re- evaluating its
position in Macedonia based on what happened in New York and we see that as
an attempt to delay or disrupt the peace process by redefining the
situation here,'' he said.

``I am advising Macedonian leaders that there is no change to U.S. policy
and that we stand totally behind the framework agreement and its 45-day
timetable for implementation.'' The deadline is the end of this month.

But the crashing of hijacked passenger planes into the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon by suspected Islamic extremists, leaving almost 6,000 dead
or missing, is turning into a serious distraction in Macedonia.

Nationalists at the heart of parliamentary delays liken the attacks, which
Washington has sworn to avenge by war, with ''Albanian terrorist
aggression'' against Macedonia.

The conflict killed about 100 people in seven months and affected about 10
percent of the former Yugoslav republic.

Guerrillas of the National Liberation Army insisted they were fighting only
for equal rights for Macedonia's large Albanian minority after years of
futile political negotiations.

Pro-government media have also run stories this week tarring the guerrillas
by alleged association with the suspected mastermind of the U.S. attacks,
Saudi-born Muslim radical Osama bin Laden and his Afghan-based al Qaeda
group.

Quoting unspecified sources, the newspapers said al Qaeda acted as the main
financier of the Albanians' National Liberation Army and that it had
contributed ``mujahideen'' fighters to the NLA identifiable by their
beards.

NATO spokesmen have spent much time at news briefings this week batting
down the stories, stressing that there is no evidence of links between the
NLA and bin Laden.

ALBANIANS 'NOT RELIGIOUS'

NLA commander in chief Ali Ahmeti also denied it in an interview with
Reuters Television at his mountain headquarters.

``They are saying things like that to discredit the reasons why the NLA
came into being so we will not realize our demands. I am Albanian and we do
not judge things on a religious basis.''

Most Albanians are Muslims but strongly secular. More than 90 percent of
Macedonian casualties in the conflict were police or soldiers. Guerrillas
did not target Macedonian cultural sites, except for an Orthodox church
blown up last month.

Skopje and leaders of the rebellious Albanian minority signed coordinated
political and military agreements aimed at defusing the Balkans' fifth
ethnic conflict since 1991 and stabilizing the whole region over the long
term.

But many Macedonians suspect the guerrillas are hiding hardware from NATO
to wage separatist war later or that they will stage violence to lure NATO
troops into dividing the tiny former Yugoslav republic along an ethnic
``Green Line.''

The NLA turned in more than two thirds of its declared arsenal in the first
half of NATO's 30-day disarmament mission expiring September 26. Rebels
resumed the handovers Thursday after hesitating in concern over
parliament's behavior.

Reporters saw about 120 guerrillas queued up in pairs in the northern NLA
highland bastion of Radusa to dump assault and bolt-action rifles and a
Strela anti-aircraft missile launcher among other weaponry.

They also surrendered a T-55 tank captured from the Macedonian army in a
summer battle.