[From nobody Fri Sep 28 16:27:28 2007 Return-Path: <amcc-news-admin@alb-net.com> Received: from rly-xa03.mx.aol.com (rly-xa03.mail.aol.com [172.20.105.72]) by air-xa05.mail.aol.com (v78_r3.8) with ESMTP; Wed, 13 Jun 2001 07:14:12 -0400 Received: from alb-net.com (alb-net.com [199.173.50.4]) by rly-xa03.mx.aol.com (v78_r3.8) with ESMTP; Wed, 13 Jun 2001 07:13:35 -0400 Received: from alb-net.com (alb-net.com [199.173.50.4]) by alb-net.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 63F978CB6; Wed, 13 Jun 2001 06:50:11 -0400 (EDT) Delivered-To: amcc-news@alb-net.com Received: by alb-net.com (Postfix, from userid 1001) id C6BF68C1E; Wed, 13 Jun 2001 06:27:19 -0400 (EDT) From: Mentor Cana <mentor@alb-net.com> To: Albanians in Macedonia Crisis Center News & Information <amcc-news@alb-net.com> Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.33.0106130626130.24816-100000@alb-net.com> Organization: "http://www.alb-net.com/" X-Loop: MENTOR MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: [AMCC-News] NATO Urging Macedonia to Grant Albanian Rights Sender: amcc-news-admin@alb-net.com Errors-To: amcc-news-admin@alb-net.com X-BeenThere: amcc-news@alb-net.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.5 Precedence: bulk List-Help: <mailto:amcc-news-request@alb-net.com?subject=help> List-Post: <mailto:amcc-news@alb-net.com> List-Subscribe: <http://www.alb-net.com/mailman/listinfo/amcc-news>, <mailto:amcc-news-request@alb-net.com?subject=subscribe> List-Id: Albanians in Macedonia Crisis Center (AMCC) News & Information Network <amcc-news.alb-net.com> List-Unsubscribe: <http://www.alb-net.com/mailman/listinfo/amcc-news>, <mailto:amcc-news-request@alb-net.com?subject=unsubscribe> List-Archive: <http://www.alb-net.com/pipermail/amcc-news/> Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 06:27:19 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: Unknown (No Version) >>>>>>>>>>>>> PLEASE READ & DISTRIBUTE FURTHER <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< --------------------------------------------------------------------- Human Rights Violation in Macedonia http://www.alb-net.com/amcc/humanrights.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010612/wl/balkans_nato_dc_2.html Tuesday June 12 1:26 PM ET NATO Urging Macedonia to Grant Albanian Rights By Douglas Hamilton BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO (news - web sites) leaders including President Bush (news - web sites) were expected to urge Macedonia to speed up political reforms needed to end an ethnic Albanian guerrilla insurgency, a senior NATO official said Tuesday. In addition to practical arrangements for voluntary disarmament of the rebels, there must be rapid progress on giving Albanians and their language formal status in the Macedonian constitution, he told reporters. ``I'm quite sure that this will figure high on the agenda tomorrow,'' the official said at a briefing ahead of a one-day meeting Wednesday of the leaders of NATO's 19 member states, convened for Bush's inaugural visit to Europe. ``So far the international community has not succeeded in convincing the government in Skopje to speed up the political process, because we feel if the process is not sped up then the chances for the NLA to lay down their weapons and accept the usefulness of political dialogue will not be there,'' he said. The NLA is the National Liberation Army, which says it took up arms in January to win equal rights for a one-third Albanian minority who are treated as second class citizens by Macedonia's majority Slavs. A tenuous cease-fire -- the first mutual truce in five months of rebel ambushes and long-range shelling by the army -- was holding Tuesday, but guerrillas said they were now in range of the capital, Skopje and its international airport. ALBANIAN STATUS, LANGUAGE ARE CRUCH ISSUES Macedonian political leaders were due to have further consultations at Lake Ohrid in the south of the former Yugoslav republic at the weekend, with alliance and European Union (news - web sites) representatives present to facilitate final accord. The EU and NATO have been closely involved for the past three months in efforts to broker a political solution to the conflict, which threatens to spread from northern border areas into urban centers, igniting a civil war. ``This is of major concern to us,'' the NATO official said, noting that the allies have 40,000 peacekeeping troops in neighboring Kosovo who rely on rear logistics bases in Macedonia close to the scene of recent fighting. He said one part of the political solution was a disarmament plan by the coalition government of Slavs and Albanians. It aimed ``to create confidence building measures, to set out a timetable for the NLA to lay down their weapons, the possible question of an amnesty and what have you.'' ``This is one part of a package which we think is very relevant. But the other package is the really political package, which means to provide the Albanian part of the population equal rights and responsibilities,'' he continued. It was ``absolutely essential'' for concrete discussions very soon of ``possible change of the constitution to make the Albanians a constitutional part of this nation and also with regard to Albanian as a second official language.'' The Kosovo Albanian newspaper Zeri Tuesday said 90 percent of the political deal was complete, including proportional representations for Albanians in all state institutions, a state-funded Albanian university, and secularization to remove the primacy of the Orthodox Church. But the sticking points were the preamble to the constitution -- which mentions Albanians as a minority but not as one of the two founding peoples -- and official status for Albanian as Macedonia's second language. ________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from this list visit: http://www.alb-net.com/mailman/listinfo/amcc-news ]