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© 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
09 June 2001 15:56 GMT+1
Home > News  > World  > Europe

Fears of anti-Albanian pogrom as police join riots

By Justin Huggler in Belgrade
08 June 2001
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) organisation yesterday accused Macedonian 
police of taking part in riots it said were clearly aimed at forcing ethnic 
Albanians to flee the southern city of Bitola.

Around 100 houses were set ablaze and the city mosque was desecrated as an 
angry mob stormed through the streets of Bitola late on Wednesday night, 
sparking fears of a new wave of Balkan ethnic cleansing. In the cemetery, 
the graves of Albanians were opened and tombstones were kicked over. "Death 
to the Albanians" was spray-painted on the mosque's wall, and the prayer 
carpets were burned.

The riots came after the deaths of five Macedonian soldiers, including two 
from Bitola, in fighting with ethnic Albanian rebels in the north of the 
country. Several Albanians in Bitola told human rights investigators that 
they were warned to leave the city within a week. Witnesses said the mob was 
chanting "Albanians out" and "Pure Bitola".

"It's very clear that there was a plan in advance to identify the houses of 
Albanians to burn," said Peter Bouckaert of HRW, speaking from Bitola by 
telephone. "It appears that Macedonian extremists are engaged in a concerted 
plan to drive Albanians out of town."

Even more disturbingly, Mr Bouckaert said several witnesses told him they 
saw uniformed police actively taking part in the riots, and that there was 
"no information at all" to suggest the police had done anything to stop the 
rampage.

More than 40 houses and shops were set ablaze in a previous night of rioting 
in Bitola after eight Macedonian police and soldiers were killed in April. 
The police made only one arrest following that earlier round of rioting ­ 
and that was of an Albanian who tried to protect his house with a gun. There 
were similar reports yesterday that three Albanians who tried to protect 
their property had been arrested.

The sight of Albanians fleeing their homes so soon after the Kosovo war 
risks stirring Albanian passions across the Balkans.

In recent years only a small minority of Albanians have lived in Bitola, and 
many of them fled after the first round of riots. But across Macedonia as a 
whole, Albanians make up between a quarter and a third of the total 
population, and there are fears that the rebellion could cause a full scale 
civil war. So far, it is only in Bitola, and a handful of isolated cases in 
the capital, Skopje, that the fighting has spread to civilians attacking 
civilians.

Otherwise it has been confined to government troops battling the rebels in 
the north.

Albanians complain that they are treated as second-class citizens in 
Macedonia. The Macedonian authorities accuse the Albanian guerrillas of the 
National Liberation Army (NLA) of trying to partition the country. The 
rebels claim they are fighting for improved rights.

The United States, the European Union and Nato have all condemned the NLA 
and are heavily backing the Macedonian government, but calling for improved 
Albanian rights.

But the Skopje government appears to be incapable of forcing the guerrillas 
out of villages they have been occupying around the north-eastern city of 
Kumanovo for over a month now, and public anger among the Slavic majority is 
growing.

In the last few weeks, Albanian civilians, including children, have been 
killed by government shelling near Kumanovo. Now it appears Albanian 
civilians are being intimidated into fleeing their homes miles from the 
fighting. In Tirana, the Albanian government condemned the attacks on the 
ethnic Albanians in Bitola, and called on Skopje to protect the Albanian 
minority. "No reasons can justify the wild ethnic hatred," a government 
statement said.

The Macedonian Prime Minister, Ljubco Georgievski, responded to the latest 
killings by calling for a state of war to be imposed. He was unlikely to 
obtain the two-thirds parliamentary majority this requires, but it may be an 
indication of the pressure for action building up from his Slav 
constituency.






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