[NYC-L] Albanian fighters in Macedonia outlined their demands

[Imer Berisha]

Fortunutely we did not have to wait for long for the demands of the NLA 
National Liberation Army to be announced.

They were in a nutshell announced yesterday.

In my opinion the main point in the Platform(demands) is that this group has 
accepted the territorial integrity i.e. the sovereignty of Macedonia as a 
state.

This further means that what they want is the equal rights with Macedonians 
in a common country.

This stance, I believe will help to lessen the pressure that at the present 
is being exerted wrongly upon Albanians/not only in Macedonia but in 
general/ and soon or latter lead to meaningful reconsideration of the 
Albanian people's position in Macedonia.

Macedonians will have no choice but to deal with issues that have been 
neglected on purpose for decades instead of looking for others to blame.

I am sure you have seen and read the Platform, I will only forward few 
sentence from the article in Yahoo that I think has importance to explain 
the reason why this rebel group appeared in a first place:
________________
from Yahoo:
On Saturday, ethnic Albanian rebels in Macedonia outlined their demands for 
the first time, calling for constitutional changes that would define the 
country as ``a state of two constituent peoples - Macedonian and Albanian'' 
and grant broad rights and privileges to its ethnic Albanian minority.

The rebel National Liberation Army also called for international mediation 
to end the conflict and urged other countries to remain neutral despite 
broad international support for the Macedonian government.

In a sign of public sympathy for Macedonia's rebels, three ethnic Albanian 
organizations in Macedonia accused the government Saturday of terrorizing 
ethnic Albanians.

The Alliance of Albanian Women in Macedonia, the Association of Albanian 
Prisoners and the Democratic Forum for Protection of Human Rights issued a 
statement calling the unrest ``a consequence of discrimination.''

Albanians in Macedonia ``have no other choice but to take up arms and defend 
their cultural and national existence,'' they said.
_______________________________________________________________________
Some of the rebel demands, such as constitutional changes and social reform, 
have long been sought by mainstream ethnic Albanian political parties in 
Macedonia.
_______________to me this is the most important part(I.B.)____________

Thanks

Imer




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