[Prishtina-E] Fwd: THE TANUSEVCI STORY - A very interesting Background-report

[Uk Lushi]

>THE TANUSEVCI STORY.
>
>Skirmishes have continued recently near Macedonia's northern border with
>Kosova, where three Macedonian policemen were killed on 4 March.
>Authorities in Macedonia blame the NATO-led peacekeeping force in
>neighboring Kosova for failing to do enough to secure the border from
>armed Kosovar Albanian infiltrators. But RFE/RL correspondent Jolyon
>Naegele reports from Skopje that Macedonian authorities may be at least
>equally to blame for the violent dispute over the border village of
>Tanusevci. Here is his report.
>         The dispute over the ethnic Albanian border village of Tanusevci
>in northern Macedonia has been simmering for months. But its origins
>predate Macedonian independence more than eight years ago.
>         Tanusevci lies within earshot of the border with Kosova, high in
>the Black Mountains (Crna Gora/Karadak) north of Skopje. The village is
>about 24 kilometers from the capital as the crow flies, but nearly
>double that distance over winding roads. There is no bus service. The
>nearest school and clinic are in the southern Kosovar town of Viti,
>about an hour away on foot.
>         The border in the Black Mountains was never marked, and as long
>as the former Yugoslavia existed it was nothing more than an
>administrative boundary. Most residents considered themselves Kosovar
>Albanians. The break-up of Yugoslavia had little immediate impact on
>Tanusevci. But starting in the late 1990s, the village became a funnel
>for arms to the Kosova Liberation Army, or UCK. Serb forces on occasion
>entered Tanusevci.
>         Last year, Tanusevci became a transit point for weapons bound
>for Albanian insurgents in the Presevo Valley of southern Serbia, some
>30 kilometers to the northeast. A U.S. KFOR intelligence officer in Viti
>told RFE/RL in June that KFOR was monitoring the movement of weapons
>just across the border in northern Macedonia but, beyond informing the
>Macedonian authorities, lacked a mandate to respond.
>         In the wake of an incident last September, in which Macedonian
>military vehicles were fired upon near Tanusevci, Macedonian police went
>to the village and checked the identity cards of residents. Those
>without proper documentation were told to leave.
>         Macedonian officials -- who ask to remain anonymous -- say that
>before NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia two years ago, Tanusevci had some
>750 inhabitants. Even before the current violence erupted, the officials
>say, that number had been reduced by more than half to about 300.
>         The most recent shootings began in February. At that time,
>police went to investigate a report that a Skopje television news team
>had been surrounded by armed Albanians, some in uniform, who confiscated
>their equipment and ordered them to leave. Those in uniform wore patches
>with the letters UCK, standing no longer for the disbanded Kosova
>Liberation Army but rather for the National Liberation Army ("Kombetar"
>is Albanian for "National").
>         Professor Bexheti is a member of one of Macedonia's two main
>ethnic Albanian parties, the opposition Party of Democratic Prosperity
>(PPD). As Macedonia's minister for transportation and communications in
>the mid-1990s, Bexheti visited Tanusevci several times in an effort to
>end the village's isolation from the rest of Macedonia. Bexheti says he
>understands why the villagers resorted to arms. "I fully excuse their
>bid to establish their own fundamental civic rights for the simple
>reason that for the last 50 years, all their educational, health and
>business affairs were with Viti, a town in Kosova, rather than with
>Skopje, from which unfortunately they were isolated due to wholly
>inadequate transportation and [communications]."
>         Bexheti argues the people of Tanusevci were never provided with
>Macedonian identity papers and that they also failed to register their
>births in Macedonia. He notes that Macedonian authorities should have
>foreseen that there would be trouble when they signed and ratified a
>treaty with Yugoslavia last month defining their countries' common
>border, including the Macedonian-Kosovar border.
>         The professor feels that "it is possible that [these] problems
>will spread to other parts of Macedonia. There are some who [believe]
>that the current situation in Macedonia regarding the constitutional and
>legal status of Albanians will result in [something like] what is
>happening now [but on a broader scale]. We must think seriously about
>changing the constitutional and legal status [of Macedonia] from a
>nation-state to one with a civic character -- that is, to establish a
>civil or bi-national state of Macedonians and Albanians, embracing the
>two main ethnic groups that live here and together make up 93 percent of
>all the citizens."
>         Tanusevci's rebels have been secretive about their aims and only
>publicly declared their goals on 5 March. In a fax to Deutsche Welle's
>Albanian Service, they said they are fighting for the equality of ethnic
>Albanians in Macedonia.
>         Bexheti says he believes the government has responded to the
>uprising as best it can. He feels that Skopje had no choice but to
>reinforce its troops and police and try to avoid direct confrontation,
>while seeking increased cooperation and understanding from the
>international community.
>         In contrast to Bexheti, whose party has been in the opposition
>for more than two years, the deputy chairman of the Tetovo-based
>Democratic Party of Albanians (PDSH), Menduh Thaci, is in a more
>difficult position. The crisis in Tanusevci has developed at a time when
>his party is the junior partner in a coalition government with the main
>Macedonian nationalist party, known by the acronym VMRO- DPMNE. Thaci
>says outside interests are taking advantage of Tanusevci residents. "I
>think that the people who are responsible for the incidents and problems
>in Tanusevci may be working for [other] services, for other interests --
>but there is nothing to suggest that they are working in the interest of
>Albanians. I think in this situation one must look at the context -- or
>mosaic -- of the latest, very arrogant attempts to destabilize the
>Macedonian government and eventually the entire state."
>         Menduh Thaci says those behind the violence -- whom he suspects
>of being connected with the Serbian and Russian secret services -- are
>weakening his party's position in the government. He concedes that
>Macedonian police may have mistreated some Tanusevci residents, but he
>insists the police made no attempt at ethnic cleansing. In his words:
>"That's not precise."
>         Only those without identity papers were forced by Macedonian
>police to leave Tanusevci. But others left of their own accord to escape
>the shooting between rebels and Macedonian security forces. In fact, the
>UN High Commissioner for Refugees says more than 500 residents, mainly
>women and children, left the village for Kosova late last month.
>         Macedonian Interior Ministry spokesman Stevo Pendarovski told
>our correspondent on 7 March that there are now 300 armed men in the
>village, many of them recruited in Viti.
>         Menduh Thaci estimates that out of a total ethnic Albanian
>population in Macedonia of between 700,000 and 800,000, "well under
>100,000" lack Macedonian papers. Official estimates of the Albanian
>population are closer to 500,000. (Editor's note: the Albanians
>boycotted the most recent census, charging manipulation of data. Many
>ethnic Macedonians suspect that the real reason was that the Albanians
>feared that the census would reveal that their real numbers are far
>below the high figures that many Albanian leaders claim.)
>         In contrast to Bexheti, Thaci does not see the unrest in
>Tanusevci spreading to the rest of western Macedonia, where most of the
>country's Albanians are concentrated.
>         The gunmen "don't have a chance. These same people -- perhaps 90
>percent of them -- six or seven months ago tried [to ignite unrest] in
>Upare, a village near Tetovo. But we as a political party were decisive
>in putting a halt to this within 24 hours. So it's complicated because
>they picked Tanusevci this time, since it is in terrain that is
>inaccessible for us."
>         Thaci, echoing the views of the Macedonian government, says his
>information is that most of the rebels in Tanusevci are from Kosova. He
>describes them as a mixture of UCK veterans, criminals, and smugglers.
>         Kim Mehmeti is an ethnic Albanian independent political analyst
>who heads the Skopje-based non- governmental Center for Multi-Cultural
>Understanding and Cooperation. He says Macedonia has been very slow to
>take an interest in Tanusevci after years of isolation and harassment of
>the villagers by Serbian police that ended only with the NATO air
>strikes in 1999. He argues that the border treaty Macedonia signed with
>Yugoslavia last month only added to the nervousness and mistrust felt by
>Tanusevci residents, which culminated in their rebellion.
>         Mehmeti feels that the Macedonian government should amnesty the
>rebels. "We [Albanians] are for the stability of this country. As far as
>I know, not a single Albanian has said he wishes to see this state
>dissolved. Where is the problem now? I have information that only ethnic
>Macedonians [police and soldiers] are being deployed [around Tanusevci].
>What does that mean? [It means] that they don't trust us. These are the
>realities that I see. An organized state should not let such matters
>result in hysteria."
>         Mehmeti believes that the "them and us" mentality has been
>reinforced ever since the establishment of an independent Macedonia in
>1992. He says he bristled every time Macedonian President Boris
>Trajkovski, or his predecessor Kiro Gligorov, addressed the nation and
>said: "Macedonian citizens and other citizens." That implies, he argues,
>that the 40 percent of the nation's population who are not ethnic
>Macedonians -- but rather Albanians, Turks, Serbs, Muslims, Roma, and
>Vlachs -- are second-class citizens.
>         Moreover, Mehmeti says, current tensions and the loss of life in
>Tanusevci -- one Albanian resident three weeks ago and three Macedonian
>policemen on 4 March -- have, in his words, "lowered the level of
>Macedonian-Albanian ethnic relations to zero -- where they were in
>1990."
>         Mehmeti believes that Albanians and Macedonians alike are being
>manipulated. He notes that Macedonian politicians and news media insist
>-- in his view without a shred of evidence -- that Albanians set the
>mine that killed two policemen on patrol near Tanusevci recently. Mehmet
>argues that the mine could have just as easily been set by others in an
>attempt to compromise the Albanians.


(Jolyon Naegele)
>
>
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