The Balkan summit is due to begin tomorrow in Skopje, capital of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), which is increasingly being sucked into a fresh cycle of ethnic violence, amid escalating tensions in the southern Balkans. FYROM President Boris Trajkovski recently summoned the National Defense Council to take measures against ethnic Albanian secessionist groups along FYROM's border with Kosovo.
The impending threat is so serious that Trajkovski has called NATO members' ambassadors to Skopje to inform them of developments and ask for stricter controls along the Kosovo-FYROM frontier. At the same time, FYROM Defense Minister Nikola Kljusev made an appeal to NATO that ethnic Albanians aimed to cause a crisis that will also affect Skopje.
The main trouble spot in the region is the Presevo valley in southern Serbia, inhabited mainly by Albanians. "Has the next Balkan war already erupted in the Presevo region?" pondered Gareth Evans, president of the International Crisis Group in Brussels, in the Wall Street Journal recently.
But while conflicts escalate and the death toll, mainly of Serbs, rises in Presevo, the crisis inevitably transcends the boundaries of the area. Hundreds of armed Albanians, former members of the formally dissolved Kosovo Liberation Army, are moving into the Albanian-populated areas of FYROM and are engaging in clashes with Slav elements. The situation is spinning out of control. According to newspapers in Skopje, 250 people recently took the oath as recruits into the Albanian Liberation Army of FYROM.
At the same time, early elections in Montenegro in April and the promise by pro-secession political groups to hold a referendum over the secession byYugoslavia's sister-republic if they win the elections (which is almost certain) complete a dismal picture of the southern Balkans.
A few months ago, when the impending Balkan summit was scheduled, there was the illusion that it would take place in a calm climate, thus allowing it to deal with the vexing issue of Balkan reconstruction. Unfortunately, the summit will take place amid a growing crisis which threatens the integrity not just of Yugoslavia but of FYROM as well.
The Greek government should live up to the situation and take part in tackling the crisis. US and EU policies have failed to prevent the crisis from spilling over into the southern Balkans. Athens should have a strong say and display initiative. A segment of FYROM's political elite, including Prime Minister Ljubo Georgievski, has realized that their country is threatened more by Albania than by Greece and now appears willing to agree on a compromise name. This is an opportunity for Prime Minister Costas Simitis's government to prove that Greece can become a stability-enhancing factor in the Balkans.
Ethnic violence spectre looms across borders of volatile FYROM villages
BY ANATOLY VERBIN
Masked sheep: Members of 'Wolves,' the US-trained FYROM special forces corps, demonstrate their skills at the Ilinden army barracks near Skopje before they were deployed this week near the village of Lojane, bordering Kosovo and FYROM.
LOJANE, FYROM (Reuters) - This dusty village high in the mountains bordering Yugoslavia's volatile Presevo valley is the unlikely focus of rekindled fears that ethnic violence will spill across the Balkans.
Gunfire rings out through the night, setting on edge the nerves of villagers who wonder if they will soon be swept up in the conflict close by between Serb police and ethnic Albanian fighters in Presevo, bordering Kosovo and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).
Concern that FYROM's delicate ethnic balance, two-thirds Slav and a third Albanian, will be upset by nearby violence is nothing new. For nearly a decade Western diplomats have sought to prevent conflict in Yugoslavia destabilising tiny FYROM.
But hopes that the ousting of Slobodan Milosevic from the Yugoslav presidency would bring calm have been dashed as new ethnic fires have been lit and Balkan separatist movements recharged.
"We're simply in a bad place on the map," said former FYROM interior minister, Pavle Trajanov, a nationalist who voices the Slav majority fear that Kosovo's independence-seeking Albanians will join forces with local Albanians.
Western concern was roused last month when FYROM blamed former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters for a grenade attack on a police station that killed a FYROM policeman and talk emerged of a "Liberation Army of Albanians in Macedonia".
Nato officials pledged quickly to prevent Albanian extremists from converting their violent drive to rid the Presevo area of Serbs into a pan-Albanian freedom movement.
Tension has eased, however, with Skopje officials noting that two police injured in the grenade attack were ethnic Albanians. They now say the incident was likely criminal.
Cross-border ties
For decades, ethnic Albanians in former Yugoslavia lived as one oppressed community, and though the collapse of the federation cut them apart into different states, family and business links are still very close.
So far violence has not spread across the thinly-guarded border that separates the former Yugoslav republic of FYROM from its unstable former patron. But concern persists.
"How can you save your house if neighbours throw rocks at each other? A stone will hit you," said FYROM writer Kim Mehmeti, an ethnic Albanian.
FYROM officials have sought to reassure. Interior Minister Dosta Dimovska said the government was concerned but there was no serious danger of FYROM being involved.
Menduh Thaci, deputy leader of the ethnic Albanian party DPA, a pillar of the government coalition, told Reuters: "As long as we are alive and well, and we intend to be so, I can guarantee there will be no destabilisation. The vision of FYROM Albanians is - Kosovo is another country, Albania is another country and our future is here. Our future is in Europe," he said.
Western praises
Western diplomats say they are impressed with how the government, "panic-stricken" in 1999 when some 250,000 Kosovo Albanian refugees fleeing Serb attacks flooded FYROM, has maintained ethnic calm and made economic progress since then.
The DPA and its veteran leader Arben Xhaferi have strong influence among ethnic Albanians, especially in the west of FYROM which borders Kosovo and Albania.
The area is buzzing and some say that booming business with Kosovo, including arms and drugs smuggling, will keep FYROM Albanians too occupied to think about politics. But few doubt there are considerable caches of arms in the high mountains that separate Kosovo from FYROM.
The situation is different in the north of FYROM where small and poor Albanian villages are scattered among settlements populated by local Serbs.
Lojane is one of them. It is subdued and scared but defiant. "I do not care what Xhaferi says," said a teenage boy. "If I feel that I should join fighting there, I will. They are Albanians and I am Albanian".
With shooting heard nearly every night and the border marked by little more than a heap of garbage local people are nervous. "The border is the government's top current priority and they have made good progress in securing it," said a Western diplomat in Skopje involved in security issues.
But a Reuters crew crossed into the Presevo area without even realising they were moving from one state to the other. A Skopje border patrol arrived some 20 minutes later to say: "You were lucky there were no Serb police on the other side".
Kosovo uncertainty
FYROM and the new reformist government in Belgrade are to sign an agreement demarcating the border on Friday at a Balkan summit but it will take two years to put into practise.
But even if the violence in Presevo can be stopped the bigger issue of Kosovo's unresolved status still looms.
Kosovo has been run by the United Nations as a de facto protectorate within Yugoslavia since a 1999 Nato bombing campaign drove out the Serb army. Its final status has been left deliberately vague by the international community.
Kosovo Albanians want independence with some nationalist hotheads still dreaming of a Greater Albania which would unite ethnic Albanians from Albania, Kosovo, western FYROM and southern Serbia into one state. "They are planning it in phases, first independence of Kosovo, then annexing southern Serbia to Kosovo and then the same will happen to western FYROM," said ex-minister Trajanov.
FYROM president warns of instability, firefight breaks out on Kosovo border
Three days after hosting a summit of the leaders of Balkan nations, which ended with a demand for an end to the violence in the region, the president of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia yesterday warned that the actions of Albanian separatists were threatening his country's and the region's stability. A firefight between what appeared to be ethnic Albanian separatists and FYROM police heightened fears of a spillover of the violence.
President Boris Trajkovski said that the presence of "armed, informed members of illegal groups" along the Kosovo border "could cause serious incidents and jeopardize Macedonia's stability." He said FYROM's armed forces have taken measures to prevent any major conflict.
In Brussels, the 15 EU foreign ministers expressed concern and agreed to double the number of EU monitors in southern Serbia's Presevo Valley to 30. They named Irish diplomat Antoin Mac Unfraidh to head the team in the region where Albanian extremists are active.
"The Council expressed its concern at the level of tension and violence in Southeast Serbia and condemned actions by ethnic Albanian armed groups," the ministers said in a concluding statement. "(It) reiterated its strong attachment to the principle of the inviolability of all borders in the region. It called on all those involved to isolate extremists, to promote reconciliation and multi-ethnic cooperation."
The ministers also condemned fresh attacks on Serbs in Kosovo and urged moderate ethnic Albanian community leaders to distance themselves from the attacks.
The Balkans, along with the Middle East, are set to dominate the agenda of NATO foreign ministers when they meet new US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Brussels today.
Diplomats said NATO was preparing to hand back control of a slice of territory around Kosovo to Belgrade in a gesture of confidence in Yugoslavia's new democratic leadership.
Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, whose country is the only EU member in the Balkans, briefed his colleagues in Brussels on last week's Skopje summit. He said that the signing of a declaration of good neighborliness was the first agreement for the combating of practical problems in the region, such as those of energy and crime. This was "a hopeful sign" for the easing of tension, he said. He also proposed that Serb forces be allowed in the buffer zone between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia, along with European observers.
On the western side of Kosovo, on the border with FYROM, however, what appeared to be ethnic Albanian insurgents yesterday opened fire on police in FYROM.
The firefight occurred in the village of Tanusevci. No injuries were reported.
Gunfight on FYROM-Kosovo border
Gunfight on FYROM-Kosovo border
DEBELDE, Yugoslavia (AFP) - Ethnic Albanian gunmen and security forces of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia were locked in a heavy firefight near the Macedonian border with Kosovo yesterday, an AFP reporter near the scene said.
The exchanges of fire, which lasted for almost an hour and involved weapons thought to be anti-aircraft guns, were heard near the FYROM village of Tanusevci, which has been half-deserted by ethnic Albanians since a local man was allegedly shot dead by FYROM troops on February 15.
FYROM troops and fighters from an Albanian rebel group calling itself the Army for National Liberation could be seen moving around the area, said the reporter from the Kosovo side of the frontier. Intense automatic rifle fire and machine guns could be heard.
The Army for National Liberation has the same initials in Albanian - UCK - as the former Kosovo Liberation Army, and has claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on a police post at Tearce in northern FYROM last month. The attack left one police officer dead.
The commander of the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, General Carlo Cabigiosu, said last week there was a link between extremist Albanian armed groups in southern Serbia, FYROM and Kosovo.
On the edge: Unrest on FYROM's doorstep
On the edge: Unrest on FYROM's doorstep
Spreading clashes between ethnic Albanians and Slav-Macedonians on Skopje's border with the province of Kosovo threaten to start another war
Tanusevci village is at the center of armed clashes between Albanians and Slav-Macedonians in FYROM both last week and yesterday.
By G.G. De Lastic
Kathimerini
Real battles lasting entire days have taken place sporadically during the past week in hitherto little known Tanusevci village in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The village is occupied by Albanians and is close to the Kosovo border. Rebels pushing for Albanian autonomy and the Slav-Macedonian army have clashed in this remote area. Unconfirmed sources report that the village often changes hands. Hundreds of Albanian civilians have taken refuge in Kosovo, and FYROM President Boris Trajkovski publicly denounced their flight as stage-managed.
The political import of what is going on in this otherwise insignificant village is tremendous. The Albanian residents refuse to accept the terms of the agreement defining the Yugoslav-FYROM border, which the two countries signed last Friday in Skopje on the sidelines of the Balkan Summit, and they are demanding that their village be part of Kosovo. This indicates a desire for Albanian national completion, regardless of existing international borders.
Taking up arms in a de facto imposition of this desire and clashes with the armed forces of the country are not "acts of terrorism" as the joint communique of the Balkan summit foolishly described them, but something much more serious. Whether we like it or not, they are the beginning of an armed national liberation struggle by a certain section of the Albanians in FYROM.
As expected, the de facto consolidation of Kosovo's independence during the NATO attack on Serbia, and the ongoing process of breaking away from Serbia by Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, also tolerated by the NATO forces, has persuaded some Albanians in FYROM that it was their turn to become independent.
Nightmarish prospect
This is an alarming prospect. The coexistence of Albanians and Slav-Macedonians is artificial, and the armed clashes at Tanusevci reduce the desire to continue this "state marriage." If the Albanians' desire for independence is openly expressed, then FYROM will not be able to exist as a unified state because of its large proportion of Albanian citizens (30-40 percent: The exact number is not known because both sides deliberately falsify the figures).
The worst scenario of all is not the potential breakup of FYROM as a state, but that our neighboring countries will almost certainly dismember it and and divide it up among themselves.
The Albanian areas will sooner or later attempt to become part of Albania, while matters are more complicated in the Slav-Macedonian areas. The prevailing view in Bulgaria is that the Slav-Macedonians are a Bulgarian race, so if FYROM breaks up Sofia will be very tempted by the desire to annex Slav-Macedonian territory, which would meet the approval of some Slav-Macedonians in FYROM.
There is an additional complication in the fact that similar views, though less widespread and in a milder form, are held in Serbia, where the Slav-Macedonians are seen as Southern Serbs. Within FYROM, Slav-Macedonians who oppose annexation by Bulgaria may prefer to stick with Serbia, thus bringing Belgrade into the game.
Whatever happens, it would be self-deluding to think that Greece would be unaffected and would stand by and do nothing if FYROM were partitioned by two or three of its neighbors. It would be even more naive to expect this to happen peacefully and without bloodshed.
The threat of such developments explains the full political support which Prime Minister Costas Simitis gave FYROM during his recent visit to Skopje, even though nothing happened, or is expected to happen, concerning FYROM's name.
Everything unresolved
From the strategic point of view, the armed clashes in southern Serbia are clearly more serious than those in FYROM. "All the international observers who visited the area agree that it is only a matter of time before there is a major outbreak of violence... If there is an upheaval, it will certainly cause serious problems for the new rulers in Belgrade; it will unleash another, perhaps final, wave of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo; it will spread to sensitive areas in northern Macedonia; and it will become a major challenge for the international community," said special representative of the UN secretary-general for the Balkans, Carl Bildt, a former Swedish premier, in a dramatic letter to Kofi Annan.
In fact, while the situation in FYROM is growing more critical, matters in southern Serbia are not so alarming. The new government in Belgrade has shown that it is so closely tied to US and NATO policy that it is unlikely to react violently to any secession from Serb or Yugoslav territory.
Serb public opinion runs along the same lines, displaying indifference to Presevo or to Montenegro, which will probably announce the expected referendum on independence from Yugoslavia by summer.
In a state of collapse
Serbia has already entered a stage of political collapse, similar to that of Yeltsin's Russia after the disintegration of the USSR. Belgrade will not be able to play a leading role in the Balkans for years, but will influence them indirectly through its own weakness, which will fuel ambitions in another Balkan states.
What is temporarily keeping the situation in the Balkans in check is the desire of all the countries in the area to join NATO and the European Union.
In essence, however, not one Balkan problem has been resolved. NATO protectorates (Bosnia, Kosovo) are multiplying, and new states are emerging, even when they are obviously not viable. The unavoidable conflicts that are looming (such as the dismemberment of Bosnia and FYROM, and union of Albania and Kosovo) are temporarily delayed, only to return in more violent form when circumstances permit.
As for Balkan leaders, they prefer to bury their heads in the sand rather than solve problems, as for example with the virtual reality communique at the Skopje summit, which reflects nothing whatsoever of the critical situation and vital issues in the Balkans.
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(3/7/01 3:55 pm) Reply
Albanian gunmen escalate raids on FYROM border
Skopje appeals for emergency UN Security Council to set buffer zone inKosovo after three soldiers slain by guerrillas
Albanian gunmen escalate raids on FYROM border
Reinforcing neutrality: US vehicles carrying peacekeepers arrive in the Kosovo village of Debelde on the border with FYROM after heavy fire broke out yesterday between Skopje security forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas from Kosovo occupying a village just inside FYROM.
DEBELDE, Yugoslavia (AP, Reuters) - Gun and mortar fire exchanges erupted yesterday in a rugged mountainous border area of villages in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), where a spreading, cross-border ethnic Albanian insurgency steered from Kosovo, is threatening the stability of this tense Balkan region.
The surge in fighting between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and FYROM soldiers came a day after three FYROM soldiers were killed near the village of Tanusevci, an occupied stronghold of the Kosovo-armed guerrillas 30 kilometres north of the capital, Skopje.
US peacekeepers in neighbouring Kosovo sent armoured vehicles and two dozen humvees to the border village of Debelde, patrolling and observing all movements on the other side of the line around Tanusevci in FYROM. Two American Apache helicopters and a spy plane swooped overhead. Journalists were ordered to leave.
"We have indications that there are armed groups that have been entering and leaving Kosovo and are using some of the villages around here to get out of their uniforms, leave their weapons behind and infiltrate the civilian population on both sides of the border," said US Major Jim Marshall, a spokesman for the peacekeepers. "We are taking steps right now to prevent that from happening."
Marshal said the men appeared to be dumping their uniforms and weapons in the FYROM side of the border before heading back towards Kosovo.
"We saw a lot of men in black uniforms crossing into Kosovo, entering buildings, changing out of their uniforms, leaving their weapons and coming here... in civilian clothes," Marshal told reporters in the Kosovo village of Debelde, where US troops are monitoring the trouble.
"We have seen machine guns and some RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and light weapons," he said. Anyone who crossed into Kosovo again would be detained and searched, he said. "We will disarm them and detain them and investigate each case individually.
It is up to KFOR to decide about further investigations," Marshal said. "We are talking with the civilians here in Debelde to convince the armed men to hand over their weapons and finish this thing."
Exchange of fire
Yesterday's cross-border movements came after FYROM security forces exchanged fire with the guerrillas occupying the main village on the border with Kosovo on Monday morning.
Army chiefs had consulted overnight with Nato on how to flush out the gunmen, after three FYROM soldiers were killed on Sunday.
The Skopje government had no immediate comment. It had said earlier that any action taken against the guerrillas would be coordinated with the Nato-led KFOR peace force in Kosovo and aim only to safeguard FYROM's territorial integrity.
Nato is worried that the gunmen, emboldened by the success of their Western-backed armed struggle in Kosovo, might extend it into FYROM, a fragile ex-Yugoslav republic that escaped recent Balkan wars. But reflecting a setback to Skopje and international efforts to contain the violence, a FYROM police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said fighting had spread to another village, Malina, just east of Tanusevci, and to the nearby Kodra Pura Mountain. About 200 "terrorists" were battling FYROM troops there, he said.
FYROM, a Slav-dominated country with a large ethnic Albanian minority, appealed for Nato's help over the occupation of Tanusevci by the Kosovo guerrillas about two weeks ago, saying they threatened its sovereignty and fragile demographic balance.
FYROM's western and southern neighbours, Bulgaria and Greece, as well as fellow-Orthodox Russia have called on the international community to help stop the guerrillas. KFOR has a back-up mission in Skopje but says its mandate is only to provide logistical help to the peacekeepers who replaced Serbian security forces in Kosovo after 11 weeks of Nato bombing strikes against Yugoslavia in 1999.
But after panic calls from FYROM President Boris Trajkovski to Nato Secretary-General George Robertson, Nato said it was "stepping up patrols on the Kosovo side of the border."
Five US armoured combat vehicles, two armoured medical vehicles and nine all-terrain Humvee jeeps arrived in Debelde yesterday morning, and two US Apache helicopters were flying overhead "observing" the area.
A group of KFOR soldiers had earlier set off towards Albanian-occupied Tanusevci. When they returned, they said they had been talking to "villagers," but did not make clear whether they had reached Tanusevci or spoken to the Albanian gunmen.
The gunmen have not identified themselves or issued any demands. Ethnic Albanian politicians in FYROM, where five government ministers are Albanian, say the clashes on the border threaten their hard-won political gains and the improvements achieved in their uneasy relations with the Slav majority.
On Sunday, Skopje asked for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to approve a five-km buffer zone inside Kosovo on the border with FYROM in which KFOR would strictly control any movement of people and supplies.
Heavily armed and well financed ethnic Albanian guerrillas have launched offensives both in FYROM and a part of southern Serbia just outside Kosovo.
Though separated by borders, the neighbouring conflicts in FYROM and the Yugoslav republic of Serbia appear similar.
They are both sparked by insurgents in heavily ethnic Albanian areas in apparent hopes of joining the areas with Kosovo, a Serbian province now run by Nato and the United Nations, as part their ultimate goal of a greater Albanian zone cutting the Balkans in half.
Both are thought to be drawing on help from Kosovo, despite supposed Nato "efforts" to stem the flow of arms and fighters from the province.
Albanians step up cross-border raids on FYROM
Nato peacekeepers bolster controls on Kosovo side of border but Skopjewarns gunmen still moving freely into villages
Albanians step up cross-border raids on FYROM
BY KOLE CASULE
Eye of barbed storm: US KFOR soldiers stand beside barbed wire at a checkpoint in the Kosovo village of Debelde on the border with FYROM in an effort to reinforce the area in wake of cross-border raids by Albanian gunmen from Kosovo. FYROM soldiers (inset) mourn their dead comrade Teodor Stojanovski during a funeral service near Skopje, after he was killed on Sunday by ethnic Albanian rebels on the border with Kosovo.
SKOPJE (Reuters) - Albanian guerrilla activity is spreading along the border of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) with Kosovo despite international efforts to contain the unrest, officials said yesterday.
"We have unconfirmed information that there is movement of armed groups in the villages in the Kumanovo area," a police spokesman told reporters, adding that women and children had fled one village saying they had heard shooting.
Nato-led KFOR peacekeeping forces reinforced control of the Kosovo side of the border, but Skopje officials said ethnic Albanian guerrillas were stepping up activity in the tiny Balkan state where Albanians make up one third of the population.
Kumanovo is a multi-ethnic area close to a motorway linking central Europe with the Balkans and about 35 km north of Skopje. The FYROM capital lies about four km south of the border with southern Serbia, where ethnic Albanian guerrillas have confronted Serb forces for more than a year.
The police spokesman said 177 people, mostly women and children, had fled the village of Gosince, east of Tanusevci, where an armed group appeared more than a month ago and has clashed seriously with security forces over the past week.
The Gosince villagers had heard gunfire in the area and were afraid of being hit, the official said. A Western diplomatic source said there had been some reports the villagers were told to leave by gunmen operating in the area.
Most of the civilian population of the hamlet of Tanusevci fled to Kosovo after the skirmishes between FYROM security forces and what Skopje describes as "ethnic Albanian terrorists" started more than a week ago.
The crisis intensified on Sunday with the killing of three FYROM soldiers and on Monday, Skopje officials said it was spreading back into FYROM and announced they had began calling up police and army reservists.
International pressure
Skopje has issued desperate appeals for urgent help from the international community and pressed KFOR to get tough on the Kosovo side of the border. It planned to step up the pressure at Nato headquarters and the United Nations this week.
The US peacekeepers brought new reinforcements to the area around Debelde, a Kosovo village just across from Tanusevci, where snow and fog were hampering surveillance efforts.
KFOR commander Carlo Cabigiousu told reporters in Pristina the border area was under control and said his forces were in close contact with FYROM authorities.
But he reiterated that FYROM territory was outside KFOR control. "My mandate covers the territory of Kosovo and we don't have military activities that are stretching at or over the border," he said.
Western officials, who had earlier called for restraint, told Skopje on Sunday they would understand if FYROM took military action against the guerrillas.
But the government is clearly reluctant to use serious force in order not to be overrun by the well-armed and highly trained guerrillas or increase tensions among local ethnic Albanians.
Some gunmen were seen pulling out of Tanusevci after exchanging fire with FYROM troops on Monday and dumping their arms and uniforms but KFOR says most of them had not crossed into Kosovo.
US soldiers, who have pledged to detain anyone who tries to cross, said they had arrested only three people so far.
FYROM has closed its border with Kosovo for what it says are security reasons, depriving the UN-run Serbian province of supplies coming from or through its territory and cutting off some international personnel who were stranded in Skopje.
Hans Haekkerup, UN governor of Kosovo, said in Pristina he wanted the border open as soon as possible.
Yesterday, Albania joined an international chorus of concern that violence could again spread across the Balkans. "I hope the Albanians (of southern Serbia and FYROM) will choose dialogue because otherwise they will become isolated and lose everyone's support," Albanian Prime Minister Ilir Meta told the French daily newspaper Le Figaro.
Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov, on a visit to Brussels, said ethnic Albanian guerrillas in Macedonia we re a politically isolated group that must be stopped in its tracks. "The message must be firm and categorical," Stoyanov said.
But he said Nato and other international organisations appeared to have no coherent view at the moment on how to tackle Albanian guerrilla challenges in FYROM and southern Serbia. Rising tensions in both areas have raised the prospects of another major crisis around Kosovo less than two years after Nato and the United Nations moved into the province.
Both rebel movements are thought to be drawing on help from Kosovo Albanians with the ultimate goal of independence for Kosovo and nearby regions with large ethnic Albanian populations.
In Washington on Monday, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher condemned actions "by extremists who are seeking to undermine the stability in FYROM, Kosovo and the region." Javier Solana, the chief European Union foreign policy official used similar language in Brussels, Belgium.
Nato-led peacekeepers in Kosovo have been trying to stop the flow of weapons and supplies to the rebels both in southern Serbia and in FYROM.
Srdjan Kerim, FYROM's foreign minister, is expected to travel to New York yesterday to urge the UN Security Council to allow the formation of a "security zone" on the Kosovo side of the FYROM border to prevent incursions by ethnic Albanian militants.
Suspicion between Slavs, Albanians turns to hatred as dead are mourned
EPA
A woman in Skopje lights a candle for three soldiers killed by Albanian separatists.
By Stavros Tzimas
Kathimerini
SKOPJE - The funeral of three soldiers killed on the border in clashes with Albanian insurgents received wide radio and television coverage yesterday in FYROM, raising tensions among Slav-Macedonians.
At the funerals not a few voices called for revenge; and the next day, dozens more citizens came to the park on Macedonia Square in the center of Skopje and the lawn at the entrance to Parliament, leaving lighted candles to the memory of the fallen soldiers who have already become heroes to the Slav-Macedonians.
Relations between Slavs and Albanians in FYROM have never been good, but now suspicion has turned to hatred. The Slav-Macedonians are mourning their dead, and bloodshed has separated the two sides. The Albanians have been mourning their dead since the mid-1990s, when they rose up in Tetovo and Gostivar, claiming the right to fly the Albanian flag on city halls, only to be fired on by the police.
The Kosovo war and the West's intervention on behalf of the Albanians sparked fears among the Slav-Macedonians in FYROM as to what the future would bring for their own country. But now that an armed Albanian secessionist movement has emerged on their own territory, this concern has been surpassed by anxiety for the very existence of the state.
Nationalism is growing rapidly among the Slav-Macedonian population, which believes that the West openly favors the Albanians, thus facilitating their secessionist plans. Following the events at Tanusevci, young Slav-Macedonians turn up every day at municipal military offices and volunteer to fight the Albanians. The American Embassy on Partizanska Avenue has become a fortress, while Slav-Macedonians who work for Western nongovernmental organizations and services are resigning in protest at what they see as Western tolerance of Albanian extremism.
The Slavs are suffering from losers' complex, which triggers anti-Western and anti-Albanian feelings. The press follows public opinion, demanding that the government crush the rebels, regardless of whether that might spread the conflict.
"Whatever the outcome is, Tanusevci will harm relations between the two ethnic groups," said government newspaper Nova Macedonia yesterday, warning that "the Macedonian public has lost its patience." The mass circulation Vetser took a tougher stance, saying "the line of self-control and inaction has disastrous consequences for Macedonia," and it urged the government to adopt what it says is the only alternative solution: "An immediate tough military operation to get rid of the lawbreakers."
The feeling in FYROM is that it will be difficult for the two communities to coexist harmoniously in the future. Western diplomats say the crisis may be resolved at leadership level, but no solution will be viable when an unbridgeable chasm divides the two communities.
Slav-Macedonians avoid shopping at Bit Pazar, the central food market in Skopje, which is controlled by Albanians. A few days ago a Slav-Macedonian police officer was killed in cold blood during rush hour by an Albanian whose identity he tried to check. None of the dozens of Albanian eyewitnesses gave the police any information.
Tetovo, Kumanovo, Gostivar and other predominately Albanian suburbs have been strangely calm for the past few days. Ordinary people seem pleased by the Kosovars' struggle for national liberation, and equally moved by the achievements of the fellow-countrymen in southern Serbia. But they avoid speaking for or against the armed secessionist movement within FYROM, which they explain as a natural consequence of the oppressive policy of the Slav-Macedonian state, even if they do not support it.
"I don't think any Albanian would not react if the army and police started cleansing operations on the border against one and all, as happens in such cases," commented an Albanian journalist from Tetovo. The Albanians dislike the FYROM army and the police, which they see as being in the service of the Slav-Macedonians. The government's biggest worry is how to act when they have to put their security forces on the border.
The Albanian leadership seems divided. So far the party which is in the governmental coalition has maintained a cautious attitude to the dramatic developments. The other party, in the parliamentary opposition, has come out openly in favor of the extremists. Political observers predict that the party in the government will soon have to reject Prime Minister Boris Trajovski's policy on the Albanian issue, which would have the effect of further radicalizing the Albanians.
FYROM drives Albanian gunmen from its border
Nato peacekeepers clear guerrilla 'safe haven' in Kosovo boundary villageas Skopje appeals to allies for buffer zone
FYROM drives Albanian gunmen from its border
BY KONSTANTIN TESTORIDES
Clearing sky borders: A US soldier monitors the border with FYROM near the Kosovo village of Debelde yesterday, after Nato-led peacekeepers have eliminated a 'safe haven' in Kosovo used by armed Albanian extremists to attack neighbouring FYROM villages.
SKOPJE, FYROM (AP) - Troops of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) yesterday drove ethnic Albanian insurgents from their stronghold on the border with Kosovo, a region where renewed fighting has raised fears of a rising Balkan war.
US troops in the area - near the border village of Tanusevac - confirmed the insurgents had fled. Most of the village is in FYROM.
The Americans are part of a multinational effort to curb the flow of weapons and fighters from Kosovo, the overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian province in the Yugoslav republic of Serbia, into northern FYROM.
Although the rebels have not spelled out their goals, it is assumed they are fighting for self-rule in areas near Kosovo that have large ethnic Albanian populations. Albanians make up about 25 percent of the FYROM population.
The fighting at Tanusevac started before dawn, when about 50 ethnic Albanian insurgents attacked FYROM troops, unleashing horses ahead of them to see if the area was mined, defense ministry spokesman Blagoja Markovski said. Skopje troops responded "with force," Markovski said.
After sunrise, US troops entered parts of the village -which the Albanians call Tanusevci - on the Kosovo side of the border, US spokesman Major James Marshall said.
"We have just concluded a successful operation by eliminating a safe haven for armed groups here in Kosovo," the commander of US peacekeepers in the province, Brigadier General Kenneth Quinlan, told reporters on the Kosovo side of the frontier.
Quinlan denied claims by ethnic Albanian villagers that American troops had crossed into FYROM during the operation. The border is poorly marked.
Yesterday, the UN Security Council condemned the Balkan violence and urged political leaders in FYROM and Kosovo to "isolate the forces behind the violent incidents."
Despite its condemnation of the violence, the Security Council took no action on Skopje's call for the creation of a Nato-patrolled "ground safety zone" along the FYROM border.
However, Nato agreed yesterday to allow Serb forces into a strip of the buffer zone between Kosovo and Yugoslavia's main republic Serbia to cut off ethnic Albanian infiltrators crossing through an area where the borders of FYROM, Kosovo and Serbia meet.
A Yugoslav policeman was injured yesterday when he stepped on a land mine near Lucane in southern Serbia about 20 kilometres north of the tripartite border.
Shooting was reported in the Lucane area early yesterday between Yugoslav forces and ethnic Albanian gunmen.
The decision to allow Serb forces into the area less than two years after Nato drove them from Kosovo could anger ethnic Albanians still bitter after former President Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown, which triggered the 1999 Nato bombing of Yugoslavia.
On Wednesday, US troops near Tanusevac wounded two ethnic Albanian gunmen who the Americans said pointed weapons at soldiers who were searching for weapons.
Alarmed over the situation in FYROM, neighbouring Bulgaria announced it was sending hundreds of tons of munitions and other military supplies to its neighbor to help cope with the unrest. The supplies were to be shipped to Skopje yesterday.
FYROM Foreign Minister Srdjan Kerim said he would also appeal to Nato headquarters in Brussels today for a Nato-patrolled safety zone.
He said he believed Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Ukraine and Bulgaria would be willing to send troops if the current force in Kosovo, known as KFOR, was unable to patrol the whole area.
R.Mac. soldiers see the enemy without
R.Mac. soldiers see the enemy without
Serviceman recognizes the need for restraint on the border
REUTERS
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica at a news conference in Belgrade, yesterday.
Kostunica said he accepted an offer from NATO to let Yugoslav security forces into part of a buffer zone next to Kosovo.
But he also stated that the fact that Yugoslav forces are being invited in is proof the NATO-led KFOR peace force had failed to establish security in the zone.
By Anatoly Verbin
Reuters
SKOPJE - Soldiers of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) confronting ethnic Albanian gunmen in the mountains on the Kosovo border are longing for action but respect the restraint imposed on them by their government to avoid worsening tensions, one of them said.
"Can you imagine what it means for a soldier? You have the enemy in your sights and you have to call for permission to press the trigger, which you often do not get," the no-nonsense professional serviceman told Reuters.
The serviceman, who declined to be identified, spent several months in the area around the hamlet of Tanusevci, which has become notorious in the last two weeks after Albanian gunmen occupying the area clashed with the R.Mac.army.
"It is really hard to see the enemy and not to destroy him," he said on Wednesday night in Skopje.
"But I know one mistake may have really bad consequences so I think our leaders know what they are doing."
R.Mac.'s government is acutely aware that one third of the country's population are ethnic Albanians and is trying hard to maintain the fragile government coalition which largely depends on support from the biggest Albanian party, the DPA.
Because of that, it has not used heavy weapons against ethnic Albanian guerrillas who took over Tanusevci several weeks ago.
Even when clashes started, soldiers were ordered only to respond to fire, not to attack.
A Western diplomat in Skopje said this week these tactics were correct.
"You hit one house by mistake and next day they (guerrillas) have 300 new volunteers," he said.
The soldier said the guerrilla group operating along the border was not very big, some 500 people altogether, including up to 300 fighters in Tanusevci at the peak of the clashes.
Some are thought to have headed west along the frontier into high mountains near the crossing at Jazince.
Others to the east, where R.Mac. borders southern Serbia and where another group of Albanian guerrillas has confronted Serbian police for over a year. Some crossed into Kosovo.
"They have pretty good arms, including high-tech US-made sniper rifles," the soldier said.
"Those are the biggest danger, along with the land mines. Mines are really bad, we remove them one day on one side of the road and they plant them again next day on the other side."
This, he said, showed that there were some locals in the group with good knowledge of the terrain, though most were former fighters of the now disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army.
"Their logistics base is just across the border," the serviceman said. This made it vital for the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force on the Kosovo side to seal the border.
"If KFOR means business, they can take them out in 24 hours," said the soldier.
There was little support from the local Albanian population for the gunmen, who he said began fighting to protect their smuggling routes.
The R.Mac. army, however, claims the bands are using guerrilla tactics. First, a small group of the gunmen would enter a village and urge women and children to flee. Then, when a bigger force arrived, the local men were told to take up arms.
Bulgaria sends munitions
SOFIA (AP) - Bulgaria is sending hundreds of tons of munitions and other "military hardware" to neighboring R.Mac. to help it halt incursions by ethnic Albanian militants from Kosovo, Bulgaria's minister of defense said yesterday.
Boiko Noev would not divulge the exact nature of the arms assistance. He said R.Mac.'s government had made the request on Wednesday. The shipment does not include tanks Noev said.
An evident sign of concern about tensions on R.Mac.'s border with Kosovo, Prime Minister Ivan Kostov left on a two-day trip to Skopje later yesterday.
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