ULTERIORI PROVE DEL FATTO CHE DIETRO GLI
ATTACCHI TERRORISTICI IN MACEDONIA SI NASCONDE LA NATO
> http://www.mediamonitors.net/gowans23.html
Media Monitors
August 23, 2001
More signs NATO is behind ethnic Albanian attacks on
Macedonia
by Stephen Gowans
A Canadian journalist has evidence that NATO is arming
and equipping the ethnic Albanian guerillas who have
waged a five-month long insurgency against the
Macedonian government in Skopje.
Scott Taylor, editor of Espirit de Corps magazine,
says that on a visit to guerilla bunkers overlooking
the besieged Macedonian city of Tetovo he was welcomed
with shouts of, "God bless America and Canada too for
all they have provided to us." Canada is a member of
the US-led NATO coalition.
Taylor says guerrilla commanders showed off their
arsenal, which included side arms, sniper rifles and
grenade launchers, all marked "Made in the USA." Says
Taylor, one commander remarked that, "thanks to Uncle
Sam, the Macedonians are no match for us."
Taylor isn't the first to charge that Washington is
aiding the guerillas. The Macedonian government
alleged that US helicopters were delivering supplies
to guerillas in the mountains above Tetovo. US
officials don't deny that airdrops were made, but say
helicopters were transporting vital humanitarian aid.
But Taylor says the local guerilla commander told him
that the helicopters were delivering heavy mortars and
ammunition. The guerillas have bombarded Tetovo with
artillery.
Taylor says ethnic Albanian villagers cheer at the
sight of US helicopters, while guerillas at brigade
headquarters wear Nike-style T-shirts bearing the
phrase, "NATO Air - Just do it!" Meanwhile, one
Macedonian police officer lamented to Taylor that "if
NATO hadn't been arming and equipping the (KLA) in
Kosovo there would be no need for them to disarm these
guerillas now."
This isn't the first time complaints about the US and
NATO arming ethnic Albanian guerillas have been made.
In March, a European K-For battalion commander told
the London Observer that, "the CIA has been allowed to
run riot in Kosovo with a private army designed to
overthrow Slobodan Milosevic...Most of last year,
there was a growing frustration with US support for
the radical Albanians." And in January the BBC
reported that Western forces were training guerillas,
then opening a new front in southern Serbia and
Macedonia.
In June, when Macedonian forces were closing in on
guerillas in the town of Aracinovo, NATO intervened,
transporting ethnic Albanian rebels out of the
besieged town in air-conditioned busses. According to
the German newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt, 17 US
advisors, belonging to an American mercenary firm
involved in other Balkan conflicts, were among the
guerillas. And the newspaper pointed out that 70
percent of the equipment carried away by the guerillas
was US made.
Days earlier, a American diplomat was slightly wounded
by Macedonian gunfire as he emerged from the woods
(around Aracinovo) with two other Americans,"
according to the International Herald Tribune. The
diplomats were emerging from rebel-held territory.
Two months ago, the London Sunday Times reported that
at least 800 ethnic Albanian guerillas fighting in
Macedonia are members of the Kosovo Protection Corps,
a paramilitary police unit created by the UN from the
KLA. The Times says, "Hundreds of KPC reservists were
called up by their Albanian commander Agim Ceku, in
March. They subsequently disappeared to former KLA
training camps in Albania and are now re-emerging in
Macedonia."
Ceku, one of the top leaders of the KLA, along with
Hacim Thaci, was artillery chief of the Croatian army
when it launched a war in the Krajina region of
Croatia, which led to 250,000 Serbs being driven from
their homes. Under the KPC, 250,000 Serbs, and another
100,000 Roma, Gorani, Turks and Jews have been driven
from Kosovo. Now, the KLA offshoot in Macedonia, the
NLA, seems intent on ethnically cleansing the largely
Albanian Tetovo region. Over 120,000 Macedonians have
fled or have been driven from their Tetovo area homes
by guerillas. Ilir Hoxha, a 25-year old ethnic
Albanian said, "Let them leave. They should never
return. Tetovo is Albanian and it will remain
Albanian."
For years, many Albanians have dreamed of resurrecting
the greater Albania established under the Italian
fascists, and then under the Nazis. It incorporated
parts of Macedonia and Greece, southern Serbia, and
Kosovo into Albania proper. Some reports say an ethnic
Albanian Liberation Army of Chameria will open a new
front in Greece soon.
Skopje has been hampered in its response to the
guerillas. NATO and the EU have warned Macedonia not
to crack down on the guerillas, and Ukraine, which was
providing equipment to the under-equipped Macedonian
army, was warned to stop shipments of materiel.
Meanwhile, press reports in the West describe NATO and
EU diplomatic efforts as aimed at preventing a civil
war, though the intention appears to be to prevent a
strong Macedonian response.
The guerillas say they're fighting to win language
rights, but critics point out that an armed attack is
highly disproportional to the NLA's stated aims.
Moreover, the fact that the guerillas have been
recruited from Kosovo, pass freely over a
Kosovo-Macedonia border presumably patrolled by NATO
K-For forces, and have driven non-Albanians from their
homes in an apparent effort to ethnically cleanse the
Tetovo region, points to the pursuit of other goals,
fully backed by NATO.
Taylor, who served in the Canadian Armed Forces, says
NATO's support of the guerillas is so blatant "it is
little wonder that the Macedonian majority have staged
violent anti-NATO riots."
Mr. Steve Gowans is a writer and political activist
who lives in Ottawa, Canada.
---
NUOVI LEADER ATLANTICI:
RITRATTO DEL TERRORISTA PAN-ALBANESE ALI AHMETI
> http://www.ekathimerini.com/news/content.asp?aid=96757
On the road to power
Ali Ahmeti, Albanian rebel leader in FYROM, cannot be
ignored
By Stavros Tzimas
Kathimerini
August 23, 2001
Ali Ahmeti has been denounced as a criminal by the
FYROM government. Hardline Interior Minister Ljube
Boshkovski wants Ahmeti arrested and then brought
before what he calls "independent Macedonian courts."
But this has not prevented the hunted political leader
of the Albanian rebels from traveling unhindered from
Kosovo to the village of Sivkovica, north of Tetovo,
for an interview. He went through the Slav-Macedonian
checkpoints, and in a state-owned vehicle his fellow
Albanians had put at his disposal. The armed Albanian
rebel movement he represents has become a powerful
political force which is soon expected to demand legal
participation in the political life of FYROM and
possibly form a party.
In the future the rebels, in or out of uniform, will
be the ones to make decisions about developments on
behalf of the ethnic Albanians, whose traditional
leadership is on the brink of political disappearance.
The Albanians of Tetovo and the other western regions
of FYROM are on the side of the rebels who have become
heroes in their eyes.
A Western diplomat who recently visited the so-called
liberated zones told Kathimerini that the young boys
and girls there wear ribbons bearing the initials of
the National Liberation Army (NLA), and that the walls
in all the villages are covered with slogans
supporting the NLA.
Arben Xhaferi and Imer Imeri have signed an agreement
in which the Albanians have registered their historic
claims, but in fact it is Ali Ahmeti and his armed men
who have dictated the stance of the leaders of the two
legal political parties. Without the consent of the
rebels, no agreement would have been signed, nor
indeed could the peace process have made any progress.
Now that their armed struggle has succeeded, Ali
Ahmeti and the other rebel commanders will want to
make political capital from their military action, as
did Hakim Thaci and the other captains in Kosovo. The
amnesty granted by President Boris Trajkovski allows
the rebels to participate unimpeded in society, and
this will happen, says their leader, after they have
attended social reintegration seminars.
Ali Ahmeti is waiting it out at Prizren in Kosovo,
directing political developments from there. His
triumphant appearance in Tetovo is considered only a
matter of time. Similarly, as the new situation
demands, it won't be long until he is no longer
branded a war criminal and common murderer.
---
LA RUSSIA CONTRARIA ALLE OPERAZIONI DELLA NATO IN MACEDONIA
> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=800265427
THURSDAY, AUGUST 23, 2001
THE TIMES OF INDIA
Russia warns against NATO operation in Macedonia
MOSCOW (AFP): Russia issued a thinly veiled warning on
Wednesday that a NATO operation to collect arms from
ethnic Albanian rebels in the former Yugoslav republic
of Macedonia could act as an incitement to armed
actions by Albanian extremists.
The alliance has "undoubtedly assumed a great
responsibility for what is happening in Macedonia and
for the perspectives of ending the crisis" there, the
foreign ministry said in a statement, referring to
recent incidents involving Albanian rebels.
Citing the destruction Monday of a 14th-century
Orthodox church at Lesok, the ministry said that
international actions such as the Essential Harvest
arms collection operation "must not appear as an
encouragement of extremism and a de facto
legitimisation of separatism."
Peace and stability "can only be achieved by means of
strengthening a multi-ethnic democratic society in a
united and sovereign Macedonia," the statement said.
Russia has expressed serious reservations about the
NATO operation, describing it as a palliative move
unlikely to resolve the crisis in the region.
Russian troops would not take part in the NATO
operation, as it had not been approved by the UN
Security Council, defense ministry officials said as
quoted by the RIA-Novosti news agency.
"NATO and the US leaders will bear full responsibility
for the negative consequences NATO's military
intervention in Macedonia may have," the officials
said.
---
LA DESTABILIZZAZIONE DELLA FYROM E' PREPARATA IN KOSOVO
Macedonian Sources Say Albanian Rebels Regroup in
Kosovo
SKOPJE, Aug 20, 2001 -- (dpa) Macedonian army sources
were reported Monday as saying that 700 Albanian
rebels were poised in Kosovo to enter Macedonia.
In addition, some 2,000 Albanian troops could join
them at "any time", the newspaper Dnevnik quoted the
sources as saying.
Albanian rebels were regrouping near the village of
Radusha, on Kosovo side of the Macedonian-Yugoslav
border, the report said. The watchtower in the village
was "in the hands" of the rebels.
"No one from KFOR (Kosovo peacekeeping) units does
anything to stop rebels from entering in the village
of Radusha from the Kosovo side. The Polish soldiers
from KFOR sit like on picnic", army sources were
quoted as saying.
The paper also said Macedonian soldiers in the border
area were angered by the failure of the Macedonian
command to send any reinforcements for a week.
The situation in the crisis areas in Macedonia was
calm on Monday morning after rebels had stopped their
attacks on security forces in the villages above
Tetovo after midnight Sunday, police sources said.
There were no injured on the Macedonian side, the
sources said.
The NATO commander for Europe, U.S. General Joseph W.
Ralston, was due to arrive in the Macedonian capital
on Monday ahead of the planned deployment of 3,500
troops to collect arms from ethnic Albanian rebels.
His assessment of the stability of the ceasefire would
be crucial in deciding whether to go forward with
operation Essential Harvest, officials in Brussels
said.
The NATO alliance was expected to reach a decision on
the disarmament mission this week.
Several hundred advance troops have arrived in
Macedonia since Friday. If the mission goes ahead, the
soldiers would be tasked with collecting the rebels'
weapons within 30 days.
(C)2001. dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur
> http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010812/1/1bej4.html
"I, personally, consider this an official declaration
of war by the international protectorate of Kosovo and
by the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), which is
unfortunately part of the UN civil administration in
Kosovo.
"This is an unprecented event in international
politics, in which a sovereign and democratic country
has been the object of aggression from an
international protectorate of the United Nations."
Monday August 13, 3:46 AM
Macedonian PM accuses UN-run Kosovo of waging war
SKOPJE, Aug 12 (AFP) -
Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski accused
the United Nations protectorate of Kosovo of waging
war against his country, in a letter to UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan made public Sunday.
Georgievski said in a message read in Macedonian on
state television that 600 members of a militia
supported by Kosovo's international administration had
crossed into Macedonia on Saturday and attacked
government forces.
"I, personally, consider this an official declaration
of war by the international protectorate of Kosovo and
by the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), which is
unfortunately part of the UN civil administration in
Kosovo," Georgievski said.
"This is an unprecedented event in international
politics, in which a sovereign and democratic country
has been the object of aggression from an
international protectorate of the United Nations," the
letter to Annan said.
The hardline Macedonian leader repeated Skopje's
longstanding criticism of Kosovo's NATO-led
peacekeeping force, accusing it of allowing ethnic
Albanian fighters to cross the border with impunity.
Both Georgievski and President Boris Trajkovski, who
wrote separately to NATO Secretary General George
Robertson to complain about the incursion, accused the
rebels of firing shells from bases within the UN-run
province. The guerrilla's military leader, Gezim
Ostreni denied that the KPC was helping its fellow
ethnic Albanians south of the border.
"The KPC is not involved in Macedonia and has not
fired from Kosovo ... in Macedonia there is only one
Albanian armed force, and that's the National
Liberation Army (NLA)," Ostreni told Kosovo
television.
Ostreni was himself a high-ranking member of the KPC
until March this year, when he was sacked after taking
leave and returning to his home town of Debar, in
Macedonia, to join the NLA.
Georgievski also attacked Kosovo's chief UN
administrator, Hans Haekkerup, urging Annan to "think
about releasing him from his duties".
Macedonian forces on Saturday exchanged fire with a
group of ethnic Albanian rebels near the village of
Radusa, two kilometres (one mile) south of the
republic's frontier with Kosovo.
Government officials said that the rebels had crossed
from Kosovo 15 kilometres (nine miles) northwest of
Skopje and surrounded a police unit.
The KPC was set up by NATO and the United Nations in
1999 to provide employment for former guerrillas of
the officially disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army.
The unit -- which receives funding, training and
equipment from Western countries -- was supposed to be
an unarmed civil defence militia, but its members have
frequently been implicated in criminal activity inside
and outside the province.
KPC leaders make no secret of their ambition to one
day form the basis for the army of an independent
Kosovo, but have denied involvement in the six-month
ethnic Albanian uprising in Macedonia.
Trajkovski called on NATO and the United Nations to
shut down the KPC's training camps, state television
reported.
Georgievski and his nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party are
due to sign a peace accord Monday with the leaders of
Macedonia's three other main democratic parties --
including two representing ethnic Albanians.
The government in Skopje on Sunday called a unilateral
ceasefire to prepare the ground for the signing, but
Georgievski warned that the rebels were not ready to
make peace.
"Today when the political parties in Macedonia are one
step towards signing the peace agreement, the Albanian
paramilitary groups organised by the KPC continue with
their aggression," the letter said.
"That confirms that they don't want any kind of
agreement and it shows that they are not interested in
peace," he said.
---
UN NUOVO NOME PER LO STESSO PROGETTO DELLA GRANDE ALBANIA
Albanian Group Wants Slav Troops out of Kosovo
PRISTINA, Aug 17, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The
Albanian National Army (ANA), a rebel group opposed to
the Macedonian peace accord, on Thursday demanded the
pullout of troops from Slavic countries serving in the
NATO-led Kosovo force.
"The ANA demands that KFOR withdraw its Slavic
soldiers from the zones where there are ANA units, in
particular Ukrainians," said a statement sent to AFP
signed by ANA leaders Alban Berisha and general
Shqiponja e Sharrit I.
"ANA considers that KFOR soldiers from Slavic
countries intentionally provoke these units," it said.
The ethnic Albanian rebels are worried about Ukrainian
arms deals with Macedonia and maintain that many
Ukrainian mercenaries are fighting in the ranks of the
Macedonian army.
ANA, a little-known rebel group fighting to create a
Greater Albania in the Balkans, on Tuesday rejected a
peace accord signed in Skopje to end the ethnic
Albanian insurgency.
It claims to have bases in Kosovo, Macedonia,
Montenegro, Albania proper and Greece from which it
plans to launch attacks as part of its campaign.
ANA claimed responsibility for the murder of two
Serbian policeman in southern Serbia earlier this
month and the deaths of 18 Macedonian soldiers in
attacks this month. ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)
---
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ATTACCHI TERRORISTICI IN MACEDONIA SI NASCONDE LA NATO
> http://www.mediamonitors.net/gowans23.html
Media Monitors
August 23, 2001
More signs NATO is behind ethnic Albanian attacks on
Macedonia
by Stephen Gowans
A Canadian journalist has evidence that NATO is arming
and equipping the ethnic Albanian guerillas who have
waged a five-month long insurgency against the
Macedonian government in Skopje.
Scott Taylor, editor of Espirit de Corps magazine,
says that on a visit to guerilla bunkers overlooking
the besieged Macedonian city of Tetovo he was welcomed
with shouts of, "God bless America and Canada too for
all they have provided to us." Canada is a member of
the US-led NATO coalition.
Taylor says guerrilla commanders showed off their
arsenal, which included side arms, sniper rifles and
grenade launchers, all marked "Made in the USA." Says
Taylor, one commander remarked that, "thanks to Uncle
Sam, the Macedonians are no match for us."
Taylor isn't the first to charge that Washington is
aiding the guerillas. The Macedonian government
alleged that US helicopters were delivering supplies
to guerillas in the mountains above Tetovo. US
officials don't deny that airdrops were made, but say
helicopters were transporting vital humanitarian aid.
But Taylor says the local guerilla commander told him
that the helicopters were delivering heavy mortars and
ammunition. The guerillas have bombarded Tetovo with
artillery.
Taylor says ethnic Albanian villagers cheer at the
sight of US helicopters, while guerillas at brigade
headquarters wear Nike-style T-shirts bearing the
phrase, "NATO Air - Just do it!" Meanwhile, one
Macedonian police officer lamented to Taylor that "if
NATO hadn't been arming and equipping the (KLA) in
Kosovo there would be no need for them to disarm these
guerillas now."
This isn't the first time complaints about the US and
NATO arming ethnic Albanian guerillas have been made.
In March, a European K-For battalion commander told
the London Observer that, "the CIA has been allowed to
run riot in Kosovo with a private army designed to
overthrow Slobodan Milosevic...Most of last year,
there was a growing frustration with US support for
the radical Albanians." And in January the BBC
reported that Western forces were training guerillas,
then opening a new front in southern Serbia and
Macedonia.
In June, when Macedonian forces were closing in on
guerillas in the town of Aracinovo, NATO intervened,
transporting ethnic Albanian rebels out of the
besieged town in air-conditioned busses. According to
the German newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt, 17 US
advisors, belonging to an American mercenary firm
involved in other Balkan conflicts, were among the
guerillas. And the newspaper pointed out that 70
percent of the equipment carried away by the guerillas
was US made.
Days earlier, a American diplomat was slightly wounded
by Macedonian gunfire as he emerged from the woods
(around Aracinovo) with two other Americans,"
according to the International Herald Tribune. The
diplomats were emerging from rebel-held territory.
Two months ago, the London Sunday Times reported that
at least 800 ethnic Albanian guerillas fighting in
Macedonia are members of the Kosovo Protection Corps,
a paramilitary police unit created by the UN from the
KLA. The Times says, "Hundreds of KPC reservists were
called up by their Albanian commander Agim Ceku, in
March. They subsequently disappeared to former KLA
training camps in Albania and are now re-emerging in
Macedonia."
Ceku, one of the top leaders of the KLA, along with
Hacim Thaci, was artillery chief of the Croatian army
when it launched a war in the Krajina region of
Croatia, which led to 250,000 Serbs being driven from
their homes. Under the KPC, 250,000 Serbs, and another
100,000 Roma, Gorani, Turks and Jews have been driven
from Kosovo. Now, the KLA offshoot in Macedonia, the
NLA, seems intent on ethnically cleansing the largely
Albanian Tetovo region. Over 120,000 Macedonians have
fled or have been driven from their Tetovo area homes
by guerillas. Ilir Hoxha, a 25-year old ethnic
Albanian said, "Let them leave. They should never
return. Tetovo is Albanian and it will remain
Albanian."
For years, many Albanians have dreamed of resurrecting
the greater Albania established under the Italian
fascists, and then under the Nazis. It incorporated
parts of Macedonia and Greece, southern Serbia, and
Kosovo into Albania proper. Some reports say an ethnic
Albanian Liberation Army of Chameria will open a new
front in Greece soon.
Skopje has been hampered in its response to the
guerillas. NATO and the EU have warned Macedonia not
to crack down on the guerillas, and Ukraine, which was
providing equipment to the under-equipped Macedonian
army, was warned to stop shipments of materiel.
Meanwhile, press reports in the West describe NATO and
EU diplomatic efforts as aimed at preventing a civil
war, though the intention appears to be to prevent a
strong Macedonian response.
The guerillas say they're fighting to win language
rights, but critics point out that an armed attack is
highly disproportional to the NLA's stated aims.
Moreover, the fact that the guerillas have been
recruited from Kosovo, pass freely over a
Kosovo-Macedonia border presumably patrolled by NATO
K-For forces, and have driven non-Albanians from their
homes in an apparent effort to ethnically cleanse the
Tetovo region, points to the pursuit of other goals,
fully backed by NATO.
Taylor, who served in the Canadian Armed Forces, says
NATO's support of the guerillas is so blatant "it is
little wonder that the Macedonian majority have staged
violent anti-NATO riots."
Mr. Steve Gowans is a writer and political activist
who lives in Ottawa, Canada.
---
NUOVI LEADER ATLANTICI:
RITRATTO DEL TERRORISTA PAN-ALBANESE ALI AHMETI
> http://www.ekathimerini.com/news/content.asp?aid=96757
On the road to power
Ali Ahmeti, Albanian rebel leader in FYROM, cannot be
ignored
By Stavros Tzimas
Kathimerini
August 23, 2001
Ali Ahmeti has been denounced as a criminal by the
FYROM government. Hardline Interior Minister Ljube
Boshkovski wants Ahmeti arrested and then brought
before what he calls "independent Macedonian courts."
But this has not prevented the hunted political leader
of the Albanian rebels from traveling unhindered from
Kosovo to the village of Sivkovica, north of Tetovo,
for an interview. He went through the Slav-Macedonian
checkpoints, and in a state-owned vehicle his fellow
Albanians had put at his disposal. The armed Albanian
rebel movement he represents has become a powerful
political force which is soon expected to demand legal
participation in the political life of FYROM and
possibly form a party.
In the future the rebels, in or out of uniform, will
be the ones to make decisions about developments on
behalf of the ethnic Albanians, whose traditional
leadership is on the brink of political disappearance.
The Albanians of Tetovo and the other western regions
of FYROM are on the side of the rebels who have become
heroes in their eyes.
A Western diplomat who recently visited the so-called
liberated zones told Kathimerini that the young boys
and girls there wear ribbons bearing the initials of
the National Liberation Army (NLA), and that the walls
in all the villages are covered with slogans
supporting the NLA.
Arben Xhaferi and Imer Imeri have signed an agreement
in which the Albanians have registered their historic
claims, but in fact it is Ali Ahmeti and his armed men
who have dictated the stance of the leaders of the two
legal political parties. Without the consent of the
rebels, no agreement would have been signed, nor
indeed could the peace process have made any progress.
Now that their armed struggle has succeeded, Ali
Ahmeti and the other rebel commanders will want to
make political capital from their military action, as
did Hakim Thaci and the other captains in Kosovo. The
amnesty granted by President Boris Trajkovski allows
the rebels to participate unimpeded in society, and
this will happen, says their leader, after they have
attended social reintegration seminars.
Ali Ahmeti is waiting it out at Prizren in Kosovo,
directing political developments from there. His
triumphant appearance in Tetovo is considered only a
matter of time. Similarly, as the new situation
demands, it won't be long until he is no longer
branded a war criminal and common murderer.
---
LA RUSSIA CONTRARIA ALLE OPERAZIONI DELLA NATO IN MACEDONIA
> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=800265427
THURSDAY, AUGUST 23, 2001
THE TIMES OF INDIA
Russia warns against NATO operation in Macedonia
MOSCOW (AFP): Russia issued a thinly veiled warning on
Wednesday that a NATO operation to collect arms from
ethnic Albanian rebels in the former Yugoslav republic
of Macedonia could act as an incitement to armed
actions by Albanian extremists.
The alliance has "undoubtedly assumed a great
responsibility for what is happening in Macedonia and
for the perspectives of ending the crisis" there, the
foreign ministry said in a statement, referring to
recent incidents involving Albanian rebels.
Citing the destruction Monday of a 14th-century
Orthodox church at Lesok, the ministry said that
international actions such as the Essential Harvest
arms collection operation "must not appear as an
encouragement of extremism and a de facto
legitimisation of separatism."
Peace and stability "can only be achieved by means of
strengthening a multi-ethnic democratic society in a
united and sovereign Macedonia," the statement said.
Russia has expressed serious reservations about the
NATO operation, describing it as a palliative move
unlikely to resolve the crisis in the region.
Russian troops would not take part in the NATO
operation, as it had not been approved by the UN
Security Council, defense ministry officials said as
quoted by the RIA-Novosti news agency.
"NATO and the US leaders will bear full responsibility
for the negative consequences NATO's military
intervention in Macedonia may have," the officials
said.
---
LA DESTABILIZZAZIONE DELLA FYROM E' PREPARATA IN KOSOVO
Macedonian Sources Say Albanian Rebels Regroup in
Kosovo
SKOPJE, Aug 20, 2001 -- (dpa) Macedonian army sources
were reported Monday as saying that 700 Albanian
rebels were poised in Kosovo to enter Macedonia.
In addition, some 2,000 Albanian troops could join
them at "any time", the newspaper Dnevnik quoted the
sources as saying.
Albanian rebels were regrouping near the village of
Radusha, on Kosovo side of the Macedonian-Yugoslav
border, the report said. The watchtower in the village
was "in the hands" of the rebels.
"No one from KFOR (Kosovo peacekeeping) units does
anything to stop rebels from entering in the village
of Radusha from the Kosovo side. The Polish soldiers
from KFOR sit like on picnic", army sources were
quoted as saying.
The paper also said Macedonian soldiers in the border
area were angered by the failure of the Macedonian
command to send any reinforcements for a week.
The situation in the crisis areas in Macedonia was
calm on Monday morning after rebels had stopped their
attacks on security forces in the villages above
Tetovo after midnight Sunday, police sources said.
There were no injured on the Macedonian side, the
sources said.
The NATO commander for Europe, U.S. General Joseph W.
Ralston, was due to arrive in the Macedonian capital
on Monday ahead of the planned deployment of 3,500
troops to collect arms from ethnic Albanian rebels.
His assessment of the stability of the ceasefire would
be crucial in deciding whether to go forward with
operation Essential Harvest, officials in Brussels
said.
The NATO alliance was expected to reach a decision on
the disarmament mission this week.
Several hundred advance troops have arrived in
Macedonia since Friday. If the mission goes ahead, the
soldiers would be tasked with collecting the rebels'
weapons within 30 days.
(C)2001. dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur
> http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010812/1/1bej4.html
"I, personally, consider this an official declaration
of war by the international protectorate of Kosovo and
by the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), which is
unfortunately part of the UN civil administration in
Kosovo.
"This is an unprecented event in international
politics, in which a sovereign and democratic country
has been the object of aggression from an
international protectorate of the United Nations."
Monday August 13, 3:46 AM
Macedonian PM accuses UN-run Kosovo of waging war
SKOPJE, Aug 12 (AFP) -
Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski accused
the United Nations protectorate of Kosovo of waging
war against his country, in a letter to UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan made public Sunday.
Georgievski said in a message read in Macedonian on
state television that 600 members of a militia
supported by Kosovo's international administration had
crossed into Macedonia on Saturday and attacked
government forces.
"I, personally, consider this an official declaration
of war by the international protectorate of Kosovo and
by the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), which is
unfortunately part of the UN civil administration in
Kosovo," Georgievski said.
"This is an unprecedented event in international
politics, in which a sovereign and democratic country
has been the object of aggression from an
international protectorate of the United Nations," the
letter to Annan said.
The hardline Macedonian leader repeated Skopje's
longstanding criticism of Kosovo's NATO-led
peacekeeping force, accusing it of allowing ethnic
Albanian fighters to cross the border with impunity.
Both Georgievski and President Boris Trajkovski, who
wrote separately to NATO Secretary General George
Robertson to complain about the incursion, accused the
rebels of firing shells from bases within the UN-run
province. The guerrilla's military leader, Gezim
Ostreni denied that the KPC was helping its fellow
ethnic Albanians south of the border.
"The KPC is not involved in Macedonia and has not
fired from Kosovo ... in Macedonia there is only one
Albanian armed force, and that's the National
Liberation Army (NLA)," Ostreni told Kosovo
television.
Ostreni was himself a high-ranking member of the KPC
until March this year, when he was sacked after taking
leave and returning to his home town of Debar, in
Macedonia, to join the NLA.
Georgievski also attacked Kosovo's chief UN
administrator, Hans Haekkerup, urging Annan to "think
about releasing him from his duties".
Macedonian forces on Saturday exchanged fire with a
group of ethnic Albanian rebels near the village of
Radusa, two kilometres (one mile) south of the
republic's frontier with Kosovo.
Government officials said that the rebels had crossed
from Kosovo 15 kilometres (nine miles) northwest of
Skopje and surrounded a police unit.
The KPC was set up by NATO and the United Nations in
1999 to provide employment for former guerrillas of
the officially disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army.
The unit -- which receives funding, training and
equipment from Western countries -- was supposed to be
an unarmed civil defence militia, but its members have
frequently been implicated in criminal activity inside
and outside the province.
KPC leaders make no secret of their ambition to one
day form the basis for the army of an independent
Kosovo, but have denied involvement in the six-month
ethnic Albanian uprising in Macedonia.
Trajkovski called on NATO and the United Nations to
shut down the KPC's training camps, state television
reported.
Georgievski and his nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party are
due to sign a peace accord Monday with the leaders of
Macedonia's three other main democratic parties --
including two representing ethnic Albanians.
The government in Skopje on Sunday called a unilateral
ceasefire to prepare the ground for the signing, but
Georgievski warned that the rebels were not ready to
make peace.
"Today when the political parties in Macedonia are one
step towards signing the peace agreement, the Albanian
paramilitary groups organised by the KPC continue with
their aggression," the letter said.
"That confirms that they don't want any kind of
agreement and it shows that they are not interested in
peace," he said.
---
UN NUOVO NOME PER LO STESSO PROGETTO DELLA GRANDE ALBANIA
Albanian Group Wants Slav Troops out of Kosovo
PRISTINA, Aug 17, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The
Albanian National Army (ANA), a rebel group opposed to
the Macedonian peace accord, on Thursday demanded the
pullout of troops from Slavic countries serving in the
NATO-led Kosovo force.
"The ANA demands that KFOR withdraw its Slavic
soldiers from the zones where there are ANA units, in
particular Ukrainians," said a statement sent to AFP
signed by ANA leaders Alban Berisha and general
Shqiponja e Sharrit I.
"ANA considers that KFOR soldiers from Slavic
countries intentionally provoke these units," it said.
The ethnic Albanian rebels are worried about Ukrainian
arms deals with Macedonia and maintain that many
Ukrainian mercenaries are fighting in the ranks of the
Macedonian army.
ANA, a little-known rebel group fighting to create a
Greater Albania in the Balkans, on Tuesday rejected a
peace accord signed in Skopje to end the ethnic
Albanian insurgency.
It claims to have bases in Kosovo, Macedonia,
Montenegro, Albania proper and Greece from which it
plans to launch attacks as part of its campaign.
ANA claimed responsibility for the murder of two
Serbian policeman in southern Serbia earlier this
month and the deaths of 18 Macedonian soldiers in
attacks this month. ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)
---
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