STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Get a low APR NextCard Visa in 30 seconds! 1. Fill in the brief application 2. Receive approval decision within 30 seconds 3. Get rates as low as 2.99% Intro or 9.99% Ongoing APR and no annual fee! Apply NOW! http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/NextCard ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Skittish in Skopje Jun 13th 2001 >From The Economist Global Agenda Macedonia’s phoney war is becoming more real by the day http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=655207 EPA No smoke without a fire THE Balkans are always with us. So it must seem to diplomats from NATO and the European Union, who convened an emergency meeting on June 13th to discuss how to handle the snowballing insurgency in Macedonia. Greece has spoken in favour of a peacekeeping force, while France has hinted that it would consider such an option. America, on the other hand, remains adamantly opposed. Yet the need for action is urgent: two days before, ethnic-Albanian guerrillas and government forces in Macedonia had come to the brink of full-scale war, and then blinked—for the time being. In their boldest exploit to date, the guerrillas seized Aracinovo, a village just three miles from the outskirts of Skopje, the capital. Between licks of chocolate ice cream, “Commander Hoxha”, the dapper local rebel leader, announced his intention to shell the airport and government ministries unless the army stopped its bombardment of rebel-held villages around Kumanovo, to the north-east. A few hours later, that blitz did end, when the government declared a “temporary” ceasefire (nothing, supposedly, to do with Commander Hoxha’s ultimatum) to allow aid workers to help trapped civilians and to repair a reservoir that supplies Kumanovo’s water. Despite the rebels’ bravura, this escalation will probably follow the pattern of previous ones: having won attention by occupying a new village or mounting an ambush, the guerrillas tend to fade into the hills rather than face an all-out military assault, even from Macedonia’s gimcrack army. But each time, the rebels get a little more daring, the unity government formed to confront them frays a little more, and—most importantly—hostility between Macedonia’s Slav majority and its ethnic-Albanian minority becomes a little more entrenched. So far, the war is a phoney one: despite all the hullaballoo, only some 20 policemen and soldiers have died in five months’ fighting. But the risk of it becoming real is increasing by the day. The arrival of 300 gunmen in Aracinovo certainly unnerved the people of Skopje, at any rate. Within hours, thousands of Macedonian Albanians were heading north towards the border with Kosovo, while thousands of Macedonian Slavs had left Aracinovo and the surrounding suburbs for safer parts of the city. They will add to the 30,000 refugees who have already fled to Kosovo, and some 40,000 who have left their homes but stayed within Macedonia. Some of these are victims of government shelling, which has destroyed five largely ethnic-Albanian villages, while others are residents of mixed villages escaping angry neighbours. Last week, for example, furious Slavs burnt down a mosque in the southern town of Bitola after guerrillas killed five Slav soldiers. In other words, the guerrillas’ tactics are working. Not only are Macedonians falling out with one another—so are the members of their government. Slav politicians seem ever less willing to accept the demands of their ethnic-Albanian counterparts that they rein in the military and amend the constitution to define Macedonia as a multi-ethnic country. Instead, they are pushing for a declaration of war, which would give the president and prime minister (both Slavs) the power to rule by decree and deprive ethnic Albanians of all political influence. Without any restraining Albanian voices, the Slav generals who control the army—and, unofficially, oversee the organisation of Slav civilians into paramilitaries—will doubtless hunt down the insurgents in so heavy-handed a manner as to ensure a civil war. During past bouts of fighting, NATO and the EU, eager to avoid another embarrassing and bloody war in the Balkans, have rushed to patch things up between Slav and ethnic-Albanian politicians. In fact, when the rebels arrived in Aracinovo, Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign-policy supremo, was already in Skopje, pursuing another round of shuttle diplomacy aimed at heading-off a full-scale civil war. He found the four main political parties, both Slav and Albanian, in accord on one point alone: instead of all the advice and cajoling, they want NATO troops to come and keep the peace. But that would be difficult. For starters, the two sides have different ideas about such a force’s mandate. The hardline Slavs in the government are looking for reinforcements in their campaign to wipe out the insurgency. Those who sympathise with the rebels, on the other hand, view outside intervention as a means to legitimise their control over a swathe of territory inhabited by ethnic Albanians along the border with Kosovo. But the biggest impediment to military intervention is finding the soldiers to mount one. American officials are muttering about reducing their forces in the Balkans, not increasing them. Furthermore, the whole point of all the diplomatic meddling to date was precisely to avoid further risky and costly deployments. Even more willing European nations, such as Britain, seem unlikely to give up on talks and to send troops until a war has already begun. By then the costs of any military intervention will be much higher, and the chances of its success less. If NATO and the EU really do want to halt a slide towards civil war in Macedonia, they need to do more than talk and cajole. http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=655207 Miroslav Antic, http://www.antic.org/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
