Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- Macedonian Cease-Fire Violated Tension Builds as Insurgents Accused of Preventing Refugees From Going Home By John Ward Anderson Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, July 30, 2001; Page A10 SKOPJE, Macedonia, July 29 -- Ethnic Albanian rebels are violating the terms of a new cease-fire in Macedonia by remaining in areas from which they promised to withdraw, discouraging Macedonian Slav refugees from returning to their homes and increasing the risk of renewed fighting, international observers said. Several houses and other buildings belonging to Macedonian Slavs were set afire Saturday -- apparently by rebels -- in a village northeast of Tetovo, Macedonia's second-largest city and a center of the insurgency, the observers said. A rebel commander denied the charge. At least two people, whose ethnicity was not known, were killed today when the vehicle in which they were traveling drove over a land mine on a road near Lesok, a village about five miles north of Tetovo, officials said. Gunmen sprayed bullets today at a car carrying Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski on the main road between Skopje, the capital, and Tetovo, news agencies reported. No one was injured in the attack, which Boskovski blamed on the rebels. The general insecurity in the region dissuaded about 1,000 Slavic Macedonian refugees from returning to their homes this weekend. The refugees, most of whom fled their villages when rebels arrived about a week ago, had returned Saturday in convoys of buses, only to reboard the buses and leave again because they felt the area was unsafe, officials said. That prompted renewed demonstrations in Skopje by thousands of Macedonian Slavs demanding the government facilitate their safe return, as called for in a cease-fire accord that went into effect Thursday. "Most of the returnees are coming back to Skopje, and even the ones who had remained in the villages for the last week are taking the opportunity to leave," said one observer, speaking on condition of anonymity. "In the area around Tetovo, it's all running in the wrong direction." President Boris Trajkovski is trying to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the six-month insurgency, but faces mounting opposition from hard-line nationalists in the government. Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski and Interior Minister Boskovski in particular have been calling for tougher military action to quash the rebel movement, which many Western observers fear could thrust Macedonia into civil war. At the same time, hundreds of ethnic Albanian refugees returned today without incident to Aracinovo, the town 10 miles east of Skopje that was the site of intense fighting about six weeks ago. Meanwhile, Trajkovski and ethnic Albanian and Macedonian political leaders held a second day of high-level talks. The group, along with two Western mediators, is trying to fashion an agreement that would increase the political, economic and cultural rights of ethnic Albanians, who make up about 30 percent of Macedonia's 2 million people. The talks have reached a stalemate over whether Albanian should be a second official language. The rebels are not a party to the talks, but they have indicated they would likely disarm if a political solution is reached. Three days of fierce fighting broke out a week ago in and around Tetovo, a predominantly ethnic Albanian city about 25 miles west of the capital, when the rebels -- in violation of the previous July 5 cease-fire agreement -- took up more advanced positions and reportedly forced thousands of Macedonian Slavs from their homes. The July 5 agreement said the rebels could not move beyond the positions they held on that date. The new cease-fire is actually a demilitarization agreement that calls for rebels to withdraw and remain 500 meters west of the main road -- and villages along it -- from Tetovo northeast to Odri, about 12 miles. Macedonian police and security forces are allowed to transit that stretch of road, but cannot stop or travel on it while armed. Their fixed positions must be 500 meters east of the road, officials said. While the fighting has largely stopped, international observers said that other aspects of the agreement are being violated. But according to a Western observer, it was virtually impossible to police the new agreement, and minor infractions are to be expected by a rebel group that is increasingly supported by ethnic Albanian civilians in the region because of the "disproportionate" response of the Macedonian army. Three other international observers, all of whom asked not to be identified, said that rebels, some in uniform and others in civilian clothes, were spotted by monitors Saturday in several towns in the demilitarized area. In one case, one of the observers said, several rebels drove through a town in a car that had no license plates but was marked with rebel insignia. "They are still very, very close to the villages," said one observer. "We see them every day patrolling the streets. Some are in uniform, some are not. They are trying to show they've withdrawn, but they haven't. They are in the villages and ready to act." "If they are not 500 meters away, then the Macedonians feel too insecure to return," another observer said. "The [rebel group] is saying that we need to be there to protect our civilians. But the fact is that the Macedonians are so outnumbered, outgunned and out-organized in the area north of Tetovo that they are in a defensive posture. I don't believe that the Albanian community is actually at risk." Furthermore, the observers said, the rebels set fire to at least five buildings belonging to Macedonian Slavs in Tearce, a small, ethnically mixed community about eight miles northeast of Tetovo. The BBC reported that the rebels claimed to have torched the buildings because Macedonian Slavs were using them as sniper positions. A top rebel commander in the Tetovo region who goes by the name Matoshi denied in an interview that guerrillas under his command were still operating in the area or that they had set fire to any buildings. He said he has videotapes of his men telling Macedonian Slavs they had nothing to fear. He said the buildings might have caught fire when local officials switched on electricity that had been disrupted during several days of fighting. A fourth Western observer agreed with this account. "It's very likely that some of the fires were deliberately set, but it's also very likely some were caused by faulty electric problems," he said. When electric service was restored, he said, "Almost instantly several bush fires started throughout the area from power lines that were down. In some cases with burned buildings in Tearce, there were power lines draped across the roof." But one of the other observers said that in at least one of the burned Tearce buildings, the fuse box was found intact, and all the fuses apparently had been removed before the blaze. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! 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