Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- Albanian Guerrillas Said Forcing Macedonians to Leave Village SKOPJE, Aug 1, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Armed men, believed to be ethnic Albanian guerrillas, forced Macedonians on Tuesday to flee their village of Blace, which lies near to the flashpoint northwestern town of Tetovo, the government's crisis body said in a statement. "During the day, men in uniform were seen, in the area surrounding Blace, near Tetovo, forcing Macedonians to leave the village" of some 400 people, the body said. It gave no further information, but implicated the ethnic Albanian guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (NLA), who launched an insurgency in Macedonia in February in a fight for minority rights, were behind the incident. Late on Monday the United States accused the Albanian rebels operating in Macedonia of "blatant" violations of a July 5 ceasefire. The charges were denied by the NLA political representative Ali Ahmeti in a telephone interview with AFP. The government statement also said that armed groups had also been moving towards the villages of Neprosteno, Lesok and Tearce, all of which lie on the road from Tetovo to the frontier with neighboring UN-administrated Yugoslav province of Kosovo. Meanwhile, a nine-bus convoy took Macedonians who have fled their homes following the fighting in the troublesome northwest of the country, to visit their villages, before returning to the capital Skopje. And another humanitarian convoy was supposed to bring desperately needed assistance to some of the hamlets in the area. Separately, legal sources in Tetovo said that a prison warden in the town, ethnic Albanian Harum Beadimi had been arrested on Monday by Macedonian police for having released prisoners accused of being involved in guerrilla activities. ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: [email protected] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
