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[The fruit of NATO's Balkans campaign. May their souls
rot in hell.]
Wednesday August 8, 8:19 PM
Ten Macedonian soldiers killed by rebels, threatening
peace moves
SKOPJE, Aug 8 (AFP) -
Ethnic Albanian rebels killed 10 Macedonian soldiers
Wednesday, Macedonian officials said, staging the
deadliest attack of their six-month-old insurrection
and threatening to scuttle Western-mediated peace
talks that had appeared on the brink of success.
The ambush happened near the village of Grupcin, west
of Skopje, far away from the peaceful southwestern
lakeside resort of Ohrid where Macedonian and ethnic
Albanian political leaders were heading for a deal
aimed at averting civil war and paving the way for
NATO troops to move in and disarm the rebels.
The Macedonian forces came under attack on the road
leading to the northern flashpoint city of Tetovo at
10:00 am (0800 GMT), military sources said.
"The fighting is continuing on the road between Skopje
and Tetovo which has now been blocked off," a military
official said at 1030 GMT.
The ambush was the latest in a series of attacks by
both sides that have raised tensions.
Macedonian police on Tuesday killed five rebels in a
dawn raid on a house in the capital Skopje, the first
of its kind, described by police as a crackdown on
"terrorists" but condemned by Albanian deputies as a
"massacre."
Later Tuesday, in what was viewed as a retaliatory
act, ethnic Albanian rebels kidnapped five Macedonian
civilians who were carrying out road work near Tetovo.
The government announced Wednesday that the five
civilians had been released, but only after being
"mistreated" by the rebels.
Before talks in Ohrid resumed at midday, western and
Macedonian officials predicted that a peace accord
could be struck later in the day, to be signed on
Friday, paving the way for NATO troops to enter the
country to disarm the rebels of the National
Liberation Army.
However, the rebels have not been allowed at the
negotiating table, and peace would be unlikely to
stick unless they cooperated. Hardliners in the
Macedonian government also last week started to talk
tough, saying they were unwilling to sign a peace
accord "under the threat of guns" and saying military
action should be used to drive rebels out of their
positions.
NATO has said that it is ready to send 3,500 troops
into the former Yugoslav republic once a peace accord
has been signed, and can enter the country within 48
hours.
However, it has said it will only do so if the
guerrillas say that they are voluntarily going to lay
down their arms.
NATO's top envoy to the Balkans, Pieter Feith, had
even shown Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski on
Tuesday a draft of a declaration rebels would be asked
to sign before NATO moved in.
The guerrillas launched an insurgency back in February
in what they say is a fight for minority rights for
ethnic Albanians, who make up up to one third of the
country's population.
Diplomats said that according to the peace document
under discussion, if a peace accord was signed on
Friday, and NATO moved in quickly, NATO should be able
to disarm rebels by September 15, after which
international police and monitors would move in.
In peace talks so far Macedonian and ethnic Albanian
negotiators have agreed to wider use of the Albanian
language in official business in the country, and also
to hire more ethnic Albanian police officers to better
reflect the make-up of the population.
On Wednesday, as talks moved to a close, they were due
to discuss how to change the constitution to take
account of the agreed reforms.
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