Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------------------------Nada Boge of Washington Township supports the Macedonian struggle against
Kosovar-Albanian rebels, and she's scheduled to be at a massive rally today
in Washington, D.C., to prove it.
Boge and about 500 Macedonians left St. Mary's Orthodox Church in Sterling
Heights on Wednesday night to join a demonstration to push for an end to
rebel fighting in Macedonia by ethnic Albanians.
But as five busloads of Macedonians from Macomb and Oakland counties boarded
Wednesday, the talk centered around the U.S. government.
"The government is not doing enough. The Macedonian people deserve more,"
said Boge, who once met former President George Bush and was hopeful "his
brother (President George W. Bush) does something."
"My sister was pushed out of Skopje by these ethnic Albanians," Boge said at
the Macedonian Cultural Center in Sterling Heights. "Why is she getting
pushed out by people who don't belong?"
Suzi Kirovski of Macomb Township has a family in Tetovo, a suburb, including
a father that was robbed and children who are "scared."
"The Kosovar-Albanians have their own country right next to Greece," Kirovski
said. "Why do they want our country?"
Amid the hustle and bustle of Macedonia's boarding buses under rain clouds,
rival parties in Kosovo reached a tentative peace deal late Wednesday night.
The tentative deal came just hours after the government reported 10 soldiers
were killed in a rebel ambush. The deaths may have forced negotiators to act
before the crises deteriorated into all-out civil war, officials told The
Associated Press on Wednesday.
While Macedonian and ethnic Albanian parties pledged to sign the peace
agreement next week, area Macedonians pleaded for peace.
"The U.S. put a lot on the line to help the Albanians in Kosovo," said Louie
Apatnasovski, a Macedonian living in Macomb County, "now they should use
their influence to stop the fighting by Albanians in Macedonia."
Apatnasovski said Albanians are guilty of "terrorism" by forcing people out
of their homes. Apatnasovski said his uncle was forced from his home, and his
home burned.
Pavle Matoski of Sterling Heights said Wednesday night that "terrorists
occupied my sister's home, poured gasoline on it and watched it burn" in a
Tetovo suburb.
"She told me she can't remember her name," Matoski said minutes before
boarding an all-night bus ride to Washington D.C. "She said she's really
scared. She spent three weeks, or months, in a Red Cross hospital."
As crowds swelled Wednesday, flags waved, hats were worn and residents and
former residents of Yugoslavia embraced and talked about relatives.
"The Macedonian Red Cross said there are 46,000 homeless people because of
this," said Vesna Milicevic of Washington Township. "That's 46,000 people."
Nationally, President Bush urged ethnic Albanians in Kosovo earlier this week
to stop sneaking weapons across the border to Macedonia.
Bush also renewed his commitment to the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in
Kosovo. But that news didn't sit well with Macedonians on Wednesday in
Sterling Heights.
"We need peace makers," Matoski continued, "not peace keepers."
Fighting in Kosovo started in February when Macedonia's president declared
that his government would "neutralize and eliminate" ethnic Albanian rebels
unless they surrender.
"It is necessary to neutralize and eliminate extremists," President Boris
Trajkovski said in a statement in March. "It is necessary that the Macedonian
army take control of the Macedonian side of the border."
But rebels say they are fighting for "greater rights" in Macedonia where
ethnic Albanians are outnumbered by Slavs 3-to-1.
The government, meanwhile, claims rebels are linked to fighting across the
border in Kosovo and aim to break off northern Macedonia to form an
independent ethnic Albanian state.
And despite a peace agreement on Wednesday, ethnic Albanian rebels did not
take direct part in the negotiations, so it remains to be seen whether the
agreement will hold or break apart by the fighting that has characterized
previous Balkan wars in the former Yugoslavia.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Click here: The Macomb Daily
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