Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- [As an interesting exercise, flash back three years in your minds and imagine the position that the UN Security Council could have - and but for heavy-handed US and Western European manipulation would have - taken on Kosovo.] Monday August 13 7:19 PM ET UN Council Condemns Extremists in Macedonia By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council welcomed on Monday the signing of a peace agreement in Macedonia aimed at ending a guerrilla uprising and told ethnic Albanian leaders to condemn ongoing violence publicly. ``The council condemns the ongoing violence by extremists and calls on all parties to respect the cease-fire,'' said a statement read at a formal meeting and endorsed by all 15 council members. ``The council calls on all concerned, including leaders of Ethnic Albanian communities in the region, publicly to condemn violence and ethnic intolerance and use their influence to secure peace,'' the statement said. The Macedonian government and minority ethnic Albanian political leaders on Monday formally endorsed the agreement, which would give the Albanians a larger share of power in police, parliament and grant state funding for Albanian higher education. It paves the way for NATO to send in 3,500 troops to disarm the rebels, who must vacate land they have occupied and hand over their weapons to alliance soldiers. But NATO will not deploy until a durable cease-fire is in place. The Security Council welcomed the signing of the pact and called for its ``full and immediate implementation.'' ``It reiterates its call to all who have contact with extremist groups to make clear to them that they have to support from many quarter in the international community,'' said the statement, read by the council's current president, Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso of Colombia. In a separate statement, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also welcomed the agreement and said the only solution to the crisis was a political one. ``The use of violence by any party to undermine the agreement, or to seek further political gains, would be absolutely unacceptable,'' he said. Macedonia's precarious equilibrium unraveled when a guerrilla army, many of them veterans of the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict, rose up in February on behalf of the disgruntled Macedonian Albanian minority. About 20 Macedonians have died in rebel ambushes since August 7 and the Albanian guerrillas have accused the Macedonian army of indiscriminately shelling and bombing rural communities. In a letter to Annan, shortly before the meeting began, Macedonia's president, Boris Trajkovski, called again for the for tight border monitoring by NATO-led troops in Kosovo to prevent ``infiltration of armed terrorist groups and logistics support'' over the border. The United Nations is leading the civilian administration of Kosovo, a Yugoslav province. . __________________________________________________ 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 ==^================================================================
