[Via... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . . ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2001 1:44 AM Subject: Macedonia: Capital Under Siege As KLA Advances [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Get a low APR NextCard Visa in 30 seconds! 1. Fill in the brief application 2. Receive approval decision within 30 seconds 3. Get rates as low as 2.99% Intro or 9.99% Ongoing APR and no annual fee! Apply NOW! http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/NextCard ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "Everyone is scared. The terrorists can fire at us any time...." [To Western press operatives]: "Just turn around and get out. We have nothing to say to you." "The Albanians are sending their women and children away...This is a bad sign for us. It means the NLA are coming." "I don't feel a lack of rights. All I'm feeling is poverty." Tuesday June 12, 9:52 PM Albanian rebel advance sends shockwave through capital STAJKOVCI, Macedonia, June 12 (AFP) - Macedonians in the village of Stajkovci, on the edge of Skopje, are scared. Four days ago they saw ethnic Albanian guerrillas walk into a neighbouring village and seize control without firing a shot. They don't trust outsiders now. "Everyone is scared. The terrorists can fire at us any time from Aracinovo," said one man, pointing across the summer fields to the small town which suddenly became the front line Friday after the self-proclaimed National Liberation Army arrived on the very doorstep of the capital. On Monday, interior ministry spokesman Stevo Pendarovski said the Slav Macedonians who make up the population of Stajkovci, less than a kilomtre (half a mile) from Skopje, had tried to form an armed group to defend their village from a possible rebel advance. Police stopped them, and villagers refused to talk about the incident to journalists, accusing them and the West in general of being pro-Albanian. A group of residents outside the village shop melts away, while one young man -- clearly as scared as he was angry -- remonstrated with the press. "Just turn around and get out," he shouted. "We have nothing to say to you." He warned the one villager prepared to talk that his words "will only be distorted." Macedonian Slavs fear that their plight is being overshadowed by the stream of ethnic Albanian refugees streaming over the border -- almost 20,000 in four days -- to seek refugee in Kosovo. "The Albanians are sending their women and children away from Singjelic," said the villager, nodding at a village only a couple of hundred metres from Stajkovci. "This is a bad sign for us. It means the NLA are coming." In Singjelic, Albanian villagers accuse the Macedonian police of harassment and maltreatment. Any inter-community trust has evaporated as tensions skyrocket. The Albanians are fleeing to Kosovo, from where around 300,000 Albanians fled to Macedonian from Serbian repression two years ago. They fear the rebel advance heralds more fighting with the army, struggling to contain the insurrection. In the centre of the capital, the proximity of the gunmen and their threat to bombard the city has sent a shockwave through the city. Prices are going up and demand for hard currency has pushed the exchange rate of the German mark -- the unofficial parallel currency -- from 31 to 35 dinars in just a few days. There are press reports of panic buying of petrol, flour and oil, and people in the centre say they are frightened. "It's only to be expected that people are scared," said Blagoja, a 65-year-old Macedonian pensioner who says he doesn't have the money to do any panic buying. He blamed the mounting crisis on a decade of war in former Yugoslavia and the West's failure to bail out Macedonia's weak economy when it was flooded with Kosovo refugees two years ago. "This will last a long time. It won't be easy to get out of," he says. "It's the people who are suffering, both Albanians and Macedonians." Across the Vardar river in the Albanian-dominated old town, support for the rebels' armed struggling is in short supply among a population already struggling to cope in a moribund economy. "Most of the vegetables for the market came through Aracinovo. Now that it's blocked off, prices have shot up in the market here," said Nedjat Ukshini, a 61-year-old shopkeeper. The cobbled street of small clothes shops, ironmongers and barbershops, overlooked by a mosque, is a mishmash of Albanians, Macedonian Slavs, Roma gypsies and Turks. The shopkeepers said the guerrillas should down their weapons and seek a political solution. "We don't support people with weapons at all. We don't have any problems with the Macedonians. We drink coffee with them in the cafes. The army should pull out and the rebels down their arms. Nobody wants a war," said Albanian barber Tasim Husseim, 45. Only one group of young Albanian men selling black market cigarettes, set out on cardboard boxes, supported the fighters. "You think we want to be doing this?" said one vendor, aged 22, who hastily hid his wares as two Macedonian inspectors drove past. "Sure we have a lack of rights. I'll join the rebels if it comes to it. They'll fight to the last man. But Reshat, a 45-year-old Albanian car mechanic, said the problem was economic rather political: "I don't feel a lack a rights. All I'm feeling is poverty." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! 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