From: "Miroslav Antic" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Macedonians Attack U.S. Embassy Stone-Throwing Crowd Dispersed; Fighting in Major City Threatens Cease-Fire By John Ward Anderson Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, July 25, 2001; Page A16 SKOPJE, Macedonia, July 24 -- Hundreds of Macedonians, angry at what they call Western appeasement of ethnic Albanian rebels, attacked the U.S. Embassy and other Western missions and businesses here tonight. The violence occurred as fighting between rebels and government forces surged again in and around a major city west of the capital. About 200 protesters approached the U.S. Embassy around 11 p.m. throwing stones that broke a few windows, an embassy spokeswoman said. She added that government security forces dispersed the crowd without injuries. As a precaution, the U.S. government ordered evacuation of family members and some embassy personnel and urged U.S. citizens to curtail travel to Macedonia. The British and German missions, as well as a McDonald's restaurant and the office of British Airways, were hit in similar attacks. Cars were torched at the offices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). A military barracks in the ethnic Albanian-majority Tetovo city west of the capital was also attacked. The fighting threatened to sweep away entirely a fragile cease-fire that went into effect July 5. Many analysts said it was all that was keeping the country from descending into full-scale warfare between the minority ethnic Albanians and majority Macedonians. The Reuters news agency quoted a rebel commander as saying his forces might try to seize Tetovo. That would be a major escalation in the five-month conflict, which has taken place mostly in rural areas. International observers said that contrary to initial reports of two dead and about 30 wounded in battles Sunday and Monday, as many as 30 people were killed in the first two days' fighting. In Tearce, about eight miles north of Tetovo, ethnic Albanian rebels held four OSCE officials hostage for more than three hours, and demanded that the International Committee of the Red Cross treat wounded rebels as a condition of releasing the hostages. They were later freed, sources said. The observers said the rebels were also preventing a convoy of vehicles with Macedonian residents from leaving the village. During the cease-fire, political talks aimed at fashioning a package of political, economic and cultural reforms to enhance the rights of ethnic Albanians, who Western official say make up about a third of the country's population, became deadlocked over a proposal to make Albanian a second official language. Government officials are particularly angry that the rebels have used the 19-day-old cease-fire, which was brokered by NATO, to reinforce their military positions and expand the area under their control. "If the terrorists do not withdraw to their positions of July 5, we will have no option left but an offensive by Macedonian security forces to restore the previous situation," Defense Minister Vlado Buckovski said Monday. Today, the government's chief spokesman, Antonio Milosovski, accused NATO countries of directing the ethnic Albanian rebel group with the goal of making Macedonia an international protectorate. "NATO is not our enemy, but it is a great friend of our enemies who are attacking the future of our country," he told Reuters. Western diplomats denied the allegation. "There is an atmosphere of paranoia and nationalistic hysteria in some circles of the leadership," one diplomat said. "Negotiating a settlement in this type of extreme and intense political and security environment is not feasible. The environment is too hostile." "The government spokesman is screaming about NATO and OSCE aiding their enemies," he added. "It's very ominous." Foreign officials said emotions were being fired up by erroneous media reports that NATO helicopters from the neighboring Serbian province of Kosovo, which allied troops patrol on a peacekeeping mission, were resupplying rebel units in Macedonia. Another report said an OSCE vehicle had fired on a Macedonian police post. Western officials denied the reports, but they apparently are accepted by many Macedonians. Tetovo and Skopje were calm early in the day, bringing some hope that international mediators could restore the cease-fire and lure political leaders back to negotiations that have been stalled since last Wednesday, when the ethnic Albanian representatives walked out. But heavy gunfire erupted in the city later in the day. In the early afternoon, a group of about 150 Macedonians launched a protest outside the parliament building in Skopje, complaining that the government had not responded when ethnic Albanian rebels had forced them from their homes in villages outside of Tetovo. The protest quickly became violent. Later, other groups attacked Western targets in the capital. C 2001 The Washington Post Company _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
