From: Rick Rozoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2001 1:44 PM Subject: Macedonian Refugees Block NATO Route From Kosovo Every one of the protesters on the road Saturday, sweltering in the blistering heat around their makeshift barricades, was convinced that the West, and the United States in particular, is supporting the rebels. Sunday August 19, 12:18 AM Macedonian refugees block route to "NATO aggressors" BLACE, Macedonia, Aug 18 (AFP) - Macedonian anger at perceived pro-Albanian bias in the West's response to fighting in their country boiled over Saturday on the Kosovo border, where protesters blocked a major NATO supply route. More than 60 Macedonians, many of them refugees driven from their homes by ethnic Albanian rebels, rolled barbed wire across the main road from Skopje to the Blace border crossing and stopped NATO and international traffic. "We have blocked the communication route of the NATO aggressors who are smuggling drugs and weapons to the Albanian terrorists," said Gjeorgji Petrovski, a 39-year-old mechanic from Skopje. Small numbers of Macedonian police looked on as the protesters filtered the traffic, turning back two armour-plated British military staff cars from Kosovo's NATO peacekeeping force and vehicles carrying OSCE monitors. The mood was angry, but not violent, although one Macedonian who attempted to pass the barricades driving a van marked with diplomatic plates had his identity papers snatched and thrown into a ditch. While most of the protesters were young or middle-aged men, a busload of women and children from displaced families joined them in the early afternoon. The protesters arrived at around midnight Friday and the road was still blocked at 4:00 pm Saturday, with many protesters vowing to remain in place until the NATO troops arriving at the weekend left the country. The protest was organised by the World Macedonian Congress, a nationalist organisation representing mainly Macedonian emigres, and the coordination committee for civilians driven from their homes by fighting. Congress president Todor Petrov, who arrived escorted by three uniformed men carrying assault rifles, said: "The protest is to make sure the Macedonian people's voice is heard". He said he had presented NATO with a list of demands and that the road would remain blocked until the alliance forced ethnic Albanian rebels to free the Macedonians he said they had kidnapped and give up captured land. The road is the main supply route for NATO's peacekeeping force in Kosovo, and previous occasions when the Macedonian government has closed it have caused serious disruption for the province's international administration. NATO's spokesman in Macedonia, US Major Barry Johnson, said: "We use the crossing very heavily, but it has been closed before and it will no doubt be closed again. We use other routes when we have to." But the blocking of the route is more important for the signal it sends the NATO commanders who arrived in Macedonia on Friday to take the temperature of the conflict before advising on the deployment of a larger force. Many Macedonians oppose concessions made to ethnic Albanians in a peace deal signed on Monday by party leaders, and Western diplomats suspect hardline politicians of manipulating protests to maintain pressure on the West. Every one of the protesters on the road Saturday, sweltering in the blistering heat around their makeshift barricades, were convinced that the West, and the United States in particular, is supporting the rebels. The location of their protest also had a symbolic importance. Gesturing at a wide, dusty stretch of parched farmland beyond the road, a middle-aged protester, shows where in 1999 tens of thousands of Kosovo Albanian refugees were housed in the Stenkovec refugee camp. "When all those people came here during the Kosovo crisis we helped them. Now look what they are doing to us," he said. The protesters were also furious with their own government for signing off on the peace deal, many accusing their leaders of being bought off by Albanian and US money. "All the moves made by the government are against the Macedonian people and the state," Petrovski said. _________________________________________________ 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] __________________________________________________
