STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- As the Western press services continue to parrot the KLA/NLA line that their unprovoked war is an alleged civil rights struggle. I'm certain that the shades of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King would revolt at the thought that funding an ethnically-based insurgency with the proceeds of Europe's largest narcotics and sex slave trades constituted a 'civil rights movement.' But for NATO, and their unofficial auxilliaries in ICG, IWPR, HRW, etc., this line evidently works well for uninformed domestic audiences, as it did in Kosovo earlier. "So far the international community has not succeeded in convincing the government in Skopje...." Bush. But it will, if it has to call out the air force again. NATO to push Macedonia for solution CNN News June 12, 2001 Posted: 2244 GMT The fragile cease-fire has been broken by the rebels attacking troops BRUSSELS, Belgium -- NATO leaders are expected to push Macedonia for political reforms to end an ethnic Albanian uprising, officials say. Leaders of NATO's 19 member states will hold a one-day meeting on Wednesday, convened for President George W. Bush's inaugural visit to Europe. "So far the international community has not succeeded in convincing the government in Skopje to speed up the political process, because we feel if the process is not sped up then the chances for the NLA (National Liberation Army) to lay down their weapons and accept the usefulness of political dialogue will not be there," the official told reporters. Arrangements for voluntary disarmament of the NLA must be made, plus rapid progress made on giving Albanians and their language formal status in the Macedonian constitution, he said. "I'm quite sure that this will figure high on the agenda tomorrow," the official said. The meeting comes as a fragile cease-fire holds between the rebels and Macedonian troops -- although Reuters reported that the rebels had said they were within range of the capital Skopje, and its international airport. The NLA says it took up arms to win equal rights for a one-third Albanian minority who are treated as second-class citizens by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia's majority Slavs. The NATO push continues its three-month effort -- with the European Union -- to broker a political solution to the conflict, which threatens to spread from northern border areas into urban centres, igniting a civil war. Macedonian political leaders were due to have further talks at Lake Ohrid in the south of the republic at the weekend, with NATO and European Union representatives present. NATO has 40,000 peacekeeping troops in neighbouring Kosovo who rely on logistics bases in Macedonia close to the scene of recent fighting. The rebels said they would extend the ceasefire beyond a noon GMT Tuesday deadline, provided the army held fire to allow the first major relief convoy access to a hillside battle zone scarred by five weeks of almost continuous fighting. The truce had already been broken by an overnight ambush on a police patrol. A rebel commander codenamed Shpati told Reuters his men were acting in self-defence when they fired machineguns at policemen returning to the northwestern city of Tetovo after dark, wounding six. They would do so again if threatened, he added. "From our side we will respect the ceasefire," he said by telephone. "But this doesn't mean we won't defend ourselves." The army said it was holding fire after the new attack. "During the night and until now, everything is calm," army spokesman Blagoja Markovski said. The mayor of Lipkovo, Hysamedin Halili, said 20,000 people were stuck in his village and were in dire need of outside help. Meanwhile, Macedonia blocked an aid convoy from reaching rebel-held villages on Tuesday, refusing to give in to rebels demands for journalists to witness the reconnection of water to a nearby town, Reuters said. Labour Minister Bedredin Ibrahimi said the presence of journalists in the convoy, demanded by the rebels to verify they had not cut off the water supply, meant it was being turned back after a seven-hour wait at a checkpoint in sweltering heat. "The Macedonian government will not allow the convoy to pass because of the journalists," he told reporters on the road to the battle zone from Kumanovo, whose supply of water from a reservoir behind rebel lines has been cut off for a week. The 26-truck aid convoy, stacked with basic foodstuffs and medical supplies from local and international agencies, was also turned away on Monday. It waited for five hours after Macedonia called a surprise ceasefire, later matched by the rebels. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
