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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [This is how wars begin: The New York Pizza Mafia buys off congressmen - DioGuardi, Engel, etc. - and senators, Robert Dole most notably - and they in turn pull strings with other lobbies, public relations firms, media contacts and fellow politicians and, voila, cruise missiles are slamming into Belgrade. And of course the lobbyists' public relations consultants write all the right speeches for the heads of state and foreign ministers to read, full of pious pronouncements about human rights, etc. But no sensible person is expected to take them seriously.] Wednesday June 20, 12:29 AM Powell assures Albanian-Americans of US engagement in Macedonia WASHINGTON, June 19 (AFP) - Representatives of the Albanian-American community said Tuesday that Secretary of State Colin Powell had assured them the United States would remain deeply engaged in efforts to equitably resolve the current unrest in Macedonia. Powell "said that the United States would remain engaged and would continue to press the Macedonian government to deal with the problems" of the ethnic Albanian community there, according to Representative Eliot Engel. Engel, co-chair of the House of Representatives Albanian Issues Caucus, called on the secretary to step up Washington's insistance that Skopje deal with them. "The fact is that there has been nothing but talk on the part of the Macedonian government in ten years and very little action," Engel told reporters after meeting with Powell at the State Department. Disparate government treatment of ethnic Albanians compared to that of Macedonia's majority-Slav population has fueled Albanian resentment and sparked a now four-month-old insurgency by the National Liberation Army (NLA). Negotiations have been underway since last week between the leaders of the country's four main parties -- two Macedonian and two Albanian -- to find a political solution to the insurgency, but no result has been reported so far. The rebels are demanding wide-ranging concessions, including a constitutional change to name them as an equal community with the Slav majority. Washington is backing Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski's peace plan which calls for political reform to ease the concerns of ethnic Albanians. Engel said there was no way to end the insurgency unless those concerns were addressed. "If the government of Macedonia dealt with the Albanian concerns, the insurgency would dry up," Engel said, adding that a way should be found to bring the NLA into the political dialogue. Trajkovski, backed by the United States and the European Union, has refused outright to include the rebels in the process but Engel said such a position was "unrealistic." "If you're going to get the rebels to put down their arms then ... you have to involve them in the political process," he said. Ilirjan Rusi, the president of National Albanian-American Council, agreed and said his group would like to see Washington demand sweeping political reforms from Skopje. "In our view, Macedonia is one nation of two people and it ought to reflect that reality," Rusi said. Rusi, Engel and others in their delegation also expressed to Powell their concern about a Russian role in resolving the disputes which has been discussed by Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin. They noted Moscow's past support for Slavs in the Balkans, notably in Yugoslavia where it supported former president Slobodan Milosevic during his campaign against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. "Whenever we hear the words 'Russia' and 'the Balkans' in the same sentence it makes us very nervous," Rusi said. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
