STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [Starring George Robertson as Madeleine Albright and new matinee idol Arben Xhaferi in the dual role of Ibrahim Rugova/Hashim Thaci. Robertson/Albright pontificates about "how close the country is to civil war at the moment," when the rest of the world will be forgiven for thinking it's already several months into one. Curious concept of "devolution" Robertson is thrusting on Macedonia. Why has he never suggested a comparable agreement for the Scots and Welsh in his native United Kingdom, which as its very name indicates is at least a tri-national, tri-lingual entity? I'm sure that the Commonwealth of Independent States or the Shanghai Five could be persuaded to deploy a few thousand peacekeepers to the British Isles to insure peace and stabiity. And as for Northern Ireland, 50,000 IFOR troops seem in order...but only after the English occupation forces have been bombed into departing and London-controlled paramilitaries have been disarmed.] Thursday June 21, 2:21 AM Macedonian peace talks collapse as NATO warns of civil war SKOPJE, June 20 (AFP) - Macedonian peace talks collapsed on Wednesday amid mutual recriminations by Slav and ethnic Albanian leaders, as NATO chief George Robertson warned the multi-ethnic Balkan state was on the brink of civil war. The failure of five days of lacklustre peace talks to thrash out a package of reforms giving the large Albanian minority greater rights also blocked a NATO decision to deploy troops to help disarm ethnic Albanian guerrillas, who have been waging a tenacious campaign in the north for four months. NATO said its member states were willing to send in around 3,000 soldiers to set up collection points for rebel weapons under a partial amnesty proposal, but only if the precarious multi-ethnic government coalition first cut a political deal on reforms. Those plans appeared to have been dashed after President Boris Trajkovski accused ethnic Albanian leaders of trying to install a "bi-national" federal state, which the Macedonian Slav majority fear would pave the way to a carve-up of the country along ethnic lines. Trajkovski said the Albanian parties had "dramatically" changed their position, rejecting his concept of Macedonian as a civic society made up of individual citizens and insisting on a state of two constituent nations, Macedonian Slav and ethnic Albanian. But the head of the Democratic Party of Albanians, Arben Xhaferi, immediately hit back, saying Trajkovski was trying to demonise ethnic Albanians and "create a climate of paranoia." He said the Albanians wanted to drop completely a controversial preamble to the constitution which at present declares the former Yugoslav republic to be a "state of Macedonians." The dominant Slav parties want the document to say the multi-ethnic state is a "state of citizens," but Xhaferi said the Macedonian leader was "proposing a civic state to override Albanian demands, that a citizen of Macedonia is a Macedonian." "Macedonia is a multi-ethnic society, and the state must reflect the character of society," said Xhaferi. The drawn-out wrangling over the document had been accompanied by a ceasefire by both the self-styled National Liberation Army (NLA), who occupy several northern villages and a town on the edge of Skopje, and the Macedonian security forces, although daily shooting has punctured the truce. Trajkovski has offered an amnesty to Macedonian-born NLA gunmen if they hand over their weapons to a potential NATO force, but not to their leaders, most of whom he says are trouble-makers from the breakaway Yugoslav province of Kosovo, under UN administration since NATO bombed Serb troops out in 1999. In a sign that tempers were becoming frayed in the fractious coalition, Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski on Wednesday stormed out of a civil coordinating committee overseeing military aspects of the peace plan. He said the committee was too soft on the rebels and too much in the thrall of the international community. Instead he stressed the need for "energetic decisions and for the restoration of peace by our own forces, without the help of the international community." Macedonia's under-equipped forces received a major boost Thursday with the delivery of four Ukrainian Mi-24 attack helicopters and four SU-25 warplanes capable of low-level operations against a ground target. As tensions mounted after a week of relative calm, NATO Secretary General George Robertson urged all parties to return to the negotiating table, saying they all "know how close to civil war the country is at the moment." EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was to head for Skopje Friday to give a push to talks, while Xhaferi said Trajkovski had invited him to the parliament later Thursday, although he said he did not know why. Western diplomats said leaders from the various parties could meet later under the aegis of ambassadors from NATO countries to try and breathe life back into the dialogue. The NLA has so far been excluded from the talks. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
