New Macedonian Slav Demands Rock Peace Talks

09/04/2001| IslamWeb

OHRID, Macedonia (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Western mediators meet Macedonian leaders on Tuesday to try to persuade them to drop a demand for guarantees of full ethnic Albanian guerrilla disarmament that could derail a delicate peace process. (Read photo caption below).The Macedonians sprung the demand on some mediators during talks on Monday that had been expected to wrap up an accord granting the ethnic Albanian minority greater rights to undercut support for a five-month-old uprising.
NATO has offered to send a force of up to 3,500 troops to collect weapons from the Albanian fighters, who do not want to hand them to the Macedonian security forces.
But NATO says it will not disarm the fighters by force, fearing possible reprisals both on its troops in Macedonia and its peacekeeping force in neighboring mainly Albanian Kosovo.
President Boris Trajkovski chaired a security council meeting with senior cabinet ministers from the Macedonian side on Monday night in the lakeside villa in Ohrid, where the talks are being held, to discuss how far to push the demand.
``If there is no full disarmament, the security council expects NATO to take urgent steps for complete disarmament,'' said a statement issued by the council after the session ended.
The statement made an oblique reference to a clause in the agreement in which the Macedonian side pledges to get it approved by parliament, along with any constitutional changes required to implement it, within 45 days of signing.
But it was not clear if the statement was conditioning the retention of that clause on full Albanian disarmament. Diplomats say this will be all but impossible to verify, let alone implement, since fighters could simply conceal their weapons in remote places.
ALBANIAN FIGHTERS WANT TO SEE RIGHTS IMPROVED FIRST
The Albanian fighters, who are not at the talks, insisted they wanted to see concrete improvements in rights of Albanians, who make up about a third of the population, before giving up their arms.
``The percentage of implementation achieved will decide the percentage of disarmament. This is happening because of our distrust of the Macedonian side and not because we want to keep our weapons,'' an Albanian commander code named Djini told Reuters.
Envoys from the United States, European Union and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have been in Ohrid for more than a week trying to nail down the political agreement.
Before Monday's setback over disarmament they scored breakthroughs on the most contentious issues, first by persuading the two sides to agree on greater use of the Albanian language in the former Yugoslav republic.
The second main issue, agreed on Sunday, was the integration into the police of more ethnic Albanians, who currently make up only about six percent of the force.
A resolution of other disputes, including a quota for ethnic minority deputies in votes on constitutional amendments, the wording of the preamble to the constitution and the status of a so-far unrecognized ethnic Albanian university in Macedonia, had not been expected to take more than a day or two.
Diplomats say disarmament is a completely separate issue being dealt with in military talks brokered by other Western envoys indirectly with the National Liberation Army fighters.
The NLA had been expected to start disarming once an agreement was signed and an amnesty declared by the Macedonian government.
The Macedonian bid to mix the political and military tracks, diplomats say, could knock the whole process off track or at the very least encourage the Albanian negotiators at the Ohrid talks to try to reopen issues upon which agreement already exists.
With daily violations of a cease-fire reinstated late last month, time is short if Macedonia is to avoid slipping into civil war. ``We're not trying to impose a solution,'' said one Western source. ``But these talks can't go on forever.''
PHOTO CAPTION:
European Commissioner Javier Solana (R) meets with Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski in the town of Ohrid, west from Skopje, August 5, 2001. Macedonia's politicians resumed talks on August 6 to try to finalize a peace plan to defuse the five-month ethnic Albanian rebellion. (Oleg Popov/Reuters)