|
Macedonia Forms National Unity Government
SKOPJE, May 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Macedonia's political leaders on Tuesday bridged ethnic and political differences to form a broad national unity government to face down a rebellion by Muslim Albanian rebels, which threatens to tear the Balkan country apart.
The political breakthrough pulled the tiny multi-ethnic state back from the brink of declaring war, a move that would have seen borders sealed and draconion security enforced, and which the West said risked pushing ethnic tensions to breaking point.
But the newborn government, made up of the main ruling Slav Macedonian and ethnic Albanian parties and their two large opposition counterparts, faces an uphill struggle to overcome their divisions and end the insurgency.
As the government announced the new line-up - which will still be headed by Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski - the army continued shelling rebel-held villages in the north near the border with Kosovo and Serbia.
The rebels of the National Liberation Army (NLA) predicted the coalition - which will try to steer the country through the crisis to early elections by next January - would soon rip itself apart.
They also said there would be no ceasefire until they are included in political talks, something President Boris Trajkovski adamantly opposes.
The breakthrough met with immediate international applause, tempered by recognition of the difficulties of holding the unwieldy alliance together.
"This is a very positive step, the international community has been very much in favor of a broad coalition," said Carlo Ungaro, head of the Macedonian mission of the pan-European security body, the OSCE.
"There's a definitive political will on all sides," he said.
"But political will is one thing, reality is another. The stakes are so high that I hope they'll be able to set their differences aside," he cautioned.
At the core of the coalition are the two current government members, Georgievski's center-right VRMO-DPMNE and the main ethnic Albanian party, the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA), headed by Arben Xhaferi.
Together with the Liberal Party, also included in the new front, they have been trying to plot a course of political dialogue backed by military offensives to counter the rebels.
But stepping in from the wings are two more hardline parties, one each from the Macedonian Slav majority and the ethnic Albanian minority.
The Social Democrat Union (SDSM) of former prime minister Branko Crvenkovski, had been calling for a tougher military response to the gunmen, who broke cover last week after a month's uneasy calm to seize several villages near the northern city of Kumanovo.
At the other extreme, the ethnic Albanian Party for Democratic Prosperity (PDP) has been far more outspoken than Xhaferi in its opposition to army bombardments of rebel-held villages.
Until the last minute of negotiations, the PDP was demanding a unilateral government ceasefire as the price for its cooperation.
However, the coalition was announced even as the army continued to lob shells onto the embattled villages of Vaksince and Slupcane, which have been shattered by artillery since the rebels emerged there last week.
Defense ministry spokesman Georgi Trendafilo said the offensive would continue until the gunmen were defeated.
The NLA killed 10 security officers in as many days, provoking anti-Albanian riots, curfews in three major regional cities and pushing Georgievski to up the ante and threaten to declare war.
The leadership backed away from that idea Monday after NATO Secretary General George Robertson and EU foreign policy representative Javier Solana jetted into warn the government not to choose the high-risk strategy.
Robertson pointed to the success made in political dialogue to improve the lots of ethnic Muslim Albanians, despite Albanian accusations that the government was giving away too little too slowly, and popular Macedonian fears that if it yielded an inch the gunmen would only ask for more.
For their part, ethnic Albanian rebels vowed Tuesday there will be no end to their fight with Macedonian troops if they are excluded from political talks, and predicted a short lifespan for the newly formed national unity government.
NLA leaders, speaking as the Macedonian army pounded their positions in Kumanovo, said they were ready for a truce, but only if their seat at the negotiating table is reserved.
"If there's no political dialogue with the NLA, all attempts at political conciliation will be in vain," said Hysni Shaqiri, a former deputy in the main ethnic Albanian party, which is part of the ruling coalition.
"As soon as talks start, the war ends," deputy-turned-rebel Shaqiri said.
"We are ready to declare a ceasefire if direct talks start between our political leaders and the president," said one NLA commander, calling himself Hoxha, whose men have been fighting the army in northern villages since Thursday.
President Trajkovski and the government have resolutely refused to talk to the NLA, which Skopje and most Western governments call a "terrorist" organization.
The rebels also want international mediation for the negotiations, another condition the government has ruled out.
Shaqiri said Trajkovski was trying to form a broad coalition "to spread responsibility for massacres, past or future, between all the parties."
Commander Sokoli, head of the rebel-held zone just a half-hour's drive from the capital, said the newly-minted government would not last long because it has failed to "attack the heart of the problem."
"We are not calling for a change of borders but a change of the constitution," said Shaqiri.
The rebels, and indeed mainstream ethnic Albanian politicians, want the preamble of the constitution changed to upgrade their status from minority to partner nation with the Macedonian Slav majority.
Skopje sees in the proposals a ploy to federalize the country and then for the mainly Albanian north and west to opt out, annexing large chunks to either Albania or the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo.
"That's disinformation, said Commander Hoxha, adding that their fight was solely for Slavs and ethnic Albanian to have equal rights.
But their armed struggle to change the foreword to the document has made them few friends, with the British ambassador to Skopje last week calling their fixation on the constitution "Leninist."
The Albanians say they make up a third of the population of two million, while the authorities, basing their figures on a 1994 census, say it is around a quarter.
As they talk, Commander Sokoli dismantles a sniper rifle, then reassembles the weapon. Other guerrillas use the lull in the five-day army bombardment to clean their guns, chat or have a nap.
Shaqiri, who faces charges of inciting rebellion after calling on his one-time constituents in the nearby village of Lipkovo to follow him into the hills, insists that Skopje is not facing up to the problem.
"They make political gestures to hoodwink the international community into believing they are doing something. But we've had enough, the Albanian question must be resolved," he said.
"One day, [NATO chief George] Robertson and [EU foreign policy supremo Javier] Solana will understand the situation," said Shaqiri, 52.
Robertson and Solana visited Skopje Monday to give their full backing to the Macedonian government. Robertson described the guerrillas as a "bunch of murderers in the mountains" threatening Macedonia's democratic institutions.
|
