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Skopje Under Pressure To Keep Truce
SKOPJE, May 16 (News Agencies) - The international community on Wednesday urged Macedonia's new government of national unity to back down from a threat to launch an all out assault on Muslim Albanian rebels if they do not surrender.
On Tuesday the multi-ethnic coalition, set up to deal with the rebellion, demanded the rebels lay down their arms by midday (1000 GMT) Thursday or face attack.
But senior EU officials, fearing that civilian casualties in Albanian-populated villages held by the rebels would drive Albanian parties out of the new coalition, jetted into Skopje Wednesday to urge caution.
"We think the new coalition government gives a key message that the armed extremists and thugs that are trying to destroy the country are isolated. The NLA [guerrillas] must withdraw," said Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh.
"Of course the new government now has a heavy responsibility to ensure that the military response will be proportional," she added, after she and EU External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten had met Macedonian leaders.
A western diplomat based in Skopje said that foreign representatives were urging the government to forget the deadline, which has increased fears about the fate of more than 1,000 civilians trapped in frontline villages.
Aside from the risks to the civilians, who have been sheltering in cellars since Macedonian army tanks, helicopters and artillery started battering rebel positions on May 3rd, any renewed assault would have political fall-out.
Arben Xhaferi, leader of Macedonia's largest Albanian party, said Wednesday: "I'm against this deadline. Flexing your muscles will do no good."
"If they are casualties among the civilians, it will be very difficult to continue this coalition," he warned, "We must be conscious that the civilians are not guilty, they are victims."
But Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski said Skopje "will not allow the terrorists to win."
He insisted that the government forces have been ordered to avoid any risk to civilians, but warned that the troops would "deal decisively" with the guerrillas.
"We will not allow violent and undemocratic forces to act freely, to occupy territories and to govern them," Trajkovski said in a statement issued by his office.
"There is no need of violence and [it] is time the extremists to lay down the weapons. All citizens can be represented through the new coalition," he said.
The unity coalition was formed over the weekend by the two main parties representing Macedonians and two main ethnic Albanian groups in a bid to present a united front to the rebels and prevent rebels from exploiting ethnic tensions.
Were it to collapse, or lose its Albanian component, it would be seen as a disaster for the fragile ex-Yugoslav republic, which both local and international leaders have said is on the brink of civil war.
Radmila Severinska, vice-president of the mainly-Slav Social Democratic Union, said last minute talks were underway to find a solution to the crisis.
"That is being talked about both in the cabinet and the presidency. Their attempts will be to solve this by other means. They are trying to get the majority of the local population out of the area," she said.
Severinska's party is in favor of military action against the rebels, but she said the civilians must be protected.
She warned, however, that if the government let the deadline pass without some kind of action, it would appear weak.
The most fundamental disagreements between the two government partners are over whether to open talks with the rebels.
Xhaferi told AFP: "We must have some kind of communication with them, because they are actors in this crisis."
But Severinska said her party remained firmly opposed to this: "Then we would have lost everything, because then there is no politics, it will be seen that violence works."
Sporadic shelling and shooting erupted again Wednesday, with both sides blaming each other for provoking the fighting.
The rebels, led by former commanders from the Kosovo Liberation Army, say they fighting for the rights of Macedonia's Muslim Albanian minority.
The government has branded them "terrorists" bent on destabilizing the state, and Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski angered Albanian leaders even as they agreed to join his coalition by calling the rebels "a cruel enemy who must be crushed."
Two weeks ago, a strong rebel force fighting under the name of the National Liberation Army (NLA) took control of a 400-square-kilometer (150-square-mile) swathe of territory, including a dozen villages, in hills just north of Skopje.
More than 1,000 civilians are thought to be trapped in the five villages closest to the fighting, and Red Cross officials say conditions in the overcrowded cellars in which they are sheltering are deteriorating.
Trajkovski appealed for civilians "to leave the zone of conflicts," promising the move would be "only temporary."
"Your security is our primary concern," Trajkovski said.
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