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Macedonia Ignores NATO Warning and Steps Up Attacks
NEAR ARACINOVO, Macedonia, June 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Macedonian army stepped up its attacks Saturday for a second day on Albanian activists, tearing up an 11-day truce in a risky bid for the upper hand in stalled peace talks, ignoring a warning from NATO chief George Robertson that ditching a fragile truce was "madness."
As EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana jetted in from Israel to push for a last-chance peace deal, the town of Aracinovo, on the edge of the capital Skopje, could be seen burning less than 10 kilometers (six miles) away from the airport across fields of wheat.
Helicopter gunships, tanks, heavy artillery and machineguns fired into the center of Aracinovo for a second day in the most concentrated attack on the activists since the army drove them from the edge of Tetovo in the northwest in March.
The sudden attack started Friday after talks between Macedonian Slav and Muslim Albanian partners in the emergency coalition collapsed and the army tore up a fragile two-week ceasefire with the activists.
Tanks were seen firing down from the hills above.
Thick smoke rose from across Aracinovo Saturday as rockets from Ukrainian-made Mi-24 helicopters slammed into the town held by the Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) since June 8.
The NLA, which is fighting for more rights for Albanians who represent about one-third of Macedonia's two million people, started its campaign in February in the northern mountains of Macedonia, using the UN-run Yugoslav province of Kosovo as a rear-base.
Commander Hoxha, leader of the Albanian forces in the town, said early Saturday that his men had repulsed an army sally into the edges of Aracinovo late Friday.
"They tried to enter the town and got a little way in, but ran into a trap we had set. We burned four or five of them and they ran away," said Hoxha, who threatened Friday to mortar bomb Skopje - just a few kilometers (miles) away - if the attack did not stop.
Hoxha said that three civilians were killed, and 18 injured, including one fighter, adding that his men had killed five police officers.
Naser Ziberi of the Party for Democratic Prosperity - one of two Albanian parties in the coalition - said the military operation must stop, hinting his party could quit the national emergency government otherwise.
The surprise attack at dawn Friday ended a two-week ceasefire, which both sides had been observing during talks by Slav and Albanian political leaders to hammer out reforms addressing Albanian complaints of discrimination.
President Boris Trajkovski said the talks had foundered on Albanian demands for a bi-national federal state, divided along ethnic lines, but both sides said later they were hopeful the dialogue could continue, although Albanians said the fighting must stop.
Meanwhile, Western powers, anxious to broker a deal before the conflict spirals into a civil war, denounced the attack as "complete folly" in a strongly worded statement by NATO Secretary-General George Robertson on behalf of the alliance.
"There is no military solution to this crisis and over-reactions at this moment simply deepen already critical divisions," he said, demanding that the "madness" stop.
The Atlantic alliance has promised to send in some 3,000 troops to help implement Trajkovski's partial amnesty and activists' disarmament plan, but only if a peace plan and ceasefire deal are reached first.
The Albanian activists, who are demanding a seat in the talks despite persistent refusal of the Macedonians, have yet to respond to the amnesty plan, which would not extend to their leaders.
Russian paratroopers are "ready" to enter Macedonia to help disarm Albanian activists if the order is given, the commander in chief of Russia's airborne forces said, news agencies reported.
However, he stressed that Albanian activists in neighboring Kosovo - who Russia maintains are behind the spreading violence in Macedonia and southern Serbia - had to be fully disarmed before any operation in Macedonia could begin.
But earlier on Saturday, Russia raised a question mark over NATO plans to disarm the activists in Macedonia, saying that the fighters will not give up their arms voluntarily.
"NATO is willing to act only in zero risk conditions. It remains to be seen whether this can be achieved in the context of the Balkans," a statement said.
"As for plans for a 'voluntary' disarmament of Albanian combatants, the entire world has already taken note of what happened to the so-called demilitarization of the Kosovo Liberation Army," the statement added.
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