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NATO Chief Brings Political Message to Macedonia
SKOPJE, Aug 29 (News Agencies) - NATO Secretary General George Robertson told Macedonia's political leaders Wednesday that Albanian soldiers were disarming as promised under a peace agreement and that now they must overcome their doubts and ratify the accord in parliament.
In an address to parliament, Robertson said NATO was well on the way to collecting 3,300 arms within the 30-day time limit, and should have one third of that amount gathered by Friday when the assembly meets again to debate a wider peace agreement.
"The operation has made a successful start and I expect the commander of Task Force Harvest to be in a position to notify President [Boris] Trajkovski that one third of the weapons have been collected, in time for the start of your first parliamentary hearing," he said.
An alliance military spokesman also said Wednesday that the one third of weapons needed to oblige parliament to start ratifying the August 13th framework agreement had been collected.
NATO had pledged to gather all 3,300 weapons from the National Liberation Army (NLA) within 30 days of its mission, which was set up under a peace deal between Macedonian and Muslim Albanian parties.
The voluntary handover program supervised by NATO troops, Operation Essential Harvest, began on Monday and some 750 arms had been gathered by early Wednesday, with one more collection point still to open.
While no figures were available from that point late Wednesday, alliance spokesman Major Barry Johnson said "we are confident we have met our objective for this week."
Robertson also won a vital pledge from Macedonia's hardline interior minister, Ljube Boskovski, that paramilitary groups would not take revenge on rebels once they had surrendered their weapons.
"The minister of the interior has given a very clear commitment that no paramilitary group will be allowed to operate in Macedonia," Robertson told a press conference in Skopje.
Western diplomats in Skopje say that the spread of paramilitary groups is one of the main dangers to the peace process in Macedonia.
On arriving in Macedonia, Robertson visited an army base where Greek soldiers were supervising the weapons. Explosives and ammunition was being blown up at the Krivolak site in central Macedonia, while the arms were due to be transported to northern Greece where they will be destroyed.
"I hope the members of the Macedonian parliament will recognize what you are going to see now, the visible evidence in front of them," Robertson told journalists at the site.
Laid out in rows behind a taped off area nearby were some of the 350 weapons that the National Liberation Army surrendered on Tuesday in the NLA-held northwestern village of Brodec.
Dressed in a charcoal suit in sweltering, dusty conditions, Robertson took off his jacket to inspect two rows of assault rifles, a dozen machineguns and a few small mortars - a portion of the 750 arms handed over since Monday.
"Insurgents are disarming, handing over the weapons and disbanding as well, and I hope they will deliver," Robertson said of the parliamentarians.
The August 13th agreement, designed to stop the conflict between the Macedonian government and the NLA, that began in February and forced more than 100,000 people from their homes, was signed by leaders of two Macedonian and two Muslim Albanian parties.
It calls for providing greater rights to the Muslim Albanian minority, which makes up between a quarter and a third of the population, notably by giving official status to the Albanian language in some areas and bringing more Albanians into the police force.
It also grants an amnesty to most combatants who hand in their arms.
Hardliners in the Macedonian government and some members of parliament remain highly skeptical of the peace accord, suspicious the Albanian soldiers are giving up only a fraction of their arsenal and planning to keep control of a swathe of territory they hold along the borders with Albania and Kosovo.
The constitutional amendments needed to implement the accord need approval of two thirds of parliament's 120 members.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is due in Skopje Thursday to hammer home the same message and Washington has also urged parliament to implement the peace accord.
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