|
Macedonian Parliament Approves National Unity Government
SKOPJE, May 13 (News Agencies) - The Macedonian parliament on Sunday voted with a large majority to approve a government of national unity set up to oppose an uprising by Muslim Albanian rebels.
Before the vote, Georgievski earlier on Sunday had urged parliament to approve his proposed national unity government and grab what one party leader described as "the last and only hope" of avoiding civil war.
"Our state is in danger, so all of us should be united," Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski said, unveiling a government that includes ministers from both Macedonia's Slav majority and Muslim Albanian minority.
Georgievski's proposed ministerial line-up will try to stop the violence radicalizing the rival communities and provoking another round of Balkans bloodletting.
Georgievski's speech introducing the government was hard-hitting, branding the rebels a "cruel enemy that has to be crushed".
"Macedonia is faced with well-organized forces who were trained outside of our country and are attacking our legitimate state, hiding behind a banner of human rights but wanting to create chaos and terror," he told MPs.
Macedonian artillery was silent Sunday as the finishing touches were put to the government, as troops and rebels maintained a tense stand-off on hills north of the capital.
In Skopje, political leaders said a lot of tough-talking would have to be done inside the new government to thrash out a reform program to alleviate ethnic tensions, but said the unity government was Macedonia's best hope.
"The hard times are just starting," said Radmila Severinska, vice-president of the mainly Macedonian Slav party the Social Democratic Union, "We can't allow ourselves the luxury of being pessimists in this situation."
"This is the last and the only hope, political mechanisms are the only option," Arben Xhaferi, leader of the Democratic Party of Albanians, told AFP.
Negotiations to agree on the government were difficult, despite massive pressure from the international community for the parties to fall into line, and on Sunday disagreements remained over how to deal with the rebels.
Muhamed Halili, secretary general of the ethnic Albanian Party for Democratic Prosperity (PDP), said that he was "not very optimistic" about the future of the government his party was about to join.
"I think it's our last hope, we have to try," he said. Asked whether discussions should be opened with the rebels of the National Liberation Army (NLA), he replied: "The problem cannot be solved without them."
Georgievski formed the government in a bid to isolate the NLA rebels who burst onto the scene in March and have since seized a string of villages in the north of Macedonia and killed at least 10 troops and police.
Under pressure from NATO and the European Union to pull his country back from the brink of civil war, he agreed to begin "intense political dialogue" with elected parties on reforms to improve inter-ethnic relations.
But the government has consistently rejected calls for direct talks with the rebels, which it brands "terrorists". The Macedonian army has been bombarding rebel-held villages in the north of the country for 10 days.
On Saturday, army officers spoke of killing "several" rebels in the bombardment, and defense ministry spokesman Georgi Trendafilov said that tank and artillery shells had "destroyed a terrorist group".
The rebels deny taking any casualties and in their base in the village of Lipkovo, 16 miles (25 kilometers) north of Skopje on Sunday, they said they were determined to fight on, dismissing the coalition as irrelevant.
The fighting has sparked fears for the safety of thousands of Muslim Albanian civilians trapped in the dozen villages situated in the 400 square kilometer (150 square mile) zone in rebel hands.
Trendafilov said that the army was taking care to only "destroy selected targets" and said that no offensive would be launched to retake the villages while civilians remained in danger.
Western analysts believe the NLA has mobilized around 800 fighters, many of them veterans of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the group which in 1998 launched an armed rebellion against Yugoslav rule in the southern Serbian province.
At the same time as the rebels have been fighting in Macedonia, a similar Muslim Albanian group believed to have links to the NLA, has been fighting Yugoslav forces in southern Serbia.
On Sunday, Belgrade confirmed that the rebels had taken the village of Oraovica, three miles (five kilometers) north of the border.
|
