Macedonia unravels

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Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 18:40:43 +0300 (EET DST)
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Subject: Macedonia unravels

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Greek Helsinki Monitor <[email protected]>

Macedonia unravels


KLA arms caches, Serbian pro-Milosevic demonstrators, and friction
between Skopje and the West. The signs are ominous for the fragile
republic.

Iso Rusi in Skopje
 
In the first evidence of a guerrilla presence within Macedonia, police
have seized a tractor-trailer filled with 308 pieces of weaponry in
the town of Kumanovo. Subsequently in a nearby in a deserted mine, 4.5
tons worth of guns, ammunition, land mines and hand grenades were
uncovered. Their Chinese origin suggests that the cache was smuggled
in from Albania by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

According to Interior Minister Pavle Trajanov, there will be more
attempts to smuggle in arms from Albania weaponry. Trajanov fears that
unless the war in Yugoslavia is resolved soon, the security crisis
there will be "exported" to Macedonia.

Guns, ammunition and the like are not the only problem according to
Trajonov, who has speculated on the likely presence of KLA members
among the refugees now camped inside Macedonia. The New York Times has
already reported meeting with a half-dozen Albanian men it said were
"self-described officers of the KLA."

And Albanian radicals are not the only ones becoming active in
Macedonia. Skopje held its first rock concert for peace, echoing the
ones being held in Serbia. Flags of the former Yugoslavia and even
pictures of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic were seen in the
capital's central square.

Malisa Bozovic, secretary-general of the Democratic Party of Serbs in
Macedonia, argues that Yugoslavia has the right to target NATO
positions within Macedonia. "NATO planes are bombing Yugoslavia
through Macedonian skies and they have at their disposal logistical
support, complete military and civil infrastructure that is being used
for spying and stationing ground forces." The Democrats are planning
another big protest in the capital soon.
 
Meantime, the owners of land around Stenkovec, the largest refugee
camp in Macedonia, are refusing permission for it to be enlarged. Made
up of both Macedonians as well as local Serbs, they sympathise with
the demonstrators in the capital.

But the camp, which already houses more than 40,000 refugees, is too
small to receive the latest refugee wave from Kosovo. According to the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, up to 4,000 have been arriving each
day. UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond has predicted up to 100,000 new
refugees will be arriving at the border soon. He says they include
20,000 from the region of Urosevac and 50,000 from Gnjilane.

Conditions within the camps are far from ideal. Bribery to escape the
camps has been reported, and cigarette and alcohol smuggling has
increased. On Sunday a carton of the cheapest Macedonian cigarettes
reached the staggering price of 100 DM ($57) in the camps. Sanitary
conditions are deteriorating with the overpopulation, and the weather
has been cold and rainy.

Promises by other countries to take some 92,620 of the refugees have
been delayed. UN figures show that out of 560,000 Kosovo refugees it
has registered since the beginning of the NATO strikes, 132,700
entered Macedonia. The Macedonian government puts the figure at
150,000. With the existing camps only able to house a third of the
refugees, the rest are being looked after in private homes. While
initially, the international community planned to fly out 1,500 people
a day from Skopje, less than 13,000 have departed since the airlift
started.

Disputes over the refugee issue have flared regularly between the
Macedonian government, aid agencies and Western governments.
Macedonian Minister of Defence Nikola Kljusev has stated firmly that
the government has no intention of building any more camps and that
new refugees from Kosovo cannot stay in the country. This has prompted
German Defence Deputy Secretary of State Walter Koblon to suggest that
his country will not help Macedonia's bid to join the European Union.
Kljusev replied in turn that this was tantamount to blackmail.

Within the Macedonian government, differences among the coalition
partners about the role of NATO are getting more obvious. The
parliament has passed a resolution supporting the government's refusal
to allow NATO to use Macedonia to stage an intervention into
Yugoslavia. The media speculate whether the Social Democrats of
President Kiro Gligorov are applying pressure to change this stance.
Meanwhile, Arben Xhaferi, the leader of the Democratic Party of the
Albanians, which is a member of the governing coalition, argues that
Macedonia has already taken sides in the conflict (with NATO) and must
follow through. He has also called for a more open and generous policy
towards the refugees.

Iso Rusi is a journalist with Fokus in Skopje.


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