(Associated Press) Tre soldati macedoni uccisi in combattimentisul confine con il Kosovo

[Paola Lucchesi <paola.lucchesi@mail.inet.it>]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010304/aponline123157_000.htm

Two Killed on Macedonian Border

By Konstantin Testorides
Associated Press Writer
Sunday, March 4, 2001; 12:31 p.m. EST

SKOPJE, Macedonia -- An ethnic Albanian rebellion in Macedonia
intensified Sunday, with police saying government troops were battling
hundreds of guerrillas in two border villages and on rugged mountain
slopes.
    Three Macedonian army soldiers were killed, including two whose
vehicle hit a land mine near the village of Tanusevci, a stronghold of
the insurgents 20 miles north of the capital, Skopje. The third died
within hours at a nearby location, hit by sniper fire.
    Despite international and Macedonian efforts to contain the
violence, the fighting has spread to the village of Malina, just east of
Tanusevci, and to nearby Mt. Kodra Pura, according to a police officer
who spoke on condition of anonymity. About 200 rebels were battling
government troops, he said.
    Macedonian police closed down both border crossings to Kosovo, a
province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's largest republic.
    "It's a real war," said Hamdi Hasani, mayor of the Kosovo border
village of Debele, very near Tanusevci. He said sporadic exchanges of
gunfire increased by late morning into prolonged firefights. He said
heavy weapons were being used, with some rounds falling inside Kosovo.
    The latest upsurge of fighting around Kosovo has raised fears of
another major crisis that could threaten the whole region, less than two
years after NATO and the United Nations moved into Kosovo.
    The fighting could be an attempt to provoke Macedonian troops into a
massive response that would potentially claim innocent lives of ethnic
Albanian villagers in the region. The guerrillas might be hoping that
could radicalize Macedonia's ethnic Albanians, who make up nearly 25
percent of the over population of two million and help their cause.
    Urging government restraint, the Skopje-based mission of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, expressed the hope
that "the inevitable and justified response to this provocation will be
adequate and not excessive and possibly coordinated" with the NATO-led
peacekeeping force in Kosovo.
    Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski held an emergency meeting with
defense officials and several ambassadors of NATO countries. The
president's office said U.S. Ambassador Michael Eikin and Mark
Dickenson, his British counterpart, were among those attending.
    Sporadic gunfire and shelling - mortar or artillery rounds - started
shortly before noon, according to Capt. Marcus Evans, an American member
of the NATO-led Kosovo peacekeeping force who was observing the fighting
from Debele.
    A dozen U.S. Army humvees crowding Debele streets attested to the
increased American observer presence in the village. Watching from the
air were two Blackhawk helicopters, along with an unmanned drone spy
plane.
    Two plumes of smoke could be seen from Debele rising from Tanusevci.
    "We are bracing ourselves for a new flood of refugees," said Hasani,
the Debele mayor, alluding to the spread of fighting to the second
village. Hundreds of ethnic Albanians from the Tanusevci region fled
over to Kosovo last week, when violence first intensified.
    Ethnic Albanian insurgents have launched twin offensives south of
Kosovo into Macedonia, and east of Kosovo into a buffer zone with
Serbia. The two conflicts both appear to be sparked by insurgents in
heavily ethnic Albanian areas in apparent hopes of joining the areas
with Kosovo as part their ultimate goal of independence. Fighters in
both conflicts are thought to be aided from Kosovo.
    Reflecting that three-way linkage, Kosovo's NATO and United Nations
heads - Lt. Gen. Carlo Cabigiosu and Hans Haekkerup - arrived in Skopje
and went into an emergency meeting with top government officials.

© Copyright 2001 The Associated Press

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