(AFP) Albanian protest in Macedonia becomes rally for rebels

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

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010314/1/k4ud.html

Wednesday March 14, 11:22 PM

Albanian protest in Macedonia becomes rally for rebels

TETOVO, Macedonia, March 14 (AFP) - Thousands of Macedonian Albanians
gathered in this northwest majority-Albanian town to demand equal rights
Wednesday at a rally that turned into a mass show of support for
guerrillas fighting Skopje.
    The crowd of up to 5,000 cheered heartily as gunfire from clashes
between the rebels and security forces in the surrounding hills echoed
over the town, the first time the rebels have ventured so close to a
major urban centre.
    The rally was a marked contrast to a gathering the day before when
20,000 Albanians massed in the capital calling for peaceful reforms as
the only means to ward off armed conflict in Macedonia, the sole former
Yugoslav republic so far to have escaped war.
    Two Macedonian cameramen were beaten up by protestors in the Tetovo
demonstration in an incident expected to send shockwaves through this
ethnically-mixed country.
    Mounting attacks in recent weeks along Macedonia's borders by ethnic
Albanian gunmen, members of the country's big Albanian minority, have
raised fears of a crisis paving the way to a new Balkans war.
    Police have taken over at least two rebel bases in villages near the
Kosovo border in the past few days in operations coordinated with
NATO-led peacekeepers based in Albanian-dominated Kosovo.
    The crowd shouted support for the self-styled National Liberation
Army (UCK) fighting government troops on the mountainous border.
    Police beefed up their presence after shooting broke out on the
outskirts of Tetovo and the sighting of a mysterious group of
black-uniformed men.
    The crowd, singing Albanian nationalist songs and waving Albanian
flags, cheered at the sound of armed clashes in the hills. Police said
two officers were injured in the renewed fighting.
    The rally was organised by several Albanian groups calling for
direct dialague between Skopje and Albanian rebels.
    "There is no Macedonia without the Albanians!" a huge placard said,
while some protestors carried banners saying "This is our country!"
    Nihaim Sejxhu of the Albanian Human Rights foundation said the
protestors "are here to tell the world to stop terror against the
Albanians in Macedonia."
    "The UCK are fighting for our freedom," he said, as the crowd
shouted "UCK!" "UCK!", in a scene reminiscent of events in neighbouring
Kosovo, which has still to recover from its 1998-99 civil war with
Belgrade.
    That war was fought by the Kosovo Liberation Army, also called UCK
in Albanian.
    Mecreme Rusi of the Union of Albanian Women, one of the organisers,
said "all the Albanians living in Macedonia are" guerrillas of the
National Liberation Army (UCK).
    Rusi told the rally that the Macedonian constitution should be
changed in order to give equal rights to the Albanian minority in the
country.
    Albanians, who say they constitute more than a third of the
population of two million, want a better deal in education and the
workplace, saying they are victims of Orthodox Macedonian
discrimination.
    "The use of the army and police cannot solve decades-long problems
in Macedonia. The constitution should be changed and Albanians made
equal," Rusi said.
    "We must not be called terrorists, but the government should
negotiate with military officials of the UCK," she said.
    The protestors also booed at any mention of moderate Albanian leader
Arben Xhaferi or his coalition-member party, which organised the rally
in Skopje on Tuesday.
    The protestors in Tetovo branded them "traitors" for their lack of
support for the rebels.

Copyright © 2001 AFP