Transitions On Line article on Macedonia

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

http://www.tol.cz/look/TOLnew/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=6
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Gaining Ground

A new guerilla band in northern Macedonia is taking its lead from
similar groups in the region by using violence to get into the political
spotlight.

by Altin Raxhimi

TIRANA, Albania--Menduh Thaci, the deputy chairman of the Democratic
Party of Albanians in Macedonia (DPA), tried to be blunt. "We did
communicate with the National Liberation Army (NLA)," he said on 3 March
of the new guerrilla group that has appeared around ethnic Albanian
villages in northern Macedonia. "But at a certain point, they refused to
talk with us anymore. They are saying that they have lost patience with
us, and I added that we are Albanians too, [and that] we can lose
patience with them as well."
    The NLA, which claims control over the village of Tanusevci on the
Yugoslav border, is borrowing its tactics from other guerilla groups in
the region. Like the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), it aspires to become
a political force. And just like the UCK and the Liberation Army of
Presevo, Medvedja, and Bujanovac (UCPMB)--the other rebel group in
southern Serbia-it has chosen violent means as a way of finding the
spotlight and becoming a factor in the country's politics.
    The NLA was also spurred on by the political successes of the UCPBM
in Presevo. At the end of February, NATO--which is mediating between the
Serbs and the UCPBM--supported the claim of the guerrilla group that the
Pristina corps of the Yugoslav army may have been responsible for
atrocities against ethnic Albanians in 1999 and should leave the area.
    The NLA counts a few hundred members in its ranks, and gathers
students, émigré activists, and people who had been previously involved
with the UCK before NATO stepped into the province. It claims no
relation to the main political parties that are linked with the former
UCK, Hashim Thaci's Democratic Party of Kosovo, or Rramush Haredinaj's
Alliance for the Future of Kosovo.
    The group's relations with Albania appear to be even weaker. Tirana
has formally condemned its actions. Prime Minister Ilir Meta said on 3
March he supported the Macedonian crackdown on the guerillas. "We
[should] punish the extremists in Macedonia and support [the country's]
territorial integrity," Meta was quoted by his press office as saying to
his Macedonian counterpart, Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, in a
telephone conversation on 4 March. Several Albanian sources say that the
NLA might not want secession from Macedonia--as Kosovar Albanians did
with Serbia--and that it understand that splitting Macedonia could have
a detrimental effect on the country's ethnic Albanian population. For
now, according to Macedonian-Albanian politicians like Menduh Thaci, the
new guerillas would rather push the immediate demands of the ethnic
Albanian community and solve the problems in order to avoid a split.
    According to the Pristina daily Koha Ditore, the NLA complained that
Thaci's DPA, now in Georgievski's government, compromised on the issue
of the Albanian-language university in Tetovo, by settling for a private
one instead of a state-funded one. Under the initiative of Max van den
Stoel, the OSCE commissioner for national minorities, Tetovo will have a
private university with Albanian as the main language of instruction.
    The NLA are also expected to demand a new national census that would
include Macedonian Albanian emigrants abroad and give them equal
constitutional rights. "They don't differ from any other party in
Macedonia," Enkel Demi, a reporter and analyst who had contact with the
guerrilla representatives in Tetovo and wrote a story in early February
warning of imminent conflict in Macedonia. "But they do not accept
compromise and they want things fast."
    The group has already claimed a bomb attack on a police station in
Tearce, a village near Tetovo, a threatening telephone call to
Macedonian Interior Minister Dosta Dimoska last year, and the recent
Tanusevci attack.

SEPARATE, NOT EQUAL

Since Yugoslavia split in the early 1990s, ethnic Albanians in Macedonia
have claimed that their share of the population was larger than
government estimates and that the Slavic Macedonian-controlled
government has purposefully downplayed the numbers. Estimates put the
real figure somewhere between 23 and 30 percent. A higher figure would
enable them to elevate their minority status to become a so-called
constituent nation--a designation that would bring with it full rights
to an equal share in the government, constitutional bilingualism, and a
public Albanian-language university.
    The Macedonian government has refused to accept the constituent
status and has given the ethnic Albanians minority rights. Slavic
Macedonians traditionally get most government jobs and, until recently,
overwhelmingly controlled the police. There is no love lost between the
two communities, and violent incidents are frequent. The insistence of
the mayor of Gostivar, Rufi Osmani, to have Albanian flags in his city's
public buildings caused violent clashes, three deaths, and his
imprisonment in 1997. Weapons have been leaked into the ethnic Albanian
community in small amounts for the past decade, some of which have been
intercepted by Macedonian police. Many weapons are believed to have come
from the arsenal of the UCK.
    But in recent years, cooperation between ethnic Albanian and Slavic
political parties in the government has improved the condition of the
country's biggest minority significantly. Ethnic Albanians control key
ministries in the government, there are many ethnic Albanian police
officers around the Tetovo area, and, despite the arguments, the plan
for a new Tetovo university is widely seen as a success. On the other
hand, opposition groupings--both Albanian and Macedonian--are accusing
the government of yielding too little or too much to the Albanians.
    The NLA is now attempting to draw support from extreme factions in
politics. "They are hoping for an incident in Tanusevci by the police
that results in civilian deaths," said Demi. "It would give them some
sympathy with the population." Indeed, waves of refugees fleeing to
Kosovo have prompted NATO to urge moderation in Macedonia and has made
some ethnic Albanians more sympathetic to the cause.
    Open warnings from politicians like Thaci have done little to deter
the NLA. "They are traitors to the Albanian cause in Macedonia," Thaci
said. "Any government should exert its power in the entire region it
governs," he added, implying he was for a harsh crackdown on the
guerrillas. With the coming of spring, when conditions are better to
fight, many in Macedonia fear an imminent showdown between Macedonian
security forces and the NLA.

Altin Raxhimi is TOL's correspondent in Tirana.
Avni Zogiani, a reporter for the Pristina daily Koha Ditore, contributed
to this report.

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