(The Guardian) Nato condemns Albanian rebels

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

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,458174,00.html

Nato condemns Albanian rebels

As Macedonia's conflict widens, radical students claim fighting is the
only way forward

Rory Carroll and Nicholas Wood in Tetovo
Saturday March 17, 2001
The Guardian

The doors of the squat, five-storey red brick building which incubates
Macedonia's conflict were locked last night as students of the private
Albanian-language University of Tetovo ran for cover, dodging bullets
and mortars raining down from ethnic Albanian guerrillas in the
mountains above.
    Shells hit the main square, fighting spread to other towns, families
fled and the government begged Greece to intervene. Nato and the German
foreign minister, Joschka Fisher - who arrived in the capital, Skopje,
yesterday - condemned the unseen gunmen for inciting civil war. Mr
Fischer said the violence was "damaging Albanian interests" and called
on all parties to recognise established borders.
    But many ethnic Albanians cowering in the town said they endorsed
the insurgency. Education, they said, had made them understand there was
no other way.
    Macedonian police and army units unleashed 20mm cannons, heavy
machine guns and mortars to try to push the rebels back towards Kosovo.
Some 400 families, some on tractors, streamed down from the upper
suburbs of Strmno through the smoke of burning oak trees.
    Streets emptied as the bombardment intensified, turning parts of the
predominantly Albanian city into a war zone, three days after the
self-styled National Liberation Army (NLA) opened fire on an outlying
police checkpoint.
    "They are fighting for our rights. We don't want people to die but
we have learned there is no other way forward," said Arsim, 27, an
Albanian language student. "We feel Macedonian, but Macedonia needs to
feel Albanian."
    Since Macedonia's peaceful exit from the former Yugoslavia in 1991
the ethnic Albanian minority has been discriminated against by ethnic
Macedonians, he claimed. He also disputed official statistics showing
that Albanians comprise only a quarter of the population.
    "Macedonians undercount us to keep us down. They do not want us to
be educated. But they have failed," he said. He could not understand why
the west viewed Macedonia as a beacon of Balkan multi-ethnic tolerance.
    Young people at nearby tables in the cafe on Carshia Epenne Street
nodded. Eleven years of democracy had produced discrimination, just as
half a century of communism before it had, they claimed.
    The state did not recognise their language and denied equal access
to jobs and schooling, they claimed. So seven years ago ethnic Albanians
founded their own private university, which this year enrolled 8,000
students.
    "I studied law and learned about human rights, about our rights. We
hoped things would change peacefully but the more we learned, and the
more time passed, we realised this was not so," said Besnik Islami, 22.
"Before university we did not like the state, but afterwards it was
clear just how bad things were."
    A long burst of machine gun fire sent four teenagers scurrying
inside as others reeled off grievances. "I will graduate as an economist
but will not be able to use my knowledge, because the government says my
degree is illegal," Arlinda Hasani, 23, said.
    Two state-funded universities in Skopje admit Albanians but teach in
Macedonian. Shpresa Sinani, 52, president of the Albanian Women's League
in Tetovo, said that Albanian schools were grossly under-funded and
overcrowded, compared with Macedonian ones.
    "Better 600 years of talk than six minutes of fighting, but the
glass is overflowing. We've waited long enough."
    But Macedonian forces never killed or terrorised ethnic Albanians,
and the ruling coalition includes an Albanian party. Reforms had begun
and more were promised, but not fast enough for the radical students of
Tetovo.
    Young ethnic Albanian men from Tetovo fought against Serb forces in
Kosovo two years ago. They returned armed, militant and impatient. Some
are among the rebels on Mount Baltepe with Kalashnikovs.
    The Macedonian authorities say that the guerrillas are seeking a
greater Kosovo, not equal rights within Macedonia. A United Nations
official in the Kosovan capital, Pristina, suggested however that this
conflict was home-grown, saying: "Beneath the surface its been cooking
for a long time."
    Greece rejected a Macedon ian government request for military
intervention as fighting spread to the town of Kicevo, about 70 miles
south-west of Skopje. A police station was targeted in the village of
Zajas, near the Albanian border, and fresh clashes were reported in
Lipkovo and Tanusevci, mountain villages bordering Kosovo, where the
insurgency started two weeks ago.
    A shoulder-launched rocket knocked out a power pylon in Tetovo,
plunging some neighbourhoods into darkness. Gunfire and explosions
sounded after sunset.
    Under cover of darkness a convoy of refugees drove from the city.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001