NLA vuole essere incluso nei negoziati col governo macedone

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

http://www.europeaninternet.com/macedonia/news.php3?id=329349

Albanian Rebels Demand Seat at Talks With Macedonian Government

NORTH OF LIPKOVO, Apr 4, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Ethnic Albanian
rebels, including a renegade member of parliament, demanded face to face
talks with the Macedonian government, rejecting claims that they have been
defeated.

"We want to resolve the problems politically," rebel commander Ali Daja --
"Uncle Ali" -- told an AFP reporter who was taken to a secret location in
hills norths of Skopje late Tuesday.

"Negotiations can not take place without us," he said, saying direct talks
between political representatives of his National Liberation Army and the
government should be held.

Daja said rebels were still present in all of Macedonia's majority Albanian
villages, along with the capital Skopje.

The Macedonian government said on Saturday the Albanian guerillas had been
conquered and that the fighting was over. The border with the neighboring
UN-administered Yugoslav province of Kosovo was reopened on Tuesday.

Hisni Shaqiri, a member of the moderate Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA)
which forms part of Macedonia's coalition government, defected to the
rebels last week.

Wearing camouflage fatigues and carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle, she
told AFP his decision to give up elected politics had been "a moral
obligation."

"The Macedonian army is ravaging Albanian villages and, as an Albanian, I
felt the moral obligation to join the rebels. Today, it feels very good, I
am at the service of the people," he said.

"Our war is a just one. All we are asking for are equal rights with
Macedonians," he said.

His defection last week underscored the growing unease among Albanian
politicians in the conflict and prosectors said they had filed charges
against him.

He took to the hills a day after hundreds of Macedonian troops used his
village as a springboard for an offensive to flush Albanian rebels out of
their last remaining strongholds close to the Kosovo border. ((c) 2001
Agence France Presse