The End of the War or Hopes for Peace?

If there is anything constant in Macedonia at present it is the stress its inhabitants are exposed to regardless of their ethnic affiliation. The feeling of helplessness to prevent the worst is dramatically replaced every hour by information that still offer some hope that the worst will be avoided after all.

AIM Skopje, June 11, 2001

This morning the situation seemed completely hopeless. The village of Aracinovo, which is just ten odd kilometres from downtown Skopje, is deserted for several days already. Both the Albanians (about seven thousand of them have gone mostly to Kosovo or relatives in other parts of the state) and the Macedonians (about 500-600 of them who are literally out in the open) have left the village. It is controlled by the members of National Liberation Army (NLA), between 500 and 1000 of them depending on the source.

A couple of days ago commander of Macedonian NLA Hoxha threatened the Prime Minister that he would shoot at Skopje international airport Petrovec and targets downtown Skopje with 120 mm mortars, if bombing of the villages around Kumanovo did not stop. Newspapers appeared with not at all optimistic headlines: “Scenario for a Civil War in Macedonia: Skopje under Siege” (Vest), “Terrorists from Aracinovo Taking Aim at Skopje” (Dnevnik), “Only the Albanian Terrorists Remain in Aracinovo: Around 500 Armed Terrorists Raiding the Villages of Mojance, Orlanci and Aracinovo” (Nova Makedonija)...

The day before President of Democratic League and former minister of internal affairs Pavle Trajanov declared that the plan on the beginning of civil war began with the siege of Skopje: with the establishing of control of Petrovec airport, Rasce sources of potable water, Matka artificial lake, refinery in the vicinity of Skopje, with the control of the surrounding mountains and with information blockade – by seizure of repeaters in the mountains which are not protected by the police. Trajanov accused Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski and leader of Democratic Party of the Albanians (DPA) Arben Xhaferi of having reached an agreement to create chaos in Macedonia and then divide it.

That same evening as officially explained later “due to a worn out cable”, a transmitter of several local TV stations on Vodno mountain near Skopje was shut down. This caused panic among the inhabitants of Skopje who believed that members of Macedonian NLA had taken over the location on Vodno and surrounded the city.

In some villages around Skopje, as later explained by the spokesman of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), the ethnic Macedonian inhabitants attempted self-organisation in order to take justice into their own hands which was prevented by members of the Ministry. This morning panic was increased by rumours that the villages close to the city, such as Nerezi and Saraj, had been occupied by NLA. In the part of the city where Dizonska street is found, which is practically in the centre of the city and which is known to be the part of the city where the police is afraid to patrol and which is inhabited by majority Albanian and Muslim population, ethnic Macedonian citizens of Skopje from the “other side of the Vardar” river saw members of NLA in uniforms walking around.

Until noon there prevailed an atmosphere of the end of every hope that the worst could be prevented. It turned out that many people had their Schengen visas in their passports and reserved airplane tickets for foreign destinations. Nervousness was additionally increased by information that a few foreign airlines cancelled flights from Skopje airport, and that foreign diplomats and their families, primarily from the USA, had already left Macedonia. “Local currency” – the German mark – “soared sky high”, its value went up by about twenty per cent, more than ever before during this crisis. The city was literally panic-stricken, people seemed to be expecting to hear shooting at the outskirts of the city in the midst of the air thinned out by exceptional summer heat.

And then as salvation from the skies arrived the news that Macedonian President and Prime Minister jointly reached the conclusion that two humanitarian catastrophes had to be prevented – shortage of water in Kumanovo which is the result of closed valves near the storage reservoir on the territory controlled by NLA and shortage of food for the civilians in the vicinity of the village of Lipkovo, several thousand of whom are in the middle between the warring parties. The news was almost unbelievable for the very fact that the Prime Minister who had in the past several days bet on the card of the state of war and the policy “the worse the better” and the President of the state who had refused to agree with the former's view, had managed to agree on anything. It was even more unbelievable that OSCE had mediated between the two parties and managed to bring about their agreement. The Ambassador of OSCE in Macedonia Carlo Ungaro declared that water would reach the hundred thousand inhabitants of Kumanovo during that day.

The representative of NLA for the press declared somewhere in Europe that NLA would respect the cease-fire proclaimed by Macedonian government for the sake of humanitarian operations. A local commander stated for Telma TV from Skopje that they would lay down their arms if the political representative of Macedonian NLA Ali Aahmeti ordered it.

The President's advisor of national security came out in public with details of the plan on establishing peace made by President Trajkovski, which was presented to the parliament in general outlines on Friday and even incomplete such as it was met with support of the EU. Javier Solana arrived in Skopje in order to express in person the support for the plan approved at the meeting of the ministers of EU in Luxembourg. This plan was the only alternative to the enormous pressure that a purely military solution be adopted, which Prime Minister Georgievski so ardently advocated. From the parliament platform Trajkovski said: “I am aware of the risk that some who think that everything can be solved by arms alone may accuse me of indecisiveness, and the most radical ones even of surrender, but another solution of the crisis by military means alone does not exist”.

After sharp opposition of EU and the USA to his efforts, Prime Minister met with the leader of the Social Democratic League of Macedonia (SDSM) Branko Crvenkovski and the two agreed that “Ljubco give up on proclaiming the state of war, and that Branko support the actions” (from the title in Vest daily).

Ismet Ramadani from Albanian Party of Democratic Prosperity (PDP) who until a few years ago was an inhabitant of Aracinova and its deputy in the parliament of Macedonia, stepped forward in public with slightly different information on what was going on in the village. According to him the situation in the village was peaceful but tense, none of the inhabitants were maltreated, and that if the inhabitants wished to enter the village they were prevented only by police check points at the entrance to the village. This time there was no statement for the public by minister of internal affairs Ljube Boskovski, who had declared in front of the cameras at the entrance to Aracinovo the figure of between 700 and 1000 members of NLA, about 450 of whom were allegedly from Kosovo. Some of the media speculated that the minister was sacrficed because he was too “enthusiastic” about Prime Minister Georgievski's plan on creating chaos and that he would soon be replaced by a slightly more reasonable member of VMRO-DPMNE.

In the evening “gloomy tones” again. Members of MUP attacked near a village on mount Sara not far from Tetovo. Two of them seriously injured. A change of disposition again and the question that hovers in the air: what will the next day bring?

ISO RUSI

(AIM)