A Night that Could Have Brought the War Back

By refusing to vote for constitutional amendments, the Albanian PDP has taken upon itself the responsibility for all those who until now stalled the implementation of the Peace Agreement, whereas it took just one day for Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski to send special units to the NLA-controlled zone and arrest seven of its members despite the promised amnesty. This was followed by a violent reaction of the Albanian side which caused three new deaths.

AIM Skopje, November 13, 2001

It was politicians' stupidity that brought Macedonia to the precipice of a new war. First, on Saturday, November 11, 2001 the Central Presidency of the Albanian Democratic Party for Prosperity (PDP) confirmed its decision to abstain from voting on the offered text of the preamble and constitutional amendments that should regulate the issue of religious communities. Speaker Andov took advantage of this to call a recess and postpone the continuation of the session for the adoption of constitutional amendments, which constitute the most important part of the Framework Agreement that brought the country a kind of peace. He also made a demand rare in parliamentary democracies: he refused to call the parliamentary session for the adoption of constitutional reforms until PDP gave guarantees that it would vote in favour constitutional amendments offered by President Boris Trajkovski. This practically blocked the process of implementing the Ohrid Framework Agreement, which in the opinion of Western diplomats was the only chance to preserve peace, with a possibility to be completely rejected.

A day later, on Sunday, Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski staged his latest "clownish" performance. After a meeting with President Trajkovski and representatives of the European Union and Ambassadors of NATO and OSCE in Macedonia, he informed of his intention to send his new shock troops "Lions" on a mission of securing a site where, according to the MUP, 14 missing persons of Macedonian nationality might have been buried. He personally saw them off in a Skopje suburb on their way to Tetovo, in his well-known style of a pathos-filled-patriot-showman, which the state MTV used extensively in its information programmes.

On that same day, police patrols brought in seven members of the National Liberation Army (NLA). Naturally, Boskovski knew that his "Lions" had been considered a para-police formation until recently and sent them to a NLA-controlled region at the time when the Government Coordinating Body, in charge of monitoring the crisis together with the local OSCE monitors and assisted by the NATO "foxes", was implementing a pilot programme of the return of the police to these parts. Not to mention that Boskovski was fully aware of the promised amnesty for the former NLA members - a commitment undertaken by the Macedonian authorities under the Ohrid Agreement, which NATO Secretary General George Robertson had reminded them of several days ago during his visit. The more so as at the end of his visit Robertson informed of an agreement reached with the President that until the adoption of the Law on Amnesty he would amnesty and pardon convicted and detained NLA members, that the police would no longer arrest them and the Prosecutor would not prosecute new cases. The Interior Minister also undoubtedly knew that the NLA leadership announced violent reaction in case any of its members were arrested before the long-awaited amnesty.

Under such circumstances only someone totally naïve or sure of the consequences of this provocation, could have expected the special units to peacefully take the site deep in the zone which was not under their control and that the arrest of seven prominent NLA members (at the time when the guaranteed amnesty was about to be granted) would provoke no reactions.

It thus happened that in the night between Sunday and Monday around Tetovo 60 to 120 Macedonians (depending on the source) were kidnapped and that a veritable war broke out around the villages of Shemshovo and Neproshteno in which three "Lions" were killed and six more wounded. An even worse thing was avoided thanks to the OSCE, EU representative on the "ground" - Alain Le Roy, as well as the participation of some important persons from Washington, Brussels and New York. In the morning the tensions eased and the Albanian side, more precisely a new formation called the Albanian National Army (ANA), which assumed responsibility for the actions, released all the hostages.

The Tuesday issue (November 13, 2001) of "The Morning Herald" quoting its sources, carried information that at the session of the Security Council (President's advisory body) Prime Minister Georgievski and Speaker Andov demanded the launching of a military action in retaliation for actions of the Albanian side. However, American State Secretary Collin Powell, NATO Secretary General George Robertson and Xavier Solana, who happened to be in New York at that time, gave unison "firm" suggestions opposite to Prime Minister's and Speaker's wishes. Although a member of the Security Council, Vlado Buckovski, Minister of the Interior, was invited to its session with a 40-minute delay. When entering the Parliament and also the Presidency building Buckovski told the rallied representatives of the press that he had been kept in isolation until that moment which was why he expected the Council to inform him in detail of what was happening in the country and at the same time commented on the MUP action: "We will pay for this adventure dearly".

Party's reactions were also negative for the most part. The Democratic Alliance demanded the dismissal of the Interior Minister and initiation of a procedure for determining his political and criminal responsibility and calling of a Parliament's session that would examine the powers of people in charge of security services and debate the lack of unity of the state leadership. According to the Liberal-Democratic Party "the terrorist counter-attack is a consequence of a poorly conceived and prepared action without the coordination of relevant factors on the ground, in which the lives of policemen have been practically sacrificed". The Socialist Party thought that Prime Minister Georgievski was behind such amateurish actions who "allows the clowns to run the police and the state". MAAK - the United Macedonian Action accused the Government for the death of the policemen. Whereas the biggest party opposed to the VMRO-DPMNE (also a member of the national unity Government) - the SDSM thought that "the decision to launch this action has been brought with the blessing of President Trajkovski and Prime Minister Georgievski and calls into question the entire peace process of stabilising Macedonia and is pushing the state into new violence and conflicts".

The media reacted differently to this, depending on their links with various political options. On its front page, "The Morning Herald" under a headline "Controversies about the Operation that Took Three Lives of Policemen: Boskovski Claims He Had Orders while Trajkovski Denies" carried an article entitled "Boskovski's Tragic Adventure". "The News" stated that "Macedonia is again on the verge of civil war" claiming that "three lives were lost unnecessarily". "The Journal" claimed the opposite: "Perfidious Murder and Hostage Drama in Polog". Using testimonies of the released hostages (who stated for other papers that they were treated well and were not abused) this daily reported how they were told that they would be killed if the arrested NLA members were no longer alive. "The Journal" already sentenced them by using qualifications such as "responsible for ethnic cleansing" and "responsible for bomb explosion in "Brioni" motel in Selopek". Similar was the reporting of "The Evening", controlled by a hard-liner VMRO-DPMNE, which carried an article entitled "'Disarmed' Terrorist Killing three Lions in an Ambush".

Finally, even now when thanks to the suggestions of the international community the worst has been avoided, PDP's Central Presidency (which only three days earlier, in the presence of Alain Le Roy, decided quite the opposite)decided that its deputies should vote in favour of constitutional amendments. After Le Roy gave him the PDP's letter stating this explicitly, Speaker Andov called the Parliament to session so as to adopt the constitutional amendments. It will be interesting to see whether the parliamentarians have learned a lesson from the latest, extremely dangerous, incident that might have renewed the war.

ISO RUSI

(AIM)