Fresh Bloodshed in Balkans As West Seeks Strategy
By Anatoly Verbin
SKOPJE (Reuters) - U.S. peacekeepers fought gunmen near
Macedonia's border and a land mine killed two Yugoslav
soldiers Wednesday as Western powers sought a way to stamp
out the latest violence to threaten the Balkans.
NATO (news - web sites)'s 19 permanent ambassadors met in
Brussels without Secretary-General George Robertson, who was in Washington for talks
with the Bush administration on ending the turmoil. The U.N. Security Council was also to
tackle the issue.
Diplomats say the main problem is preventing ethnic Albanian guerrillas operating freely
across the unmarked mountain borders between Kosovo, Macedonia and southern Serbia.
A U.S. commander said NATO-led peacekeepers took control of a town in Kosovo linked
to the flashpoint Macedonian village of Tanusevci, in the first clash between KFOR and the
gunmen since Skopje sounded the alarm last week over what it called Albanian ''terrorists''
set on destabilizing the country.
The commander of the U.S.-led contingent, Tom Gross, told reporters that peacekeepers
noticed men aiming their weapons at KFOR soldiers and said ``we engaged them with direct
fire.''
``Two of the soldiers were injured and the other three soldiers retreated about 500 meters
(yards) east of Mijak,'' Gross said. One of the wounded men was evacuated by KFOR. No
peacekeepers were hurt.
Yugoslav Soldiers Killed Near Buffer Zone
Two Yugoslav soldiers died when their jeep struck a land mine north of the town of Presevo
in southern Serbia, just outside a buffer zone which runs around Kosovo's boundary with the
rest of Yugoslavia and touches the Macedonian border.
For the past year, ethnic Albanian guerrillas have based themselves in the buffer zone, from
which Yugoslav forces were banned after being pushed out of Kosovo by NATO bombing
in 1999 to end the repression of ethnic Albanians.
Robertson said at the United Nations (news - web sites) Tuesday that NATO was
considering allowing Yugoslav soldiers back into the buffer zone.
But many ethnic Albanian leaders in Kosovo denounced the proposal, saying it would only
lead to more violence.
Kole Berisha, vice president of the Democratic League of
Kosovo party, warned it would be a ``provocation, making
possible an open conflict that would include the entire region.''
An ethnic Albanian from a shadowy group calling itself the
National Liberation Army, which has emerged recently in
Macedonia, was buried in the presence of thousands of people
in western Kosovo Tuesday, local newspapers said Wednesday.
The papers said he had been wounded near Tanusevci, taken to
a Kosovo hospital and died there.
Guerrillas withdrew from Tanusevci, which lies about one kilometer inside Macedonian
territory, Monday after a heavy exchange of fire with Macedonian forces.
Macedonia Warns Of Attacks
In the Macedonian capital, a defense ministry spokesman said shortly before news of the
clash between the peacekeepers and gunmen Wednesday, that the government expected
further attacks in the area.
Asked whether Skopje foresaw an offensive, the spokesman said: ``Offensive is a strong
word, but we have strong indications that provocations like the one in Tanusevci and with the
same intensity will happen in other places on the northern border.''
Macedonia, where ethnic Albanians make up about one third of the two million population,
has so far escaped a decade of conflict which has raged through the former Yugoslav
republics of Croatia and Bosnia and, more recently, southern Serbia.
Macedonia has been reluctant to use too much force against the insurgents to avoid inflaming
ethnic tension, but Western officials said after the killing of three Macedonian soldiers at the
weekend that they would understand if Skopje took military action.
``I can assure you that not an inch of Macedonian territory will be given to extremists,''
President Boris Trajkovski said on Tuesday. ``We have enough force to deal with terrorism
but every assistance from the international community is welcome.'' |
