Macedonia back from the abyss of civil war

SKOPJE - Macedonian leaders have agreed to form a Government of national unity including all main ethnic Albanian and Slav parties. It is a move seen by the West as key to countering an ethnic Albanian insurgency threatening civil war.

"The great percentage of the deal is done. I am optimistic that we will form a grand coalition tomorrow. There is some fine tuning to be done," Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski said yesterday.

He was speaking after marathon talks that included the European Union's top diplomat, Javier Solana.

Georgievski said that two main opposition parties - the Slav-dominated Socialists and the ethnic Albanian Party for Democratic Prosperity - would join the Government. It currently comprises three parties including the main Albanian DPA grouping and Georgievski's Slav VMRO-DPME.

He said the idea of declaring war was off the agenda as "Macedonian security forces conducted a successful operation today."

The Army has been shelling ethnic Albanian rebel positions in two northeastern villages for five days to dislodge guerrillas who killed 10 members of the security forces in ambushes in the previous week.

Solana, who spent the entire day in talks with Government and party leaders, said before leaving Skopje that he believed they would "reach some important agreements."

He and Nato Secretary-General George Robertson, who left the capital earlier, went to Macedonia in a successful bid to talk the Government out of declaring war.

But the main goal of forging a grand coalition required tough negotiations, EU sources said.

In Western eyes, the ideal strategy centres on depriving the nationalist guerrillas of all plausible political support while driving them out without inflicting major civilian casualties.

A big move to defuse the conflict cannot come too soon. Robertson said Macedonia was "on the brink of an abyss" and he denounced the guerrillas as "murderous thugs" who have no mandate but were bent on destroying a small, fragile democratic state, using civilians as "human shields."

Robertson said Nato southern commander Admiral James Ellis would meet Macedonia's military chief of staff to discuss closer cooperation with Macedonian forces, in what he called a high-profile sign of Nato's support.

Rebels say they are fighting for the rights of the large Albanian minority, who have complained of discrimination in jobs, education and language rights for years, and deny holding civilians hostage.

As fighting continued yesterday, nearly 3000 ethnic Albanian refugees crossed into Kosovo from Macedonia in the biggest one-day exodus, raising the total to 6600, according to the UNHCR refugee agency.

In March, when serious clashes erupted around the largely ethnic Albanian city of Tetovo, 10,000 left the former Yugoslav republic to seek shelter.

According to the Government, some 3500 villagers are being prevented from escaping to safety. International monitors say they have seen some indications of intimidation.



The main battleground is 30km northwest of Skopje, near the main Greece-to-Hungary highway. It is a 15-minute drive from the Yugoslav border, where the highway runs north along the guerrilla-held edge of Serbia's Presevo Valley.

Macedonian Army spokesman Blagoja Markovski said 50 rebels occupied the village of Lojane, directly on the Serbian border. Serbia denied any gunmen were infiltrating over the border.

"Not even a fly can pass our border watch," the commander of Yugoslav security forces in southern Serbia, General Ninoslav Krstic, said. Serb-led Yugoslavia said yesterday it would collaborate with Macedonia to neutralise the rebels.

Major powers had hoped that the risk of conflict propelling Macedonia towards civil war was smothered last month, after an Army assault drove guerrillas from hills above Tetovo.

But fighting flared once again after guerrillas ambushed two security force patrols, killing the 10 and sparking violent anti-Albanian riots by majority Macedonian Slavs.

- REUTERS

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