Nato sends in advance troops to test water in Macedonia

SKOPJE - Nato troops in Macedonia prepared yesterday for a fact-finding mission that will determine whether the Western alliance sends in a bigger force to gather weapons from Albanian rebels as part of a peace settlement.

Nato is keen to avoid being sucked into another lengthy engagement in the former Yugoslavia and believes a lightning 30-day mission can stabilise a shaky peace deal agreed to a week ago by the ethnic Albanian minority and Macedonian majority.

The mostly British vanguard of about 400 was expected to be in place by this morning. Smaller teams will head from the capital Skopje into rebel-controlled territory in the north this week to make contact with the fighters.

There are doubts whether Operation Essential Harvest can succeed in disarming the rebel National Liberation Army, which has waged a six-month campaign against Macedonian forces and brought Europe to the brink of another Balkan war.

Nato commanders warned that a ceasefire between guerrillas and Macedonian forces was not yet stable enough for the full mission, which would involve about 3500 troops.

"What we have to convince ourselves of is that people are committed to the ceasefire," Brigadier Barney White-Spunner, British commander of the advance group, said.

Nato deferred a decision on full deployment on Saturday, opting to await reports from a visit tomorrow by its supreme commander, General Joseph Ralston, and from White-Spunner.

The first contingents of British, French and Czech soldiers, a few dozen strong, hit the ground on Saturday, hours after gunbattles around the volatile Tetovo region, an NLA stronghold, which killed three people including one civilian.

In a further sign of pitfalls ahead, Macedonian nationalists blockaded the road used by Nato to supply its peacekeeping force in neighbouring Kosovo, vowing to deny troops access unless the West met a long list of largely unpalatable demands.

The alliance is not popular with many Macedonians, who accuse it of failing to stop guerrillas and weapons flooding over the border from Kosovo to bolster the NLA.

Nato officials have taken heart from relative calm in the past few days and from an agreement by NLA last week to lay down arms.

"Our impression is that the vast majority of people in this country really want the Ohrid agreement to work," White-Spunner said, referring to the lakeside resort where the Macedonian Government and Albanian parties agreed on a political reform deal.

However, the milestone agreement, which gives the Albanian language limited official status and provides for a larger role for Albanians in the police force among other things, could yet be derailed by Macedonian nationalists in Parliament.

- REUTERS

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