Posted on 12/13/2001 8:56:27 AM PST by Pericles
Thursday December 13 10:39 AM ET
Blockades Mar Police Return to Macedonia Rebel Area
By Mark Heinrich
SKOPJE (Reuters) - Macedonia's peace process took an uncertain step forward on Thursday when police flanked by Western monitors re-entered some rebel villages but retreated from others after militants blocked the roads.
Minority Albanian guerrillas seized more than 10 percent of the ex-Yugoslav republic in a shock uprising earlier this year.
A plan to reinstate law and order in those areas finally unfolded after almost two months of foot-dragging by the government in enacting civil rights reforms and an amnesty for the guerrillas required by a peace accord signed in August.
Parliament amended the constitution on November 16 and the president began pardoning jailed rebels last week, fulfilling key terms for the return of police under Western scrutiny to more than 100 rebel villages over a two-month period. Bearing sidearms only and comprised equally of Macedonians and ethnic Albanians, police units headed for 15 selected ''low-risk'' villages on a 90-mile arc linking the Skopje, Kumanovo, Tetovo and Gostivar areas across northern Macedonia.
Police returned to five villages in the Skopje and Gostivar areas without delay or incident. They had not been rebel strongholds.
But the re-entry project ran into difficulties elsewhere, above all in the Tetovo Valley -- the seat of the guerrilla high command which remains a nationalist hotbed.
VILLAGERS BLOCK ROADS
Police returned to only two of seven target villages in Tetovo's hinterland. Overnight snowfalls sealed off two mountain hamlets while ethnic Albanian men barred access to the other five by parking cars, trucks and tractors across roads.
Villagers complained that NATO and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitors advising the government had given short shrift to local sentiment.
Isen Asani, mayor of Dobroste, a former guerrilla field headquarters, demanded that the composition of returning police units reflect the area's overwhelmingly Albanian population, not be balanced evenly between Macedonians and Albanians.
He also called for an amnesty law, not just a presidential decree which many Albanians fear could be circumvented by security police hard-liners bent on vengeance against ex-rebels.
Another condition posed by villagers was the removal of army and police checkpoints on roads to Tetovo, where many valley inhabitants go to work, shop or see relatives.
``That's the most important issue and only when they are dismantled can we talk about having police back here. There's a lot of distrust. Peace needs to bloom for a while,'' said Hasan Imeri, one of 50 men standing amid the vehicle barricade.
Police re-entered three Kumanovo highland villages but only after a two-hour hold-up caused by communal resentment rooted partly in the widespread destruction wrought by indiscriminate artillery and tank bombardments by security forces.
SIGN OF HOPE
In Nikustak, the village mosque's minaret still lay snapped in two like a twig from an artillery hit. Red-and-black Albanian flags fluttered from some of the smashed buildings.
But there was one striking sign of hope. The region's former guerrilla brigade commander, known only as Shpati, showed up among villagers greeting the policemen. Shpati said he was confident the amnesty would protect rebel veterans.
To minimize the risk of clashes and allow time to defuse communal suspicion, police were to patrol villages only during daylight for the first 10 days or so, without powers of arrest.
If all goes well, police will re-enter other villages that have been designated medium- and higher risk in phases with patrolling hours gradually extended round the clock.
Night-time policing will be the acid test of reintegration, with authorities wary of attacks by radicals who withheld weapons from a NATO disarmament scheme in September.
But Western monitors say the overwhelming majority of demobilized rebels and their village faithful support the peace process and believe militant threats will subside if policing proves fair, the reforms are implemented and amnesty observed.
These areas blocked off control the supply road into Kosovo and Camp Bondsteel. It is the only way in or out beyond Yugoslavia.
Like I said in past posts wait till the snow falls in the Kacanik Valley.....
Wrong.
I'm offering you the opportunity to stick your foot as deep in your mouth as you want before I prove it, however, as this has been the most entertaining way of dealing with you and your 'factoids'.
As a practical reality The Kacanik Gorge is currently the only supply route for Bondsteel......and it is currently controled by the KLA Mujhadeen
C'mon. You can do better than posting a map.
Exert yourself and write something amusing.
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