MACEDONIA/YUGOSLAVIA: MACEDONIAN FORCES AND ETHNIC ALBANIAN REBELS FIGHT ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF TETOVO
Record ID:
566142
MACEDONIA/YUGOSLAVIA: MACEDONIAN FORCES AND ETHNIC ALBANIAN REBELS FIGHT ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF TETOVO
- Title: MACEDONIA/YUGOSLAVIA: MACEDONIAN FORCES AND ETHNIC ALBANIAN REBELS FIGHT ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF TETOVO
- Date: 16th March 2001
- Summary: TETOVO, MACEDONIA (MARCH 16, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. SLV/SV/LV VARIOUS OF SHOOTING IN THE STREETS OF TETOVO/SMOKE RISING FROM THE HILLS (13 SHOTS) 1.57 2. GV OF HILLS AROUND THE REGION/ AUDIO OF GUNFIRE/ SMOKE RISING FROM THE HILLS (4 SHOTS) 2.26 SKOPJE, MACEDONIA (MARCH 16, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 3. SLV/SV OF ARRIVAL OF THE GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER JOSCHKA FISCHER (6 SHOTS) 3.00 HILLS ABOVE NORCA, BUFFER ZONE, YUGOSLAVIA 4. SV/SLV PATROL PREPARATIONS (2 SHOTS) 3.08 5. SV POLICEMAN RESTING IN WOODS WITH RIFLE BY HIS SIDE 3.13 6. SLV TROOPS WALKING DOWN HILL 3.19 7. SV POLICEMAN BEING HELPED ON WITH BULLET-PROOF VEST 3.26 8. SV/SLV OF THE PATROL GETTING READY (2 SHOTS) 3.37 9. SV OF FULLY EQUIPPED BORDER GUARDS (2 SHOTS) 3.50 10. SV BORDER GUARD GETS OUT OF DITCH AND GOES DOWN ROAD 4.05 11. SLV/SV VARIOUS OF TROOPS PATROLLING THE AREA (8 SHOTS) 4.57 12. MCU OF SOLDIER SMOKING 5.01 13. SLV TENT WITH PILE OF WOOD OUTSIDE FOR FIRE 5.05 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 31st March 2001 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: TETOVO, MACEDONIA AND NORCA, BUFFER ZONE, YUGOSLAVIA
- City:
- Country: Yugoslavia
- Reuters ID: LVAES43UEK1DJVIGKF1O8G3W1IGX
- Story Text: Macedonian forces and ethnic Albanian rebels fought on
the outskirts of Tetovo on Friday in a third day of violence
that has intensified concern over regional stability.
Yugoslav forces are patrolling in Serbia's volatile
Presevo Valley near Kosovo.
The stand-off continues in the town of Tetovo on
Friday (March 16). In the narrow streets of the Koltuk
district heavily armed Macedonian police units poured fire
onto guerrilla positions on the slopes of Baltepe mountain on
the edge of town.
The rebels responded with heavy machine-gun and automatic
rifle fire into the district of small two-storey houses where
most of the ethnic Albanian-dominated town's Macedonian
population live.
Mortar rounds fell directly into the central square, the
first time the fighting had reached the heart of Macedonia's
second city, the main centre of the ethnic Albanian minority.
Detonations rang out across the entire northwest Tetovo
region at a rate of one every four minutes, interspersed with
the sound of automatic gunfire and sniper rifles.
Loud impacts crashed around the hills above the city and
smoke wreathed woods near television transmitters.
An initially calm response by Tetovo residents gave way to
concern. Pedestrians fled indoors, cars with departing
families were seen on the roads out of Tetovo and at the
railway station local Slavs and Gypsies boarded trains to
escape the chaos.
International alarm that the three-week-old insurgency in
Macedonia could herald a new Balkan war has increased.
A small, multi-ethnic ex-Yugoslav republic, Macedonia has
so far avoided 10 years of Balkan strife and the current
fighting is the worst it has experienced as an independent
state.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer arrived in the
Macedonain capital Skopje on Friday saying the West would not
allow Balkan borders to be altered by force, referring to
fears Albanian guerrillas wanted to join their communities in
Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania in one country.
Fischer arrived to offer support to the multi-ethnic
government in Skopje.
The armed rebels in the border region have exploited the
five km (three mile) wide ground safety zone, imposed by NATO
in 1999 as a no-go area for the Yugoslav army after the Kosovo
conflict, as a safe haven to launch attacks against Serb
police over the last year.
The violence has killed some 34 people since it began in
early 2000. The guerrillas say they are fighting Serbian
repression and discrimination of the Presevo Valley's large
ethnic Albanian population.
Belgrade sees the rebels as separatist terrorists bent on
uniting the area with ethnic Albanian dominated Kosovo.
NATO this week brokered a ceasefire agreement which took
effect early on Tuesday (March 13).
Belgrade sources said they believed the Albanian
guerrillas numbered about 5,000 to 6,000 in a buffer zone by
the Kosovo boundary, a much higher estimate than those given
by NATO officials in the past.
In a NATO-backed move, Yugoslav forces deployed on
Wednesday in a part of the buffer zone in a move designed to
stop the
guerrillas in the Presevo Valley from linking up with a
similar group which has recently emerged in neighbouring
Macedonia.
Yugoslav officials have said their troops did not come
across any guerrillas when they moved into the section of the
zone that touches the Macedonian border to the south. The
rebels have their strongholds further north in the mountainous
area.
Military sources said the Yugoslav army was in permanent
contact with the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo and
that their members had met each other on the Kosovo boundary
on Thursday.
Belgrade has often accused KFOR of failing to prevent the
guerrillas from infiltrating the Presevo Valley from Kosovo,
demanding that the buffer area be narrowed or abolished so
that its forces can re-take control of the remote region.
Local Albanians in the Presevo Valley have voiced concern
over the return of the Yugoslav army to the zone, with some
villagers in the area saying they believe the soldiers used to
be deployed in Kosovo during the conflict there in 1998-99.
Yugoslav forces have been accused of widespread atrocities
against the province's ethnic Albanians during that time.
Two ethnic Albanian political parties have announced a
protest rally on Saturday in the town of Presevo over the
increased presence of Yugoslav soldiers.
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