MACEDONIA: NATIONALISTS BLOCKADE ROAD TO YUGOSLAVIA ON DAY NATO TASK FORCE CONTINGENTS ARRIVE
Record ID:
647974
MACEDONIA: NATIONALISTS BLOCKADE ROAD TO YUGOSLAVIA ON DAY NATO TASK FORCE CONTINGENTS ARRIVE
- Title: MACEDONIA: NATIONALISTS BLOCKADE ROAD TO YUGOSLAVIA ON DAY NATO TASK FORCE CONTINGENTS ARRIVE
- Date: 20th August 2001
- Summary: (U7) SOUTH OF BLACE BORDER CROSSING, MACEDONIA (AUGUST 18, 2001) (REUTERS) 1. SLV PILE OF EARTH BLOCKING ROAD; SLV PROTESTERS / BARBED WIRE / BLOCKADE (7 SHOTS) 0.36 2. (SOUNDBITE) (Macedonian) TODOR PETROV, HEAD OF WORLD MACEDONIAN CONGRESS, SAYING "We will stay until all our demands are fulfilled." 0.42 3. MV/SLV PROTESTERS GATHERED IN A GROUP (2 SHOTS) 0.51 (U7) SKOPJE, MACEDONIA (AUGUST 18, 2001) (REUTERS) 4. LV U.S. PLANE TOUCHING DOWN ON RUNWAY; SLV TAXIIS; SLV WING; SLV TARMAC (7 SHOTS) 1.42 5. SLV ARMED TROOPS AND MILITARY VEHICLES ON TARMAC (6 SHOTS) 2.19 (U7) SKOPJE, MACEDONIA (AUGUST 18, 2001) (REUTERS) (NIGHT VIEWS) 6. SLV BRITISH PLANE LANDS AT AIRPORT; SLV TROOPS DISEMBARKING PLANE / MILITARY VEHICLES (8 SHOTS) 3.10 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 4th September 2001 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: SOUTH OF BLACE BORDER CROSSING, SKOPJE, MACEDONIA
- Country: Macedonia
- Reuters ID: LVA7W8G6AGCHFT4FPB3P39TJZEOU
- Story Text: On the day contingents of British, French and Czech
soldiers arrived in Macedonia, Macedonian nationalists
blockaded the main road to neighbouring Yugoslavia vowing to
prevent NATO forces from using their main supply route to
Kosovo unless Western powers met a long list of demands.
The road blockade staged by a hardline group opposed to
Western efforts to broker an end to a six-month Albanian
guerrilla revolt, stopped traffic several km (miles) south of
the Blace border crossing, denying NATO peacekeepers' vehicles
access on Saturday (August 18).
A crowd of 50-odd demonstrators, including women and
children, kept watch over a makeshift barricade of six old
cars and piles of earth and sand from a nearby petrol station.
Todor Petrov, the head of the World Macedonian Congress,
said foreign powers should crack down on the ethnic Albanian
rebels who have seized swathes of northern territory and
secure the release of Macedonians alleged to have been abducted.
The West should also pay Macedonia reparations because the
NATO-led peacekeepers and United Nations administration which
run Kosovo had failed to stop guerrillas and weapons flooding
into Macedonia to fuel the insurrection, Petrov said.
"We will stay until all our demands are fulfilled," he said,
adding protesters would block the only other road to Kosovo if
NATO tried to use it as an alternative.
A lone police car and half a dozen officers were at the
scene, but did not intervene as protesters stopped all traffic
except Macedonian armed forces and emergency services vehicles.
Meanwhile, the first contingents of British, French and
Czech soldiers hit the ground in Macedonia on Saturday just
hours after gunbattles around the tinderbox Tetovo region, a
rebel National Liberation Army (NLA) stronghold, which killed
three people including one civilian.
Albanian residents of Tetovo reported sniping by
Macedonian troops on Saturday and said an 18-year-old
guerrilla had died in the morning from wounds suffered in
Friday's firefights.
By nightfall on Saturday the the Royal Airforce's (RAF)
largest aircraft made its first operational flight as part of
Nato's weapons collection mission in Macedonia.
Earlier in the day the commander of a small advance task
force warned that NATO would not send troops to Macedonia to
collect weapons from ethnic Albanian guerrillas unless a shaky
truce with government forces stabilised.
The Western alliance, which hopes a lightning disarmament
mission can prevent a fifth Balkan war in a decade without the
need for peacekeepers, is worried about being trapped between
the volatile front lines its operation aims to demilitarize.
Although Macedonia's Defence Ministry said battle zones in
the northern hills were quiet overnight, the British officer
charged with sizing up the risks to a full NATO force stressed
the truce was not yet secure enough to allow its deployment.
NATO deferred a decision on full deployment on Friday
(August 17), opting to await reports from a Monday (August 20)
visit by its supreme commander General Joseph Ralston and from
Brigadier Barney White-Spunner, who insisted the planned
operation had a strict 30-day limit.
White-Spunner said NATO units would be combing front lines
and talking to commanders on both sides to cement a ceasefire
brokered by envoys who secured a surprise NLA disarmament deal.
Many Macedonians remain convinced the NLA's real agenda is
not civil rights for Albanians but cementing its grip on the
swathes of northern Macedonia it has seized since February.
Some 125,000 civilians have been displaced by fighting,
leaving ethnic groups separated along front lines in many areas.
A successful disarmament mission could deliver stability.
But analysts doubt whether NATO's limited plans can be more
than a quick fix, given uncertainty over the size of the NLA
arsenal and the emergence of a shadowy rebel faction opposed
to peace.
NATO insists it will not be drawn into an open-ended
mission alongside those in Kosovo and Bosnia, where about
60,000 troops oversee a flawed peace by policing de facto
ethnic partitions in protectorates dependent on foreign aid.
To build support for the peace accord among Macedonia's
two million inhabitants, many of whom do not want war despite
deep ethnic animosity, the United States could fund an
advertising campaign, possibly including direct mailings to
every household.
But it has ruled out sending extra troops to the region.
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