Fighting jeopardises Nato deal in Macedonia

New fighting and anti-Government demonstrations in Macedonia have marred optimism over a Nato-brokered deal designed to accomplish a pull-out of ethnic Albanian rebels from a strategically important suburb near the capital Skopje.

Buses carrying ethnic Albanian rebels headed out of Aracinovo yesterday. Nato then sent at least four trucks to the village to take out the weapons belonging to the rebels.

The withdrawal angered thousands of Macedonian Slavs, who gathered outside parliament last night demanding harsher action against the rebels.

Shots were fired, but there were no reports of injuries. Some protesters broke into the legislature, destroying furniture and displaying the old Macedonian flag banned by the communists more than 50 years ago, when the country was still part of Yugoslavia.

In a smaller protest, a crowd near Kumanovo blocked a road, preventing empty buses from moving shortly after they were used to take some of the rebels from Aracinovo to Umin Dol, just outside Kumanovo. US soldiers were with that convoy, along with Macedonian police.

US Major Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the Nato-led peacekeepers, said more than 300 people, most of them rebels, were taken out of Aracinovo.

The rebel withdrawal came just days after Government forces began an offensive against ethnic Albanian militants holed up in the suburb not far from the country’s airport.

The attack shattered a ceasefire meant to create conditions for peace talks to end the most severe crisis ever in this Balkan country of 2 million. And although the Aracinovo withdrawal was successful, new fighting, near Tetovo, cast a pall over the negotiated end to the standoff.

Police officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said rebels attacked police positions on the outskirts of the city and Government forces returned fire, with fighting then moving away from Tetovo and near the village of Gajre in the hills overlooking the city.

Talks had broken down last week after President Boris Trajkovski declared that ethnic Albanian negotiators were unwilling to budge on key sticking points in the negotiations.

The lack of progress has dismayed European Union leaders, trying for months to persuade the Macedonian Slav leadership and ethnic Albanian political leaders to compromise and avert civil war.

To back up that point, EU foreign ministers told Macedonian Foreign Minister Ilinka Mitreava on Monday during talks in Luxembourg not to count on new financial aid unless the Government and ethnic Albanian opponents settle their differences.

EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten reiterated that was only possible if progress is made in national reconciliation talks.

"We would like to support confidence-building measures, but it is difficult to build people’s confidence when money, which is very clearly in short supply, is being spent on bombs and rockets," Patten said.

Nato-led peacekeepers are in Macedonia to provide logistical support to international forces in Kosovo. It was not immediately clear which Nato countries were taking part in the operation.

Trajkovski has appealed to all political leaders to return to the bargaining table to reconsider his peace plan. The plan calls for amnesty for most rebels who disarm voluntarily and greater inclusion of ethnic Albanians in state bodies and institutions.

Talks on the plan resumed in parliament Monday but were broken off after the crowd gathered outside.

Ethnic Albanian parties seek more rights under the constitution. Macedonian Slav parties reject that as a threat to the nation’s survival.

Fighting broke out in Macedonia in February, when militants began taking over villages near the border with Kosovo, whose population is predominantly Albanian, to demand more rights for ethnic Albanians.