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An elderly ethnic Albanian man touches his head as Macedonian Slav refugees return to their homes outside the village of Tearce, 32 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of Skopje, Monday, Sept. 17, 2001. Exchanges of fire occurred late Sunday night between Macedonian police forces in the village of Zilce, about seven kilometers (four miles) northeast of the city of Tetovo, and ethnic Albanians in the village of Semsovo. There were no reports of casualties.(AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)

Ethnic Albanian children flash victory signs while posing on a disabled Macedonian army tank in the village of Matejce, 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) northeast of Skopje, Monday, Sept. 17 2001. Exchanges of fire occurred late Sunday night between Macedonian police forces in the village of Zilce, about seven kilometers (four miles) northeast of the city of Tetovo, and ethnic Albanians in the village of Semsevo. There were no reports of casualties. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

The speaker of the Macedonian Parliament Stojan Andov, right back to camera, talks to lawmakers during a pause of a session at the parliament building in Skopje, Macedonia, Monday, Sept. 17, 2001. The Macedonian Parliament convened to discuss peace initiatives including a proposed change to the constitution and the NATO presence. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)

Macedonian lawmakers look at a copy of the constitution, during a session at the parliament building in Skopje, Macedonia, Monday, Sept. 17, 2001. The Macedonian Parliament convened to discuss the initiative on a referendum on whether to adopt constitutional changes on an international peace plan in exchange for the rebel hand-over of weapons to NATO troops. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)

Macedonian lawmakers talk during a pause of a session at the parliament building in Skopje, Macedonia, Monday, Sept. 17, 2001. The Macedonian Parliament convened to discuss the initiative on a referendum on whether to adopt constitutional changes on an international peace plan in exchange for the rebel hand-over of weapons to NATO troops. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)

Reuters

September 17, 2001 10:03 am EST
By Mark Heinrich

SKOPJE (Reuters) - NATO accused Macedonian security forces of provoking a major cease-fire violation at the weekend, endangering alliance troops involved in disarming ethnic Albanian guerrillas under a peace accord.

NATO spokesmen said Monday security police fired light and heavy weapons including grenade launchers into a mainly ethnic Albanian village Sunday night, triggering four-and-half hours of sporadic but heavy shooting exchanges.

No NATO personnel were injured.

But a brigade officer in the guerrilla movement that has voluntarily surrendered two thirds of its declared arsenal to NATO said an 11-year-old boy and 40-year-old man were wounded by the barrage on the village of Semsovo.

The incident occurred about 10 km (six miles) northeast of Tetovo, the country's largest mainly ethnic Albanian city, and 35 km (21 miles) west of the capital Skopje.

"We had NATO troops... in the area who were able to make a comprehensive and accurate observation of events. Their clear conclusion was that the exchanges were initiated by Macedonian police forces," said NATO spokesman Mark Laity.

He denied reports by the pro-government media that "Albanian terrorists" had attacked the police position. "In the exchanges that followed, the great majority of fire including the use of heavy weapons came from Macedonian forces. The assessment by NATO liaison teams was that this placed our forces in the area in some danger," he told a news conference.

Laity said NATO had taken the matter up with the government and expected urgent action to prevent a recurrence.

The shooting originated from an area between the villages of Zilce and Ratae where Western diplomats say undisciplined police reservists and associated paramilitaries have harassed ethnic Albanians, including demobilized fighters, at checkpoints and triggered numerous bouts of gunfire.

Western officials say unaccountable elements of the security services itching to avenge humiliating territorial losses to guerrillas pose the worst threat to the peace pact, under which minority Albanians are to get better civil rights.

Laity said Macedonian security units subjected the village to two sustained rounds of gunfire before anyone fired back.

"This incident emphasizes again that at this sensitive fragile time there is a need for (local) forces to be totally controlled. (Weapons-collections) require maximum restraint. This is the worst possible time for provocations."

VIOLENCE COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE

Major Alexander Dick said such violence was "not conducive" to guerrillas disarming voluntarily and Laity said the longer it persisted, the longer it would take for Macedonians displaced from areas taken by rebels to return home in safety. Earlier Sunday, three off-duty Macedonian policemen were beaten up after going into an Albanian shop in Vratnica, 12 miles north of Ratae, to buy a tractor tire.

"Our assessment is that this had no connection with the subsequent shooting. It was just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time," Dick said. But the weekend violence underscored ethnic enmities that simmer on.

Plans are being drawn up for a small NATO security force to deter violence so that international monitors who will oversee the return of Macedonian institutions and refugees to guerrilla zones can operate free of intimidation.

The government had ruled out a longer-term NATO presence, believing it would mutate into a "Green Line" behind which Albanian separatists would cement a breakaway fiefdom ethnically cleansed of Macedonians.

Western sponsors remain concerned about the solidity of the peace accord because Macedonia's parliament is hesitating to pass constitutional amendments to improve the status of the large Albanian minority.

AFP

SKOPJE, Sept 17 (AFP) -

The Macedonian parliament was preparing Monday to discuss putting the peace plan with the rebels to a popular vote amid fears a referendum could split the government and delay the adoption of the accord by several weeks.

The nationalist president of the assembly, Stojan Andov, called the deputies to meet Monday following a demand for a popular vote on the August 13 framework peace agreement by the small centre-right New Democracy party.

The party has only five representatives in Macedonia's 120-seat parliament, but its demand has been called a "wrecking amendment" by NATO chief George Robertson and one party has even threatened to leave the coalition over it.

New Democracy has said that the constitutional changes called for by the peace accord should be decided by the people and not by "political elites."

But debate on implementing the accord is running to a tight calendar and must be completed by September 27 and a referendum is only likely to slow that process down and risks plunging the country into a civil war.

The constitutional changes are taking place in three phases, each one preceded by NATO collecting a roughly equal portion of the 3,300 weapons it believes the rebel National Liberation Army (NLA) is holding.

The four main parties who signed the Ohrid accord, named after the lakeside resort where it was put together, all reject the referendum proposal.

The two main Albanian parties, the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA) and the Party of Democracy and Prosperity (PDP), are clearly opposed and DPA leader Arben Xhaferi has threatened to call for his own referendum "if the Macedonians organise theirs."

In the last census in 1994, ethnic Albanians made up almost 23 percent of Macedonia's population of two million, but that percentage has grown and estimates now ranging from a quarter to one third of the population.

The leader of the Social Demcrat SDSM, Branko Crvenkovski, has said his party will leave the broad coalition government if the referendum proposal is accepted.

"SDSM will not support the initiative for a referendum, not because we do not want to hear the people's voice, but because terrible things might happen to Macedonia by the time people get the chance to express their will," he said on Saturday.

Crvenkovski said it could be two to three months before the people have their chance to vote and that NATO's Operation Essential Harvest could be interrupted and clashes might break out again.

On Friday, the NATO secretary general slammed the proposal, saying it would block political efforts and prevent some of the estimated 127,000 Macedonians displaced by the seven-month conflict from returning to their homes.

"This referendum idea seems simply to have been floated as an idea to derail that process and not to reinforce it," Robertson said.

"Those, like me, who care about the people who have been displaced from their homes should be warned that if this amendment is passed then it will simply take longer and longer for these people to go home."

"This is not a democratic amendment, this is a wrecking amendment," he said.

The Ohrid accord grants an amnesty to most rebels who disarm, makes Albanian an official language in some areas, provides more minority jobs in the police and administration and gives wider powers to local government.

AP

By Konstantin Testorides
Associated Press Writer
Monday, Sept. 17, 2001; 3:03 p.m. EDT

SKOPJE, Macedonia Top Macedonian leaders said Monday the government would ask NATO to start a new mission in the Balkan country after its operation to collect weapons from ethnic Albanian rebels ends next week.

The decision, reached in a meeting of the National Security Council, reflected the perception that a continued NATO presence would lessen chances of new violence between the rebels and government troops or among civilians.

"Macedonia will request that NATO authorize another small-scale mission ... after Operation Essential Harvest is completed," said presidential adviser Nikola Dimitrov, referring to the current NATO mission by its formal name.

Dimitrov also said the government would ask the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has sent civilian monitors to Macedonia, to increase its presence. He gave no figures for the proposed NATO mission or the OSCE observers.

Government officials said privately earlier that the country would ask for an extended NATO presence once the weapons-collecting effort ends Sept. 26, but the announcement Monday was the first formal, public confirmation that such a request would be made.

It came after an outburst of violence and amid attempts by some lawmakers to organize a national referendum on the country's Western-backed peace plan a vote that would slow the peace process and could even scuttle it, because many in the nation's Macedonian majority oppose concessions to ethnic Albanians.

The Western-brokered peace plan commits parliament to passing constitutional reforms granting ethnic Albanians more rights. In exchange, ethnic Albanian rebels have agreed to surrender thousands of weapons.

Under the peace plan, lawmakers are to enact the reforms within 45 days of the Aug. 27 start of NATO's operation to collect the weapons. NATO troops have collected two-thirds of the 3,300 weapons the rebels are to hand in, and Parliament must now discuss the constitutional amendments before the alliance can complete the arms collection.

The proposal for a referendum needs a simple majority of 61 votes in the 120-seat parliament to pass, and a key pro-Western party has warned it could pull out of the shaky government coalition if it is approved.

Adding to tensions, police in the village of Zilce, about 4 four northeast of the city of Tetovo, exchanged fire with ethnic Albanians in the neighboring village of Semsevo on Sunday.

Macedonian police officials blamed the rebels, but NATO said its intelligence showed police fired first. Dimitrov said the National Security Council the president, the prime minister, top Cabinet ministers and senior security officials would recommend police in the region be replaced by army units.

Top ethnic Albanian leader Arben Xhaferi blamed Macedonian paramilitary units for the violence.

"We don't know to whom they answer," he said. "It is a dangerous game."

Recent violence could also complicate government plans to organize the return of Macedonians who fled their villages in the largely ethnic Albanian area around Tetovo because of real or feared violence. Defense Minister Vlado Buckovski said the returns should begin Tuesday.

Some 120,000 people left or were driven from their homes in six months of violence that began when the rebels took up arms in February.

AFP

SKOPJE, Sept 17 (AFP) -

Tension mounted between NATO and the Macedonian authorities Monday over a series of weekend shooting incidents as parliament discussed a referendum proposal that could delay peace moves.

With a political deadline for adopting Macedonia's peace accord less than two weeks away, NATO accused Macedonian security forces of firing unprovoked on an ethnic Albanian village and endangering Alliance troops.

The shooting incidents happened late Sunday in the northwest villages of Zilce and Ratae, which are mainly Macedonian, and the nearby predominantly ethnic Albanian village of Semsovo.

NATO spokesman Mark Laity said shots, including rounds from heavy weapons, were fired on and off from Zilce over more than four hours and that Macedonian forces opened fire twice before any response was heard from the Albanian side.

"It's our assessment that with the number of NATO liaison teams in the area our forces were in some danger," Laity said, adding: "We will be having meetings later today to pass on our concerns to the appropriate authorities for further action."

But the interior ministry blamed the National Liberation Army (NLA), accusing its guerrilla fighters of surrounding Semsovo, and called on NATO to force the rebels to withdraw.

"If they do not do so, the interior ministry will be forced to take measures to unblock the roads and push the terrorists back to their previous positions," a ministry statement said.

A NATO source said groups of what appeared to be civilians from both the Macedonian and ethnic Albanian communities had set up roadblocks around the village.

"The barricades are a response by both sides to the events of last night. They are a reflection of mutual insecurity, there is a need for calmness and restraint, all sides should avoid provocations," the source said.

When asked whether NATO would take any action to have the barricades removed, the source said: "Everyone knows perfectly well what our mandate is, we have a liaison function, we are not here to go beyond that."

The shooting was some of the heaviest since NATO began Operation Essential Harvest on August 27 to collect 3,300 weapons from the NLA in 30 days.

Task Force Harvest has collected more than two thirds of its target and plans to gather the final portion once parliament has ratified changes to the constitution so that the August 13 peace accord can be implemented.

British NATO spokesman Major Alex Dick said the shooting incidents could anger the NLA and undermine the collection efforts.

In Skopje's parliament, Macedonian lawmakers were preparing to debate a proposal that could undermine political efforts to apply the framework peace agreement by the September 27 deadline.

The assembly was called to meet at 12:00 pm (1000 GMT) following a demand for a popular vote on the agreement by the small centre-right New Democracy party, but debate was help up by other proceedings.

The party has only five representatives in Macedonia's 120-seat parliament, but its demand has been called a "wrecking amendment" by NATO chief George Robertson and one party has even threatened to leave the coalition over it.

New Democracy has said that the constitutional changes called for by the peace accord should be decided by the people and not by "political elites."

But debate is running to a tight calendar and a referendum is likely to slow that process down and risks plunging the country into a civil war.

The four main parties who signed the accord all reject the referendum proposal.

The leader of one of them, Branko Crvenkovski of the Social Democrat SDSM, has said his party will leave the broad coalition government if the proposal is accepted.

Crvenkovski said any vote could take two to three months to organise and that the delay could hurt NATO's mission and spark more clashes.

NATO Secretary General George Robertson slammed the proposal, saying it would block political efforts and prevent some of the estimated 127,000 Macedonians displaced by the seven-month conflict from returning to their homes.

The peace accord grants an amnesty to most rebels who disarm, makes Albanian an official language in some areas, provides more minority jobs in the police and administration and gives wider powers to local government.

News.bg

The Day of Sofia September17 was celebrated with a special ritual performed in front of the historical St. Sophia church in the presence of President Petar Stoyanov, the mayor of Sofia Stefan Sofiansky, and many Members of Parliament, politicians and common citizens. Sofia Municipal Council commemorated the Day of Sofia with a festive session, which started with a minute of silence in tribute of the USA terrorist attacks victims. The councilors adopted a declaration to President George Bush, in which they expressed their empathy with the near and dear of the dead and indignation of the attacks in New York and Washington.

News.bg

The 12th meeting of SECIPRO, the South Eastern Europen Committees, whose main task is to facilitate transport and trade in South Eastern Europe, took place in Bucharest, the Bulgarian Chamber for Commerce and Industry press-service reported. The meeting was organized by the Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Bulgarian delegation included Deputy Chairman of the Bulgarian Chamber for Commerce and Industry Georgy Chernev. The meeting proposed the introduction of the single pay widow for payments at the borders. Payments could be done with respective national currencies, EURO and USD. Credit cards could also be used.

News.bg

Minister of Defense Nikolay Svinarov announced that Bulgaria was not approached concerning military help for the response against the attacks against the USA. He was commenting the words of Foreign Minister Solomon Pasi who had said in an interview for a central newspaper that civilization was in a war with terrorism, and Bulgaria was a part of civilization. He said that although a politician could say Bulgaria was in a war, a Minister of Defense could not say such a thing, and added that Bulgaria was not in a state of war, but was ready to help democratic societies, the USA included.

News.bg

Speaking to journalists during the inauguration of the new school year, Premier Simeon Koburg-Gotha said that special threat on the part of Islamic fundamentalist organizations did not exist. As he said, panic was groundless and half-news should not be published. He said that Bulgarian special services were spying on visiting foreigners and emphasized that Bulgarian intelligence was working in its normal regime. According to the Premier, one should not overestimate the capacities of the Taliban to attack other countries. In a comment of the American President George Bushs offer for building a common front against terrorism, he said that all pro-democracy countries should work in unison. He also said that National Movement Simeon II would come up with a clear position on the presidential elections and denied allegations about his candidature for President with the words: "They obviously was thinking that I was not good as a Premier." He added that National Movement Simeon II would keep all the deadlines in nominating its presidential candidature.

Standartnews

A whole class of second-year pupils from the 'Marin Drinov' school will walk around the building of the Council of Ministers today. PM invited the children at a party for the first school day in the garden of the CM. In May children wanted Simeon to sign their certificates for first class. Their class teacher was almost dismissed because of this initiative.

(PY)

News.bg

For the first time today, Maxim held a festive church service to inaugurate the beginning of the new school year, after which he greeted the pupils. Minister of Education and Science Vladimir Atanasov and his whole team, as well as the Chief Mufti Selim Ahmed attended the service.

News.bg

Afghan embassy in Bulgaria, representing the government of President Burkhanudding Rabani, has received threatening letters after the assaults in the USA, a report from the embassy to the media read, and reminded that the Afghan embassy was representing the internationaly-recognized government of Rabani, which did not have anything in common with the Taliban ruling in Afghanistan for the time being.