Macedonia: A Balkan time bomb?

In this story: Clashing ethnic perceptions President's plea RELATED STORIES, SITES

By CNN's Douglas Herbert

LONDON, England (CNN) - Will Macedonia prove the doomsayers right and become the Balkan's next ethnic powder keg?

Fighting between ethnic Albanian militants and Macedonian forces near Macedonia's border with Kosovo has raised concerns that this former Yugoslav republic could be an incubator for the next round of Balkan bloodshed.

Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski, speaking to CNN during a visit to Paris on Thursday, described the insurgency as a "serious threat" to stabilisation and institution-building in his country's budding democracy.

He saluted a NATO statement vowing measures to step up controls in the conflict zone, while vowing to "defend the territorial integrity of the Republic of Macedonia."

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Ethnic Albanians, most of whom are Muslim, represent just over one-fifth of Macedonia's population of two million, making them by far the country's largest ethnic minority. They live predominantly in western areas of the country and in its capital, Skopje.

Macedonian Slavs, largely of Eastern Orthodox faith, account for two-thirds of the country's citizens. Other ethnic groups -- including Turks, Gypsies and Serbs -- collectively account for about 10 percent of the population.

More than 350,000 ethnic Albanian refugees poured into Macedonia during the 1998 to 1999 Kosovo war. Almost all of them have since returned to their former homes.

Unlike their one-time compatriots in Bosnia, Croatia and the Serbian province of Kosovo, Macedonians declared independence from Yugoslavia's crumbling federation in 1991 and walked away without a scratch.

A year later, the historical stomping ground of Romans, Byzantines, Ottoman Turks, Bulgarians and Serbs, was recognised by the European Union under the provisional name of the 'Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.'

The clunky title was a concession to Greece, which also has a northern province called Macedonia, and disputes the former Yugoslav republic's claim to the name.

Macedonia has proven remarkably resilient to the ethnic conflagrations that have flared elsewhere in the region.

"Compared to the rest of the region (Montenegro apart), Macedonia has been something of a multi-ethnic success story," noted a report by the International Crisis Group in August 2000, on the eve of the current border clashes.

Clashing ethnic perceptions

"The country has thus far managed to maintain a relatively high degree of stability. Gloomy scenarios about the country's disintegration and a possible division amongst its neighbours have not materialised."

However, the report found a "worrying" contradiction in the way the country's two biggest ethnic groups perceive one other. "Ask ethnic Albanians about the state of current relations and they are likely to reply that relations have never been better. Ask ethnic Macedonians and they are likely to reply that relations have never been worse."

The insurgency on Macedonia's border gained steam on February 26, when a three-hour fire fight in the village of Tanusevci, sparked a flight of ethnic Albanian refugees across Macedonia's northern border into Kosovo, in Yugoslavia.

Three squads of Kosovo-based U.S. peacekeepers were dispatched the same day to an observation post in Debelde, on the Kosovo side of the border, amid concerns that the ethnic Albanian insurrection could spread to Macedonia.

The insurgency had previously been confined to the Presovo Valley, on Kosovo's border with Serbia, within Yugoslavia.

In recent days, NATO has reinforced its border patrols along the Macedonian border, and sent advisers to the area to help the Macedonian Government deal with the situation.

Trajkovski told CNN he had received assurances from NATO that it would launch air and ground patrols in the border area and impose strict screening rules to prevent groups seen as potential troublemakers from crossing the border.

President's plea

At the same time, he appealed for a tightening of border patrols.

"What we need is to have K-FOR troops closer to our border zone, in the area of the border belt, because at this moment the K-FOR troops are 1,500 metres away … K-FOR is therefore unable to maintain control" in the area.

Those on the ground in Macedonia - including its president - downplay suggestions the current border fighting will escalate into a full-blown war. But few are willing to categorically rule out a wider conflict.

"It is potentially very serious," Carlo Ungaro, the head of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's mission to Skopje, the Macedonian capital, told CNN Thursday.

"At this moment (the fighting) is very limited in scope because it is restricted to a small area and involves only a very small number of people. In our opinion, most (of the fighters) are people who have infiltrated from Kosovo and have persuaded the villagers to leave."

By contrast, ethnic Albanian leaders in Macedonia have moderated their tone, Ungaro said.

"While in the beginning the ethnic Albanian political leadership was making revolutionary noises and threatening to separate, the leadership now, over the past couple of years has changed its stance, saying we want to be full citizens."

Instead they are now focusing on what Ungaro calls "legitimate" demands -- such as pressing for a law to recognise Albanian as a second official language, alongside Macedonian.

James Pettifer, an author of several books on the Balkans, including The New Macedonian Question, cautioned that an over-reaction by either NATO or the Macedonian Government could inflame the situation.

"There is a sense now of being quite near the edge of a cliff," Pettifer said. "How near is very difficult to say, but ethnic relations are very bad.

"A kind of random outbreak of violence, whether it was between new guerilla organisations and authorities, or between different ethnic groups in a city could be much more explosive than it was two or three years ago … The ethnic temperature is much higher."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

NATO acts on Albanian extremists
NATO pledges Balkans commitment
NATO acts on Macedonia violence fears
Fighting on Macedonia-Kosovo border
Balkans summit seeks end to violence

Government of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
NATO
United Nations
International Crisis Group (ICG)
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)
Virtual Macedonia Network

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