Macedonia erupts in new violence

SKOPJE, Macedonia -- Three policemen have been killed and about 100 Macedonians abducted or held hostage in a sudden escalation of violence in the volatile Balkan country.

After the first serious clashes since Macedonia's peace agreement was signed in August its Western overseers were scrambling to contain the crisis before it spiralled out of control and wrecked the accord.

"We will do all we can today to calm the situation and get the political process back on track," an EU diplomat told Reuters on Monday.

Bloodshed erupted on Sunday after special police units crossed unguarded cease-fire lines and secured an alleged mass grave site for exhumation while arresting a number of former ethnic Albanian guerrillas.

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The three policemen who died were members of a special unit called "the Lions," police sources told the Associated Press. Another two policemen were seriously wounded in an ambush by ethnic Albanian rebels near the village of Trebos in the Tetovo area, the sources said.

Macedonian parliament speaker Stojan Andov, speaking just after midday on Monday, said that "all Macedonians who were abducted or held hostage are released." He said he received word from Alain Le Roy, a European Union envoy

A much-delayed milestone session of parliament called for Monday after weeks of EU pressure was cancelled. It was supposed to ratify 15 constitutional amendments giving increased rights to ethnic Albanians.

The vote was called off following media allegations that 13 Macedonian men previously reported to be held prisoner by guerrillas had been executed and buried in one or more mass graves near Trebos.

Hawkish Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski sent in special forces without liaising with international monitors as required by previous undertakings.

The arrests infuriated the ethnic Albanians who accused the government of reneging on the peace deal.

Demobilised guerrillas are meant to be granted an amnesty under the agreement which brought in NATO forces to collect 3,000 of their weapons in "Operation Essential Harvest."

A state police general who asked not to be named told Reuters that 25 Macedonians were hustled off a bus near the northwestern frontline village of Miletino by "armed Albanian terrorists" after daybreak on Monday.

He said eight were subsequently freed with international mediation which was continuing in order to get the others released.

Thirteen other Macedonians seized by armed Albanians in the village of Semsevo on Sunday night were freed on Monday morning after the intervention of NATO liaison officers and were undergoing medical checks at a NATO base.

The cabinet met overnight to tackle the crisis.

Boskovski said three members of the Macedonian security forces on patrol near the reported mass grave site outside the northwestern village of Trebos were killed in an ambush by ethnic Albanians firing rockets.

Two other police troops were wounded. Boskovski said the clashes abated early on Monday morning but he was ready for more fighting in pursuit of his plan to start excavating the site.

"With this, Macedonia has been attacked one more time and we have to fight back fiercely. We are in the second half now," the Interior Minister said.

"Macedonia is a sovereign state and we cannot have the attitude of a protectorate," he said in a snipe at Western peace overseers, resented by many Macedonians for pushing Skopje into concessions for peace with what they say are "terrorists."

But a Western diplomat told Reuters: "OSCE, NATO and EU offered in our meetings with government leaders this weekend to help secure the grave site if the undertaking was done in a non-confrontational matter but they rejected it and chose to act unilaterally."

"We face the dire prospect of a complete unravelling of the relative stability gained since the peace deal was signed," Edward Joseph, Macedonia analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank., told Reuters.

"The key question now is how the Macedonians will react to the police deaths and kidnappings and whether moderate voices will prevail or those who are hellbent on another war."