One of the leaders of Macedonia's disbanded ethnic Albanian rebel army warned Thursday of a return to fighting in the Balkans country unless provisions of a peace deal are implemented.
"We can anticipate a second war," Commander Hoxha of the National Liberation Army (NLA) told AFP in a telephone interview.
The rebel leader said that provisions of the Ohrid peace accord reached in August were not being upheld and accused Macedonian forces of cracking down on ethnic Albanians as the world focussed on the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the United States.
"The non-observance of the Ohrid accord, the lack of an amnesty, frequent arrests, the police beatings of ethnic Albanians -- if it continues like this, the Albanians will surely take up arms again," Hoxha said.
"I feel tensions are coming to a head every day and soon, many former NLA fighters will be uncontrollable.
"They will not ask the opinion of Ali Ahmeti [NLA political chief] or that of other NLA commanders -- they will get arms for themselves and resume their struggle."
He accused the Macedonians of trying to "cheat" on the peace deal since the August signing in Ohrid.
"Attacks against Macedonian Albanians will not go by without a response," he said, one day after an ethnic Albanian civilian was killed and another seriously injured in a bomb blast in the capital Skopje.
Hoxha accused Macedonian police of planting the homemade explosive device.
"The NLA has not committed war crimes. We have led a clean war, without ever killing any civilians... But the Macedonian have committed such crimes," he claimed.
Hoxha cited as an example an August offensive by Macedonian troops in the Albanian village of Ljuboten, some 10 kilometers north of Skopje.
Human Rights Watch has said government forces committed "grave abuses" in Ljuboten, resulting in the deaths of at least 10 people.
The Macedonian parliament has been slow to implement the peace deal which calls for the adoption of constitutional reforms that would make Albanian an official language in certain areas, devolve wider powers to local government and increase minority hiring in the police force and government.
The deal would also offer amnesty to rebels who lay down their arms. NLA rebels surrendered some 4,000 arms to NATO troops under the alliance's Operation Essential Harvest, which ended on September 26.
The NLA leader recalled that rebels only agreed to give up their weapons and officially disband on September 27 in exchange for political reform.
When asked about comments made by Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski, who announced Wednesday that Macedonian police would return to conflict zones on Thursday, with or without international support, Hoxha was defiant.
"I hope the international community will put pressure on the Macedonians before it's too late... The Macedonians are trying to take advantage of the fact that the world is focused on bin Laden," he said.
He was referring to Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, wanted as Washington's prime suspect in the September 11 suicide plane attacks in the United States.
President Boris Trajkovski has asked NATO to start deploying a 1,000-man force to support civilian observers from the EU and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in the former conflict zones.
Hoxha's NLA launched an insurgency against Macedonian security forces in February, saying it was fighting for improved rights for the country's ethnic Albanian minority -- PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
