NATO forces in Kosova and the government in Belgrade have backed up Skopje's campaign, sealing off the border areas to restrict the rebels' options.

A newly formed "government of national unity" declared a two-day cessation to widespread bombardment of the area May 15. President Boris Trajkovski threatened an operation to "eliminate the terrorists," if the guerrillas did not withdraw from the area. The deadline passed without an immediate renewed offensive. Meanwhile, police and soldiers continue their wide-ranging crackdown in the region.

The events marked a resumption in the open conflict that first flared up in February around Tetovo in the western part of the country. Guerrilla forces have been active in the cities and towns where Albanians form the majority. Around one-third of Macedonia's 2 million people identify themselves as Albanian, and some two-thirds as Slav. Albanians face discrimination in education, employment, and other facets of social life in Macedonia and elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia.

The government launched its offensive after rebels killed two army soldiers in an ambush. Eight members of an elite military unit had been killed in a similar attack a week earlier. On May 3 the bombardment began.

In one key operation, the Macedonian army lined up tanks and artillery along the highway northeast of Skopje, and lobbed shells into a number of villages, including Lojane, Slupcane, Lipkovo, and Matejce, where ground fighting was also reported. The Albanian-majority villages form part of a rebel-held 20-mile-long swath of Macedonian territory northwest of Kumanovo, reported the Washington Post. The combined population of the area before the fighting began stood at 26,000 people.  
 
16,000 refugees from Macedonia
Some 9,000 people have fled into neighboring Kosova in the last month alone, bringing to 16,000 the total number of refugees created as a result of the fighting in Macedonia this year. In the village of Slupcane around three-quarters of the houses have sustained damage, ranging from broken windows to total destruction.

Policemen have joined soldiers at checkpoints to enforce a virtual siege of the area, and have rounded up thousands of civilians. Salih, a farmer from the village of Opae, told of being seized by a group of 10 cops. "They beat me with all their strength," he said. "They said they would cut my throat with a knife."

In spite of these methods, many villagers have defied government threats, and refused to move. Some "10,000 civilians remain in the hill villages under government siege," reported the New York Times.

"Theirs is a collective act of defiance...that has enormously frustrated the Macedonian government," observed Washington Post reporter Jeffrey Smith. In contrast to Skopje's claims that the villagers are being used by the rebels as a "human shield," Smith reported that "some may remain out of resolve to press for the Albanians' political goals, including better jobs, more political power, and more schooling in their own language."

The government has refused to negotiate with rebel representatives. "We are dealing with forces that have the clear intention to destroy the state and to introduce fear and terror," said Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski after the announcement of the "national unity" government.

The new government was formed amid pledges to "address ethnic grievances," according to a Post dispatch. It incorporates the representatives of the Albanian Party for Democratic Prosperity and the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, two former opposition parties with electoral bases among the Albanian and Slav populations respectively. They join the Democratic Party for Albanians, and the dominant grouping led by Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski--the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity--as the main forces in the new regime.

Spokespeople for the imperialist powers in NATO and the European Union helped to prod President Trajkovski into the unity government talks. Six days after its consolidation, NATO secretary general Lord Robertson urged the new government to implement "reforms" aimed at mollifying the Albanian population. Such measures would "undermine the political agenda of the gunmen," he claimed.

But even leaders of the established Albanian parties acknowledge they are losing support among the Albanian minority because of any lack of movement by previous governments to address their concerns.

During a visit to Albania on May 17, Robertson promised that NATO would help Skopje "aggressively cleanse' its border with Kosova. "Tough policing of the border is so important because it makes it very difficult for these people to relocate themselves from one theater of fighting to another," he said. NATO's KFOR occupation forces in Kosova have mounted heavy patrols on the border of Macedonia.

The Macedonian prime minister met his counterpart from Belgrade, Zoran Djindjic, on May 10, and declared afterwards that they would cooperate "in their efforts to contain ethnic Albanian militants," reported the Associated Press. In March, the U.S. forces in control of the southeast zone of Kosova had agreed to free Belgrade's hand in opposing Albanian guerrillas within its borders.

At the same time, Washington has stepped up its pressure on President Vojislav Kostunica of Yugoslavia to hand over his predecessor, Slobodan Milosevic. The May 10 New York Times reported that during a visit by Kostunica to the United States, President George Bush insisted that "American financial aid to Belgrade would depend on cooperation with the war crimes tribunal in the Hague."  
 
 
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