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Macedonia Intensifies Campaign Against Albanian Extremists
The Macedonian government intensified its campaign against ethnic Albanian extremists Sunday by using tanks and heavy artillery and mobilizing reserve troops, according to a report of the Albanian news agency ATA.
"Macedonia is rapidly arming itself," Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski was quoted as saying.
Clashes between government forces and ethnic Albanian extremists have entered the fifth day since the fighting between the two sides spread from the Macedonia-Yugoslavia border to Macedonia's second largest city of Tetovo Thursday.
The government declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew in Tetovo on Sunday. At least 2,000 people have fled the since the fighting began.
The prime minister also condemned the United States and Germany, whose troops patrol the neighboring Yugoslav province of Kosovo as part of the NATO-led Kosovo peacekeeping force, known as KFOR, for not doing enough to stop ethnic Albanian extremists.
"You cannot convince us that the chieftains of theses gangs are unknown to your governments, nor can you persuade us that they cannot be stopped," Georgievski said.
NATO refused to recognize that the Albanian guerrillas came form Kosovo, which is under UN administration and guarded by the KFOR, because to admit this would mean that all their efforts there have been in vain.
Clashes between ethnic Albanian extremists and Macedonian troops have sparked international fear that the violence could again destabilize the Balkans.
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