Angry Macedonian protest condemns plan for peace

SKOPJE - Thousands of angry Macedonians yesterday protested against Western-brokered efforts to stave off a civil war.

They condemned a draft plan to end an ethnic Albanian revolt as a betrayal of national interests.

A crowd of about 3000 gathered in front of Parliament carrying placards saying, "Nato out!" and "Nato wants to completely Albanianise the country!".

The placards also compared peace talks, which resumed at the weekend, with the appeasement of Nazi Germany before the Second World War.

In the southern resort town of Ohrid, where Macedonia's divided politicians agreed under heavy Western pressure to restart negotiations, the day's talks ended without a breakthrough.

"It's very difficult. We don't have a solution," said European Union envoy Francois Leotard.

"We are going to try to get a solution tomorrow."

His US counterpart, James Pardew, said only: "It's been a long day."

A diplomat said earlier that the talks were intensive but had not broken a deadlock over the use of the Albanian language in a country where one-third of the two million population is ethnic Albanian.

The negotiations, which have frequently been interrupted by bouts of heavy fighting, are aimed at undercutting popular support for an ethnic Albanian revolt which began in February.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who has also been trying to keep the peace process moving, reiterated that if a compromise were reached, Nato troops could start deploying quickly.

"After the political deal, if the parties can reach one, Nato could start demilitarising the UCK [rebels] within 10 days," he said. "This would take one, two months maximum."

Observers from the European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe would then be deployed.

Nato has agreed to deploy 3000 troops to collect rebel arms but is wary of being drawn into another Balkan quagmire.

President Boris Trajkovski chaired the closed-door talks, at a villa in Ohrid, between the leaders of four mainstream parties - two Macedonian and two Albanian - that make up a shaky emergency Government coalition.

Pardew and Leotard have revised the draft that would make Albanian an official language in the swaths of northern and western Macedonia where most of the minority lives.

The regions are now rebel strongholds.

The basis of a peace deal is all but agreed, but the language issue cuts to the core of Macedonia's identity.

The Macedonian majority baulks at endorsing a reform seen as the thin end of a wedge leading to the division of the country.

In a sign of growing pressure for a military crackdown instead, a resolution passed by the protesters in Skopje denounced the US-EU draft as a betrayal of Macedonia's national interests and called for full mobilisation of the armed forces.

Casualties in the five-month-old ethnic Albanian revolt in Macedonia, the only republic which broke away from Yugoslavia without bloodshed, are so far in dozens.

- REUTERS

Feature: Yugoslavia

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