Word: albanian
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...retreat from villages around Skopje, those insurgents carried their weapons onto buses ferrying them to a safe haven despite NATO's initial insistence that they could not board the vehicles armed. In other words, NATO doesn't have much of a track record of standing up to armed Albanian extremists, and a peace process in which compliance is entirely voluntary certainly provides plenty of opportunity to try and rewrite the rules...
...NATO troops are sent in to supervise the disarmament process and its breaks down, they could find themselves in the middle of a shooting war. Being forced to retreat would be a humiliating defeat for the West; trying to enforce the peace could force a bruising showdown with Albanian nationalists throughout the region...
...Fierce firefights have raged across the country since last Wednesday's announcement that a "peace deal" will be signed on Monday, as Albanian nationalist guerrillas press to expand their range of operations despite NATO?s hopes of persuading them to disarm once a new political order has been negotiated. And the escalation of fighting threatens to turn Monday's political agreement - if the two sides are still able to sign by then - into a sideshow. The immediate problem may be that the agreement being painstakingly brokered by EU representative Francois Leotard and U.S. envoy James Pardew does not involve...
...despite the optimism of the mediators. An ambush near Skopje on Wednesday saw 10 government troops killed, while reporters in Tetovo reported that guerrillas had once again seized parts of the city in fierce fighting. On Tuesday, Macedonian police raided a house in the capital and killed five ethnic-Albanian men accused of being guerrillas. Despite the political talks, fighting rages on, and there are few signs that the guerrillas are preparing to disarm - or that government forces will tolerate any perceived attempt by the guerrillas to expand their presence. So even once the political deal is concluded, the potential...
...ethnic-Albanian political parties, if they are to bring about a peaceful resolution to the crisis, have to keep in mind what the rebel leaders want. Of course some rebel leaders are saying the agreement that has been reached is not enough, while others are saying it is sufficient. Ultimately, it will be up to the rebels' political leadership, who, while they haven't directly taken part in the talks, have been consulted and kept informed. And as long as the rebels' top leaders go along with the agreement, it must be presumed that the regional field commanders will...