Concerns in Europe: January - June 2001
51
Amnesty International September 2001
AI Index: EUR 01/003/2001
REPUBLIC OF (FYROM)
Background
The situation in Macedonia deteriorated into open
conflict from the beginning of the year. On 22 January
an ethnic Albanian armed opposition group, the
National Liberation Army (NLA/UÇK), claimed
responsibility for a grenade attack on the Tearce police
station, near Tetovo, in which a policeman was killed,
and two others were wounded.
The NLA’s stated platform, shared with
legitimate ethnic Albanian political parties, seeks to
achieve political, economic, social and cultural rights
for ethnic Albanians, estimated at comprising a
quarter to a third of Macedonia’s population. Specific
demands include changes to the preamble of the
constitution to remove the reference to Macedonia as
the state of the Macedonian people, and the
corresponding description of Albanians as a
“nationality”, in favour of the inclusion of both groups
as a “constituent nation”; the use of Albanian as an
official language, in government, education and the
media; an increase in the numbers of ethnic Albanians
employed in the public sector, particularly in the
police forces, and the decentralisation of power and
budgets to local authorities.
After the first NLA attack, fighting broke out
between the Macedonian security forces and the NLA
in the north and northwest of the country, in areas with
ethnic Albanian majorities. The clashes intensified in
the first week in March after three Macedonian
soldiers were killed near the village of Tanusevci on
the Kosovo border, and the NLA took over the villages
of Selce and Gajre in the Tetovo area. Macedonian
army and police reservists were mobilised in mid-
March in a major offensive to regain control over
these villages. The Macedonian government declared
the offensive successfully completed by the end of
March. In areas affected by the skirmishes, most of the
civilian population left their homes. Macedonians
mainly sought shelter with friends and families within
Macedonia, though some also fled to Bulgaria. Many
displaced ethnic Albanians crossed the border into
Kosovo.
Civilian violence erupted in the southern town of
Bitola on 30 April after the bodies of five ethnic
Macedonian soldiers and policemen killed in
ambushes were returned to the town for burial.
Following the funerals, riots broke out in Bitola in
which business premises and the houses of ethnic
Albanians and other Muslims were destroyed. A
second incident occurred under similar circumstances
on 6 June when the bodies of three further policemen
were returned to Bitola for burial. On this occasion the
non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch
reported that police were present on the streets and did
not intervene, in some cases even joining the rioters.
A mosque was also vandalized, and set on fire, and
grave markers broken by the rioters. Approximately
100 further homes were targeted on this occasion, of
which 14 were gutted by fire. Macedonian security
forces started another offensive in May to recover the
villages, including Vaksince and Slupcan, taken by the
NLA in the Kumanovo area. The flow of refugees and
internally displaced people increased as more areas
were affected by the clashes.
A government of national unity was formed on 8
May, including both Macedonian and Albanian
political parties, and government and opposition
coalitions, but could not prevent more fighting
between the NLA and the security forces, nor the
alleged arming of Macedonian civilians by the Interior
Minister Ljube Boskovski. Events came to a head in
early June when the NLA took Aracinovo, a village in
the suburbs of Skopje, near Skopje airport, and
threatened to shell either the capital or the airport.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops
agreed to escort the NLA out of Aracinovo under a
deal brokered by European Union (EU) peace envoy
Javier Solana. The fact that the NLA were allowed to
take their weapons sparked riots by Macedonian Slavs
in Skopje. By the end of June special envoys of the EU
and the USA were trying to put together a peace
package involving a cease fire, peace talks between
Macedonian and ethnic Albanian parties, and a NATO
mission to disarm the rebels once a political
agreement was reached.
These events were accompanied by a substantial
increase in the number of reported human rights
abuses but, as the media has become increasingly
ethnically polarised, it has proved extremely difficult
to investigate and confirm many reports.
Allegations of ill-treatment by police
During a mission to Macedonia in June AI
interviewed several victims of police ill- treatment.
Concerns about the use of excessive force by the
police had already been raised in a report issued in
June 2000 (After the Aracinovo murders: Torture, ill-
treatment and possible extrajudicial execution, AI
Index: EUR 65/03/00). The mission confirmed that
police ill-treatment remains one of the major concerns
in the country. For example, on the morning of 10 June
police visited the homes of two high-ranking officers
of the Macedonian army, M.B. and N.S. (the names of
these officers are known to AI), both ethnic
Albanians, in Skopje. In both cases several dozen
officers were said to be involved, including police in
civilian clothes, special police and masked police
officers. M.B. was told he was being arrested. The
police searched his house for about an hour without
finding anything. M.B. was handcuffed and taken to a
police station in Skopje. He alleges that while he was
there a bag was put over his head, and he was
repeatedly beaten with metal bars and baseball bats.
He was then taken to another place by car, and
interrogated about his alleged connections to the
NLA, and accused of passing the flight plans of the
Macedonian air force to the NLA. The ill-treatment is
said to have continued during the whole day of 10
June, and during this time M.B. was not given any
water. The next morning he was taken to a third place,
where he reports that was tied up to a radiator and