Stakkars stakkars hjelpelause NATO står igjen i fare for å bli "dradd inn"
i konfliktene mellom Balkans barbarar. Uskyldsreine og ranke er det igjen
NATO som må "ta ansvar" og ordne opp i andres problem. NATO antifascistane
som krigar for fred og menneskerettar, der andre berre krigar for krig,
rasisme og barbari. Det er vel rein og skjær fascisme om eg protesterer?
Asgeir Bjørkedal
Macedonia Crisis Looms Over NATO
Joseph Fitchett International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, June 13, 2001
http://www.iht.com/articles/22660.htm
Powell to Join Talks on Efforts to Stabilize Deepening Conflict
PARIS The Bush administration, NATO and the European Union will hold
crisis talks
Wednesday in Brussels about how to prevent civil war from spiraling
out of control in
Macedonia. The talks will cover the possibility of the eventual use of
NATO
peacekeeping troops to stabilize the ethnic conflict there.
In disclosing the hastily scheduled meeting, which is to include
Secretary of State Colin
Powell, diplomats in Brussels acknowledged that the threat of a new
crisis in the Balkans
suddenly loomed over the planned summit meeting Wednesday of alliance
leaders,
including President George W. Bush.
The diplomats said that U.S. officials had sought to keep the
emergency in Macedonia
off the planned agenda for the heads of state because Mr. Bush wants
to outline broad
new U.S. strategic thinking, so a separate meeting was called.
Three teams from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization already were
on their way to
Macedonia, diplomats said on Tuesday, to serve as an advance unit of
military advisers
to the government.
Its troops have been faring badly against ethnic Albanian guerrillas,
losing key positions
near Skopje, the capital, while apparently alienating civilians in
Albanian-populated areas
by shelling their villages.
The NATO teams, apparently involving only a few dozen men at this
stage, also will
examine ways in which the alliance could help with security issues if
President Boris
Trajkovski of Macedonia follows through on a peace plan that his
government put
forward Tuesday. That plan includes an amnesty for the rebels and
their disarmament
with NATO supervision.
The limited plans - which could foreshadow more direct NATO
involvement in the crisis,
the sources said - reflected an increased international effort to help
Mr. Trajkovski.
Western alarm has risen in recent weeks, a NATO official said,
explaining that "amid
these cease-fires that seem to go on and off, the situation doesn't
seem to be going into a
stable line of improvement."
In neighboring Greece, which fears that violence may spill over its
borders, Foreign
Minister George Papandreou said Tuesday that international
intervention might be
necessary in Macedonia if the government fails to reach an agreement
with the rebels
soon. No other allied government has referred to intervention
publicly, but all clearly
share a new sense of urgency about the deteriorating situation.
The Western position includes pressure on Mr. Trajkovski, who leads a
Slav-dominated
government, to make significant political concessions to ethnic
Albanian demands and
thus undercut the rebels' appeal to Macedonia's Albanian minority, who
compose about
one-third of the more than 2 million residents.
Saying that EU capitals, Washington and Moscow were aligned solidly
behind this
position, a French official said, "We have been working together in
real harmony to get
the right compromise for two months, but slippage has appeared
recently and we need to
find new momentum."
He said any plan to deploy NATO peacekeepers was premature, but the
possibility was
being discussed in the context of a political solution for the country.
The unusual degree of U.S. and NATO cooperation with the EU's
fledgling security
apparatus, which has taken the public lead in Macedonia, will be
underscored by the
crisis meeting, which will bring General Powell together with the NATO
secretary-general, George Robertson, and Javier Solana, the EU's top
diplomat.
The Bush administration has been seeking ways to reduce the U.S. military
commitments in the Balkans, and it would be a political turnaround for
Mr. Bush to
acknowledge now that American ground forces are needed for another
crisis in the
region.
Any NATO move would require U.S. approval and probably a commitment of
U.S.
troops.
As a diplomat said at alliance headquarters: "Peacekeepers have been
under discussion
for weeks, mainly in terms of an absolute 'no' from the Bush
administration."
But Washington may be forced to reconsider because the stakes in
Macedonia are so
high.
According to a diplomat in alliance headquarters, NATO leaders face a
dilemma in the
Balkans: "Getting involved in one more place is a big undertaking but,
on the other hand,
letting one place undo everything that has been accomplished so far
could be a worse
and even bigger deal."
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