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Gunmen take police hostage in Macedonia, call for Albanian state
(Reuters) - About 40 armed men wearing uniforms of a disbanded ethnic Albanian guerrilla army from Kosovo took several police officers hostage in northern Macedonia overnight, Macedonian police said on Tuesday.
The men left the police post near Macedonia's border with Kosovo after several hours.
Macedonian Interior Ministry official Ivo Kotevski told a news conference that the gunmen said they were part of the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
Speaking in Albanian, they told their captives "We will have an Albanian state".
"This morning, Macedonian state institutions were the target of a terrorist act," Kotevski said.
The incident was reminiscent of an insurgency in Macedonia in 2001, when security forces fought rebels demanding greater rights for the former Yugoslav republic's large ethnic Albanian minority.
That conflict followed a 1998-99 war involving the KLA in neighboring majority-Albanian Kosovo, a former province of Serbia.
A peace accord in 2001 ended the fighting in Macedonia. The guerrillas laid down their arms and entered politics in exchange for greater rights and representation for an Albanian minority estimated to account for about 30 percent of Macedonia's 2 million people.
Macedonia was promised integration with NATO and the European Union but progress has been blocked by a dispute with Greece over Macedonia's name, which it shares with a northern Greek province.
Ethnic tensions remain, fueled by frustration at the lack of progress toward the European mainstream and the jobs and prosperity many in Macedonia hope will follow.
Gunmen take police hostage in Macedonia, call for Albanian state| Reuters
‘Albanian Paramilitaries’ Claim Macedonia Govt Attack
Kosovo newspaper Koha Ditore on Monday published a press statement signed by ‘Commander Kushtrim’ and the National Liberation Army claiming responsibility for the attack that left a small crater in the ground near the government building on Friday but caused no injuries.
Macedonian police said they were investigating the attack but offered no details about the type of the weapon used, or who might be behind it.
The blast resembled a previous attack on October 28 last year when two projectiles blew holes in the roof and walls of the government building. That case remains unsolved.
The same unknown organisation and the same commander claimed responsibility for that attack as well.
It said that it was unhappy with the implementation of the 2001 Ohrid Peace Accord, which ended an armed conflict between Albanian militants and the Macedonian security forces.
It also said on social networks that it had caused explosions near two police stations in the towns of Tetovo and Kumanovo in western and northern Macedonia on December 9 last year. No one was injured in these incidents either.
The two towns were at the centre of the 2001 armed conflict.
Many observers have warned recently that the could be attempts to destabilise inter-ethnic relations amid the ongoing scandal over mass surveillance scandal after the opposition accused the Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski of spying over 20,000 people.
It’s been alleged that ethnically-charged incidents could be used to divert attention from the scandal that is crippling the government’s credibility.
The Ohrid Accord which ended the 2001 conflict foresaw constitutional changes providing greater rights and institutional integration for the ethnic Albanian minority who make up about a quarter of the population of the country.
The accord resulted in the Albanian fighters in the then National Liberation Army disarming and later forming a political party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, which today sits in government.
DUI representatives contacted by BIRN declined to comment about the latest blast.
‘Albanian Paramilitaries’ Claim Macedonia Govt Attack :: Balkan Insight
Albanians are now trying to provoke conflict in Macedonia again (two attacks in april), and when Macedonian government decide to respond by force, i guess they will again claim that they are innocent victims.
(Reuters) - About 40 armed men wearing uniforms of a disbanded ethnic Albanian guerrilla army from Kosovo took several police officers hostage in northern Macedonia overnight, Macedonian police said on Tuesday.
The men left the police post near Macedonia's border with Kosovo after several hours.
Macedonian Interior Ministry official Ivo Kotevski told a news conference that the gunmen said they were part of the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
Speaking in Albanian, they told their captives "We will have an Albanian state".
"This morning, Macedonian state institutions were the target of a terrorist act," Kotevski said.
The incident was reminiscent of an insurgency in Macedonia in 2001, when security forces fought rebels demanding greater rights for the former Yugoslav republic's large ethnic Albanian minority.
That conflict followed a 1998-99 war involving the KLA in neighboring majority-Albanian Kosovo, a former province of Serbia.
A peace accord in 2001 ended the fighting in Macedonia. The guerrillas laid down their arms and entered politics in exchange for greater rights and representation for an Albanian minority estimated to account for about 30 percent of Macedonia's 2 million people.
Macedonia was promised integration with NATO and the European Union but progress has been blocked by a dispute with Greece over Macedonia's name, which it shares with a northern Greek province.
Ethnic tensions remain, fueled by frustration at the lack of progress toward the European mainstream and the jobs and prosperity many in Macedonia hope will follow.
Gunmen take police hostage in Macedonia, call for Albanian state| Reuters
‘Albanian Paramilitaries’ Claim Macedonia Govt Attack
Kosovo newspaper Koha Ditore on Monday published a press statement signed by ‘Commander Kushtrim’ and the National Liberation Army claiming responsibility for the attack that left a small crater in the ground near the government building on Friday but caused no injuries.
Macedonian police said they were investigating the attack but offered no details about the type of the weapon used, or who might be behind it.
The blast resembled a previous attack on October 28 last year when two projectiles blew holes in the roof and walls of the government building. That case remains unsolved.
The same unknown organisation and the same commander claimed responsibility for that attack as well.
It said that it was unhappy with the implementation of the 2001 Ohrid Peace Accord, which ended an armed conflict between Albanian militants and the Macedonian security forces.
It also said on social networks that it had caused explosions near two police stations in the towns of Tetovo and Kumanovo in western and northern Macedonia on December 9 last year. No one was injured in these incidents either.
The two towns were at the centre of the 2001 armed conflict.
Many observers have warned recently that the could be attempts to destabilise inter-ethnic relations amid the ongoing scandal over mass surveillance scandal after the opposition accused the Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski of spying over 20,000 people.
It’s been alleged that ethnically-charged incidents could be used to divert attention from the scandal that is crippling the government’s credibility.
The Ohrid Accord which ended the 2001 conflict foresaw constitutional changes providing greater rights and institutional integration for the ethnic Albanian minority who make up about a quarter of the population of the country.
The accord resulted in the Albanian fighters in the then National Liberation Army disarming and later forming a political party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, which today sits in government.
DUI representatives contacted by BIRN declined to comment about the latest blast.
‘Albanian Paramilitaries’ Claim Macedonia Govt Attack :: Balkan Insight
Albanians are now trying to provoke conflict in Macedonia again (two attacks in april), and when Macedonian government decide to respond by force, i guess they will again claim that they are innocent victims.
