01 Nov 2010 / 10:00
Belgrade did not plan the 2001 Macedonian armed conflict between ethnic Albanian rebels and state security forces, officials active during the conflict say.
Sinisa Jakov Marusic
The conflict “was a classical spillover of the crisis from neighbouring Kosovo”, retired Macedonian army colonel and army spokesperson during the 2001 conflict, Blagoja Markovski, told Balkan Insight.
The conflict “was a classical spillover of the crisis from neighbouring Kosovo”, retired Macedonian army colonel and army spokesperson during the 2001 conflict, Blagoja Markovski, told Balkan Insight.
Markovski commented on recent allegations that the former ethnic Albanian guerilla leader turned politician Ali Ahmeti was a Serbian secret service spy during the 1980s and 1990s.
“At that moment Albanian forces in the region simply saw their chance to act in Macedonia and gain something for their cause,” he said.
The former top army officer said that based on his research, the late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic and his secret service had no influence over the actions of the National Liberation Army, the guerilla group led by Ahmeti that started the six-month-long struggle with the Macedonian security forces.
Ahemti, the leader of the Democratic Union for Integration, part of the current ruling coalition, and other top ethnic Albanian officials in Macedonia have denied the claims that Ahmeti worked for the Serbian secret service. “These are all fabrications,” Talat Xhaferi, a DUI lawmaker and member of the party’s general council, told Balkan Insight on Thursday.S
tevo Pendarovski, advisor to the late Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski, who led the country during the 2001 crisis, argues that the roots of the Macedonian conflict lay in the strategic goals of the Albanian cause in the region, which he says were refined in the early 1990s and included an independent Kosovo, autonomy in Macedonia and greater rights in Montenegro.
“It is impossible a secret service, no matter how powerful, can control an entire rebel organisation,” Pendarovski told Balkan Insight.
“Large scale events like the conflict in Macedonia can not be instigated alone by a few secret service informants scattered inside the fabric of the NLA [National Liberation Army],” Pendarovski said.
The allegations about Ahmeti's past surfaced last week after details of a secret service file codenamed “Ibar” were published by the Macedonian daily Dnevnik. Parts of the file were strikingly similiar to the biographic details of Ali Ahmeti.
The file was then forwarded to the country's Lustration Commission, which is now waiting for the file to be authenticated.
The file was then forwarded to the country's Lustration Commission, which is now waiting for the file to be authenticated.
Three other files allegedly involving other members of Ahmeti’s Democratic Union for Integration, part of the ruling coalition, were previously handed over to the Commission.
balkan insight
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου