NATO Delays Balkan Operation

NATO ministers Friday put off committing thousands of troops to help end the conflict in Macedonia, even as ethnic Albanians made it clear that they hope the force will stay much longer than the expected 60 days.

Later Friday, about 50 British, Czech and French military personnel arrived here, leading the way for 350 more alliance soldiers expected over the weekend.

Meeting in Brussels, the ministers delayed until next week a decision on whether to commit a full force of 3,500 soldiers, reflecting fears that a tenuous cease-fire will not hold up.

U.S. Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, the supreme commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Europe, is expected in Skopje, the Macedonian capital, Monday to assess the situation and will later brief the ministers.

NATO has said a cessation of fighting is a key condition for sending in the full force, which is expected to disarm ethnic Albanian guerrillas under a peace plan reached this month. The rebellion started in February and has claimed more than 100 lives and displaced nearly 100,000 people.

“I think it would be wrong to think that there is going to be a complete silence every night. . . . However, any deployment of troops will only occur if we believe that the conditions on the ground are correct,” said Maj. Alexander Dick, the spokesman for Britain’s 16th Air Assault Brigade, which is leading the NATO force.

The fragile nature of the cease-fire, which was negotiated last weekend between the Macedonian government and ethnic Albanian rebels, was particularly clear in the 24 hours leading up to the arrival of the first alliance troops.

Government soldiers fired on ethnic Albanian rebel positions in the northern town of Radusa on Friday, according to Western military sources. The previous night, an ethnic Macedonian police officer was killed in Tetovo, a northwestern city with a majority ethnic Albanian population.

NATO’s entry into Macedonia is the military half of a peace process mediated by European and U.S. diplomats to end the 6-month-old rebellion. The political agreement, which was signed Monday, requires parliament to change the country’s constitution within 45 days to augment the rights of ethnic Albanians.

The alliance forces are expected to conduct a disarmament operation designed not only to collect weapons now in the guerrillas’ hands but also to assure the nation’s ethnic Macedonian majority that the ethnic Albanians are committed to ending their rebellion.

However, as the operation looms, it is becoming clear that many issues remain unresolved. It has not been determined, for instance, how many weapons NATO forces will collect and whether the arms will include all or even most of the guerrillas’ stockpile.

Ethnic Macedonians fear that the rebels will hand in only a small percentage of their weapons, and only the oldest ones, while keeping their newest arms. They also are concerned that NATO will have no way to verify the guerrillas’ compliance.

Western observers say they too believe that there may be such a calculation on the part of the ethnic Albanian fighters.

“If I were them, I would hand in one [weapon] and bury five in my yard,” said a Western military observer.

The rebels say they are most fearful that as soon as they lay down their arms, the Macedonian military and particularly the nation’s police force will become abusive and perhaps violent toward ethnic Albanian civilians.

The Albanians also fear that ethnic Macedonian civilians, some of whom have been given arms by the police, may turn against their neighbors. There is no requirement in the peace plan for ethnic Macedonian civilians to disarm.

The NATO troops are expected to be on the ground for 60 days, but half that time will be spent setting up and dismantling their operations.

Alliance officials say they expect a beefed-up force of monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the European Union to take over when NATO troops leave. However, the monitors will be unarmed; elsewhere in the Balkans, such personnel have had difficulty dealing with violent situations.

“We would like NATO to stay longer than the 30 days,” said Cmdr. Nazmi Begiri, a spokesman for the National Liberation Army, the major ethnic Albanian rebel group.

NATO and other Western diplomatic sources were sympathetic to Begiri’s unease.

“There is a very sensitive period at the end of the disarmament period. . . . There is an urgent need to reform the security forces, especially the police,” said a Western diplomat who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the operation.

Begiri spoke in the rebel-held town of Sipkovica, high on a hillside above Tetovo in northwestern Macedonia. The NLA’s political leader, Ali Ahmeti, sometimes appears in the town to make statements. It is unclear what will become of towns in areas where ethnic Albanians are in the majority.

At the moment, Sipkovica is a virtual rebel garrison.

On Friday, along a road several hundred feet below the town proper, two armed rebels in combat fatigues stood guard at a checkpoint. Next to them was a jeep emblazoned with the letters UCK, the Albanian initials for the NLA.

A second checkpoint was set up where the town’s houses begin. Uniformed rebel soldiers were everywhere in Sipkovica. The Albanian flag, with its two-headed black eagle, flew from rooftops, and children chanted “UCK” and wore berets emblazoned with the rebel group’s insignia.

In the ethnic Albanian neighborhood of Mala Recica, a few miles down the hill from the rebel stronghold, there was unease about the possibility of violence from ethnic Macedonian civilians if or when the guerrillas are disarmed.

“If NATO leaves after 30 days or 60 days, we will be massacred,” said Shaban Xheladini, 72, an ethnic Albanian, who said he was a political prisoner in his youth. “NATO should come as soon as possible, starting tonight.”