NATO Readies for a Mission in Macedonia

NATO officials Wednesday ordered preparations for the alliance’s third mission in the Balkans, this one to disarm ethnic Albanian rebels in Macedonia if and when a peace agreement is reached to end four months of fighting.

The deployment of about 3,000 troops is intended to last no more than a month and should take place within 10 days of a peace agreement, which the alliance termed “an essential precondition for any NATO assistance.”

Although the United States is the leading force within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Washington made clear at a weekend meeting of senior NATO officials that American soldiers would not take part.

That decision reflects mounting pressure being applied by Bush administration security officials for reduction of U.S. forces in existing peacekeeping missions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. Despite its reluctance to play an active role, Washington signaled that it had no objections to a “coalition of the willing” and that some U.S. logistical support might be forthcoming, said a NATO spokesman, who declined to be identified.

In a statement from alliance headquarters here, NATO said it was preparing the new force in response to Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski’s appeal for help in demilitarizing territory under armed occupation by the separatist rebels. Ethnic Albanians make up at least a quarter of the republic’s 2 million people, and a few hundred extremists have been agitating--with help from ethnic brethren in neighboring Kosovo--for equal rights and authority with the majority Slavs.

Sporadic Attacks Continue Despite Talks

Peace negotiations have been underway for nearly a week in hopes of averting all-out civil war. But sporadic attacks continue, calling into question the two sides’ sincerity in calling for a political settlement.

Trajkovski said ethnic Albanian negotiators want to “block the talks completely.”

As the first Balkan mission to be launched without U.S. participation, the Macedonian intervention could serve as a pilot project for the European Union’s planned rapid-reaction force. That 60,000-troop contingent designed to respond to a crisis on the continent won’t be ready until 2003, but many of the countries supporting the initiative for a force independent of NATO are expressing interest in sending troops for the Macedonia mission.

Germany’s left-of-center government, for instance, proclaimed itself in favor of the planned NATO assistance in the event that the combatants agree they want peace. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Cabinet approved the NATO decision just a few hours after it was announced, although government spokesman Uwe-Karsten Heye said any decision on German troops taking part would be up to the Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament.

The latest attempt by European nations to enforce a tense peace in the Balkans, where several wars have been fought over the last decade, is the result of shuttle diplomacy by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, a former NATO secretary-general. Last week he visited Skopje, the Macedonian capital, and then traveled to the EU summit in Goteborg, Sweden, to encourage fellow Europeans to do their part to avert another bloody outbreak.

Security Experts Warn of Perils of Involvement

Although the envisioned mission is limited in scope and duration, some security experts are advising caution in getting involved in an ethnic conflict in which both sides want NATO forces to advance their own positions. The Slav-dominated Skopje government wants intervention to provide the authority and hardware needed to back up efforts to get the rebels to surrender their arms. The ethnic Albanian separatists, who number only a few hundred, want the NATO force as a shield against further government assaults and in hopes that it will cement the status quo of their control of territory around Tetovo, a northwestern city.

“The risk for troops would be much higher than for those in Bosnia or Kosovo, as Macedonia’s population is swimming with guerrillas,” warned Manfred Opel, a retired general now advising Schroeder’s Social Democrats on military affairs. He said the situation in Macedonia is more comparable to the bloody struggle in Russia’s separatist Chechnya province than to previous Balkan conflicts.

Despite those reservations, Germany is seen as a likely participant in the intervention, along with Britain, France, Spain, Greece, Norway, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.