Macedonia: The Last Chance for Peace

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

In the past three months, since mid March 2001, Macedonia has stared into the abyss of inter-ethnic conflict, pulled away from the precipice, squandered opportunities for a political settlement, then returned as if sleepwalking to the brink of civil war. The downward spiral was interrupted on 11 June, when the Macedonian government and the ethnic Albanian rebels agreed to a ceasefire. The following day the government abruptly endorsed a peace plan proposed by President Boris Trajkovski. For their part, the NLA guerrillas expressed a readiness to halt their insurgency but want to see concrete steps towards improving Albanian rights.

The ceasefire has more or less held, while the details of Trajkovski’s plan are being worked out in Skopje. In broad terms, it would end the conflict by disarming the rebels, offering them a safe exit from Macedonia or a limited amnesty, and launching a reform process to address the legitimate grievances of the ethnic Albanian minority. Although the plan does not foresee the NLA’s direct inclusion in negotiations, the NLA cannot be excluded from the process if it is to have a realistic chance of success. On 14 June, the government officially requested NATO help to disarm the rebels. Although leading Alliance members responded coolly, the prospects of positive NATO engagement in Macedonia look better than at any time before.

If this initiative is to succeed, Macedonian leaders on both sides of the ethnic divide will have to show unprecedented courage in looking beyond personal or partisan interests. It is extremely unlikely that this will happen unless the European Union (EU) and the United States throw new political and military resources behind the negotiations. U.S. participation in a NATO deployment to assist in the implementation of a settlement is crucial. Otherwise the NLA will continue the conflict, in the belief that the U.S. will eventually engage in its favour. A donors’ conference for Macedonia should be held as soon as a settlement is firmly in place, to demonstrate international resolve to address the economic decline that fuelled the conflict.

The United States and Europe together must work with the government in Macedonia to ensure that multiethnic Macedonia offers equal rights and opportunities to all its citizens without privileging the ethnic majority. The divide separating Macedonians and Albanians is deepening by the day. The status quo of ethnic communities leading parallel lives is no longer tenable or acceptable, and not only because of NLA demands. The Western alliance must do everything in its power to push through a political solution. If Macedonia slides into civil war, the conflict will be difficult to contain within Macedonia’s own borders.


RECOMMENDATIONS:

Peace Negotiations

1. The European Union and the United States must take a more active role in the negotiating process, their insistence that the “Macedonians take ownership” of the process having cost valuable time and yielded negligible results.

2. In particular, both the EU and U.S. should proceed quickly with the appointment of high level special envoys to assist the negotiations being conducted among the leaders of the four principal parties in the national unity government.

3. Both Washington and Europe should send a strong, explicit message that Albanian extremists will not be allowed to split the country along ethnic lines.

4. While the NLA need not have a formal place at the negotiating table, it cannot be excluded from the negotiating process. A viable settlement must include an amnesty agreement for the NLA fighters and rehabilitation for those who surrender their weapons.

5. Given that without strong NATO backing, neither the government nor the rebels are likely to accept a political solution, leading Alliance members (including the U.S.) should announce readiness to deploy troops as soon as an acceptable peace agreement has been signed. These troops should be tasked to monitor the disarming of the rebels and, as appropriate, their withdrawal from Macedonia through a safe exit corridor. Such a NATO deployment could in due course be replaced by a multinational UN peacekeeping force.

6. NATO should stand prepared to play an active military role in support of the Macedonian security forces against further rebel activity, if the situation so demands and the Macedonian government so requests.

Follow Through

7. When a peace agreement is firmly in place, an international donors’ conference for Macedonia should be held within 30 days.

8. The international community should urge the four principal parties in the unity government to amend Macedonia’s constitution by de-ethnicising it. The alternative solution – of promoting the ethnic Albanian community to constitutional parity with the ethnic Macedonians – would entrench rather than alleviate ethnic division, encouraging federalisation or secession.

9. Kosovo’s uncertain final status encourages ethnic Albanian extremism throughout the region. With the G8 taking the lead, the international community must develop a ‘roadmap’ towards final status negotiations.

10. The EU, NATO, UN and U.S. should encourage Greece to accept the international recognition of Macedonia under its constitutional name as The Republic of Macedonia.

11. The proposed United States project to train ethnic Albanian police officers, will need careful monitoring to ensure that recruits are fully integrated into current police structures.

12. The international community should pay closer security attention to the activities of Albanian diaspora groups in the United States and Western Europe, with a view to stemming the flow of funds to illegal armed formations.

13. The international community must press hard for strong anti-corruption measures that will restore some degree of public confidence in Macedonia’s elected leaders.


Skopje/Brussels, 20 June 2001