The Sunday Times
FEARS were growing last night that the British-led mission to disarm the Albanian rebels in Macedonia will end in failure, leaving the country facing civil war and eventual partition along ethnic lines. The gloomy analysis, by diplomats observing the process, came as the Macedonian government dismissed as "laughable" Nato proposals to collect only 3,500 weapons from the rebels. Ljubcho Georgievski, the prime minister, said he had reliable information the Albanians had at least 70,000.
The authoritative Jane's Defence Weekly reported yesterday that the rebels have 8,000 assault rifles, 250 heavy machineguns, 200 sniping rifles, up to 200 mortars and 50 shoulder-launched missiles, including stingers. It also emerged this weekend that the British defence ministry, fearing the worst, has contingency plans to keep its paratroopers in Macedonia for longer than the 30 days officially sanctioned by Nato. British troops are expected to start collecting weapons tomorrow at points set up in the western mountains around the flashpoint town of Tetovo, near the Kosovo border.
Nato's goal is to collect about 1,000 weapons by the end of the week. If the timetable slips, however, the twin political track of the peace process will stall. The Macedonian government would then be unlikely to make constitutional amendments demanded by the Albanians, who claim to have been discriminated against for years in the majority Slav state that seceded from Yugoslavia in 1992. Diplomats have warned that the whole process is too fragile to withstand the turmoil that normally accompanies civic strife in the Balkans.
The rebels have already "cleansed" much of the territory around Tetovo. "The Albanians will destroy Macedonia as we know it today," said one senior diplomat familiar with both sides. "It's common sense that they will hold on to their weapons.Over the next couple of months we will see a migration of Slavs from the western to central areas, and even into Bulgaria." Nato hopes to avoid this nightmare scenario by destroying ammunition on site before driving off truckloads of weaponry to be broken up outside Macedonia. All sides, however, know this is a charade and that the best weapons remain in the hills. Hand-in-hand with disarmament, Nato says it has persuaded the Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) to pull back from the contested areas around Tetovo, so that displaced villagers can return. British experts were touring the area yesterday to assess needs, including rebuilding houses and re-establishing water and electricity services. The fighting has created more than 125,000 internal refugees from both communities, who will have to be resettled to make the ceasefire signed two weeks ago worth anything.
Britain's leading role in Operation Essential Harvest has grown with the arrival of more troops this weekend. The Nato mission will be made up of 4,500 to 5,000 troops - mostly from Britain and France. American troops are providing logistics support. US marines, part of Nato's strategic reserve, arrived in Kosovo last week on a month-long exercise along the distinctly porous border with Macedonia. Some 45 guerrillas attempting to cross back into Kosovo were arrested on Friday. Army sources have meanwhile admitted that "mission creep" could well see Essential Harvest last for a year or longer. Senior officers in Whitehall and at the army's permanent joint headquarters underground nerve centre in north London have drawn up contingency plans for at least four possible outcomes. The most likely of these is thought to be a "renegotiation" of the length of time troops will remain. More doomladen scenarios envisage a resumption of fighting, in which case the British would have to withdraw rapidly from a guerrilla war. But ministers, aware that images of troops leaving while villagers are slaughtered could backfire, are thought to be bracing for the most daunting option - a full-scale peacekeeping force, and the risk of Nato casualties. The diplomat said the Albanian leadership knew that Nato, vulnerable to a counter-attack on its forces in Kosovo, was extremely reluctant to crack down on the rebels. "There is such a sense of Balkan dйjа vu," he said. "We could have war very soon."
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