If NATO’s secretary-general is to be believed everything is going well with its peacekeeping efforts in Macedonia: the ethnic-Albanian National Liberation Army is handing over its weapons and is disbanding. That was what Lord Robertson told reporters in Skopje this week. There is, in his view, no reason, therefore, why the Macedonian Parliament should not ratify the peace agreement between the Macedonians and ethnic Albanian rebels. All is going to plan.
It is understandable if Lord Robertson likes to put a positive spin on events; and these comments are spin of the highest order. The slaying in Macedonia the other day of a British peacekeeper and the threatening attitude by a mob toward the American army paramedic team which vainly tried to save his life indicates the scale of Macedonian antagonism toward NATO and its plans. It was not accident. It was clearly intended as an attack on a NATO soldier. Most Macedonians regard NATO at best with suspicion, at worst with downright hatred. It is quite likely that there will be more attacks on NATO personnel as the days go by. For that reason, the alliance will to be keen to stick to its plans and pack it bags within the 30-day deadline it has set itself for disarming the NLA.
The trouble is that everything conspires against it working. There is a strong possibility that the peace deal will be blocked in Parliament by Macedonian hard-liners. It will get approval only if the handing over is seen to be working and tensions lessening. In any event, the figure of 3,300 weapons is now contested by the Macedonians who say that it is a drop in the bucket compared to the NLA’s real stash of arms. The Macedonian government has said that there will be a security clampdown in Albanian areas after NATO leaves. For its part, the NLA says that it will remobilize after NATO leaves, whatever happens, and will rearm if Macedonian forces try to enter Albanian areas.
Such threats make a nonsense of NATO’s plans. If it does not extend its deadline, which the Albanians want, the fighting will start all over again. It will be back to square one. Thursday’s statement by the British foreign secretary, on a brief visit to Skopje, that British troops might stay on past the 30-day deadline is a belated admission that if they do not, they might as well go home now.
A continued British presence would effectively mean the alliance staying put, even if the rest pull out, since the British constitute the largest contingent by far; although if the British do stay on (and it has to be suspected they will) the French, the next largest contingent, will probably do so as well. Unlike the Americans and Germans, for whom peacekeeping commitments are risky political affairs, public resistance to troops being used almost anywhere in the world is rare in France and the UK. The only question is what will happen if there are more killings. There may well be. The Macedonians are in bitter mood. They resent NATO’s presence and are likely to increasingly see them as occupiers. It is a recipe for increased tension and violence, not peace. But there is no alternative. NATO has to allow itself to be sucked in deeper and longer in Macedonia if it is to avoid full-scale ethnic violence happening there.
