Global Policy Forum

By Nicholas Wood

In the last month, people in this town in the hills of western Macedonia have watched as a spate of violent incidents went unchallenged by the local police. There have been open gun battles in the streets, at least one murder, a series of roadblocks erected by protesters and several abductions of policemen by angry villagers.

The violence is on a much smaller scale than the ethnic fighting that erupted in the tiny Balkan country early last year. But it is evidence that a political deal between the opposing sides last August and an international peacekeeping effort have yet to bring stability. The violence is disturbing to Western officials. Last year, fearing that Macedonia could become the scene of another full-scale Balkan war that might spread to its neighbors, Western governments undertook an intense diplomatic effort that brought the sides to the negotiating table.

Ethnically mixed police units are now patrolling about 80 percent of the villages where fighting broke out last year. But with guns still in liberal supply among civilians, and hatred still strong between the ethnic Albanian minority and the Macedonian Slav majority, the police have been unable to tamp down crime and gang violence.

The most violent incident was a shootout late last month at a house used by former guerrilla leaders; at least three people died and several others were wounded. A week later, dozens of people narrowly escaped injury at a cafe, owned by a prominent Albanian politician, that was attacked by gunmen.

Today, even when violence is not political, people here say the police often stand aside.

In Tenovo, just outside Tetovo, the village's ethnic Albanian mayor, Nisuf Sinani, complained that he has been unable to persuade local police to investigate the murder last month of a man in a family dispute. Nemet Amiri, 55, was shot outside his house during an argument with his wife and daughter-in-law.

The unrest, however, comes as the two sides are making slow but steady progress in implementing political changes agreed to in last year's peace deal.

Under the accords, the ethnic Albanian group known as the National Liberation Army surrendered more than 4,000 weapons in return for amnesty and constitutional changes aimed at granting ethnic Albanians greater civil rights and a larger presence in the country's government service.

As a result, the government has increased the number of ethnic Albanians in the police force. Government officials hope that by 2004, ethnic Albanians will represent a percentage of the force that reflects their percentage of the population.

The director of Macedonia's Bureau for Public Security, Goran Mitevski, said that last month's violence around Tetovo had made the police's task even more difficult. "It's impossible for those small multi-ethnic patrols, who only have a standard gun with them, to go into a village and arrest someone," Mitevski said.

Western monitors say some of the violence is connected to rivalries among ethnic Albanian politicians, as parliamentary elections loom this autumn. Some of the clashes have been blamed on a splinter group opposed to the peace process, the Albanian National Army. But many Albanians say the recent violence also has much to do with organized crime.

"Every criminal finds his paradise in a war zone. This was a war like any other in history," said Lulizim Islami, a former National Liberation Army member. "During the crisis, we did not [suppress] small criminals. Now law and order is being returned [and] they don't want to face their acts and they are attacking us."

Western observers say the national police force's inability to tackle crime has clear links to last year's conflict.

"In general there's a lack of confidence between the two communities," said Craig Jenness, ambassador to the Macedonian mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is helping to train the ethnically mixed patrols. "The Albanian community sees them [the police] as the instrument of people whom they fought against during the war. So it's going to take a lot of time before they treat them as their own."

In several incidents, ethnic Albanians have prevented the police from entering their communities, sometimes briefly taking them hostage. The police are under strict orders to avoid violence and have generally not responded with force in these confrontations.

The lack of police control can be seen in Tearce, an ethnically mixed village about five miles northeast of Tetovo. Eight policemen -- four ethnic Macedonian, four ethnic Albanian -- have patrolled the village since the end of February. "We drive around and talk to people," said Besir, one of the newly recruited ethnic Albanians. He declined to give his full name.

He says they have been well received, but like all of the police teams in the region, they have yet to make any arrests or to begin investigating crimes.

Abdul Aliu, the patrols' senior Albanian officer, summed up the situation, chuckling, "We're on vacation!"

The fighting has taken place as the former leader of the National Liberation Army, Ali Ahmeti, has turned to mainstream politics. He now chairs a cross-party council of Albanian politicians. This, Jenness said, left a vacuum in the leadership of the guerrilla group that more hard-line commanders have stepped into.

But Jenness also said such groups do not appear strong enough to overturn the peace process: "We do believe that the vast majority of people are tired of fighting and want to get on with their lives."

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