National Liberation Army (Albanians of Macedonia)
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The National Liberation Army (Albanian: Ushtria Çlirimtare Kombëtare - UÇK ; Macedonian: Ослободителна народна армија - ОНА), also known as the Macedonian UÇK, was an insurgent, terrorist, and guerrilla organization that operated in the Republic of Macedonia in 2001. Although linked with the Kosovo Liberation Army (Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës), with which it shared initials and a very similar name, it was officially a separate organization. According to the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) of the United States (US), they are a nationalist/separatist organization which, despite its name, is not an army but rather a loosely-organized terrorist group which calls for the unification of ethnic Albanian areas of the Western Balkans, including part of Macedonia and southern Serbia. [1].
Following the 2001 Macedonian War, it was disarmed under the terms of the Ohrid Agreement, under which greater rights and autonomy were to be given to the country's Albanian minority population. However, in the disarmament of the organization, mainly outdated weapons were returned, some even dating back to the First World War. The organization also has ties to many public officials in Western Macedonia, Kosovo and Southern Serbia, and the threat of its reemergence will be to the peril of the Balkans.
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[edit] The NLA and the Macedonian War
The NLA was founded in the fall of 1999, and was led by former KLA Commander Ali Ahmeti, the nephew of Fazli Veliu, one of the founders of the KLA, but was out of the public eye until it began to openly engage the Macedonian military and police.[citation needed]The NLA's proclaimed goal was equal rights for the ethnic Albanian minority within a confederate Macedonia.[2] Senior NLA commanders insisted that "We do not want to endanger the stability and the territorial integrity of Macedonia, but we will fight a guerrilla war until we have won our basic rights, until we are accepted as an equal people inside Macedonia." [3]The Macedonian government claimed the NLA were an extremist terrorist organization seeking to separate Albanian majority areas and unite those territories with the Republic of Albania.
Beginning on January 22, 2001 the NLA began to carry out attacks on Macedonian security forces, using light weapons.[1] The conflict soon escalated and by the start of March 2001 the NLA had taken effective control of a large swathe of northern and western Macedonia and came within 12 miles of the capitol Skopje.[4]
In March 2001 NLA members failed to take the city of Tetovo in an open attack, but controlled the hills and mountains between Tetovo and Kosovo. On May 3, 2001 a Macedonian government counter offensive failed in the Kumanovo area.[5] By June 8th the rebels take Aricinovo, a suburb of Skopje. On August 16th, the two sides sign a peace deal ending the open conflict.
[edit] Composition and military capabilities
The NLA was estimated to comprise around 7,000 men at its peak and some of its members were trained by British SAS and Parachute Regiment officers.[6][2] As was the case with the KLA, they were fairly lightly armed - generally with small arms and mortars - though there were also reports that they had acquired FIM-92 Stinger and SAM-7 anti-aircraft missiles. As the war progressed the rebels managed to acquire heavy weapons including a tank captured from Macedonian government forces.[7][3]
The NLA was also supported by incursions from Kosovo, so the links to KLA and UCPMB was obvious, but never officially admitted.
[edit] War Crimes
Although the conflict in Macedonia was brief, it was not scant of war crimes.In addition, many ethic Macedonian civilians were kidnapped and ill-treated in a number of villages near Tetovo, Skopje and Kumanovo. Among those killed by the NLA was an elderly man, Boris Magdenovski, who was shot, as ethnic Macedonians fled from Brezno. According to Human Rights Watch, "Ethnic Albanian rebels in Macedonia brutally tortured, sexually abused road workers after abducting them from the Skopje-Tetovo highway. [8]. The NLA also blew up the Sveti Atanasij Orthodox monastery (built in 1924)[9] in the village of Leshok. On the other hand, the Macedonian forces blew up a mosque in the town of Neprosteno. Both structures were rebuilt in 2003 with funding from the EU. Dozens of ethnic Macedonians were kidnapped. While many were released after a short time, 12 people apparently remained missing after the NLA released 14 others in late September. In October, reports suggested that the 12 may have been killed and buried in mass graves near Neproshteno. The case was referred by the Macedonian government to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for investigation.
Other notable incident was the one at the village of Ljuboten [10]. A "three-day operation by Macedonian police against the predominantly ethnic Albanian village of Ljuboten from August 10-12, 2001. The operation left ten civilians dead and resulted in the arrest of more than 100 men, many of whom were severely beaten while in police custody. Contrary to assertions by the Macedonian government, a Human Rights Watch investigation on the ground in Ljuboten found no evidence of a presence by the ethnic Albanian National Liberation. The events that happened during the attack on the Albanian village of Ljuboten near Skopje in August 2001, led to trial of the Macedonian minister of internal affairs of the time, Ljube Boškoski, in the International War Crime Tribunal in The Hague.
[edit] Ceasefire and disarmament
After the Ohrid Agreement, the NLA agreed to cease-fire in June. Under the Ohrid Agreement, the Macedonian government pledged to improve the rights of the Albanian population, that make up just over 25 % of the population.[4] Those rights include making Albanian language an unofficial language, increasing the participation of ethnic Albanians in government institutions, police and army. Most importantly, under the Ohrid Agreement, the Macedonian government agreed to a new model of decentralization.
The Albanian side agreed to give up any separatist demands and to fully recognise all Macedonian institutions. In addition, according to this accord the NLA was to disarm and hand over their weapons to a NATO force.
Operation "Essential Harvest" was officially launched on 22 August and effectively started on 27 August. This 30-day mission involved approximately 3500 NATO and Macedonian troops to disarm the NLA and destroy their weapons. Just hours after NATO wrapped up the operation, Ali Ahmeti told reporters attending a news conference in the rebel stronghold of Sipkovica that he was dissolving the National Liberation Army and that it was time for ethnic reconciliation. In 2001, U.S. recognized KLA/NLA as terrorist organizations.
Many members of the Albanian NLA, led by Ali Ahmeti, later formed the Democratic Union for Integration, a political party that won the majority of the Albanian votes in the 2002 election and formed part of the ruling coalition along with SDSM and LDP until August 2006 when, following July 2006 parliamentary elections, a conservative VMRO-DPMNE / DPA coalition came to government . Total casualties of war on each side is not known, but both sides claimed their own military casualties around at 60 each, while about 60 ethnic Albanians (some sources give 1000[citation needed]) and possibly about ten Macedonian civilians are thought to have been killed (some sources give up to 500[citation needed]). (See Casualties and displacement in the 2001 Macedonia conflict)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Three Serb policemen killed by Kosovar extremists", The Scotsman, 19 February 2001
- ^ "How many groups, how many guns?", The Economist, 25 August 2001
- ^ "Macedonia on brink of war", Sunday Times, 10 June 2001
- ^ CIA - The World Factbook - Macedonia
