Terrorists, regardless whether they are domestic or imported from Kosovo, have sent a message. To the journalists, who were stopped, searched and taken into custody on that day as if by the people with authority, but also to the border guards, to whom the terrorists pointed out the goal of their parade. Tanusevci has been liberated. It is a free territory. But whose territory and liberated from whom? Who is the liberator? Did the government know about this, and why did it not tell us about it? The government at this point neither should nor can it mislead the public with obvious excuses about opposition "games" and their favorite "old security structures".
It should be clearly stated that the government is to be blamed for the problems. The government probably has evidence and security information about the danger for the state, and if it does not have it then it should wonder why that is the case. Instead, the government is spending more time and space on denials of every information that finds its way to the public. There are numerous examples of that from the last and this year, and after each one of them security problems became more complex and serious.
During the last year, the public found out about the existence of an Albanian paramilitary formation in Macedonia, named AKSH. This caused quite a stir and even a document was published, with a stamp, signature, list of persons to whom it had been delivered... And the document had been put together by the military security service. Neither the chief of the service, Lieutenant-Colonel Kosteski, nor the Prime Minister, Georgievski, were jolted by this scandalous and, to a large extent, truthful report of the military counter-intelligence services. The two of them said that there were no such formations and we, although we did not believe them, had to nod our heads in approval. After all, they are our government! And the government, even if one does not trust it, has to be obeyed.
Representative in the Parliament Lazar Kitanoski, as a former Defense Minister and a well-informed analyst for security issues and tendencies in the state and the region, last year revealed plans for the actions of the transformed KLA in the region. He explained that the sixth zone of the Kosovo Protection Corps includes the border zone Karadak with, among other, the village of Tanusevci. And what happened? Again several ministers hurried to immediately issue denials, to state that there is no such information, that something like that does not exist in Macedonia. In the meantime we had terrorist attacks on the police stations in Oslomej, Tetovo, Kumanovo, and the police has no idea either who or why carried out those attacks. Recently the press published information that in the Kumanovo region a paramilitary brigade with about 800 volunteers, Macedonian Albanians, has already been formed. They are getting ready for the struggle in the south of Serbia and perhaps in some other places as well. We are expecting the authorities to deny this as well.
Until when will they claim that everything is peaceful, that no one is plotting against the country because Xhaferi and Thaci are participating in the government? After all, if all of that is true, why did the incident in Tanusevci happen again?
The road terrorism coincides with the raised military adrenaline of Albanians in the Presevo valley and Macedonia determined to join together all the territories in which Albanians live. Following the tribal logic they do not recognize "foreign" bodies in their territory. The recipients of Western paternalism at the time when it was necessary to overthrow Milosevic are having a hard time transforming themselves from bogus victims (even the western governments and journalists are revisiting their earlier attitudes) into "personalities" that can act based on universal moral and legal norms. After the elimination of the natural catastrophe Milosevic, the masks have fallen and the world has to admit that Albanians in the Balkans do not accept to integrate themselves in the societies where there are no "cleansed" environments and where it is not precisely stated what belongs to Albanians and what to Slavs. Consequently there is a "secret connection" between the Kosovo bomb attacks, terrorist attacks in the south of Serbia and the arrest of the A-1 TV team in Tanusevci, in spite of the attempts to give these relatively clear developments the lenient treatment and apply diplomatic language.
It is crystal clear that the changes in Yugoslavia are pulling the rug under the feet of the separatist Albanians in Kosovo and the "surrounding satellites" that ethnically gravitate towards that territory and count that, now and here, is the moment for the historically unfinished nation to realize a somewhat extended geography than that given in 1912 to the mother Albania.
Coordinated activities in Kosovo, the Presevo valley, and in Macedonia as an announcement of a springtime uprising of all the Albanians in the Balkans confirms suspicions that the reason for the dissatisfaction of Albanians were not supposedly foreign and imposed regimes (authorities have changed in Yugoslavia, Macedonia boasts with "relaxed" inter-ethnic relations, and Kosovo is functioning as an international protectorate), but rather xenophobia of the politicized leaders of Albanians against everything in their immediate neighborhood that does not agree with their visions of the destruction of Balkan barriers that prevent free flow of, generally speaking, people, cattle, ideas and from time to time "weekend-soldiers, weapons, and expansionist ideas" over the existing state borders.
The United Nations, as the hostage of NATO and local interests, has therefore found itself in the role of a misinformed outsider which took a side without knowing the details and in the style of cheap Hollywood westerns divided participants into "bad guys" who wear black hats and "good guys" who wear white hats... The result is this undefined mandate of the UN in Kosovo, which is getting only negative points, unlike the former UNPREDEP, which was the most successful preventive UN mission even though it took place in the Balkans.
The UN Security Council has recently been pushed in a difficult spot because of a dramatic turn of the situation in Kosovo and it surroundings, and was given yet another big warning, which justifies the title of this article. If in the early sixties the United Nations in the rebellious province of Congo, Katanga, lost its Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, siding with the separatist Moise Tshombe, could it now in Kosovo, with Kosovo and due to Kosovo lose the credibility of the highest institution of the world community?
As the Defense Ministry stated a day later, the shootout took place when a Macedonian Army patrol, above the village of Tanusevci, in the direction of the hill Kodra Fure, noticed two unidentified persons trying to enter Macedonia from the direction of the village of Debelde in Kosovo. The border guards warned them to stop, but the unidentified persons fled and at the same time fire was opened on our patrol from the nearby forest. During the pulling out of the border patrol, the border guards noticed another five persons in black uniforms at the edge of the forest on the other side of the border, who also opened fire on our soldiers. During the securing of the terrain, i.e. blocking of the attack and withdrawal, the Macedonian Army patrol used the vehicle "ermine".
Two incidents on Friday provoked the Macedonian Army and the Ministry of Internal Affairs to additionally strengthen measures on the border. Even before this incident, the Macedonian Army, due to general situation in Kosovo and the south of Serbia, had conducted strengthened measures on the northern border, with strengthening of patrols in the field and increase of the number of soldiers in border posts, border crossings and directions. On the other hand, as we found out, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, believes that the masked terrorists were from Kosovo, probably the same ones who earlier on Friday captured the A-1 team and took their camera and other personal belongings.
The incidents also provoked strong reactions of the political parties in Macedonia. The LDP believes that the government is responsible for the most recent incident, because it allowed that the state sovereignty and integrity as well as the security of the citizens be violated to extreme extent. On the other hand, Social democrats condemned the incident and expressed their outrage because of the endangered security of Macedonia. The VMRO-VMRO believes that this incident demonstrated that the government and the Prime Minister cannot control the territory and protect it from the actions of such organized foreign military formations. KFOR commanders in Macedonia and Kosovo, besides regret in relation with the afternoon incident, did not release any information regarding the likely perpetrators of this armed attack on an Army patrol.
Ljuben Paunovski, the Defense Minister, on Saturday stated for A-1 TV that "The Defense Ministry fully controls the territory of the Republic of Macedonia and the fact that the Macedonian Army is the most stable factor in the northern and western border, as a part of a very unstable region, proves that." Additionally, the Minister urged the Macedonian public not to worry as the Macedonian Army has taken the full burden in the hundred meters border belt, while in other parts of the territory it is working together with the Police.
The village of Tanusevci, according to Paunovski, is a high-risk zone, which does not contain logistical bases, while it should be checked whether the residents shelter armed persons in the village. He believes that the incident was provoked by hot heads or perhaps outlaw terrorist military structures, which are pushing into out territory from Kosovo. His message to them was to calm down because they were definitely inflicting huge damage on the Albanians in the Balkans. The motive for terrorist activities on our territory, especially in the border region, is in the fact that Macedonia has these days resolved the question of the demarcation of the border with FRY, obviously to the dissatisfaction of some structures. Consequently, these structures are with these incidents trying to provoke the state to accept a military hotspot on the part of its territory, which would open a serious international issue.
However, on Friday afternoon colleague Snezana Lupevska from A-1 TV stated that in Tanusevci unidentified armed persons told her that the Police and Army patrols hadn't entered the village for a month. According to these armed paramilitary forces, the village had been liberated by the UCK, which means that it was outside Macedonian jurisdiction. Paunovski admitted that border patrols, based on Army rules and regulations, were not allowed to enter settlements and that patrols in that region go either above or under the village of Tanusevci. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, on the other hand did not provide an official commentary of this statement, apart from stating in its press release from yesterday that it had carried out measures for in-depth securing of the border and a check of the terrain. However, it is not stated whether that terrain is in the village of Tanusevci or not.
Using sources in Pristina, western publications yesterday reported that one person was killed in the shootout near Tanusevci, but his name was not mentioned. This information was also published by several independent media outlets in Tirana.
In Skopje it was officially stated that on Friday at about 4pm, members of the Macedonian Army, on the border between FR Yugoslavia and Macedonia near the village of Tanusevci clashed with an armed group, dressed in black and camouflage uniforms. In the shootout, lasting about 45 minutes, there were no casualties on the Macedonian side. The statement speculated that there were casualties among the unidentified armed attackers, who after the incident withdrew to Kosovo.
During the last two days, border guards heard numerous heavy artillery detonations and bursts of fire from automatic weapons coming from Presevo, which indicated that fierce fighting was going on near that town. One of the assumptions is that the masked and armed terrorists were coming from that direction. Their intentions, whether they merely intend to provoke or want to cause an open armed clash, are not clear so far, but in any case it seems that they want to increase insecurity in Macedonia and provoke a reaction of the state institutions. "This is an open provocation of Macedonia to react and to cause an armed clash of large proportions," stated Trendafilov.
Utrinski learns from reliable sources that this most recent unfavorable development of the situation prompted president Trajkovski to last afternoon urgently convene ambassadors of NATO member countries in Macedonia and to sharply react to their impotence to prevent terrorists from Kosovo who wish to endanger stability of the country. Yesterday president used similar tone in his conversation with the commander of the KFOR rear forces, General Volker Leu. President Trajkovski rejected General's excuses that KFOR was carrying out all the necessary measures for the control of the border on the Kosovo side. Obviously, due to the sharp reaction of the Macedonian president, KFOR commander Carlo Cabigiosu, although he had already departed to Italy, today showed up at the meeting with president Trajkovski. President Trajkovski yesterday also sent a sharp protest note to the NATO headquarters in Brussels.
On the other hand, we found out that the Foreign Affairs Minister, Srgjan Kerim, informed governments of countries with diplomatic representatives in Macedonia about the most recent developments on the northern border. Ljuben Paunovski, the Minister of Defense, yesterday afternoon, several hours before the National Security Council meeting, together with high officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Defense Ministry, was called to report to president Boris Trajkovski regarding the measures taken by the Macedonian Army.
Due to the crisis Minister Paunovski yesterday sent a letter to NATO secretary General George Robertson, in which he stated that "we are convinced that the ultimate goal of these threats and armed attacks is to create a new hotspot and pull the Republic of Macedonia into an armed conflict, and open a new problem in front of the eyes of the international community."