Dispatches from the Next Balkan War – Part 1: End Game or Time Out?

NLA rebels in Macedonia 2001

Rain plastered my t-shirt to my body. Even with the overcast sky and the drizzling rain it was hot in Tetovo. The soldiers manning the roadblock and yelling at me in Macedonian made that obvious. Clad in civilian clothes, albeit also wearing a green SOF t-shirt and GI jungle boots, I didn’t present a military target and tried to exit the battered Mercedes as nonchalantly as possible.

I could hear the unmistakable rattle-rattle of automatic weapons fire in the distance. My driver was nervous and begged me to leave my camera in the car…

Tucked into the rolling hills near the Kosovar border and about 25 miles west of Skopje, Tetovo, one of the five largest cities in Macedonia, was the latest simmering conflict in an area that has become the boiling pot of modern European land warfare. Tetovo is a large northwestern town with a mainly ethnic-Albanian population.

The political tensions between the Macedonian government and the country’s Albanian minority first erupted over the University of Tetovo, an Albanian-language university in the city. Established by ethnic Albanians in 1995 it quickly was declared illegal by Macedonia and became a symbol of the ethnic strife, resulting in violent clashes between police and demonstrators.

In the Spring of 2001 minor ethnic clashes and street demonstrations grew into a full-scale guerrilla war. Adding this to Croatia and Bosnia it was my third Balkan war … having sat out the whole Kosovo thing.

The University of Tetovo, an Albanian-language university in Macedonia where the tensions between the Macedonian government and Albanian minority began

This conflict, like Kosovo, was a surprise to no one. I was bumming around Eastern Europe that summer parachuting and decided I’d take a look. For most of the summer the conflict escalated after the initial hostilities and was soon a full-blown counter-insurgency in northern Macedonia.

Leaving Bulgaria where I was hanging out with their special forces, I was off to Skopje on the next available flight. I scanned the English language papers for news on Macedonia. It was obvious that the fighting and a possible impending ceasefire wasn’t front-page news, even in Europe.

The “news” was Britain’s negotiations for an IRA ceasefire and the Palestinian problem — which occurred to me, have been pretty much constant headlines since I was old enough to read a newspaper. On my flight into Skopje I noticed the home team was in town.

a map of the insurgency in Macedonia 2001

The three guys with short haircuts wearing the Levi’s and the Wranglers were definitely North Americans. Americans stick out in a European crowd unless we wear too much cologne and purposefully dress like euro trash.

Even if the snuff can rings on the back pockets weren’t enough of a giveaway, one stud with a G.I. haircut had the “danger mines” death’s head patch visible through the net mesh pocket of his daypack while another was wearing a C-130 Hercules ball cap. How low key is that?

Macedonian police in camouflage uniforms and combat body armor were dispersed on the runway awaiting our disembarkation. I guess this very visible yet meaningless heightened security was in case some well-known Albanian terrorist decided to alight from the airliner. An improbable situation I thought at the time but in light of recent events, definitely possible.

Two teenaged boys looked out the window after landing and exclaimed “Hey, that’s a Kalashnikov!” Their mother didn’t look as thrilled. Inside the terminal some G.I. duffle bags came off the luggage belt. I didn’t attempt any conversation with the G.I.s or whoever they were as they didn’t need any more attention than they were already drawing to themselves and I certainly didn’t want to complicate my arrival. I grabbed my Becker ruck and walked under the Marlboro welcome sign to customs.

Heavily armed national police manned several checkpoints and sandbagged positions along the drive into Skopje. I soon learned that the taxi fare to or from the airport went up or down depending on the fortunes of war. If things were less than peaceful and there was a real possibility of an ambush on the highway, then the fare was 50 Deutschmarks (DM) or maybe as much as 100 DM — German money being a popular medium of exchange in Macedonia.

On the way to my hotel I heard the unmistakable rush of a helicopter turbine and looked out the window to see a Macedonian Army HIND-D attack helicopter skimming the rooftops. I would see several helicopters and fast movers over the city in the next few days and from my vantage point, a hotel on a hill in the city’s outskirts, I watched them fly through the valley on their way to the fighting near Tetovo.

a Macedonian Mi-24 attacking rebels during the Albanian insurgency

I learned from the Ministry of Defense that there were a total of seventeen helicopters in action including Mi-17, Mi-8, and Mi-24 HINDs for transport, recon, and combat missions. There were four Sukhoi-25 attack aircraft committed to the fighting.

The situation in Skopje when I arrived was tense as a police counter-terrorist operation the day before my arrival was the talk of the town. The police claimed five Albanian “terrorists” were killed in a firefight in an apartment in a Skopje neighborhood.

However, I learned that an Albanian woman said she was awakened in the middle of the night when the police/military raid team hit the house and killed five male “visitors.” I guess one man’s terrorist is another man’s, er, visitor… She claimed the five men (who she of course did not know) were not Albanian terrorists.

I wondered how these completely innocent men came to be in possession of a large arms cache. The raid made the front page of the Macedonian papers. In a photo of the contraband captured in the raid I counted at least six assault rifles, one scoped folding stock assault rifle, several loaded magazines, camouflage uniforms, and a large pile of ammo bandoliers for the Armscorp 40mm grenade launcher.

I recognized the packaging and distinctive labeling from my experience with them in Bosnia and there were loose rounds displayed on top of the pile. There were two of the distinctive revolver-action, six-cylinder, folding-stock, optically sighted grenade launchers lying nearby. Just what every visitor keeps in his overnight bag. Another successful operation had just occurred as I left the airport: an Albanian convoy was shot up and several Albanian “terrorists” were killed.

a member of the now-disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)

Macedonia’s foes were supposedly homegrown ethnic Albanian rebels of the National Liberation Army (NLA). Roughly a third of Macedonia’s population of 2 million is Albanian. In many areas of northwestern Macedonia, where the Albanians are concentrated, Albanian paramilitary groups were formed and trained in 2000 by veterans of the now-disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

The organization was modeled on the KLA. Many of the younger recruits also had regular army training from service as Macedonian Army conscript.

I soon learned that most of the Albanian fighters were actually Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) or in Albanian: Ushtria Clirimtare E Kosoves (UCK). Weeks later when the Albanians turned in their weapons many were seen wearing UCK emblems on their uniforms and caps. The Kosovo Liberation Army does not believe in negotiations and diplomacy and say they will liberate the Albanian people.

The KLA’s spokesmen have stated its mission only too succinctly: “Our job is to liberate the whole of Kosovo, as well as the Albanians in Macedonia and Montenegro.” The obvious agenda is the formation of a “Greater Albania.”

Ivan Marovic, a Macedonian veteran of the old Yugoslav Army, told me that the NLA would stop at an Albanian house and leave two uniforms. If they don’t receive the uniforms back with two bodies (recruits) inside them the next day, then they go back to the house and leave two bars of soap. This means wash yourself – to a Muslim: prepare to go to heaven. Sometimes they may pay a DM 5,000 indemnity for excusal from military service.