Pentagon: Evacuation of rebels doesn't
signify change in Balkans policy
By Lisa Burgess,
Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — U.S soldiers’ recent mission to evacuate armed Albanian rebels
from a Macedonia town does not signify a change in U.S. policy towards the Balkans
country, Pentagon officials said.
On Monday, U.S. soldiers from Camp Able Sentry, outside of Skopje, Macedonia, provided
security for 21 Brown & Root contractors to transport 100 fully armed Macedonia
Liberation Army fighters and 250 civilians from Aracinovo to Umin Dol, an Albanian enclave
11 miles away. The soldiers were from the 3rd Battalion, 502nd Infantry, 101st Airborne
Division.
The evacuation marked the first time that NATO — and the United States — has
actually intervened since fighting broke out in February between the government and the
so-called National Liberation Army, which is made up of separatist Macedonian Albanians.
The convoy mission, while "very new" for the U.S. troops in Macedonia, does
not constitute the "creation here of a new U.S. or NATO policy," Pentagon
spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, said Tuesday.
"It was a new event. We’ve not done this before," Quigley said.
"But what I’m reluctant to predict is this being a harbinger of some major new
policy decision at a new area of continued activity on the part of U.S. forces. I do not
think that is the case."
Last week, NATO representatives from the United States, Britain, France, Germany and
Italy met in Brussels to discuss plans to put troops into Macedonia, after Macedonian
President Boris Trajkovski made an official request for NATO help in disarming the ethnic
Albanian rebels. But last Wednesday, U.S. President George Bush, who was attending the
NATO summit, apparently ruled out U.S. military intervention in Macedonia. Bush seemed to
soften that stance the next day, saying that the United States was committed to working
with its NATO partners.
The United States was especially eager to reduce the tensions in Aracinovo because
rebels had pledged to shell Skopje’s airport from the suburb. But the evacuation
backfired, touching off riots in Skopje on Monday as hundreds of furious Macedonian Slavs
surrounded the parliament building and accused the United States of picking sides in the
conflict and protecting the rebels.
Despite the resulting riots, the U.S. participation in the evacuation did not lay the
groundwork for more conflict in Macedonia, Quigley said.
"There are those elements within the Balkans that absolutely did not want to see
this action take place," Quigley said. "You’re going to have — and
clearly you have seen — those individuals and organizations that do not support the
action taken.
"But we think it was the right one, and anything that can be done to defuse that
situation and bring about a political solution to the difficulties in that part of the
world is a step in the right direction."
Despite the unrest in Skopje, there is no apparent increase in the threat to the U.S.
forces at Camp Able Sentry "that we’re able to discern," Quigley said.
Although the Pentagon continues to evaluate the changing situation in Macedonia, for
the time being there will be no increase in the number of military personnel assigned to
protect Able Sentry, Quigley said.
"I think we’re pretty happy with the status quo at the moment," he said.
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