Thursday August 9 12:42 PM ET

Macedonian Violence Flares, Dimming Peace Hopes

By Alister Doyle

SKOPJE (Reuters) - Macedonian forces and ethnic Albanian rebels clashed in a northwestern town on Thursday after a policeman died in overnight fighting, dimming hopes that a newly agreed peace plan could end six months of bloodshed.

The chief of staff of the Macedonian army resigned to take responsibility after 10 soldiers died in a rebel ambush on Wednesday, the highest toll in the conflict so far. The government declared Thursday a day of national mourning.

Amid pessimism that a new Western-brokered peace plan reached by politicians across the ethnic divide on Wednesday would help prevent a new Balkan war, fighting broke out anew around Tetovo, Macedonia's second city.

Detonations and gunfire could be heard and army helicopters clattered over the town. One civilian man was admitted to hospital with injuries.

``We set fire to part of the barracks and to an armored vehicle,'' a rebel commander, codenamed Kalaja, told Reuters.

``Macedonian forces are concentrating their fire around Teqe,'' Shaip Bilalli, chief of Tetovo police, told Reuters, referring to an Ottoman quarter of the town where the two sides' lines are divided by a graveyard.

Adding to a toll of several dozen army and police killed in the conflict, policeman Dusko Sinadinovski died in an attack by rebels in the northwestern village of Ratae, Macedonia's MIA news agency said. Another policeman was wounded in the chest.

And a local councillor from the central town of Veles said a 14-year-old ethnic Albanian boy, Tafil Vejseli, was killed by suspected Macedonian paramilitaries overnight. There was no independent confirmation.

ARMY CHIEF QUITS

Army chief of staff Pande Petrovski handed in his resignation to President Boris Trajkovski after the killings of the 10 soldiers, officials said. He would be replaced by Metode Stamboliski until a successor was found.

But Defense Minister Vlado Buckovski, a moderate, said he had no plan to resign and urged a new push for peace between Macedonians and the one-third ethnic Albanian minority.

``This is a moment at which we decide the destiny of our country. Although we are full of sorrow and pain, we mustn't take leave of our senses,'' he said.

Buckovski has said in the past that Macedonia cannot win by force alone and a ministry spokesman reiterated that ``any military solution would be suicidal.''

In the capital, shopkeepers swept up glass from windows smashed during a rampage overnight by about 1,000 people angered by the killings of the soldiers and by fighting in Tetovo.

Western envoys, who had struggled to mediate a peace deal for 12 days, persuaded Macedonian and ethnic Albanian party leaders to initial the peace accord on Wednesday despite the upsurge in
violence.

``We can...hope that they will not go back (on the agreement),'' European Union mediator Francois Leotard told the French daily Le Monde. ``We are aware that we are racing with violence against the clock... We must win this battle against time and hatred.''

He reiterated hopes that the peace deal could still be signed on Monday in Skopje and that NATO would deploy up to 3,500 troops to help collect arms meant to be surrendered by guerrillas once an amnesty, yet to be worked out, is in place.

The chief of staff of the guerrilla National Liberation Army (NLA), General Gezim Ostreni, was quoted as welcoming the peace deal even though the issue of an amnesty for the rebels has yet to be hammered out.

``The agreement meets the goals that everyone was committed to, the United States, the European Union, all the people as well as the NLA,'' he told a Kosovo daily. He denied that the NLA was involved in Wednesday's attack, saying its guerrillas were not present in the area.

Many newspapers and citizens on the streets of Skopje were pessimistic about the chances of averting war. ``We already have a war,'' said Skopje resident Sasha Popov, 35.

SOLDIERS' DEATHS SPARK RIOT

The killings of the soldiers, an apparent revenge attack after five guerrillas were shot dead in Skopje on Tuesday, sparked riots in the capital and the soldiers' home town, Prilep, where a
mosque was gutted by fire.

And the government warned it would strike back at the rebels, despite the peace plan.

Late on Wednesday, Macedonia's Security Council authorized ''the most energetic offensive measures'' to counter the threat to government forces after a late-night meeting in the southern resort of Ohrid, where the peace talks took place.

Many Macedonians see any peace plan giving concessions to the minority as a reward for aggression.

Question marks hang over whether the deal will be accepted by either Macedonian deputies in parliament or the rebels, who did not take part in the talks but are presumed to have been in contact with some of the politicians who did.

(With additional reporting by Philippa Fletcher and Ana Petruseva in Ohrid and Shaban Buza in Pristina)

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