BBC
Worldwide Monitoring - November 6, 2004, Saturday
Text of report by "R.V.": "A barricade in front of Kondovo"; published by
Macedonian newspaper Vecer on 4 November
Kondovo is independent. The village that is just a couple of kilometres away
from the Macedonian capital has been proclaimed an independent and sovereign
territory. In front of the village and behind it there are barricades, and you
cannot get through unless you have the right papers that show where you are
going and, most importantly, why you are going there. You get the impression
that you are in a foreign country. If you talk a little to the local population,
you will find out that the police have not been in the village for days. Now
they cannot enter, either out of fear or because of some political compromise;
it is not clear which.
That is the reality. And it is very different from the picture that some people
are trying to paint.
A Vecer team was in that region yesterday. But we were not there in our capacity
as reporters because the "authorities" would absolutely not allow that, at least
not for the time being.
Although everything seems to be all right on the surface, access to the village
is controlled by people who are mostly foreigners from the north. They are the
ones who are taking care of the "peace and order." Nobody knows the number of
the guardians of the peace and order established by a certain Agim Krasniqi, a
local commander of Kosovo's UCK Kosovo Liberation Army , which was disbanded
only on paper. Different sources of information give different numbers. It is
being said that Krasniqi is a close friend and loyal member of the "units" of
Hashim Thaci and Agim Ceku. The man is from here, from Macedonia. He smuggles
cigarettes and trades in women. He is precisely the instigator of the residents'
rebellion for the alleged pursuit of some human rights. He is said to have spent
some time in Kosovo, where he worked closely with Ridvan Sulejmani, who was
killed in a Mafia showdown in the TC Caircanka company, and Sait Rushiti, who
was recently sent to Idrizovo prison with an eight-year sentence.
According to preliminary information, a week ago there were about 20 of them
there. Then, their number increased and kept rising every day. The MVR Ministry
of Internal Affairs and the ARM Army of the Republic of Macedonia now believe
that there are between 180 and 250 men in Kondovo, armed mostly with automatic
weapons and a few mortars.
According to announcements by the main protagonists of the disorder in Kondovo,
it is expected that the uniformed criminal groups will soon fire two
illuminating rockets, unless they do so in the meantime, before this paper comes
out.
The residents of Kondovo are stupefied by what was going on in the village.
People have become so paranoiac that they do not even want to talk about the
problem. Yesterday, we talked to a man whom we met outside Kondovo, on the road
that goes up to Rasce and Radusa. He told us this: "Things mainly happen at
night. They go from house to house and put pressure on people. But the most
important thing is that we absolutely do not want them in the village. Most of
them are not from here. Judging from their dialect, they are from Kosovo. Nobody
dares to ask them where they are from and what they intend to do." We had to
stop that short conversation because our interlocutor was afraid that they would
get on to him, and, to be honest, we were afraid, too.
We have learned from unofficial sources that the main links between the
politicians and the criminal groups that have occupied Kondovo are Hazbi Lika
and Fatmir Dehari. It is not clear what kind of agreement they have managed to
negotiate with them because nobody wants to confirm officially that the problem
exists.
SOURCE: Vecer, Skopje, in Macedonian 4 Nov 04 p 5
Copyright
2004 British Broadcasting Corporation
BBC Monitoring Europe - Political
Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring
Posted for Fair Use only.