SLOVENIA FEARS MACEDONIAN ESCALATION
Interview by President Milan Kucan for Reuters
By journalists Richard Murphy and Marja Novak

Ljubljana, 7 May 2001


Slovenian President Milan Kucan, warning that the crisis in Macedonia could escalate, urged the international community to make clear it would not tolerate any attempt to re-draw borders in the Balkans.

In an interview with Reuters Kucan said he favoured extending the mandate of international forces in Kosovo so they could help prevent attacks by ethnic Albanian guerrillas on government forces in Macedonia.

Asked if he feared the situation in Macedonia could get out of control, Kucan replied: "Unfortunately I believe the possibilities for the situation to escalate are very great."

Kucan, a former communist who led Slovenia to independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, said the clear message from the West should be that different ethnic groups in the Balkans had to live together within existing boundaries.

"The international community has to say that there will be no division of Macedonia," he said.
"There shall be no independence for Kosovo and no expansion of Kosovo into southern Serbia. There shall be no division of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In my opinion these are the principles which have to be perfectly clear."

Ethnic Albanian guerrillas have launched an insurgency in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia which has prompted international fears of another Balkan war.

The rebels say they are fighting for equal rights for the ethnic Albanian minority, who make up around one third of Macedonia's population of two million people, but their actions have been strongly condemned by Western powers.

ALBANIAN VIOLENCE IN KOSOVO CRITICISED

Kucan said the world needed to be attentive to the resurgence of "Greater Albania" nationalism.

The West had to play an active role in the region and insist that problems were tackled on the basis of "civilised and democratic principles" and not through force. "We cannot leave this solely to the nations of the Balkans because if they were able to resolve this they would have done so already," Kucan said.

Peacekeepers in Kosovo had to stop ethnic Albanian violence against the Serbian minority in the Yugoslav province.

Slovenia, like many other countries, had supported NATO intervention in Kosovo two years ago "because what we had there was state terrorism by the Serbians against Albanians."

"The intervention put a stop to this violence and terror. Then what happened was Albanian violence against the Serbs. Nobody is stopping that," he said.

"If it is not stopped, it will seem as if the NATO intervention allowed Albanians to take over Kosovo."

Kucan said Kosovo's ethnic Albanian politicians owed a lot to NATO. "But in no way are they re-paying their debt, as yet."

MILOSEVIC MUST FACE TRIAL IN HAGUE

Turning to Yugoslavia itself, Kucan said the ousting of former President Slobodan Milosevic had marked only the start of a move by the country away from the "Greater Serbia" concept which had brought so much violence to the region. "Milosevic is gone but Milosevic's way of solving the Serbian national issue remains," he said. "Being against Milosevic is not necessarily the same as being in favour of democracy."

The new government of President Vojislav Kostunica had to acknowledge Serbia's responsibility for the crimes of the Milosevic era and it was essential that Milosevic and his associates should face war crimes charges in The Hague.

"It would be laughing in the face of history if those who had to answer in The Hague were only those who had to execute the orders, not those who gave the orders," Kucan said.

"It would also be laughing in the face of history if Milosevic's colleagues were to answer to Serbian courts only for regular crimes, not for crimes which they committed against humanity, for war crimes and genocide."

The Slovenian leader said he hoped Montenegro, Serbia's only remaining sister-republic in what was once the six-nation Yugoslav federation, would opt to remain part of Yugoslavia.
But if its people opted for independence, their wishes should be respected. If they did so, Belgrade should be the first to recognise the new state, Kucan added.

Slovenia was the first of the former Yugoslav republics to break free from Belgrade, gaining independence in 1991 after a 10-day war in which 64 people were killed.

The prosperous nation of two million people was spared the bloody conflicts which engulfed Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo because it does not have significant ethnic minorities.