Search results
The 2001 insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia was an armed conflict which began when the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) insurgent group, formed from veterans of the Kosovo War and Insurgency in the Preševo Valley, attacked Macedonian security forces at the end of January 2001, and ended with the Ohrid Agreement, signed on 13 August of that same year.
- 22 January – 12 November 2001, (9 months and 3 weeks)
3 May–6 June 2001; Battle of Vaksince, NLA victory. [11] 3 May–11 June 2001; Battle of Slupčane, NLA victory. [12] 3 May–11 June 2001; Battle of Orizare, NLA victory. 8 May–11 June 2001; Lipkovo crisis, NLA victory. 8 May 2001; Operation MH-2, Operation halted. 22 May 2001; Lisec ambush, NLA failure.
- Overview
- Background
- Initial NLA attack
- Fighting in Tetovo
- Escalation
- Fighting in Kumanovo
- The Aračinovo crisis
- General Ceasefire Agreement
- Events after the General Ceasefire
- Ohrid Framework agreement
2001 insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia
Part of the Yugoslav Wars
Date22 January 2001 - 12 November 2001
(9 months and 2 weeks)
LocationPolog and Kumanovo regions of Macedonia near the border with FR Yugoslavia (Kosovo[a])
Result
When it declared its independence on 8 September 1991, Macedonia was the only ex-Yugoslav republic that managed to secede non-violently from the federation. Because of this, Macedonia was considered one of the bright spots in the former-Yugoslavia.
Although Macedonia seceded from Yugoslavia as one of the poorest republics, socio-economic interventions undertaken by the consecutive democratically elected governments managed to improve the economic picture in the country. According to the International Crisis Group, there was nearly 3% growth in 1999. The second half of 2000 also saw steady growth, leading to a 5% GDP increase for the year. In January 2001, the government projected a budget surplus for the second year in a row. In 2000 the country's emerging middle class began buying new cars, adding extensions to apartments and planning summer vacations abroad.
In the prelude to the conflict in late 2000, groups of armed Albanians started opening fire on Macedonian police and security forces located on the border with FR Yugoslavia. These events appeared to catch the Macedonian government and the International Community by surprise. The first attacks occurred in the small village of Tanuševci located in northern Macedonia, near the border with Kosovo.
The conflict began on 22 January 2001, when a group of armed Albanians attacked the police station of the village Tearce near Tetovo, killing a police officer and injuring three others.
Arben Xhaferi, leader of the Democratic Party of Albanians which was a part of the Macedonian government, criticized the attack against the police station and said the following:
In the same month, a group calling itself the National Liberation Army (NLA) claimed responsibility for the attacks against the police. Initial reports gave conflicting information about the NLA. Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski claimed that the rebels were primarily Kosovo Liberation Army (UÇK) members who had infiltrated the country from Kosovo. Macedonian officials accused NATO of not doing enough to disarm the Albanian insurgents, discouraging their encampment in the buffer zone (Ground Safety Zone) area between Kosovo and Serbia, or preventing their entry into Macedonia.
The NLA claimed that the rebel force comprised several thousand men, coming mainly from Macedonia.
After a month of clashes, by late February, the Macedonian special police units neutralized the positions of the NLA in Tearce and Tanuševci, temporarily driving them across the border into Kosovo.
Main article: Battle of Tetovo
In the middle of March, NLA forces reappeared in the hills above Tetovo, a key northwest Macedonian town with an ethnic Albanian majority. The insurgents fired down on Macedonian positions using rifles, machine guns and mortars. At that point the NLA controlled at least seven villages to the north and west of Tetovo, all of which were up in the mountains and easily defensible.
On 22 March 2001, tensions soared further in Tetovo, when two Albanian men, a father and a son, were shot dead during a routine search at a police checkpoint. The incident began when the car was stopped and a police officer saw the younger Albanian move something in his pocket. Fearing it was a grenade the officer panicked and ran. The Albanian exited the car, dropped to his knees, and threw the grenade in the direction of the running policeman. It landed at his feet but failed to explode. At the moment the grenade was thrown, a cordon of Macedonian troops, positioned behind sandbags, unleashed a volley of gunfire at the Albanian. At first he slumped against the car, then fell on the curb, dead. Moments later the father was also shot as he tried to run from the car.
The NLA units' strategic position allowed them to have an overview of the town. The front line between the NLA and the Macedonian security forces expanded along the wooded hills adjacent to the city center to the north. The same day a front opened in Tetovo, the NLA took control of the medieval city fortress north of the city center, and started shooting at police stationed in the urban areas. After the initial clash, the Macedonian police pushed the NLA out of Tetovo and captured the medieval fortress. The NLA were pushed back into the surrounding hills where several houses were reportedly burning. Medical officials said one person was killed, and at least fourteen injured, including eleven police officers.
The government issued an ultimatum asking the National Liberation Army to lay down their arms and leave the country, or face a full-scale offensive. The NLA rejected the ultimatum, announced a unilateral ceasefire, and called for political dialogue. In response, President Trajkovski claimed that the government first had to "neutralize the terrorist threat", but agreed to start a political dialogue with legitimate Albanian political parties in Macedonia.
Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski declared, in a televised speech to the nation, that he would not negotiate with "terrorists". He rebuked the United States and Germany, whose troops patrolled the border from the Kosovo side as part of NATO's contingent there, for not doing enough to stop the rebels. Georgievski accused NATO of "creating a new Taliban in Europe" and allowing Albanian extremists to operate out of UN administered Kosovo.
During the one month-long calm period, a result of the offensive by Macedonian security forces, the government launched roundtable discussions with Macedonian and Albanian political parties on legislative reforms. However this did not end the violence. On 28 April 2001, eight Macedonian police officers were killed in the Vejce massacre in an NLA ambush, and their bodies were mutilated. Reports concluded that the attackers must have been informed by radio about the route of the police vehicle.
Macedonian sources disclosed that the ambush was executed by Ismail Shinasi (alias Komandant Hoxha), Ceka Ilaz (alias Komandant Qori) and Ceka Bilal (alias Komandant Brada) – all three, and most of their people, were born in Kosovo and were veteran members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Ceka Bilal was a member of the Kosovo Intelligence Agency and was one of the main organizers for weapons smuggling in Kosovo.
In reference to the attack, Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski stated:
The murder of the eight Macedonian soldiers and police officers led to riots in Skopje, Bitola and Veles during which ethnic Macedonians attacked Albanian-owned businesses and shops. At least ten Albanian shops in the city of Bitola were destroyed, and dozens of buildings were damaged.
In order to suppress the riots, the Macedonian government imposed a curfew in Bitola, and Premier Georgievski announced that his cabinet considered declaring a state of war in order to have greater flexibility in fighting the NLA insurgents. According to the Macedonian Constitution a state of war would give enhanced powers to the President and the army, and allow for presidential rule by decree, fewer restraints on the army, the banning of demonstrations, a nationwide curfew, and sealing the country's borders.
However during the entire conflict, the United States urged Macedonia not to declare a state of war in its fight against the NLA.
In the beginning of May 2001, a large group of NLA rebels infiltrated Macedonia from Kosovo and set up bases in several villages to the north of Kumanovo. This armed group of NLA insurgents, known as the "113 Brigade of the NLA", was led by the Kosovo Albanian Fadil Nimani.
On 3 May, the NLA launched another ambush on Macedonian security forces in Vaksince, near Kumanov, and killed two Macedonian soldiers and kidnapped a third. The three soldiers were on a border patrol which was returning from routine duty when it was ambushed near the village.
State radio said that the rebels had claimed the area around Vakcince as their "liberated zone".
On the same day, the Macedonian security council decided to engage in a new offensive against the NLA, in order to drive them out of their strongholds in the villages north of Kumanovo.
People in the villages held by the NLA were given until 15:00 to evacuate before Macedonian security forces could launch their offensive. Army spokesman Gjordji Trendafilov told the Associated Press that the NLA were holding thousands of villagers as human shields. The offensive started with the shelling of selected targets in Vaksince by military helicopters and field artillery.
In the next several days, Macedonian security forces shelled NLA positions in the villages of Slupcane, Orizari and Otlja. Afterwards, Macedonian police and infantry units advanced. On 7 May 2001, Macedonian Army officials announced that in the previous three days the Macedonian security forces had managed to destroy fourteen NLA entrenched positions, eight machine-gun bunkers, seven sniper nests, six control points, three arms storage facilities, and one mortar position. Army officials also stressed that during the operations only selected targets were being hit, in order to avoid civilian casualties and unnecessary material damage.
The Aračinovo crisis is considered to be the most controversial event in the Conflict[by whom?], because of the direct involvement of high ranking NATO officials, such as Javier Solana, George Robertson and Peter Feith, who were instrumental in halting the Macedonian security offensive, allowing the evacuation of NLA insurgents surrounded in the village. The NATO intervention was the key turning point in the military crisis in Macedonia.
The temporary cease-fire that was brokered by OSCE, after news that ethnic Albanian civilians were victims of government shelling of NLA positions in the Lipkovo area, was violated by the NLA only hours after the agreement. Insurgents violated the cease-fire by shooting at a police vehicle near Tetovo. Nine police officers were wounded, two of them seriously, during the exchange which lasted until dawn. The NLA apologised for the attack, describing it as a "mistake".
On 12 June 2001, a group of several hundred NLA insurgents took control of the ethnically-mixed village of Aračinovo, located just 8 kilometres from the edge of the capital Skopje.
The commander of the NLA forces in Aračinovo, Komandant Hoxha, warned that unless the army ceased its attacks, the insurgents would target strategic positions in Skopje, like "the airport, oil refineries, police stations in towns and other government installations". Komandant Hoxha told journalists that his men have 120 mm mortars, and that:
According to Hoxha, the insurgents' key demand was to be included in talks on the country's constitutional future – something explicitly ruled out by the government.
The seizure of Aračinovo triggered a further exodus of residents, many of whom fled north to neighbouring Kosovo. The Macedonian Government did not respond officially to the NLA ultimatum, but reports said it had increased security around key facilities.
After putting severe pressure on the Macedonian government, even threatening that Macedonia would be put under sanctions and that the Stabilisation and Association Process would be blocked for the country, it agreed to NATO's request to sign an unconditional ceasefire. The ceasefire agreement was given to the President by Peter Feith and was signed on 5 July 2001 by army general Pande Petrovski and police general Risto Galevski from the Macedonian side, and by Peter Feith, a representative from NATO. NATO was the guarantor of the General Ceasefire and the same agreement was then signed with the NLA in Prizren.
The General Ceasefire Agreement required a de-militarized zone be established extending between the border with Kosovo to the southern side of the Tetovo – Jazince highway. In accordance with the agreement, the Macedonian army retreated from Tetovo, and from all of the villages that were under its control in the conflict zone, and took up new positions on the Kosovo border, and south of Tetovo. Some reinforcements were also sent to the army positions on Popova Shapka. After the relocation of the army to the new positions south of the town, there were only four police checkpoints and the police units located in the building of the SVR left in Tetovo. Police units were also removed from the villages of the conflict zone. Police remaining in the region around Tetovo after the signing of the Ceasefire were as follows: twenty in Lesok, seventy in Tearce, one hundred and twenty in Vratnica, twenty-five in Jazhince, one hundred in Jegunovce, fifty in Ratae, seventy in Zelce, as well as five police checkpoints with fifteen policemen each.
According to the ceasefire agreement, Macedonian security forces could open fire only when their lives were directly threatened and the return of fire had to be proportionate to any attacks by the NLA.
The agreement also envisioned a 3,000 strong NATO contingent to be deployed in the conflict zone after a political settlement was agreed between the Macedonian and Albanian political leaders. The mandate of the NATO force was to last forty-five days and the task was to disarm the NLA insurgents.
The General Ceasefire Agreement, signed on 5 July 2001, was not respected by the NLA, which proceeded to violate it constantly.[100][101] According to Macedonian army records, between the signing of the General Ceasefire on 5 July until the end of August, the NLA executed one hundred and thirty-nine direct attacks against Macedonian security forces...
The Ohrid Framework Agreement, which was signed on 13 August 2001, put an official end of the armed conflict. The agreement set the groundwork for increasing the rights of ethnic Albanians in Macedonia. The Agreement also included provisions for altering the official languages of the country, with any language spoken by over 20% of the population becoming co-official with the Macedonian language on the municipal level. Currently only Albanian, spoken by approximately 25% of the population, fulfils this criterion.[143] According to the document, the version in English is the only authentic version of the Ohrid Framework Agreement.
The Agreement was preceded by the Ohrid discussions, a series of talks between Albanian and Macedonian representatives, along with representatives from the United States and European Union. The talks took place in Ohrid in the south-west of Macedonia. The agreement was negotiated by Zoran Jolevski, Secretary General of President Boris Trajkovski. The Macedonian side was represented by the VMRO-DPMNE and the SDSM, while the Albanian side was represented by the DPA and the PDP. Although actively participating in armed conflict, the National Liberation Army did not participate directly in the talks.[144]
- 3 min
People also ask
What happened in Macedonia in 2001?
How many Macedonian civilians were killed in 2001?
How did Macedonia fight the NLA?
Did NATO Slam Macedonia in 2001?
25+ civilians killed. 20+ civilians kidnapped. The Battle of Tetovo ( Macedonian: Битка за Тетово, romanized : Bitka za Tetovo, Albanian: Beteja e Tetovës ), was the largest engagement during the 2001 insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia, in which Macedonian security forces battled the National Liberation Army (NLA) for control ...
- 16 March-13 August 2001(4 months and 4 weeks)
- See aftermath
- Tetovo, Macedonia
Mar 31, 2024 · Insurgency. 22 January 2001; Tearce attack, NLA victory. [3] 26 February 2001–1 March 2001; Battle of Tanuševci, NLA victory. [4] 4 March 2001; Tanuševci ambush, NLA victory. [5] 8 March 2001; Tanuševci operation, NATO-ARM victory. [6] 10 March 2001; Brest attack, NLA victory. [7] 16 March–13 August 2001; Battle of Tetovo, NLA victory.
September 2001- The events of September 11, 2001 have pushed the crisis in Macedonia very much into the background of world affairs. Nevertheless, events there remain of crucial importance to stability in the Balkans. Macedonia's future is anything but clear. It faces the multiple threats of civil war, political and social disintegration, and economic disaster.
The 2001 insurgency in Macedonia was an armed conflict which began when the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army militant group, formed from veterans of the Kosovo War and Insurgency in the Preševo Valley, attacked Macedonian security forces at the beginning of February 2001, and ended with the Ohrid Agreement, signed on 13 August of that same year. There were also claims that the NLA ...
![20 Years on - The 2001 conflict in Macedonia [Video] - Macedonia Times](https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=2001+insurgency+in+macedonia+california&ei=UTF-8&age=1w&th=107.2&tw=148.2&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fmacedoniatimes.news%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F01%2Fslika-300x217.jpg&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fmacedoniatimes.news%2F2001-conflict-macedonia%2F&size=23KB&name=20+Years+on+-+The+2001+conflict+in+Macedonia+%5BVideo%5D+-+Macedonia+Times&oid=3&h=217&w=300&turl=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.SDfio4JfbrbWmi0SPMgl8gAAAA%26pid%3DApi%26rs%3D1%26c%3D1%26qlt%3D95%26w%3D148%26h%3D107&tt=20+Years+on+-+The+2001+conflict+in+Macedonia+%5BVideo%5D+-+Macedonia+Times&sigr=9AQ0NHIEeXvY&sigit=1_roixFKQlma&sigi=XUWN41rjDruH&sign=V.U9Pcaqr1uV&sigt=V.U9Pcaqr1uV "20 Years on - The 2001 conflict in Macedonia [Video] - Macedonia Times")
