NATO, EU fear Macedonian trap

By Douglas Hamilton

BRUSSELS (Reuters): There is a sense of foreboding in NATO that the alliance may be sucked into a Macedonian war.

Political and military advisers and some 3,000 troops are already there. The small Balkan state's "unity" government is split between peacemakers and warmongers. Guerrillas, who say they fight for rights for the country's ethnic Albanian minority, have moved perilously close to the capital.

"Saigon. That's not a bad analogy," one senior military source said on Tuesday. "Deja vu", warned a uniformed Kosovo campaign veteran at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The curtain rose on the quagmire scenario on Monday, as a mob venting rage at NATO, the European Union and Macedonian leaders invaded parliament in Skopje, some firing shots or chanting, "Albanians to the gas chambers!"

"We may be quickly reaching the stage where the government becomes irrelevant and the mood in the streets determines the next move", a NATO diplomat said.

"Nothing is lost yet. But it is very volatile," he added.

Quality risk assessment, political as well as military, is vital as the allies plan their next move. But there is a gap between the suits and the boots, according to one military source, that leaves too much room for miscalculation.

Monday's mob was furious at NATO for providing bus transport for ethnic Albanian guerrillas, the EU for arranging their evacuation from the rebel-held village of Aracinovo, and their president for the level of foreign involvement he permits.

The buses were to be provided by civilian contractors but none could be found. That meant using KFOR-marked vehicles from the NATO-led Kosovo peace mission and NATO drivers.

Using the buses was a decision that went up the chain of command to NATO Secretary General George Robertson, a de facto sidestep into territory for which the alliance has neither the appetite nor the mandate -- the separation of armed forces.

The EU's top envoy, Javier Solana, arranged the evacuation with full approval of Macedonia's ethnically divided coalition cabinet as the only way to halt a disastrous Macedonian army offensive threatening the badly listing "peace process".

NATO officials defended the use of the buses as a one-off operation worth the risk to get the guerrillas out of Aracinovo, a village dangerously close to the capital, its airport, main highways and Macedonia's only oil refinery.

The armed rebels moved a few miles east and fighting with the Macedonian Army recommenced. In the west, where no cease-fire had been secured, a policeman was killed in fighting near Tetovo, fueling the fury in Skopje.

Whether those who approved the bus operation considered the risk of a violent nationalist backlash was not clear.

"It looked like we'd taken sides," a NATO military source commented sourly. "The one thing you cannot be seen to do."

Contrary to the NATO-EU mantra that "there is no military solution" to the ethnic conflict in Macedonia, the guerrillas know that there were NATO-imposed military solutions in two other pieces of the former Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

"It's a question of 'you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't,'" said Balkans expert Tim Judah.

"NATO can't invade the country to stop people fighting. Nor is NATO prevaricating," he said. Hardline Albanians and hardline Macedonians are ready to drag others down with them, Judah said.

"Essential Harvest" is the operational name for the only major action the allies foresee in Macedonia -- collecting and destroying guerrilla arms and screening and releasing rebels, after a firm peace settlement.

That action will require at least 3,000 combat troops in a country that by NATO's own assessment overflows with weapons, in addition to 3,000 logistics troops of KFOR Rear, who look, as one military source put it, "like sitting ducks" in northern Macedonia for those seeking to trigger intervention.

If they pulled out, or fighting closed the main highway from Greek ports to Kosovo, the 40,000 troops of KFOR could hardly be supplied via the wilds of neighboring Albania or through Serbia, where memories of 1999 allied bombing are still fresh.

Despite the mounting risks, there was a sense of Nero fiddling on Monday as EU foreign ministers acceded to what one diplomat called "a caprice of Chirac".

The French president, backed by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, succeeded in obtaining the appointment of his candidate, Francois Leotard, as Solana's resident envoy in Macedonia, despite misgivings about his suitability.

"This is EU foreign policy at its worst," a diplomat said.

Leotard will join the modest but swelling ranks of a team of advisers in Skopje from NATO, the EU and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe as major Western powers build up their support of Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski.

Asked on Tuesday if he were beginning to fear that they might all have to be evacuated by helicopter from embassy rooftops, NATO's Robertson declined to say.