Intro New and looking for pics Macedonia 2001

Manx_1

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Hi. Mi name is Manx and I have been looking on this forum for a while and thought why not register for it.
I'm looking for pic's from the event that happened in Macedonia 2001. Basically the government troops.
Thanks in advance for any idea where to find them.
Manx
 
Welcome aboard Manx!

What event in Macedonia are you refering to? My memory of that year is overshadowed by 9/11.
 
Hi Manx, is the sort of thing you are looking for?

Silky

More British troops today landed in the Macedonian capital, Skopje, as work continued on the Nato mission to disarm the ethnic Albanian rebels.
The 90 soldiers, part of the 16th Air Assault brigade, are joining an advance party of 400 British troops already in the country. An estimated 200 members of the Parachute regiment will follow later today.
The deployment came as it emerged that the Ministry of Defence may send as many as 2,000 troops to Macedonia - 500 more than the planned number and over half the Nato force - to make up for a shortfall of reconnaissance troops and specialist engineers from the other countries.
"We said we would send these troops in the event that other nations could not come up with them, but overnight Canada has pledged 200 reconnaissance troops so if there are more such commitments they will not need to go," a spokeswoman said.
Weapon collection will begin late next week, when the full deployment is complete. The entire operation - called Essential Harvest - then has 30 days to run before Nato's self-imposed timetable calls for the alliance's withdrawal.
But it may not be easy - fighting erupted again overnight when ethnic Albanian rebels fired on a police checkpoint in the village of Mlin in the north of the country. Reports in the Yugoslav press say the SAS is on a secret mission to protect the Nato troops.
The weeks before Nato's arrival have brimmed with examples of brutality rarely seen before in this war. They include the torture of Macedonian motorway workers, the calculated destruction of an Orthodox church, and the massacre of Albanian civilians by masked Macedonian police in the village of Ljubotin.
Captain Peter Flynn, adjutant to the Parachute regiment, said: "We hope when we arrive there will be a change for the better, should there be a change for the worse we will obviously have to re-evaluate the situation. We are ready for any situation.
"I can't see any great difficulties for us with the tasks we've been given to do, but the environment and terrain will pose their own problems."
The situation is further complicated by disagreement over the number of weapons the Nato troops will collect. The Macedonian government claimed yesterday that the rebels have 85,000 weapons, while the rebels say they are only willing to hand over 2,000.
Military and diplomatic officials want a deal before the weekend - providing they can apply enough pressure to persuade both sides to accept a figure.
The Nato commander, Major General Gunnar Lange, declined to speculate on the dispute, arguing that the collection process was more important than the actual number of weapons handed in.
"The rebels can re-arm. They can start fighting again," he said. "It's a lot more important that the trust and confidence that comes with the political process [...] gives them no wish to re-arm and start fighting again."
The mission is part of a comprehensive peace plan meant to end six months of fighting between the rebels and government. The truce also grants the ethnic Albanian minority greater rights.
Although the rebels have said they are ready to give up their struggle, the government fears they will fight on for a state of their own.
A spokesman for the US state department, Philip Reeker, said that America is looking to the rebels to fully cooperate with Nato and voluntarily disarm. The US is sending no troops to the country.

26 June 2001
MACEDONIA NEARS BRINK OF CIVIL WAR

5,000 Macedonian Slavs -- the majority ethnic group -- rioted yesterday in the capital Skopje after NATO troops evacuated Albanian rebels. Buses and U.S.-supplied vehicles moved rebels and weapons beyond Macedonian government lines. Angry residents fired guns in the air and briefly occupied the parliament building.
Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski appealed for calm. "I am offering peace and I am asking for your support," he said in a national radio address..
Macedonian Slavs, who describe the rebels as terrorists, want harsher action and oppose outside intervention.
The rebel evacuation was intended as a step towards a cease-fire and offer from the European Union and NATO to broker a truce. Fearing a full-blown civil war between the minority ethnic Albanians and majority Slavs, NATO and the West have offered to help if the sides move towards a cease-fire.
The EU says it fully supports President Trajkovski, a Slav, who defended yesterday's evacuation and has argued for peace talks over a military solution. The EU also said it will continue to pursue a deal, focusing on rebel disarmament in exchange for more rights for the minority Albanians, one of the chief rebel demands.
The ethnic Albanian revolt began in February and the rebels control several villages between Skopje and the Kosovar and Serbian borders. The United Nation's refugee agency estimates the conflict has displaced 100,000 people in the last four months. Many have fled to the ethnic Albanian-majority Serb province of Kosovo.
The fighting has disrupted what had been a relatively calm area of the Balkans. Despite the strife in nearby Bosnia and Kosovo, Macedonia was considered the Balkans' best example of a multi-ethnic society since its peaceful separation from Yugoslavia in 1991.
About one-third of Macedonian residents are descendants of immigrants from Albania, largely concentrated in the west, near the Albanian border. Tetovo, Macedonia's second-largest city near the border with Kosovo, is 90 percent ethnic Albanian.
Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees fled from Kosovo to Macedonia during the 1999 war. Other Albanian families have lived in Macedonia for generations, but share neither religion nor language with the majority Slavs.
Ethnic Albanians are represented in the coalition government, but the rebels say ethnic Albanians are treated as second-class citizens under Macedonia's constitution. They seek constitutional reforms and greater political rights.
 

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