Macedonia

Forensic experts have found human remains where Macedonian officials suspect ethnic Albanian rebels buried several people they killed during an insurgency this year, a government official said. Investigators found "parts of human bodies and bones" at the site in the country's tense northwest, said Aleksandra Zafirovska, a Macedonian investigative judge. She did not say how many bodies were found.

Three ministers resigned, jolting a broad-based coalition government that was created to back Macedonia's fragile peace process. The resignations followed a decision Tuesday by a key Macedonian party--the Social Democrats--to leave the government, saying the threat of ethnic war no longer exists.

Macedonia's main moderate party walked out of the shaky "national unity" government, complicating Western-sponsored efforts to implement a peace accord with minority ethnic Albanian guerrillas. Diplomats who brokered the August peace pact fear the departure of the Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia will give too much power to nationalists, who are seen as more eager for revenge than reconciliation with ethnic Albanians.

Macedonia's parliament voted today to improve the civil rights of minority Albanians after a long delay that menaced a peace accord designed to defuse a guerrilla uprising. The vote came days after the agreement almost unraveled when the interior minister sent special forces into the ethnic Albanian heartland, leading to fighting, arrests and retaliatory kidnappings. Parliament adopted each of 15 constitutional amendments by a two-thirds majority.

Hundreds of Macedonian police officers converged on two villages in the Balkan country's ethnically tense northwest Monday to prevent the escape of ethnic Albanian gunmen they said had killed three officers and taken dozens of hostages. Riding armored personnel carriers and jeeps, police fanned out around Semsovo and Trebos, where the officers were killed and two others were hurt Sunday during a failed attempt to rescue hostages seized by gunmen in retaliation for their comrades' arrests.

Macedonia's peace process plunged into crisis when at least three policemen were reported killed in fighting with ethnic Albanians who were enraged by the arrests of kinfolk in a special forces sweep over truce lines. Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski sent in the forces ostensibly to secure a "mass grave" site said to contain executed Macedonians, but began arresting former guerrillas despite a government vow of amnesty.

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said Wednesday that Macedonia has promised to clarify a promised amnesty for disbanded guerrillas to show that only those indictable by a U.N. war crimes tribunal would face arrest. If honored, the move would do much to sustain a troubled August peace agreement with rebel ethnic Albanians. Hard-line security services seeking vengeance rather than reconciliation with the rebels have blocked a broad amnesty, raising tensions. An amnesty decree issued Oct.

Shooting broke out in northwestern Macedonia, seriously injuring a police officer in the worst violence in weeks, state television reported. The shootout comes less than two days after ethnic Macedonian and ethnic Albanian leaders said they reached a compromise on a dispute that had stalled implementation of a peace accord. State television said ethnic Albanian rebels who have officially disbanded launched the predawn attack near Skopje, the capital.

Macedonian and ethnic Albanian leaders agreed to revive a Western-sponsored peace plan after warnings by NATO to honor commitments or risk renewed ethnic warfare. European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary-General George Robertson and other officials visited Macedonia on an arm-twisting mission to untangle the peace process, which has been knotted by nationalist backsliding and boycotts.

Macedonia decreed an amnesty for disarmed ethnic Albanian rebels after weeks of inaction that raised doubts about its commitment to a Western-mediated peace accord. The move fulfilled a key provision of the agreement reached in August between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians that will help pave the way for the re-integration of the rebel-inhabited north.