-Caveat Lector- >From Independent (UK) War in the Balkans - Kosovars suffer new ethnic hatred By Phil Davison in Blace Azemi Elias thought the insults of Serb border police were the last he would have to endure. A 32-year-old Kosovar Albanian car mechanic, he had crossed into Macedonia with his wife and children, was nibbling on some cheese in the border refugee camp in Blace and was glad to be alive. He had reckoned without the Macedonian police. "Your papers!" shouted a police colonel who later refused to give me his name but is known as Miki. Azemi's two sons, Buyar, five, and Behan, three, cowered on the blanket where they were eating their first decent food in days. They had heard that demand so many times on their long trek to the border from their home in the Kosovo village of Laskovari. They had also cowered in beneath the floorboards of their house when Serbian paramilitary troops shot out their windows and robbed their parents of everything they had. "But I just gave them to you coming in, officer," said Azemi. "Show them again!" insisted the colonel. Azemi did. "And watch what you're saying to that reporter!" barked the colonel, fingering the Serb-made CZ-99 pistol i n his holster. Azemi had just told me that Serb police and paramilitary troops were forcing Kosovar Albanian men to live on sites - including schoolyards and hospital grounds - where they were hiding tanks, field guns and ammunition. A short while later "Miki" and another officer hauled me off to the camp gates to check my identity. Kosovar Albanians find no welcome in Blace. Their Macedonian neighbours, except for the ethnic Albanian minority, leave them in no doubt that they are unwanted. Historic tension between the majority Slavs and the ethnic A lbanian Macedonians and the Kosovar Albanians is running higher than ever. There is talk of yet another civil war in the former Yugoslavia, regardless of what happens in Kosovo. Slav Macedonians say their country's ethnic Albanians are well-armed. That did not worry them when they knew they coul d rely on the federal Yugoslav army. Now, with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's men at least pinned down and, according to Nato, badly "degraded", Macedonia's Slavs are worried that the ethnic Albanians would have the upper hand in a civil conflict. The only thing the Macedonian government and police, supported by the Slav majority, don't like about the Serb's "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovar Albanians is the fact that many of the Serbs' victims have ended up here. Macedonia wants them to move on as fast as international humanitarian flights can pack them in. "They stink. They don't wash. They don't abide by our laws," said my Macedonian taxi driver, a Slav. "And they breed like rabbits. They're all after a Greater Albania, including western Macedonia, even the west bank of the Vardar river [through the capital, Skopje]." He was not a Serb but, like the majority in Macedonia, left no doubt he supported Mr Milosevic and opposed the Nato bombing. His keyring bore the double eagle symbol of Serbia's hardline Chetnik nationalists and their motto: "Only unity saves the Serbs." He was proud that he and his fellow Skopje taxi drivers were going to drive to Serbia tomorrow to donate their blood to victims of the bombing. This, after all, is the city where the locals attacked the US embassy after the Nato operation began. On Saturday night, I had witnessed a street brawl in Skopje. It started as a drunken fight between an ethnic Albanian and a Slav but soon a dozen men were involved. Between kicks and blows, ethnic slurs were exchanged. Locals said such scenes were happening nightly since the refugee crisis began almost two months ago. >From Irish Times ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UN humanitarian mission arrives in Belgrade ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kosovan refugees resume flight to Macedonia ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cluster bombs 'not serving human rights' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Opinion: Alliance with big powers flies in the face of our anti- colonial past ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, May 17, 1999 Politicians team up with clubs to achieve goals ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Government's decision to boycott the June 5th match in Dublin between Ireland and Yugoslavia is only the latest example of how, when it comes to the Balkans, football and politics are hopelessly intertwined. Using the sport as your political football has brought dividends for a whole generation of politicians across the post-communist Balkans. Yugoslavia has escaped the ban from world football arising from the war in Bosnia, but with visiting teams unhappy about dodging cruise missiles, it will see its home matches for the 2000 European championships played on neutral territory. NATO's present bombing campaign came days before Yugoslavia was set to redefine the term "crunch game" with an international fixture against Croatia, less than five years after Croat and Yugoslav forces fought each other on the battlefield. Football has been in the vanguard of the Yugoslav wars, beginning with vicious clashes between Croatian fans of Dynamo Zagreb and Belgrade teams just prior to the Croat war of independence in 1991. The Serb master of ethnic cleansing, Arkan, now an indicted war criminal, cut his teeth as chairman of the fan club of Yugoslavia's premier team, Red Star Belgrade. From the club he recruited his private army, The Tigers, which "ethnically cleansed" their way through Bosnia and are now working their same dark magic in Kosovo. Arkan has meanwhile taken over a second club, Obilic, reinforcing the link between politics and sport - Obilic was a Serb hero who in 1389 killed a Turkish sultan after a battle in - where else? - Kosovo. The break-up of Yugoslavia has left many football commentators wondering what might have been achieved had the country remained united. Both Croatia and Yugoslavia did well in the last World Cup. Together, they might have stood a chance of winning it. Elsewhere in the Balkans, Albania earlier this month saw a local derby with a difference when the main government team, Tirana FC, beat the country's second club, Skodra Vllazni, whose chairman, Azem Hajgari - also head of the opposition Democratic Party and a gun- runner - was shot dead last autumn. The last time many of Vllazi's supporters were in the capital, they were with two tanks as the Democrats, belying their name, tried to mount a coup d'etat. At the May 9th clash, Tirana won 1-0 and three fans were hurt in more traditional (unarmed) hooliganism. Another derby has meanwhile rocked Hungary, when Budapest rivals Ferencvaros and MTK met last March. The Sports Minister, an MTK supporter, Tamas Deutsch, has ordered Ferencvaros to hand over its stadium to his ministry from the agriculture ministry, whose minister, Jozsef Torgyan, just happens to be the Ferencvaros president. Not to be outdone, Torgyan strode at half time across the pitch into the home side's stands, where a banner, obviously large, was unfurled which read: "Deutsch stay with your little team - Ferencvaros will never belong to the Ministry of Youth and Sports!" But Deutsh has now crossed swords with FIFA, after sacking the head of Hungary's Football Association, accused of corruption, and replacing him with a Sports Ministry official. FIFA says that breaks the rules which say all FAs must be independent, but for now Hungary is hanging on - like many post- communist countries, the government controls the levers of soccer. Perhaps, as Bill Shankley, the late Liverpool manager, once observed, football really is more important - at least to some - than life and death. 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