Protesters storm Macedonia parliament
SKOPJE, Macedonia (CNN) -- Protestors have stormed Macedonia's parliament
building forcing President Boris Trajkovski and other politicians to flee.
Shooting broke out as at least 5,000 people gathered in front of the
parliament building to demand the president's resignation on Monday evening.
Several police and at least 50 members of the army were said to have joined
in the protests as the chaos erupted in capital Skopje.
CNN's Juliette Terzieff said sustained volleys of gunfire could be heard
coming from four different directions.
She said the president and other politicians were evacuated. They were
alive, but there were no details of their condition or their wherabouts, she
added.
Police set up up road blocks around the building, allowing people to leave
the area, but not to enter, she added.
The protesters were chanting slogans deriding Trajkovski's decision to allow
the rebels to take their weapons as they pulled back from the town of
Aracinovo on Monday.
The demonstrators broke through a cordon of police, hurled stones through
windows and then succeeded in storming the doors.
All the windows in the front of the building were smashed and objects were
being hurled out of them. Several cars, including the president's Mercedes
were destroyed.
Turzieff added that several police officers and several journalists were
injured in the storming, including one BBC journalist who "was beaten up and
received fairly severe wounds."
The demonstrators accused Trajkovski of bowing to international pressure by
allowing rebels to take their weapons as they pulled back from Aracinovo --
a suburb of Skopje.
The president has not issued any statements since the demonstrations began.
The violent protests came during a day that started with great progress
following the announcement of a European Union-backed ceasefire, but
degenerated into virtual chaos in the streets of the capital by the end of
the day.
Earlier, two U.S. KFOR soldiers were wounded near the village of Nikustak
while supervising the withdrawal of ethnic Albanian rebels.
Their battalion came under fire, apparently from Macedonian troops,
diplomats in Macedonia confirmed. They say the incident was an accident.
The wounded soldiers were evacuated by helicopter and their medical
condition is unclear.
A NATO spokesman said 15 KFOR buses were transporting ethnic Albanian rebels
from Aracinovo -- a suburb of the Macedonian capital Skopje -- to the
village of Nikustak, about two kilometers away.
The buses were provided by KFOR nations , France, Italy and the United
States.
The KFOR soldiers do not have a mandate in Macedonia. They were called into
the area for logistical support. Several thousands of KFOR troops are
stationed in Macedonia to assist with the rebel pullout.
KFOR is a NATO-led international force responsible for establishing a
security presence in neighbouring Kosovo.
Ethnic Albanian rebels agreed Monday to a general ceasefire in Macedonia and
to pull back their forces one kilometre from Aracinovo, where they had been
battling Macedonian troops since Friday.
The European Union had also called for a disarmament of the troops on
Monday, but that failed to happen.
The rebels said they agreed to the pullback on the condition that Macedonian
forces do not enter the village, and that the Macedonian side observed the
ceasefire.
Elsewhere in the country, shelling and small arms fire could be heard,
primarily in the northwest near Tetevo as rebels and government soldiers
exchanged fire.
Locals were hired to drive the buses, the NATO spokesman said, and NATO-led
KFOR soldiers were not involved in the rebel pullback.
Ceasefire monitors from the EU and the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are unarmed and the convoy is not being
provided with an armed escort, according to the spokesman.
He said Macedonian government forces are being trusted not to attack the
convoy.
EU and OSCE diplomats in Europe negotiated the rebel pullback from Aracinovo
on Monday, a day after shelling there destroyed a brief truce in the village
brokered by in European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
The rebels had said they would pull out of Aracinovo on Sunday if
international monitors were put in place in the region, which was part of
the agreement brokered the same day by Solana.
But after Solana left the region on Sunday, Macedonia reneged on this
stipulation.
The ethnic Albanians say they are fighting for more rights from Macedonia's
government.
The government accuses the rebels -- who make up a third of Macedonia's two
million people -- of trying to split ethnic Albanian-populated areas from
the rest of the country.
Solana attended a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday.
He held out hope for a settlement despite the ongoing setbacks in Macedonia.
"It's going a little bit much slower than we thought but it's going well,"
he said.
EU Foreign Minister Chris Patten said earlier on Monday that the EU would
not be able to approve aid and finance to Macedonia as long as it was
spending much needed funds for reconstruction on arms and bullets.
"We would like to support confidence building measures, but it's difficult
to build people's confidence when money in short supply is being spent on
bombs and rockets," Patten said.
"So the sooner there can be a ceasefire permanently and the sooner there can
be a political settlement, the sooner we'll be able to discuss investing the
future peace, stability and prosperity."
CNN's Juliette Terzieff and Brussels Bureau Chief Patricia Kelly and
journalist Vladimir Juzelov contributed to this report
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