Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 13:44:44 -0500
From: boone@TIMA.COM (Michael Boone)
Subject: Gun Control, NATO style
To: AZRKBA@asu.edu


08/17 11:44
NATO Moves Into Macedonia as Full Deployment Weighed (Update1)
By Heather Langan


London, Aug. 17 (Bloomberg) -- A Hercules C-130 transport plane carrying 41
U.K. military planners took off from Wattisham airfield in England en route
to Macedonia to ready a planned NATO mission aimed at disarming ethnic
Albanian rebels.

The planners are going ahead of a vanguard force of 400 British troops that
will set up a headquarters and communications for the mission. NATO's
decision-making council met today in Brussels to weigh whether a cease-fire
in the Balkan country is sturdy enough to deploy the rest of the 3,500
soldiers in the operation, dubbed Essential Harvest.

Member countries made no decision today on a deployment, a North Atlantic
Treaty Organization spokeswoman said.

``We are looking for a commitment on behalf of all the ethnic Albanian
armed groups to abide by the agreement,'' said Brigadier Barney
White-Spunner, the U.K. brigade's commander, according to the Associated
Press. If conditions are stable, White-Spunner said yesterday, he will
advise NATO to proceed with deployment.

The action to move into the country followed the signing of a peace
agreement Monday between Macedonia's majority Slav and minority ethnic
Albanian political parties. The U.S. and Europe pressed for the accord to
head off a civil war in a country that until this year had escaped the
bloodshed of Balkan wars in the 1990s.

A policeman and a civilian died in clashes between ethnic Albanian rebels
and the army in and around the northwestern city of Tetovo, as the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization began to monitor the truce, Agence
France-Presse said, citing hospital and military officials.

Member countries may be given several days to object to a NATO deployment
proposal, AP said.

Czech paratroopers began arriving in the capital, Skopje, to provide
protection when commanders of the U.K. military planners arrive tonight,
AFP reported.

The U.K. would be the biggest contributor to Essential Harvest, with 1,000
troops, including the vanguard brigade, while France would send 530
soldiers, AFP said. Germany may send 500 troops, Italy plans to offer 450
and Greece would send a battalion of 350.

A few hundred U.S. troops will supply medical, logistics and communications
support, the State Department said this week. Belgium, Norway, Spain and
Turkey also are expected to participate, according to AFP.