Balkan Reshuffling: Albanian village in Macedonia to be handed to Kosova

22 September 2007

Skopje -- The referendum about acceding the village of Tanusevci to Kosova might be held on November 28th – Albanian Flag Day, the Macedonian Dnevnik newspaper writes, citing the Albanian "Lajm" newspaper. The edition quotes people close former MP Xhezair Shaqiri.

Shaqiri told "Lajm" everything around the referendum was ready and added the only thing to do was to set the date. According to people close to him, the referendum might be held even earlier, reserving the date November 28th for marking Tanusevci’s accession to Kosova.

Tanusevci village is considered to be related to the start of the actions that led to the serious conflict in Macedonia in 2001 between ethnic Albanians and the Macedonian state, which ended with the Ohrid Agreement on August 13, 2001 and the establishment of greater Albanian rights.

In January 2001 the (Albanian) National Liberation Army (NLA) stated its existence by claiming responsibility for the attack against a police patrol in the village of Tearce near the town of Tetova, where a policeman was killed and another 2 injured. Clashes between the Macedonian security forces and armed groups of NLA followed in March and April in the mountain region in Northwestern Macedonia near the village of Tanusevci. In March, three Macedonian soldiers were killed near Tanusevci: one of them was shot, and the other two – by a mine explosion under their vehicle. In the end of February the administrator of the village of Debelde in Kosova, which is neighboring to the village of Tanusevci, announced that over 150 citizens of Tanusevci have searched asylum in Kosova “to get rid of the repressions of the Macedonian Army”. The Macedonian government then defined this migration as a well organized act with political goals.

In the first days of March 2001 Macedonia closed its border with Kosova and demanded the summoning of an extraordinary session of the UN Security Council, as well as the establishment of a buffer zone between Macedonia and Kosova with the presence of international forces in it. On March 5th Skopje declares mobilization of militaries from the reserve after new clashes in northern Macedonia which involved Albanian guerrillas.

The attack followed a demarcation agreement between Yugoslavia and Macedonia, ceding Tanusevci to Macedonia, which local people bitterly resented.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has been in charge of a project to rebuild Tanusevci homes damaged during the conflict so that refugees who mainly fled to Kosova can be repatriated. Out of a total of 1500 hundred people, only 800 (180) families opted for repatriation as many have now settled elsewhere.

Today people continuously cross the border with Kosova to see their relatives, which have been split with their families. They claim to have close ties with Debelde [a village across the frontier] and many fled to Kosova during the last conflict [in 2001].