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TITLE: Macedonia To Ask for War Declaration |
AUTHOR: |
PUB: AP |
DATE: May 5, 2001 |
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Macedonia's prime minister said Saturday he plans to ask Parliament to declare a state of war, just hours after soldiers hammered ethnic Albanian rebel positions with artillery fire in an escalating offensive. The comments from Prime Minister Ljbuco Georgievski came before an emergency session of his governing party leadership, which followed a week of attacks on rebels holding ground in the northern part of the country. Georgievski told reporters that one of the issues on the party's agenda Saturday night would be the declaration of a state of war in Macedonia, to be taken up by Parliament. A state of war would give the government the power to seal the borders, ban public gatherings, rule by decree and implement a curfew. ``What is happening on the territory of Macedonia is war,'' he told reporters outside the meeting in the Parliament building. ``Those people who are doing this have the aim of conquering the territory.'' Under the Macedonian constitution, a declaration of a state of war can only happen with the approval of a two-thirds majority of the 120-member Parliament. That means that 81 members would have to vote for the measure -including 26 ethnic Albanian deputies. The body is expected to meet Tuesday, but the statements from Georgievski suggested he planned to try to re-shuffle the existing government and declare a state of emergency to deal with the crisis. The rebels are fighting for greater rights for Macedonia's minority ethnic Albanians, arguing that they are treated as second-class citizens. They want the Macedonian constitution be rewritten to give them more rights. END |