EXECUTING OPERATION “VAKSINTSE”

EXECUTING OPERATION “VAKSINTSE”

On May 25, 2001, at 08:00 hours, we commenced the operation as planned - with an artillery barrage lasting 40 minutes around all the villages except for Vaksintse. The tanks and armoured transport vehicles briefly stopped in front of the village Slupchane and left. The village Orizare was surrounded and our units in that area took to the road, heading for the villages Slupchane - Otlia

At 09:30 hours I ordered the helicopters to engage. At 10:30 hours our units arrived at the north end of the village Vaksintse and the units from the village Alashevtse arrived north of the village Slupchane. Around 11:00 hours pressure was put on me to end the actions, but instead of ending them I threw in another three teams of “Wolves” from the Sixth Squad, to clean the chrome mine. We escalated the action on the northern slopes above the villages where the terrorists were trying to get away. They suffered particular losses at Kodra (TT 764), north of the village Vaksintse.

A citizen from the village Vaksintse contacted Colonel Stoian Petrovski by telephone. The citizen was a former associate of Stoian’s. He “demanded that the fleeing civilians be guaranteed passage to Kumanovo and that they be taken there by the army”. I asked Stoian: “Do you trust this person?” “I trust him!” he replied. “Then keep him in close contact,” I said, “and we will consider his request. Also tell him that, for their protection, we will decide where exactly they will be exiting. Tell him this will take place at 16:00 hours and somewhere between the villages Tabanovtse and Rechitsa. If they go to Strazha or Loiane we cannot guarantee them safety.”

The action continued even more fiercely while Colonel Stoian Petreski stayed in constant contact with his former associate from the village Vaksintse.

In the meantime, that day, the head of the International Red Cross for the Republic of Macedonia, Mr. Francois, persistently, through Colonel Blagoi Markovski, demanded that I talk with him as soon as possible. I knew exactly why he wanted me so I sent him a message that I could not see him before 18:00 hours. As it turned out, Mr.

Francois wanted us to stop our actions for 20 days so that he could take the wounded and the civilians out. He always had this opportunity, but his results were always miniscule, covering only the sick and the elderly.

At 16:00 hours Colonel Stoian Petrovski came to me and said that the civilians were willing to flee the village, but there was a group of six terrorists who would shoot at them. I told the colonel to tell them to take a risk on their own; we would not act on them.

At 17:30 hours the residents of the village Vaksintse began to evacuate en masse and headed for the village Tabanovtsi, some headed for the village Rechitsa.

It was never made clear to me how they escaped from the six terrorists, but that same day our ARM and police units intercepted around 2,500 people passing through Loiane heading for Mitrovats and 150 went where they wished. We did not hinder anyone.

After I ordered a cease military, after 18:00 hours, I received Mr. Francois, head of the International Red Cross in the Republic of Macedonia. As always, our conversation went towards persuading me to stop the military actions so that he could extract the civilians. So, I said to him: “You sir, are taking civilians out every day for 20 days and all you have taken out is only 30 to 50 mainly sick and elderly civilians. Who are your contacts in those villages and why are you not taking the large part of civilians who are held hostage?”

Mr. Francois replied only to tell me that they had contacted him to tell him that they were all ready to leave because we had been very serious in our intentions and that they were emotionally exhausted and could no longer take our actions. I said to him: “I personally do not believe that, and I do not know how the President and Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia are going to accept your explanation.”

On May 26, 2001, Iovo Andreevski sent US military attaché Colonel Robert Lynch to Kumanovo and asked me to receive him. As soon as I received him he immediately congratulated me on our Vaksintse May 25th, 2001 operation with no civilian casualties. Shortly after

that he asked to go to the village Vaksintse and take his associates with him. For some reason his request surprised me, so I asked: “Why would you want to go to Vaksintse?” He said: “I am interested in finding out the origin of the confiscated weapons.” So I said: “You don’t need to take risks and risk the lives of your associates, we will show you the weapons here in Kumanovo because those weapons were brought here and, if you want, you can take pictures and recordings of them.” In every operation this colonel was interested in finding out if we had stolen any of the American arms we seized. These were arms issued to the Kosovo Protection Corps. I did not allow them access to the village, justifying that it was “for security reasons” because the village was still not de-mined by our teams.

(In those days we received many written reports and other information. Written in one of those reports, among other things, was: “At 18:12 hours, Ali Ahmeti and G’zim Ostreni informed Commander Ilir that the “NLA”, from the moment it was created up until now, had excellent results in the political field because in managed “to ‘confuse’ the entire International Community with the signing of an agreement between PDP, DPA, the European Union, NATO and the Macedonian political parties, as the first step to the start of negotiations between the Macedonians and representatives of the NLA. Ali Ahmeti informed Ilir Meta that, in the course of today (May 29, 2001), together with the person from PKK, will be arriving in Kumanovo because they are expecting some politicians to go to Kosovo for talks…”

In the same report, among other things, it said: “At 21:36 hours, Commander Ilir Meta from Kumanovo informed Commander Ilir in Shar Planina that the NLA is in bad shape in Kumanovo and that Malich Nadrtsai was very nervous about having lost Commander Tigap, and Shefit Xhaferi continued to send defective arms to Kosovo.”)