MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE ARMY GENERAL HEADQUARTERS No. 30-674/782 July 26, 2001 SKOPJE

SUBJECT: Response to the information from NSSS number 2423 of July 26, 2001

To: Colonel Finney Olsen

Today, during the day, we received information on the current situation on the ground and disturbances caused by the terrorists. Thank you for the sincerity on your side.

I ask that you please personally convey my thoughts and concerns to Mr. Peter Faith as follows:

I am losing my patience, trust and expectations with the breach caused by the terrorists and with the agreement reached between myself and Mr. Peter Faith on July 25, 2001.

I feel the need to inform Mr. Peter Faith that if the conditions are not fully complied with as agreed upon, by 16:00 hours on July 26, 2001, I will be forced to act and restore order by use of the Army of the Republic of Macedonia.

Sincerely,

CHIEF OF STAFF OF GENERAL HEADQUARTERS General Pande Petrovski

The above is a copy of the letter sent from the Chief of Staff of General Headquarters of the Republic of Macedonia to Peter Faith.

* * *

Six hours later Peter Faith sent me a reply from Ali Ahmeti with the following content:

“On July 26, 2001, I ordered the NLA units to:

- Fully withdraw from the Tetovo - Iazhintse road from Tetovo to the Odra, to stop all activities on the road and to remove all checkpoints and roadblocks;

- To withdraw all fighters from the villages to a minimum of 500 metres outside of these villages because of their full demilitarization. Every community has the right to designate a person to act as a liaison with the OSCE;

- To refrain from any kind of provocative action that may contradict the ceasefire Agreement from July 6, 2001.

- To allow free and unimpeded return of displaced persons in the above mentioned areas;

- To fully observe all conditions as stated in the July 6, 2001 Agreement;

- The terms for the above mentioned points, regarding respect for the ceasefire, are to be observed by the government in accordance with the standards set by the International monitors;

- Of course Army vehicles may use the road to supply the Iazhintse Watchtower without being stopped but with prior notification.”

Signature: Ali Ahmeti

The document was submitted to us by Colonel Finney Olsen, assistant to Peter Faith. The same day I received the letter from Ali Ahmeti there was another provocation by the so-called NLA. That’s when I decided to write Faith another letter dated July 26, 2001. The content of that letter is registered under no. 2423, July 26, 2001.

“Today in the course of the day I received information regarding conditions on the ground and disturbances caused by the terrorists. Thank you for the sincerity on your side. I ask that you please personally convey my thoughts and concerns to Mr. Peter Faith as follows:

I am losing my patience, trust and expectations with the breach caused by the terrorists and with the agreement reached between myself and Mr. Peter Faith on July 25, 2001. I feel the need to inform Mr. Peter Faith that if the conditions are not fully complied with as agreed upon, by 16:00 hours on July 26, 2001, I will be forced to act and restore order by use of the Army of the Republic of Macedonia.

Sincerely,

CHIEF OF STAFF OF GENERAL HEADQUARTERS General Pande Petrovski

After submitting my response to Peter Faith, the same day I received a telegram from NATO/KFOR.

It stated:

“The extremist Albanian terrorist groups (NLA) have completely withdrawn from Leshok (EM - 0357). All residents of this village were allowed to return. The village Doborote will be clean in a few hours from all extremist Albanian groups and so will the villages

Glogi (EM - 0457) and Teartse (EM - 0457). The armed Albanian extremist groups are still inside but plan to withdraw soon.”

* * *

NATO/KFOR CONFIDENTIAL RELEASABLE TO THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

Operations and Intelligence Exchange

CONTROL NUMBER YEAR: 2001 NCCC NO: 2423

1. ORIGINATOR: KFOR -

TIME SUBMITTED: 26 1425 July 01

TIME OF RESPONSE

2. SUBJECT: Tetovo Withdraw

3. Intelligence. The following information was given to the NCCC MOD by Col Finney of the NATO Team.

In the Tetovo area: The EAAG (NLA) has completely withdrawn from the village of LESOK (EM0357). The villagers are being allowed to return. Within a few hours, the village of DROBROTE (EM0661) will also be free of the EAAG. In the villages of GOGI (EM0559) and TEARCE (EM0457) the EAAG are still in the villages, but plan on moving out. No time table given.

4. DISSEMINATED TO: MOD

5. REMARKS / ACTION TAKEN:

RECORDED BY: (SIGNATURE)

* TURKEY RECOGNIZES THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA WITH ITS CONSTITUTIONAL NAME

-1-

NATO/KFOR CONFIDENTIAL RELEASABLE TO THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

The above is a copy of the statement.

* * *

Regardless of the correspondence I had with Peter Faith, we found out that a large group of terrorists had arrived from somewhere and based itself in the northeast of these villages.

I gave orders to reinforce our ARM units and take position at 500 metres southeast of the Tetovo - Iazhintse road and then launch military actions from the distance against known terrorists positions, north of the village Glogi, that were illegally taken after the July 5, 2001 ceasefire Agreement. I was expecting Peter Faith to react about this but at the same time I wanted to let him know that we respected the agreement and were prepared to immediately act, with force if necessary, against all terrorist activities taken outside of the Agreement.

President Boris Trajkovski called me and asked me to go to his office. There I found Peter Faith, General Lange and the NATO Commander in the Republic of Macedonia. After I explained the situation, the President supported me in my approach to deploy the ARM units, i.e. the entire procedure that General Headquarters undertook in the spirit of the July 6, 2001 Agreement. On that occasion Peter Faith asked the President to order me to stop the actions of ARM on the grounds that tomorrow he would be going to Prizren and that he guaranteed the complete withdrawal of the terrorists from that space.

Throughout our entire conversation at the President’s office, Peter Faith, in his explanation as to why the terrorists came to the

Macedonian villages, where no action had taken place before the ceasefire, said the following:

“It is my understanding that the Ministry of the Interior had armed the residents at that end (referring to the Macedonians) and the challenge of ethnic Albanian armed rebel groups was to disarm them.”

In front of the President I argued the opposite because I had no such knowledge. But at that meeting the President accepted Faith’s explanation and requested that ARM stop the action and, once again, provided the terrorists with the opportunity to withdraw from that space and fully agreed to comply with the peaceful resolution of the conflict. On July 27 and 28, 2001 the field was cleaned, the terrorists withdrew. But residents displaced from the above mentioned villages did not return.

A day or two later, after we had our conversation with Peter Faith at the President’s office, Mr. Stoianovski - Bombai led a delegation of displaced persons from the Tetovo villages. They came to President Trajkovski’s office. Boris Trajkovski also asked me to attend that meeting and told me: “Pay attention and listen to what the locals from Tetovo have to say.” All speakers at that meeting were decisive with their statements: “After the police left the village, it gave us Kalashnikov rifles and 100 rounds of bullets to defend ourselves, and then came the terrorists with a list and took the weapons.” One among the locals present at the President’s office, who was about 30 years old, said: “Mr. President, I have not served in the army, so when they gave me the Kalashnikov and the 100 bullets and when the terrorists came, I fired all the bullets and ran away. They gave us weapons and ammunition but did not teach us how to defend ourselves if we were outnumbered!”

The so-called NLA, to make it known that it was present on the ground, especially where ARM units were present, occasionally appeared in the open in small groups.

After the signing of the ceasefire Agreement, we agreed with NATO to allow the return of the displaced people. Most displaced persons of Albanian ethnicity started to return to their homes in July 2001.

With the return of these residents in villages Lavtsi, Seltse, Giermo, Shipkovitsa, Brodets, Veshala, Veitse and in the city Tetovo itself, conditions were created for some of the terrorists to again get involved in these villages. ARM personnel who were stationed in positions in the above mentioned villages, and in that region, began to notice the presence of armed uniformed groups of 5 to 7 men always on the move, creating an impression that they were present everywhere, some even appeared in the city Tetovo. Some individuals, with their appearance, began to provoke the ARM units in those positions. They were making our soldiers and officers very nervous, which could have led to a shootout and resumption of the conflict.

In addition to my written warning to Peter Faith about this, the public, through the media, issued a statement and in that statement there were requests that ARM units be ordered to act: “For as long as there are terrorists, unauthorized uniformed armed men present at 250 to 300 metres in front of any ARM unit position, they must be fired upon without warning.”

After that statement was issued by the media, i.e. for ARM units to open fire on terrorist targets, the terrorists scaled down their intentional appearances but still made their presence known in urban areas, especially at night. These armed provocations were also frequent right after the OSCE monitoring missions were retreating. Armed provocations were frequent in Tetovo, especially at the positions where law enforcement officers were stationed, particularly in police stations.

The purpose of these provocations, and the level at which they were committed, was to create the impression that the city was full of terrorists. This information was introduced by the Ministry of the Interior during our top state leadership meetings, i.e. “Tetovo is occupied by terrorists and should be freed, an operation needs to be performed to clean the city”. This kind of day to day tension inflamed the meetings and the media.

Defense Minister Vlado Buchkovski and I knew that they were only provocations - they even attacked our military barracks in Tetovo only to provoke ARM, and this provocation did not come from the

terrorists but from other structures which were saying: “The Army does not want to help the police.” Segments of this thesis were found in media through statements like: “The generals are not determined to use ARM.”

According to the daily reports from the commanders on the ground the story was somewhat different; provocations were causes by the police and then they were seeking help from ARM to use artillery and other combat means.

Combat Report R - 4192/2023

Quote: “From the very beginning of the performance of the operation, cooperation and coordination with the Ministry of the Interior was well-organized and implemented, which had a lasting positive outcome in the implementation of the plan to break the terrorists in the assigned area of responsibility. On top of that, in the coming period, especially after the signing of the ceasefire Agreement and implementation of the President’s agreement to deal with the crisis, the coordination of activities was not at the required level and there were more frequent requests by the Interior Ministry for ARM to engage in clean up performances, tasks delegated to the police.”

In addition to the above assessment I would like to present the following examples:

1. During the attack on the terrorists on July 23, 2001, representatives of the Ministry of the Interior persistently demanded artillery weapon’s action on settlements of the villages Leshok and Teartse, and this was to be based on unverified data and incomplete estimates.

2. On July 24, 2001 the police station near the cable car line was attacked from the Tekie facility. At this point the Ministry of the Interior demanded that it be given an armoured transport vehicle. The Chief of 15th PBR was also pressured to improperly use the tanks. The request was improper because the intensity of the attack was not strong enough to warrant the fire power of the tanks and did not put the police post in jeopardy.

3. On July 27, 2001, around 18:30 hours, the Tetovo Chief of Police asked for a helicopter over alleged threats to the police forces in the area of the village Iegunovtse. We verified that there were indeed skirmishes in the area but it was determined that these skirmishes were between the Interior Ministry’s reservists and the Interior Ministry’s active members.

4. On July 29, 2001 an attack on the police checkpoint in the area of the Tetovo stadium was reported by members of the Interior Ministry. The control point in the Department of the Interior Headquarters in Tetovo received confirmation of the attack, which led to the conclusion that the action and the attack were invented. At the same time, someone from a considerable distance decided to open fire on the ARM barracks. No one was harmed. The activity was short, about 5 minutes, too short for us to detect the target and take action against it with our artillery. A short time later there was a reaction from law enforcement officers who demanded to know from ARM: “Why do you not help us?!” Immediately after that I received a telephone call on my cell phone from President Boris Trajkovski who had a question for me. He asked: “Are you performing actions and who gave the order?!” My response was: “At this given moment we are not doing anything because the activity against us was very short. In the past few days, however, we acted appropriately, effectively and efficiently, respecting the ceasefire order and appropriately and adequately responded to direct attacks against our units.” The same day around 16:00 hours I was asked by the Operational team in ARM General Headquarters if I was familiar with the situation in the village Iegunovtse and whether anyone had requested reinforcements from me. The answer of course was “No”! After we investigated this supposed request for reinforcements, where these supposed actions by ARM were taking place, we found that there was absolutely no evidence of any such action.

The previous four examples clearly show that there were requests for ARM to become involved in performing police duties, as well as accusations that ARM did not cooperate with the Interior Ministry police forces.

- R - 4192/2023