Albanian leader in Macedonia escapes assassination attempt
Former ethnic Albanian rebel chief turned politician Ali Ahmeti escaped an armed assault in western Macedonia on Monday, as tensions between two rival Albanian political parties threaten to seriously undermine the country’s quest for the EU and NATO membership and the ongoing campaign for parliamentary elections.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Prime minister Nikola Gruevski's cabinet collapsed following Albanian pressures to recognize Kosovo's unilateral independence and the dispute with Greece over the name of the country.
"This was an assassination attempt," said Ahmeti's senior campaign official Izet Mexhiti, who blamed the rival Democratic Party of Albanians (PDSh) for the shooting, just another in a series of recent bloody incidents between rival camps.
Ahmeti's Democratic Union for Integrations (BDI) has been widely seen as a favorite of Macedonia's 500,000-strong Albanian minority ahead of the June 1 early parliamentary elections, which raised tensions on the Albanian political scene in the tiny Balkan country.
Police said they had detained one person suspected of involvement in the shooting.
One person was slightly wounded in the attack which took place during Ahmeti's campaign in volatile western Macedonia which has been the scene of ethnic Albanian uprising in 2001 and a series of shootings and bomb attacks ever since.
Over the weekend, one person was killed in several separate incidents between main Albanian parties. This time, the victim was a long-standing member of PDSh Bashkim Rustemi.
Prior to those incidents, five BDI activists were severely beaten in the village of Kondovo near Skopje after trying to display party flags. In a separate incident, a night club owned by a former DPA member was torched in Tetovo. A club security guard was previously kidnapped and released shortly afterwards with his head covered and hands tied.
Meanwhile, BDI s party headquarters in the villages in Tetovo and Gostivar region were shot at on Saturday night.
The latest tide of incidents and even more troubling electoral campaign during previous elections have hampered Macedonia's move towards the EU, as Brussels warned both Albanian and Macedonian politicians that political scene has to move into calm waters if country wants to move further to Euro-Atlantic integrations.
Right-wing PDSh is the part of outgoing government coalition with Macedonian nationalists from VMRO-DPMNE.
