Leaving War Behind

I penned this one in Skopje for TIME magazine. It was published on 12 February 2002.

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Peace may not exactly be breaking out all over Macedonia, but the country does seem to be taking small but definite steps to put last year's war behind it. Despite tense delays over its ratification and implementation throughout the autumn, the peace agreement brokered between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians at Ohrid last August is holding.

Ohrid's promise of weapons collection from the insurgents was completed with NATO's help back in September. What's more, ethnically mixed police patrols of communities in conflict areas, also pledged at Ohrid, have thus far been a success; the patrols are entering more and more villages every week, increasing trust on all sides.

Macedonia Teeters on the Edge of Peace

I wrote this article from Skopje for TIME magazine, which ran it on 12 November 2001.

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"There will be problems," NATO spokesman Mark Laity said back in late September. "There will be violence. There will be incidents." Laity was absolutely right: On Nov. 11, Albanian rebels clashed with government forces yet again, this time leaving three policemen dead and dozens of Macedonians held hostage near the city of Tetovo.

Before this flare up, NATO's Essential Harvest operation had ostensibly fulfilled its task of collecting thousands of weapons from the rebel Albanians of the National Liberation Army (NLA). The mission was being replaced by operation Amber Fox, the German-led NATO effort to protect international observers. But this latest incident has been accompanied by the appearance of a new group, the Albanian National Army (ANA), which claimed responsibility for the killings of the policemen. No one can be sure what role they will now play.

Sympathy for the Devil

On the morning of 12 September 2001, I got on a plane to Skopje, Macedonia, and while I was there, I wrote this for TIME magazine.

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Early on the morning of 11 September, I thought that my next day's travel to Skopje, Macedonia was somewhat risky. After all, there had been a smoldering civil war there for months and the current ceasefire was shaky at best. But, of course, 11 September is the day the entire world became a war zone, so flying to this tiny battlefield in the Balkans seems no different than staying in London as far as personal security is concerned.

I rather wonder why I'm going, to be honest. I mean, who cares about Macedonia now? I say that not because I am insensitive to the very real suffering of victims and their families in Macedonia and not because the scale of the killing in the U.S. eclipses many times over everything that has happened in Macedonia during the past years. I grew up in New Jersey and looked at the twin towers every day of my life for nearly two decades and say this because the world will never be the same again. With civilians considered military targets, it's only a matter of time before free societies become more militarized.