| BorisVM |
New Renault? No thanks, I'd rather keep my AK-47
(Filed: 09/11/2003)
The weapons amnesty in Macedonia is failing despite a handsome offer - the chance to win a new car. Neil Barnett reports from Skopje
The last time that the people of Macedonia were offered a weapons amnesty, one man turned up in an armoured personnel carrier that he had made off with during the 2001 conflict between ethnic Albanians and Macedonians.
This time around, the citizens have proved more reluctant to hand over their hardware. The authorities in this Balkan country are offering a handsome bribe: give us your illegal AK-47 and you will be entered in a lottery to win a new car or a computer. Yet it seems people would rather bristle with guns than drive away a mint Renault Clio.
In the town of Veles, 35 miles south of the capital Skopje, the mayor proudly displays 29 surrendered "sporting guns" which turn out to be rusting air rifles. In the first two days of the amnesty, only one other firearm - a pistol - had been turned in.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Skopje, at another of 123 collection points, a pristine Second World War-vintage Schmeisser sub-machinegun testified to the excellence of German engineering some 60 years after the Third Reich was defeated in Yugoslavia.
Johan Buwalda, of the UN development programme in Macedonia, defended the lottery scheme, launched last week. "For many people, a weapon is a major investment - perhaps they have sold a goat to buy it," he said. "We have to compensate them for that."
Although the former Yugoslav republic was spared the inter-ethnic violence that devastated the Balkans in the early 1990s, it came close to civil war a decade after independence.
After the violent 2001 uprising, ethnic Albanian rebels agreed to lay down their arms in return for greater rights. Many people fear that they will still need their weapons either if fighting resumes between the Albanian and Macedonian communities, or if violence flares up between Albanian nationalists and the police, as it did in September.
"I won't be handing in my guns. Why should I?" asked a shopkeeper in Skopje. "No one knows what will happen to Macedonia. The prizes are c**p too."
The interior minister Hari Kostov marked the start of the collection programme by handing in his own hunting rifle and pistol in front of television cameras. Others handing over illegal weapons were reluctant to speak to anyone, especially the press.
Paul Eavis, director of Saferworld, a foreign affairs think-tank, said that the collection programme was not without risk because of the recent violence, but believed that the lottery scheme would at least boost awareness of illegal weapons. "In countries like Bosnia, where collection has gone on for years, you get to a saturation point where most of those who are willing to surrender weapons have already done so," he said.
"The most important thing is to address underlying security concerns by promoting community-based policing, for example, so members of both ethnic communities feel sufficiently secure to give up their weapons." Weapons are an accepted part of Balkan life but the amnesty has been welcomed by the international community.
The US and Nato are keen to bring a sense of normality back to Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, where the 400-strong military monitoring mission will end next month.
Source: © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003
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