Insurgency in The Republic of Macedonia - General Ceasefire Agreement

General Ceasefire Agreement

After putting severe pressure on the Macedonian government, even threatening that Macedonia will be put under sanctions and that the Stabilisation and Association Process will be blocked for the country, the Macedonian government agreed to sign an unconditional ceasefire. The ceasefire agreement was given to the President by Peter Feith and was signed on 5 July 2001 by army general Pande Petrovski and police general Risto Galevski from the Macedonian side, and by Peter Feith as a representative from NATO. NATO was the guarantor of the General Ceasefire and a same agreement was then signed with the NLA in Prizren.

The General Ceasefire Agreement askes that a de-militarized zone was to be established extending between the border with Kosovo until the southern side of the Tetovo – Jazince highway. In accordance with the agreed the Macedonian army retreated from Tetovo and from all of the villages that were under its control in the conflict zone, towards new positions on the Kosovo border, and in to the south of Tetovo. Some reinforcements were also sent to the army positions on Popova Shapka. After the dislocation of the army to the new positions south of the town, left inside Tetovo were only four police checkpoints and the police units located in the building of the SVR Tetovo. Police units were also dislocated from the villages of the conflict zone, and the police remained in the region around Tetovo after the signing of the Ceasefire were as follows: 20 policemen in Lesok, 70 in Tearce, 120 in Vratnica, 25 in Jazhince, 100 in Jegunovce, 50 in Ratae, 70 in Zelce, as well as 5 police checkpoints with 15 policemen each.

According to the ceasefire agreement, Macedonian security forces could open fire only when their lives were directly threatened and the return of fire had to be proportional with the attacks of the NLA.

The agreement also envisioned a 3,000 strong NATO contingent to be deployed in the conflict zone after a political settlement was agreed between the Macedonian and Albanian political leaders. The mandate of the NATO force was to last 45 days and the task was to disarm the NLA insurgents.