SKOPJE (Islamweb & News Agencies) - NATO soldiers were set on Tuesday to collect hundreds more weapons from ethnic Albanian fighters in Macedonia after an initial day's haul of more than 400, but several potential obstacles to peace loomed on the horizon.(Read photo caption below)Vowing not to be deterred by the death on Monday of a British soldier killed after his car was hit by a chunk of concrete thrown by youths, NATO hopes to have gathered by Wednesday a third of its total target of 3,300 weapons in ''Operation Essential Harvest.''
Officers from the 4,500-strong Task Force Harvest voiced satisfaction at the first day of collecting weapons which the ethnic Albanians have agreed to surrender as part of a peace plan meant to give greater rights to Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority.
The NATO mission aims to help nip Macedonia's conflict in the bud and prevent the all-out warfare which engulfed many parts of the old Yugoslavia in the past decade. Monday's surrender of weapons passed smoothly.
While the precise circumstances remain unclear, the attack on the 20-year-old soldier offered a reminder that many members of the Macedonian majority view NATO's mission with skepticism or downright hostility.
Several senior Macedonian politicians have made clear they believe the disarmament operation is a charade and that NATO's target figure is nothing like the full number of weapons held by the Albanians, who began their revolt for equal rights in February this year.
MONASTERY VISIT MAY BE FLASHPOINT
Feelings may run high on Tuesday as a group of Macedonians plan an Assumption Day visit to a monastery in the northwestern village of Lesok, where a church on one of the country's most revered Orthodox Christian sites was blown up last week.
The site is close to Albanian-held territory but fighters' leaders have denied they were responsible for the blast.
In another potential flashpoint, Macedonians displaced by the conflict are reported to be planning a rally in the capital Skopje on Thursday night -- the eve of a parliament session meant to begin discussing the political parts of the peace plan.A key question for many analysts is whether Macedonian deputies are ready to change the constitution and pass the new legislation required to turn the peace deal into reality.
The deal aims to create greater representation of ethnic Albanians in the police force and greater official use of the Albanian language, among other measures.
NATO insists that most Macedonians are not hostile to its mission and points out that its task force is in the former Yugoslav republic at the invitation of the government.
But Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski and Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski, two leading hawks in a cabinet which also includes moderates, have both voiced strong doubts about both the peace process and NATO's role in it.
Boskovski on Monday dismissed the NATO operation as nothing more than symbolism and proof ``the international community is playing with the feelings of the nation and playing with the feelings with every honest Macedonian.''
Boskovski's ministry has estimated the National Liberation Army (NLA) has some 85,000 weapons.
Many Macedonians see NATO as having sided with ethnic Albanian fighters in neighboring Kosovo during the war there and believe the alliance has failed to stem the flow of weapons and personnel from the province to support the NLA.
But NATO counters that its peacekeepers in Kosovo have detained 750 suspected NLA members since stepping up its border surveillance operations in June. The KFOR peace force said they had detained 96 suspects on Sunday evening and Monday morning.
PHOTO CAPTION:
British paratroopers walk in front of a destroyed mosque as they secure the Albanian village of Matejce north-west of the capital Skopje, August 27, 2001. This marks the first day of NATO's Operation Essential Harvest which calls for NATO troops to collect weapons from ethnic Albanian fighters. (Petr Josek/Reuters)