Macedonia: Albanians Welcome New Look Police

You could be forgiven for giving the scene a double take - Albanians in Macedonia's trouble spots meeting policemen and chatting cordially over a cup of coffee.

It would have seemed unthinkable two years ago, when Albanians battled for six months to improve their civil rights. The fighting stopped in August 2001 when the western-sponsored Ohrid agreement undertook to give the community a greater say in their own affairs.

Part of the accord was to enlist about 1,000 Albanians and other minorities into the police force, which had previously been overwhelmingly manned by officers from the Macedonian majority.

Training of Albanian recruits, at the police centre in Idrizvo near Skopje, is proceeding at a rapid pace. The interior ministry organises three courses a year in conjunction with the Office for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the OSCE.

About 500 minority recruits were trained in 2000 and 600 more should be ready by July 2003.

The campaign has already started bearing fruit with the introduction of mixed patrols, each consisting of three Macedonians and three Albanians, in areas dominated by the latter.

Nazmi Mailqi, a senior academic at the Southeast Europe University in Tetovo, said police used to treat minorities in an overbearing manner, and the inclusion of Albanians in the police and the interior ministry was a step in the right direction.

"Participation of Albanians in police patrols… is a precondition for regaining lost trust," he told IWPR, although he believes more should be done to increase the community's representation in the senior ranks of the police and the army.

Interior ministry spokesperson Mirjana Kontevska said its four advertising campaigns for police recruitment of minorities between September 2001 and December 2002 had elicited more than 1000 applications, 80 per cent of them from the Albanian community.

Before the crisis in 2001, Albanians accounted for only about seven per cent of the police force - it is estimated the proportion will rise to 20 per cent.

In October 2001, police started returning to western parts of Macedonia where they'd previously been reluctant to go. "The Albanian presence in the patrols has improved the cooperation of the local population," said Orce Todorovski, an ethnic Macedonian a policeman in a mixed unit at Rasce police station, which covers a number of Skopje municipalities.

His Albanian colleague, Nexhati Idrizi, said, "Police disdain and maltreatment of the local population before and during the 2001 conflict led to mistrust among the Albanians. Relations are much better now and if police continue to treat the population well things will improve even further."

Idrizi said that upon their arrival in western villages, mixed patrols are usually greeted warmly by Albanian residents, "We meet the villagers, have coffee with them and discuss everyday problems. The locals seem eager to talk to us and I think that this is an important step towards rebuilding trust."

Femi Bajrami, a resident of the village of Radusa, commented, " People here have accepted the patrols without any problem. This is obvious from the fact that they can move around here freely day and night."

OSCE representative Wolfgang Greven said the new look patrols have gone down well in a number of villages. "Some residents even demand more frequent patrols," he said. Greven placed great importance on the chats over coffee and other friendly exchanges, "I believe it signals a return to trust in the police."

Muhamed Osmani, the commander of Rasce police station, told IWPR that the police are now viewed not as part of the problem but as part of the solution.

Mustafa Hajrulahi is an Albanian journalist.