International monitors in Macedonia have complained to the government about the arrest and beating of scores of ethnic Albanian civilians, and the vandalising of dozens of houses, by security forces "cleaning up" after the offensive against Albanian guerrillas.
Evidence of the damage was presented by representatives of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe as Macedonia was formally welcomed into the "extended European family" in Luxembourg.
Flanked by EU foreign ministers, the Macedonian Prime Minister, Mr Ljubco Georgievski, promised to meet the June deadline for improved relations between the ethnically Slav majority and the restive Albanian minority.
Mr Georgievski spoke of his "joy and pride" at the signing of a "stabilisation and association agreement" with the EU which gives Macedonia generous trade terms and strong political support. Macedonia, which a month ago seemed close to civil war, is the first former Yugoslav republic to benefit from such an agreement. The OSCE representatives visited most of the mountain villages suspected of being Albanian guerrilla bases and returned with photographs of homes ransacked and marked with crosses as a token of Macedonian triumph. The Slavic Macedonians are Orthodox Christian. Most Albanians are Muslim.
In the worst incident reported by the monitors, the army killed a boy of 16 who had returned by taxi with two companions from the city of Tetovo to Selce, once the stronghold of the self-styled National Liberation Army, to look after their sheep. He was shot four times. One of the other boys, a deaf-mute, is said to be seriously traumatised by the incident, which occurred on Friday. In other villages the police arrested 200 people in the first two days of their sweep. The monitors have photographs of dozens of severely bruised men. Many of them were treated in Tetovo hospital.
"Several had broken ribs and noses, and your kidneys don't function too well after you've been with the police," one of the monitors said yesterday. Nevertheless, the EU felt able to indulge in a little cautious self-congratulation in Luxembourg, where its security and foreign policy representative, Mr Javier Solana, the architect of yesterday's agreement, said: "There is a greater sense of stability, and the security environment has also improved significantly. We must begin to see results soon."
Two British peacekeepers died and five others were injured yesterday hen a military helicopter crashed on a mountain top in southern Kosovo during bad weather. Britain's defence ministry named the two killed as the helicopter's pilots; Capt Andrew Crous (28) and Flt Lieut James Maguire (31).