Gunfire erupted outside the Macedonian parliament late yesterday as demonstrators incensed by a deal under which NATO evacuated ethnic Albanian rebels from a Skopje suburb stormed the building to demand the resignation of President Boris Trajkovski.
About 5,000 protesters had gathered outside the parliament, and a few dozen managed to gain entry to the building, which also houses Mr Trajkovski's residence.
Mr Trajkovski was inside meeting the leaders of the main Macedonian and ethnic Albanian parties in an attempt to initiate negotiations on political reforms.
At least a dozen people, including a policeman, soldiers and civilians, fired in the air from amongst the crowd. Demonstrators got inside the building and began throwing computer equipment out of the windows, while others began smashing official cars outside.
Parliament security guards held back some protesters but police outside the building appeared to do nothing to quell the crowd, while unarmed, uniformed army reservists joined the demonstration.
The demonstration took place as hundreds of ethnic Albanian guerrillas filed out of the village of Aracinovo on the outskirts of Skopje under a ceasefire brokered by the EU, which guaranteed them safe passage without disarming.
The mainly Macedonian Slav crowd outside the parliament were incensed at the leniency of the deal, under which the guerrillas were bussed out of the village to the Black Mountains further north after three days of pummelling from government forces which ended with an EU-brokered ceasefire on Sunday.
NATO and European officials oversaw the withdrawal, organised to remove a direct threat to the Macedonian capital.
A Macedonian soldier was killed and four wounded, one of them seriously, when their patrol was ambushed by ethnic Albanian guerrillas near the northwest town of Tetovo.
"It was a difficult operation but successful," said one Western diplomat.
The Macedonian government's efforts to make a political deal, seen by the West as the only way of ending the crisis - were criticised by EU Foreign Ministers meeting their Macedonian counterpart, Ms Ilinka Mitreva, in Luxembourg. The Swedish Foreign Minister, Ms Anna Lindh, said the results from the talks were "disappointing."