Kosovans mourn rebels killed in Macedonia shootout

Several thousand people attended the funeral Tuesday of eight ethnic Albanian gunmen killed in clashes with security forces in Macedonia earlier this month.

Former Kosovo guerrilla fighters, and family members clutching photos of the dead, were among the mourners in an hour-long silent funeral procession that passed through the centre of Pristina to Martyrs' Cemetery, a military graveyard for prominent KLA members.

Former members of the now disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), wearing military uniform, carried the eight coffins covered by Albanian flags and laid them to rest next to each other amid heavy showers. There were no speeches or religious rituals before the burials.

The KLA is an ethnic Albanian guerilla group that fought for the independence of Kosovo in the 1990s.

Earlier, a commemorative ceremony was held in a Pristina University gymnasium, where the coffins were brought into the hall and thousands of dignitaries passed to pay tribute.

Macedonia labelled the gunmen killed in the northern town of Kumanovo as "terrorists" and claimed they were planning to attack state institutions.

Macedonian police arrested 30 alleged gunmen of ethnic Albanian origin, the majority of them from Kosovo, and charged them with terrorism.
The violence in Kumanovo sparked fears among the international community of fresh ethnic unrest in the volatile Balkans region, which saw a series of war in the 1990s during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.

Ethnic Albanians make up 90 percent of the 1.8 million-strong population of Kosovo, which unilaterally proclaimed independence from Serbia in 2008.

KLA veterans said that the Kosovans killed in the Macedonia clashes, which left 18 people dead, including eight police officers, fought in the 1998-1999 war for independence against the forces of the then Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

There were no government officials present at Tuesday's commemoration.

Xhavit Jashari, a leader of war veterans association in Kosovo, said the late gunmen said the fighters had sacrificed themselves "for the freedom of the homeland that is not complete yet. Without unification of Albanians into a Great Albania, the rights of Albanian nation will not be fulfilled," Jashari said.

Meanwhile, the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA), which was officially disbanded in Macedonia after the end of the 2001 six-month conflict with state armed forces there, said in a statement released to media, that the gunmen "died in the battle of Kumanovo against our Slav Macedonian enemies."

The bodies of nine Kosovans were handed over to Pristina authorities last week after their relatives travelled to Macedonia's capital Skopje to identify the bodies.
Hundreds of people, standing in silence with raised flags, stood to attention when the cortege bearing their coffins crossed the border into Kosovo last Friday.

The ninth gunman was buried Sunday in his family's village of Glogjan in western Kosovo.

The unrest in Kumanovo was the worst in Macedonia since a 2001 conflict between the government and rebels from the National Liberation Army seeking more rights for ethnic Albanians, who make up about one quarter of the country's 2.1 million people.

Belgrade still rejects Kosovo's independence, which has been so far recognised by some 100 countries, including the United States and most European Union members.