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This briefing paper continues ICG’s analysis of the Macedonian crisis. It covers the period from the signing of a political agreement by the contending parties on 13 August 2001 through the start of the NATO mission to collect NLA arms, to the 6 September 2001 agreement by Macedonia’s parliament to begin consideration of the promised constitutional and legislative reforms. It focuses on the still tangled and unsettled internal Macedonian political scene and on the international community’s need to address the dangerous security vacuum that will arise unless an adequate follow-on force can be agreed once NATO’s limited present mission is completed.

Although a political agreement has now been signed, and NATO is poised to enter Macedonia, the possibility of a full-blown civil war, with serious regional consequences, remains high. This briefing  paper  continues  ICG’s analysis of the Macedonian crisis.1 It examines what has happened in the past several weeks, the political agreement signed by the contending parties on 13 August 2001, and what yet needs to be done, in particular by the international community, if that agreement, against still heavy odds, is to bring peace.

This ICG briefing paper continues the analysis of the Macedonian crisis begun in the ICG’s two most recent reports from Skopje: Balkans Reports No. 109, The Macedonian Question: Reform or Rebellion (5 April 2001) and No. 113, Macedonia: The Last Chance for Peace (20 June 2001).

In the past three months, since mid March 2001, Macedonia has stared into the abyss of inter-ethnic conflict, pulled away from the precipice, squandered opportunities for a political settlement, then returned as if sleepwalking to the brink of civil war.