Vejce ambush

NATO Secretary General George Robertson, after referring to the rebels as "a bunch of murderous thugs," remarked that:

This country may well be on brink of an abyss, but I believe there is enough common sense and political courage to step back (...) A downward spiral of violence into another Balkans bloodbath would produce only misery.[2]

Vasiliki P. Neofotistos writes of "the gruesome event that came to be known as the Vejce massacre" and its aftermath:

On 28 April NLA insurgents killed eight Macedonian male commandos in the Macedonian Army Special Forces, also known as "Wolves" (Volci), in an ambush near the village of Vejce, nine miles north of Tetovo. According to the eyewitness account of the only Macedonian soldier who managed to escape the ambush, the assailants were bearded men. The killing shocked public opinion because the reportedly bearded assailants used knives to dig out the eyes and cut off the ears and genitals of the Macedonian soldiers while the soldiers were still alive, and raised once again haunting questions concerning the origin of the people who committed these atrocious acts. The mutilation of the commandos' bodies, together with rumors about mujahideen groups operating in Macedonia, motivated people to action: in the city of Bitola (home of four of the commandos), Macedonians formed community self-defense groups; in Skopje, gunmen in a passing car opened fire on the Albanian Embassy and on an Albanian-owned pizzeria, killing an Albanian man; businesses and stores of Albanians and other Muslims in both cities were looted or burned.[3]

According to the Guardian:

"They were hit by everything," said Nikola Dimitrov, then-security adviser to President Boris Trajkovski, current Macedonian foreign minister. "They used hand grenades, rocket launchers and machine guns." "He said the guerrilla's had gone out of their way to disfigure the corpses. "It's unbelievable, and it's going to damage the political process. Now it will be so difficult to proceed."[4]