Nato and the EU are bringing peace to Macedonia. Ireland should be involved, writes Peter Murtagh.
The mountains behind the monastery provide a dramatic backdrop to the scene. On the far side of them to the north is Kosovo, here on this side is Macedonia.
In the lee of the escarpment is the Christian Orthodox monastery of Lesok, bathed in sunlight on this beautiful September day. We, a group of journalists brought to the area by American diplomats, sit on benches around a table as an orthodox monk dispenses the inevitable tray of slivovica, the home-made plum brandy that is ubiquitous throughout the Balkans.
Jusuf and Pavel are sitting on either side of Mirko Stankovski, the head of the religious community. His welcoming words are punctuated by the sounds of the chisels and hammers of the workmen rebuilding the 5th-century church which was reduced to rubble in the spring of 2001 in what local people quaintly refer to as "the crisis".
Between February and July that year, Macedonia seemed determined to descend into murderous ethnic warfare like Bosnia and Kosovo. But it didn't, thanks in large measure to the interventions of Nato, the OSCE and the EU. Between February and July 2001, places like Lesok bore witness to bouts of ethnic fighting between the Macedonian police and army, helped by irregulars from the civilian population, and their Albanian neighbours, either fully signed-up members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the self-styled Macedonia-based National Liberation Army, or ethnic Albanian civilians with guns.
Now, some 2½ years later, the talk is all about reconciliation. It's a bit like Northern Ireland - everything is parity of esteem and respecting diversity.
"Not everyone can be a Macedonian," says Pavel. "Not everyone can be an Albanian. Not everyone can be a Turk. Just imagine what a big treasure it is to live in such a community!
"We were born here - all of us. We owe it to our ancestors and to our grandchildren not to leave."
Pavel Todorovski is a bulky, late-middle-aged man with big farmer's hands and a smiley face and is deputy leader of the area's community council. He is a Macedonian Slav, like 66 per cent of the country.
Jusuf Useini, the council's president, is an ethnic Turk, who account for 4 per cent. The council secretary, who is not present, is an Albanian, the largest other ethnic group, comprising 23 per cent.
Jusuf describes Lesok and the wider area, known as Tearce. There are about 5,000 people living in 1,000 homes, he says. Seventy per cent live off the land. During the crisis, 20 homes were burnt down, three villagers were killed, and a textile factory, bakery and some shops were also destroyed.
Down the road in Neprosteno village, a community of some 1,000 ethnic Albanians and 450 Macedonians, Xhemali Arifi shows us around the mosque, a small domed building with a minaret that is tucked between homes in the centre of the village. During the crisis, Macedonian forces fired shells over the village and into the hillside above, hoping to kill KLA/NLA soldiers there.
In the process, the mosque, apparently targeted, took several hits but today, although some of the walls still display pock marks caused by shrapnel, it is almost completely restored through a combination of Canadian and EU money.
Now the village is once again peaceful and Xhemali looks to the future. "We have to continue to live together," he says.
That the Tearce region and other parts of Macedonia - indeed the entire former Yugoslav republic - did not topple into the abyss is down, in the first instance, to Nato. The alliance had forces in Kosovo when the violence began and by deploying some of them along the border with Macedonia was able to stifle the spread of the fighting.
Throughout the summer of 2001, the EU sought through diplomacy, and Nato through military muscle, to promote a ceasefire and negotiations. They were ultimately successful and talks eventually resulted in a framework agreement, signed in the lake resort town of Ohrid on August 13th and known as the Ohrid Agreement.
Ohrid was signed by the Macedonian President, representatives of the main ethnic groups and, crucially, was also signed as witnesses by François Léotard, representing the EU, and James Pardew, representing the US government.
The agreement is an attempt, in essence, to create a new beginning for Macedonia by fashioning a civic order based on a total rejection of violence and in which human rights and respect for minorities have top priority.
To that end, most deputy positions in Macedonia today - number two in the government and deputy heads of departments, for instance - are Albanian. The Albanian language and culture has been accorded equal status to its Slavic equivalent.
At its most basic level, Pavel and Jusuf are living proof that the agreement is not only being implemented but is working. As Pavel says, in the aftermath of creating an ethnically balanced community in Tearce in December 2001, he has completed "five semesters in diplomacy".
That might not have happened without the work of Neven Sikic, a confidence-building expert with the OSCE, the Vienna-based Organisation for Security Co-operation in Europe. It was he who brought the various community leaders together, nudging them into setting up the council and (metaphorically) holding their hands thereafter.
Over at the Police Academy near the capital Skopje, Gen Risto Galevski beams with pride at the recent graduation of some 1,200 new police officers. Almost 900 of them are Albanian - by far the largest intake to the Macedonian police to date - and 15 per cent of the total are women.
With the help of OSCE-provided police from places like Sweden, the recruits have had six months academy training in democracy, human rights, ethical behaviour, policing a multi-cultural society and the correct approach to interrogating suspects, using force and collecting evidence.
The recruits also have six months of on the job training and an exam before graduating. Last January, the force advertised a further 180 vacancies. Eight hundred applied, all Albanians.
Why did this not happen before, I asked Gen Galevski (he hates the military title and wants a more civilian police one). "Why?" he replied, "because of our mentality." And by "our" he meant the Slav community in Macedonia. Given time, Gen Galevski would surely have acknowledged that Macedonia had been a cold house for Albanians.
Since March, Nato has been handing over to the EU, and all Nato soldiers - there are but a few of the peak 3,500 troops left - will have left by mid-December. In the first phase of the Nato mission, Ireland was involved because it was underpinned by a UN mandate. However, when it came up for renewal, China indicated it would veto it because it disagreed with Macedonia over Taiwan. Ireland therefore withdrew - its foreign policy thwarted by someone else's row.
What anyone who goes to Macedonia will see being done now, whether by Nato soldiers, OSCE officials, or staff at the EU special representative's office (one of whom is Irish), is a noble effort to help a country take its first faltering steps towards democratic stability.
Last Monday, the EU decided that Nato troops would be replaced by an multinational EU police force of about 200. If Macedonia is to succeed where others in the Balkans have failed, Ireland should play its part.
Peter Murtagh is Foreign Editor of The Irish Times