Macedonia

ARNAQI, Macedonia -- In the seedy Kafe Bar Berlin, Essmerelda Seferi throws back her head and croons in a husky Edith Piaf voice. Hard-drinking men leer across the smoke-filled room.To Essmerelda, this hell in a dirt-track town is the end of her young life. When she was 14, she was sold to a man who took her virginity, sold her to others and then discarded her. That was two years ago.She longs to return home to Albania and her parents. "In my dreams at night, I see how my mother cries," she says, her own eyes brimming with tears.

EUROPE HAS a big stake in the peace accord signed Monday in Macedonia. Continued conflict between that fragile little country's government and guerrillas of the ethnic Albanian minority threatens the peace of the continent. One possible scenario predicted the country's breakup followed by a scramble for its territory by neighboring countries colliding with one another. Another foresaw a cultural war pitting the Islamic world supporting the Albanians against Orthodox Christendom backing the Macedonians.

BLACE, Macedonia -- The flow of refugees from Kosovo is overwhelming neighboring countries, leading to long delays at the borders and, in some cases, refugees being ordered to turn back.Ethnic Albanian refugees who fled Kosovo for Albania have been spilling into Macedonia, where border officials have turned them away, and there were reports yesterday that a trainload of people coming from Kosovo was also sent back.Deputy Prime Minister Radmila Kiprijanova, speaking at a news conference in Skopje, the capital, said that the country could not cope with more refugees.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Yugoslavia is quickly becoming Europe's new Lebanon. Peace agreements have been ignored. Cease-fire after cease-fire has collapsed, some within minutes. A multiplying array of regional warlords have ignored the politicians.Now ominous new developments threaten to spread the crisis beyond Yugoslavia's borders. The people of the tiny southern republic of Macedonia went to the polls Sunday and voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence, as Slovenia and Croatia already have done.

They may be playing the country that gave the ancient world Alexander the Great, but for the U.S. national team's players tonight in San Jose, Calif., the deep-down focus won't be solely on Macedonia; it will also be on a formidable opponent on their schedule for June 15 -- Germany.The Macedonians will be the first of three tuneups in three weekends, ending May 30 at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., as the Americans prepare for next month's final round of the 1998 World Cup in France.Game time on the West Coast is 8 p.m. as part of a Major League Soccer doubleheader; ESPN2 will show the game at 1 p.m. tomorrow on the East Coast.

BLACE, Macedonia -- Mehmeti Jetula button-holed Bishop John H. Ricard on the dusty roadside here yesterday, an old man speaking for the 70,000 Albanian Kosovars spread out on the slope behind him, penned in for days now on a muddy bend of a river where Macedonia and Yugoslavia come together.The din rising from the sprawling camp was incessant. Babies wailed, people whistled piercingly, others screamed.While volunteers threw bananas and water bottles from tractor-drawn carts, crowds surged around shouting and reaching out.Two people shook out a blanket near someone defecating in the open.

WASHINGTON -- Slobodan Milosevic had his hand in the turmoil in Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo over the past decade. At least he can't be blamed for the Balkan strife in Macedonia, which ended with Thursday's cease-fire. Unlike the earlier conflicts, in which many believe Serbia's Milosevic was calling the shots, there was no sinister face attached to the ethnic Albanian uprising in in Macedonia. Likewise, there is no consensus as to how deeply involved the United States should be. Most Americans would have trouble finding the Vermont-sized country of 2 million on a map. American ties to the country -- political, economic and ethnic -- are thin at best.

TANUSHEVCI, Macedonia -- In the frigid highlands on the Yugoslavia-Macedonia border, they appeared first as tiny specks in the distance, almost invisible against a backdrop of high mountains on one side and the rising smoke of fires in the villages of Kosovo far away in the valley below.Slowly, they emerged yesterday from this surreal panorama, soon identifiable as a line of weary refugees. The group of nine came on foot -- adults, children and a baby being carried by his mother on horseback.

MACEDONIA-KOSOVO BORDER -- At dusk, leaf and branch fade to gray high in the rugged mountains on the border between Macedonia and Kosovo. Invisible in the bushes, three U.S. soldiers in camouflage crouch, their weapons cocked; a hundred feet away, three more soldiers take the same position. The six surround a narrow clearing that looks like any other opening in the Kosovo woods. It is anything but. The trail, one of many, leads straight over the border south into Macedonia. For months, it has been a key arms smuggling route for ethnic Albanian rebels, who call themselves the National Liberation Army.

SENOKOS CAMP, Macedonia -- Within 24 hours of arriving in Macedonia from Baltimore, Dr. Drew Fuller came face to face with the scale of the Kosovo crisis.Instead of the few patients he might have on the emergency room night shift at St. Joseph Medical Center, the 32-year-old physician had hundreds of desperate and exhausted Kosovars brought by bus."People were rushing the medical tent, collapsing from exhaustion. We basically had to do triage right outside the buses," said Fuller. "My ER experience allowed me to know in two or three seconds who's really sick and who can wait.