Soldiers desert from NATO

Skopje, April 22 (Tanjug) - Tightened control is failing to prevent French, Italian, German and Dutch NATO troops stationed in Macedonia from deserting the Balkan hotspot for Greece.

NATO commanders in Macedonia have found themselves in trouble since a rumor was started that the troops stationed in Macedonia would be sent to Yugoslavia, and their troops' desire to fight for Clinton was suddenly replaced by a desire to get out.

Reliable sources in Kumanovo and the surrounding villages say that NATO troops bed down in their camps in the vicinity of the border with Yugoslavia, but dawn finds them far away.

Incidences of desertion have been on the rise since soldiers' mothers arrived in Macedonia, carrying civilian clothes for their sons instead of cookies.

On their brief furloughs, mothers turn their boys out into mufti and whisk them away to the Greek border in waiting taxis.

According to reliable information, desertions are especially common among the French and Italian troops, but there is also a fair sprinkling of German and Dutch deserters, who would as lief not fight in Serbia.

The exact number of deserters is hard to establish, because the NATO command in Skopje, as could be expected, refuses to discuss the matter.

It is known for a fact, however, that the problem of desertion from Macedonia has been considered personally by the NATO commander of the Yugoslav murderous campaign, Gen. Wesley Clark, himself.