NATO chief to inspect arms mission

British soldiers show their guns to Albanian boys in the village of Matejce, northwest of the MacSkopje

SKOPJE, Macedonia -- NATO Secretary-General George Robertson plans to travel to Macedonia to get an overview of the operation to collect weapons from ethnic Albanian rebels.

Ethnic Albanian rebels began surrendering arms on Monday as part of Operation Essential Harvest, as alliance officials said collection began in northwestern Macedonia, in Otlja, six miles(10 km) west of Kumanovo.

The operation is part of a peace deal among Macedonia's Slav and ethnic Albanian political parties and the ethnic Albanian rebels.

NATO said it expected more than 3,000 weapons to be surrendered over a 30-day period. Weapons will be collected from a different location every day.

Meanwhile, the rebels' leader insisted that his armed struggle was now over and that a new struggle -- to make the peace process take hold -- had begun.

AUDIO CNN's Walter Rodgers: "Weapons belonged in a museum." 812KB / 75 secs WAV sound

Officers from the 4,500-strong Task Force Harvest earlier voiced satisfaction at the first day of collecting arms which the rebels have agreed to surrender as part of a peace plan meant to give greater rights to Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority.

NATO, in an attempt to show the 30-day mission can achieve results hopes to collect up to one-third (up to 1,100 weapons) of the NLA's declared arsenal by Wednesday night.

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"If we can get the first phase done by then, we have Thursday left to do more if problems arise," one diplomat said.

But the start of the military alliance's operation on Monday was overshadowed by the death of a British member of the NATO force.

NATO said the death of Ian Collins, a sapper with the 9 Parachute Squadron Royal Engineers, would not delay or derail the process.

Youths are being blamed for throwing the lump of concrete that killed the 22-year-old serviceman as he drove toward the capital Skopje on Sunday night.

"You either give up or crack on. And we're cracking on," one Western diplomat in Macedonia told Reuters news agency.

A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, currently on holiday in France, said he had been in touch with Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski about the incident.

But the mission came under pressure in Britain on Tuesday when the dead soldier's father said his son should never have been sent to the former Yugoslav republic.

Kevin Collins told The Times newspaper he was "immensely proud" of his son, who had also served in Kosovo clearing landmines.

He added: "I don't think our soldiers should be there. Kosovo was different. A lot of innocent people were getting hurt. This is a civil conflict with two factions fighting amongst themselves."

Dren Korabi, a commander of the rebel National Liberation Army, told CNN that while the guerrilla National Liberation Army (NLA) was ''very sorry'' to hear about Collins' death, the operation to hand over arms was going ahead as planned.

Guerilla leader Ali Ahmeti told The Associated Press on Monday that the peace process had to work. "It's necessary that we continue to live together," he said, referring to relations between Macedonia's government and the country's ethnic Albanian minority.

"Certainly this is a process that requires a lot of courage," he said, adding: "There is no reason to continue the fighting."

Ethnic Albanian rebels stand guard close to their leader Ali Ahmeti's house in the village of Sipkovica

NATO's chief plans to talk to mission commanders during his visit to the republic on Wednesday and will also seek to reassure political leaders.

"Lord Robertson has come down here many times at many phases of this process and has a personal interest in seeing peace come back to Macedonia," said NATO spokesman Major Barry Johnson.

Many ordinary Macedonians have been deeply sceptical about NATO's role, believing the alliance has no hope of disbanding the NLA and accusing it of helping rebels push a separatist agenda masked by human rights demands.

And unless NATO can show Essential Harvest is achieving results the nationalist-led Macedonian parliament may renege on pledges to enhance Albanian civil rights.

Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, a nationalist hard-liner in a government split between hawks and moderates, said NATO's plan to collect a total of 3,300 NLA arms was "ridiculous and humiliating."

Parliament convenes on Friday to pass the measures agreed at the negotiating table with ethnic Albanians.

NATO spokesman, Major Alexander Dick, told a press conference on Monday that several hundred weapons had been handed over.

The arsenal -- surrendered by ethnic Albanians who have been fighting for greater rights in Macedonia -- included an anti-tank weapon, 50 anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, and 10 heavy machine guns.

About 300 AK47 assault rifles, between 60 and 80 light machine guns, several dozen grenades, rocket launchers and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition were also surrendered.

But CNN's Walter Rodgers said most of the weapons he saw on display at a news conference were museum pieces dating back as far as World War II.