Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonian encyclopedia pulled from shelves

SKOPJE, Oct 4 – A controversial FYROM encyclopedia will be edited in those sections deemed offensive to Albanians and was pulled from the shelves.
The new FYROM encyclopedia was withdrawn so that errors can be fixed – including wrongly calling an ethnic Albanian leader a war crimes suspect.
The FYROM Academy of Science and Art says in a statement that “mistakes will be corrected,” but offered no explanation of how they occurred. The work, published two weeks ago, also refers to ethnic Albanians by a term they consider offensive.
Ethnic Albanians make up a quarter of FYROM’s 2 million people. In 2001 they launched an insurgency which ended after six months of fighting with government forces. Dozens of ethnic Albanians protested in the capital, Skopje, Thursday against the encyclopedia.
The publishers, the FYROM Academy for Science and Art (FYROMANU), decided that this would be the best option after the angry reactions to the encyclopedia from Albanian parties in the country, intellectuals and Albanian non-governmental organizations, as well as politicians from Kosovo and Albania.
Albanians were called “Shiptars,” and “highlanders” among other things in the encyclopedia.
FYROMANU called on the changes to be made as soon as possible in the sections about Albanian-FYROM relations, Albanians in FYROM and the National Liberation Army (NLA), as well as works by Mother Teresa.
It was stated in the encyclopedia that British and American instructors had trained the NLA, which was active in 2001 during the conflict with FYROM security forces.
The corrections will be made with the help of Albanian academics who did not participate in the drafting of the initial text.
Protests were held around FYROM over the encyclopedia.
FYROM intellectuals have also criticized it, as has the U.S., Britain and Greece.