Macedonian President Mr Boris Trajkovski warned members of parliament yesterday that the Balkan state faced all-out war if they did not ratify a NATO-backed plan to end an ethnic Albanian guerrilla insurgency.
Mr Trajkovski's plea for support, which opened a crucial debate on whether to enact minority rights reforms, was delayed by six hours by hundreds of angry Macedonians who blocked entrances to parliament and denounced the process as a sellout at gunpoint.
"This agreement is not perfect, but no agreement is. It's the best we have at the moment and it has some very positive aspects," Mr Trajkovski said. "The alternative is war."
The rebels have pledged to disarm and disband in return for reforms to benefit Albanian ethnic kin. They have already handed in more than 1,400 weapons to a NATO force of more than 4,000 soldiers deployed in the former Yugoslav republic.
But many Macedonians are sceptical about the rebels' pledge and NATO's role in the peace process, which they fear will lead to the partition of their 10-year-old country down ethnic lines.
The protesters waved bright red and yellow Macedonian flags and banners saying "US and NATO leave Macedonia in 48 hours" and "We demand the resignation of the entire government."
"We must not allow the Albanisation of the country!" some protesters shouted.
But Mr Trajkovski staunchly defended the agreement, saying it respected Macedonia's territorial integrity and kept the vital overall control of the police in the hands of the central state.
"The agreement we have in front of us embodies European values of human rights, democracy and compromise. It eliminates the reason for war and inter-ethnic conflict in the republic of Macedonia," the President told parliament.
The planned reforms include greater official use of the Albanian language, a big rise in the number of Albanians in the police, and government decentralisation to allow Albanians to run more of their affairs in many area. They are intended to stop the insurgency launched by ethnic Albanian guerrillas in February.
Scores of people have been killed and more than 100,000 displaced in a conflict which several times seemed close to descending into full-scale warfare of the kind that has devastated much of the Balkans over the past decade.