antiwar.com
Terms of Betrayal
Eight days ago, Macedonian media broke a shocking story.
Leaders of two Albanian political parties in the new unity
government, Arben Xhaferi and Imer Imeri, held secret talks
with the political leader of the "UCK," Ali Ahmeti, and signed a
joint policy platform. The talks took place in German-occupied
Prizren, deep inside Albanian-ruled Kosovo. They were
organized by OSCE’s ambassador to Macedonia, American
diplomat Robert Frowick. Unconfirmed reports also linked
NATO’s envoy to Skopje with the affair.
Macedonians were dumbstruck. Political representatives of
Macedonia’s Albanians, who were wooed into the unity
government under strong pressure from EU and NATO, had
used the very first opportunity to stab their colleagues in the
back – with the help of an American diplomat! With one stroke
of a pen, Xhaferi and Imeri had proved they shared the same
goals with the "UCK."
BALLOTS AND BULLETS
Both politicians have said as much in public, and repeatedly.
Imeri’s party even insisted that Macedonian Army declare a
unilateral ceasefire, before they would enter the unity
government. Only the blind would have failed to notice the
matching rhetoric of the UCK and the political leadership of
Macedonian Albanians. There is a unity of purpose between
them unprecedented even in Kosovo, where Hashim Thaci’s
UCK routinely murders members of Ibrahim Rugova’s LDK,
even though they both passionately hate the Serbs and desire
independence.
One only need compare the demands of Xhaferi’s DPA and
Imeri’s PDP with the bandit’s publicly stated demands: from
changing the Constitution so Albanians are elevated to
nationhood status, and recognizing Albanian as a second official
language, to giving Albanians state subsidies for parallel
education structures and more jobs in government service. Until
the Prizren platform, the only difference was that the
DPA-PDP wanted to accomplish its goals through negotiations,
while the "UCK" preferred to use the business end of the
AK-47 assault rifle. Now, however, the politicians and the
bandits have agreed to bring the ballot and the bullets together
in pursuit of the cause they already shared.
WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM SOME
FRIENDS
Now all the pieces of the puzzle are firmly in place. The day
the story broke, Frowick left Macedonia for Bucharest,
ostensibly to report to OSCE’s current chairman, Romania’s
foreign minister. Meanwhile, Skopje declared him persona non
grata and kindly asked him not to come back, ever. Javier
Solana, EU’s top political officer most responsible for the
creation of the unity government, immediately flew to Skopje
and tried to reconcile the treacherous Albanians with their
Macedonian partners.
Treason is by no means too strong a word. When officials of a
government sign a pact with their ethnic kin in a terrorist
"army" currently at war with that government, that is treason
by any definition. Yet Xhaferi and Imeri not only admitted to
signing the Prizren papers, they actually refused to renounce
them!
During his "mediation," Solana gave further legitimacy to the
treacherous two by agreeing to their refusal to disavow the
Prizren platform. Instead, the coalition partners signed a pledge
to pretend Prizren never happened. This, in the words of the
Reuters reporter, "underscored how vital their [Imeri and
Xhaferi’s] cooperation is to the survival of the coalition and the
prospects of a political deal."
It would be more merciful towards the Macedonians if NATO
simply demanded unconditional surrender to Albanian
demands. Which, actually, may not be too far from the truth…
Namely, while claiming to support Macedonia’s integrity and its
fight against the "UCK," leaders of the US, EU and NATO
literally gave their support to Albanian goals. For example,
NATO’s Secretary-General George Robertson, said "There
should be no place at the negotiating table for those who prefer
the bullet to the ballot box." Meanwhile, US Secretary of State
Colin Powell expected NATO to "encourage the government of
Macedonia to move more aggressively on reconciliation" with
Albanians. EU, through Solana, "backed" the Macedonian
government by urging it to "press ahead with discussions on
increased minority rights."
This is support? This is mediation? The only thing obvious
from these statements is that the US, NATO and EU’s chief
concern is the speediest possible appeasement of Albanian
demands! Since the Prizren platform unified ballots and bullets,
and since Albanian "rights" is the stated aim of the "UCK," why
would anyone rational continue fighting the "UCK" and at the
same time fulfill its demands?
The message to Skopje is clear: fight all you want, you will
have to surrender eventually.
A SINISTER, RACIST AGENDA
The Prizren platform is just one more physical confirmation
that Macedonia’s Albanians – all of them – are pursuing a
sinister ethnic agenda. This column has stated repeatedly, and
will continue to do so again, that the conflict in Macedonia has
nothing to do with Albanian "rights," or human rights in general.
That is merely a pleasant fiction, calculated to court outside
support. What those "rights" would mean in practice ought to
be obvious.
By amending the Constitution to give Albanians nationhood
status, Macedonians would effectively lose their own
nationhood – i.e. the legitimate right to have a nation-state of
one’s own. Unlike Kosovo, where they have been a presence at
least since the Middle Ages, Albanians in Macedonia have
grown in numbers from nothing at the end of World War Two,
to just under half a million by 1994.
All the other demands – language, education and civil service
jobs – are calculated to give official approval to a separate
Albanian society within Macedonia. Such an apartheid
currently exists, but it is not imposed by the Macedonians. It is
the Albanians who wish to remain separate, never intermarry,
refuse to speak Macedonian, go to Macedonian schools or even
salute the Macedonian flag. They literally want the end of
Macedonia as a state.
If this direct explanation does not sound convincing, consider
symbolism, then. Former Macedonian president Kiro Gligorov,
an old statesman with decades of experience, pointed out to the
Belgrade daily Glas Javnosti the symbolism of Prizren as the
chosen place for the talks. It was there, in 1878, that Albanians
formed a political organization – the "League of Prizren" –
tasked with "liberating" all the "Albanian lands" in the Balkans.
A PYRRHIC VICTORY?
Ironically, the political treachery comes at a time when
Macedonian security forces are mauling the "UCK" bandits left
and right. In heavy fighting north and east of Kumanovo,
Macedonian special forces took three out of seven bandit-held
villages over the past week, rolling up both flanks of the UCK
front.
The two northernmost bandit-held villages, Vaksince and
Lojane, were taken by Saturday. On Tuesday, Macedonian
troops entered Matejce, the southernmost "UCK" strongpoint.
Faced with complete failure of their conventional tactic, the
bandits said they were preparing to start a campaign of classical
terrorism – blowing up people in the cities.
It is hard to imagine this affecting Western policy. All it can
accomplish is to further radicalize the Macedonians, who are
increasingly fed up with Albanian violence. The "UCK" and its
political arm, the PDP-DPA, are playing with fire. But then,
perhaps fire is exactly what they want. It would not only leave
most ordinary Albanians without a choice but to join up – and
this is already happening, though slowly – but the resulting
carnage is certain to score big points on the Western
propaganda front. Already the news reports of fighting in
Macedonia are routinely accompanied with pictures of weeping
Albanian refugees – an eerie throwback to the Goebbelsian
nightmare of 1999. Add to this the sensationalist and uncritical
reports of Macedonian soldiers torturing the Albanian refugees,
and the stage is set for another Kosovo.
PLANS WITHIN PLANS
Interventionists in Washington are already calling for action.
Color-bearers of militant imperialism, such as Jim Hooper (of
the BAC, ICG and now something called "Public International
Law and Policy Group") are openly calling for Washington to
embrace Albanian nationalism and use it to further its own goals
in the Balkans – as if this was something yet to be done, instead.
Where are the Macedonians in this entire story? No one cares. The Western
press has already nearly erased their name, calling them "Slavs" instead, and
paving the propaganda path of ending Macedonia’s statehood. As long as the
government in Skopje seems willing to ignore the treachery of its Albanian
members, or sign anything the EU and NATO offer, the policy of Great Power(s)
is unlikely to change. The only obstacle to a peaceful surrender is the
determination of Macedonia’s armed forces. What chance do they have, though,
surrounded by incompetent politicians, false friends, traitors and outright
enemies?
Perhaps most telling, then, is the statement of "commander Sokolli," a UCK
leader who has become somewhat of a media darling in the West. He told
Reuters Tuesday that the war would not end until Macedonia accepted the
Prizren "peace plan." Perhaps "Sokolli" knows something the Great Power(s) are
not yet willing to share. Or perhaps he is just shooting off his mouth, incapable of
putting up a fight against anyone older than five and armed. As always, only time
will tell.
Five years ago, in his film Before the Rain, Macedonian director Milcho
Manchevski described a "feeling of heavy expectation, when the skies are
pregnant with the possibility of an outburst, when the people are silent, waiting
for a tragedy."
Now the skies over Macedonia are dark and heavy, and it is definitely raining.
of an established reality.
Serbian dailies have already published accounts of participants
in several meetings, organized by the US State Department and
the British Foreign Office, which outlined plans for a partition
of the Balkans into ethnically pure statelets. These accounts
focus on Kosovo and Bosnia; so far, no one has mentioned the
possibility of Macedonia being dismembered and fed to Albania
and Bulgaria, respectively. Yet this is a very real possibility.
From a strictly utilitarian standpoint, it would simplify US
control over the proposed corridor for a strategic pipeline. |
