Kosovo and Macedonia: Fag-ends or freedom fighters?

Date: 13/09/03

Violence in Kosovo and Macedonia is threatening the area's fragile peace

ONCE again, talk of a Greater Albania - an idea, if it came to fruition, that would cause chaos in the Balkans - is in the air. This time it is the guerrillas of the Albanian National Army (better known by its Albanian-language initials, AKSh) who are trying to spread the word. They want to unite their cousins in Kosovo and elsewhere in Serbia and Montenegro, Greece, Macedonia and Albania proper. Their latest violence is rattling politicians and diplomats across the Balkans, especially in Pristina and Skopje, capitals of Kosovo and Macedonia respectively. Their shenanigans are undermining Macedonia's fragile coalition government, in which the country's ethnic-Albanian minority and Slav Macedonian majority edgily share power.

Though there have long been whispers about AKSh's plans, it was not until April, after a bridge in northern Kosovo had been blown up, that Michael Steiner, the German diplomat then running Kosovo under the UN's aegis, declared the group a terrorist organisation. It had occasionally attacked the Serbian army in southern Serbia, and it had claimed responsibility for blowing up a courthouse in the Macedonian town of Struga in February. But in the past month or so, it has stepped up its activity. In the area along Macedonia's border with Kosovo, it has killed several people; hundreds of Albanian villagers have fled their homes near Kumanovo for fear of getting caught up in the fighting.

The AKSh says it wants to redress the grievances of Macedonia's Albanians: “The fighting in Macedonia confirms that the multi-ethnic state is false. Macedonia's government cannot accept that Albanians have equal rights. It was waiting for an excuse to use violence.” In the long run, the group envisages a Greater Albanian state encompassing all ethnic Albanians.

In fact, the AKSh represents few ethnic-Albanians. Its core consists of some 50-70 cigarette smugglers drawn from both sides of the border with Kosovo. Their latest violence has been largely prompted by their desire to stop Macedonia's police from shutting down their smuggling routes and putting them behind bars. Hisni Shaqiri, an ethnic-Albanian MP in Skopje who is trying to help keep the peace between Macedonia's Albanians and Slavs, describes Avdil Jakupi, the AKSh's “divisional commander” known as Chakala, as a “mental patient and heroin addict”. A British brigadier advising the Macedonian government on defence calls the AKSh “criminals flying a political flag of convenience in the hope of finding legitimacy”.

The worry, though, is that the Macedonian authorities may overreact - thus stirring nationalist Albanian passions, whatever the AKSh's criminal connections. This week Mr Shaqiri said that the Albanians' Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) would withdraw from Macedonia's Slav-led coalition government if Macedonian police or soldiers killed any civilians. In the past month, outsiders have had to persuade the DUI's leader, Ali Ahmeti, to keep his party in government; the Macedonian Slavs have not, he complains, consulted his peace-minded Albanians enough. The accord signed two years ago between representatives of the two communities is holding. But DUI people in government say their Slav Macedonian compatriots have not consulted them properly over how to respond to the AKSh's attacks.

The tension is not just on the Macedonian side of the border. Kosovo is twitchier too. All three mainstream Albanian parties there say independence is overdue and fear what they see as Serbia's growing influence in Washington and at the European Union's headquarters in Brussels. Ramush Haradinaj, leader of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, the most nationalistic of the three, condemns the AKSh but says “people are frustrated because there's no progress on [Kosovo's] final status and the international community shows no commitment to resolve it.”

Violence in Kosovo and Macedonia is threatening the area's fragile peace.