Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 13:17:07 -0500 From: Seth Ackerman <SAckerman at FAIR.org> Subject: predictions
>From RFE/RL "Balkan Report," December 22 2000:
"...one should not pay too much attention to Belgrade's red herring that independence for Kosova will lead to a breakup of Macedonia, the establishment of a greater Albania, and other horrors. The Albanians of Albania, Kosova, and Macedonia are fully aware of the profound cultural and political differences that divide them. Ibrahim Rugova recently told the Montenegrin daily "Pobjeda" specifically that he does not want all Albanians in one state. No major ethnic Albanian party in any Balkan country advocates a greater Albania as a serious political objective (in contrast to some greater Serbian parties). And one need not worry about the breakup of Macedonia so long as it truly becomes a state of all its people and based on rule of law."
Rebels fight for creation of a Greater Kosovo state
By Askold Krushelnycky in Selce and Philip Sherwell in Tetovo
British troops join Macedonia patrols
ETHNIC Albanian rebels who have brought Macedonia to the brink of
another savage Balkan war aim to achieve independence for neighbouring
Kosovo, eventually carving off Albanian-populated areas of Macedonia to
form a de facto Greater Kosovo, The Telegraph has learned.
The guerrillas of the National Liberation Army, who are battling Macedonian
forces around the city of Tetovo, have publicly insisted that they are fighting to
secure equal rights for the country's Muslim Albanian minority. A Telegraph
investigation has discovered intricate links between powerful Albanian clans in
Macedonia and Kosovo.
The clans that launched the rebellion in Kosovo are now behind the
insurgency in Macedonia. Last week a guerrilla commander disclosed that
Emrush Xhemali, the former security chief of the Kosovo Liberation Army
leader Hashim Thaci, is masterminding the rebel campaign around Tetovo.
The Albanian ultra-nationalists will eventually offer peace in Macedonia as the
price for international recognition of an independent Kosovo, according to a
Western intelligence agency that has been tracing clan links between the
Balkans and central Europe.
Although the West is resolutely opposed to redrawing of borders in the
Balkans, Albanian radicals are hoping to force through independence for
Kosovo as the only alternative to another war. While the strategy has little
hope of success, it is fuelling the conflict.
..............
There seemed little hope of an immediate end to the crisis as NLA leaders
vowed to continue their rebellion, despite widespread condemnation of their
"terrorist" activities. The EU gave strong backing to Macedonia at the
Stockholm summit, while President Bush later assailed the Albanian
extremists.
Albanian emigres committed to Kosovan independence have been raising
money, recruits and guns for years for the rebels in Switzerland, Germany and
North America. The ultra-nationalists' Swiss-based leader, Fazli Veliu, has
close family ties to Ali Ahmeti, the political representative of the Macedonian
insurgents and a KLA founder.
The two men, both from the Macedonian village of Zajas, also have close
links with Mr Thaci and the powerful Jashari clan who spearheaded the
KLA's early operations before most were wiped out in a Serbian offensive in
spring 1998.
NLA commanders based in Tetovo's mountainous hinterland dismissed claims
by Western officials that their movement was a young one of only a few
hundred ill-prepared fighters. Instead, they described the insurgency as an
operation carefully planned over several years.
Most of the rebels are ethnic Albanians from northern and western
Macedonia whose commanders learned their battlefield tactics fighting for the
KLA two years ago. Official boundaries, however, mean little in a part of the
world dominated by clan loyalties and blood ties.
In the long run, the rebels hope to create a Greater Kosovo with the de facto
secession of the predominantly Albanian northern and western regions. Fellow
Albanian rebels in southern Serbia's Presevo Valley harbour similar dreams.
Talk of Greater Albania, by contrast, has dwindled among the Albanians of
Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia. Many spent time in Albania proper for the
first time as refugees in 1999 and were shocked to discover how backward
and impoverished the "mother country" had been left by its xenophobic
communist rulers.