http://www.rockfordinstitute.org/NewsST092200.htm

Friday, September 22, 2000

GREATER ALBANIA IN THE MAKING?
by Srdja Trifkovic

Our readers are well aware by now that Kosovo - in the aftermath of
Clinton's war and NATO occupation - is a mess, and that it can only get
worse as the assorted KLA assassins, pimps and dope traffickers gain
quasi-legitimacy in the "elections" that Gauleiter Kouchner will
stage-manage next month. It is seldom mentioned, however, that the prospect
of further ethnic cleansing of non-Albanians, modeled on that carried out
by Thaci & Co. in Kosovo, makes all Albanian neighbors cringe. The prospect
of Greater Albania is casting its dark shadow on the Balkans yet again.

According to a recent report by Agence France Presse from Skopje ("Greater
Albania Or Not, Kosovo Effect Worries Macedonia," September 20), the
eruption of aggressive Albanian nationalism in Kosovo has caused
considerable alarm in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia (FYROM),
which has an Albanian minority of close to 30%. "A Greater Albania could
mean a new conflict in the Balkans, and numerous warnings about this
prospect have been issued in past years from regional and international
quarters," says AFP. "A nationalists' dream," it would gather together in
one state ethnic Albanians from Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece and
Montenegro, "cutting through borders and perhaps leading to a bout of new
ethnic cleansing, non-Albanians in the region fear." The report quotes
former FYROM president Gligorov as saying that "more and more, the opinion
is growing among Albanians that now is the historical moment for all
Albanians to be united in one state."

Gligorov knows what he is talking about: during his tenure tensions caused
by Albanian separatism increased in the Albanian-majority inhabited western
Macedonia. In the town of Tetovo there was violence in 1995, when the
Skopje authorities attempted to close an illegal Albanian "open
university." Its rector, a German-educated philologist, advocates secession
from Macedonia - by "peaceful means," he added, as if any Balkan state
would ever give up a chunk of its territory peacefully.
Former Greek foreign minister Karolos Papoulias reflected the apprehensions
of his countrymen when he declared last November that, by supporting the
KLA, Western powers were becoming accomplices in the creation of a Greater
Albania. This should cause concern, said he, because the KLA had been
circulating a map of "Greater Albania" that included parts of Greece's
northwestern region of Epirus.

Albanian spokesmen, such as the leader of the ethnic Albanian community in
Macedonia, Arben Dzaferi, predictably dismiss all talk of a Greater Albania
as "a Serb ploy to demonize the Albanian people." In reality, however, the
project of uniting all Albanians in one state has been alive and well for
some 120 years now. It has always advanced on the back of an invading army,
whether it belonged to a Sultan, a Kaiser, a Duce or a Fuehrer. A leading
U.S. Balkans expert, David Binder, warned long before the bombing campaign
that, should anyone have doubts about the longer-term ambitions of the
Kosovo Albanians, they need only attend the views of their emissaries to
the Council of Europe. Writing in The Washington Times (July 16, 1998),
Binder pointed out that - on their own admission - after achieving
'independent Kosovo' Albanians would seek 'union with Albania' and lay
claim to a portion of Macedonia.

The Albanians' true appetites were obvious from a map long proudly
displayed on the Albanian-American Civil League's web site, which - as Doug
Bandow of the Cato Institute pointed out in his testimony before Congress
on the eve of the NATO bombing - illustrates "a breathtaking agenda": It
included Albania, Kosovo, western Macedonia (along with its capital,
Skopje), southeastern Montenegro (along with its capital, Podgorica),
northern Greece, and southern Serbia outside Kosovo. Alexander Cockburn
commented in Counterpunch that this map was quite similar to one of the
Italian and German interim territorial arrangements during World War II:

"I can understand that there is an element of hyperbole in critics' calling
NATO's air campaign 'Nazi,' but fail to see what interest the United States
has in helping to restore the Nazi-imposed borders of 1943 or how this
helps preserve European stability."

Writing on this issue last spring, Justin Raimondo warned that the
proponents of the Greater Albanian project in America want to drag the US
into yet another Balkan war, to finish the job and completely dismember the
rest of Yugoslavia. "With a sympathetic resident in the White House," who
remembers how much money and political support he has received from the
Albanian nationalists, "the KLA may yet see their expansionist dream
realized," Raimondo wrote. His Antiwar.com column appeared many months
before Joe Lieberman made his appearance on Al Gore's ticket, and his
warning about "a sympathetic resident" in the White House has a prophetic
ring today.

As it happens, well before the "KLA" escalated its terrorist campaign in
early 1998, Albanian separatists were active purchasing political influence
in Washington, and Senator Lieberman soon became one of their major assets.
He has received ample funds from Albanian lobbyists - $10,000 from the
Albanian-American PAC in 1994 alone. He performed on cue: already in
October 1998, way ahead of the rest of the pack, he went on national
television to advocate bombing Serbia. Once this was done he urged an
unlimited escalation of the war with ground troops, and actively advocated
war crimes against Serb civilians. Lieberman additionally repaid his
benefactors by co-sponsoring, with John McCain, the infamous "Kosovo
Self-Defense Act" that would have provided $25 million of U.S. taxpayers'
money to equip 10,000 KLA "fighters" with arms and anti-tank weapons. In
the event Lieberman's good friends did not need the goodies: they were
given a free hand to kill and expel non-Albanians from Kosovo - under NATO.


The unease regarding the Albanians' further intentions is spreading
throughout the Balkans. This is understandable, and was foreseen.
Anticipating Mr. Clinton's war in "Chronicles" (CultRev, January 1999), we
predicted what would be the wider regional consequence of Kosovo's eventual
de facto detachment from Serbia:

"This 'solution' will shake the Balkans. It will undermine the Former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, where the Albanians comprise up to a third
of the total population (as opposed to one-fifth in Serbia). The U.S.
government swears by FYROM and supports Skopje's policy of denying autonomy
to its Albanians, but by enabling their cousins in Serbia to get full
autonomy and paving the way for independence, the United States will
unleash a revolution of rising expectations among Macedonia's Albanians
that cannot be contained. The Hungarians in Rumania (who are more numerous
than Serbia's Albanians) are bound to demand the same, as are the Russians
in the Ukraine, and the Kurds in Turkey."

Clinton went ahead with his war in Kosovo, of course, but the wider warning
still stands: if the likes of Mr. Hasim Thaci are not prevented from
extending their campaign to Macedonia - while Greece is gradually
undermined by a wholesale migratory invasion of Albanian illegals - we'll
have a maelstrom of fresh instability in the Balkans for decades to come.
This may be exactly what Albright & Co. want, of course, but for those of
us not affected by their insanity the question arises whether there is an
alternative.

David Tucker, an Associate Professor at the United States Naval
Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, answers in the affirmative;
but his alternative requires a radical re-examination of the present U.S.
strategy:

"After the break up of Yugoslavia, the barrier to a Greater Albania was a
functioning Serbia. It controlled its province of Kosovo, fought the KLA
and supported Macedonia. The best barrier to a Greater Albania is still a
functioning Serbia. Therefore, after having destroyed Kosovo to save it, we
should consider saving Serbia to prevent a Greater Albania. Saving Serbia
would be a reversal of our current policy. But remember, the Balkans is a
breeding ground of paradox."

We can only thank our lucky stars that the decision makers in the nation's
capital are immune to this Balkan affliction.