http://www.antiwar.com/malic/pf/p-m030801.html
ANTIWAR, Thursday, March 8, 2001
Balkan Express
by Nebojsa Malic
Antiwar.com
The Fourth Balkan War
On Tuesday night it seemed as if the Albanian militants
who invaded the
Macedonian border village of Tanusevci [Tanushevtsy] were
retreating,
unhindered, into Kosovo after Monday's pitched battle with
Macedonian
forces. Despite the fierce fighting, government forces did
not manage to
dislodge the militants, who were well-armed, even better
positioned, and
protected by minefields. Three Macedonian soldiers were
killed during
the operation - two hit landmines and bled to death, as
Albanians shot
at KFOR helicopters that tried to evacuate them, while one
was killed by
sniper fire. Parallel to NATO's statements that the
militants were
supposedly retreating, the government in Skopje said the
insurgency was
far from over. The army detected traces of militants that
suggested
other villages in the area might have been affected. Prior
experience
indicates that this is not the last Macedonians have seen
of the
"National Liberation Army," or the last attempt of
militant Albanians to
carve out their desired Balkan empire.
ONE, TWO, THREE
Early in the 20th century, the continued Ottoman
occupation of Balkan
lands was of great concern to those nations that spent the
prior century
struggling for their freedom. In 1912, they formed a
coalition and
attacked the Turks in what became known as the First
Balkan War, driving
them almost all the way back to the Bosporus before
Austria-Hungary
intervened to stop the Turkish defeat. The great powers
then dictated
the terms of peace, creating Albania as a state and
limiting the
territorial gains of Serbia and Greece. Bulgaria, unhappy
with its share
of the spoils, attacked Serbia in 1913. Other allies
joined Serbia and
defeated Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War, which gave the
Turks a
chance to recapture some territory and cut Bulgaria off
from the Aegean.
Events of the 1990s could justifiably be called the Third
Balkan War -
as events from 1991 to 1995 represented a continuum that
ended with the
Dayton Agreement, once again a solution forced upon the
combatants by
the world powers. Given that the fighting in Kosovo, which
started in
1998, stopped only under a temporary armistice between
NATO and
Yugoslavia in June 1999, we might as well face the stark
reality that we
are in the middle of the Fourth Balkan War. The stakes are
as high this
time as they were ninety years ago, or ten years ago, and
the
bloodletting may have just begun.
CAUSES OF WAR
At the heart of this Fourth War is the Albanian drive for
separation,
not only from Serbia but from Macedonia, Greece and even
Montenegro.
Whether this separation serves the purpose of a "Greater
Albania," or a
"Greater Kosovo" seems immaterial. The program of Greater
Albania is,
after all, advocated by Kosovo Albanians more than any
others, and the
future capital of this "country" is supposed to be in
Pristina, not
Tirana. Albania proper may be on the periphery of events
right now, and
could even express public criticism in order to deflect
bad press, but
there is little doubt it would join a Greater Kosovo if
that monstrous
creation ever came into being.
PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR
From what little is known of them, it seems the Albanian
militants in
Macedonia have the same modus operandi as those in
southern Serbia, even
the KLA in Kosovo. It seizes and holds a village or
multiple villages,
provoking an armed response. At the same time, it rants
and raves to the
international press about the horrible "repression"
Albanians are
subjected to. Once attacked by government forces, the
insurgents fight
hard, then withdraw, taking or ordering many civilians
along. These
"refugees" are then used to bolster the militants' claim
of "genocide"
now pursued by the government that have until then merely
"repressed"
them. Of course, the militants declare their absolute
commitment to a
peaceful solution, which invariably entails the de facto
separation of
the territories they claim, and its placement under
international
protectorate or armed occupation. This "peace process"
should be
"mediated" by an external broker, preferably NATO or the
US. This was
the case at Rambouillet in early 1999, and the Albanians
claiming
Presevo valley in southern Serbia are demanding it be the
case again. If
the pattern holds, Albanians from Macedonia are likely to
make a similar
demand in a month or so. All along, however, these
militants will refuse
to disarm, retreat or disband, claiming their existence is
necessary to
"protect and defend" their people. They are, of course,
open to the
possibility of "demilitarization" by submitting to NATO
command and
getting on the payroll, as the "reformed" KLA did by
transforming into
the KPC.
EASY PICKINGS
Another mark of Albanian militants is that their attacks
usually follow
the path of least resistance. If fought decisively they
will retreat and
regroup, but never quit. At this point, Macedonia and
Yugoslavia are
both theoretically strong enough to deal with the
militants. However,
they are hobbled by NATO's insistence on restraint and, in
come cases,
indirect support for the militants. In Yugoslavia's case,
the lingering
effect of the conflict with Kosovo militants has left a
bad taste in
Belgrade's mouth - not to mention depleted uranium marks -
and seriously
undermined the new government's will to fight. Barred from
resolving the
issue themselves, they demand of NATO to intervene on
their behalf. The
logic of this is most peculiar, especially in the case of
Yugoslavia,
officially still the enemy of NATO in Kosovo. For if
Yugoslavia were not
considered an enemy, there would be no need for KFOR's
continued
occupation.
Both Macedonia and Yugoslavia have other problems, which
further weakens
their capability for self-defense. Macedonia has to find a
way to act
without alienating a large Albanian population, whose
representatives
are part of the ruling coalition government. The issue of
its official
name and southern border, which was about to be resolved
with Greece,
was postponed due to the Albanian attack, and represents a
permanent
strategic liability.
Yugoslavia also has to deal with a potentially fatal issue
of
Montenegrin secessionism, running more rampant as the
country weakens.
The cobbled-together government of Serbia is very
politically unstable
and often contradicting itself. As if that weren't enough,
the US-funded
War Crimes Tribunal continues to blackmail and pressure
Belgrade on the
issue of its former leaders, indicted for alleged (and yet
unproven) war
crimes as a boost to NATO's position during the 1999 war.
This
relentless pressure also magnifies the scope of new
Albanian claims of
"repression and genocide," propaganda which defies
countermeasures in a
US/NATO-dominated media world. Even Macedonia has to be
sensitive to
these accusations, because Balkans mud does not come off
easily.
LOCAL INTEREST
The surrounding countries are also interested in the
progress and
outcome of the conflict. In the west, Croatia hopes the
region would
calm down but also secretly hopes Serbia would be further
weakened and
eliminated as a rival. Croat and Muslim ethnic interests
in Bosnia are
also watching, hoping that Serbia's defeat could open the
possibility of
"revising" the Dayton treaty by taking out the Serbs
within Bosnia's
boundaries. In the most moderate scenario, the Serbs would
be
assimilated into a unitary state. In some less amicable
plans, they
would meet the fate of Croatian Serbs at the end of the
Third War.
In the north, there is a growing possibility that Serbia's
province of
Vojvodina might split off if Albanians have their way. A
sizable
Hungarian population there could likely advocate
annexation by Hungary.
Bulgaria could also hope to increase its territory, by
marching into
what's left of Macedonia after the Albanians are done.
Some fear that
Bulgaria's offer to send troops to help fight the
Albanians might be the
first act of just such a move. Moreover, a week ago
Bulgaria's president
signed a treaty with NATO giving its troops free access to
all of
Bulgaria.
Greece has plenty of reasons to worry, as Albanian
aspirations include
some of its territory as well. If Albanians are allowed to
expand and
grow stronger, it may be just a matter of time before
Greece is "asked"
by its NATO allies to relinquish the so-called "Chameria"
region, "in
the interest of regional stability," of course.
THE GREAT POWERS
A common thing to all four Balkan Wars has been the
presence of a
"shadow participant" - the great power(s). In the First
and Second, the
strongest force was Austria-Hungary, backed by Germany. In
the Third and
Fourth, without a doubt, that force is the United States,
through NATO.
Why? United States' motivation is an area that deserves a
column - and
volumes of books - in its own right. But it is more than
anything else,
"realist". It seeks the greatest tangible gains at the
lowest cost.
American involvement in Bosnia, according to Ambassador
Richard
Holbrooke, reasserted US leadership in Europe. This
purpose was again
served in Kosovo, when the US dragooned its European
allies into
launching a war against Yugoslavia in violation of the
entire body of
international law. Even though the war barely achieved its
publicized
objectives, it was far more successful at revamping NATO
as the tool of
US domination in Europe and elevating it above the UN as
the supreme
arbiter of conflicts in the "Atlantic" sphere of
influence, wherever it
might reach.
Some politicians in Yugoslavia and Macedonia live under
the illusion
that NATO fought the Kosovo war in the name of democracy,
human rights
and international law. This assumption has tremendous
potential to prove
fatal to both countries. The US (and hence NATO) could
care less about
the first two, save to use them as propaganda slogans,
while they
brazenly violated the third. If power is America's
foremost goal, why
would it possibly risk aiding the powerless FRY and
Macedonia at the
expense of Albanian militants its special forces and
contractors had
trained and equipped, and on whose behalf its bombers went
to war?
Last, but not least, the United States and its allies
enjoy domination
in the media theater, thanks to which they can
effortlessly manipulate
propaganda and perceptions in favor of their allies. Thus
a Reuters
reporter can write an absolutely irrational statement that
NATO is
"worried the gunmen, emboldened by the success or an armed
struggle in
Kosovo, might extend it to Macedonia" (Reuters, March 6),
while leaving
out that the "gunmen" owe the success of their "armed
struggle in
Kosovo" squarely to the Alliance's bombing spree against
everything that
moved in Serbia, so that NATO's concern stems from either
idiocy or
hypocrisy.
WORDS AND DEEDS
Manipulation of facts is a tremendously understated
weapon. Hypocrisy is
another. The US is officially striving for stability in
the region. And
indeed, it might be. A Greater Albania and an expanded
Bulgaria, both in
America's fold and leaning on Turkey as a staunch US ally,
would ensure
US domination over southern Europe for decades, and enable
the Empire to
push into central Asia, towards the vast oil and gas
fields of the
former Soviet Union. As for the public US commitment to
the integrity of
borders, the same policy espoused by the Bush I
administration never
stopped Ambassador Warren Zimmerman from doing his best to
encourage the
destruction of Yugoslavia by 1992. As Zimmerman himself
said to a
Croatian magazine in 1992, "nothing is forever." Respect
for borders and
sovereignty would imply respect for international law,
which the US and
NATO got to be immune from since their 1999 bombing war.
Hoping that the
Empire would actually favor ideological ends - protecting
democracies,
for example - over practical gains is, to put it mildly,
irrational.
Freed from any moral responsibility, the Empire would
sacrifice anyone
and anything - especially the people it has demonized for
so long - if
the result of that sacrifice was more power and more
money.
Hence, if the US could interfere in the Third Balkan War
to assert its
domination over Europe and help start the Fourth to cement
this
leadership, what makes anyone think it would abandon that
objective, or
the war that leads to it, midway through the fighting? Two
years after
the armistice, under a new leadership anxious to prove
itself in battle,
it might be time again to show the increasingly uppity
European vassals
who the real rulers of the known world are, and if the
Balkans is
secured in the process, why that would be splendid.
Just splendid.
---
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