Underestimated ethnic Albanian nationalism raises fears of new war Rory Carroll in Pristina Monday March 12, 2001 The Guardian High above Kosovo's broken cities, mules laden with rocket launchers, mines and machine guns clank through forests of oak, led by men in black. The snow is melting and the knee-high mud will soon harden, heralding the traditional fighting season on the mountainous border with Macedonia. The National Liberation Army did not feel like waiting. Its automatic weapons chatter nightly and mortars crump in reply. Refugees flee by day, their tractors churning into the valleys pulling trailers of wide-eyed infants. The shepherds from the village of Debelde, a collection of ramshackle houses, have stayed with their flocks. They gaze in awe as gleaming A-64 Apache helicopters descend and they offer tea to the US soldiers who emerge. The guerrillas who attack Macedonian troops slip back into Kosovo to change from black uniforms into civilian clothes. They know Debelde well. To the Americans' dismay, the people of Debelde affect to know them not at all. "It is a mystery to me. I do not know who these men are. I never set eyes on them," says Misin Ferrati, 55. Of the more than 1,000 refugees who fled last week, not one is known to have helped identify the guerrillas. Here, ethnic Albanian nationalism runs deep. In just two weeks and with fewer than 300 men, the self-styled National Liberation Army has wrought havoc. Its mine- layers and snipers have killed four Macedonian soldiers, ambushed convoys, threatened the American military and pinned down government ministers. Twenty miles east, on Kosovo's border with Serbia, another group of ethnic Albanian guerrillas have been attacking Serb forces in the Presevo valley for the past year. These are two fronts in an ultra-nationalist attempt to destabilise the Balkans, with the apparent aim of extending Kosovo's territory. The fuse that has been lit may yet ignite a conflagration. The fault lines of imperfect peace deals are already showing, as ethnic groups rediscover their dissatisfaction with the existing borders. The west is stunned. Balkan nightmares were supposed to have ended with the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president's quest for a greater Serbia in ashes after four failed wars. He lost the last in 1999 after Nato intervened to defend Kosovo's ethnic Albanians: a triumph for which they wept in gratitude. Now comes the twist: Albanian nationalist militants are stirring ethnic rivalries in a quest for a greater Kosovo. The liberated victims have become the villains. "Betrayal does not come close. They have spat in our faces," said a German officer with K-For, Nato's peacekeeping force. In Washington and London, and in the offices of Nato and the UN in Kosovo's capital, Pristina, one question predominates: Have we created a monster? "Something went very wrong and we are trying very hard to figure out where. There is a feeling that we incubated this thing," says one American UN official. Many agree that the west fundamentally misunderstood the threat of Albanian nationalism. A series of errors, tactical and strategic, are blamed for allowing a small minority of Kosovans to seize the agenda. A recent press conference descended into slapstick when the UN spokesman, Sunil Narula, staggered from one contradiction to another trying to explain who was doing what to contain the insurgencies. K-For intelligence officers say they face a Frankenstein-like movement, composed of different parts; it is powerful but not very bright. The guerrillas in Macedonia are mostly locals who served in the disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army. Its Albanian acronym UCK, is the same as the National Liberation Army. They are said to want to annex the north and west of Macedonia, which is dominated by ethnic Albanians. By provoking a Macedonian over-reaction - which has yet to happen - the rebels hope to radicalise the ethnic Albanians, who form almost a third of the former Yugoslav republic's 2m population but complain of suffering discrimination at the hands of the Slav majority. However, in recent statements the guerrillas said they wanted only equal rights in a reformed Macedonia. Talk of annexation, they said, was humbug perpetuated by Skopje to distract from its record on civil rights. To the east, in the Presevo valley, its sister organisation, the UCPMB, has up to 2,000 fighters in the three-mile buffer zone set up between Kosovo and Serbia after the 1999 war. They have mined, shot and mortared Serb forces, killing 34. This group wants the boundary changed so that 70,000 ethnic Albanians in Serbia are included in Kosovo. Nato's decision to allow the Yugoslav army back into the zone has, as the extremists expected, outraged Kosovans. "You hear generals talking about giving the extremists a wake-up call, but really it's the other way round," a British officer said. Kosovo's constitutional limbo - it is technically part of Serbia but is a K-For protectorate - has created a vacuum in which frustration flourishes. It is dawning on the rebels that they may have wider support than first realised. Eric Torch, an aid worker, believes a key mistake made by the west was failing to appreciate the power of ethnic Albanian nationalism. "Albanians trace their lineage to the Illyrans who controlled the territory in the 11th century BC. Underground schools during Milosevic's rule inculcated ethnic hatred into generations," he says. Lirak Celaj smiles when asked if the genie is out of the bottle. An actor who studied in Britain and the director of Pristina's main theatre, he is also an ex-KLA fighter and spokesman. "We will be a problem. We will remain a threat to stability because for us the status quo is unfair," he says. He believes that oppression in Macedonia and southern Serbia requires a violent response because peaceful means have failed. Until the break up of Yugoslavia 10 years ago the region's ethnic Albanians were in one state. Mr Celaj's family is from Montenegro, his wife is from Macedonia. But unlike Serb nationalists who wanted to reconquer all their historical territory, Mr Celaj rules out unification with Albania, because the state is too backward. For now he will settle for those areas where ethnic Albanians are in a majority today. He cannot believe that the US and Britain have switched allegiance to Belgrade. "I think some European countries may be against us because now we are losing the propaganda battle, but not London and Washington," he says. Moderate Kosovan leaders such as Ibrahim Rugova have condemned the guerrillas for damaging the quest for independence. Mr Celaj is unconcerned, believes independence is inevitable, probably within five years. But despite their thumping endorsement in the municipal elections last October, it is not the moderates who hold the balance of power. Since the day it arrived K-For has failed to control Kosovo. Its failure to disarm the KLA, protect the Serb minority and build a multi-ethnic society has created a climate in which extremists flourish. For almost a year it ignored intellectuals who urged a crackdown on KLA members who seized assets and set up criminal networks. "Now it's too late, the moderates won the election, but those who smuggle and run the rackets have the real power," one officer serving there admits. Yesterday's Observer reported that the CIA encouraged rebellion in southern Serbia to undermine Milosevic but lost control after his fall. Many Kosovans accuse the UN police force of incompetence and corruption. It has failed to establish the rule of law, allowing gangsters and militants to intimidate at will. A journalist from Koha Dittore, one of the few newspapers to resist such pressure, said freedom of speech was evaporating because of threats and assassinations. Pristina remains broken: there are powercuts, building facades gape open, and rubbish lies uncollected. Day and night gangs of unemployed young men patrol the main Mother Theresa Street. Those with cash drink in Skifterat, a dingy ba sement bar where the bouncers are ex-KLA fighters in black berets and combat boots. At a rickety table three friends, Sabit, Besin and Bardh, all in their early 20s, discuss politics. "If the Albanians in Macedonia all rose up tomorrow I'd go down to fight, but until then no way," Sabit says. His friends nod. In fact the guerrillas, e intensely clan-based, are unlikely to trust such outsiders, but Kosovo is a vital supply depot and base. The drinkers here, unusually for Pristina, do not speak English. "No need. We won't need to leave our land again," says Emrush, 31, a chemist. On a napkin he draws a perfect map of his land: A greater Kosovo encompassing chunks of Macedonia and Serbia. _______________________________________________ CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
