After Kosovo independence, is a Greater Albania the next logical step?
The Associated Press Published: February 21, 2008 <http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/21/europe/EU-GEN-Greater-Albania.php > TETOVO, Macedonia: Walk down any street in this Macedonian town and you could be forgiven for thinking that an international border has accidentally been crossed. Stores have Albanian names, cafes have a distinctly Albanian flavor, and the red Albanian flag bearing a black double-headed eagle flutters on the streets. Albanians form an overwhelming majority in an arc of northwestern Macedonia bordering Kosovo, which proclaimed its independence from Serbia this week. The same is true of slices of southern Serbia and Montenegro. So following Kosovar Albanians' leap toward self-determination, is the next logical step a Greater Albania that will pool together the region's ethnic Albanians in a unified state? Don't count on it. While the notion has been frequently aired in recent years, there is little public enthusiasm for it — either in Albania itself, in newly independent Kosovo, or in Albanian dominated areas of neighboring countries. Part of the reason is history. Ethnic Albanians have not lived in a unified country since the Ottoman Empire's grip over the Balkans ended in the years before World War I. In the intervening decades, they lived under dramatically different regimes. Enver Hoxha's brutal four-decade isolationist rule over Albania until 1985 — and that of his successor Ramiz Alia — left his countrymen cut off from the outside world until the 1990s. Life in Marshal Tito's Yugoslavia was markedly more sophisticated, despite the oppression of the communist regime. So when Albania opened its international borders for the first time in 1991, Kosovars found they had little in common with their brethren to the southwest. Kosovars will also be hesitant to rock regional diplomacy further by pushing for a grander vision for ethnic Albanians. It was tricky enough for Kosovo to declare independent over the vehement objections of Serbia and its key ally Russia. Banding together into a Greater Albania would provoke an even stronger response, not only from Serbia but from other Balkan neighbors. The United States and EU heavyweights like France, Germany, and Britain would also be likely to oppose any abrupt move toward Albanian unification. And Kosovars know that their new — and barely financially viable — country depends on the goodwill of Western states. Kosovo may also find that being a sovereign country is preferable to becoming a province of a larger state once more, albeit one in which they are the dominant ethnicity. Sabit Bunjaku, a 48-year-old economist in Pristina who used to support the idea of a Greater Albania, said he now thinks the idea should be laid to rest. "Our demands are being fulfilled, so why ask for more?" he said. For its part, impoverished Albania has set its sights firmly on eventually joining the European Union and NATO — with all the financial benefits that could bring — and most politicians seem unwilling to jeopardize that. Theodore Couloumbis, professor of international relations at the University of Athens, said a bigger issue than a Greater Albanian is whether Kosovo independence will encourage secessionist claims by ethnic minorities elsewhere. "There are 6,000 ethnic entities in the world, and 200 states," he said. In the end, Albanians might indeed find unity of sorts — under the umbrella of an expanded European Union. There are two routes for the Balkans at this stage, Couloumbis said. One is to "seek to redefine the map, to regain or to gain territories," he said. "It's replicating a very ... dangerous historical period." The other, "and the one I hope that most people in the Balkans are opting for, is the European option." Concerns do persist, particularly in Macedonia, where ethnic Albanian rebels took up arms against government forces in 2001 in a six-month conflict that saw hundreds of NATO peacekeepers deployed and Western diplomats scrambling to cobble together a peace deal. "The biggest fear for me, as a Macedonian, is that Kosovo's independence will bring only partition for Macedonia," said Marina Stevcevska, a 44-year-old economist in the capital, Skopje. "We are going to loose the western and northern parts of the country." There are still nationalist ethnic Albanians who advocate unifying all Albanian-majority lands. But there appears to be little appetite in Pristina — or in Tetovo — to risk more armed conflict or to potentially destabilize a newly independent Kosovo. ____ Associated Press writers Zamir Mehmeti in Tetovo, Macedonia, Llazar Semini in Tirana, Albania and Elena Becatoros in Athens, Greece, contributed to this report.
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