The Bush administration says it wants European allies to shoulder more peacekeeping chores in the Balkans, but gets testy when the Europeans suggest a rapid reaction force that would be independent of NATO command structures.
The Europeans claim they want to wean themselves of their dependency on American military might, but cringe at the thought of the U.S. withdrawing its troops from the Balkans.
And then along comes Macedonia, which Tuesday issued an ultimatum to ethnic Albanian rebels ordering them to lay down their arms within 24 hours or face a full-scale military assault.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a new Balkan war looms on the horizon.
But the crisis in Macedonia didn’t come from nowhere. According to diplomats and other analysts, it came from an ill-advised decision by the U.S. and its allies in Kosovo to look the other way more than a year ago, when the Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, was supposed to turn in its weapons and disband after the Yugoslav Army was driven out of the territory in the summer of 1999.
Albanian buildup
The ethnic Albanian guerrillas made a grand show of surrendering a few rusty Kalashnikovs while KFOR, the NATO peacekeeping force, politely applauded.
This enabled the peacekeepers to claim they successfully disarmed the guerrillas while the KLA stockpiled the weapons that it deemed necessary to ensure its ultimate goal: an independent and Serb-free Kosovo.
When the KLA candidates were trounced in Kosovo’s first free and fair municipal elections last October, U.S. and European officials proclaimed a victory for moderation, but no one really believed the KLA would quietly slink off the stage.
The trouble began within weeks, when a group calling itself the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac began attacking Serb police in the demilitarized zone just across the border from Kosovo.
The goal, the group explained, is to join this predominantly Albanian area to a “Greater Kosovo.” Most of this outfit’s fighters are KLA veterans from the Kosovo war. Many wear KLA uniforms with KLA insignia. They appear to have plenty of arms.
It was only a matter time before the KLA would turn its attention to neighboring Macedonia, where an estimated 500,000 ethnic Albanians make up about one-third of the population.
Before the breakup of Yugoslavia began a decade ago, the ethnic Albanians of Macedonia and Kosovo were one and the same people.
Only after Macedonia gained its independence was there suddenly a national border separating the Albanians of Macedonia from their relatives and friends in Kosovo.
Those on the Macedonia side of the border got the better deal.
After a rocky start punctuated by a few serious clashes, the Slavs and Albanians of Macedonia decided it was better to learn to live together than to go the way of Bosnia-Herzegovina or Kosovo.
Albanian political parties began participating in the government and reaping a reasonable share of the political spoils.
Meanwhile, their friends and relatives in Kosovo came under increasingly ugly repression from the Belgrade regime of Slobodan Milosevic. This led to the creation of the KLA guerrilla movement and, ultimately, the NATO intervention of 1999.
For the U.S. and Europe, Macedonia now serves as a classic Balkans reality check. It underscores the relatively limited options that Washington and its allies can pursue.
Thus far, the American and European response has been to do as little as possible and hope it all goes away.
NATO does not have the appetite for another Balkans war. Most Albanians in Macedonia and Kosovo don’t want this fight either.
But the KLA is determined to shove it down their throats. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much to start a war in the Balkans.
The rebels in the hills above Tetovo, Macedonia’s largest Albanian city, call themselves the National Liberation Army, or NLA. They seem to number about a few hundred, and they, too, wear the uniforms and insignia of the KLA.
For a week, the Macedonian Army has been firing artillery into the hills.
The shooting appears to have little practical effect, but it pleases the international television crews, whose flak-jacketed correspondents uniformly report that the fighting is “intensifying.”
Local panic
Even though the shooting seemed to slacken with Tuesday’s ultimatum, the presence of tanks and armored personnel carriers on the outskirts of Tetovo has panicked the local population and caused many to flee.
Macedonia has about 15,000 troops and 7,500 paramilitary police. Neither force is considered to be well-trained. The army is outfitted with antiquated T-55 tanks, which are fairly useless in containing a guerrilla insurgency.
The Macedonian government says it does not want any direct help from NATO, but it has sharply criticized U.S. and German peacekeepers who control the border on the Kosovo side for not doing a better job of preventing the rebels from infiltrating. The Yugoslav government in Belgrade makes the same complaint about the Presevo Valley.
In truth, NATO cannot seal either border. Even with all of their helicopters and high-tech night vision optics, they can’t do it. The mountainous terrain favors the guerrillas. Then there are the Russians, responsible for a long stretch of border between Kosovo and Serbia proper. For a carton of cigarettes, Russian soldiers will turn a blind eye to any activity.
“The problem,” said one Western envoy in Kosovo, “is the U.S. doesn’t have a clear idea of what to do; the Europeans don’t know either. The only ones who know exactly what they want are the KLA.”
An independent Kosovo is a goal shared by the KLA and more moderate Albanians. The difference is that the gangsterish KLA, which runs all sorts of criminal enterprises in its fiefdom, also wants independence from the norms of a lawful society.
Now the problem has sloshed over into Macedonia. On Tuesday, the Macedonian government moved more tanks into positions around Tetovo and threatened the rebels with a sustained offensive.
The rebels say they want negotiations. European Union security chief Javier Solana, who was in Skopje on Tuesday, has urged Macedonian leaders not to bargain with the rebels. He also promised financial aid to moderate Albanians.
Leaders of the two main ethnic Albanian parties that remain loyal to the government and seem to represent the mainstream of Albanian political sentiment in Macedonia called on the rebels to lay down their arms, but also said there was an urgent need for the government to address Albanian grievances.
