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By John Norris

Praeger, 2005, 334 pp.

Reviewed by Christopher Deliso

Collision Course: NATO, Russia and Kosovo gives an unprecedented inside view of the planning and conduct of NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. Written by John Norris, the former communications director for Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, this recently released work traces the chronology of decisions and events made by all of the key political players involved. With his enviable access to the communications and meetings held between US, European, Serbian and Russian diplomats, Norris is able to weave a riveting narrative that provides access to the minds and motives of those who crafted the war.

As such, the author helpfully expands the existing literature on Kosovo. For the first time, we get comprehensive explanations for decisions (mostly, those of Washington and Moscow) that have always been murkily known. However, unless one is a committed interventionist who unhesitatingly accepts the status quo on all of America’s foreign policy, this book will also frequently prove hard to digest. I suspect that this dichotomy (exclusive inside sources and blatant state propaganda) will make reading Collision Course a necessary, if somewhat aggravating, experience for most of our readers.A Caveat

It’s important to note from the outset that Collision Course is an establishment work, and its author and key sources were and are cheerleaders for an intervention and occupation that have led to humanitarian horrors, local mafia consolidation of power, and the imminent betrayal of UN Resolution 1244, which guaranteed that Kosovo would remain a part of Yugoslavia. Despite the analytical critiques Norris makes of poor decision-making and infighting among Clinton officials, the rationale for intervention itself is never seriously questioned, except when it is referred to in order to cast doubting allies (and especially Russia) in a bad light.

Further, the author is currently Special Advisor to the President of the International Crisis Group, an utterly loathsome think-tank and graveyard of retired, failed and ambitiously aspiring Western diplomats. Nevertheless, the ICG retains considerable clout among the “international community,” considering that it is funded by the same governments and institutions whose views it parrots with regularity. In short, it is the civilian version of private military contractors like MPRI that are staffed by retired military men. The difference is that the ICG concentrates on political murders rather than corporeal ones.

Now the ICG has always been especially aggressive when it comes to the Balkans. It is no accident that several of the participants on the winning side of the Kosovo conflict now sit on its board. In addition to author and advisor Norris, names like General Wesley Clark and former Finnish President (and special negotiator during the war) Martti Ahtisaari jump out. The ICG has been foremost in the lobbying war for Kosovo’s independence – an eventual scenario that was obvious from the onset of NATO’s bombing, yet one which Norris inexplicably excludes from the minds of those executing the war, as if they had never expected their actions would lead to logical conclusions at variance with the peace they dictated in the end.

A Manifesto, Not a Foreword

Before the book even starts, there is a foreword by former Deputy Secretary of State Talbott – not unreasonable, considering that he is one of the book’s main protagonists. Talbott’s brief text is dripping with a retrospective neoconservatism that remarkably manages to both valorize the 1999 bombing, while also taking jabs at the Bush Administration’s handling of Iraq. The goal is to slyly posit Kosovo – a Clintonian “achievement” – as an example for the current administration to follow elsewhere.

Among the other carved-in-stone truths we meet here include statements like, “…to the extent that there is such a thing as an international community, it owes much to NATO” (p. ix), and “the sovereignty of states is not absolute” (p. x). He attempts to trace the lineage of the American humanitarian crusade as far back as the 1994 intervention meant to prop up Aristide in Haiti, stating the need to overthrow the military junta as “…thousands of Haitians sought asylum in the United States by taking to the sea in rickety boats” (p. xi). Could the threat of such an unwanted intrusion of refugees, perhaps, actually have had more to do with the intervention than safeguarding human rights and democracy?

Predictably enough, for Talbott the Bush administration failed in Iraq and Afghanistan because of its “…reluctance to cast its own policies in terms of continuity with its predecessors, especially its previous predecessor, the Clinton administration” (p. xi). Imagine that.

Nevertheless, all’s well that ends well, because Bush has performed a total about-face on the nation-building angle, with the helpful result that “…Kosovo looks more like a model for what they may end up putting in place in those other states that American-led armies liberated from heinous regimes” (p. xi). According to the former diplomat’s checklist of criteria on war and peace, “… [Kosovo] was far from perfect, but overall, it gets a passing grade” (p. xii). According to who? As I’ve argued before, Kosovo should not be held up as a model for anything but disaster.

A Startling Revelation

Following this rather hackneyed attempt to justify intervention as a policy, author Norris begins the book with a contention which is so surprising that one suspects some retrospective contextualization has been performed here as well for political benefit. How else can be explained the following statement and its conclusion?

“…NATO’s large membership and consensus style may cause endless headaches for military planners, but it is also why joining NATO is appealing to nations across Central and Eastern Europe. Nations from Albania to Ukraine want in the Western club. The gravitational pull of the community of Western democracies highlights why Milosevic’s Yugoslavia had become such an anachronism. As nations throughout the region strove to reform their economies, mitigate ethnic tensions, and broaden civil society, Belgrade seemed to delight in continually moving in the opposite direction. It is small wonder that NATO and Yugoslavia ended up on a collision course.

It was Yugoslavia’s resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform-not the plight of Kosovo Albanians-that best explains NATO’s war” (pp. xxii-xxiii).

This astonishing paragraph clearly seeks to contextualize Clinton’s war as a necessary predecessor to the Bush administration’s multi-colored revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and who knows where next. Sadly, it might even be true. The “liberals” of American politics are often contrasted with the belated liberals of the neocon camp, the ones most often identified with permanent re
volution for the sake of spreading democracy, but it’s clear that despite the occasional softball criticism of the Bush administration’s interventions, it’s more like a family squabble than some deeper alienation. The Democrats prefer allied lynch mobs, whereas the Republicans are more willing to intervene without outside help. The difference is basically the same.

At the end of the day, both Democrats and Republicans remain committed to the same “values” of forcing political change on foreign regimes. Norris’ explanation seems to replace one deception (that of the humanitarian intervention) with another (the democracy-building intervention), somehow by rolling them into one. Considering that the ultimate justification for NATO’s war has always been cited as being primarily the protection of the Kosovo Albanians, I would be feeling pretty insulted right now if I were one of the latter.

Room for Self-Criticism?

That said, the author at least notes several contemporary criticisms of the unfolding war. Starting from the second chapter, he recites a litany of abuses leveled at the Clinton administration from the press, from former officials and from the Republican opposition. Perhaps because of his former position, Norris is most acutely aware of the antagonisms leveled at the State Department from the Pentagon, CIA and others over the former’s failure to foresee a refugee crisis once bombing got underway and their naˆšÃ˜ve view that Milosevic would immediately capitulate. Henry Kissinger is cited as saying the administration wasn’t hawkish enough, while the “fiercely conservative” Richard Perle charged that Clinton’s was “…the worst foreign policy team since the Second World War” (p. 26).

However, when Norris alleges that the Clinton administration “…was caught off-balance by the refugee crisis,” while at the same alleging that “…few understood raw politics better than Bill Clinton,” (p. 27) one has to question his sincerity. This contradiction cuts to the central dilemma of the book: whether we can take the testimony of the author at face value, or else have to understand him as an apologist. After all, many less gifted and less privy to sensitive information than the president were arguing at the time that such a bombardment would in fact cause such a crisis; how then can the sagacious Clinton have failed to see it? Unless, of course, he had hoped for it to occur for his own propaganda purposes; but this possibility is pre-empted by Norris, who merely says that Milosevic’s evil intent “helped” justify the president’s decision.

Notably, he refers only to “images” of refugees as being pivotal in firming alliance support for war – images of refugees being the key weapon for developing the “human interest” angle of the story and taking attention away from the bombing’s destructiveness. And though it is well known that the Albanian KLA at least in some cases forced people to become refugees to cynically generate world sympathy, and shot other Albanians believed to be Serb “collaborators” this scenario is dismissed by the author as nothing more than Russian-Yugoslav propaganda (pp. 13, 20).

Essentially, the question is one of believability: could the Western leadership really have been so naˆšÃ˜ve about so much? For instance, the American negotiating principle from the beginning was to secure the rights of Kosovo’s Albanians with the introduction of peacekeepers, while still somehow keeping Kosovo a part of the Yugoslav state. Anyone with sense could have seen that this was not a possibility once the Serb forces were expelled. Should we believe, then, that the Americans were sincere in their “official” platform, and/or that the author is being sincere vouching for their sincerity in his retelling? This is one of the book’s great mysteries.

Intimate Portraits

Aside from its problematic intrinsic nature, however,  Collision Course has plenty to offer on the informative level. The portrayals of interactions between the biggest world diplomats offer much insight into the negotiating process. They reveal how our leaders (and theirs) really think, and present the kind of seemingly minor details that contribute to their relationships. For example, to a senior NATO official is attributed the observation that because “winters are bad for Yeltsin,” negotiations with the Russian president, as well as the intervention itself, were best held off: “…he starts to pay attention and always gets better in March and April (p. 4).” Incredibly, Clinton and Yeltsin only spoken twice about Kosovo in the 6 months between October 1998 and March 1999 – with the latter slamming the phone down on both occasions – a fact which serves Norris’ thesis that the Russians were intransigent, bellicose and slow to engage with the negotiating process.

Yet while there may indeed be some truth to stereotypes, it becomes tiresome after a while to hear the Russian negotiators constantly mocked for the great crimes of smoking and drinking, while the fresh-faced Western diplomats are described with generally positive adjectives (”lean, “affable,” “good-natured,” “scrappy,” etc.) as they sanctimoniously interface with their laptops and policy papers. The subtle implication of Norris’ opposing descriptions of the Russians and Westerners is that the former were unwilling to negotiate and an impediment to the peace process – even as the facts the author recounts lead to a precisely opposite interpretation.

In the end, the picture painted of American diplomacy is actually quite unflattering. It is the Russians who throughout proved most pragmatic and eager to engage all parties in negotiations, and the Americans (as well as Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac) who come off as obdurate, unyielding bullies – a position they could well afford, since they were the ones dropping the bombs. As Collision Course abundantly reveals, the entire tenor of American negotiation throughout the conflict was in the form of ultimatum, and the primary considerations of those involved was not empathy for refugees or democracy, but merely to further their own individual and collective reputations and prestige.

That said, it is important to note that all the parties involved acted according to their own political considerations first. Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s frantic calls to stop the bombing were fueled by his own looming impeachment hearings, and the helpful effect that the war was having for his Communist opposition. For his part, US Vice-President Gore was weighing the consequences any high-profile diplomatic role might have for his upcoming presidential campaign. Finnish President and special negotiator Martti Ahtisaari worried about what shaking hands with the Hague-indicted Milosevic would mean for his image among EU leaders.

Ground War!

Collision Course gives extended coverage of the constant argument then going on within NATO and within the US administration over the desirability of a ground war. In retrospect, it seems incredible that in spring 1999 some high officials
feared that the war might drag on for another year. The reader is made to appreciate that given the immense logistical challenges of posing a ground invasion of Kosovo, plans had to be made well in advance (June 1 was the deadline given by Gen. Clark, but in the end it wasn’t necessary).

The chief advocates for ground invasion were, along with Clark, Tony Blair and Madeleine Albright, as well as more minor characters such as Tom Pickering, Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, and Special Advisor on Balkan Affairs James Dobbins. The well-documented animosity between the Pentagon and Clark was fueled largely by this debate, with the trigger-happy Clark reasoning that a fast and massive invasion would end the war faster, and the Pentagon balking at the risks of either crossing the Albania-Kosovo mountains or sweeping down the Hungarian plain, and then be forced to take Belgrade itself. Again and again, political decision-making is held up against the fear of public reaction; the majority of NATO countries apparently had no stomach for a messy ground war. In the end, NATO got itself off the hook by bombing enough civilian targets and threatening to level Belgrade itself, thus forcing a capitulation from Milosevic. In this light, the whole furor over the necessity of a ground invasion in a certain sense seems to lack reality.

High Drama

Undoubtedly the most exciting chapters of Collision Course are the penultimate ones (9 and 10) that describe the high-stakes brinksmanship between NATO and Russia over troop deployment into Kosovo. This section describes in detail the secret planning that went into Russia’s surprise entrance into Kosovo via Bosnia, and the diplomatic maelstrom this move caused. As the author notes, though tensions were deflated and the Russian occupation of Slatina Airfield quickly descended into farce, no one knew at the time how the situation would play out. Had Wesley Clark had his way, the situation could well have boiled over into a shootout – which memorably led British subordinate Gen. Michael Jackson to indignantly tell Clark, “I’m not starting World War III for you” (p. 278).

Norris details how the mutual mistrust over Russia’s role in the future peacekeeping force – it had asked for, but was denied, a sector of its own – led Yeltsin to force the situation by sending in his peacekeepers stationed in Bosnia. NATO feared that a new Cold War scenario might play out, in which Kosovo would be more or less partitioned, with Russia occupying the Serb-inhabited north of the province and NATO the rest. However, as the author explains, these worries were premature because the Russians had not planned through to the end and did not send a large enough force to stake out anything more than a symbolic presence. This was ultimately the result of Moscow’s failure to win overflight clearance from Hungary, Romania, Ukraine and Bulgaria, thus preventing them from being able to drop thousands of paratroopers into Kosovo. The author portrays this result triumphantly as an indicator of Eastern Europe’s turn to the West.

Drawbacks: Unconnected Events and the Media’s Role

However, the author’s bad faith is shown in two ways: one, the complete avoidance of government-media organized deception; and two, the almost surreal lack of proper context for events. We are thus expected to believe that Milosevic’s mid-war indictment by the Hague – a political move which effectively removed him from the negotiating process and made any Western politician associated with him stigmatized – caught the Clinton administration by surprise. The “irony” of the fact that CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour (who “broke” the story) was married to State Department Spokesman James Rubin is attributed to unnamed US diplomats, almost as an afterthought, and with no consideration of the fact that the news network and US government were officially, if clandestinely cooperating to spin the war. At many points, the reader is left to imagine that events happened by themselves, detached from one another, as if by accident.

A major shortcoming, considering that the author was tasked with dealing with the media, is the total omission of how the US and NATO worked hand-in-glove with a complicit, self-serving Western press to spin a web of deception in newspapers and TV screens back home, casting the war in an honorable light while demonizing the Serbs. The effect of the media as an echo chamber for NATO propaganda was tremendous, and to not even mention it shows that, at the end of the day, Norris’ apparent intent to provide a comprehensive account falls short. In fact, the media is only mentioned when unfavorable stories or reporter swarms catch Western diplomats off-guard or otherwise irritate them – the implication being, therefore, that the media is a hostile and alien force out to attack rather than serve the government. Since the author obviously knows better, the failure to at least allude to some of the bigger lies (like “100,000 Albanians dead“) is further evidence of an attempted whitewash.

Conclusions

Since Collision Course tends to glorify the West for its diplomatic acumen, martial prowess and (apparently) more glowing health than the Russians, it is no surprise that the book’s conclusions also tend to sugarcoat the war. There are no mentions of depleted uranium, and not too many of civilian casualties. There is no mention of the fact that the Russians proved correct in most of their predictions regarding “reverse” ethnic cleansing of Serbs and destruction of Serbian cultural monuments once NATO swept into Kosovo. The author has little sympathy in this regard, yet constantly points out the humanitarian valor displayed by NATO in defense of the Albanians as being a prime justification for the war – failing to delve very deeply into the very real campaign of terror and intimidation that Albanian extremists had been waging for years against Serbian civilians. Milosevic may have indeed been guilty of many evils, but nothing happens in a vacuum, after all.

Other conclusions seem to have been jury-rigged for contemporary requirements. Thus the constant portrayals of “reckless” Russian diplomacy (as if they were the ones bombing people!) also dovetail quite nicely into the author’s current criticism of Vladimir Putin, something that is decidedly in vogue in the West today. And while not directly calling for the immediate independence of Kosovo (as his very own ICG is loudly doing) the author closes the book by stating that “…hard choices still need to be made, and they need to be made sooner rather than later” (p. 322). So at some level Collision Course can be said to be a well-timed manifesto aiming to both justify NATO’s bombing and whitewash its leaders’ crimes, while also stigmatizing Russia. In this way the book attempts to set a precedent, or at least a preferred context, for today’s apparently irreversible trend towards Kosovo independence. The victors are still keen to write the history.

However, none of these things make up the most compelling aspect of Collision Course. For what seems most striking in a book written about 
220;how diplomacy is really practiced,” as one reviewer put it, is the utter barrenness of America diplomacy today. The narration of events paints the same unflattering picture of American diplomacy as nothing more than the unyielding projection of ultimatums backed up by military force. That America rarely compromises is not, of course, the author’s fault. Yet when the deck is stacked to the extent that it is in today’s unipolar world, not even the most compelling storyline can sustain real excitement and suspense when the end result is so often a foregone conclusion.

Ending months of speculation, independent MP Hisni Shaqiri (formerly of Ali Ahmeti’s DUI) has decided to take the lead in forming a new political alternative for Albanians in Macedonia. Having served in Parliament more or less continuously since 1991, at various time affiliated with each of the existing Albanian parties (PDP, DPA and more recently DUI), the 55 year-old Shaqiri is clearly experienced politically. Hailing from the Kumanovo-area village of Otlja, this NLA veteran of the 2001 conflict also commands respect among Albanians for his war experience. But will Mr. Shaqiri’s populist appeal be enough to compete with the well-entrenched Albanian political interests of Ali Ahmeti and Arben Xhaferi?

In the following interview, conducted on Tuesday, June 7 by Balkanalysis.com director Christopher Deliso, Mr. Shaqiri makes his case regarding the need for political change, and touches on other interesting issues such as the war of 2001, related extremist militant groups and corruption.

Christopher Deliso: First of all, a little about yourself. What were you educated in, and where did you work before beginning your political career?

Hisni Shaqiri: I am from Otlja, a village near Lipkovo in the Kumanovo region of Macedonia. My whole family is from there. A long time ago, I was working as a teacher of history in Goce Delcev High School in Kumanovo. But in 1981, because of widespread Albanian protests, we the so-called ‘irredentists’ were fired. It was a time of demonstrations beginning in Kosovo. The Socialist regime of Macedonia had ordered all high schools to be taught in Macedonian. Until then Albanian students had been taught in Albanian language. So for example, prior to 1981, Zef Lush Marku High School in Skopje had had 16 or 17 classes in Albanian. But after the new laws, this was the only one in Skopje and they had maybe 3 classes in Albanian.

After I was fired, I was kept in jail for 2 months, while they also took away my right to work in the future in the school system. So then I didn’t work for 5 years. However, afterwards I went on to get a job in Kosovo, in Gnjilane, also in the field of education. I worked there for 7 years, until 1991.

CD: And at that time you became interested in politics, in the independent Macedonia?

HS: Yes. Since 1991, I have been a member of parliament. First I ran with the PDP, then as an independent. The third time, I was with DPA but this mandate was truncated by the conflict; on March 27, 2001 I left Parliament to serve my people because the war was going on in my area. I didn’t start the war, but I supported the war, when I concluded that I had to be together with my people.

After the war, I went back to Parliament with the DUI, but now I’m independent again.

CD: As you know, DPA leader Arben Xhaferi recently stated publicly that he and then-Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski had created the war in order to divide Macedonia on ethnic lines. What is your reaction to this?

HS: For me, people like Xhaferi and others with their political declarations are not acting seriously. At that I time was part of the NLA, and so I wasn’t familiar with whatever secret talks they might have had. What I do know from my experience is that we had a very heavy conflict with the government of Macedonia’s forces. And within this government was Xhaferi. But they weren’t able to keep the peace, or to overcome the conflict.

CD: Yes, but that said, what do you think? Was there really such a plan being considered by the government?

HS: It is possible that Xhaferi and Georgievski had talked about this issue, to divide Macedonia according to their interests. And it is possible that they were talking about this as a project – it was publicized by the Macedonian Academy of Arts & Sciences report, which Georgievski and then-President of Parliament Stojan Andov supported.

However, the division of Macedonia would be very dangerous for ordinary Macedonians and Albanians also, because many of the problems would still exist, without solutions.

For instance, what would happen to the inevitable minority of one group left in the other’s regions? The division was planned only for the Western region and Aracinovo. Such a project would be very harmful and not in the interests of the Albanian people. After the division of Macedonia, we would have had even more borders between Albanian populations.

CD: Considering that since 2002 the DPA has been making itself more and more isolated under Xhaferi’s renewed nationalistic rhetoric, what do you imagine could have been his motive in coming out with a statement that would only seem the international community’s worst fears about his policies?

HS: I don’t know, but it is possible that Arben Xhaferi is making these kinds of statements in order to keep himself in the spotlight, to keep some attention on him.

CD: When you left Parliament and joined the NLA in March of 2001, did you feel like you were fighting for Ali Ahmeti, or recognize him as the main leader?

HS: My motive to go to the mountains was to defend my region of Kumanovo, where I had my family, my relatives, and not to follow Ali Ahmeti per se. I know other people who had the same motive as I. As a result of our high morale and this motivation, our results were very successful and we were not defeated. It [the war] resulted in the Ohrid Framework Agreement. A great result, because we stopped the fighting and achieved a political agreement to guarantee stability and peace in Macedonia.

Third, with the help of the Framework Agreement, we achieved a harmonization of interests between Macedonians and Albanians. What was most important was the help of the US, EU and NATO: without them many pieces of the agreement would not have fallen into place.

CD: Nevertheless, Ali Ahmeti definitely was able to take the lion’s share of the credit and turn himself into a widely respected leader among the Albanians, someone that the people would follow. So to what does he owe his success? Military ability, charisma, backers, etc?

HS: I wouldn’t say that Ahmeti has charisma, but he’s associated with the victory. 2001 was a crossroads for the Albanians in Macedonia. There were some political results achieved, also the constitution was changed. The introduction of all these changes had the effect of making everything seem to be the direct result of the war. However, Ali Ahmeti was all the time in Prizren during the agreement negotiation. I’m sure that Xhaferi and [Imer] Imeri had consultations with him during the negotiating process, so he had a role.

But behind Ahmeti was an organizational structure, commanded from Prizren. We had war in Aracinovo, Lipkovo and Sat Planina, but with the ending of the war Ahmeti went to Sipkovica.

CD: During the war, before the peace agreement was made, did you meet with him?

HS: I went one time in Prizren in Kosovo, because on May 15, 2001 Ali Ahmeti asked me to come. I went and was back to our positions in the Lipkovo hills by the 23^rd of May. I was in the 5th battalion of the 113^th brigade. Ali had wanted me to come so he could ask me about how the fighting was going in my area.

Robert Frowick, a US diplomat, offered all Albanian politicians to sign a declaration. I was asked for my opinion of that declaration. It was signed on 23 May by Ahmeti, Xhaferi and Imeri. I had a positive opinion of this declaration as I thought it would help end the fighting.

CD: Did you yourself meet Mr. Frowick?

HS: I didn’t meet Frowick, because after this act Macedonia declared h
im persona non grata.

CD: What about Aracinovo. Do you believe the allegations that American military trainers were found together with the NLA fighters that NATO escorted to safety?

HS: That, the 17 MPRI guys story – that’s just the speculation of some journalists… The US, NATO and the EU were all interested deeply in stopping the fighting. The fighting in Aracinovo was seen as very dangerous because it was close to Skopje and could spread there. The Americans had the wise opinion that if the fighting could endanger Skopje and spread to the city then we would have a very large conflict indeed.

CD: Aside from Aracinovo, did the US provide your side with military supplies during the war?

HS: No. They asked by all means to stop the conflict, but not by direct contribution to the fighting.

CD: So nothing? No humanitarian equipment, no Western medical supplies, perhaps?

HS: No. It was only in the political aspect that we had help.

CD: During the war of 2001, what was the role of Kosovo in supplying and leading the NLA?

HS: As for Kosovo, we cannot talk about training and supplies from institutions. There were maybe some people acting on their own, but not officially.

CD: Yes, but what of the many stories of involvement from high figures like Agim Ceku or Daut Haradinaj?

HS: When I talk about Kosovo institutions not taking part, I am including for example Agim Ceku as a representative of an institution. But of course there were individuals acting independently. The conflict was a surprise to Kosovo as much as it was to Macedonia.

“…We need new political options for a true and real approach to solving these problems,” Mr. Shaqiri believes.

CD: Would you like to say anything about the so-called “Albanian National Army” (ANA or AKSH) which has taken responsibility for various terrorist attacks and vows to fight on for the creation of a single pan-Albanian state?

HS: The AKSH fell out of the public eye after the ending of the war and the signing of the Ohrid Agreement. Those persons [in the group] weren’t involved in the fighting, they didn’t do anything during the war, but only presented themselves afterwards!

As a result of this, they know very little of the conflict of 2001.   Maybe they watched it from Prizren like Ahmeti did. If they were present during the fighting, maybe they would talk a little differently. The fighting was very dangerous… they should not play with fire.

Because I’m an Albanian, I think we should not solve problems only by war. I stress once more that if those people of AKSH knew what happened in these villages, they would talk differently and be much more responsible when they speak publicly.

CD: Critics claim that leaders like Idajet Beqiri are drastically overstating the popularity of the group among average Albanians, and that the general support level is quite low. From your perspective, what can you say?

HS: Speaking frankly, when I talk with the people in the conflict region, it is clear that they don’t want another conflict. I don’t know Mr. Beqiri directly, and I don’t know why he thinks the conflict is not over. He has a right to think what he wants, like anyone else, of course. But I’m talking as a man who was part of the conflict. I saw it and I experienced it. People like that, who weren’t involved in the fighting, can speak, but from a different perspective. I believe that if they had been involved they would not speak like that and would try to be more responsible.

CD: It is often said that such groups have less popularity here than with the Albanian diaspora, which helped fund the Albanian fighters in Kosovo and Macedonia. What is the current mood in the diaspora regarding donating to the cause? Have things progressed?

HS: These issues are very serious. I believe that the Albanian diaspora is tired now of giving money. So far they have done so for 3 wars – in Kosovo, South Serbia and Macedonia. I don’t know if they would take you seriously now, to get up in front of all these people, in front of the entire diaspora who already gave so much for these 3 wars, and to ask for more. I think that would not be accepted.

Besides, all of them have family ties here, and in Kosovo and in South Serbia, and they know from these ties that the Albanians here are tired of fighting.

CD: In quitting the DUI publicly last year, you cited corruption and cronyism as among your reasons for becoming an independent. Can you elaborate on this?

HS: One way of creating an oligarchy in a party is to staff it with all the same people, and eliminate the opportunity for skilled people to make their contributions. That is the way it is in DUI. This is something very harmful for all Albanians. In, DUI skilled and educated people don’t get the chance to get their way.

CD: Has this caused practical problems?

HS: The people in government now are not prepared to implement even basic processes. I often say that if it weren’t for the international community, DUI wouldn’t know how to implement anything!

CD: Well, how do you propose fixing the situation? What about the presence of organized crime and corruption, for example?

HS: The situation has many aspects and different influences. Definitely, organized crime is present. But in Macedonia should function a legal state, and to secure this we should first of all implement judicial reforms. This most of all will help lower levels of corruption.

But this can’t be done within the existing structures. We need new political options for a true and real approach to solving these problems – and preferably with people who don’t have criminal records and other negative features. Because after all, thieves can’t be judged by other thieves!

CD: So can you point out some specific cases of corruption you feel to be especially destructive?

HS: I don’t want to point out any specific examples, but this is the general characteristic of political life. I’ve talked with people in the DUI base who said that to get a job, they had to pay 1000 euros to a party person – just to get their name on the list! Because we’re talking about corruption, I will mention someone you may already know of, Abdulhalim Kasami, the finance director of DUI. I want to know what kind of finances he’s director of. What is his role? To racketeer people in private firms, or what?

CD: I have no idea. Why do you think he got the job, and what does it actually involve?

HS: I’m just interested because of his position, his very title is connected with corruption. For his role and function you should ask Ali Ahmeti, who appointed him. He’s from Tetovo but they spent a lot of time together in the diaspora.

CD: So now about your new party. There has been a lot of speculation about this and now we find that you are starting to make something happening. How is progress so far?

HS: We are at the beginning phase now of the party. We formed an initiation board, and published a political statement. By the end of this month, we will register the party. Now it is called NDF, New Democratic Forces (Forcat E Reja Demokratike in Albanian).

A few days ago, our political declaration was made public to the media. This set the basic pillars of the political program, and the vision and ideals we have. We aim to be an alternative for citizens, and to uphold 5 basic principles: honesty; trust; courage; transparency, and foresight.

CD: Can you give us a list of any
co-leaders or members you’ve already signed up?

HS: Yes. We have the members of our initiation board, from several parts of Macedonia. From Skopje, we have Agron Zajazi. From Tetovo, Arben Rusi. From Gostivar, Vebi Ramadani. From Debar, Ljuan Haxhirexha. From the municipality of Saraj near Skopje, Nasar Hamiti, and from Kumanovo… me.

CD: What about the popular former Gostivar mayor, Rufi Osmani? There was talk that he might be joining a new opposition bloc.

HS: No- for the moment, Rufi Osmani is not with us.

CD: Can you tell us something about the men you have just named. Where do they come from? Do they have party ties? Were they NLA fighters like you?

HS: The characteristic common to all these people is that I think all of them have a clean and honest past. They weren’t fighters, actually most are intellectuals, but of course in the future some former NLA fighters may join.

For example, Ljuan has a PhD in Mining, and Rusi is an architect. Hamiti is an economist, Agron, a medical doctor and Vebi, a linguist.

In the near future, we will start to form branches and sub-branches and hopefully have more input from young people.

CD: Still, despite the widespread dissatisfaction with the established order among the general population, can you hope to be ready to compete in next year’s elections, considering you are just beginning operations now?

HS: We cannot give promises like other parties who enjoy better established positions. We can only point out a better way to try to solve economic problems. I think we will have the support of professional and educated people most of all.

CD: Your critics say that since you are from Kumanovo and therefore even if you have popularity there, it will be hard for you to command the loyalty of Albanians from the west of Macedonia, which is home to the DUI and DPA leadership.

HS: This is a problem that we must analyze. Albanians in Macedonia have the same problems wherever they may happen to live. First we should find the proper standpoint for assessing the problem with our political life. We should insist on explaining that the situation was created by the existing structures. And we should always defend the truth, and in this way we will get support from the Tetovo and Gostivar people, even though I am from Kumanovo region.

It is true that Xhaferi and Ahmeti are from the west of Macedonia. But I think the people have already seen everything they’re going to see from those guys. If the people think that they deserve political support…. Okay, what the people think should be respected. But this present bad situation can be overcome with a new vision, to show that the problem can be solved.

CD: What do you think is the number one problem for Albanians in Macedonia today? The economy?

HS: Yes. The economic situation is for the moment the biggest problem for Albanians. All the other issues will not be solved without that. Macedonia as a country is not capable of very fast and fruitful industrial development. But the climate is very promising for Macedonia in agriculture, for very good and environmentally clean produce for the EU market. I think Macedonia should give priority to agriculture, but unfortunately investment in this area is very low. In tourism there is also a possibility. Their developments will condition the change in economy to allow the development of more heavy industry. Along with agriculture I include animal products, like dairy.

CD: So what has been the reaction to your new political initiative from the internationals? Have you had any meetings with the diplomats?

HS: Yes, now the diplomats have started to express their interest; I have met with representatives of the British embassy and the OSCE. They were interested in my initiative. In fact, tomorrow morning US officials will visit me here in parliament.

Immediately now we will start to build a structure with the base, according to what we plan to offer. We should define ourselves as distinct from the existing parties and take a standpoint for progress. We must offer a real alternative for the future.

Bulgarian foreign investment continued strongly with several high-profile acquisitions in recent weeks. But now that the European Union’s failed attempt at creating a constitution has affected enthusiasm for enlargement, will there be any negative results for Bulgaria?

On June 1, Telekom Austria signed a Share Purchase Agreement which gave it total ownership of Mobiltel AD. According to the Sofia News Agency, the mobile provider is valued at “up to EUR 1.6 B.” With 3.14 million subscribers, MobilTel is the largest mobile operator in Bulgaria with almost 64 percent of the subscriber market. Telekom Austria CEO Heinz Sundt acknowledged the “strategic advantage” the acquisition would give his company in Bulgaria.Until now, MobiTel had been owned by a consortium led by ABN AMRO Capital, Citigroup Investments Inc. and Communications Venture Partners Limited. But the consortium also included some of MobilTel’s existing Austrian shareholders.

The market as a whole is faring robustly. Bulgaria’s other big mobile operation, GloBul, is owned by Greece’s national company, OTE.   Its first-quarter 2005 operating income “…shows an increase by 64% on the year-ago period… the rise was mainly due to higher receipts from subscription fees, which increased by 71%.” For the same periods, GloBul profits more than doubled, from 16 million euros to 34 billion, with a 55 percent year-on-year subscriber increase.

According to the Sofia Echo, Bulgaria’s telecommunication market “…grew by 11 per cent in 2004 after Bulgarian operators expanded their range of services, and because of constantly increasing competition after the licensing of the third GSM operator.” Further, mobile services in Bulgaria “…continued to grow at the expense of the fixed-line market… The former state monopoly, the Bulgarian Telecommunication Company (BTC), lost 40 per cent of its incoming and 11 per cent of its outgoing international call traffic after the end of its monopoly of the provision of leased lines and fixed-line services.:

In another sector, global giant Coca-Cola, through its Greek subsidiary, last week announced its total acquisition of Bulgarian mineral water company Bankia. According to the Sofia News Agency, the amount Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company S.A. paid for the Sofia-area Bankia “was not disclosed.”

This continuing interest comes at a time when the country’s tight fiscal policy has led to a record 345 million euro budget surplus.

But will the recent defeats of the EU Constitution in France and Holland, and the resulting atmosphere of doom and gloom gripping the union, have any effect on Bulgaria’s business climate? After giving Bulgaria the green light for 2007 accession and specifically crediting it for its painstaking reforms, the flustered Eurocrats are now worrying about the effect of the votes on their economy and taking it out on all-but-assured candidates such as Bulgaria and Romania by hypocritically backpedaling in the wake of the referendums they had thought concluded. With other countries waiting to negate the constitution, such as the Czech Republic and Denmark, the EU is grasping for any obstacle it can to appease its population’s wrath with its autocratic, endlessly expansionistic ways.

Thus, in the wake of the referendums, Enlargement Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn recently stated that Bulgaria and Romania will receive “early warning letters” that “would focus on the evident current shortcomings in the reforms of both countries.” Bulgaria had been expecting to make final negotiations this fall for a 2007 entry into the European club.

Comparing the situation to a “yellow card” in football, Rehn intimated darkly his hope that “…both countries can read the political climate of Europe.” There’s no doubt about that.
According to Rehn, Bulgaria is “lagging behind” in 5 areas (most notably legal reforms and the fight against corruption and organized crime) and Romania, in 7 areas.
And, according to the British international property investment specialists Assetz International, the Bulgarian (and Turkish) property markets could be “hit hard” by the EU’s backtracking.

A company representative, Stuart Law, said on June 4 that

“…Turkey was supposed to start negotiations in October 2005 – it is clearly now in greater danger of not getting off the ground as several EU members are fully against Turkey joining. In addition Bulgaria and Romania have signed a treaty to join in 2007 but unless it is ratified by all 25 EU member states it cannot go ahead and only 2 have done so far. These two countries are suffering from corruption and other problems and the property market is a little bit ‘wild-west’ at present – if these issues are not dealt with to the satisfaction of all the EU nations then membership could be off the cards for these two countries and the property market particularly in Bulgaria could go into freefall after its early strong gains in house prices…

Investors should treat property investment in these not-yet-to-join countries as highly speculative and beware of the loose claims made by property agents for the guaranteed returns they could make – don’t put all your eggs in one basket with any kind of investment – especially property where the resale-market could dry up overnight and leave you high and dry – the three highest risk property investment areas are now Turkey, Northern Cyprus and Bulgaria.”

Regardless of the EU’s effect on the Bulgarian economy, Reuters reports that there are also fears that Bulgaria will elect a Socialist government big on public spending in the June 25^th elections, thus gouging the record budget surplus.

In response to sensational new testimony from former coalition partner Arben Xhaferi, Ljubco Georgievski denied the long-suspected conspiracy theory that states he and the DPA leader had plotted the 2001 war as a controlled conflict preliminary to dividing the country according to ethnicity. However, his answer is sufficiently vague as to leave unanswered the question of whether they had at least hoped for such a result.Speaking in an interview for Kosovo media, Xhaferi alleged that ever since the VMRO-DPA coalition came to power in 1998, the plan for dividing the country along ethnic lines was being considered. According to him, an amicable divorce could have saved a lot of headaches: “…we could have avoided the possibility for violence. We could have separated in a peaceful way. The war stopped us.”

According to A1, Xhaferi also said that on the partition idea they even consulted functionaries from Belgrade such as the assassinated Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who agreed with this idea and also promoted the division of Kosovo.

However, the former prime minister fired back in a letter to the Macedonian media (he is currently out of the country, says A1), that the allegations are untrue. “…I didn’t have any conversation at all with Mr. Xhaferi about this idea until the beginning of the [2001] war,” claimed Georgievski. “Then, Xhaferi didn’t want to talk about this problem and the conversation finished.”

In this context, A1 reminds of the initiative by the Macedonian Academy of Arts & Sciences to make a territorial and population exchange in the middle of the 2001 conflict. Georgievski, then prime minister, had long been criticized for not condemning this proposal. It was the negative public reaction, however, that prevented Georgievski from promoting it actively.

What could be Xhaferi’s motive? The wily old politician who was during the war beloved by the West has become increasingly alienated from the internationals since the ascension to the throne of former Swiss mental patient Ali Ahmeti. The DPA, trounced during the March local elections, has seen its status imperiled at the national and now municipal levels. Many believe that Xhaferi was gravely disappointed at being supplanted by Ali Ahmeti as spokesman for the Albanian people. Since then, he seems to have lost the political will to make a meaningful challenge to Ahmeti’s DUI. As such, the DPA platform has become dependably nationalistic, criticizing throughout the DUI for allegedly slow and incomplete implementation of the Ohrid Agreement

Since his exit from power, Georgievski too has been relegated to the sidelines but still managed to convey his views on partition in newspaper columns. His breakaway party, VMRO-Narodna, was also shut out at the polls in March. The failure of their nationalistic politics in the elections indicated that they were, more or less, flogging a dead horse. On the other hand, neither Xhaferi nor Georgievski have anywhere to go but up. They have nothing to lose, no responsibilities to the people, and thus have room to experiment.

However, the key factor – demography – dictates that with every passing year, the bargaining power of the Macedonian side becomes weaker and weaker. This partly explains how the SDSM’s “compromises” with DUI over the Ohrid “reforms” have been so ridiculously one-sided. The latter knew, as did the Rolling Stones, that ‘time, time, time is on our side.’

A new report from the Institute for Strategic Investigations in the Macedonian Academy of Arts & Sciences, drawing on the 2002 census results and other data, states that the “ethnic balance” will be ruined by a high Albanian birth rate and the Macedonians’ aging population – in a nutshell, the exact problem EU countries now face with their own Muslim minorities.

Daily newspaper Dnevnik quotes Professor Elka Dimitrieva from the Institute for Economy, who claims that between the 1994 and 2002 censuses, “great quantitative differences” have occurred, which will have far-reaching results in the future.

“…The total population has a minimum increase of 3.9 percent,” Elkova says. “But for the Macedonians is registered an increase from 0.2 percent, and for the Albanians, 22.7 percent. Albanians are responsible for 89 percent of the total increase of the population.”

However, in the same article academic and former prime minister Nikola Klusev pointed out that “…the increase of Albanians has been made greater with migrations from Kosovo and South Serbia. In the census of 2002, instead of being a regular, statistical operation, it acquired political dimensions. That’s why we had irregular things – boycotts, writing [on the census form] for the people who are not in the country, and writing more than once for the same person. That makes a big difficulty for demographic analysis.”

There is no reason to believe that Ahmeti and his comrades were ever interested in a multi-ethnic Macedonia, much less a unitary one. But compared to today’s DPA, they seem practically angelic. Nevertheless, the current farce of the decentralization and other apparent “compromises” merely represent the temporary simulation of good faith. In a decade or so, when the Framework Agreement will have done its work and its planners and Western backers are retired or dead, the demographic and linguistic disparity will have become unavoidable. By this time too Western governments (and especially the US) fatigued by the fallout of expensive wars in the Middle East and beyond will take a different view.

By that time, the think-tanks and experts who from 2001 until now have been shrieking about how Macedonia could not be divided because my God, what would that imply about all of us as humans will hypocritically come to look at partition as not only a relief but as a sensible result – because by that time the geographical area dominated by Albanians will be large enough that the remaining chunk of Macedonian land will not be large enough to survive as an independent entity. It will become a question of efficiency, since after all Kosovo at its current size cannot survive either. At present, Macedonia remains just a little too large to be digested by its neighbors.

Of course, if the trends illustrated by the French and Dutch referendums are any indicators, by that time the EU and its self-appointed moral lawgivers may have a lot more to worry about than any amount of bloodshed or woe that could be caused by anything that happens in Macedonia and the Balkans.