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Archive for October, 2005

A Macedonian Songcatcher Saves Ancient Traditions (Part 1)

Part 1 of this fascinating interview with a leading Macedonian ethnomusicologist discusses her interests in the field, the challenges one faces in coaxing songs out of reluctant villagers, and the importance of ritual music in Macedonian culture.
32 year-old Velika Stojkova Serafimovska, a professional ethnomusicologist at the Macedonian Institute for Folk Dance [...]

One Tito Bails, Another One’s Resurrected: Macedonia’s Theater of the Bizarre

Tito Petkovski, the longtime SDSM man and losing presidential candidate in 1999, announced his departure from the governing party this week. Simultaneously joining him in dissent, if not in camaraderie, were devotees of another Tito – Josip Broz, that is.
Petkovski’s exodus from the SDSM came as no surprise. For a long [...]

Classic Balkanalysis: Another Side of the Georgian-Russian Conflict

Exactly one year ago, this exclusive report from the top of the Caucasus Mountains was published on Antiwar.com . The beautiful pictures and testimony from ordinary civilians trapped by political interests makes for compelling and provocative reading.

When it comes to coverage of the ongoing feud between Georgia and Russia, the Western mass media have a tendency to draw their testimony from “official” sources – political leaders, think tank analysts and the representatives of semi-political organizations such as the OSCE and Western-funded NGOs. However, with only a few exceptions, the voice of the common people is rarely heard. This tacit media complicity all too often invalidates the viewpoint of regular Georgians or Russians as being irrelevant, while it ends up bolstering the policies of their increasingly bellicose governments or blessing the programs of allegedly populist organizations supported from without.Further, media articles featuring miniature maps of the Caucasus tend to be political too. That is, while they reveal the jagged borders of far-flung territories unknown to most outsiders, and the locations of various cities therein, they tend to pay less heed to the geographical realities – something which is unfortunate, considering that the history of the entire Caucasus region has always been shaped by the exigencies of its rugged, mountainous terrain.

Having had an interest in the country and its key problems for several years, I endeavored on my latest trip to Georgia to visit other parts of the country, and get a mixture of opinions that would include the testimonies of non-official people whose lives are being affected by the decisions of their increasingly rash leaders.

A nice place to visit: Georgia’s northern terrain is a joy to see – unless you can’t exit.

Into the Mountains

It is less than a four-hour drive north to reach the Russian border from Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi. But the road is winding and difficult, as it cuts through mountains that reach their peak in Mt. Kazbek (16,558 feet). Known as the Georgian Military Highway, this historically strategic route is marred with crater-sized potholes and disintegrates completely into dirt and rocks at its summit, the Jvari Pass. At many points, the road is carved out of sheer cliff faces and contains numerous built-in tunneled underpasses on the sides – a necessity, owing to the massive snowfall this area gets in winter. Needless to say, the views are magnificent throughout.

I negotiated this route after enlisting the services of one Tariel Tabashidze, a 40-year-old agronomist by training who now works as a translator for German and U.S. companies and individuals. Since the journey is definitely too challenging for the average car, we took his brother’s trusty white Lada Niva – the Russian answer to a Jeep. Along the way, Tabashidze proudly recounted how the very same vehicle had been hired out a decade ago to BBC reporter Andrew Harding for his forays into neighboring Chechnya.

Unlike that volatile region, Georgia’s Kazbegi region is a sparsely-populated oasis of tranquility, featuring abundant wildlife and medieval stone churches, sprinkled with tiny villages that culminate in the small town of Kazbegi itself, just a few miles from Russia. The proximity of the border means that the dilapidated shops in Kazbegi and its outlying villages are filled with Russian goods. Georgian farmers also send the majority of their produce north for export. Unlike claims of allegiance with Russia voiced by secessionists in Georgia’s South Ossetian and Abkhazian provinces, Kazbegi’s Russian relationship has nothing to do with politics. Rather, the greater distance and geographical difficulties of communicating with Tbilisi – especially in winter, when the whole area is snowed under – mean that the locals must rely on their connections with their much closer neighbors to the north, and especially the regional center of Vladikavkaz.

For remote mountain villages, having connections with nearby North Ossetia, over the Russian border, is necessary for survival.

The Border Swings Shut

However, these connections were instantly severed by the tragedy of Beslan on Sept. 1. In the wake of this deadly terrorist attack, Russian President Putin ordered the closure of Russia’s border with the south as a security measure. Yet by early October, when I visited, the Kazbegi border (known as the Upper Lars crossing) was still closed. Any security risks (had there really been any) were long ended.

There was another factor to consider here. Almost exactly two years before, I had traveled via helicopter to another border point – Shatili – which sits snug on the Chechen part of the Russian border. Here, young OSCE monitors had, two days earlier, been stopped in a remote place by a dozen heavily armed Chechens. Luckily for them, the monitors were released, but with the following warning: “We know all about your little camp. So if you tell the Russians about us before two days have passed, we will destroy it.”

From this and many other accounts, it thus seemed that Russian charges are justified. At least on their part of the border, Chechen terrorists did occasionally slip in and out of the Georgian wilds. However, it was also hard to believe that any such individual would be found standing in line, waiting to be processed at an official border checkpoint. Whether or not the Russians decided to close the border at Kazbegi would thus mean little for state security.

Pressing on to the closed border checkpoint, this old woman planned to camp overnight until it reopened.

And so even if initially understandable, the Russian border closure simply made no sense. And, as I found, it has meant trouble for both local Georgians and travelers trying to pass through. Elderly Makhvala Sargishvili owns a kiosk located (literally) in a hole in the wall running outside her tiny mountain village. Crammed inside the shop window were dusty boxes of outdated Russian provisions. Almost all of her products came from Russia, but with the blockage at the border she was faced with a real problem. “Life is not so bad, but not so good, either. This problem with the border is really difficult for us.”

These comments were shared by three farmers, Giorgi, Emzar, and Vano, pitching hay in the idyllic mountain village of Kobi. Tomorrow would be dog-fighting day in the village, they announced; there was simply nothing else to do for entertainment. “There’s no TV,” said Giorgi, “and nobody has enough money to get married. There are now 59 couples from these villages waiting to have a wedding someday.”

Agriculture is the only source of income for these villagers, and a very seasonal one. Within a few weeks after my visit, they predicted, the snow would start falling. Now, with the Russian border closed, “we can neither get goods we need nor export our produce,” lamented Vano. Geography, not politics or ethnicity, had forced these Georgians to throw in their lot with the Russian Ossetian population to the north.

“We feel like animals. We have been stuck here for 32 days,” said Isak Ogosian (right).

The Stranded Armenians

However difficult the border closure was for ordinary Georgian villagers, those most affected at the time were 25 Armenians who’d had the bad luck of reaching the border just as the carnage in Beslan was unfolding. Some were trying to go to Russia for work, others to return to their adopted homes in Vladikavkaz. None of them were prepared for the ordeal that would leave them trapped at the border for almost two months.

“We feel like animals,” growled Isak Ogosian, the group’s bearded spokesman. “We have been stuck here for 32 days. We have to sleep sitting up in the bus. And, despite our pleas, nobody helps us.”

Among the disconsolate bunch were old ladies, young mothers and small children. They had little remaining money and supplies, and subsisted only due to the help of the already impoverished locals. While Georgian media had paid them a visit early on in the saga, nothing substantial had been done to ameliorate their situation. The mountain chasms falling into the river – in any other situation, hopelessly breathtaking – had become a sort of prison.

Indeed, life seemed pretty unhappy for the stranded Armenians. Some people slept in the rusty old bus, while one old woman prepared some variety of borscht in a metal pan. A little boy kicked one of the many crushed cans littering the ground as if it were a soccer ball. Off to one side, a young man snoring in a sleeping bag competed with a mangy, dozing dog. When they couldn’t get him to wake up, Isak formed the shape of a cross on his back with some grass, sending the rest into hysterics. It was a rare uproarious moment for a dejected and powerless group of forgotten travelers.

“All we want is to go back to Armenia,” said Anna, 22, pictured with daughter Angelina.

“Nobody gets to go through [the border] except important people,” charged Elizabeta Abramovna, a retired doctor who moved to Vladikavkaz 37 years ago with her late husband, then an official in the Soviet government. “Because of my complaining, everyone knows about me now, the governments and media. But still nobody helps us.” According to her, the official response to the travelers’ requests was a perfect example of passing the buck: since the Georgian side gave them permission to exit Georgia, it was no longer their problem when the Russians denied them entry. The Armenian officials they had consulted said there was nothing they could do either.

For a month the Armenians had lived with the vague promise that the border would soon be open. Nevertheless, this endless waiting had caused some to give up hope.

“About 12 of them want to just forget it and go back to Armenia [190 km/118 mi. to the south], where they have family,” revealed Isak. “All we need is about $100 to hire a minibus. This situation is hard, especially for the children,” he said, nodding at 3-year-old Angelina, an adorable and shy little girl hiding behind her mother, Anna. “All we want is to go back to Armenia, just to get at least to the [Armenian] border,” said Anna. “After that we can find a way, somehow.” And that is how we left them, in the chilly afternoon preceding yet another spectacular Caucasus sunset.

Yet the saga continued. Only on Oct. 22 was the border finally reopened. Armenian President Robert Kocharian “hailed” the event as “evidence that tension in North Ossetia is subsiding after the Beslan events.” In other words, not only did his government fail to help his own stranded citizens, but the president went out of his way to toe the Kremlin’s official line on the reason for the border having been closed in the first place.

For his part, Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili, appearing together with Kocharian, could only grumble that the border closure “has reminded us once again that sales markets should be looked for not only in Russia.” Wonderful. Yet unless Saakashvili proposes to detonate hundreds of miles of mountain range, it doesn’t seem likely that the north Georgians of Kazbegi will change their habits.

A woman enjoys the trapped bus’ spacious sleeping quarters.

The Ossetian Question

And why should they? “We have no problem with the Ossetian people,” said my earnest guide, Mr. Tabashidze. “It is the politicians who create these conflicts.” His opinion was echoed by villagers we surveyed. “For us, it should not be a problem to visit a doctor, say, or go in the Russian shops there [in Vladikavkaz],” said Giorgi the farmer from Kobi. “This is our normal life.”

Indeed, though the South Ossetian “government” desires to join up with its kin on the other side of the border – Russia’s North Ossetia, where the Beslan saga unfolded – there is no wide-ranging ethnic hostility as has been the case in the Balkans, for instance. The Georgians of Kazbegi, at least, have long been trading with and visiting the Ossetians just over the border, and vice versa.

Hostilities often seem to be manipulated by the decisions of powerful leaders far above and far removed from the areas in question. Indeed, as a Georgian soldier unlucky enough to be serving in the South Ossetian “neutral zone” told one recent visitor, “this isn’t between us and the Ossetians. It’s between us and Russia.”

“We have no problem with the Ossetian people,” said interpreter Tariel Tabashidze. “It is the politicians who create these conflicts.”

Threats of War

However, the continued brinkmanship between these two major players is having its predictable local effect. “We will not wait long,” threatened an unnamed local from the Georgian village of Abasheni, on the edge of the neutral zone. “We will wait two or three days and then we will also shoot at [the South Ossetian town of] Tskhinvali.” The threat follows weeks of agitation from Georgians who claim they are being targeted by Ossetian paramilitaries during overnight outbursts of violence. The Georgians blame the Ossetian side for provoking the attacks, while the Ossetians are equally adamant that it’s the Georgian army that is inciting them. For his part, the Russian major general heading the Joint Peacekeeping Force in South Ossetia told the protesting Georgians that he “cannot control everybody.” The Georgians question whether Russia is even interested in controlling their Ossetian charges. In this vacuum of responsibility, however, “both sides are laying mines despite the pleas of OSCE to stop,” and talk has again returned to war.

As if to set an example, Interior Minister Irakli Okruashvili last week started a three-week military training course for army reservists. President Saakashvili – who wants to ban anyone who hasn’t undergone such training from taking up a civil post – sees the militarization of Georgian society as indispensable for proving the unity of the “Georgian nation.” These perhaps ominous developments occur at a time when the Georgian government is beefing up its military presence in the conflict area. The Ossetians are likewise digging in.

It was the international shock over Beslan that seems to have hushed the Georgian government’s warmongering words in September. After all, the summer months had been “hot,” peaking in late August with Saakashvili’s memorable declaration that Georgians should prepare for imminent war with Russia. However, if these recent developments are any indicator, it appears that sufficient time has passed to allow for heated words to once again shape the political discourse. Unfortunately, this will also mean that foreign media coverage of Georgia remains obsessed with the breathless statements of officials – and not the common people they allegedly empowered with last year’s “Rose Revolution.”

Vevchani’s Magical Mystery Church Continues to Puzzle

Could an enigma of the “Da Vinci Code’ variety be unfolding in the Macedonian wilds? In Vevchani, that loveably eccentric southwestern hamlet where last month was discovered the ruins of an old church, archaeologists already knew that they had a significant find. But they are still trying to figure out exactly [...]

Balkanalysis.com’s Unknown Archive- Available Exclusively from CEEOL

Some readers may have wondered what exactly is that funny little man in the ad on the left side of the page all about. So let’s take a minute to explain.
Since 2004, Balkanalysis.com has been partnered with the Central and Eastern European Online Library, a cool German company that makes the [...]

America’s Inheritance in the Caucasus

This article, originally published by Antiwar.com on September 24, 2005, points out the difficulties the US will face as it seeks to take over control of Russia’s strategic southern sphere of influence.

While intervention is never praiseworthy, the one thing that can be said about international involvement in the Caucasus is that it has at least been fairly cosmopolitan, marked by a wide variety of voices and nations, and less prone to polarizing truisms than in, say, the Balkans, where the unchallenged ascendancy of the “Milosevic is guilty for everything” line has basically eliminated the possibility of a more nuanced discourse and contributed so much to the domination of US/EU single-track ideological rule.

Indeed, as the Christian Science Monitor recently put it, “the region is a patchwork quilt of warring ethnic groups and rival religions that makes Europe’s other tangled knot, the Balkans, look tame by comparison.”At least with the Caucasus, one encounters more reasoned analyses and a wider variety of organizations, governments and individuals championing a much more complex bundle of interests. Cut-and-dried conclusions appear less frequently, and when war and ethnic cleansing is brought up, there is guilt enough to go around on all sides. The Western mass media, despite its unfortunate adulation of Georgia’s “Rose Revolution,” has been fairly even-handed, though perhaps unintentionally. This is because a large part of their “objectivity” owes to the region’s great distance, mentally and geographically, from the average Western reader; whereas the Balkans was more or less in Europe’s backyard, the Caucasus is on the edge of the property – or maybe even on the other side.

Turbulence in the North

Meanwhile, on the other side of the other side, in the North Caucasus, tensions have been rising as a murky web of secessionists, Islamists and common criminals provoke an already tense situation with renewed violence. The goal, boasts a Chechen commander, is to provoke a region-wide war that would see the definitive exodus of Russia from the Caucasus. In an interview with a Polish newspaper posted on the pro-Chechen site Kavkazcenter Chechen “President” Abdul Sadulayev stated:

“We cannot doubt our victory. It is enough to look at the situation which is taking shape in Chechnya for that. The Russians started this war, hoping to make a ‘local conflict’ out of it. They have been pursuing their ‘wise policy’ here, and as a result Dagestan has turned into a military front, as has the whole of the Caucasus. A Caucasus front has been organized including all the areas (sectors) of Ingushetia, Kabarda-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, Adygeya, Stavropol Territory, Krasnodar Territory and North Ossetia.”

Unrestricted Attacks, Expanding Fronts

While Sadulayev’s familiar if disingenuous logic of blaming everything on Russia should be taken with a grain of salt, it is true that the violence has been spreading.

Last week, four explosions hit Ingushetia, targeting a cargo train, court building, bus stop and military column. While damage was small, the bombings rattled an already tense republic whose Muslim population has been aiding the fighters of neighboring Chechnya. And, since the terrorist attack on a school in Beslan a year ago, tensions have dramatically increased between the Ingush Muslims and Orthodox Christians of North Ossetia to the west, where Beslan is located. The two republics fought a brief war shortly after the break-up of the USSR and it cannot be ruled out that they will not clash again. According to Russian police, the four bombings were the Muslim terrorists’ choice of “revenge” against the government, which had “recently conducted successful operations against several groups of local militants.”

Meanwhile, a police officer in the truly multiethnic (over 30 indigenous groups) Dagestan was shot, and several Russian troops have been killed in fighting as well, reports the BBC. Another recent article, reporting an attack on a Russian oil pipeline in North Ossetia, claims that “Moscow controls this area in name only. In reality the news has admitted that a lot of the violence is not even being reported. Police and troops die daily across the North Caucasus to the Caspian… The area is completely up for grabs.”

Finally, according to the CSM, Ingush President Murat Zyazikov, who “narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of a suicide car-bomber and a sniper,” is being targeted by Islamic militants loyal to Basayev, who last year briefly captured the capital, Nazran, “killing almost 100 police officers and government officials” in the process. While Zyazikov put out a brave face for the newspaper, claiming that things are basically peaceful, locals aren’t so sure: “‘everyone here is always talking about getting ready for war with the Ingush, to get even with them,’ says Madina Pedatova, a teacher at Beslan’s spanking new School No. 8. ‘I’m terrified of it, but I’m sure it’s coming.’”

Internal Fractures as Well

“Our forecasts say that Tatarstan and Bashkortostan will rise up next, because Russia’s policy there is aimed at suppressing Muslims, and this cannot fail to end in an explosion of emotions among the masses,” adds Sadulayev in the Polish interview. “The role of Islam in the Caucasus is huge. The Muslim population is in the majority here. Since we Chechens are surrounded by friendly Muslim people, there are friendly traditions and kinship links between us.”

However, not all involved see the conflict in such terms. As the situation deteriorates further, infighting between the sides continues. According to Interfax on Sept. 17, Chechen leader Akhmad Avdorkhanov, “a one-time aide to the late Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov and the commander of the so-called Eastern Front of Ichkeria” was killed by militants loyal to rival group leader Shamil Basayev.

Chechnya’s First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov described the slain Avdorkhanov as a moderate; he was allegedly “among the most influential field commanders, was notable for his particular courage, was categorically against Wahhabis (radical Muslims), and did not recognize Basayev.” Indeed, Sadulayev praises Basayev as “a disciplined amir and mojahed.”

However, according to the deputy premier, while Basayev viewed Avdorkhanov as a threat to be dealt with, “the immediate motive behind the murder is the 1.5 million US dollars recently received by the Chechen separatists. ‘The incident that led to Avdorkhanov’s death was prompted by Basayev’s attempts to lay his hands on this money… the leaders of illegal armed groups, primarily Basayev, have no ideals, but only the desire to make money, kill, and please their foreign patrons, despite numerous victims among the Chechen
people,’ the official noted.”

Neocons in the Midst

Who are these “foreign patrons” of the Chechen cause? Without doubt, wealthy Islamic fundamentalists from the Arabic world rank high on the list. However, moral support for the Chechen militants can be found closer to home. Less motivated by lucre than by a bizarre obsession with reviving the Cold War, Washington hawks have taken a prominent position on the Chechnya issue, it seems, solely with the aim of weakening Russia. Unfortunately, a powerful and influential bloc in Washington – some neoconservative, all predatorial – would like to shape events in a way that could have disastrous long-term effects for America, guided by a desire to cling to archaic antagonisms and to seek vindictive “victories” through extremely short-sighted tactics.

A prime nesting ground for these hawks has been the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC) Writing a year ago, in the wake of the Beslan tragedy, John Laughland stated:

“The list of the self-styled ‘distinguished Americans’ who are its members is a roll call of the most prominent neoconservatives who so enthusiastically support the ‘war on terror.’

Unfortunately, the braintrust that brought us the twin “liberations” of Iraq and Afghanistan seems to have similar plans for Russia. Their plans proceed along two fronts: one, replace Vladimir Putin with a malleable “pro-Western reformist” such as the celebrated businessman and former Yukos boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky; and two, humiliate the country through its dissolution, starting with its Caucasus possessions.

Richard Perle’s championing of the Khodorkovsky cause is well-known; less clear is the degree and type of support his bunch provides the Chechens. Does it end with providing asylum to Chechen terrorists in America and Britain, or are the neocons trying to “give Russia their Vietnam” (as cold-warrior extraordinaire and current ACPC Chairman Zbigniew Brzezinski once put it) for the second time, and again through more direct support?

There’s little definite proof, but the one thing that is sure is that the most fervent supporters of the “war on terror” exhibit a predictable schizophrenia in supporting “good” Muslims, as was the case in the Bosnia and Kosovo interventions: “In Chechnya, the conflict has created a cultural and demographic crisis rivaling the tragedies witnessed in Bosnia and Kosovo.” Of course, there’s no mention of the very real terrorist attacks carried out by foreign-backed Chechen and other Islamic fighters, who would like to replace Russian rule with “a single Islamist state stretching from the Caspian to the Black Sea.”

Indeed, in an unpredictable era of shadowy enemies and “non-state actors,” Brzezinski’s celebrated 1998 quote now seems even more foolish than ever:

“What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”

Preconceptions, Simplifications and Hard Realities

Yet apparently the Cold War is not yet over. If Brzezinski and his crew have their way, America’s inheritance in Russia’s final lost provinces of the Caucasus will be just as auspicious as it has been in Afghanistan.

The Cold Warriors’ presuppositions seem to rest on the following false assumptions: that Russia is the enemy, and harming it in any way is thus in America’s interests; that Iran is evil and uncontrollable; that the Caucasus can be divided into a north and south, meaning that one can be stabilized to the detriment or enhancement of the other; and, finally, that America has the resources and capabilities to control everything in the world.

However, the opposite is clear in every case. Russia is not the enemy; it has no extra-territorial ambitions, and its delapidated military poses no threat. On the other hand, NATO’s expanding remit, American bases in Central Asia, and the increasingly anti-Russian attitudes of US and EU client states in Eastern Europe have pretty much finished off the Russian bear. Much to the ire of Perle and Co., the only trump cards Putin’s vast nation still enjoys are nuclear weapons and a huge supply of oil. However, the Russian leader is not averse to involving foreign oil companies, as his recent meetings in America indicated. And considering that the US has declared the possibility of Russian nukes falling into the wrong hands, there seem to be few reasonable arguments for accelerating the country’s decline. Expediting dissolution in the North Caucasus only increases the risk of Russian nuclear materials and other weapons coming into the possession of terrorists.

Indeed, while the neocons might be gloating when they see Russia fall apart, it is hardly likely that successor “republics” such as Chechnya aspires to be would be more Jeffersonian than Islamic. No one in Chechnya is going to thank a Washington thinktank for championing their cause when it comes time to establishing the mores of social life and the rules of the political that will govern them. But given the narcissistic delusions of the war/democracy party, which have reached glorious fulfillment in Iraq, they are no doubt expecting to be embraced as benevolent role models by the Chechens, the Ingush and whoever else comes next.

As for Iran, the destabilization of this charter member of the “Axis of Evil,” whether under democratic or security pretenses via Iraq, would only harm the fragile balance of power in the Caucasus. This perceptive article discusses in detail why Iran “has acted as a moderate and balanced player in the region by placing the geopolitical, economic, and security aspects of its national interests over ideological or religious motives.”
Yet disinterested in seeing the complete picture of rival religious and ethnic interests in the Caucasus, an arrogant American leadership has labored under the pretense that its multi-colored revolutions and its oil pipelines can be the only guarantors of regional “stability.” They seldom consider the complex web of religious and ethnic relations that go into forming the policies of neighboring states which seem “outside” the equation, such as Iran. They thus fail to consider how the destabilization of such states would have wider ramifications for areas where they had believed everything was under control.

In the present context, this area under control would be what conventional wisdom deceptively calls the “South” Caucasus. Despite their very real internal antagonisms and frozen conflicts, the countries of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia are relatively quiet now, more or less pacified by Western largess and (except for the last) a desire to break out of the Russian sphere of influence. Contrasting this situation of relative tranquility to Russia’s ongoing woes on the northern side of the mountains, the Bush administration quietly gloats over the Pax Caucasia it has brought with the elevation of Mikheil Saakashvili in Georgia, and the recent completion of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

However, such a north-south distinction cannot realistically be supported. Throughout history, the Caucasus has been characterized by its singularity, its wealth of disparate ethnic and religious groups, and by its geography – simultaneously impassable and yet everywhere vulnerable to intrusion. For the most part, the region’s formidable mountains make a joke out of all attempts to impose state controls. Clan and ethnic groups straddle national and sub-national boundaries, adding to this tendency to make the latter irrelevent. Terrorist groups “safely” ensconced in Chechnya can and do spill over into Georgia. Ossetians view their national territory – memorably described by the Economist as “a smuggling racket with a patch of land attached” – as unfairly divided between Russia and Georgia, and support the former in its own interventionist policies against Georgia. Meanwhile, foreign Islamic groups trained in Chechnya and Dagestan have penetrated “pro-Western” Azerbaijan, and are starting to agitate for the overthrowing of the state. And the list goes on.

That said, America’s pride and joy for “regional stability” – the BTC pipeline – has a better chance of emerging as a gigantic target for various groups of malcontents. In an appropriately titled article called “The Pipeline from Hell,” Antiwar.com’s Justin Raimondo draws a likely conclusion of this “strategic investment”:

“If American oil companies are due to make mega-profits in the Caspian region, then the U.S. military will be doing guard duty along every inch of the BTC pipeline, ensuring ’stability’ in a land of nomadic herders and exporting ‘democracy’ to a region formerly ruled by pashas, sultans, and various and sundry dictators.”

Yet while it is true that this new asset will increase the US military commitment to the region, it is also probable that the job of providing “security” for the pipeline will also be taken over by various local lords and chieftans along the route – some of whom, like the recently reactivated Kurdish rebels in Turkey, might ask a price for their cooperation that is exceedingly high. Unfortunately, the “or else” clause is likely to become a part of the vocabulary of all such local security providers. America and its Western co-investors are likely to be in for an expensive and all-consuming headache, rather than a neat global solution to their energy and security needs.

And this is just considering the largely subjugated “South” Caucasus. How much more can these headaches be compounded, if you consider a post-Russian “North” Caucasus, characterized by tiny and volatile statelets run by dueling local chieftans, most of them under some variant of Islamic law? Are the democracy proliferators of the ACPC prepared for what they are about to get in a post-Russia Caucasus? While they hate Russia’s perceived interventionism in the Caucasus, they fail to consider what the ensuing power vacuum will look like, deprived of all counterbalancing forces.

A Sobering Conclusion

In the end, there is a comparison to be made here with another neocon-inspired war. Back in March 2003, when America’s invasion of Iraq began, syndicated columnist Charley Reese drolly congratulated the American people on their imminent “adoption” of 22 million Iraqi citizens. We’ve now seen just how much the Iraqi inheritance has benefited America. The worst thing about the situation in the Caucasus is that no one, not even the enthusiastic expansionist leadership, is aware of what they will be inheriting there.

Yet as Gabriel Kolko predicted in Another Century of War?, America’s resources are not unlimited. Heavily in debt, with foreign nations funding 43 percent of its wars, and unable to react to simple natural disasters at home, it is clear that the imperial ambitions of the neocons are simply neither sustainable nor realistic. The desire to replace Russia as imperial power in the Caucasus is a case in point.

In short, there are no indications that America has the resources, will or intelligence to “manage” this convoluted region any better than the Russians have. In fact, they will likely do much worse – Russia, at least, had the benefits of geographical proximity, thousands of years of intermingled cultures, a long-term institutional presence, etc. America has none of these. Its pretensions to rulership are largely based on the airy platitudes of armchair strategists in Washington, who have little or no appreciation for the local realities on the ground, counting on abstract values to see them through.

In the end, the American supporters of expanding the empire to the Caucasus should be careful what they wish for. They have yet to show an interest in reading Russia’s will, though the document is right in front of their eyes.

Culinary and Cultural Delights of the Tikves Wine Region

By Darko Angelov
(Photos courtesy of Samir Ljuma)
In this engaging travel piece, the author recounts a summer 2005 expedition into Macedonia’s wine country, and a trip down the country’s ‘other’ lake- Tikves (pronounced Tikvesh), which is also the general name for the entire dry and dusty region of south-central Macedonia where [...]

Tales of an Old Partisan: An Interview with Metodija Markovski

Earlier this summer, the 25th anniversary of the death of Josip Broz Tito was an occasion for mild Yugo-nostalgia across the former Yugoslavia, with Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski even vowing, perhaps not entirely facetiously, to erect a statue of Tito in Skopje.
Josip Broz is revered by the older generations who nostalgically [...]

Between Political Gathering and Tavern: Turn-of-the-Century Pirot

By Dejan Ciric*
If we want to comprehend the richness and diversity of private and public life in a town with a sense of community, like Pirot in southeastern Serbia, we should firstly outline the cultural and political influences at work. The fact that Pirot is situated in the very center [...]

Classic Balkanalysis: Western Meddling in Cyprus

This classic analysis, which originally appeared on April 23, 2004 on Antiwar.com, was written just as Cypriots were to vote on the “Annan Plan” for a united Cyprus, in a frenzy to prevent the divided, Greek Cypriot Republic from entering the EU alone. This article points out the dangers of the Annan Plan and accurately [...]

Macedonia in World War II: Debar and the Skanderbeg Division

by Carl Savich
This brand new article from Serbian-American historian Carl Savich discusses little-known events in World War II-era Macedonia, and includes rare photos and details of the Albanian Skenderbeg Division and almost unknown Ljuboten Division. It is a must-read for all interested in the turbulent history of wartime Macedonia under fascist [...]

Has the UN Let a Blacklisted Islamic Charity Roam Free in Kosovo?

This article, originally published by Antiwar.com on Sept. 15, 2005, details a worrying sign of international failure to confront terrorist-related groups in the Balkans.

When it comes to charities suspected of terrorist involvement, at what point can a series of independent actions be said to indicate coordinated and malevolent intent? And if they do in fact indicate such intent, what should be done about it?

These are the questions that Thomas Gambill, a former security officer with the OSCE, had to wrestle with during his time in Kosovo, in regards to several Islamic NGOs and charities whose stated activities seemed benign, but whose latent motives were more suspicious.According to Gambill, whose whistleblower testimony first came out on Antiwar.com in August, the verdict is not good: in more than one case, UN bosses of the occupied Serbian province “have turned a blind eye” to dangerous charities – including a local branch of an Islamic fundamentalist group that has been linked to terrorist attacks and/or extremism in countries ranging from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to Azerbaijan, Albania, and Bosnia – a group that has, in fact, been partially blacklisted by both the Bush administration and the UN since January 2002.

A Dangerous Disinterest

However, now that the group in question (the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, hereafter RIHS) has become more prominent for trying to spread ultraconservative Saudi Wahhabism and for directly sponsoring terrorist attacks, such as last month’s mass bombings in Bangladesh, UNMIK’s apparent disinterest might be more than just negligent; should the RIHS cement the Balkan foothold it established over a decade ago in Albania, it could steer long-term social trends away from the region’s so-called path of “Western integration.” More important in the short term, by ignoring the group’s presence in Kosovo, the international authorities continue to allow a key source of terrorist funding and logistical organization to operate unhindered.

Tom Gambill’s initial revelations were made public in this article, in which the former security chief contended that the majority of his colleagues were interested only in their paychecks, careers, and desire to escape Kosovo unscathed, and thus shrank from confronting any potential source of conflict, no matter how great a danger it might have represented.

“I had this info [about the charities] all the way back in 2001,” says Gambill. “But the State Department didn’t want to hear about it. And I brought it up at every meeting I went to that included [the U.S.] military, but nada. Many of the American KFOR [Kosovo Force] guys were there for their six months – you know, get the ribbon, do a few good deeds, and go home. And those who confided in me didn’t want to rock the boat with their superiors… the thinking was, “hey, we’re here for only six months – let’s get the job done as assigned and get home.”

For the present investigation, Mr. Gambill has obliged by producing official written and photographic testimony to support his case for the RIHS’ presence in Kosovo. He also recalls the generally lukewarm reaction he received from superiors. In fact, this former Marine believes that the OSCE’s decision not to renew his contract last spring owed to a face-saving desire to “bury” the stories he was insisting on telling something not very surprising, considering that the brazenly irresponsible international administration has gone to great lengths since day one to conceal its monumental failures, in areas ranging from creating a viable economy to protecting vulnerable minority groups.

One might ask, “So what? There are millions of these allegedly “dangerous’ Islamic charities out there.” That was my initial reaction when I first heard of this case. However, after some research, it became clear that far from being just another one of the myriad Islamic NGOs operating in the Balkans, the RIHS was in fact a major player with a distinguished track record and truly global aspirations. If the UN has really allowed it to flourish in Kosovo, this policy would seem to be very foolish, as the following should indicate.

The RIHS: A Quick Overview

The Revival of Islamic Heritage Society is a Kuwait-based charity with branch offices in numerous Muslim-inhabited countries. It was founded in 1992 and, according to the International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law in 2002, established international branches, including even a British one (later registered with the Charity Commission: registration no. 1014888). Quoting a now-defunct Web site, the article stated that the RIHS’ purpose is “to improve the condition of the Muslim community and develop an awareness and understanding of Islam amongst the non-Muslim communities, by concentrating on youth and education.”

Indeed, proselytizing among the young and the poor has served as the group’s preliminary method of pushing a more conservative type of worship based on the Saudi Salafi or Wahhabi form of Islam. This invariably has been carried out through large-scale mosque-building, financial incentives for converts, and attempts to alienate the young from the established traditions and political processes of their home countries. As with any cult, they do this in order to present their solutions to complex social problems as the only “true” alternatives – even if the execution of these solutions sometimes involves terrorist activities.

The RIHS’ established pattern of activity indicates a special interest in Islamic or partially Islamic states where a certain level of turbulence prevails, where stagnant economies and governmental corruption can be assailed from a broadly populist viewpoint – and, notably, where there is no historical tradition of Arab Salafi worship. In the wake of 9/11, European investigators found a clear connection between Salafi propagandists and indigenous extremist groups.

Yet despite the group’s presence in England, RIHS activities in places like Azerbaijan and Bangladesh, as well as the Balkans, have been much more important, strategically speaking, for their goal of bringing developing states under their eventual ideological and, ideally, political control.

Furthermore, the RIHS is a founding member of an infamous and now largely disrupted Islamic charity network that includes the banned al-Haramain, Global Relief, and the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, all of which shared the same strategic goals. As a May 2005 report from the Naval Postgraduate School states, “since 1992, in addition to the local orders, the main supporters of Salafi ideas [in Bosnia] were the following relief agencies – High Saudi Committee, al-Haramain Foundation, and the Society for the Revival of Islamic Heritage (Jam’iyyat Ihya’ al-Turah al-Islami).”

The RIHS Blacklistings

On Jan. 9, 2002, RIHS operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan were blacklisted by the U.S. government. The Bank of England simultaneously followed suit, as did the UN two days later. Announcing the action as part of a global effort to cut off the terrorists’ access to “hard-money countries,” then-Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill also mentioned Canada, Luxembourg, and Hong Kong as among the list of places that were enforcing the ban and freezing the group’s assets.

According to the U.S. government, the Pakistani and Afghani branches of the RIHS were run by some real bad apples – or “bad actors,” as O’Neill called them – among whom were one Abd al-Mushin al-Libi and Abu Bakr al-Jaziri, “formerly bin Laden’s chief fundraiser.”

Based in Peshawar, the latter was serving as the finance chief of the Afghan Support Committee, an Islamic charity connected with al-Qaeda. Al-Libi had been running the Pakistan office of the RIHS while also managing the Afghan Support Committee’s office in Peshawar. Stated O’Neill, these groups had been “stealing from widows and orphans to fund al-Qaeda terrorism.”

The RIHS staffers in Kuwait are less well known, but even involve enthusiastic female converts from the West. At some point between 2002 and 2004, it seems, the Kuwait headquarters was also blacklisted, as is stated in this Oct. 19, 2004 report from O’Neill’s replacement, John Snow. But this remains somewhat of a mystery, as nothing else has been said about why or how the blacklisting came about. After all, in January 2002, O’Neill had specifically said that there was no evidence that the Kuwait RIHS was aware of the money movements of their Afghan and Pakistani branches. So what happened thereafter? Did evidence present itself? The situation remains murky.

Aside from Afghanistan and Pakistan, the RIHS has been active in other countries, most notably working with Chechen émigré jihadis in Azerbaijan and with indigenous terrorist groups in Bangladesh, in both cases intending to establish a strictly Islamic government through violent upheaval. When the pattern established by these activities is revealed in its full dimensions, the allegations made by investigators such as Tom Gambill regarding the threat to the Balkans acquire a new urgency. We will consider some examples now that illustrate the RIHS’ three-stage strategy for effecting change: securing a presence, fomenting dissent, and finally, engaging in spectacular terrorist attacks to set the stage for an Islamic revolution.

Stage 1: Securing a Presence, Albania

On June 28, 1998, while war was raging between the Yugoslav army and the Albanian paramilitary KLA in Kosovo, two Egyptians were arrested for running a terrorist training camp in the central Albanian town of Elbasan. They had been quietly recruiting young men from the north of the country for the campaign against the Serbs. Citing the Albanian ShIK intelligence service, the linked report claimed that the pair (Maget Mustafa and Muhamed Houda) were seeking “to give a powerful religious character” to the nascent Kosovo war that would end with NATO bombing the following spring.

According to the article, the Egyptians had been active at Elbasan’s el-Hagri Theological Institute. Suspicions of Salafi fundamentalists in the midst had arisen locally “following the arrival of Sudani and Pakistani people” four years earlier.

Indeed, while “rumors” had already been circulating locally regarding the real interests of the detained Egyptians, “their declared activity was of the humanitarian character to help poor families … [they] held posts in [the] “Revival of Islamic Heritage’ association operating in Albania.”

It is well known that Osama bin Laden sought to break in to post-Communist Albania in 1994 by offering humanitarian assistance through Islamic charities to the impoverished nation. Of course, this was merely a front for importing Islamic radicals and terrorists. Some seemed to have been reporting to Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad since 1991, and later bin Laden’s right-hand man. In a short report of June 2, 2004, the U.S. Treasury claimed that Osama bin Laden himself founded al-Haramain in Albania, and that “in 1998, the head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad in Albania was reportedly also a financial official for AHF in Albania.”

Finally, “in late 2000, a close associate of a UBL operative moved to Albania and was running an unnamed AHF subsidiary.” Which “subsidiary” could it have been?

While this question is not answered in this fascinating July 2005 article from the Chicago Tribune on the CIA’s rather lavish 2003 kidnapping of Egyptian-born Imam Abu Omar in Italy, it does clarify the Egyptian connection with the RIHS in Albania.

Several years before turning into an anti-American firebrand in late 2001, Abu Omar had been a valuable informant in Albania for the ShIK and thus, ultimately, the CIA. The article recounts that on Aug. 27, 1995, the then-unknown Abu Omar was taken in for questioning by the Albanian authorities, together with several known members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and another Egyptian terrorist group, the Jamaat al-Islamiya. The ShIK had received a tip from the CIA that this group was planning to assassinate the visiting Egyptian foreign minister, Amr Moussa. In fact, only two months earlier, Jamaat al-Islamiya had tried to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. So given the circumstances, the CIA’s concerns were understandable.

Under questioning, Abu Omar admitted having fled Egypt “because he belonged to Jamaat al-Islamiya.” But he denied any assassination plot, since “such a move would have cost Jamaat its [safe] haven. … Abu Omar told the ShIK agents that, for Jamaat members like him, Albania was a ’safe hotel’ – a country where fundamentalist Muslims believed they could live without fear of political repression.”

At the same time, Omar claimed that the Egyptian terrorist group “had about 10 people working for three Islamic charities in Albania, including al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society.”

Although Abu Omar vanished mysteriously weeks later, only to resurface in Italy as a radical, he didn’t sever his ties to foreign terrorist groups based in Albania. Indeed, as a conversation of June 6, 2002 taped by the Italian police makes clear, he was very much aware of ongoing operations. The Chicago Tribune article transcribes the relevant fragment:

“[A]bu Omar is overheard speaking with an unidentified South African man who seems to be talking about car bombs.

“”Who has made them?’ Abu Omar asks. “Who? Who?’

“”One of the Palestinian brothers,’ replies the South African.

“”The Palestinian?’ Abu Omar asks.

“”Yes,’ the man answers. “The one who is called the machine … the one who is in Albania.’”

This is interesting, because there is scant information regarding current activities of the RIHS and similar groups in Albania. They seem to have dropped off the radar. But it is notable that the branch has not been put on the U.S. blacklist, as were the Afghan and Pakistani branches. Why? Have their activities been suspended, voluntarily or involuntarily? Or has the U.S. been treading lightly in the country for some reason? There is simply no way of knowing.

Essentially, however, what is important to note here is the RIHS’ attested means of infiltration and clandestine operations, which are incontestably displayed in the Abu Omar case and other events discussed above.

Stage 2: Transforming the State, Azerbaijan

With its substantial oil and gas deposits and headship of the new Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, Azerbaijan is a strategically vital country to the United States – as well as to Islamist “reformers” such as the RIHS. The proximity of this Caucasus country to trouble spots like Chechnya, Dagestan, and Nagorno-Karabakh, not to mention its key relationships with neighbors such as Turkey and Iran, have led American policymakers to watch developments in the country closely. But have they been missing something?A compelling July 2005 article from the Jamestown Foundation recounts the post-USSR arrival of Salafi missionaries in Azerbaijan, a phenomenon that accelerated with the first war in Chechnya in 1994. In fact, the first Salafi missionaries arrived directly from this bitterly contested war zone: “the majority of them came from Chechnya and Dagestan where the Salafis had some influence, in large measure due to the Russian-Chechen wars.”

A few years later, however, “missionaries from the Persian Gulf countries dramatically increased their activities in Azerbaijan.” According to the article, the current number of Salafi worshippers in Baku alone numbers around 15,000, despite there having been no tradition of this Saudi form of Islam before. This worries the Azeri government, and perhaps with good reason: “alarmingly for the Azeri establishment, Salafis do not make a secret of their aspirations to acquire political power in Azerbaijan.”

Considering that some 65-70 percent of Azeris are Shi’ite Muslims, the inroads Salafis are making also concerns neighboring Iran, the perceived “archrival” of this Sunni Arab movement. This factor leads the author to speculate that if the proselytizers make problems for the Shi’ite majority, it could “provoke some form of Iranian intervention,” and that ultimately, “the proliferation of Salafi ideas among religious and ethnic minorities could create powerful centrifugal forces that will in due course threaten the national unity of Azerbaijan.”

Interestingly enough, the RIHS has been a key player in promoting the ideas that could lead to such a destabilization. So why hasn’t the U.S. blacklisted it here, as it did in Afghanistan and Pakistan? States the article:

“[B]y 2003, 65 new Salafi-controlled mosques had been established in Azerbaijan. One of the largest Salafi mosques in the country is the Abu Bakr mosque. Built in 1997 in Baku by the Azeri branch of the Kuwaiti society Revival of Islamic Heritage, Abu Bakr became one of the most successful mosques in Azerbaijan.

“While on average the Shi’a or Sunni mosques are able to attract approximately 300 people for Friday prayers, the number of people visiting the Abu Bakr mosque typically reaches 5,000 to 7,000 people. [2] The Imam of the Abu Bakr mosque is Gammet Suleymanov, a graduate of the World Islamic University of Medina that is a leading center for the study and export of Salafism.”

According to the article, a spring 2001 trial of aspiring mujahedin for the Chechnya campaign led to the summoning of Suleymanov, since the accused had been “frequent visitors” to his mosque and had in fact been recruited there by Chechen leaders. In another trial, Suleymanov’s Abu Bakr mosque was also singled out as a refuge for members of the Pan-Islamic Hizb-ut Tahrir organization. Finally, in May 2002, deputy minister of national security Tofiq Babayev attested that

“[A] number of Arab countries were interested in spreading radical Wahhabism in Azerbaijan. According to Babayev, over 300 Azeris had been trained in Wahhabi centers in Dagestan. The deputy minister identified three stages in the effort to make Wahhabism a grassroots movement in Azerbaijan. First there is the spread of Wahhabi literature and the provision of financial assistance to potential activists. The second stage involves the efficient training of the activists, and the final stage deals with the mobilization of active members for acts of terrorism designed to destabilize the state. [5]“

All things considered, it seems surprising that the U.S. apparently hasn’t moved to shut down the RIHS branch in Azerbaijan. As the above testimony implies, things could eventually progress to the point where national stability becomes a real concern; the third stage of the extremist plan could then unfold.

Stage 3: Destabilization Through Terror, Bangladesh

On Aug. 17, a coordinated bombing campaign was conducted in 63 out of 64 districts of Bangladesh. Almost 500 small but nearly simultaneous explosions killed three and injured at least 150. The attacks were meant to be a show of force, to intimidate rather than kill – and to show the country what the terrorists were capable of doing.Last week, the government charged that the main suspect in the attacks – local terrorist group, Jama’atul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB) – had been heavily funded and assisted by the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, along with a mysterious imam from the UK and several other organizations and front groups.

These groups had illegally employed foreign Islamists visiting Bangladesh on tourist visas, as well as several veterans of the notorious al-Haramain, reported the New Kerala on Sept. 8. Thus, while it likes to present itself as having shattered the terrorist-supporting Islamist charities, the Bush administration has merely scattered them. They can and do easily regroup, under different umbrella groups and names.

With the pressure on following the ensuing police crackdown, the RIHS sought to lower its profile drastically. According to the article, “the Heritage Society’s front organization, the Higher Islamic Education Institute, in the capital was closed down last week. It has started trimming manpower in other affiliated institutions as part of the wrapping-up process.”

Only four days after the explosions, a high official of the RIHS from Kuwait, Abdul Aziz Khalaf Malullah, cut short his month-long visit and left Bangladesh. What really raises eyebrows about this sudden departure was the fact that Malullah had apparently planned his trip “with the express mission to ensure continuation of the RIHS activities in the country,” according to South Asian Media Net on Aug. 22. But since the Kuwaiti had arrived just days before the blasts, was he not probably aware that they would take place – and thus necessitate the immediate presence of someone to lobby the government on the group’s behalf? And especially considering that the preparations for the complex series of bombings began way back in April, and required much coordination with the RIHS?

In any case, Malullah “failed to manage a positive response from the government,” and left on Aug. 21. He is one of the only officials of the RIHS known by name.

The RIHS, however, could not hog all the limelight. The New Kerala article adds that “more than 100 foreigners … from different Middle East and African countries” had been illegally employed in nine other Islamic charities as well. In addition, four charity officials suspected of terrorist involvement had been among the 14 who worked for al-Haramain, but who left the country when the group was banned in 2004. However, they “returned several months later and joined the Heritage Society [RIHS] without the knowledge of intelligence agencies.”

Further, local investigators following the money trail have arrived at the RIHS’ door, says the article:

“[A]n intelligence report recently submitted to the government said that the Kuwait-based organization used to channel funds for [extremist group] Ahle Hadith Andolon’s leader, Asadullah al-Ghalib, also a university professor, who was arrested last February for exploding bombs at NGOs’ offices and cultural functions in the northern part of the country.

“Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, blamed for the Aug. 17 chain of bomb blasts, has been getting foreign funds for its militant activities through Ghalib.”

And, according to the Asia News Network on Sept. 3, “Bangladesh intelligence agencies have recently recommended banning RIHS for financing Islamist militants in the country … claiming that it seems to be more concerned with promoting militancy rather than protecting Islamic heritage, said an intelligence source.”

According to the report, the RIHS had provided funds to two related organizations, the Tawhid Trust and the Hadith Foundation, both of which had been “founded by militant kingpin Asadullah al-Galib.”

In a follow-up article which sought to explain the problem of Islamic extremism in Bangladesh, the Christian Science Monitor reported that the Bangladeshi government “is working with the country’s banks to identify suspicious accounts and transactions, some possibly originating abroad. “They’ve received monetary help from Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Pakistan,’ says a retired police investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They first started in 1989 during the Afghan war.’”

This apparent show of diligence is no doubt meant to keep one optimistic regarding the ability of international police to freeze accounts and put terrorists in the poorhouse. However, as another recent article which discusses huge foreign funding for Bangladesh’s 34 registered Islamic NGOs makes clear, we shouldn’t deceive ourselves:

“[T]his money has no official records as it does not come through official channels. The persons concerned themselves carry the money or send it through unofficial channels like hundi. Some exporters and importers in Dhaka and Chittagong also help transferring the money. The foreign funds that are channeled through businessmen mainly come via Bangkok and Singapore, the sources pointed out.

“This is one of the major sources of funds for the local Islamic NGOs and Qawmi madrassas which do not have government recognition. The income and expenditure of these madrassas are not accounted for properly as they are not accountable to any government body.”

That said, the CSM does point out how the fundamentalists have used a well-rehearsed plan – exploiting social and economic crises – to gain influence, as was specified in the beginning of this article as being a major strategy:

“[I]slamist militant groups have taken firm root here, demonstrating a widespread, highly coordinated, and well-funded network … homegrown militancy, invigorated by foreign funds and leadership radicalized in Afghanistan, has flourished here because of growing economic inequalities and acrimonious politics that have crippled the functioning of democracy.”

Outlook India cited an intelligence source as claiming the “JMB militants through Galib have utilized the facilities of some 700 mosques built across the country by the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS).” The CSM report states that altogether the RIHS has funded 1,000 mosques in Bangladesh, as well as 10 new madrassas.

Finally, as retired Brigadier General Shahed Anam Khan told the paper, “the organization behind Aug. 17 was extremely sophisticated and networked. It’s clear that at least 500 people were used to place the bombs; their strategy was classic – send in men who don’t know the core group which had planned and assembled the bombs. This is something which we never encountered in the past.”

A Shocking Disinterest

Taken cumulatively, shouldn’t all of the dubious partnerships and destructive activities of the RIHS have set off alarm bells for international authorities in Kosovo, where the charity’s presence was evidenced long ago? According to Tom Gambill, even when confronted with proof of the RHIS’ existence in the occupied province, UN and American officials alike seemed rather unimpressed.While there were some “motivated” American security officials who “wanted a piece of the action,” says Gambill, “they were held back in some cases by orders from those higher up in the pecking order. This was much to the disgruntlement of the lower echelons – lieutenants, captains, some majors … the same thing with the CivPol [UN Police].”

However, he adds, the authorities in Kosovo were generally indifferent to the RIHS’ presence and what it could mean for the future. When Gambill raised the issue at another Camp Bondsteel meeting, showing photographic proof and citing the UN Mandate outlawing the group, he got a somewhat “peeved” reaction from the FBI’s representative in Kosovo: “It seemed like he knew nothing [about the group] – go figure!”

Naysayers and Defenders in the UN and US Military

Yet the aspiring whistleblower was not just a nuisance; through his arguments and frequent e-mails to UNMIK and U.S. security officials in Kosovo, he was rocking the boat – essentially, the last thing the “I’m OK, you’re OK” international administration wanted to see happen. And this led certain individuals to get flustered unduly. States Gambill:“In another case, I was verbally attacked via e-mail by an American major. … He said that I was not qualified to make comments, and that neither my information nor comments were accurate. However, the comments he was making were erroneous … and completely unwarranted. After forwarding his comments to my point of contact on the American base, he (another major) was taken back at this kind of behavior.

“Later, in early 2003, one member, an American assigned to the OSCE who was on my e-mail list, complained to my Division Head that I was sending out information contained in OSCE classified reports, which was incorrect. I got my information from non-classified sources and correctly triangulated my information before writing anything and distributing. In other words, I always obtained the same information from at least three different sources that were unrelated but consistent. This then qualified as reliable information. I also used a disclaimer, just in case. So his complaint was inaccurate and made for personal reasons, as I learned after I confronted my manager about the report and source.”

But the biggest group of naysayers was not made up of hotheads, but rather cynics who, Gambill claims, claimed to be experts – though they visited Kosovo only once or twice a year:

“The ones who did not believe my reports were many internationals who argued that these things [Salafi penetration, etc.] didn’t occur in Bosnia, and that therefore the Islamic fundamentalists were not a threat. They claimed that there were no organized efforts on the part of the Islamic fundamentalists and that the [Albanian] rebel groups causing trouble were not a significant concern. That line came from many of the US military commanders who came through the region once every six months. There was no continuity in the passing of intelligence from one unit to another – ever.”

But all reactions were not hostile, says Gambill. Other security officials more keen on fighting the “war on terror” were impressed by his tenacity and commitment to rooting out hostile elements. He recounts:

“In several meetings of the combined group (U.S. military, UN, and CivPol), just as many commended me for the information that I brought to the table. I was told that my sources and reports were 90 percent accurate and were appreciated. In one case, a commander came to me after a meeting and commended me on my participation in all his meetings and gave me a unit coin for my contributions. It was done quietly, of course.”

In fact, certain of the security officers who appreciated Gambill’s input in turn provided him with further “accurate reports and bits of info that helped to substantiate the info that I was putting out.”

RIHS in Kosovo: The Proof

Tom Gambill admits that having left Kosovo over a year ago, he can’t state with certainty what is happening there now on a day-to-day basis. However, he does provide compelling evidence that proves the UN authorities in Kosovo, through mid-2004 at least, were tolerating the presence of an Islamic group (the RIHS) that had been banned elsewhere a year and a half earlier.

To buttress his claim, Gambill presents two internal UNMIK police documents and a photo that attest to a RIHS presence in Kosovo – and that disclose the same activity patterns demonstrated by the group in the countries discussed above.

“In one security meeting at [U.S. military base Camp] Bondsteel,” recounts Gambill, “a sympathetic American [agency deleted] officer slipped me a photo of their vehicles, with “RHIS/P’ spray-painted on the side in big bold black letters and parked on the street in Malishevo [near the southwestern town of Prizren]. They ran around freely; this picture was taken in 2003 or early 2004.”

As for the documents, the first (dated July 26, 2003) covers this incident in Malishevo. UNMIK police there observed a white Toyota with Tirana registration and the name RHIS/P printed along the side panel. The vehicle was parked in the town for two hours, but when its occupants returned, the police stopped them and learned that the driver was a Kosovo Albanian, and the passenger, a Kuwaiti.

Both had UNMIK ID cards; the car was registered to a Tirana-based NGO. When questioned, the pair stated that they were employees of the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society:

“[A]ccording to them this is a humanitarian organization and they have representative offices in many cities in Kosovo and they visited an Islamic office in Malishevo. The purpose of this organization is to take care [of] orphans in Kosovo.”

This is a very interesting admission because, if true, it reaffirms the RIHS’ time-honored preliminary tactic of “educating” the youth. And indeed, what easier youth are there to educate than those without parents? Such activities have already been used by (secular enough) Kosovo Albanians in creating “front lines” protesters who can be easily indoctrinated toward a militant “liberation” cause. Numerous sources in Kosovo stated last year that a special group of war orphans, whose families had been killed in the 1999 war, were cynically being located at the front at various protests (including the early stages of the March 2004 riots), specifically because of the bad PR that would be generated were children to be harmed or killed by UN police.

The other major strategy employed by RIHS during stage one (mosque-building) is attested in the second document shared by Gambill. In an “assessment” report of Sept. 20, 2003, also from the Malishevo UN police, it is stated that another RIHS vehicle (this one a Kosovo-registered, dark green Opel Frontera) had been spotted twice in the nearby town of Orahovac, driven by a bearded Arab. More importantly, the police report states that the RIHS had “asked” an Emirates-based NGO, Human Appeal International, to fund and build a mosque in the town – “the third mosque they [HAI] have constructed in Kosovo.” The HAI, it turns out, is also heavily involved with orphan services in countries including Kosovo.

This tactic of keeping beneath the radar by working indirectly through an Islamic NGO (so far) untainted by terrorist links shows that the RIHS is prepared to work slowly and in stages to attain its key goal of increasing the Salafi head count in Kosovo. It is frequently declared by Kosovo Albanian leaders and KLA war veterans that theirs is a secular, pro-Western society that can never fall under the influence of foreign Islamists, and that the KLA has always refused their help. While this is no doubt true for a large section of the former KLA, the splintering of the organization that began after the war has led different factions to explore new partnerships. Thus, adds Gambill, “right now, I have evidence from good sources who are reporting that a branch of the AKSH [an Albanian nationalist militant group] has hooked up with the fundies [Islamic fundamentalists] in the southern tip of Kosovo, the Dragash area between Albania and Macedonia.”

Moreover, leaving this argument aside for the moment, we should also remember that terrorists never require a majority to operate in any given country; indeed, it would be almost antithetical to their purposes. In the absence of a majority population sympathetic to their cause, all that groups like the RIHS need is a place to take cover while they quietly plan – a “safe hotel,” as Abu Omar memorably dubbed Albania back in 1995.

This vehicle, belonging to the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, was monitored by UN police in Kosovo.

The Balkan Black Hole – and Beyond

Unfortunately, Albania remains such a place today, as do Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. Riddled with Islamist sympathizers, Bosnia is the most amenable of the four, a place where “fitting in” is not difficult (especially in the Zenica area). In Kosovo, the UN’s fear and feebleness, as well as its intelligence shortcomings, have made it impossible to really crack down on groups that are transient, resilient, and well-funded. And in the last, poor Macedonia, the complete lack of a government agency or even individual to regulate the activities and finances of the NGO sector makes the motives and finances of suspicious charities almost impossible to ascertain, while the preponderance of heavily guarded militant villages make it very dangerous for police to investigate what’s going on in local Islamic communities and isolated mountains.Of course, as Tom Gambill concedes, “It’s always true that more [counter-terrorist investigative work] might be going on behind the scenes than we know about.” The U.S. and its allies might simply be playing a waiting game with the Islamists, or working with a very select staff, or both.

Nevertheless, real concerns remain. Indeed, given the absence of any visible proactive and public governmental actions when it comes to cracking down on groups like the RIHS (and not only in the Balkans) how can one not conclude that the U.S. and its allies are demonstrating a dangerous negligence in the face of a clearly demonstrated threat to Western security?