[ALBSA-Info] FW: RUSSIA'S ALBANIAN CARD

[Lukaj, Richard (Exchange)]

Janusz Bugajski is a Balkan expert at the Center for Strategic International
Studies in Washington.

Richard Lukaj

Please see below.

23 March 2001
RUSSIA'S ALBANIAN CARD
Janusz Bugajski

Published Nacionale in Croatia, and Kapital in Bulgaria

Albanian insurgents in Macedonia are playing directly into the hands of the 
anti-Albanian lobby clustered around the governments in Belgrade and Moscow.

This lobby is purposively turning the perceptions of Albanians from that of 
victims of ethnic war and barbarism into terrorists and conspirators 
hell-bent on destabilizing the entire region. What better proof, they claim,

than the current rebellion in Macedonia?  

Such a propaganda strategy serves two essential purposes: first, to 
strengthen the case for preserving Milosevic's Yugoslavia, and second, to 
increase Russian influence throughout South East Europe where Moscow has
lost 
significant ground following the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

According to the Belgrade-Moscow axis, Albanian political leaders in each 
Balkan state are secretly plotting for a "Greater Albania."  Consistent 
condemnations of guerrilla attacks in Macedonia by Albanian politicians and 
their recognition of Macedonia's borders are dismissed as duplicitous. The 
propaganda goal is to engender the negative image of Albanians as
terrorists, 
criminals, drug-smugglers, and Islamic fundamentalists. Serbian and Russian 
propaganda is determined to retool public perceptions of Albanians in the 
West as Europe's Taliban menace. 

The anti-Albanian lobby claims that Albanians are incapable of democratic 
government but are primitive, patriarchal, violent, and fundamentally 
anti-Western.  They point, as alleged proof, to developments in Albania 
itself in the past four years and the growth of the "terrorist" Kosova 
Liberation Army and its supposedly vast criminal empire.  

Moscow conveniently camouflages evidence that the Serbian mafia dominates
the 
central Balkans. Instead, it alleges that any Albanian state generates 
instability throughout the region, undermines the process of European 
expansion, acts as a conduit of illicit materials into the continent, and 
provides a gateway for fundamentalist Islamic forces.

With the demise of Milosevic, Moscow wants American and European policy 
makers to conclude that the major sources of insecurity and conflict in the 
region are radicalized Albanians. Militants and extremists have apparently 
hijacked Albanian politics throughout South East Europe and the democrats
are 
either helpless bystanders or willing accomplices.  Such contentions provide

a useful cover for the state terror inflicted by Belgrade over the past 
decade designed to keep Yugoslavia together and which precipitated and 
perpetuated many of the nationality conflicts in the region.

The scenario that has developed in the past few weeks in Macedonia could not

have been better scripted by Belgrade or Moscow, whether they orchestrated 
the crisis through their extensive intelligence and criminal networks or are

simply exploiting it to their advantage.  

First, it shifts attention away from the problems in Serbia and the 
unwillingness of Belgrade to surrender Milosevic and other high-ranking war 
criminals to The Hague tribunal. In fact, it buttresses those who are
calling 
for greater economic and military assistance to Belgrade, regardless of its 
paltry democratic credentials, as an evident counterweight to growing 
"Albanian extremism."
  
Second, the Macedonian crisis undercuts the position of those calling for 
Kosovar statehood and independence as this can now be depicted as promoting 
militancy and regional instability. It reinforces those who claim that 
Albanians are ill suited for self-government and must remain under 
international wardship and eventual Serbian-Yugoslav control. Macedonia's 
Albanian guerrillas are thereby described as an essentially Kosovar movement

determined to provoke ethnic war inside the vulnerable Macedonian state, 
despite the fact that most recruits are locals.

And third, attacks by Albanian guerrillas in Macedonia buttress calls for
the 
preservation of the Yugoslav state as an important counterweight to the 
specter of "Albanian expansionism" throughout the region.  Indeed, Belgrade 
will aim to forge closer political and military links with Macedonia and 
maintain pressure on Montenegro to stay within a "Yugoslav federation" as a 
supposed bastion against rising pan-Albanianism.

So what does Moscow stand to gain from the conflict? With an internationally

relegitimized Serbia, Russia is assured of a major ally in the Balkans from 
where it can exert influence further afield. Moscow has interests throughout

a much wider region, and in particular it seeks to prevent any further NATO 
expansion or Allied success in a zone it considers to belong to its "sphere 
of influence."  

Under President Putin, the Kremlin has accelerated its attempts to unseat
the 
democratic government in Bulgaria, as evidenced in the regular expulsion of 
Russian agents posing as diplomats in Sofia, to shore up the Kostunica 
administration in Serbia, and to create broader problems for NATO throughout

South East Europe.  

Despite NATO's success in halting genocide in Kosova, the Kremlin brazenly 
charges K-FOR with failing in its mission, of allegedly tolerating Albanian 
militancy, and of promoting regional destabilization. It is thereby 
challenging NATO to either destroy the Albanian guerrillas and their support

base or to abandon the Balkans altogether.  This would of course open up the

terrain to Serbian security forces to deal once and for all with the 
"Albanian question" without any humanitarian qualms, much as Russia has 
already demonstrated in Chechnya.

During his recent trip to the region, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov 
claimed that NATO's "passive reaction" to the spread of the Kosova conflict 
into Macedonia threatens peace in the entire region and encourages other 
ethnic and territorial conflicts.  He asserted that NATO intervention had 
failed to solve the region's problems while indicating that Russia had the 
answer.  Ivanov of course failed to mention how Moscow aided and abetted 
Milosevic over the past decade and was slow to recognize his overthrow last 
fall, fearing that it could lose influence in Serbia.

Moscow is clearly intent on making the Balkans safe for its oligarchic 
lobbies and criminal cartels linked with the re-energized KGB structure 
promoted by President Putin. Given these objectives, funds channeled to 
mercenaries in the region (regardless of their ethnicity) through Russia's 
intelligence network can help deliver a bonanza for the Kremlin's political 
interests. Above all, it could prevent the final disintegration of
Yugoslavia 
and bring Macedonia into a tighter Serbian-Russian orbit, thus increasing 
pressures on a currently pro-western Bulgaria.  The guerrilla attacks in 
Macedonia fit perfectly into a strategy of deliberate destabilization and 
Muscovite "reimperialization" in the Balkans.