[ALBSA-Info] ANALYSIS-Albanians hold the cards in Macedonia peace poker

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

ANALYSIS-Albanians hold the cards in Macedonia peace poker

By Daniel Simpson

  
SKOPJE, July 10 (Reuters) - Leaders of Macedonia's Albanian minority appear 
to have nothing to lose in a high stakes Balkan power game, however the West 
tries to force their hand to dissolve a guerrilla uprising. 

With the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army entrenched in northern 
hills, Albanian civilian negotiators are holding out for peace terms 
unpalatable to Macedonia's majority and NATO is reluctant to intervene for 
fear of casualties, diplomats say. 

Ethnic Albanian politicians acknowledge that the guerrillas are setting the 
agenda. "If there was no NLA, no one would seriously get involved in dialogue 
with Albanians (in Macedonia)," said Imer Imeri, an Albanian party leader. 

The world's most powerful countries are scrambling to broker a compromise on 
political reforms to put a lid on a guerrilla revolt that has dragged 
Macedonia towards civil war. 

But the unwillingness of NATO powers to send in peacekeepers who could return 
home in body bags leaves a fistful of aces with the one of the Balkans' most 
respected Albanian politicians. 

"Why should I ask the Macedonians what they're prepared to give me? I am 
playing my game on my terrain," Arben Xhaferi told Reuters this week, 
dismissing Western peace plans as inadequate. 

Although the kingmaker of Macedonian politics since 1998, Xhaferi failed to 
secure major improvements in Albanian minority rights. But with the 
territorial threat posed by the NLA, he now sees the chance to fight for his 
legacy. 

"I cannot have an approach of refusing everything but I will stick to my 
demands," whispered the ailing 53-year-old, who is slowly losing a battle 
with Parkinson's disease. 

Western envoys, anxious to exploit a truce brokered last week, are leaning 
heavily on Xhaferi and fellow Albanian leader Imer Imeri to sign up to 
reforms that fall short of those on their wish list, stressing this is the 
best they can expect. 

"They're getting a great deal and I'm convinced they have enough to sell to 
their community," one diplomat said. 

Perhaps. But the hard sell appears not to be working on men whose bargaining 
space is limited with Albanian gunmen at large. 

"I don't believe they are playing games," warned Ibrahim Mehmeti, an Albanian 
journalist who promotes ethnic tolerance for the independent Skopje agency 
Search for Common Ground. 

"They have very little choice left any more." 

CATCH-22 FOR NATO 

In just five months, the rebel National Liberation Army (NLA) has pushed 
longstanding Albanian demands for equality onto the mainstream agenda. They 
say they will hand over their guns to NATO if a comprehensive reform deal is 
signed. 

However, a NATO weapons-collecting mission dangled in front of politicians as 
an incentive is unlikely to be deployed before a satisfactory deal -- unless 
the alliance is willing to risk another long stay in a former Yugoslav 
republic. 

"If NATO comes in too early, it will end up policing lines of demarcation, 
which is just what the NLA wants," a military source warned. Ceasefire lines 
internationally secured before a peace treaty can evolve into partition of an 
ethnically torn country, as shown by Cyprus. 

The military source added that there was little appetite to create an 
effective third Western protectorate -- after Bosnia and Kosovo -- in the 
Balkans. 

Yet the risk of watching a NATO-brokered ceasefire unravel while foreign 
troops are held back is equally unappealing. 

Some diplomats accept they may have to bite the bullet without the final 
agreement U.S. special envoy James Pardew and his European counterpart 
Francois Leotard are pushing for. 

"If you sit here with these people and discuss things you get nowhere," one 
Western diplomat cautioned. "You can't sit back and wait and that means 
accepting we have to go in." 

It would be a risky gambit. NATO has 3,000 troops lined up to collect rebel 
guns, but is desperate to avoid being shot at, especially as it still has 
40,000 peacekeepers policing neighbouring Kosovo. 

GUERRILLAS RUN THE SHOW 

Deployment, which tops the list of Albanian demands, could provide the 
impetus towards a deal. But few expect the NLA -- like the reluctantly 
demobilised Kosovo Liberation Army rebels -- to surrender its full arsenal 
even under a disarmament plan. 

Many Macedonians would rather see NATO crush this effective offshoot of the 
KLA which the West once helped to fight Serbs in Kosovo. That province's 
majority Albanians are now accused by Macedonians of exporting rebel 
commanders. 

Diplomats suspect Xhaferi of stalling talks in the hope the West will come to 
his rescue but accept it would be better to deal with him than the guerrillas 
whose political platform he has adopted and who would be given amnesty under 
a peace deal. 

NLA leaders such as political representative Ali Ahmeti are seen as serious 
rivals. They have been careful to wage a war of attrition against Macedonian 
forces, seeking to provoke them into a disproportionate response, military 
sources say. 

"The NLA is dictating the agenda, they've been very clever," a Western source 
said. "They could bomb the Macedonian capital if they wanted but they've 
chosen not to. That's control." 

The West is threatening to crack down on NLA supply lines, but Albanian 
leaders appear to believe these are empty threats unless NATO is ready to 
risk shootouts at the Kosovo border. 

Attentions are starting to focus on the prospect of a peace summit outside 
Macedonia, a plan touted by several EU nations. Top Western officials have 
opposed the idea, arguing that the presence of heavyweight EU and U.S. envoys 
in Skopje is enough. 

But Albanians believe it is their best hope. And although Macedonians reject 
a summit, fearing it could play into the hands of Albanian radicals who may 
seek effective partition of Macedonia, diplomats warn it could creep onto the 
agenda. 

"Now the conference idea is out of the bag, it'll be hard to put away and 
even harder to make progress before it," one said.