[ALBSA-Info] Albanian War Cry Rises Half a World Away, in Staten Island

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Albanian War Cry Rises Half a World Away, in Staten Island

By CHRIS HEDGES
New York Times

he Ideal Night Club, a haunt of ethnic Albanian émigrés from the Balkans on 
Midland Avenue in Staten Island, was flush Saturday night with several 
hundred eager men preparing for war. Most wore black leather jackets and had 
short, razor-edged haircuts. The air was thick with the acrid odor of 
cigarette smoke under pink, blue and green neon lights. Waiters in blue 
shirts and ties hustled drinks to the tables.

"Once again there is war," said Agim Mati, 33, as he stood with his brother 
in the back of the hall, "but this time I will not sit it out. There are four 
brothers from my family in the United States. The two oldest of us will leave 
soon for Macedonia to fight. The two youngest will remain to take care of our 
families. I called my father in Macedonia and told him we were coming. He 
does not want us to come. He does not want us to die. He wants to fight 
himself, but he is 59. This is our job. And we accept that freedom will only 
come when we are willing to give up our lives for it."

Ethnic Albanians, who make up at least a quarter of the two million people in 
Macedonia, complain of discrimination and harassment from Macedonia's Slav 
majority. Late last month, under the banner of a rebel movement operating 
inside Macedonia called Ushtria Clirimtare Kombtare (the National Liberation 
Army), ethnic Albanians began an insurrection. The guerrilla force, which is 
closely linked with the Kosovo Liberation Army, which fought the Serbs in 
Kosovo, says in official communiqués that it will respect the territorial 
integrity of Macedonia as long as the rights of Albanians are recognized. 

But those who are preparing to fight said they would not put down their guns 
until all pockets of ethnic Albanians, especially those in western Macedonia 
and Serbia, are united in one nation that includes Kosovo and Albania. They 
also say they will seek to topple the government in Skopje, dominated by 
Macedonian Slavs since its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

"We have waited patiently, since the Macedonian state was created, for equal 
rights, and they have never come," said Bekim Shanen, 25, who will depart 
soon to join the rebel movement. "Each day someone we know leaves, although 
it is always done quietly, in secret. We turn around and they have gone. 
There are many of us who have waited years for this chance. We will not stand 
by and watch." 

The National Liberation Army, in ads that appeared for the first time on 
Saturday in such Albanian-language papers as Bota Sot called for volunteers 
and donations. And those who raised money and helped send recruits to fight 
in Kosovo have begun reactivating old networks. On Thursday a senior National 
Liberation Army leader, who arrived from Macedonia to hold a invitation- only 
meeting at the nightclub, a block from the water, made an impassioned plea 
for volunteers and funds. It was the first such appeal made in New York.

"We asked him what the vision of the movement was," said Baudin Sela, 48. "He 
read us a list of demands that included changing the constitution, making our 
language an official one in Macedonia, letting us have state- run 
Albanian-language education, economic development and freeing our political 
prisoners. There were about 400 people in the room and only one person got up 
to say we should not go to war. The rest of us supported the cause." 

The rebel leader, who did not give his name to the group, left the next day 
with five volunteers, promises by many more to join in the coming weeks, and 
a half-million dollars in cash, said those who were present.