[ALBSA-Info] AIM on IMAMI

[aalibali at law.harvard.edu]

WED, 02 MAY 2001 01:16:53 GMT

The Fantasy of “Greater Albania” in Albanian Politics
AIM Tirana, April 23, 2001 

Perhaps not even the executive president of the Party of Democratic Alliance 
(PAD), Arben Imami could have imagined that his proposal of the union of 
Albania with Kosovo would have the effect of a political bomb. One could have 
hardly found a more appropriate date than April 12 to turn a statement into a 
political and diplomatic scandal. On that day, at the invitation of US 
Secretary of State Colin Powell, 11 foreign ministers of the states in the 
region gathered in Skopje, Albania inclusive, to coordinate efforts for 
preservation of stability and guarantees of the borders. During the month of 
Macedonian crisis state leaders of Macedonia and of a few other Balkan 
countries insisted on the stand that the ideological and nationalistic 
motivation of Albanian armed guerilla groups in Tetovo and Kosovo was the 
aspiration to create “Greater Albania”. 

The government of Albania and its diplomacy have spent a considerable amount of 
energy in order to convince their international interlocutors that the 
accusations of certain circles in neighbouring states concerning the 
aspirations to create “Greater Albania” were unsustainable. And then, exactly 
at that moment, a member of the cabinet, minister of justice Arben Imami 
publicly presents the platform of his party on peaceful union of Albania with 
Kosovo. In four points of that platform, the political and institutional union 
of Albania with Kosovo is demanded, joint economic reform, customs and monetary 
union, psychological and cultural union and joint diplomatic action aimed at 
persuading the international community to start believing that such a union 
would be useful. 

If Imami had not been a member of the cabinet but just the president of his 
party, this statement would have passed unnoticed, because the political 
significance of this party is too small and insignificant in the process of 
decision-making of this country. PAD has only two deputies or 1.29 per cent of 
the votes in the parliament. 

It is easy to imagine how difficult the position the minister of justice has 
put his government into regardless of the fact that he had spoken in the 
capacity of the president of a party which is in power in Albania. The Albanian 
government immediately disassociated itself from the minister of justice 
confirming that Albania was against the change of borders and that it 
recognised Resolution 1244 of the Security Council. But since it has just two 
months left to be in power before the new already scheduled elections, the 
government has not asked Imami to disassociate himself from his statement and 
confirm his loyalty to the platform of the government he belongs to, the 
platform which does not include even a faintest hint or idea of any form of a 
union of Albania with Kosovo. The minister of justice has not disassociated 
himself, nor has he offered to resign, but neither has the government asked him 
to submit his resignation. In fact, secretary for relations with the public of 
the Democratic Alliance, Gj. Zefi, after the reaction of the government, 
declared that the government had no reason to disassociate itself nor to 
support this stand and repeated that the Democratic Alliance remained true to 
the platform of union of Albania with Kosovo. 

The mentioned platform caused commotion in Albanian politics, because all the 
major political parties often encountered concern in relations with 
international partners because of the thesis on “Greater Albania”. Socialist 
Party (SP) which heads the coalition PAD belongs to, opposed this statement 
through its secretary for international relations Dade. Other parties from the 
coalition also reacted negatively, and foreign minister Paskal Milo, who is a 
member of the presidency of Social Democratic Party (SDP), declared that such 
statements caused damage to the Albanian cause and the position of Albania and 
that they cast a shadow on relations with the international community. It is 
interesting to mention that even the main party of the opposition, Democratic 
Party (DP), opposed the platform of the executive president of PAD, although 
the Democrats constantly criticised the government coalition for uninvolvement 
in protection of the interests of Kosovo. Secretary for foreign relations of DP 
B. Mustafaj estimated the idea of the union of Albania with Kosovo as a fantasy 
invented by non-Albanians and a deliberate act meant to satanise Albanians. 

The quantity of emotions stirred up by Imami’s proposal is also illustrated by 
the negative reactions that arrived from Albanian political parties in Kosovo 
and Macedonia. President of Democratic Alliance of Kosovo (DSK) Ibrahim Rugova 
said on April 20 that he considered the statement of one of the ministers in 
the government in Tirana on the necessity of the union of Albania with Kosovo – 
frivolous. President of ADP in Macedonia Arben Xhaferri warned that every 
politician had to be responsible for every statement because they can be just 
soap bubbles. 

Many prominent politicians from various parties and factions in Tirana 
explained Imami’s platform with the approaching campaign for June parliamentary 
elections. At the convention of the party on April 21, Imami himself tried to 
mitigate negative reactions. Nevertheless, the argument on the pre-election 
character cannot explain the motives for the public presentation of PAD’s 
platform. The election campaign has not officially started yet and the election 
weight of PAD is so small that one can hardly believe that it will manage to 
attract a significant number of votes. It does not seem to be completely true 
either that PAD has done it in order to make it easier for itself to separate 
from the left government coalition headed by SP in order to join the right 
coalition after the invitation president of DP Sali Berisha had addressed to 
its leadership. 

In fact more than in the country itself, the platform for the union of Albania 
with Kosovo has caused the greatest concern outside Albania and in diplomatic 
circles which deal with the Balkans. The first public reaction arrived from the 
Ambassador of USA in Tirana, Joseph Limprecht, who warned on April 16 that when 
the invitation for the union of Albania with Kosovo came from a member of the 
cabinet, that invitation is considered by the Albanian people as support to the 
extremists and terrorists who wish to destabilise the region. Reactions were 
much broader in the countries of the region where some media hurried to present 
it as evidence that corroborate their warnings about the objectives of the 
Albanians. Reactions have arrived even from Poland where a known daily, 
Rzheczpolitika, called Imami’s proposal a provocation for the international 
community. 

In these reactions there is no fear that PAD could be capable of winning 
parliamentary reactions with its platform, because everybody underlined the 
fact that PAD was a minor party. However, they are all alarmed by another 
thing: first, Imami is a member of the cabinet and, second, he showed that the 
fantasy of “Greater Albania” exists in the arsenal of Albanian politics. 
Indeed, the idea of what is called “Greater Albania”, but which is in political 
vocabulary called “Ethnic Albania” and which implies the union of all the 
territories where the Albanians live in various states in the region, have 
always been present but on the margins of Albanian politics. Such ideas are not 
present at the centre of this politics. In the platforms of major political 
parties, left or right, in Albania, there is no idea of ethnic Albania or a 
union of Albania with Kosovo. Only certain minor parties, such as Legalitet 
(Royalists) among the rightist parties and National Unity among the Leftist 
one, have in their platforms the union of territories where the Albanians live. 
Neither in Kosovo nor in Macedonia major political parties of the Albanians 
have the question of the union in their platforms. There are a few minor 
parties which are practically illegal and which advocate the idea of ethnic 
union. 

However, the existence of such ideas even on the margins of Albanian politics 
causes concern in the international community that they might be stirred up and 
gain more ground for various pre-election, political, financial or other 
reasons. The fact that a party known as cosmopolitan and liberal suddenly 
appeared in public waving the flag of union of Albania with Kosovo causes a 
great surprise. It seems that minor parties do not seem to be able to find 
other possibility to reduce the influence and the image of big parties except 
by sending signals that will cause alarm in the international community that 
the fantasy of “Greater Albania” exists and that it is moving around the 
Albanian politics. 

AIM Tirana 

Arian LEKA