[ALBSA-Info] Fw: Security Watch: Monday, 24 September 2001

[Xhuliana Agolli]

Skopje hardliners link NLA to bin Laden
 
Macedonian nationalists are likening the assault on America 
to Albanian "terrorist aggression" in a desperate bid to 
derail a peace deal in the Balkan state, analysts say. "The 
best way to destroy your enemy's reputation and support is 
to try to link him to the world's worst nightmare," a 
diplomat said. Macedonian hardliners and their followers in 
the mainstream media are trying to do just that, even as 
the guerrillas hand in their arms to NATO and demobilize, 
analysts say. When hijacked airliners crashed into US 
landmarks, Macedonians recalled the shock of a rebel 
uprising at home and that linkage is being milked by foes 
of a peace deal with unforeseeable consequences, analysts 
say. Newspapers have been full of stories over the past 
week tarring the guerrillas by alleged association with the 
suspected mastermind of the US attacks, Saudi-born radical 
Osama bin Laden and his Afghan-based Al-Qaida group. They 
report that "mujahideen" fighters identifiable by their 
beards had joined the ethnic Albanian National Liberation 
Army (NLA) in battle against government troops. "They are 
desperately trying to find any linkage between their 
enemies, the NLA and bin Laden's organization," a NATO 
official who asked not to be named told Reuters. "Except 
for the beards they have nothing." From the moment the NLA 
burst out of Macedonia's northern border mountains seven 
months ago, the Skopje government has sought to convince 
the international community that it was facing a 
"terrorist" threat, not a human rights struggle. Some 
Macedonians were driven from their homes by fear of 
guerrilla attack but more than 90 percent of Macedonian 
casualties in the conflict have been police or soldiers. 
NLA rebels insisted they were fighting only for equal 
rights for the large Albanian minority after years of 
futile negotiations by its civilian leadership. In August, 
the NLA agreed to disarm and disband but the price, to 
Macedonian eyes, was heavy and humiliating - a sweeping 
package of minority rights reforms benefiting those who 
had, effectively, held a sovereign state to ransom. Western 
diplomats who brokered the accord argued to Skopje that 
there was no other way to placate an adversary it could not 
beat militarily and preserve Macedonia intact. 
Constitutional amendments required by the peace agreement 
must be ratified with legislation. But parliamentary 
resistance, already evident before the US attacks, has 
stiffened in the aftermath. "They (government) are still 
trying to gain support for their position from the 
international community by linking the NLA with that evil 
in the United States," the NATO aide said. Analysts versed 
in Byzantine Balkan politics said the goal of the 
propaganda campaign might not be so simple. "It is in part 
an opportunistic attempt to play on Macedonian resentment 
about being forced to make concessions to those they consider
'terrorists'," said Edward Joseph, Skopje-based 
analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank. 
"It's clear that the international audience is not buying 
this, but it remains to be seen how much or how strongly 
this will resonate among Macedonians and Albanians," Joseph 
said. Western diplomats in Macedonia have urged Macedonian 
nationalists not to distort the American tragedy for their 
receptive domestic audience to derail the peace process. 
"This message includes an orchestrated media campaign to 
associate the NLA with bin Laden. Why did they wait until 
after the peace agreement to talk about alleged bin Laden 
connections?" a senior Western diplomat said. Some critics 
believe the media accusations are only a new phase in a 
propaganda war by nationalists aimed at blackening the NLA 
and clinging to ethnic primacy assured by the current 
constitution before it is "too late". "If the NLA hands 
over their weapons and if they disband, they will no longer 
exist so they can no longer be portrayed as a terrorist 
organization," the NATO official said. Waiting along with 
the rest of the world for Washington's military response to 
the assaults on New York and Washington, Macedonians 
perceive hypocrisy among Western leaders in their approach 
to international security threats. "The double standards 
of the international community in its attitude to terrorism 
became obvious after the tragic events in the US last 
week," said Ljubco Georgievski, Macedonia's nationalist 
prime minister. He said that in the eight months of 
Macedonia's crisis he had not seen a decisive policy to vanquish
"terrorism" in the small Balkan republic, whose 
insecurity is rooted in historical territorial claims by 
neighboring states. One Western analyst warned that a US 
onslaught against bin Laden's network might give wrong 
ideas to some Macedonian politicians and endanger prospects 
for a peaceful resolution of the country's ethnic strife. 
"Somebody might think, 'If the US can do it, why can't we?' 
And that will kill the peace process," he said. (Reuters)