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The Treasure Trove of Kosovo

Nothing like a juicy, photogenic human catastrophe to enrich corrupt politicians and bottom-line-orientated, stock-option-motivated corporate executives. The Balkan is teeming with both these sad days.

Even as the war was raging, shortages of food and other supplies led to the dispensation of political favours (in the form of import licences, for instance) to the chosen few. Bulgarian, Greek and Albanian firms, owned by ruthless criminals and criminals-turned-politicians benefited mightily. Millions were made and shared as artificially high prices were maintained by various means while cronies and crime controlled firms shared the spoils. This orgiastic intercourse between the corrupt and the criminal was not confined to one country. The whole region partook in robbing the most impoverished populations in Europe by "legal" means.

Their more refined and perfumed Western brethren were never far behind in taking advantage of American largesse on the one hand and re-emerging alarmist tendencies, on the other. Thus, American, German, Greek, French and Italian firms enjoyed funds allocated to international humanitarian aid by the likes of the US government, the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF and other long arms of the American octopus. Defence contractors and the dubious characters known as weapons intermediaries stoked the atavistic fires of war in securing defence contracts. And aid workers resided in six star hotels, driving the latest sports utility vehicles and brandishing futuristic laptop computers as they went about the business of dispensing aid. In the meantime, at least one half of all aid money was pilfered - not to use a harsher term. Aid rations were freely available in Macedonian, Albanian, Greek and Bulgarian markets - offered at a discount by aid workers who stole them from their supposed recipients. The refugees were never given mattresses, were short of blankets, water, showers and toilets (I visited the camps - this is an eyewitness account). Only bread was abundant.

Now that the war is over, some people are counting their dead - while others are counting their blessings. But this has all been a prelude.

It is the next wave of aid, which is the main course in this baccha.n.a.lia. Outlandishly feverish numbers are tossed around. Kosovo's immediate reconstruction (housing and infrastructure) will require well over 2 billion US dollars in the next 2 years. Of this, 1.5 billion dollars has already been raised. A further 2 billion USD is slated as direct aid to the shattered economies of Macedonia and Albania. But the real booty lies in Serbia. A minimum of 10-13 billion dollars will be required simply to restore Serbia's infrastructure to its former, inglorious self. To resuscitate the whole languishing area, a staggering 30 billion dollars is touted as the minimal bill.

Rest a.s.sured that at least one third of this generous cornucopia would end up lining the pockets of the rich and mighty. At least 1 billion dollars will end up festering in Swiss, Cypriot, South African and Israeli bank accounts. The politicians know it, the "grupirovki"

(business cartels controlled by mafia-style organizations) know it, and Western governments know it. This is the REAL stability pact.

Financially inebriated politicians are better motivated to maintain peace and stability, or so the thinking goes.

The history of the Balkans will play a major role in determining the topography and geography of this flood of cronyism, nepotism, criminality and vice. The Balkan is composed of states run by crime organizations and crime organizations run by states. Old alliances last long (as opposed to the Middle East where alliances, dune-like, shift with the winds). Bulgaria and Macedonia, for instance. Serbia and Greece. Albania and Kosovo. And now Albania and Macedonia. Meetings of regional "leaders" in the Balkans were always reminiscent of scenes from "The G.o.dfather". The dons, uncomfortably clad in expensive business suits and wearing golden rings, deciding life and death and a jovial yet vaguely menacing atmosphere. Only the leaders of the New Balkans are much younger, less experienced, more p.r.o.ne to superst.i.tion, extremism and moodiness. The old tensions are bound to re-emerge, this time in the employ of business interests. Expect a flare up of animosity between Greece and Macedonia. Despite its Bulgarophile regime, expect uneasy moments between Bulgaria and Macedonia. And expect an unholy alliance of business interests between Mr. Thaci and his sprawling business empire and the governments of Albania and Macedonia. If not a.s.sa.s.sinated before, Thaci is definitely the Man to watch. Young, well educated, ruthless, involved in business (read: corrupt to the core) - an aptly dangerous man in dangerous times.

The problem is that everyone holds high expectations. This is a poor recipe for an amicable carving of the cake of international funding.

Macedonia expects to lead the reconstruction effort of Kosovo. It was offended greatly by the decision to base the Kosovo reconstruction agency in Pristina. Greek and Italian firms expect to s.n.a.t.c.h profits out of the jaws of their near treacherous behaviour during the war.

Turkish firms except to be rewarded for the loyalty of Turkey during the same. American and German firms expect to exclude all else in gaining access to American and German (=EU) funds (as they have done in Bosnia). These all are mutually incompatible expectations and they will lead to mutually exclusive behaviour. Expect some very ugly scenes, including spilt doses of this cheap, red liquid, blood.

Albania, already governed by the ungovernable crime gangs it sp.a.w.ned in the last few years, has formed an alliance with the KLA, never a moral standard-bearer. This expanded amus.e.m.e.nt park of drug trafficking, prost.i.tution, weapons smuggling, contraband and much worse is now threatening to take over its more virtuous (though by no means virginal) neighbour, Macedonia. A flare up of hitherto unimaginable brotherly love has indicated this sacrilegious rapprochement. The Macedonian Prime Minister - enc.u.mbered by a demanding Albanian coalition partner - has met Thaci and the encounter had all the trappings of a state visit. Soon after senior Albanian politicians started talking about a Macedonian recognition of an independent state of Kosovo and an Albanian language university (the reason for student riots just two years before).

To a large extent, the Kosovo war was gang warfare. The Serb criminal organization known as Yugoslavia against the Albanian gang known as the KLA. It was a war over turf and lucrative businesses. In what used to be the Third World and more so in the post-communist countries in transition, criminal activities often accompany "wars of liberation".

In Congo, in Sierra Leone, in Chechnya, in Kashmir - wars are as much about diamonds, oil and opium poppies as about national aspirations.

Kosovo is no exception but it was here that the West was duped into intervention. NATO was called upon to arbiter between two crime gangs.

There is no end to the mischievous irony of history.

Perhaps the following incidents are more telling than any learned a.n.a.lysis:

In late April, the Albanian telecom switched off the roaming facility of cell phones in Albania. Foreigners - including aid workers - had to pay the company 1000 dollars for a special roaming-enabled chip.

Rumour has it that the post of the Chief of Police in the Tirana Airport was "sold" at the beginning of April for an undisclosed amount (presumably 250,000 US dollars). The reasons: all shippers (including NATO and aid organizations) have to pay enormous kickbacks to airport and customs officials to release their goods.

Most Albanian families charged refugee families an average of 500 DM a month for their accommodation in subhuman conditions. Refugees who could not pay (or who had no relatives in Germany and Switzerland to pay for them) were evicted, often cruelly.

As Serbs were murdering their supposed brothers in Kosovo, Albanian crime gangs laid an oil pipeline (through Lake Shkoder) to Serbia and supplied the Serb army with the oil it was deprived of by NATO.

Welcome to the Balkans.

(Article written on June 27, 1999 and published July 5, 1999

in "Central Europe Review" volume 1, issue 2)

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Lucky Macedonia or Macedonia's Serendipity

The Good Fortune of Neighbouring a Human Catastrophe

In October 1998, the unreformed communists of the SDSM - the Socialists - lost the elections in Macedonia by a wide margin to an improbable coalition. It consisted of the VMRO - fervent nationalists with Bulgarian roots, headed by the poet-politician Ljubco Georgievski - and the Democratic alternative (DA). The latter was a hastily a.s.sembled party headed by Vasil Tupurkovski, a pro-US former member of the old Yugoslav nomenclature. DA enjoyed gra.s.sroots support especially by young professionals, businessmen and liberals. It imported Western campaigning techniques and made bold promises to revitalize and energize the economy.

When the news of the unequivocal victory of the VMRO-DA coalition arrived, the nation was swept by an unprecedented wave of enthusiasm, optimism and joy. Unprecedented because the young nation's history (its independence was declared in 1991) provided it with very little reason to be joyful. Its main trading partners were either boycotted by the world (the rump Yugoslavia) or themselves boycotted Macedonia - Greece in the wake of outlandish dispute regarding Macedonia's official name (hence the impossible FYROM) and Bulgaria because it refused to allow the use of the Macedonian language in bilateral doc.u.ments. The economy collapsed, unemployment soared, investment all but vanished, corruption erupted and the Albanian ethnic minority became restive.

Macedonia was laid to economic waste by powers beyond its control. Its entrepreneurial inhabitants - fresh from 500 years of Ottoman training followed by 50 years of communism - resorted to smuggling (from Greece to Serbia through the Vardar river) and established a reasonably functioning underground economy. The IMF and the Central Bank maintained macro-economic stability (following years of hyperinflation) at an excruciating social cost. Trade was liberalized, inflation tamed, the currency was made freely convertible and the exchange rate eerily sustained (rather, suspended).

But under-currents seethed below the tattered facade. Disenchantment with the ruling cla.s.ses and their mafia-like structure increased dramatically. Intricate webs of village and family loyalties were tested to the limit in affairs such as TAT, the collapse of a savings bank in a pyramid scheme in which some top level officials were implicated. Cronyism and nepotism led to the legalized robbery of the a.s.sets of the state through bogus privatisation schemes. Some people grew exceedingly rich - others became inordinately poor. The tension was palpable. The youth felt trapped, facing a dead end future. Many emigrated.

Albanian nationalism was introduced into this explosive vapour in 1997-8. It existed long before (the KLA, for instance, became a force to reckoned with as early as 1993). It const.i.tuted the main concern of the ethnic Macedonians (of Slav extract). People spoke ominously of an Armageddon to be waged between the two ethnicities.

The two communities exist separately. There are no inter-marriages, very few common business ventures and the Albanians either live in ghettos within the main cities - or in Albanian dominated cities of their own (such as Gostivar and Tetovo) in western Macedonia, across the border from Kosovo. The ground was shaking long before 1997. The mutual hatred, loathing and, above all, fear of domination and cultural subjugation were real and under a very thin veneer of civility. The inclusion of a national Albanian party (there are three) in the government was greeted as a welcome omen and respite. But this was not to be.

The ethnic Macedonian's main fear is that the Albanians are aiming to recreate a "Greater Albania" comprising the current Albania, Kosova and Western Macedonia. A natural Islamic axis (Albania-Bosnia-Central Asia) would then form and threaten the Slav peoples wherever they are (Serbs, Russians, Bulgarians). What started as the normal friction between two ethnic groups in close physical proximity ended as a mythical re-enactment of the Islamic (Ottoman) invasion of Europe in the 14th century. A nightmare revived fraught with the fears of an economically languishing Christian-Orthodox, Slav, Byzantine civilization. A very concrete issue of land and autonomy a.s.sumed the dimensions of a cosmic clash between the t.i.tans of religion.

Officially, the Albanians const.i.tute 23% of the population in Macedonia. But Albanian did not take well to what they regarded as coercion: the population census. They refused to be counted and evaded the census takers - to their great detriment. As a result, their numbers are severely understated. It is safe to say that well over ONE THIRD of the population was of Albanian origin long BEFORE the wave of refugees swept over this 25,000 square kilometres country. Should one third of the refugees be absorbed by Macedonia - another 80,000 Albanians - the Albanian population stands to const.i.tute more than 40% of the population. The Albanians marry younger, have double the number of children of the ethnic Macedonian (it is a much younger population) and almost never divorce. Their families are very cohesive and tend to stick together geographically. In the year 2015 - the majority of the population in Macedonia will be of Albanian origin, if this trend continues unperturbed and one third of the refugees remain. In 1912 Kosovo had a sizeable Serb majority. In 1972 this was no longer true.

The ethnic Macedonians are appalled by this demography. They are scared. They do not believe that they can co-exist with the Albanians.

Stereotypes abound: the Albanians are backward, criminal elements, illiterate, violent and expansive, say the Macedonians. And their main goal in life - for which no sacrifice is too great - is to seize land from their neighbours. Kosova is a first step - the Macedonians are convinced - Western Macedonia is next, a civil war is imminent.

Marginal efforts at reconciliation aside - the Albanians themselves did not make any special effort to a.s.suage the fears of the Macedonians.

Quite the contrary. Radical, young and nationalistic leaders abound.

Rufi Osmani, the former Mayor of Gostivar, was jailed for his activities and pardoned by the President after the new government threatened a const.i.tutional crisis. He and his a.s.sociates demanded the right to use Albanian in official transactions with state and munic.i.p.al inst.i.tutions - which is a reasonable demand. But they also demanded the right to hoist the Albanian flag and sing the Albanian anthem rather than the Macedonian one. Then they disobeyed the rulings of the Supreme Court and instigated violent clashes with the Police (which resulted in deaths). The establishment of a Tetovo "university" in the Albanian language did not help matters much. Regarded by Macedonian as a hotbed of much nationalism but little learning - the Macedonians refused to accredit it. Riots and counter-riots ensued, culminating in violent demonstrations of Macedonian students in the streets of Skopje, the capital.

The average salary in Macedonia is 200 Euro (=180 US dollars) a MONTH.

There are c. 300,000 unemployed in a total working age population of 930,000. There is a constant balance of payments deficit of 8% of GNP.

Macedonia is POOR - real poor, not relatively poor. It is poorer than any other country in Europe, with the exception of Albania. It is also insecure. Albanians and Serbs from within and from without threaten its very existence. It would do wisely to remain on good terms with Yugoslavia - not only because 50% of its trade is conducted with it - but also because Yugoslavia is THE big neighbour of the north. Long after Clinton is gone and perhaps NATO in its current form as well - Macedonia will have to deal with its perceived betrayal of Serbia.

Serbs never forget and rarely forgive. They visit the sins of the battle of Kosovo (1389) upon other Moslems - 610 years later, in the same location. They are a dangerous, tenacious, resilient, ruthless and unrelenting foe to have. Macedonia is so small and helpless (no army to speak of) that it is terrified and caught between the NATO rock and the Serbian hard place. It feels blackmailed, used and exploited without real regard to its problems now and after the war is over. NATO showed its real face when it placed Macedonia (with Albania) in the last category of NATO applicants. Macedonia is a military base to NATO - here today, gone tomorrow. Who will protect Macedonia from Yugoslavia when the foreign media circus is engaged elsewhere? This is the age of the soundbite and the videoclip. It is the generation of expediency.