The Victory is Montenegro
In 1995, Montenegro exempted its conscripts from serving in the Yugoslav
Federal Army (the JNA). It opened its doors to a flood of Bosniaks (Moslems)
during the Bosnian War and to Kosovar Albanians during Operation Allied
Force. These independent policies stood in stark contrast to Belgrade's.
As the latter engaged in shrill anti-Western campaigns throughout the
1990's - Montenegro persisted in its overwhelming wish to become a member
of the EU. In March 1997, Djukanovic took over the ruling Democratic Party
of Socialists (DPS) and forced Momir Bulatovic, a Milosevic stalwart,
to form the People's Socialist Party (PSP). Yet despite these telltale
signs of disintegration, Milo Djukanovic and his reformist crew did very
little over the years to prepare Montenegro for an inevitable secession.
As late as last year, the currently radical nationalist Djukanovic, was
calling for moderation and dialogue, paranoically eyeing his old nemesis,
Bulatovic, who stuck to power even as his master was swept to prison on
a popular wave of discontent. In a conspiracy-theories-prone area, this
caused many to believe that Djukanovic was merely angling for more power
in the new Yugoslav constitutional arrangements. Montenegro is tiny -
both absolutely and in comparison to Serbia, its "equal partner" in the
improbable rump federation of Yugoslavia. At 14,000 sq. km., it is half
the size of Macedonia and one third its population (c. 700,000 citizens).
Yet, these two have many things in common. In both, for instance, minorities
hold the balance of power. The pro-independence vote this weekend was
largely decided by the Albanian community, which constitutes c. 7% of
the population. They regard Djukanovic as an ally in a largely Slav and
hostile region. A sudden attack of Djukanovic pre-election generosity
- roads built, food distributed and handouts showered throughout the Albanian
coastal settlements - only sustained this perception. Ethnic Albanian
parties are the big losers. They and their cantankerous leaders are cast
as power-hungry, visionless and disunited. A similar situation (dispossessed
Albanian parties fighting for their share of the spoils) in Macedonia
led to the recent insurgency. Montenegro may be next. The Muslims in Montenegro
(16% of the total) object to independence, fearful of being disconnected
from their co-religionist kith and kin in the Sandjak region in a Serbia
alienated by Montenegrin secession. Both minorities have been the continuous
targets of thinly disguised racial slurs and barbs by the Bulatovic "Together
for Yugoslavia" camp during the campaign.
Minorities aside, the population is split
right down the middle among the pro and anti-independence factions. In
another part of Europe, Montenegro could have aspired to emulate Luxembourg.
In the Balkan, it makes for an appetizing prey. Its economy consists of
foreign aid, smuggling (cigarettes, immigrants, prostitutes, drugs, and
weapons, in this order), and dubious off-shore offerings (a bank licence
goes for less than $10,000). In the absence of either of these pillars
of the economy, wages - already symbolic - are likely to spiral down and
social unrest is likely to take the opposite course with a vengeance.
Foreign aid may dwindle if Montenegro defies the West (read: the State
Department). Both the USA and the EU are reluctant to see Yugoslavia further
atomised. They fear the echoes of a Montenegrin independence, however
democratic and peaceful - in less democratic and peaceful corners of the
Balkan (mainly in Kosovo and Bosnia). Thus, Montenegro's share of American
foreign aid is now firmly ensconced in Yugoslavia's appropriation. Congress,
as usual, ignores Foggy Bottom and continued allocate funds to Montenegro
with reflexive abandon (close to $90 million last year alone). But even
old Balkan hands like Holbrooke are coming around to the idea of an independent
Montenegro.
The Montenegrin nationalist camp, in the
meantime, is busy inventing a Montenegrin ancient history, demonising
hegemonic Serbia and blaming Montenegro's backwardness on Milosevic and
his stranglehold. Typical Kostunica gaffes - belittling Montenegro and
its inhabitants - did nothing to ameliorate the tension.
"The Victory is Montenegro" - Dukanovic's
outfit - promised a referendum about independence in June. It may well
be postponed if the old-new Montenegrin leadership is sufficiently pampered
and flattered by Djindjic and Kostunica. Both have said that they will
accept Montenegrin independence should its people really want it. This
is a matter of internal Serbian politics. In September 2000, Djukanovic,
very unwisely, boycotted the elections that toppled Milosevic. Montenegro
is thus represented in the Yugoslav federal parliament by Bulatovic and
his anti-reformist creed. Getting rid of this sabotaging, corrupt, and
anachronistic lot - even at the price of losing Montenegro - may be an
attractive proposition as far as the likes of Djindjic are concerned.
Djukanovic may have been caught by surprise between the rock of his fervent
nationalist propaganda and the hard place of Serb capitulation to his
demands. Unable to fulfil most of his unrealistic campaign promises, he
may yet find himself the president of an economically unviable and politically
unstable statelet.
Milosevic's Treasure Island
Milosevic and his cronies stand accused of plundering Serbia's wealth
- both pecuniary and natural. Yet, the media tends to confuse three modes
of action with two diametrically opposed goals. There was state-sanctioned
capital flight. Gold and foreign exchange were smuggled out of Yugoslavia
and deposited in other countries. This was meant to provide a cushion
against embargo and sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia by the West.
The scale of these operations has been
wildly over-estimated at 4 billion US dollars. A figure half as big is
more reasonable. Most of the money was used legitimately, to finance the
purchase of food, medicines, and energy products. Yugoslavia would have
frozen to death had its leaders not have the foresight to act as they
did.
This had nothing to do with party officials,
cronies, and their family members enriching themselves by "diverting"
export proceeds and commodities into private accounts in foreign lands.
The culprits often disguised these acts of plunder as sanctions-busting
operations. Hence the confusion.
Thirdly, members of the establishment and
their relatives were allowed to run lucrative smuggling and black market
operations fuelled by cheap credits coerced out of the dilapidated and
politicised "banking" system. As early as 1987, a network of off-shore
bank accounts and holding companies was established by Serbia's Communist
party and, later, by Yugoslavia. This frantic groping for alternatives
reached a peak during 1989 and 1991 and after 1992 when accounts were
opened in Cyprus, Israel, Greece, and Switzerland and virtually all major
Yugoslav firms opened Cypriot subsidisaries or holding structures. Starting
in 1991, the Central Bank's gold (and a small part of the foreign exchange
reserves) were deposited in Switzerland (mainly in Zurich). A company
by the name of "Metalurski Kombinat Smederevo - MKS" (renamed "Sartid"
after its bogus privatisation) was instrumental in this through its MKS
Zurich subsidiary. MKS was a giant complex of metal processing factories,
headed by a former Minister of Industry and a Milosevic loyalist, Dusko
Matkovic. The latter also served as deputy chairman of Milosevic's party.
The lines between party, state and personal fortunes blurred fast. Small
banking institutions were established everywhere, even in London (the
AY Bank) and conducted operations throughout the world. They were owned
by bogus shareholders, out of the reach of the international sanctions
regime.
When UN sanctions were imposed in stages
(1992-5), the state made sure its export proceeds were out of harm's way
and never in sanctions-bound UK and USA banks. The main financial agent
was "Beogradska Banka" and its branch in Novi Sad. In a series of complex
transactions involving foreign exchange trades, smuggled privatisation
proceeds, and inflated import invoices, it was able to stash away hundreds
of millions of dollars. This money was used to finance imports and defray
the exorbitant commissions, fees, and costs charged by numerous intermediaries.
Yugoslavia (and the regime) had no choice - it was either that or starvation,
freezing and explosive social discontent. Concurrently, a massive and
deeply criminalized web of smuggling, illegal (customs-exempt) imports,
bribe and corruption has stifled all legal manufacturing and commerce
activities. Cigarettes through Montenegro, alcohol and oil through Romania,
petrol, other goods (finished and semi-finished) and raw materials from
Greece through the Vardar river (Macedonia), absolutely everything through
Croatia, drugs from Turkey (and Afghanistan). UN personnel happily colluded
and collaborated - for a fee, of course. The export of commodities - such
as grain or precious metals (gold, even Uranium) - was granted in monopoly
to Milosevic stalwarts. These were vast fiefdoms controlled by a few
prominent "families" and Milosevic favourites. It was also immensely lucrative.
Even minor figures were able to deposit millions of US dollars in their
Russian, Cypriot, Lebanese, Greek, Austrian, Swiss, and South African
accounts. The regime leaned heavily on Yugoslav banks to finance these
new rich with cheap, soft, and often non-returnable, credits. These were
often used to speculate in the frenetic informal foreign exchange markets
for immediate windfalls.
The new Yugoslav authorities are likely
to be deeply frustrated and disappointed. Most of the money was expended
on essentials for the population. The personal fortunes made are tiny
by comparison and well-shielded in off-shore banking havens. Milosevic
himself has almost nothing to his name. His son and daughter may constitute
richer pickings but not by much. The hunt for the Milosevic treasure is
bound to be an expensive, futile undertaking.
The Third Balkan War
The contours of a Third Balkan War are emerging. In the western part of
hitherto peaceful Macedonia, Albanian radicals - an oddball ragtag army
of disgruntled KLA rejects and wild students - has pushed into Tetovo
in a bid to force the Macedonian government to accept the federalization
of the country. They have been repelled by Macedonian police and army
units but they vow to be back and to open a wider front: Tetovo, Kumnovo,
Debar, and urban guerilla in Skopje. Kosovo rumbled and seethed with demonstrations
of popular support and statements the West succeeded to extract from reluctant
Kosovar politicians in favour of a negotiated resolution of the conflict.
The West, as usual, fumbled. Its representatives - ill trained conscripts,
self important dim-witted diplomats and paper shuffling dead end bureaucrats
- were long on rhetoric and short on everything else. Their formula seems
to consist of the coercion of the weakened Macedonian state into a constitutional
re-definition of the status of the Albanian minority. Everyone was again
taken by complete surprise. Albanian violent extremism is likely to spread
to Greece and Bulgaria where small but restive Albanian
minorities exist. Both countries offered military and political succor
to Macedonia against the Albanian insurgents. The NATO-sponsored Presevo
accords signed between Yugoslavia (really, Serbia) and the Albanian militias
there, are not worth the fire, which will undoubtedly consume them. Already
both parties are blaming each other for reneging on their contractual
obligations.
Yet, Macedonia and Presevo are a diversion,
a first salvo, a side-show. The REAL Balkan War started elsewhere with
the unravelling of the Dayton Accords.
From "The Fifth Horseman", published December
5, 2000:
"The West's protectorate in Bosnia Herzegovina is shrivelling...While
paying lip service to the defunct Dayton accords, the fusty puppets of
Karadzic and his creed ascended in both the Croat bit of the improbable
Croat-Muslim Federation and in its nightmarish sister, Republika Srpska.
The West, enamoured of its own abstractions and confabulations, seems
to be inured to the recurrent and thundering message that Bosnia is an
untenable and tenuous proposition. An eruption is afoot."
The new leaders of the new Croatia are
adept at signing the tunes the West likes to hear. They keep their distance
from their Bosnian-Croat brethren with the same unmitigated zeal that
they applied to the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs with the murderous help
of now shunned ones. Yet, should Bosnia be reduced to ethnic smithereens,
Croatia, as well as Serbia, are not likely to sit idle and watch their
compatriots slaughtered by Afghan and Saudi mujaheedin or harried by each
other. A re-ignition of the war in campestral Bosnia - and all bets are
off, including the Dayton wager. Another Serb-Croat encounter will rock
the very foundations of the hallucinatory "New Order" in the Balkan. The
imminent Serb-Croat war is a logical result of the infighting between
Kostunica and Djindjic. The latter, having used the former to depose of
Milosevic, is now backstabbing, a bit of a Balkan reflex.
Fighting for his political life, Kostunica
teamed up with the outcast elements in Republika Srpska, a nominal part
of the fictitious American-sponsored state of Bosnia. On March 5th, he
signed a declaratory accord between Yugoslavia and the Republika, similar
to the Russia-Belarus document of confederation. Thus, the classic Serb
beauty contest ("I am more nationalist than you are") has commenced. This
event, thoroughly overlooked by the Kostunica-enamoured Western media,
was preceded by the corrosive disintegration of Bosnia and the slow demise
of the Dayton Accords. When the Croat National Assembly has declared self-rule
in five cantons in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Wolfgang Petritsch, the Western
dictator in Bosnia fired Ante Jelavic (of the HDZ - the Croatian Democratic
Union) from the tripartite presidency of the protectorate and banned him
and others from future political activity. These sagacious acts will surely
lead to the formation of a Croat underground government.
In the meantime, more than 12,000 Croat
soldiers deserted en masse from the VF (the Bosnian "army") and formed
the First Guard Corps. The police is next. The country is being effectively
partitioned.
If the 22,000 troops of the West (which
include the American contingent, likely to be pulled out of Bosnia gradually)
will oppose these developments by force, another war is a certainty. In
such a war, the West's inexperienced and casualty-shy soldiers are bound
to be massacred. Moreover, both Serbia and Croatia are likely to join
the war to defend their own. The current regime in Croatia maintains its
distance from the thuggish Bosnian HDZ and from its destabilizing agenda
- but it cannot afford to be seen to be abandoning Croats under a Moslem
and Serb siege. The Croat parliament has already mooted an elaborate plan
for the cantonalization or confederalization of Bosnia - an absolute abrogation
of the Dayton Accords.
Montenegro and Vojvodina are next.
The tiny smuggling haven of Montenegro
is the spurned mistress of the West, used during Operation Allied Force
(Kosovo, 1999) and ignored thereafter. The Montenegrins face an impossible
choice with a divided mind. They can either break decisively from Serbia
- or succumb to its overweening embrace. It is a Hobson's choice. Should
it choose the former route, a civil war is inexorable. Yet, the same result
is guaranteed, should it choose the latter.
And then there is Vojvodina. Populated
by businesslike Serbs and civil Hungarians, it never really felt like
part of Serbia the rustic and bombastic. Restless Magyars across the border
seek to force Serbia to make amends for historical injustices real and
imaginary. Though part of the ruling coalition, Vojvodina politicians
have lately been demanding an autonomy as wide as the one they used to
constitutionally enjoy before Milosevic abolished it. Vojvodina is boiling.
Nationalist politicians agitate, secret services clash secretly, journalist
remonstrate, the province does flourishing (though often illicit) business
with Hungary and spawned a small but intellectually influential independence
minded movement. It is a Kosovo in the making, saddled by historic animosities
no less intense. It is seething, though in a cultured, Austro-Hungarian
manner.
The Balkan has never been more politically
fragmented than now. It was never before ruled by a single superpower.
Adjusting to these new geopolitical realities is tough. The prospects
of another Balkan War depend on it.
One by one the actors in this Greek tragedy
enter. The old, worn scenery is set. The script is known, the motions
automatic, the end result inevitable. Welcome to the Balkan's theatre
of the absurd.
Surviving
the Uprising
Macedonia is a small (25,000 sq. km.) landlocked country in the Balkan.
It serves as a natural bridge between Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania.
As an inevitable result, its economy consists mainly of trading, services,
low-tech, low value added industries, such as textile and plastics, and
agriculture. Countries such as Slovenia and Germany import wine from Macedonia,
bottle it, label it and re-sell it at a much higher price. This pattern
is repeated with tobacco and a host of other agricultural produce. Italian
designers contract with family textile firms to seasonally manufacture
for them. The banking sector is basic, though privately owned.
In recent years and especially following
the Kosovo crisis, the country
benefited from increasing foreign direct investment, unilateral transfers
of multilateral aid and credits and local spending by the likes of NATO
and KFOR. Its biggest bank - Stopanska Banka - was sold to a Greek bank
(National Bank). Many of the loss makers (communist-era industrial dinosaurs)
were either shut down or sold to foreigners. The Macedonian Telecom firm
was sold to a consortium led by MATAV. A host of critical economic laws
passed parliament and long postponed structural reforms were implemented.
Value Added Tax was introduced, The re-payment of Macedonia's internal
debt has accelerated and bank lending as well as money supply aggregates
increased dramatically. With GDP growth in excess of 5% (2000), Macedonia
was poised for an economic take-off. The current Albanian uprising (there
has been a minor precedent in 1997 in Tetovo) is low intensity warfare.
It is unlikely to adversely affect the main monetary parameters (stability
of the Macedonian denar, low to medium inflation rate, declining interest
rates). With its budget in a surplus of close to 4% of GDP, the government
is in no need to raise taxes. Tax receipts from the western part of Macedonia
- now virtually non-existent - were never sizable. Capital flight is bound
to increase but this is predicted to be more than fully offset by increased
transfers of Macedonian and Albanian expatriates. Foreign exchange reserves
are sound and cover c. 4 months of imports. Moreover, past experience
- of which, unfortunately Macedonia has plenty - shows that both a possible
(though improbable) devaluation of the currency and capital flight are
reversed once the crisis is over (or becomes a way of life). Following
an initial panic during Operation Allied Force in Kosovo (1999), the Central
Bank actually had to absorb excess foreign exchange in the markets as
people sought to purchase denars. The same happened after the imposition
of the Greek embargo and the sanctions on Yugoslavia (which used to be
Macedonia's main trading partner). The danger lies in the fickleness of
international investors.
Cancellations of commitments to invest
in the local economy have started. If FDI dries up, Macedonia will be
hard pressed to cope with its current account deficit (c. 6.5% of GDP).
This can be exacerbated if the international banking system were to wean
Macedonian firms off trading and documentary credits. Foreign firms -
especially American ones - tend in these circumstances to cancel orders
for textile and light industrial products. Macedonia has diversified its
trade considerably and now does most of its business with the European
Union but its products - steel, textile, wine, tobacco, grain, lamb meat
- are still subject to European protectionist measures. These were not
relaxed even during the more parlous war in Kosovo. No special concessions
are likely to be offered now.
One cannot expect international donors
to cover the difference. Patience with the region and its endless squabbles
has worn thin and a potentially isolationist USA administration is not
likely to provide the leadership needed to revive it. Macedonia can be
left high on insurgency and dry on cash. But this is not a necessary scenario.
It can be averted with goodwill and good planning. Foresight has often
eluded the West's involvement in the Balkan. Here is an opportunity to
make amends.
No Albanian Intifada!
A few of my colleagues in the international media compared the latest
clashes between Albanians and Macedonians in Macedonia to the two Palestinian
intifadas ("uprisings" in 1987-93 and from September 2000) in Israel.In
doing so, they demonstrated their ignorance of the two regions and the
four peoples involved.
The Macedonians are a small nation. Their
very nationhood is doubted by their Bulgarian neighbours (who regard them
as rustic Bulgarians speaking a funny Bulgarian dialect). The Greeks -
another neighbour and the biggest investors in the Macedonian economy
- consider them to be Slav invaders. The Serbs are convinced that they
are Serbs who occupy "South Serbia". Who needs enemies in the Balkan if
one has neighbours? The inevitable result is that Macedonians are very
touchy when it comes to theterritorial integrity of their tiny (25,000
sq. km.) country, to the official version of their history and to their
language. The current Albanian troubles are perceived by them to threaten
all three.
According to the last official census,
Albanians constituted around 25% of the population. Add to this Albanian
expatriates, a decade of fecundity, and census-dodgers and 33% of the
population would seem a safe bet. Thereare Albanians everywhere in Macedonia
- but mostly in its Western part which borders on Kosovo. The Albanians
in Macedonia are economically better off than their brethren in Albania
and in Kosovo. But they are a minority and, inevitably, suffer some discrimination
(especially in the job market and in education). Albanian women prefer
not to work (due to traditional values, the size of the average Albanian
family and other, objective, constraints). But even accounting for this
fact, unemployment among the Albanian populace is higher than it is among
the Macedonians.
At 25-30% country-wide, the unemployment
rate is anyhow explosive. Unemployment and discrimination (mostly real,
some of it imagined) - especially among the well-educated - breeds resentment.
Resentment in the Balkan breeds virulent
nationalism and guns, not necessarily in this order. That ostensibly Macedonian
Albanians insist on waving the flag of a neighbouring country (Albania)
rather than their own onofficial occasions does not add to the already
shaky mutual trust among the communities. That some of them (admittedly
a negligible minority) entertain the dream of a Great Albania (including
Western Macedonia) does nothing to assuage Macedonian fears. Despite (or
maybe because) centuries of peaceful co-existence and good neighbourly
relations - Macedonians have a stereotype of Albanians as backward, steeped
in crime and reflexively secessionist. Albanians, on the other hand, are
very dramatic about what some of them insist on calling "state terror".
Sporadic police brutality does not help the Macedonian case.
Hence the multi-annual heated debate about
whether Albanians should be allowed to use their language in their own
higher education institutions. Macedonians regard these rather usual demands
as the beginning of their end. They recall the tactics of the Albanians
in Kosovo. First, prosaic and rather reasonable demands regarding human
rights, health, jobs and education. Then, an armed uprising of para-military
units, followed by Western pressure to "compromise" and grant the minority
their "legitimate human and civil rights".
Then NATO.
The Macedonians fully believe - official
protestations aside - that the Albanians aresimply trying to repeat their
Kosovar success in other parts of Serbia (Presevo) and in Western Macedonia.
Macedonians seem to believe in the reality of a Great Albania vision more
than most Albanians do.
But the uprising in Macedonia has little
to do with a Great Albania and a lot to dowith greed and gripes. It is
a confluence of frustrated idealism and hard cash. Those who do the fighting
are an eclectic bunch of disgruntled former KLA toughs (under the itinerant
name "National Liberation Army") and wide-eyed students. They are mostly
Kosovars but with significant logistical support from the local population
(underground hospitals, arms caches and such). Some of the fighters and
many in the logistics are Albanian Macedonian citizens. The insurgency
is as much about business as it is about rights. The Albaniansin Macedonia
who do not belong to the Albanian party in power (the DPA) seem not to
have shared the spoils and patronage it doled out so wholeheartedly to
its coterie and cronies. Athird Albanian party has just been established,
apparently to cater to their needs .Many members of the theoretically
disbanded KLA found themselves shovelling snow for a pittance or altogether
unemployed. Even crime does not pay - it was taken over by ruthless gangs
from Albania proper. But it would be wrong to say that it's all about
money. The Macedonian Albanian population is genuinely disenchanted with
the rule of the Slav majority. And this uprising is about airing their
grievances as well.
There is no popular and widespread support
for a full-scale armed rebellion among the Albanians anywhere. That would
be too economically disruptive for both legal and illegal businesses.
The leaders of Albania, Kosovo (with the notable exception of Rugova,
who may be at great personal risk following the recent local elections
he won) and of the Macedonian Albanians all denounced the violence.
But a limited "message" to the Macedonian
authorities ("give us our rights peacefully or else...") seems to enjoy
a tacit - though unexpressed - consensus.
The irony is that the current government
of Macedonia has gone out of its way to accommodate the demands of the
Albanian population. An Albanian party (the aforementioned DPA) is one
of the most important and stable members of a fragile coalition. There
are Albanian ministers, civil servants and functionaries in all levels
and arms of government, both central and local. The issues of higher education
in the Albanian language are on their way to an attractive resolution,
as far as the Albanians are concerned. Perhaps this is why the Macedonian
government was taken by complete surprise despite warnings and information
aplenty.
There remains the demand for the status
of a "Constituent Nation" for the Albanians in Macedonia (within a federation
or a confederation). This demand is not as innocuous as it sounds. The
terminology is borrowed from the 1946 and 1974 constitutions of the former
Yugoslavia. In these constitutions, the right of every "constituent nation"
to self-determination was recognized - including "the right to secession".
Micromanaging Malignant Optimism
Never before has the Balkan been more of a powder keg, ready to detonate
thunderously. Never before has it been so fractured among political entities,
some viable - many not. Never before has it been dominated by a single
superpower, not counter-balanced by its allies nor shackled by its foes.
This is a disastrous state of things, about to get worse. Driven by America
- this amalgam of violent frontiersmen, semi-literate go-getters and malignant
optimists ("with some goodwill there is always a solution and a happy
ending") - the West has committed the sins of ignorant intervention and
colonial perpetuation. Peace among nations is the result of attrition
and exhaustion, of mutual terror and actual bloodletting - not of amicable
agreement and visionary stratagems. It took two world wars to make peace
between France and Germany. By forcing an unwanted peace upon an unwilling
populace in the early stages of every skirmish - the West has ascertained
the perpetuation of these conflicts. Witness Bosnia and its vociferous
nationalist Croats. Witness Macedonia's and Kosovo's Albanians and their
chimerical armies of liberation. These are all cinders of hostilities
artificially suppressed by Western procurators and Western cluster bombs.
The West should have dangled the carrots
of NATO and EU memberships in front of the bloodied pugilists - not ram
them down their reluctant throats in shows of air superiority. Humanitarian
aid should have been provided and grants and credits for development to
the deserving. But the succour afforded by the likes of Germany to the
likes of Croatia and by the benighted Americans to the most extreme elements
in Kosovo - served only to amplify and prolong the suffering and the warfare.
The West obstinately refused - and still does - to contemplate the only
feasible solution to the spectrum of Balkan questions. Instead of convening
a new Berlin Congress and redrawing the borders of the host of entities,
quasi-entities and fraction entities that emerged with the disintegration
of the Yugoslav Federation - the West foolishly and blindly adheres to
unsustainable borders which reflect colonial decision making and ceasefire
lines. In the absence of a colonizing power, only ethnically-homogeneous
states can survive peacefully in the Balkan. The West should strive to
effect ethnic homogenization throughout the region by altering borders,
encouraging population swaps and transfers and
discouraging ethnic cleansing and forced assimilation ("ethnic denial").
But the West's blunders are not confined to the political and geopolitical
realms.
The West (actually, America) has many long
arms, the IMF and World Bank being the most prominent. These ostensible
multilaterals have committed yet another strategic blunder. Instead of
weaning their clientele - the post-Communist countries in transition -
off central planning and command economics, they engaged in Washington-based
micromanagement of their economies. The Bretton-Woods institutions have
become all-pervasive, multi-tentacled approximations of the Communist
party. They dictate policy, involve themselves in the minutest details
of daily management, veto decisions (economic and non-economic), cajole
and
threaten governments, block private sector lending and compete in the
international credit and investment markets.
The post-Communist countries in transition
are like infants taking their first steps in the demanding world of free
markets and capitalism. The multilateral financial institutions are the
mother figures. Good mothers let go, encourage in the child a sense of
independence, self-reliance, learning by mistakes and the predictability
of just rewards and punishments. Bad mothers refuse to acknowledge the
emerging boundaries of their offspring. They reward clinging behaviour
and punish every act of separation and individuation. They are overweening,
doting, crushing figures. In short: they micromanage.
From my book Malignant Self Love - Narcissism
Revisited:
"The separation from the mother, the formation
of an individual, the separation from the world (the 'spewing out' of
the outside world) - are all tremendously traumatic. The infant is afraid
to lose his mother physically (no 'mother permanence') as well as emotionally
(will she be angry at this new found autonomy?). He goes away a step or
two and runs back to receive the mother's reassurance that she still loves
him and that she is still there. The tearing up of one's self into my
SELF and the OUTSIDE WORLD is an unimaginable feat...The child's mind
is shredded to pieces: some pieces are still HE and others are NOT HE
(=the outside world). This is an absolutely psychedelic experience (and
the root of all psychoses, probably). If not managed properly, if disturbed
in some way (mainly emotionally), if the separation - individuation process
goes awry, it could result in serious psychopathologies. There are grounds
to believe that several personality disorders (Narcissistic and Borderline)
can be traced to a disturbance in this process in early childhood. Then,
of course, there is the on-going traumatic process that we call 'life'".
The Common Enemy
They are here, the future common enemy, helmeted and uniformed, shielded
in their APCs and brandishing rifles and machine guns. The common enemy
to be is KFOR and, by implication, NATO. It is flanked by Serbs triumphantly
invited to repossess the now defunct security zone (one is tempted to
ask "so, what was this idiotic war all about"?). Besieged by the radicalized
remnants of the KLA and by a disdainful Macedonian populace - these less
than elite units constitute prime targets. In "NATO's Next War" - an article
published June 14, 1999 - I wrote this:
"The real, protracted, war is about to
start. NATO and the international peacekeeping force against an unholy
- and, until recently, improbable - alliance. Milosevic (or post-Milosevic
Serbia) and the KLA against the occupying forces. It is going to be ferocious.
It is going to be bloody. And it is going to be a Somali nightmare.
"Why should the KLA and Serbia collaborate
against NATO (I use NATO here as shorthand for 'The International Peacekeeping
Force - KFOR')? Serbia - because it wants to regain its lost sovereignty
over at least the northern part of Kosovo. Because it virulently hates,
wholeheartedly detests, voluptuously despises NATO, the 'Nazi aggresso'"
of yestermonth. Serbia has no natural allies left, not even Russia which
prostituted its geopolitical favours for substantial IMF funding. Its
only remaining natural ally is the KLA.
"The KLA stands to lose everything
as a result of the latest bout of peacemaking. It is supposed to be 'decommissioned'
IRA-style, disarmed ('demilitarized' in the diplomatic argot) and effectively
disbanded. The KLA's political clout rested on its ever-growing arsenal
and body of volunteers. Yet volunteers have a strange habit of going back
whence they came once a conflict is over. And the weapons are to be surrendered.
Devoid of these two pillars of political might - Thaci may find himself
unemployed, a former self-declared Prime Minister of a shadow government
in Albanian exile. Rugova has the coffers, filled to the brim with tens
of millions of US dollars and DM raised from the Albanian diaspora world-wide.
Money talks, KLA walks. Bad for the KLA. Having tasted power, having met
cher Albright on a regular basis, having conversed with Tony Blair and
Robertson and even Clinton via expensive high tech gadgets - Thaci is
not likely to compromise on a second rate appointment in a Rugova led
administration.
"And the bad news is that he doesn't
have to. Bolstered by a short-sighted and panicky NATO, the KLA post-bellum
is not what it used to be antebellum. It is well equipped. It is well-financed.
Its ranks have swelled. It has been transformed from an agglomeration
of desperadoes - to a military guerilla force to be reckoned with. Even
the Serbs found that out at a dear price."
Hence, the mysteriously emergent Albanian
"National Army of Liberation" on Macedonia's border with Kosovo. In another
article, "The Army of Liberation", published on June 5, 2000 , I described
the dynamics that fostered the current anti-Macedonian insurgency. The
KLA is trying to revive its sagging fortunes by provoking a new regional
crisis - this time in the western part of pliable Macedonia and in collaboration
with Albanians inside Macedonia. It is all about power, smuggling routes,
the drug trade and the huge infusions of Western aid - a gang warfare
compounded by years of mistreatment and mutual animosity. I wrote:
"Albanians and Serbs have more in common
than they care to admit. Scattered among various political entities, both
nations came up with a grandiose game plan - Milosevic's 'Great Serbia'
and the KLA's 'Great Albania'. The idea, in both cases, was to create
an ethnically homogeneous state by shifting existing borders, ncorporating
hitherto excluded parts of the nation and excluding hitherto included
minorities. Whereas Milosevic had at his disposal the might of the Yugoslav
army (or, so he thought) - the Albanians had only impoverished and decomposing
Albania to back them. Still, the emotional bond that formed, fostered
by a common vision and shared hope - is intact. Albanian flags fly over
Albanian municipalities in Kosovo and in Macedonia.
"The possession of weapons and self-government
have always been emblematic of the anticipated statehood of Kosovo. Being
disarmed and deprived of self-governance was, to the Albanians, a humiliating
and enraging experience, evocative of earlier, Serb-inflicted, injuries.
Moreover, it was indicative of the perplexed muddle the West is mired
in - officially, Kosovo is part of Yugoslavia. But it is also occupied
by foreign forces and has its own customs, currency, bank licensing, entry
visas and other insignia of sovereignty (shortly, even an internet domain,
KO).
"This quandary is a typically anodyne
European compromise which is bound to ferment into atrabilious discourse
and worse. The Kosovars - understandably - will never accept Serb sovereignty
or even Serb propinquity willingly. Ignoring the inevitable, tergiversating
and equivocating have too often characterized the policies of the Big
Powers - the kind of behaviour that turned the Balkan into the morass
that it is today.
"It is, therefore, inconceivable that
the KLA has disbanded and disarmed
or transformed itself into the ill-conceived and ill-defined "Kosovo Protection
Corps" (headed by former KLA commander and decorated Croat Lieutenant
General, Agim Ceku and charged with fire fighting, rescue missions and
the like). Thousands of KLA members found jobs (or scholarships, or seed
money) through the International Organization for Migration (IOM). But,
in all likelihood, the KLA still maintains clandestine arms depots (intermittently
raided by KFOR), strewn throughout Kosovo and beyond. Its chain of command,
organizational structure, directorates, operational and assembly zones
and general staff are all viable. I have no doubt - though little proof
- that it still trains and prepares for war. It would be mad not to in
this state
of utter mayhem. The emergence of the 'Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja
and Bujanovac' (all towns beyond Kosovo's borders, in Serbia, but with
an Albanian majority) is a harbinger. Its soldiers even wear badges in
the red, black and yellow KLA colours. The enemies are numerous: the Serbs
(should Kosovo ever be returned to them), NATO and KFOR (should they be
charged with the task of reintegrating Serbia), perhaps more moderate
Albanians with lesser national zeal or Serb-collaborators (like Zemail
Mustafi, the Albanian Vice-President of the Bujanovac branch of President
Slobodan Milosevic's ruling Socialist Party, who was assassinated three
months ago). Moreover, the very borders of Kosovo are in dispute. The
territory known to its inhabitants as 'Eastern Kosovo' now comprises 70,000
Albanians, captives in a hostile Serbia. Yet, 'Eastern Kosovo' was never
part of the administrative province of Kosovo. The war is far from over.
"In the meantime, life is gradually
returning to normal in Kosovo itself. Former KLA fighters engage in all
manner of odd jobs - from shovelling snow in winter to burning bushes
in summer. Even the impossible Joint Administrative Council (Serbs, Albanians
and peacekeepers) with its 19 departments, convenes from time to time.
The periodic resignation of the overweening Bernard Kouchner aside, things
are going well. A bank has been established, another one is on its way.
Electricity is being gradually restored and so are medical services and
internet connections. Downtown Pristina is reconstructed by Albanians
from Switzerland. Such normalization can prove lethal to an organization
like the KLA, founded on strife and crisis as it is. If it does not transform
itself into a political organization in a convincing manner - it might
lose its members to the more alluring pastures of statecraft. The local
and general elections so laboriously (and expensively) organized in Kosovo
are the KLA's first real chance at transformation. It failed at its initial
effort to establish a government (together with Qosaj's
Democratic Union Movement, an umbrella organization of parties in pposition
to Rugova and with Hashim Thaci as its Prime Minister). Overruled by UNMIK
(United Nations Mission In Kosovo), opposed by Berisha's Democratic Party,
recognized only by Albania and the main Albanian party in Macedonia and
bereft of finances, it was unable to imbue structure with content and
provide the public goods a government is all about. The KLA was so starved
for cash that it was unable even to pay the salaries of its own personnel.
Many criminals caught in the act claimed to be KLA members in dire financial
straits. Ineptitude and insolvency led to a dramatic resurgence in the
popularity of the hitherto discarded Rugova. The KLA then failed to infiltrate
existing structures of governance erected by the West (like the Executive
Council) - or to duplicate them. Thaci's quest to become deputy-Kouchner
was brusquely rebuffed. The ballot box seems now to be the KLA's only
exit strategy. The risk is that electoral loss will lead to alienation
and thuggery if not to outright criminality. It is a fine balancing act
between the virtuous ideals of democracy and the harsh constraints of
realpolitik".
NATO and KFOR face the unenviable dilemma
of clashing with Albanian nationalists in Kosovo - or, through abstention,
aiding and abetting in the disintegration of Macedonia. KFOR cannot be
seen to be suppressing the very population whose well-being it ostensibly
was hastily assembled to secure. Moreover, KFOR is no match to a genuine
and well equipped Albanian guerilla movement. Its soldiers will be slaughtered
as were the far more superior and knowledgeable Serb fighters. Taking
this inferiority and reluctance into account, KFOR's best policy is to
turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to exploding mines and the occasional
casualty. The Macedonians are not likely to sit idle while their country
is being torn apart. Hot pursuits into Kosovar territory are not an outlandish
proposition. Sooner or later, NATO/KFOR and the Macedonian ARM will cross
machine gun fire. The Americans are likely to fold with the first body
bag - which would leave militarily-strapped Europe in a deep lurch indeed.
One should also not ignore the rumblings
from Bosnia. The Dayton Accord is falling apart, as well it deserves.
The HDZ Croats all but declared
independence. The West fires elected politicians in a ferocious pace.
Croatia is unlikely to intervene unless something real bad happens. But
a civil war in Bosnia is not out of the question. Add this to the growing
American isolationism and you can begin to understand why I wrote this
immediately after the Serb October Revolution and Kostunica's ascent to
power in my article "The Fifth Horseman", published on December 4, 2001:
"The plot thickens by the day. The inevitable
is unfolding in Kosovo. Raffish Albanian extremists enjoin the Serb police
forces and military at the southern fringes of Serbia. The latter's Pavlovian
violent response is sure to escalate the conflict. The West helplessly
reprimands the very armed and rambunctious demons it has unleashed, mortified
at their audacity - to no avail. A spate of murders of Albanian moderates
inside the nascent Kosovar state is likely to effectively annul the results
of the mock local elections in October. The region - and Western Macedonia
with it - is down a slippery path. With its hordes of bloated bureaucrats,
mountebank bankers and coxcomb politicians, the West copes with the self-inflicted
Augean task of sorting out the Balkan by making extempore vacuous promises
combined with empty harrumphs. Neither its carrot of wheedling persiflage
nor its stick of turgid impotence are credible. When fighting breaks,
the eroded and inept forces that pass for sedentary NATO will find themselves
the targets of villain and rescued alike, the common enemy of the wily
and indomitable denizens of these blood drenched plains."
The Fifth Horseman
"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was
Death, and hell followed with him. And Power was given unto them over
the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and
with death, and with the beasts of the earth"
-"Revelation," Chapter 6, Verse
8.
Four apocalyptic riders threaten the illusory neoteric respite in bloody
Balkan affairs speciously achieved lately. With Tudjman gone and Milosevic
at bay, the jejune West celebrates among the smoking ruins of the quondam
prosperous Yugoslavia. But not for long. The conflagration is at abeyance
and its next cycle will dwarf all that has preceded it.
And then there is the fifth horseman.
The "second October Revolution" brought
Kostunica - a virtual unknown - to power. He was backed by what passes
in Serbia for opposition (read, the disenfranchised crime gangs). But
this unholy alliance will not last beyond the December elections (should
it last that long and should the elections not be postponed due to convenient
"national emergencies"). A rift is opening and a conflict brewing between
Kostunica and his alleged puppet masters, chief among the Djindjich.
Habitually, the West keeps asking the wrong
questions. Why Milosevic is not brought to international justice is less
perplexing. Why he is not barred from political activity is the real enigma.
Vicious Balkan tongues begin to cast Kostunica in the role of an interim
Milosevic puppet. Wasn't Kostunica a virtual nobody from nowhere prior
to his incredible ascent to supreme power? Didn't Milosevic astound the
world by succumbing to him without a as much as a show of despondence?
Wasn't it all pre-orchestrated, kind of another "Gorbachev coup"? - they
whisper. They even go as far as predicting a unity government (Kostunica
and Milosevic) should the Albanians plunge Serbia into another civil war.
The plot thickens by the day. The inevitable
is unfolding in Kosovo. Raffish Albanian extremists enjoin the Serb police
forces and military at the southern fringes of Serbia. The latter's Pavlovian
violent response is sure to escalate the conflict. The West helplessly
reprimands the very armed and rambunctious demons it has unleashed, mortified
at their audacity - to no avail. A spate of murders of Albanian moderates
inside the nascent Kosovar state is likely to effectively annul the results
of the mock local elections in October. The region - and Western Macedonia
with it - is down a slippery path. With its hordes of bloated bureaucrats,
mountebank bankers and coxcomb politicians, the West copes with the self-inflicted
Augean task of sorting out the Balkan by making extempore vacuous promises
combined with empty harrumphs. Neither its carrot of wheedling persiflage
nor its stick of turgid impotence are credible. When fighting breaks,
the eroded and inept forces that pass for sedentary NATO will find themselves
the targets of villain and rescued alike, the common enemy of the wily
and indomitable denizens of these blood-drenched plains.
This is the first horseman.
Bordering this flashpoint is the tiny smuggling
haven of Montenegro. The spurned mistress of the West, the Montenegrins
face an impossible choice with a divided mind. To be a cosseted asset
one day and a bumptious liability the next, is not an easy transition
in the best of times and both Montenegrins and Kosovars are not likely
to accept it graciously. The West is bound to discover the long memory
and even longer knives of the allies it deserts so peremptorily. Denuded
of financial aid and the media fig leaf that covered their cupidinous
delinquency and skulduggery, the Montenegrins can either break decisively
from Serbia - or succumb to its overweening embrace. It is a Hobson's
choice. Should it choose the former route, a civil war is inexorable.
Yet, the same result is guaranteed, should it choose the latter.
This is the second horseman.
The West's protectorate in Bosnia Herzegovina
is shrivelling. There, its beleaguered officials applied a unique brand
of enlightened absolutism - arbitrary sackings of democratically elected
nationalist politicians, overruling of democratically adopted laws by
ukase, Rambo-style shoot-outs in the random hunt for war criminals and
all. Not surprisingly, this has succeeded only to alienate the people
and cast all moderates as quislings. The backlash was evident in the abysmal
failure of the ideals of clement reason and ethnic co-existence in the
last elections. While paying lip service to the defunct Dayton accords,
the fusty puppets of Karadzic and his creed ascended in both the Croat
bit of the improbable Croat-Muslim Federation and in its nightmarish sister,
Republika Srpska. The West, enamoured of its own abstractions and confabulations,
seems to be inured to the recurrent and thundering message that Bosnia
is an untenable and tenuous roposition. An eruption is afoot.
This is the third horseman.
The new leaders of the new Croatia are
adept at signing the tunes the West likes to hear. They keep their distance
from their Bosnian-Croat brethren with the same unmitigated zeal that
they applied to the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs with the murderous help
of now shunned ones. Yet, should Bosnia be reduced to ethnic smithereens,
Croatia, as well as Serbia, are not likely to sit idle and watch their
compatriots slaughtered by Afghan and Saudi mujaheedin or harried by each
other. A re-ignition of the war in campestral Bosnia - and all bets are
off, including the Dayton wager. Another Serb-Croat encounter will rock
the very foundations of the hallucinatory "New Order" in the Balkan.
This is the fourth horseman.
And then there is Vojvodina. Populated
by businesslike Serbs and civil Hungarians, it never really felt like
part of Serbia the rustic and bombastic. Restless Magyars across the border
seek to force Serbia to make amends for dolorous injustices real and imaginary.
Nationalist politicians agitate, secret
services clash secretly, journalist remonstrate, the province does flourishing
(though often illicit) business with Hungary and spawned a small but intellectually
influential independence minded movement. It is a Kosovo in the making,
saddled by historic animosities no less intense. It is seething, though
in a cultured, Austro-Hungarian manner.
This is the fifth, dark, horseman.
The protean Balkan nations have perfected
the art of backstabbing. They now consider Serbia to be a vanquished,
effete and submissive nation, kow-towing to the West's demands and attuned
to its every whim. In other words: in an ideal condition to be pulled
asunder.
How wrong they are. And what a dear price
they - and the West - are going to pay for this fateful misreading of
the Serbs.
Slobodan Milosevic is Dead
After a tense and bullet-filled standoff, former Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic was finally arrested ostentatiously one Sunday morning, probably
to placate the Americans and secure Western aid. The previous night, a
policeman claimed to have heard him muttering that he will not "go to
jail (or be taken) alive."
This troubling comment attributed to Milosevic
emphasizes an unpleasant truth. Everyone would be better off if Milosevic
were to die. Mysteriously, of course, in a serendipitous car accident,
or a suicide in his jail cell.
Or, mercifully and less obtrusively, in
a sudden onslaught of lethal pneumonia, in line with his advanced age.
To his own dwindling camp, he has become a political albatross and a nagging
embarrassment. His bills are mercifully paid by the state (with the exception
of his armed and often drunk bodyguards) but his retinue was reduced by
law to one aging personal secretary and one, potentially traitorous, bodyguard.
Milosevic is known to frequent the offices
of the Socialist Party of Serbia and complain about his current position
for hours, in long and convoluted prose.
He is now nothing more than a reminder
of an age best forgotten, the repressed guilt of millions, and a threat
to the high and mighty. He knows too much about too many. His continued
life may be a luxury few can afford, including members of Serbia's "new"
political elite. Yugoslavia's political scene is best understood in terms
of primitive crime gangs fighting it out, Chicago-style, for control of
the territory and its attendant smuggling rackets and monopolies. The
Milosevic clan has lost.
The winners are now at each other's jugular
for turf and pelf - as evidenced by the recent clashes between the narcissistic
Zoran Djindjic, Serbia's prime minister, and the closet-nationalist Vojislav
Kostunica. They cannot extradite Milosevic to The Hague, not due to a
misguided sense of nationalistic pride, but because omerta and vendetta
- the twin deterrents to snitching - are powerless there. Free to talk,
he might, and if he does, there is no counting how many heads will roll
- "reformist", and "democratic", and "law-abiding" heads as well as "genocidal"
and "criminal" ones.
The distinctions that the West draws between
the orthobiotic current lot and their fungible predecessors are mere delusions.
"Democracy" and "structural reform" are useful buzzwords, which serve
to tranquillize those pugnacious Serbs who authentically strive to modernity
and meritocracy. And they are great at securing a larger share of the
dwindling generosity of the West.
President Kostunica, for instance, kept
the murderous head of the Serb secret police, Rade Markovic, in power
until January 2001, giving him enough time to shred evidence and intimidate
witnesses. Milosevic threatens all this.
In a land of overpowering fatalism - bred
by centuries of maleficent oppression, refractory mismanagement and romanticized
recklessness - untimely death is perceived as both inevitable and a legitimate
tool of policy (as is backstabbing).
Political assassinations serve to resolve
long standing conflicts, to remove the obstinately undesirable, to rectify
perceived injustice, to further a political goal, to redistribute rights
and wealth and to turn a new, blood-stained page. Politicians, businessmen,
journalists and vociferous intellectuals assume this risk as a matter
of course.
Vuk Draskovic, the mercurial opposition
leader, and his family were the victims of a botched hit and run "accident"
18 months ago. Four people died, including his brother-in-law. He survived.
Peter Rajic, a state security clerk, who leaked documents implicating
the state security services in the mysterious accident - died in a car
accident himself.
The aforementioned Rade Markovic, the former
chief of the much feared Secret Police will likely be charged with murder
in the Draskovic attempt.
Slavko Curuvija, an editor of an opposition
newspaper, was shot dead in April 1999. A former President of Serbia,
Ivan Stambolic, an erstwhile friend turned fierce critic of Milosevic,
vanished in August 2000, never to be seen again.
The paramilitary and crime lord Arkan (Zeljko
Raznjatovic) was executed in the Inter-Continental Hotel in Belgrade about
a year ago. JAT's general director - privy to the smuggling on his airplanes
of suitcases of cash, jewelry and gold by party functionaries and mobsters
- was gunned down outside his home in May 1999. This is a very partial
list. Milosevic knows all this. What is he doing to protect himself?
It would be wrong to write him off. He
still maintains an iron grip (though weakening by the day) on the shredded
Socialist Party of Serbia and, though uxorious, on his wife's political
organization, as well. His philistine confidants and collaborators have
metastasized and penetrated every social cell, political and economic.
The police, the secret service and, to
a lesser extent, the army, are flooded with his loyalists and cronies
- as are recently privatized state firms. After a spastic bout of revanchism
in which some Milosevic-era managers were removed from their lucrative
posts and the boards of some media outlets replaced, the "new" politicians
assimilated the old, infected structures and position-holders (with the
exception of a few, rather symbolic and hitherto futile, arrests).
The New Serbia is very old and disturbingly
familiar. Milosevic - through extortion or promotion - can still make
trouble. The more the reason for his opponents to get rid of him.
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