Ex-commandants in gray suits
Former commandants of the ethnic Albanians’ National Liberation Army (NLA) in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) have exchanged their uniforms for suits and ties and come down from the Sar Planina mountains around Tetovo to enter politics. The change comes at a crucial time, as the peace accord signed in Ohrid with the Slav-Macedonians last year is implemented. The 43-year-old former NLA leader Ali Ahmeti was recently elected – apparently unanimously – president of the Albanians’ Coordinating Council, comprising representatives of all FYROM’s Albanian political parties. The Slav-Macedonians claim this is nothing more than the Albanians’ shadow government, part of a plan to create separate political structures in the same way Ibrahim Rugova did in Kosovo before the Serbs were expelled. Albanians, however, maintain it was set up to better coordinate the Ohrid accord. Ahmeti is backed up by two other former commandants, leading officials in the Albanians’ armed struggle; the NLA’s military commander, Gazim Osreni, and the supposed ideological leader of the armed uprising, Fazli Veliu. Under the NLA umbrella As was to be expected after the successful outcome of the Albanians’ guerrilla war, power is now passing to those who used arms to persuade the Slav-Macedonians to satisfy the Albanian population’s long-term demands. Traditional political parties, realizing that the current mood favors Ahmeti and his associates, have had to submit to being under the NLA umbrella or else become marginalized. Arben Xhaferi, a moderate and visionary politician who has led the Albanians in Tetovo for some years, is heading for retirement, chiefly because of his deteriorating health but also because he has played his part. Well-informed sources in Tetovo, Skopje and Pristina maintain that Xhaferi has favored Ahmeti’s rise to the top of the leadership pyramid due to his moderate stance and especially because of the powerful aura that surrounds the ethnic Albanians’ national hero. Moreover, not a single cadre in his own party has Ahmeti’s luster or political qualifications, not even his vice president, Menduh Thaci, of whose extra-political activities much has been said. Still in the mountains Although Ahmeti looks set to be the ethnic Albanians’ new political leader, he has not yet left his headquarters in the village of Sipkovica, just a few kilometers from Tetovo, in a gorge in the Sar Planina mountains. He now wears civilian clothes and his quarters do not have an armed guard, at least not obviously so, since the Slav-Macedonian police have not yet set foot in Sipkovica, despite the terms of the peace accord ruling that the state authorities must be represented everywhere. But when he has to go to Tetovo or some other area inhabited by Albanians (he travels to Kosovo by an international military force helicopter) he takes endless precautions. Western diplomats who have met with him say he is afraid an assassination attempt against him would once more destabilize the situation and destroy the peace accord. But who is Ahmeti afraid of? Of course the Red Lions, security forces faithful to the nationalist Slav-Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski, but also some of his former followers, fanatics who refused to lay down their arms and declared that for them the struggle would continue, accusing Ahmeti and and others who signed the peace accord of treason. Information has reached the FYROM government and Western services that a few dozen armed men are deployed in the village of Mala Recica in Tetovo and a few mountain villages and also in Kumanovo, calling themselves the «Albanian Liberation Army» (ANA). In Tetovo last week there were bloody clashes between the ANA and Ahmeti’s security force, leaving one man dead and at least five injured. If Ahmeti wants to consolidate his authority among the ethnic Albanians, he will have to mop up the remaining pockets of extremist resistance. Appeals for calm In his first proclamation to his fellow Albanians as president of their coordinating body, Ahmeti asked them to show maturity as police forces return to disputed areas. «We Albanians, through our political representatives, signed a framework agreement that must be implemented. «Every display of disobedience will only make the situation more difficult and lead to undesirable actions,» he said. Statements by the Albanian leaders indicate their willingness to work in order to enhance the peace accord’s chances of success. After all, they have more to gain by its terms than they ever dreamed of. The same holds for the Slav-Macedonians, although even among them there are groups ready to create tension. International community Suspicion is prevalent throughout FYROM. In fact, both ethnic groups live and function almost exclusively within their own communities, separated by hate and bloodshed. That can only create a permanent environment of instability, which the international community is trying to defuse by means of both the carrot and the stick. International aid for reconstruction – valued at 580 million euros – has poured in, but aid donors miss no opportunity to point out to both sides that they will not tolerate any violation of the Ohrid accord. The dramatic developments in the Middle East, the continuing uncertainty in Afghanistan and the likelihood of another war in Iraq prohibit any resumption of hostilities in the Balkans, something of which both the Albanians and the Slav-Macedonians in FYROM are all too well aware.
