Home >> Europe >> The Balkans

     Email   Print 

Macedonia - Why the Framework Agreement will Fail - Part II

Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 3/15/2005

Every conflict has its economic moments and dimensions. The current conflict in Macedonia perhaps even more so. The USA and its Western allies regard Macedonia as a bridge between Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Albania. Hence the EU's plans for the revival of transport corridors 8 and 10 connecting these countries. If all goes well (and nothing has hitherto), railways will connect Bulgaria to Macedonia and river traffic will flow to Serbia from its southern neighbours. All this is envisioned in the Stability Pact. There are talks of an oil pipeline across Macedonia's territory. A pacified Macedonia is fairly crucial to Serbia's recovery and to the prospects of the whole region to attract FDI.

NATO is afraid of Turkish-Greek clashes in the aftermath of Kosovo and Macedonia. Turkey has increasingly cast itself in its ancient role of "protector of the Balkan Muslims". Greece is the only Orthodox-Christian member of the EU and an old foe of the erstwhile Sick Man of Europe from which it won bloody independence at the beginning of the 19th century. Such clashes are likely to destabilize the southern flank of NATO and block the West's access to Iraq, the Middle East, oil-rich Central Asia, and northern China. This will seriously dent the new "Pacific and Middle East Orientations" of the Bush Administration.

And what about the actual combatants?

Albanians and Macedonian crime gangs (in cahoots with kleptocratic and venal local politicians) regard Macedonia as a vital route for drugs, stolen cars, smuggled cigarettes and soft drinks, illegal immigrants, white slavery, and weapons dealing. These criminal activities far outweigh the GDP of all the adversary states combined. This conflict is about controlling territory and the economic benefits attendant to such control.

Crime and war provide employment, status, regular income, perks, and livelihood to many denizens of Macedonia, Albania, and Bulgaria. They constitute an outlet for entrepreneurship, however perverted. Fighting for the cause and smuggling often means travel abroad (for instance, on fund raising missions), five star accommodation, and a lavish lifestyle. It also translates into powers of patronage and excesses of self-enrichment.

Moreover, in ossified, socially stratified, ethnically polarized, and economically impoverished societies, war and crime engender social mobility. The likes of Hashim Thaci, Ramush Harajdini, and Ali Ahmeti often start as rebels and end as part of the cosseted establishment. Many a criminal dabble in politics and business.

Hence the tenacity of both phenomena. Hence the bleak and pessimistic outlook for this region. The "formal" economies simply cannot compete. Jobs are not created, the educated are often bitterly idle, salaries are minuscule if paid at all, the future is past. Crime and politics (one and the same in the Balkan) are alluring alternatives.

Moreover, the NLA and its political successor DUI is not a monolithic entity. It is more like an umbrella organization with serious and fracturing differences of opinion regarding the ultimate goals of the insurrection four years ago (2001) and the means to obtain these goals.

Roughly, NLA was made up of one third veteran Kosovo fighters, some of them professional soldiers, who also fought in Croatia, or in the Foreign Legion. These people are bitter and disgruntled by what they see as the betrayal of the West in refusing to guarantee an independent Kosovo and the failure of the current Kosovar leadership to integrate them economically into the emerging polity there. Their motives for joining the fighting in Macedonia were part emotional and part pecuniary.

Another third was made of unemployed, young Albanians, mainly from Macedonia itself. Their fighting is self-interested. They get a monthly salary and perks and, lacking education and skills, they don't have much of a choice outside the killing fields.

The rest are diehard, hardcore, idealists who either fervently espouse a Great Albania, or would like to take over Western Macedonian in a "constitutional coup" which will grant them their own police force, municipalities, institutions, universities, budgets, and semi-political structures.

The NLA itself was not directly involved in criminal activities, though a few of its members are. But the money that financed it (from the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Germany, and the USA) is tainted by drug dealing, white slavery, illegal immigration, and the smuggling of everything illicit, from cigarettes to stolen cars, to weapons. In this they collaborate with politicians and criminals in Macedonia - both Albanian and Macedonian.

Being a politician in the Balkan is an extremely lucrative proposition. Both Albanian and Macedonian politicians will abandon the peace process if they believe it leads to electoral ruin. Given the current atmosphere, it pays to be a pacifist. Virulent nationalism is a guaranteed vote loser. But every re-election ticket still requires a modicum of xenophobia, ethnic exclusivity, and radicalism. Here lies the future.

Bernard Kouchner, the former administrator of Kosovo, has warned against producing a a second Cyprus in Macedonia. He probably meant a territory divided along ethnic lines by a foreign army. But here the comparison ends. The ethnically cleansing invading Turkish army was not invited by both parties to the conflict in Cyprus to make peace. The Turks were reacting to a military coup by members of the majority Greek-Cypriot community in cahoots with a vicious junta in Athens and to a series of deadly inter-communal clashes. The military and police involvement of the international community was by invitation of both Macedonians and Albanians.

Other have called the smuggling routes used by Albanian fighters to haul weapons and supplies the Ho Chi Minh trail and the reconciliation agreement, imposed by the West, Macedonia's Treaty of Versailles.

But what could fast become the dominant metaphor is Czechoslovakia and the Sudeten Germans. Ostensibly, the resemblance is striking. A small country with a belligerent and violent minority concentrated in its north western parts - sacrificed by an appeasing and war weary West to mollify a brutal neighbouring regime run by the minority's ethnic group.

No metaphor is perfect. Czechoslovakia was an artificial multi-ethnic creation (as its disintegration after 1992 has proven). Macedonia is much more homogeneous ethnically. Czechoslovakia was an industrial and military powerhouse (the 7th largest industrial producer in the world). Even the Germans were deterred by its well equipped and well trained army. Macedonia is low on military hardware and militarily inexperienced. The Sudeten Germans were pawns in Hitler's nefarious plan to conquer Eastern Europe as a much needed lebensraum for the Nordic race.

The NLA was financed and controlled by Albanians in the West - but Albania, Macedonia's neighbour, is a relatively democratic, pragmatic, and EU-orientated country. While it allowed the guerrillas to train in its territory, to offload weapons in its ports, and to cross its borders with impunity - it is by far NOT a Balkanian version of Nazi Germany.

Allowing for these caveats, the similarities are startling.

Czechoslovakia was the reification of Wilson's naively detrimental principle of self-determination. It incorporated the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, including more than 3 million Germans in what used to be Austrian Silesia. These Germans were transformed overnight from members of the ruling majority in the Austrian Empire to a feared minority subjected to subtle forms of discrimination in their new country. The German region - the Sudeten - in western Czechoslovakia, bordered on Germany and Austria, where Germans ruled and German was spoken. Czechoslovakia refused to grant this restless and hostile minority an autonomy, lest it secedes, joins Hitler's "Great Reich", and deprives Czechoslovakia of important industrial and mineral assets and its rail links to northern Europe. Losing the Sudeten also meant losing Czechoslovakia's ability to defend itself against an ever more imminent German invasion.

The worsening economic situation in the Depression prone 1930's - unemployment, closure of loss makers, inflation - radicalized the Sudeten Germans. Support for Hitler and his pan-Germanic policies increased with every bloodless and bold victory: the militarization of the Rhineland and the Anschluss (unification with Austria). The extremist Sudeten German party, led by the puppet Konrad Henlein, blossomed after 1938.

Henlein collaborated with Germany to cause the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, "this French air carrier in Europe's midst", in Hitler's words. They demanded civil and human rights and, above all, the ability to exercise the right to self-determination enshrined in numerous international treaties. The status of the German language was a major issue as was the local participation of Germans in the police forces and army. Henlein's instructions were - and I am quoting Hitler: "You must always demand so much that you cannot be satisfied". Hitler's worst fear was that Czechoslovakia will accept ALL the demands of its bellicose minority (as, indeed, it did a few times during this artificially provoked crisis).

"Spontaneous" demonstrations, protests, and riots erupted all over the Sudetenland. The Czechoslovaks were described by Hitler - and many in the West - as intransigent racists, bigots, and bullies. The French and Brits - their armies and economies unprepared for war, their leadership traumatized by the Great (first world) War, their politicians unabashed appeasers - pressured Czechoslovakia to make one unpalatable concession after another. Finally, they weighed on Czechoslovakia to make concessions which endangered its very existence, territorial integrity, unitary character, and sovereignty. In this campaign of brutish intimidation of the Czechoslovaks, the West - Germany, Britain, France, and Italy - collaborated fully and willingly, regardless of other differences. Britain and France effectively annulled their mutual defence pacts with helpless and hapless Czechoslovakia. Bonnet, France's Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time warned the Czechoslovaks not to be "unreasonable". Otherwise, he warned, France will "consider herself released from her bonds". Halifax, the British Foreign Minister, instructed his Ambassador in Paris about the "importance of putting the greatest possible pressure on Dr. Benes (Czechoslovakia's president - SV) without delay".

The Sudeten Germans, without waiting for the results of the world-class diplomatic efforts on their behalf, have established militias and commenced military urban guerrilla actions. Lethal clashes followed between Czechs and Germans in mixed towns. An "independent" British mediator - Lord Runciman - was dispatched to arm twist the Czechoslovaks. His instructions were to prevent war at any cost - especially to Czechoslovakia. "We will use the big stick on Benes" - warned Cadogan, permanent under-secretary in the British Foreign Office.

Henlein had his instructions from Berlin to sabotage the negotiations with the Czechoslovak government, which he did faithfully by constantly raising new demands or old, discredited ones. On September 4, 1938, an exasperated President Benes accepted all the German conditions without exception. This was rejected by both Henlein and Hitler as "too late". An idea of referendum in the Sudetenland (guaranteed to yield unification with Germany) was rebuffed by Hitler.

Finally, the French and the British presented this ultimatum to democratic, multiethnic Czechoslovakia, on September 22, 1938:

"One - That which has been proposed by England and France is the only hope of averting war and the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Two - Should the Czechoslovak Republic reply in the negative, she will bear the responsibility for war.
Three - This would destroy Franco-English solidarity, since England would not march.
Four - If under these circumstances the war starts, France will not take part; i.e., she will not fulfil her treaty obligations."
Quoted from: Donald Kagan - On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace - Doubleday,New York, 1995 - p. 399

Benes accepted this ultimatum as well but Hitler again demurred. Now he demanded that German troops occupy parts of Czechoslovakia to protect rioting Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovak retribution. In the Munich Conference of the leaders of the West these demands were essentially accepted and Czechoslovakia was no more. Hitler conquered it, in stages, and assimilated it in the German Reich.

Why did the West behave so duplicitously and treacherously?

The infamous British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain made this radio address to the British people in the heat of the crisis:

"How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing ... However much we sympathize with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbours, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in war simply on her account. If we have to fight it must be on larger issues that that."
September 27, 1938 - ibid., p. 402