A Deal with the Devil
By Jason Miko
In late 2001, I remember a day having coffee with Eleanor Nagy, the former and recently-departed Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Embassy in Skopje. We were discussing the 2001 conflict, the reasons for it and the outcome. I, of course, came to the table with a totally different viewpoint than her, she representing official Washington, DC and their policy. However, what she said at one point near the end of our conversation shocked me because it was totally open and honest, a refreshing change coming from a State Department official whose employees are normally not able to say what they believe.
Regarding the so-called peace deal of the Ohrid Framework Agreement, Eleanor said and I quote: "We basically made a deal with the Devil." She was, of course, referring to the international community as "we" constitutes the international involvement in the Framework Agreement and she was, of course, referring to Ali Ahmeti and his ilk when she referred to the Devil.
I never asked her about it again but whatever one believes about the Devil existing as a real being or not, we all associate evil with the known character of the Devil, including lying and cheating. And so if "we," the international community, made a deal with Ali Ahmeti as the Devil, can’t we expect him to go back on his word some day?
This writer thinks we are beginning to see that happen. Since the end of the conflict in 2001, Mr. Ahmeti has said, publicly, that he is committed to a single and unitary Macedonia. But the truth is he is not. And the fact is he never was.
My favorite quote by Mr. Ahmeti, which he has never denied, is this from Newsweek, March 22, 2001. In "A Troubled Dream," author David Binder quotes Mr. Ahmeti as stating "Our aim is solely to remove Slav forces from territory which is historically Albanian."
Patrick Bishop, reporting in The Telegraph on March 13, 2001, in an article entitled "Macedonia Launches Attacks" wrote this: "The Albanian rebels in Macedonia demanded its division along ethnic lines and said they were prepared to plunge the Balkans into another conflict unless their demands were met. An NLA commander in Kosovo urged the West to support its cause or face the consequences. ‘If the international community wants one more war in the Balkans we are ready,’ he said in the first interview by the group. It appeared in the newspaper Fakti."
And Peter Beaumont and Nick Wood, writing in The Observer on March 11, 2001 stated: "What the guerrillas are trying to achieve is articulated by Shkelzen Maliqi, a journalist for Radio Free Europe based in Pristina, and writer for Institute of War and Peace Reporting. ‘I am familiar with the ideology, mentality and motivation behind the forces provoking the armed conflict in Macedonia. I have come to know them, especially the émigrés in Europe. They have tried to persuade me that Macedonia is an artificial creation, formed to the detriment of the Albanian nation. They maintain that the enforced division of the Albanian nation was an historical injustice, aimed to prevent it from being equal to its neighbors in the region. That injustice would be rectified, they say, by dividing Macedonia into Slav and Albania parts and allowing the latter to unite with Kosovo or, even better, incorporated into a unitary Albanian state.’"
Of course and unfortunately Ali Ahmeti and certain extremists within his community are having a field day and laughing all the way to the map drawing table. They are making out like bandits, which, come to think of it, they are, while Macedonians fight and point fingers among themselves.
What has happened in Macedonia with the so-called decentralization process is nothing more than ethnic gerrymandering, something we in the United States of America have perfected. In the USA, we have made an art form out of drawing new congressional districts in the country to benefit either Republicans or Democrats, with the latter often ending up as strict Latino or Black districts.
I recall, a few weeks ago, hearing some politicians in Macedonia say that this process was not ethnically driven. That’s roughly akin to saying that Ali Ahmeti is a good Christian who loves Jesus Christ as his savior. This entire process has been ethnically driven either as a reward to Ali Ahmeti and his ilk for their behavior during the last presidential elections or for some other reason. But the whole process has been anything but open, transparent or accessible to the public.
If the Government and the dynamic duo of the EU and the US believe that this decentralization issue – and I’m talking about the way it has turned out, not the need for decentralization itself which is basically a good idea – is the best thing for Macedonia, then all three need to get out and sell it to the public and pontificate as to its benefits. However, this has not been the case and I suspect, will never be the case because the entire proposal has been so poorly constructed and cannot be justified for any reason.
At the end of the day, Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung was correct: real political power comes from the barrel of a gun. Or, as American gangster Al Capone said, you can get a lot further with a kind word and a gun, than with a kind word alone. In our time, the KLA and the NLA have proved both men correct.
The year 2012 will be the 100th anniversary of the founding of the modern-day Republic of Albania. The year 1912 is a year that Albanians everywhere lament as the time when Albanians were separated from each other by the creation of what is now the modern-day states of Albania, Macedonia and Serbia-Montenegro. Me thinks 2012 to be an important benchmark for the Albanian leadership from the Balkans to the Bronx. It’s just a gut feeling, but I don’t think that the fat lady has even begun to sing yet.
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