Paris, Friday, October 1, 1999Clinton Tilt On Kosovo Worries Europeans
By Joseph Fitchett International Herald Tribune
NOVGOROD, Russia - Both the European allies and Russia are alarmed by signs of readiness in the Clinton administration to envisage Kosovo as an independent ethnic Albanian state - a development that critics say could have a disastrous domino effect in the Balkans.
U.S. policymakers insist that a decision about the province's ultimate political status is a long way off, but critics assert that the Clinton administration has started accommodating a blueprint long nurtured by leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army to make Kosovo the core of a greater Albania.
This dream among Albanian nationalists has become a nightmare for European governments, which are frightened by ethnic Albanian nationalism and fearful that independence for Kosovo would lead quickly to the breakup of neighboring states. They fear this would trigger fresh refugee flows and perhaps wider conflict in the Balkans.
''Kosovo's independence would pry apart Macedonia, whose western third is already populated by Kosovar Muslims who have moved there over the last decade,'' said a European specialist. With Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, better situated than Tirana, the capital of Albania, a state in Kosovo would inevitably suck in at least the northern, Muslim-populated part of Albania, the expert added.
That outcome, European officials said, would discredit the continuing NATO intervention, exposing the organization to accusations that it was carving out a new country in violation of allied promises to respect Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo. It would partly vindicate Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader who has constantly insisted that the West's real aim in the air war this spring has been to weaken the Serbs and wrest away Kosovo.
Moscow, instead of gaining confidence from the West's discomfort, would become more suspicious of U.S. motives, according to Russian officials. They say that Moscow already suspects Washington of encouraging the emergence of a new Muslim state in the Balkans as a way of inciting separatism among Muslims in such places in southern Russia as Dagestan.
Publicly, European and U.S. officials maintain a solid front behind the Western plan to maintain an international administration over Kosovo for as long as it takes to promote forward-looking leaders among the Kosovar Albanians and lay the foundations for democratic governing institutions.
Privately, however, policymakers acknowledged a neuralgic divergence between Washington and European capitals about what tone to adopt and what to do next in postwar Kosovo.
The trans-Atlantic cracks were apparent at a seminar on security issues last weekend among U.S., European and Russian officials and analysts in Novgorod, near St. Petersburg, organized by the Aspen Institute of Berlin and Russia's Integration Institute. While the proceedings were off the record, the participants - like U.S. and other officials elsewhere - agreed to be interviewed but insisted on anonymity.
Already, critics said, the Clinton administration has made concessions in Kosovo - notably a compromise on the future of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the ethnic Albanians' guerrilla movement - that the local hard-liners will interpret as evidence of Western weakness.
A crucial initial round was won by Albanian hard-liners in derailing NATO's plan - confidently promised by organization commanders as the air war ended - for the complete dissolution of the KLA.
The demilitarization deal signed last week accepted KLA demands to preserve its organizational coherence by converting itself into a new force, the Kosovo Defense Corps.
The compromise, a U.S. specialist said in Novgorod, left ''the KLA in a position to re-coalesce as a fighting force whenever it chooses.''
European governments, including Britain, initially rejected the North Atlantic Treaty Organization plan and had to be convinced by Washington.
Essentially, another U.S. expert said, the West dropped its bolder plans because it ''hesitated to start a guerrilla war between NATO peacekeepers and Albanians - a military risk and political embarrassment that the Clinton administration cannot accept.''
Other controversial U.S.-led policies fueling Kosovars' ambitions - circulating Western currency in Kosovo or continuing to reject a limited return of Serbian customs officials - have been defended as pragmatic decisions to spark recovery.
''The Kosovars need to get an economy going, the Serbs are being obstructionist, the KLA has got to have a role in this country's future,'' a U.S. policymaker said.
Often, U.S. officials' tone sounded even more forward-leaning on independence. ''Sovereignty now has to be earned in Kosovo, by one side or the other,'' a U.S. policymaker recently told journalists.
So far, European officials feel that Washington remains committed to hopes that time can eventually soften Kosovar bitterness and provide Albanians enough confidence to accept at least a nominal link with Serbia. But the new U.S. nuances worry Europeans, according to German and Italian officials.
If Washington overestimated its ability to manage the Kosovar Albanians, it could hope to duck the consequences by signaling acceptance of independence, the Europeans said. That would avoid a clash with the Kosovars and leave the consequences for Europe to handle later.
No Western capital expects Kosovo's ethnic Albanians to compromise on their quest for independence and contemplate even the slightest formal ties with Serbia as long as it is ruled by Mr. Milosevic, the man who persecuted them so brutally.
If he clings to power, independence for Kosovo could be depicted as the only practical course. It would also offer revenge against Belgrade for a decade of affronts to the West.
Behind any differences in timing and nuance on how to square this diplomatic circle about Serbian sovereignty, the divide between U.S. and European officials about a possible new Albanian state arises from a cultural gap - a European feeling that Americans are too remote from the Balkans to sense the implications of Albanian nationalism.
''Americans see Albanians primarily as victims of Serbian barbarism and that sympathy could blind them to the difficulties of changing a political culture deeply colored by clan loyalties and vendetta violence,'' according to a U.S. specialist.
A German policymaker, interviewed by phone in Berlin, said, ''Europeans have a sense that Albanian nationalism could be as damaging and destabilizing as Serbian power, but we sometimes worry that the force of Albanian ambitions is little understood in the United States.''
An important subtext, which high-level policymakers rarely articulate, concerns European fears that a Pristina-based Albania could become a hotbed of mafia-style politics.
The Albanian mafia has become notorious in Europe in the last two years as gangs from Kosovo have pushed into Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy.
The Albanian mafia played a key role in the rise of the Kosovo Liberation Army, a U.S. official explained: ''The KLA needed cash, firepower, smuggling routes and contacts in the Kosovar diaspora and in exchange it provided political legitimacy for gangsters who came up with the goods.''
Western officials admit they have questions about Kosovo Liberation Army links to Albanian organized crime.
''A lot of KLA people are doing a lot of things that we don't like, but we have not got any proof of a structural link between the leadership and organized crime,'' a U.S. official said at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Publicly, U.S. and European officials vow to keep Kosovo under international administration as long as it takes, but four months into reconstruction they have started to sound frustrated about the prospects for a political takeoff.
Kosovars' political culture reflects Albania's traditional focus on vendettas, utter lack of confidence in government administration and lack of exposure to democracy or ethnic tolerance. U.S. officials set the postwar tone in promising to set up a constructive leadership, marginalizing separatist extremists.Those initial expectations have not been met, a U.S. official said.
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