Pro or Con Yugoslavia in OSCE

AIM Tirana, November 24, 2000

A few days ago one of the most prominent dailies in Tirana had an unusual front page. More than one third was taken up by the new president of Yugoslavia Vojislav Kostunica who is triumphantly marching towards the entrance of OSCE, while prime minister Ilir Meta and head of parliamentary majority Fatos Nano are opening the way for him with a bow. Behind the backs of Albanian leaders was the entrance to the seat in Vienna, while behind the back of Milosevic's successor one could clearly recognise the faces of Kosovo Albanians who are still held in Yugoslav prisons.

Better than anything, this cartoon expresses the core of the polemics that political life in Albanian capital is preoccupied with ever since November 10, the day when after eight years Yugoslavia was received again in the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Immediately after Kostunica had come to power, the West proved to be ready to immediately and unconditionally open the door of OUN for Yugoslavia, for its possible rapprochement with the Council of Europe, and for its reception in OSCE again. If in the first two cases the stand Albania would take in relation to its neighbour could have had no influence at all, in the third case, quite the opposite could have happened. Therefore, based on the rights of OSCE member states, Albania could have vetoed reception of Belgrade in OSCE like it did in 1996. However, this time Albanian ambassador in Vienna, Roland Bimo, approved the reception and by doing it re-opened the debate that is going on in Albanian capital for days already.

"This is national treason", former foreign minister Arian Starova, nowadays a member of a minor opposition party, uttered the accusation. According to Starova and the politicians who share his opinion, the vote of Albania in favour of reception of FRY in OSCE is in line with the effort of former Albanian communists who came to power in 1997 to offer a hand to Belgrade whenever they have the chance. He looks upon this vote of Albania in line with the handshake of his former homologue Milutinovic in 1997, and at the meeting of the Socialist leader Nano with Milosevic at the Crete summit conference, the meetings that provoked sharp polemics in Tirana and Pristina.

According to this view official Tirana should have voted against reception of Belgrade for as long as there are Albanian prisoners from Kosovo in its prisons. In fact, Tirana should have voted against for as long as Serbia does not ask forgiveness for the crimes committed against the Albanians and for as long as Milosevic is not extradited to the Hague tribunal.

Representatives of the Democratic Party, the main opposition party which controls about 30 per cent of the electorate in this country, argued along the same line with the former foreign minister, but in somewhat more moderate tones. According to one of its leaders, Pjetar Arbnori, the fact that this decision was reached almost secretly, avoiding the parliament and its Foreign Policy Committee, shows that the Socialist majority is afraid of the reactions such an act of its may cause in Albania itself. It should be said, though, that Albania's vote in favour of this decision was passed over in silence. There was no official stand about it neither before nor after, until the moment when just five days after this decision had been made, a former foreign minister Tritan Shehu (at his time, in 1996, Albania voted against the reception of Yugoslavia in the OSCE) opened this problem for the first time.

For a long time the Albanian public opinion was prepared for a sharper stand against post-Milosevic's Yugoslavia. At the first Balkan summit conference which Yugoslavia took part in, at the end of October in Skopje, the stand of Tirana was sharper. There was president Meidani supported by Albanian parliament which had even passed a special declaration, who listed everything Albania required of Kostunica's Yugoslavia: liberation of prisoners from Serbian prisons, accepting of guilt by Kostunica, like Willie Brandt, cooperation with the Hague tribunal like Croatia.

However, except for the known demands, using the language for which he had been applauded in his country but which was considered by foreign diplomats to be the language from the time of the Cold War, the Albanian president demanded that Serbia pay it for the damage done to the northern part of Albania during bombing. According to the data of the Albanian state Meidani asked for indemnity for 120 kilometres of the mined border line, for 120 wounded Albanians and 20 lives lost as the result of intervention of the Yugoslav Army at the north-east of the country. The same stand was perhaps expected in the case of reception of Yugoslavia in OSCE. But the official Tirana has acted differently. Not so much in order to pay back the debt to Yugoslavia which had in 1991 voted in favour of the reception of Albania in OSCE, but for pragmatic reasons of foreign policy.

The fact that the stand presented in Skopje was not approved by offices of foreign institutions, according to diplomatic sources in Tirana, forced the representatives of Albanian majority to lower their voices. "We are in the year 2000, and we cannot follow the isolationist logic of the communist regime of Enver Hoxha which was always against any initiative", declared leader of the Socialist Party, Fatos Nano.

AIM Tirana

Andi BUSHATI