Tirana: the Balkans Syndrome - a Political Syndrome

Albania and the Problem of Depleted Uranium

AIM Tirana, February 1, 2001

The Balkans Syndrome, which in January unleashed debates and replies in governmental, military, diplomatic and media circles in Western capitals and states, which had sent peacekeepers to Bosnia and Kosovo, was received with total indifference in Albania. This is so true that throughout January, despite the wide publicity the Balkans Syndrome was receiving in the international media, this topic did not appear one single time in the Albanian printed and electronic media.

At first sight, it seemed that the fact that Kosovo was the geographic centre of the Balkans Syndrome, would provoke a great concern of the Albanian public. The more so as after the signing of Dayton Accords, Albania also sent its unit of peace-keepers to Bosnia within the international SFOR forces. Also, the scientific community and the public opinion are in full agreement over the indifferent stand on the Balkans Syndrome.

Naturally, like all other European Governments, irrespective of its silence, the Albanian Government put together and sent expert groups to the zones in the north of Albania adjacent to the western Kosovo border, along the belt which is claimed to have the highest radiation concentrations as a result of the use of ammunition with depleted uranium. The Italian soldiers are also stationed there, as part of KFOR forces. A team of the Public Health Institute and another from the Institute of Nuclear Physics have conducted a detailed inspection of the border zones with Kosovo, its population, flora and fauna and presented their findings on January 23. The team of Albanian scientists recorded values of alpha, beta and gama radiation below the treshold level which are not dangerous for the local population there.

They also stated that the situation regarding blood and skin diseases, newborns with congenital deformities and neoplasm, show the same parameters as during the three years before the Kosovo war. According to the experts of the Albanian Defence Ministry, medical examinations on the Albanian soldiers who served in the peace forces in Bosnia showed that their stay there had no negative effects on their health.

One of the most renowned Albanian experts in the field of nuclear physics and the former Director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics, Professor Skender Koja, who reviewed the issue of the Balkans Syndrome for an Albanian magazine on January 10, came to the conclusion that from the scientific point of view this was a false alarm because comparisons with medical statistics showed that the incidence of leukaemia of 3-4 persons per 100,000 inhabitants was the approximate number of leukaemia cases that appeared with the international military personnel in Bosnia and Kosovo, because in the previous five years, thanks to the rotation system, around 300 thousand persons had served there.

On the problem of the Balkans Syndrome, the Albanian political parties in Tirana and Pristina have also taken a unified stand. The statement by the President of the Kosovo Democratic Union, Ibrahim Rugova, made on January 5, who said that the dust raised by the Balkans Syndrome was actually aimed at forcing the peace forces to leave Kosovo, was received with much publicity.

Actually, from the very beginning the problem of depleted uranium was for a number of reasons received with mistrust by the political parties in Albania, both those in the government majority as well as those in the opposition, right and left, small and large alike. The fact that the problem of the Balkans Syndrome has been raised mostly by those circles and political forces such as communists, anti-Atlantic, pacifists, etc. in some Western-European countries which were against the NATO military intervention in Kosovo, was received in Tirana with much suspicion.

The enthusiasm of the official Belgrade, which used the Balkans Syndrome to condemn the danger posed by NATO and to repeat the charges for the so called NATO aggression against Serbia, has increased even more the conviction of Tirana that this is another act of political abuse. According to Albanian assessments, the objective is to show that NATO intervention in Kosovo in spring 1999 was totally pointless, to rehabilitate Milosevic's criminal policy in Kosovo and to exert international pressure on the KFOR to leave Kosovo. The Albanian political circles are especially mistrustful about the resurfacing of the problem of the Balkans Syndrome at the beginning of the term of the new US President, George Bush, which coincides with certain efforts on the part of the new Yugoslav leadership and President Kostunica, as well as some FRY allies, to prevail upon the US military corps to pull out from Kosovo.

Tirana acknowledges that there is reason for various Governments to be concerned over the health of their soldiers who served in Bosnia and Kosovo, but with some anger also emphasises that the same high degree of concern was not expressed, if at all, over the possible effects of depleted uranium on the health of two million Kosovars who are still living there.

In this context, it is generally, almost unanimously, believed in the political, state and public circles in Tirana that the question of the Balkans Syndrome is just a political abuse of a phenomenon that is the matter to be studied by scientists, physicists and doctors. In a release of its Foreign Ministry of January 11, the Albanian Government stated that the Balkans Syndrome is a cover-up rather than a reality, and that the whole problem has been blown out of all proportion by political innuendoes the aim of which is to put the blame on NATO.

In this respect, the Albanian Government reiterated its stand for the continued presence and activity of NATO in Kosovo and other parts of the Balkans. Naturally, there can be a degree of biased politicisation in the Albanian labelling of the Balkans Syndrome as a political syndrome. The fact that this is all linked with Kosovo cannot rule out such a possibility. But, Tirana feels reassured by the fact that the official reports of NATO, World Health Organisation and US Defence Ministry reject every possibility of a real threat of depleted uranium. Finally, the vital importance of Kosovo for Albanians on both sides of the border urges them to minimise all kinds of risks, the more so when it concerns a still unconfirmed risk such as the Balkans Syndrome.

AIM Tirana

Arian LEKA