ALBANIA: BETTER UNDER NATO UMBRELLA THAN UNDER THE RAIN

AIM TIRANA, APRIL 14, 1999

One day after Albania officially offered NATO its air space and its military infrastructure to support operations against Yugoslavia, the Serbian Army entered the Albanian territory destroying a village on the border. The Serbian soldiers, according to Albanian sources, confirmed also by local office of OSCE, have entered up to 2 kilometers within the Albanian territory and after some hours of fight with Albanian border police, have withdrawn. This has been the gravest incident on the border dividing Albania from Kosovo since the beginning of Kosovo crisis.

Official Tirana has severely reacted. The National Security Council has urgently gathered ordering the Albanian border police to reply militarly to Serbian provocations. The Army has approached the border in support of the border forces, while additional military forces have been sent to the North.

Unlike the other incidents on the border between the two countries, there has been no report of clashes between KLA and Serbian Security Forces in this case.

Is it possible that the flames of the border-post of Kamenica extend all over Albania or further?

The frightful question can be heard not only in the North of Albania, but also in Tirana where the refugees crossing the border are received with solidarity, while the news from border with trepidation. Independently from the fact that Tirana is still calm, the noise of NATO airplanes flying over the capital, lives not its inhabitants indifferent anymore.

The armed reaction of Serbs on the border with Albania can be read in various ways. Milosevic seems to start feeling the consequences of bombardments and being weaker tries to escalate the conflict in all the region. After failing a week ago to destabilize Albania and Macedonia through unpredicted waves of refugees clearing ethnically Kosovo, now has turned to provocate an armed conflict.

It is not excluded that the attack on the Albanian village is a nervous reaction to the offer of Tirana to NATO to employ its air space and its military infrastructure during all length of the conflict. Albanian Foreign Minister Milo, did this offer last days during a joined press conference with British Foreign Secretary, Cook. It was the first time in the history of the Atlantic Alliance that a non member country offers without conditions all its territory and military infrastructure for operations against another country. Macedonia has accepted NATO soldiers, but has refused the use of its territory and air space during military actions.

Albania is trying to be identified as much as possible with NATO in the attempt to obtain its defense against a possible Serbian attack. The dislocation of a force of 8 thousand soldiers of NATO in Albania, which officially will assist the human relief operations for the refugees from Kosovo and the dislocation of another 2000 American marines in the North of the country, bordering Kosovo, certainly will turn the country in a protectorate of NATO. Nobody in Albania is opposing this.

Albanians feel obligated to offer NATO everything, for the time it is fighting for the Albanians. There are not any dilemmas and oppositions from pacifists, communists or anarchists as well. The same, nobody wants to hidden the fact that KLA is trained on the Albanian territory and even recruits soldiers on the Albanian territory. Between Serbia and Albania there has no diplomacy anymore and the embassies were closed. Every day Albania insists and waits for NATO to intervene, even from its territory, with ground troops in Kosovo.

For sure, entering under NATO umbrella would bring some risks, it does always exist the possibility that Milosevic revenge this, but beyond any doubt for Albanians is better to stay under NATO umbrella than under the rain. This is not a war between Albanians and Serbs, Albania and Serbia, but between NATO and Milosevic, more precisely a war against the war.

24 Apache helicopters are soon expected to arrive in Albania. The scaring Apache have been used for the first time in the Gulf War, where destroyed hundreds of Iraqi tanks. Albania agreed to immediately accept the Apache putting aside the possible Serbian reaction.

"We have adhered in the Partnership for Peace and we should respect our engagement. We do not fear the possibility of a pogrom from Belgrade," said the Albanian President, Mejdani.

Even if Tirana tries to show its muscles, in case of a threat or an attack from Milosevic (in a desperation movement should not be excluded) the engagement of the Atlantic Alliance to defend the sovereignty of Albania and to stop the escalation of the conflict would be unavoidable. In this case, as in the case of Kuwait, there is no room for dilemmas.

Albania has a small and weak army, that still has not recovered from the wreckage during the 1997 crisis. Two years ago, after the destruction of the Albanian State, a multinational force of protection of 7 thousand soldiers leaded by Italy, was installed in Albania for 4 months in its attempt to stop the Albanian crisis. After two years, NATO debarks in Albania and it seems for long time.

Foreign analysts have stressed that the NATO installation in Albania should be considered as an important factor for the internal stability of the country. Albania is still continuing to be corroded by intestine political conflicts, but above all from the absence of public order. Near half a million weapons still circulate in the country. The presence of KLA is another military element on the streets of Albania.

Independently from the fact that NATO will not solve the domestic problems and restore public order, its presence, or better, its shadow will serve as a stability factor.

In the long term, it is probable that the installation of NATO in Albania would be only the first act of its Protectorate process in Albania, later in Macedonia, after Milosevic had lost the war in Kosovo, and why not, after Milosevic had lost the power, also in Montenegro.

Remzi Lani