ISLAM, ALBANIANS AND WAR IN KOSOVO

AIM Tirana, 31 May, 1999

Some years ago in Libya, in Qaddafi¥s office, a delegation of the Democratic League of Kosovo was left speechless, taken aback by something which would soon make the rounds as a joke. Expressing his Islamic affection for the Albanian delegation, the Libyan leader asked them,"What are you fighting for, dear Moslem brothers?" "For the independence of Kosovo", was their reply. "You need not worry," the Libyan leader said, "I'll recognize Kosovo as an independent State right now. I'll call up the entire diplomatic corps and the press, and that's all there is about it". The Albanian delegation was flabbergasted and was able only to gasp, "Don't, don't please".

It is beside the point whether this is a true story or only a joke. It shows, however, that the Rugova-led political movement of the Albanians of Kosovo and, subsequently, their military movement, the UCK, have taken great care not to be identified with a religious movement.

Nevertheless, two months since NATO has started bombing Yugoslavia, when the Islamic countries have had ample time to express their solidarity with Kosovo's ninety- percent Moslem population, this solidarity is not forthcoming. Although materially many Islamic countries are pouring large sums of money for the assistance of the Kosovar refugees in Albania and Macedonia, politically the Islamic world either has taken a neutral stance on this conflict or, in many a case, is backing Orthodox Yugoslavia.

Many would-be volunteers from the Islamic world who had intended to take up arms to fight alongside the UCK changed their minds when they heard their leaders labeling NATO as an "aggressor" and "criminal". In theranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army there are more volunteers from Western countries such as Germany, the Netherlands or France than from Islamic countries. In the meantime, demobilized Russian soldiers are joining the Serb paramilitary to fight rather for the cause of the Orthodoxy than against NATO. Even the few pro- Kosovar demonstrations taking place in Palestine had less to do with "Moslem solidarity" than with the Palestinians' wounded sensitivity as a displaced people.

The explanation is not hard to find: in the case of Kosovo the anti- American feelings of the Islamic world are stronger than their Moslem solidarity. Many Islamic countries, just as when the USA bombed Iraq, suspect that the bombing of Yugoslavia is a show of American strength intended not only for the Balkans but also for the rest of the world. Some other Moslem countries see in all this a bizarre collusion between Christian Serbia and the West to bring about the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo's Moslem population. Such Arab countries as Libya, Sudan and Iraq have been targets of American bombs over the last twenty years. At best the Islamic countries have called for the intervention in Kosova to be carried out under the aegis of the United Nations or the Islamic Conference.

Turkey, the only Moslem NATO member of the region, is responding to the Kosovo crisis rather as a loyal member of the Alliance than as a Moslem country which has strong historical and cultural ties with Kosovo and Albania. The Turkish politicians and generals are backing NATO with great eagerness at a time when Athens is showing very little enthusiasm and more often than not creating problems for the Alliance. Prior to the outbreak of the conflict in Kosovo, Ankara was extremely reserved in its statements about the problem of Kosovo despite the powerful pressure of three million Turkish citizens of Albanian origin.

Turkey's analogous problems with its Kurdish and Armenian minorities put it in an embarrassing position. In the meantime Ankara has put its planes and military bases at the disposal of the Alliance, hoping that its partners will keep silent about Turkey's treatment of those minorities. Turkey's participation in the air strikes on Yugoslavia has nothing Islamic about it, although only some months ago the decision of the Albanian Government to entrust the Turkish Army with the reconstruction of the Pasha Liman naval base aroused concern in Athens and caused the Greek press to write about "an Islamic military presence" in the heart of the Balkans.

On the other hand, there has been a cooling off of Albania's relations with the Islamic Conference whose member Albania became in 1993 by personal decision of former President Berisha. Because of this doubtful affiliation and some shady relations between the former head of the Albanian National Information Service and the Information Services of some Islamic countries suspected of sponsoring international terrorism, the socialists that took over in 1997 were quick to call for the revision of the relations with the Islamic Conference. The socialists would like Albania to give up all priority in bilateral relations with the Islamic World, pulling gradually out of the Islamic Conference or, at least, freezing its relations with that organization.

Last year the Albanian police in cooperation with the CIA carried out several operations which resulted in the extradition of a large number of elements suspected of terrorism. During the same period, which coincided with some incidents between the USA and the Islamists throughout the world, the Albanian embassies in Europe had many a time to face Islamic protesters against the extradition of their compatriots.

Indeed, among other things, over the last four years the Islamic Conferences had adopted some resolutions condemning Serb violence in Kosovo. The first impression would be that the Albanians of Kosovo and Macedonia are more devoted to their Moslem faith than the Albanians of Albania, where for about four decades the communist regime had prohibited by law all profession of religion, turning the Albanian community into an atheistic one. However, various students have rightly emphasized the fact that the Islam of the Albanians of Kosovo and Macedonian has more than other things served as a barrier to Serb Orthodox assimilation. So it is not at all surprising that most Kosovar refugees begin their day in the same way as their Albanian compatriots: with a cup of coffee and a glass of cognac, something unimaginable for the devoted Moslems.

According to some old statistics, about seventy percent of the Albanian population is Moslem. Many Albanian intellectuals, however, including the well-known writer Ismail Kadare, insist that, were a census to be taken, results would show a different picture.

Indicative of this state of things is what happened in Kor·a, a city in South Albania, where about 8,000 refugees who had been expelled from Macedonian camps were accommodated in only two days in the homes of the local population, a good part of which is Christian Orthodox. The solidarity demonstrated by the Albanian Christian Orthodox population, which makes up about twenty per cent of the Albanian population, was just as impressive as that of the Albanian Moslems.

Finding themselves squeezed between East and West, the Albanians all over the Balkans have taken great care to dissociate themselves from any political expression of the Islam which they had adopted in the Fourteenth Century, during the Ottoman occupation, to dispense with taxes to the Ottoman Empire. They have become ever more determined in this stand, confronted with the manipulations of the Belgrade propaganda, which has often pointed out to the West the threat supposedly resulting from the creation of a large Moslem Albanian State in the center of Europe.

The tragedy of the Albanians of Kosovo is bringing the Albanians on either side of the border even closer together, once again exhuming the slogan launched by an Albanian writer two centuries ago: "The religion of the Albanian is Albania". And, above all, Albanians' sympathies for NATO are stronger than their allegiance to the Moslem or any other religion. Indeed, these feelings go even further, to a negative stand toward the Albanian political class in which Albanians seem to have lost all confidence. In a poll taken by an Albanian newspaper, about ninety per cent of those interviewed said that, in the moments Albania was going through, they hoped "NATO were a political party and took over the governing of the country" (?!) This is more or less state of mind of people in Albania. It seems that now the religion of the Albanians is called NATO. It has appeared to the Albanians in the semblance of a god that is supposed not only to resolve the conflict, but also to pave their roads, to repair their power network and to find jobs for them.

Andi Bejtja (AIM )