February 22, 2008 (the date of publication in Russian)

Konstantin Cheremnykh

KOSOVO: THE CROSSROADS OF DRUGS AND DARKNESS

Not surprisingly, the first nation to recognize Kosovo was Afghanistan

INDEPENDENCE THAT DOESN'T EXIST

"A rare chance if of avail: today, we are released on bail; today, we are allowed to sing about eternal love and spring, we whisper in the microphones while heavy boots strike ancient stones--". The verses of dissident poet Alexander Galich, dedicated to the festival in Sopot weeks after the Soviet crackdown on the Prague insurgency of 1968, surface in the memory at the sight of a rock concert in Pristina on February 17 – the festivity glorifying the independence that does not exist.

The artificially fabricated flag of a desirably democratic and tolerant state of Kosovo has nothing in common with the Albanian eagle. The Guardian's John Laughland ironically describes the new state as a protectorate of EU bureaucracy. But though officials preach commitment for EU future, the real center of power is located at Camp Bondsteel, the US military based comparable to the infamous Guantanamo. Any specialist in South European geography admits that the flatland of Kosovo is most perfect for deployment of land troops and airfields. That is why the songs about the Kosovo spring sound so unnatural in the square, named after Saint Mother Theresa.

"The spring has come too late" – that was the title of a book of memoirs authored by Fazil Hoxha, veteran of the anti-Nazi resistance, chair of the Kosovo parliament and later vice president of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. Once hated by Albanian nationalists, he was included in their pantheon after his death in 2001. Every national myth requires cult figures; in case of shortage, they are synthesized from the available material. The myth, however, is not required any longer by the superior powers, as they have reached the desired goal before the Kosovars identified their national symbol. What is it – the sacred stone of the Moslems, King Leka, or Mother Theresa?

Two national myths – Serbian and Albanian, once emerging from resistance to Ottoman oppression, collided in the south-western corner of Europe not on their own accord. They were as skillfully and cynically pitted on one another, in the same way as the Russian and Ukrainian ethnic sentiments in late 1980s; in this case as well, the manipulation stated from within the party nomenklatura. In the same way, leftist ideas were dragged into a collision with the religious tradition, the ensuing ruins able to produce a surrogate unusable for national development.

Today, the role of a half-Croat, half-Slovenian Josip Broz Tito in unification of the postwar Yugoslavia is discussed only by historians. Since the doom of the "special way of Yugoslavian socialism", the demise of the Yugoslavian Popular Army and pilfering of its assets by paramilitary units, analysts perceive the whole of the former territory of the disintegrated state of Yugoslavia as a timebomb planted not only under Western Europe but under the Middle East as well. While Eurobureaucrats reiterate the mantra that Kosovo's independence was predetermined, other nations with secessionist problems display nostalgia over the times of their own imperial might. Spain, which is going to lose Catalonia and the Land of Basques, is nostalgic over the times of the Invincible Armada, while Turkish analyst Can Karpat insists that the troubles of the Balkan peoples originated at the moment when they gave up their common Ottoman identity.

While Russians feel a tug at their heartstrings at the thought of Kosovo Serbs, left to their fates, Turkish authors express concern over the local compatriots and their own cultural heritage that may undergo the same treatment as Serbian Orthodox monasteries (see RPMonitor's publications here and here). Not accidentally, Ankara initiated a massive crackdown of the Kurdish insurgency right after Kosovo declared independence, with no regard of objections from Brussels.

More unnatural – at least in the Russian eyes – is the white fury with which Serbian policemen clobber their compatriots in the streets of Belgrade; the indifference displayed by a large part of the Serbian population at the recent elections, as well as the slogan "Russia, Help" – though during the bombing of 1999, a flock of Serbs, proud of having downed a supposedly invisible US bomber, mockingly proposed help Russians themselves.

 

REMINISCENCE OF FUTURE

In my childhood, I knew nothing of Kosovo Field, the tragic landmark of Serbian history, as well as of the Prizren League from where Albanian nationalism emerged. The Soviet literature for children was full of adventurous romanticism of Cuba, Vietnam, and American Indians. Serbo-Croatian names (as they were then identified) were rare in libraries, and mostly referred to World War II. At the age of seven, it was 1968, I came across a book of Mirko Petrovic about kids from Lilac (was it Lilac?) Street, where I first found the definition of the Ustasi, the Croatian Nazi collaborators. What I was most impressed with was the scene of assassination of a kid who got a job at the Nazi administration and snitched on his own schoolmates. The impression of kids from the same quiet narrow street going to kill one another was left in the memory since that time; forgetting the book's title, I still recall the name of the recruited guy: Ivica Marcetic.

My second reminiscence from school, related to Yugoslavia, comes from a geography (not history) lesson. While teachers of history and social sciences were not supposed to confuse us with contradictions within the socialist community, the geographer was free from instructions. She told us that in this so-called socialist state of Yugoslavia, due to the special way it has chosen, eleven million people are unemployed but allowed to freely leave their country to Western Europe to earn for living.

Then in the ninth class, we were skeptical. Among ourselves, we disagreed that to allow free travel free travel is a political mistake. Still, the image of a state that solves social problems by exporting labor force survived in my memory as well.

The same teacher told us a few things about Albania as well – namely, that its rulers, on the contrary, not only absolutely forbid citizens to travel anywhere but even don't allow ownership of autos, thus preventing temptation with private property.

We were not told that Enver Hoxha was a Stalinist; that his leadership dreamed of a greater Albania; that Tito, in his turn, promoted settlement of Albanians in Kosovo for the same considerations as Stalin's idea of establishing the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic at the borders of Finland that he hoped once to overtake.

In the age of 18, we were fascinated with dissident literature; one of the first big names being, certainly, Milovan Djilas. We were unaware that the dissident was once a war hero, and later a closest ally of Tito, as well as the basic concept of specific Yugoslavian way of socialism – the Law on Self-Regulation that served as an additional pretext for Tito's quarrel with Stalin. Such historical details as the contest of the USSR and federal Yugoslavia for control of the straits – and therefore of Albania, were beyond our imagination.

My Yugoslavian coevals were probably also told something about the USSR. State ideology also supposed some kind of bias – as well as some plausible explanation for the friendship between socialist Yugoslavia and the rightist dictatorship of Paraguay.

In late 1980s, we and they were bombarded with historical truth on the will of the leaders. The reasons of Gorbachov and Milosevic were not the same; both had certain specific concerns. Except one concern – about the mind of an individual (Gorbachov reiterated this word with a special emphasis) undergoing an acute intoxication with historical truth, and about further dealing with the awakened memory of centuries, once dragged out from under historical clods.

 

THE SILENCE OF THE GNOMES

Societies, not familiar with the reign of an exceptionally correct idea, are even less prepared to deal with millions of individuals from whose brains this idea was kicked out, and with what stuff this clanging vacuum may be filled. In major US media, the first reference to radical Albanian nationalism surfaced only days after 9/11. Only at that time, CNN gave the floor to Jeff Morrison, an educated specialist in shadowy economy, who informed about Osama bin Laden's visit to Tirana in 1994. However, when the author of famous investigative books The Laundrymen and The Merger, started speaking about the shadowy background of Kosovo's secessionism, the host hurried to interrupt: "I'd like to spend another hour with you, Jeff, but my bosses won't allow".

The White House's bosses subsequently "closed" two subjects: of Greater Albania, and of shadowy financing of Balkan terror. They were probably taught by Gorbachov's experience. Or maybe the Watergate experience. The fact of Lawrence Eagleburger's flirt with communist Milosevic was not supposed to be discussed – as well as the motives behind recognition of UCK, yet in 1997 regarded as a terrorist organization, as a legitimate and negotiable side.

In Europe, the forbidden subject was referred to more frequently, and with higher concerns. Not only John Laughland and Mark Almond openly wrote about Kosovo as a paradise for drug traders, and not only professional criminal researchers like Juergen Roth, but also politicians like prominent German Social Democrat Andreas von Buelow. Still, the ruling coalition of Germany's SPD and the Green Party was torn apart over the Balkan issue in late 1990s. The detonating role was played by then-Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer who publicized intelligence data about a clandestine plan dubbed Potkova (Horseshoe) that Belgrade was allegedly going to implement against the helpless and freedom-loving people of Kosovars. In Serbian language, this word sounds as potkovica, while potkova is a Croat word. This detail did not bother the US decision-makers, using the pretext provided by Mr. Fischer as an excuse for bombing Belgrade. This episode is not raised today as well, and Mr. Fischer, once a hero of the "rock-drug-sex" revolution of 1968, putting on weight and respectability, conveniently works as a senior scientist in the Liechtenstein Institute of Self-Determination.

The term of national self-determination, according to Mark Almond's view, has been regularly marching along with banditry already for two decades. Ex-racketeer Hashim Thaci, elevated to the post of Kosovo's Premier after criminal persecution of his ancestor Ramush Haradinai, is a good example for this. Carla del Ponte, ex-general prosecutor of Switzerland, regards, on the contrary, Mr. Haradinai as a gangster. Specialists like Juergen Roth should seek for this controversy in definitions in Zuerich where Mr. Thaci, a nephew of a top Albanian party functionary, was once educated and later surfaced a lot of times. The Swiss background of UCK is as well known to specialists as its German background, though being less accessible due to corporate silence of "Swiss gnomes". They feel convenient: US senators who once inquired about the traces of Nazi gold in Switzerland, have given up this talk on the instruction of the bosses.

 

KOSOVO LLC

Instead of asking good questions on the mystery of Mr. Thaci's (as well as Mr. Fischer's) political career, journalists are preoccupied with superficial demagogy, speculations on Russian influence on Serbian unrest etc. The bosses seemingly intend to secure the TV air, generally, from thinking. In fact, the presently unfolding US Presidential campaign does not suppose thinking at all: the contenders are supposed to deliver only easily consumable phrases. Thus, Barak Obama reiterates, like a spell, the same easy version: the Kosovo situation is unique, it is not a precedent, Belgrade dreams of membership in the EU, and thus, the future of the Balkans is bright and promising.

Russia, represented by First Deputy Premier Sergey B. Ivanov, agreed not to use the Kosovo declaration of independence as a precedent for Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdniester. However, the idea of a precedent enters different kinds of minds: in particular, Barak Obama's perception is not at all shared by émigré warlord Akhmed Zakayev who regards Kosovo as an inspiring precedent for the Chechens.

The parallel between Kosovo and Chechnya was drawn by Oxford analyst Mark Almond during the bombing of Belgrade nine years ago. However, he was convinced that neither Kosovo nor then-secessionist Chechnya would hurry to achieve international recognition, as the status of an unrecognized state is more convenient for running shadowy trade.

The fact that this condition is not binding was proven by Andreas von Buelow's analysis of Washington policies in Latin America in 1980s. He indicated that large-scale drug transit was predominantly run there through military airports, for which the dictatorial regimes of Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay was perfectly suitable. The Camp Bondsteel base – an indirect brainchild of Joschka Fischer – is suitable for relevant purposes as well.

Promising that the Kosovo economy is going to be "healed" with independence, European authors lie to themselves and the public. Not surprisingly, the formally independent Afghanistan, frequently defined as the "heroin empire", was the first to officially recognize the independence of Kosovo.

In Munich, the US side continued to urge Germany for closer cooperation in Afghanistan. It is up to Berlin to choose – though in case the Chancellor’s office caves in, its concession, in economic terms, would be equal to a commitment for co-establishing a joint venture like Southern Plantations AG, after Kosovo AG is already established (or rather Kosovo LLC, as for some reason, KTA, the Kosovo privatization agency, uses British abbreviations). Specialists in shadowy market could calculate the price of an average Bundestag deputy.

 

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

The advance of shadowy business into public policy involves not only big money but also big fear. Agreeing to embrace Mr. Thaci, European politicians prefer to be nice to a boor in a stand-and-deliver occasion. In Juergen Roth's monograph on corruption in the German police system, one can find a lot of names of German and Russian shadowy dealers – while top Albanian tycoons are mentioned exceptionally under code names. The same research, however, contains a grain of truth sounding sad for a Russian reader – that the leading rivaling clans of Balkan drug business involve Albanians along with Serbs, the money massively flowing into the war theater of early 1990s.

Marko, the main character of Kusturica's The Underground, is a common noun. Ivica Marcetic of the 1992 pattern, selling weapons to all the fighting sides, has emerged from a guy who once traveled to Europe to earn for his family in the times of the specific Titoist socialism.

The results of the elections in the particular Belgrade are thus not surprising. The striking indifference to the nation's fate is not a result of a liberal malaxation of brain but rather a progeny of the psychology personified by Kusturica's heroes – as well as the cinema director as such, descending from his early work on the war tragedy of the Spanish Guernica to a complete self- identification with a vagabond Gypsy who does not care a bit for the fate of the land where he resides, and for the toll of blood shed for it and going to be shed again.

When Kusturica's rock team with a cosmopolitan English name gave concerts in St. Petersburg five years ago, the cinema star was yet quite self-satisfied and joyfully indifferent to politics. Only when the secession of Kosovo, along with demolishment of Serbian relics, the careless mocker who once derived a career from desecration of his land's history, converted into Orthodox Christianity and declared himself a Serbian patriot.

In a similar way, some Soviet "creative intellectuals", a decade after the great country fell into pieces, got nostalgic about the USSR. In a similar way, this late repentance is good for nothing, and uninteresting even for their own children.

"The glory of our old beliefs says nothing to the careless kids, while truth residing in the midst keeps hidden in the dark and mist", confessed Alexander Galich fifty years ago.

This darkness in the midst has won the Balkan war. Spreading slowly but steadily, exhausting the surrounding cultural tissue, it conveniently parasitized on both Serbian and Albanian national mythologies; it parasitized both on the grudges of the Serbian Orthodox Church towards socialist Milosevic, and on Vatican's illusions fed with vengeance for Cardinal Stepinac and sympathy to romantic intellectual Ibrahim Rugova. The Holy See's mission was neglected along with the bearers of national myths: in Pristina, Rugova's seat is occupied by a nephew of a Stalinist and brother-in-law of a top Albanian mafioso, while the image of Mother Theresa is perceived by the criminalized consumer thinking as a spiritual equivalent of international humanitarian aid.

This darkness has intimidated the European community that has countenanced with its helplessness, with the denunciation of the Potsdam Accords along with the Helsinki Convention, where kids are not told at schools that the US military term of an "operation of revenge" dates back to Hitler's assault on Belgrade, while the term of Great Albania is an invention of Benito Mussolini.

This darkness has squashed lots of national identities, and threatens those that still survive. It can't be crushed by a single shot as a US stealth fighter. Kids are to be saved from it, and mobilized against it before DIA-recruited Ivica Marcetic abducts them to use as human materiel for colored revolutions, originally tested in the forests of the "Golden Triangle". They are to be saved today – as in case globalization and its transnational shadow continue to exist for half a century longer, the outcome will coincide with the prophecy of the old gypsy from Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude": "The first one will be fastened to a tree, and the last one will be gobbled by ants".

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