Monthly Archives: April 2008

Some thoughts on Greater Albania, Part 1

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Okay, first thought: there is not going to be a “Greater Albania” in the political sense.

The Albanians of Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia are evolving away from political union, not towards it. Kosovo’s new Constitution has “no union with any other state” as Article One, and that’s not just wallpaper for the internationals; the Kosovar Albanians, having finally gained their independence, have no interest in being ruled from distant Tirana. Meanwhile the Albanians of Albania are discovering the Kosovars are… well… poor. They’re happy to greet them as cousins, but aren’t interested in adding a large, poor, backwards and densely populated northern province. Macedonia is the only place you can still find enthusiasm for “Greater Albania” , and even there it’s increasingly marginal — the two large Albanian parties both are seeking their advantage within Macedonia, not outside it.

So why the post? Well, because even though there won’t be a “Greater Albania”, the Balkans are seeing a completely new phenomenon: the emergence of Albanians as an important political force.

Twenty years ago, Albania was a Communist hermit kingdom. The large Albanian minority in Yugoslavia was part of Yugoslav politics — dominant in Kosovo, negligible elsewhere. Albanians were not a significant political, social or economic force anywhere outside of Kosovo and Albania itself.

Today, Albanians have two countries of their own and a big chunk of a third. They’re a key minority in Montenegro. And in Greece, they’re set to be a huge minority in a country that doesn’t deal well with minorities. So the 21st century history of the Balkans is going to be, to a great extent, the history of the Albanian Question.

I think this will be a two-post series. In the second post, I’ll look at individual countries. In this one, I want to look at just one question: why do the Albanians suddenly matter? Continue reading →

Tibet and the Olympic torch – open thread

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As you all know, the Olympic torch barely made it through London. And the Chinese are pissed off about it. IOC president Jacques Rogge was not pleased either. From BBC News

“Violence for whatever reason is not compatible with the values of the torch relay or the Olympic Games,” he said.

Okay, first question for our readers to debate. Why were the OG awarded to China, a country whose human rights values do not seem compatible with the values of the OG either? And what does this say about the values of the international community and the IOC?

Second question. China did not occupy Tibet yesterday. In fact the process of colonisation has been going on for a few decades. Why should we get all upset now that China is organizing the Games? And when the Games are over, shall we still be paying attention to Tibet then?

Third question. Why should we even care? Business comes first, right? And, after all, you do not want to mess with a country the size of China. And, who knows, maybe the Chinese will be so pleased with our trade and their Olympic Games that they will change one day. Like we have changed our own ways. Or, have we?

Feel free to get as cynical as I am in answering these questions. In the meantime, keep an eye out for demos in Paris. From the same BBC News article:

The Paris police chief has said the flame will be protected like a head of state. The head of the Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders, said it had altered its initial plans for similar demonstrations because of the expected heavy police presence, but nevertheless promised something “spectacular”. “The Chinese have made sure that for a few hours, Paris will look like Tiananmen Square,” Robert Menard said. “I think it’s shameful.”

Italy’s upcoming election: another parliamentary stalemate in the making?

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In less than a week Italy will be holding a general election three years ahead of schedule, but before I explain how the upcoming vote may lead to another gridlock, I believe an introduction is in order. My name is Manuel Alvarez-Rivera and I’m the webmaster of Election Resources on the Internet, where I cover elections and electoral systems around the world, mainly (but by no means exclusively) in Europe; I also write about the same topics at the Global Economy Matters (GEM) blog with fellow AFOE authors Edward Hugh and Claus Vistesen. I would like to take a moment to thank the AFOE team for inviting me as a guest poster, all the more so since the ocassion has a special significance to me: my collaboration on GEM with Edward was the outgrowth of his reply to an e-mail I sent to the editors of this blog two years ago, regarding Italy’s closely fought election.

As it happens, two years later Italy is back to the polls, following the collapse of Romano Prodi’s center-left coalition government earlier this year, and the last opinion polls published in March showed a consistent lead for the new, center-right People of Freedom Party (PdL) headed by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, which – in coalition with the Northern League (LN) and the Movement for Autonomy (MpA) – appeared set to capture an overall majority of seats in the Chamber of Deputies under the country’s 2005 proportional representation with majority prize electoral law.

Continue reading →

His favourite talking point

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George Bush to Romanian Prime Minister Popescu-Tariceanu right before his departure for Zagreb –

I also congratulate the Prime Minister on having a 16 percent flat tax. I’m a little envious. I would like to have been able to achieve the same objective for our tax code, and it was a smart thing to get done, because I think those kinds of policies will enable the Romanian folks to have a bright future.

Bush had the same obsession on a visit to Estonia a while ago and it appears to be part of his bond with eastern European countries.  The trouble is, as a supposed ingredient of his own policy objectives for the USA, it’s delusional.  He never made any concrete proposal for a flat tax, and his own tax cuts have made the tax code less flat: dividends and capital gains are taxed at a far lower rate than wage income (added: and there are no payroll taxes on capital income).   The 16% is also fantasy.  The federal government spends about 21% of GDP — and that’s before housing finance got socialised! 

Haradinaj walks

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The Hague has acquitted former Kosovo PM Ramush Haradinaj of various horrible war crimes.

This is not much of a surprise. One, while the case against the KLA leadership generally is pretty strong, the case against Haradinaj personally wasn’t so much. Two, Haradinaj put up an aggressive and very competent defense. And three, various witnesses were assaulted, intimidated, or otherwise convinced to change their stories. Testifying against a popular KLA commander-turned-popular politician: not so easy.

In this context, I should probably give a link to the recent Human Rights Watch report noting that the criminal justice system in Kosovo still sucks. The report mentions intimidation of witnesses as a particular problem. Which is no surprise to anyone who’s spent much time in Kosovo.

That said, I’m not sure they would have been able to nail Haradinaj even if everyone had testified. He’s a very smart, very charming guy; he put up a very good defense; and the standard for conviction is very high. The prosecutors case consisted of a lot of “bad things happened when you were around, you were in charge, you would have to have known” type stuff… ironically, a bit similar to the way they tried to make the case against Milosevic a few years back. If Slobo had lived, he might have walked on most of his counts too.

Anyway. In the usual zero-sum way of Balkan politics, the Serbs are going nuts — all parties united; everyone agrees that this totally proves the Hague is victor’s justice — while the Albanians are dancing in the streets. Longer term… well, Haradinaj will be back in politics now. He was actually a pretty good Prime Minister during his brief term. It’s not clear how much of that was telling the international community what it wanted to hear, and how much was sincere. We may soon find out.

In other Balkan news, the Greeks vetoed Macedonia’s entry into NATO, but Croatia and Albania got in. Probably worth a post, but I have a limited quota for arguments with Greek nationalists (“yes, your country has ethnic minorities… no, really it does…”) and I’ve about used it up.

Today’s events in Ireland

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AFOE readers interested in following the fallout from the resignation of Taoiseach (PM) Bertie Ahern and not familiar with the usual Irish sources may want to consult my post a couple of days ago for a little background (mostly in the Lisbon context) and then head to RTE, the Irish Times, and the Irish Election blog for continuous updates and commentary.  Bertie will be taking questions in Dáil Éireann (lower house) this afternoon (1545 BST — during the soccer) and it will be carried live here.

Can’t believe all you read in the media…

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…I’m getting rather worried about the normally reliable B92. Doug M expertly dissected the organ-legging story a week or so ago; I’ve just come across this article from 26 March reporting on a UN document describing Kosovo as the “heart of [the] Balkan drug route”. Alarming stuff – essentially confirms the rumours and prejudices of many Balkan-watchers, sealing them with the official seal of UN approval.

Except that it is fictitious. The actual UNODC report contains precisely none of the statements reported by B92. Combing UNODC’s archives, I did find a relevant sentence in one of their reports from last year. The UN says (p. 83), “Some cases of cocaine shipments via the Black Sea to Romania and via the Adriatic Sea to Montenegro often organized by Albanian criminal groups, have already been observed.” This is ever so slightly different from B92′s report of what the UN said, which is “The Albanian mafia has recently begun taking over the control of ports in Romania, in addition to the already solid network existing in Albania and Montenegro”.

In fairness, it’s not B92′s original report, though most people will have seen it on their site; it originates from Tanjug, the Serbian state press agency, reporting from New York. But shame on B92 for not checking out Tanjug’s sources.