Milan V. Petkovic: Albanian Terrorists

Southeast Europe, and especially the Balkan Peninsula, have traditionally been the object of numerous geopolitical, geostrategic and publicist analyses, as well as the subject of debates among Balkan, European and global experts in international relations. At the present, along with the Serbian question, the most controversial issue is the Albanian national question.

The basic problem concerns security in a broader geopolitical framework, which is understandable. but at least as far as Western analysts are concerned, other issues have priority such as human rights, democracy and other issues that might become dominant in a given phase of crisis solving.

The preservation of regional security and the creation of stable political-economic relations in the Balkan Peninsula are the priorities of the international community policy, since it estimates that currently the most important hotbeds on Europe are located in Kosovo and Metohija, in Albania and in western Macedonia.

Judged according to investments, resources and geostrategic element, the province of Kosovo and Metohija is worth more than 500 billion dollars. This fact favored the Albanian secessionist leadership in its efforts to assume the guidance of the Albanian people which might play an important role in the global control of the south-eastern part of Europe. The premise "Whoever has control of the Balkans and of Kosovo and Metohija, controls the stability and the instability of Europe" has been put to good use by the Albanian leaders by trying to destabilize this part of the European continent in order to benefit by creating "Greater Albania", i.e. by generating a monopoly of power and might in the Balkans. Their efforts are designed to provide the solution to the "Kosovo Question" by involving international factors, to the point that internationalization of the problems is sought at any cost, including inciting and taking part in terrorist activities, devised to frighten the Serbian people and force it to emigrate and abandon the land to the secessionists.

The political objectives of the secessionists encompassing both conventional and unconventional forms of activities by political parties, unions, media, supported by terrorism, guerrilla, contraband, drugs smuggling and violence of all sorts, are merely a mosaic revealing a rejection of the authority of the Serbian state and of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and a collective resistance to the Serbian people and political parties, regardless of their political programs, party activities and attitude towards the present government.

Milan V. Petkovic, 1998