Syndicate: Fw: The KLA And The Albanian Mafia

[Melentie Pandilovski <mpandil@soros.org.mk>]

----------------------- Original Message -----------------------
 From:    Francisco Javier Bernal <asterion@NTLWORLD.COM>
 To:      ZAMIR-CHAT-LIST@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU
 Date:    Sat, 24 Mar 2001 12:56:25 -0000
 Subject: The KLA And The Albanian Mafia
----

http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/html/macedonia010323.html

Radio Netherlands

The Albanian Mafia


by our Internet desk, 23 March 2001


The ethnic Albanian rebels fighting in the hills of
Macedonia are the paramilitary wing of an Albanian
Mafia exporting drugs and trafficking humans to Europe
and even further. That's according to research by a
leading criminologist in France, Xavier Raufer. He
says the home base of Albanian refugees from the
Kosovo conflict is in these areas. This diaspora has
secured a safe power base for the mafia to efficiently
carry out its smuggling and human trafficking.

Xavier Raufer is the author of a book entitled 'The
Albanian Mafia". In his view, there's no way to
distinguish Albanian guerrillas from local mafia
groups. They have the same mindset and share the same
goals, he said in an interview with Radio Netherlands'
Lorenza Bacino.

"There's not such a thing as rebels and militias on
the one hand and the Albanian mafia on the other. In
the Albanian world -- in Albania and in Kosovo and in
the Albanian-populated part of Macedonia -- you have
clans and in those clans you have a mix of young men
fighting for the cause of national liberation, young
men belonging to the mafia, young men driving their
cousins or other girls from the village into
prostitution. It's absolutely impossible to
distinguish between them. They obey the same clans,
they have the same logic, the same world view, and to
discriminate between one guy who's one day selling
heroin and the next day fighting in the mountains is
absolutely impossible."

Political Alibi
Mr Raufer draws a comparison between the current
ethnic turmoil in Macedonia and the recent situation
in South Lebanon. In both cases, society is dominated
by clans engaged in all sorts of criminal activity. In
Mr Raufer's view, the claims by Albanian rebels that
they are standing up for the rights of the ethnic
Albanian minority in Macedonia is just an excuse for
criminal activities.

"It may be true for half or one third of the day. In
South Lebanon some years ago, when you asked those
South Lebanese villagers: is this village Amal or
Hizbollah, the guy would just laugh and say: the
village is Amal by day and Hizbollah by night. In
Albania, it's the same situation. You have to be as
ignorant as Europe or NATO not to discover that. The
guys are liberation fighters by day and sell heroin by
night or vice versa. It's absolutely impossible to
discriminate between the two activities."

Mafia Bastion
The recent fighting has concentrated around the
western town of Tetovo. This comes as no surprise to
Mr Raufer, who describes it as a key mafia bastion.

"It's of major importance. Each time the police or the
foreign powers' intelligence in Kosovo (the US army,
the British army and the French army each have their
own intelligence) discover a mafia network, i.e. a
network selling forbidden goods, like petrol to
Yugoslavia when there is an embargo or selling
prostitutes to Italy or selling heroin, you see that
the head of the network is in Tetovo. It's extremely
easy to understand why. This part of Macedonia is
absolutely out of any type of regular control and it
has been for years. The state of Macedonia is very
feeble. It is not a strong power. It only has limited
resources to maintain law and order in the part of
Macedonia that's populated by ethnic Macedonians and
no way at all of controlling the country's
Albanian-populated areas. So, in Tetovo, they are free
to do whatever they like, no one can arrest them."

International Ignorance
Meanwhile, the Macedonian government has launched an
all-out offensive and there've been some bellicose
statements from NATO and the international community.
According to Mr Raufer, it shows that international
bodies like the EU, the UN or NATO are hardly aware of
the real situation on the ground.

"It's worse than that. In order to achieve even a
modest success against criminalised guerrillas like
the UCK, you don't need an army. An army is absolutely
hopeless. A criminal society like the mafia is
absolutely invincible. They don't show on any radar.
You cannot see them. So, what you need is a
"gendarmerie" or a police force of some 12,000 people,
who know how to arrest criminals. You don't need an
army of soldiers who are used to do battle with guns
and tanks and planes."


Links


Publications by Xavier Raufer
Washington Quarterly: The Albanian Mafia

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