CIAO DATE: 2/99

Albania: Conflict Prevention and Crisis Management _*

Gabriel Partos

December 1997

The International Security Information Service

Executive Summary

For the second time in the 1990s Albania descended into anarchy during 1997. On the first occasion, between 1990–92, the chaos accompanied the transition from communist rule to democracy. In 1997 the turmoil followed the collapse of high-risk “pyramid” investment schemes which was preceded by the breakdown of political consensus within the country’s political elite. European institutions and Western governments responded by getting involved in a comprehensive way — through diplomatic and military means as well as through the provision of humanitarian and reconstruction aid — in an attempt to help resolve the conflict in Albania.

The crisis in Albania began with the disputed parliamentary elections of May/June 1996. Most of the mainstream opposition parties, led by the Socialists, accused the authorities of involvement in large-scale electoral fraud and refused to accept the results which gave President Sali Berisha’s Democratic Party a landslide victory. Their subsequent boycott of parliament led to a breakdown in the political dialogue which the OSCE and the Council of Europe tried in vain to overcome through encouraging round table discussions.

The failure of the international effort to prevent what was to turn into violent conflict was due mainly to the intransigence of Albanian politicians, particularly those in the Berisha administration. But some of the responsibility belongs to the international community which lacked unity, firmness of purpose and sometimes even awareness of what was happening in Albania. This undermined the various conciliation efforts.

By the time the pyramid schemes began to fail at the beginning of 1997, Albania had no functioning democratic institutions or fora through which the mounting public discontent could have been channelled. The result was a series of spontaneous and increasingly violent demonstrations that turned into riots and finally into an uprising. This time the international response was swift. The OSCE despatched former Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky to Albania within days of the outbreak of the uprising in early March. By mid-April an 11–nation Multinational Protection Force (FMP), under Italian command, was being deployed in Albania.

Fresh elections were held in June/July as a means towards restoring law and order, rebuilding democracy and kick-starting the economy at home and preventing a spill-over of unrest into the ethnic Albanian-inhabited regions of Serbia’s Kosovo province and in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The elections proved to be a success: they produced a credible result which was deemed acceptable by the OSCE’s election observers. With the formation of a new Socialist-led coalition the task of reconstruction could get underway.

Thus the failure of conflict prevention was followed by the triumph of crisis management. The success in tackling the conflict in Albania could not have been achieved without the international community’s broad unity of purpose; firm diplomacy, including renewed warnings about the conditionality of reconstruction aid; the OSCE’s close involvement through the Vranitzky mission and the presence of its election observers; and the deployment of FMP in Albania.

The resolution of the most dangerous aspects of the conflict has opened the way to rebuilding the Albanian state and economy with the help of foreign aid. The new challenge facing the international community is to ensure that reconstruction assistance turns into a viable form of conflict prevention in the future.

The ministerial conference in Rome and the donors’ conference in Brussels in October signalled an acute awareness on the part of Albania’s partners of the need for close monitoring of Tirana’s compliance with meeting the conditions attached to aid. These requirements include Albania’s continued commitment to rebuilding democracy, bringing about national reconciliation and introducing transparency in the economy, including the pyramid schemes. Unless these conditions are firmly enforced, there is always a danger that international attempts at conflict prevention in a volatile country, such as Albania, might fail once again.

 

1. Introduction

Uniquely among the post-communist countries of Europe, Albania has twice had to be rescued from chaos during the 1990s. The first collapse in 1990–92 came during the country’s transition from communist rule to democracy. It prompted limited Western involvement which primarily took the form of humanitarian aid. The most notable example of which was the Italian army’s Operation Pelican which helped feed and clothe many Albanians following the demise of the Stalinist command economy.

In the collapse of 1997 there was more at stake. After five years of steady integration into Western institutions — a period during which Albania joined the Council of Europe and NATO’s Partnership for Peace — there was a reluctance to allow Albania to slip back into a state of protracted upheaval. In any case, continued anarchy in Albania held out the prospect of a further threat to stability in an already unstable Balkans. So, in addition to humanitarian assistance, the international community also used diplomatic and military means to help resolve the conflict in Albania. ₁

 

2. Build-up to crisis

2.1 Elections and Pyramid Schemes

Signs of a possible disaster were already looming in 1996. The parliamentary elections in June/July produced an overwhelming victory for President Berisha’s Democratic Party but were accompanied by electoral malpractices. That prompted the main opposition parties, led by the ex-communist Socialists, to boycott the electoral process and then the newly-elected parliament.

Yet the disruption of normal parliamentary activity had, on the whole, little impact outside the political establishment. A very high proportion of Albanian families had invested their savings in risky pyramid schemes which promised — and initially paid out — unrealistically high interest rates. Others had been intimidated by tough police action against demonstrators and by the activities of the widely-resented National Intelligence Commission (SHIK) secret police.

However, the failure of several pyramid schemes at the beginning of 1997 had an instant effect in destabilizing Albania as people began to blame the Berisha administration for the economic free-for-all that had resulted in the loss of their savings. The lack of democratic institutions through which the public’s anger could have been channelled then led to spontaneous demonstrations many of which turned into riots. The violence was transformed into a largely unco-ordinated uprising against the Berisha regime in the southern half of Albania in early March when attempts to use the army and the police against the rebels collapsed and the security forces fell apart.

2.2 The US Response

By the time the unrest began, the Albanian government had alienated the US Adminstration. Washington had been among Berisha’s strongest supporters from the time he entered office as president in 1992. But in the wake of the controversial June 1996 elections which were strongly criticized by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE’s) two groups of observers -its Parliamentary Assembly and its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) ₂ — the US Administration led the move away from backing the increasingly authoritarian Albanian president.

The US, unlike its European partners, made its position clear by boycotting the inauguration of the newly-elected Albanian parliament when its calls for a comprehensive re-run of the ballot were ignored. The severing of its special links with the Berisha administration had been made easier for Washington by the decline in Albania’s strategic importance following the Dayton peace accords on Bosnia-Hercegovina. The US no longer needed to use Gjader air base north of Tirana for launching its unmanned Predator reconnaissance planes on intelligence-gathering missions over Bosnia. ₃ And the danger of a spill-over of the conflict from Bosnia to Kosovo appeared to be receding.

Besides, the Clinton Administration was determined to build up democratic institutions in Bosnia and elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia as a way of bolstering a lasting peace. It wanted to use Albania as an example of its tough approach to countries that were turning away from the democratic path.

2.3 The European Approach

Initially, most European countries showed little enthusiasm for lining up behind the new US position. This was the case even though, by the time of the June 1996 elections, both Italy and Greece — the EU and NATO countries most directly affected by developments in Albania — had once again acquired Socialist or centre-left administrations which were largely unsympathtic to the ex-communist Berisha’s right-wing rhetoric.

However, for a time neither Rome nor Athens felt they could undermine Berisha by turning their backs on him. Being among the leading investors in Albania, Italy and Greece did not want to endanger their positions by alienating the Tirana authorities.

Besides, as the two main destinations for Albanian refugees during the chaotic collapse of Albanian communism in 1990–92, Italy and Greece feared that a weakening of Berisha’s position might precipitate further serious political trouble in Albania and they would then have to cope with another stream of refugees.

In any case, with the Socialists and the rest of the Albanian opposition demoralized and divided after their election defeat, there appeared to be no obvious alternative to Berisha in the second half of 1996. So the European approach remained ambivalent towards Tirana — the more so because a number of influential conservative or Christian Democratic politicians continued to give their wholehearted support to Berisha.

2.4 International Mediation Attempts

The OSCE and the Council of Europe launched several half-hearted attempts to bring the Albanian political parties round the table to find a way of overcoming the protracted crisis. The international mediators proposed amendments to the election laws to make the electoral process more transparent and fair and to encourage the opposition to end its boycott of parliament.

But the efforts to break the deadlock failed — mainly because of the intransigence of the Albanian parties and, in particular, of the Tirana authorities which were under relatively little pressure to make concessions. Although several aid donors suspended or scaled down foreign aid schemes and the EU linked negotiations on closer trade links to Tirana’s willingness to uphold democratic criteria, ₄ on the whole it was “business as usual” in Albania’s relations with most countries.

The failure of mediation was also the result of a lack of unity between the various foreign governments and international institutions that were involved in the conciliation attempts. Berisha, who had been angered by the OSCE observers’ criticism of the elections, never fully accepted the OSCE as a mediator; and in September it was replaced by the Council of Europe as the main mediating body. That helped the Tirana administration in two ways. The US — influential within the OSCE — was now excluded from a full mediating role; and the lobbying efforts of the Albanian Democratic Party within the highly-politicized Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ensured a favourable hearing for President Berisha.

Tensions between the two organisations were accentuated when the OSCE pulled out of observing the Albanian municipal elections on 20 October after the Tirana authorities had insisted on limiting the number of its election monitors. The Council of Europe went ahead with the observation effort on the grounds that it was necessary to have at least some kind of international monitoring of the elections. OSCE officials felt that this demonstrated the Council of Europe’s lack of solidarity in the face of a member-state’s determination to dictate new conditions to an organisation whose rules it had undertaken to uphold.

 

3. Crisis Gives Way to Conflict

The Council of Europe’s mediating efforts — and the last realistic chance for conflict prevention — effectively fizzled out after the Albanian municipal elections returned the Democratic Party with another landslide victory. But the political calm and Berisha’s largely unchecked control over Albania lasted less than three months. Repeated warnings about the unregulated pyramid schemes from the IMF, the World Bank and the European Bank were ignored, and as these schemes began to collapse at the beginning of 1997, Albania’s apparent economic miracle turned into an economic and social disaster.

The subsequent uprising in early March and the break-up of the police and the army led to a state of anarchy. At least this disintegration of the security forces prevented a possible civil war because there was no one left to fight the anti-Berisha groups that took control of the south. Any armed conflict could have led to a great deal more bloodshed since between 600,000 and one million weapons of all types had been seized from army depots and police stations during the uprising. Even without a civil war, the months of chaos claimed between 1,600–1,800 lives. Most of those killed were the victims of gang warfare, armed robberies or accidental shooting.

3.1 The OSCE Returns to Mediate

The uprising focussed international attention on Albania; and the need for co-ordinated action propelled the OSCE once again into the position of mediator. Franz Vranitzky, the former Austrian Chancellor, was appointed the OSCE’s special representative with the task of mediating between Berisha and the opposition parties (initially led by the Socialists). Vranitzky’s main objective was to help guide Albania towards early parliamentary elections — by the end of June. That arrangement had been agreed by Albania’s main political parties in March at the time President Berisha approved the replacement of a Democratic Party government by a broad-based caretaker administration under Socialist Prime Minister Bashkim Fino.

Vranitzky’s task was made more difficult by continuing disagreements among the Albanian political parties about the nature of the electoral system under which the voting was to take place; and by Berisha’s reluctance to facilitate the practical measures needed for elections that were likely to lead to his own downfall, especially as he had earlier promised to resign if his party lost the vote.

Meanwhile, the anti-Berisha forces refused to disarm and, instead, reiterated their demand for Berisha’s resignation. Chaos — albeit on a reduced scale — continued to reign in the country until and beyond the 29 June election.

In these conditions the challenges facing the international community in Albania were manifold and included the following objectives:

• to prevent an even worse conflict and possible civil war;
• ensure the transition to power to a government that would enjoy public support;
• help restore the institutions of state;
• halt the exodus of refugees and prevent a recurrence of mass flights by Albanians to Italy and Greece as in 1990– 92;
• curb the impact of the now well-armed Albanian criminal elements in neighbouring countries;
• and block any spill-over of unrest into the mainly ethnic Albanian-inhabited regions of Serbia’s Kosovo province and the western parts of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

Vranitzky’s efforts were helped by the broad unity of purpose of the key foreign countries, the US as well as Italy and Greece within the EU. As several governments now judged Berisha to have become a destablilizing force in Albania — and possibly beyond his country’s borders ₅ — their publicly unstated purpose was to ease Berisha out of office through the ballot box.

This shared purpose was a new development which had been prompted by the need to cope with the emergency in Albania. Even at this stage, however, — within the framework of a broad international consensus — various disagreements remained, although much less pronounced than previously, and not only between different countries but also within some governments and also among diplomats representing the same countries. ₆

3.2 The OSCE’s Role in the Elections

In his attempts to keep the tight election timetable on track, Vranitzky’s main weapon was the threat that no foreign assistance would be forthcoming unless a democratic vote was held to produce a credible administration. This was a potent message because six years after the collapse of the economy that had accompanied the fall of communism, Albania was, once again, in desperate need of financial help. No Albanian political leader could risk the prospect of being blamed for depriving his country of foreign aid.

Part of the international effort was directed at ensuring that the elections would be held under the best possible conditions in what was, in many important respects, a highly unsatisfactory situation. Although the OSCE steered clear of direct involvement in the detailed planning and organisation of the elections — it did not wish to replicate its role in the various Bosnian ballots of 1996–97 — it still adopted a much more active role than it had in other countries of eastern and south-eastern Europe.

Vranitzky’s shuttle-diplomacy was a major contribution to the process of reaching some kind of consensus among the Albanian political parties in the run-up to the elections. The OSCE also provided advice on a range of matters — including the drawing up of electoral registers and voting procedures — though not all of these were adopted by the Albanian authorities. On the practical side, it helped arrange the distribution of ballot papers (which had been printed in Italy to avoid any possible tampering before polling day).

Perhaps most importantly, the OSCE assembled a contingent of 450 observers — the largest number apart from the various Bosnian election monitoring efforts — to ensure that the results would have credibility. The various groups of observers, brought together under the aegis of the OSCE, also included a strong contingent from the Council of Europe. The purpose of this approach was to ensure that the final report would speak with one voice and thus avoid a repetition of the situation in 1996 when different groups of monitors gave contradictory assessments.

In spite of these efforts to improve conditions, the situation in Albania was hardly conducive to a free and fair ballot. Indeed, the shortcomings were so grave that the OSCE’s own election observation specialists at the ODIHR gave a behind-the- scenes warning just a few days before polling day that the conditions for normal elections did not exist — not least because there was no freedom of movement in large parts of the country. ₇

In the end pragmatism triumphed over principle: the OSCE’s member-states supported the elections on the grounds that unless Albanians were given a chance to vote into office a credible government, there was no prospect of rescuing the country from protracted anarchy. Indeed, to avoid any political vacuum — or even the briefest possible confusion — the OSCE produced a preliminary verdict on the day after the first round of elections on 29 June. It described the election process as “adequate and acceptable.” ₈

3.3 Operation Alba

The elections were a success for the OSCE’s conflict-resolution efforts. But those endeavours might not have borne fruit without the contribution of the Italian-led Multi-national Protection Force (FMP) which provided a degree of security in some of the key areas of Albania.

The decision to send troops to Albania was prompted by concern that the chaotic conditions in the country might turn into endemic conflict. Such a prospect was perceived in Rome and Athens, in particular, as containing the threat of a further exodus of Albanian refugees. Diplomatic means alone appeared insufficient for containing the spread of instability inside Albania; and during March a consensus developed between Italy and several of its EU partners — mostly from the Mediterranean region — for the need to establish a short-term military presence in Albania.

NATO was already shouldering much of the responsibility for peace implementation in Bosnia. The UN was engaged in peacekeeping duties in Croatia’s Eastern Slavonia region and in FYROM. The Western European Union did not have the command structure to co-ordinate a multi-national military effort in Albania. This left an ad hoc “coalition of the willing,” under Italian inspiration to mount its own form of UN-approved military deployment in Albania.

The original aim of Operation Alba which, in addition to Italy, included contingents from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey was to secure the main gateways into Albania — such as the ports of Durres and Vlora and Rinas airport near Tirana. The purpose was to ensure that humanitarian aid reach its destination in riot-torn Albania.

Yet the 7,000–strong FMP under the command of General Luciano Forlani had relatively little to do between the beginning of its deployment in mid-April and the elections at the end of June. In spite of the traumas of the previous months, there was no widespread starvation in Albania and the need for humanitarian aid was not acute. (Nevertheless, the troops did help distribute a total of about 5,500 tonnes of food and medical supplies.) It should be noted that Operation Alba’s mandate did not extend to policing duties — although that would have been Albania’s most essential immediate requirement in the chaotic conditions prevalent in the country. ₉

However, the FMP’s very presence helped create a more secure environment in the areas where its units were deployed. In addition to Tirana, Durres and Vlora, the main centres were Gjirokastra, Elbasan and Lezha. As a result, the painstaking work of stabilizing public order could get underway.

Most importantly, the FMP enabled the elections to be held with relatively few politically-motivated violent incidents, particularly in the areas patrolled by its troops. Over 3,000 soldiers were directly involved in protecting OSCE observers on polling day, although, with a few exceptions, their operations were restricted to Albania’s central regions.

Originally, the FMP’s initial 90–day United Nations mandate was due to expire just before the first round of balloting, but it was extended for a further 45 days to include the second round and the immediate post-election period which saw the resignation of President Berisha, his replacement by the Socialist Rexhep Mejdani and the formation of a new centre-left coalition government under Socialist leader Fatos Nano.

3.4 The FMP’s Withdrawal

However, with the elections out of the way and the relative success of Operation Alba ensured, this “coalition of the willing” proved reluctant to prolong the FMP’s stay in Albania. Italy, in particular, was in no mood to continue to shoulder so much of the burden, including providing half the troops. After all, even the initial deployment of Italian troops had brought Romano Prodi’s centre-left coalition close to collapse in the face of resistance to any active engagement in Albania from the Communist Refoundation party.

For many Albanians, however, the withdrawal of the FMP, completed by 12 August, came far too early. They would have welcomed an extension of Operation Alba to provide a somewhat more secure environment in which to help Albania’s much-weakened police force restore law and order.

It is true that predictions of increased violence following the FMP’s departure did not materialize. On the other hand, there is little doubt that the process of returning Albania to normality has taken longer without the presence of foreign troops. The collection of weapons in unauthorized hands has been a very slow process. By the time the government’s deadline for their return had passed on 30 September, even the most optimistic official estimates referred to less than one-sixth of the captured weapons having been handed in.

 

4. From Crisis Management to Reconstruction

4.1 The Security Dimension

The winding down of Operation Alba did not spell the end of foreign military assistance to Albania. Both Italy and Greece left a number of officers behind to prepare the ground for more systematic training and the provision of advice to help rebuild Albania’s disintegrated armed forces. ₁₀ That task has remained huge because even without the shattering impact of this year’s events Albania’s 60,000–strong army and its 12,500 men in the navy and air force were poorly equipped and lacked motivation.

The military co-operation agreement Albania signed with Italy in August envisages the involvement of nearly 300 Italian military personnel, based in Tirana and Durres, helping to train Albanian military police and coastguards as well as giving advice on the protection of arms depots and ports. The programme, worth $17 million, also includes training in air defence, communications and transport. Albania also sought the renewal of bilateral military assistance from the US and other countries which Greece and Turkey, for their part, quickly promised to restart. ₁₁ There was also a rapid resumption of contacts with NATO with the purpose of defining a new individual Partnenship for Peace programme that would be tailored to Albania’s specific needs.

Since the elections the Western European Union (WEU), which took charge of police training in May, has boosted the strength of its Multinational Police Advisory Element (MAPE) from an initial 20 officers to 60 with plans to increase numbers to 90 by the end of 1997. MAPE’s mandate has been extended until April 1998 to give it the opportunity to follow through its projects, such as the reorganisation of the Tirana Police Academy, the holding of seminars for police commanders, advice on border controls and the retraining of police officers. ₁₂

4.2 The OSCE and Post-election Aid

The military and police training programmes are part of a comprehensive international aid effort for Albania that Italian officials have described in somewhat grandiose terms as a new Marshall Plan. The package has been co-ordinated by the OSCE, though Vranitzky’s personal involvement came to an end with the high-level aid conferences that were held in Rome and Brussels in the second half of October.

The financial aid effort is being led by the EU and the World Bank which acted as joint organisers of the Brussels donors’ conference. Albania was given immediate emergency assistance of over $180 million with the promise of a further $500 million as the first tranche of a substantial medium-term aid package. International aid officials described the sums promised as more than had been expected. ₁₃

With the period of crisis management over, the OSCE’s role now is to ensure that the amount of duplication involved in the reconstruction effort is kept to a minimum. This is all the more important because, in addition to bilateral aid, a large number of international and multi-lateral organisations are closely involved in the Albania project. These include NATO, the WEU, the World Bank, the IMF, the EU and the Council of Europe as well as many non-governmental organisations.

To improve its access to Albania’s northern and southern regions the OSCE decided to complement its Tirana mission with two field offices in Shkodra and Gjirokastra. These are also designed to further the co-ordination of the aid effort by providing facilities for other international organisations active in Albania.

The aid package goes well beyond providing straightforward financial contributions to help Albania’s balance of payments or pay for infrastucture developments. ₁₄ It also includes:

• assistance with institution-building, as in the case of reconstructing the army and the police;
• advice on restructuring the civil service and public service broadcasting;
• training for the judiciary;
• and work on drafting a new constitution.

4.3 Conditionality of Aid

Although this new programme is more comprehensive — and better co-ordinated — than the aid schemes that were extended to Albania in the period starting with the collapse of communism in 1991, in its essentials it is not very different from previous projects. And since a considerable amount of the assistance given in the past was either misspent or produced few durable results, the international community has been setting tighter conditions this time round. The OSCE and other international institutions have been insisting on the new Albanian authorities’ commitment to democracy, the rule of law and reconciliation among bitter political enemies. ₁₅

These requirements have produced some beneficial results. Within the Socialist-led administration some of the key posts are in the hands of non-Socialists; a number of the parliamentary commissions are chaired by opposition politicians; the state-controlled media gives reasonable access to the opposition; and in a gesture of reconciliation Prime Minister Nano invited Berisha, as the main opposition leader, to accompany him to the Rome conference (though the invitation was turned down). ₁₆

The Tirana administration enjoys considerable international sympathy. Within weeks of taking office, Nano had toured Austria for consultations with the OSCE, Luxembourg as the holder of the current EU presidency, and Brussels to visit NATO headquarters and the EU Commission. Later he attended the IMF and World Bank annual general assemblies in Hong Kong and the aid conferences in Rome and Brussels. The welcome given to Nano has been in sharp contrast to the previous attitude towards Berisha who in the year after the controversial June 1996 elections received no official invitations for bilateral talks.

4.4 Reservations over Progress

But the support for the Nano administration is not unqualified. There is a degree of scepticism among several of Albania’s partners over the Tirana government’s commitment to carrying out its promises over depoliticizing the institutions of state. Greater care will need to be taken this time to monitor aid projects to ensure that contributions are not squandered in the way they were on a number of occasions in the first half of the 1990s. ₁₇

The Italian government has also felt disappointed with the Albanian authorities over the slow progress in repatriating the nearly 16,000 Albanians who fled to Italy during the crisis. As a result, Rome was left with little choice but to ignore the end of August deadline it had set for the return of the Albanian refugees. That, in turn, created problems for the Prodi administration which was accused by the opposition of being soft on illegal immigrants.

The refugee issue remains a key problem in Albania’s relations with Italy and Greece as it is linked also to a range of serious cross-border criminal activities. These include drug-dealing, arms-trafficking — which increased with the looting of Albania’s weapons depots — and the smuggling of illegal immigrants across the Adriatic into Italy.

 

5. Conclusions

In many ways the crisis in Albania has posed a challenge not so much to regional stability — there has been no spill-over of the unrest to the ethnic Albanian communities in Kosovo or Macedonia — but to law and order and social stability among some of Albania’s neighbours. Italy and Greece, in particular, perceive a large number of the poverty-stricken Albanians driven by desperation to their countries as as potential, if not already hardened criminals. Some of the dangers have been highlighted by well-armed Albanian smugglers who have been involved in gun battles with Greek coastguards at Corfu and with FYROM border guards further to the north. ₁₈

The international effort at crisis management in Albania has turned out to be largely successful — thanks to the OSCE’s mediation efforts, international diplomatic pressure and the Italian-led Operation Alba. The novel arrangement whereby political control over Operation Alba was channelled through an ad hoc Steering Committee, consisting of the foreign ministry political directors of the 11 troop-contributing countries, also proved to be a flexible and pragmatic arrangement. ₁₉ It may become the model for similar short-term conflict-management bodies in the future which can combine the advantages of being assembled with considerable speed and being sufficiently compact and cohesive to deal firmly with fresh emergencies.

But the very need for crisis management was prompted by the failure of conflict prevention. What the international community needs to ensure now is that the reconstruction effort turns into a form of conflict prevention for the future. The key mechanism that needs to be put in place to help this process continue is a stringent form of monitoring Tirana’s compliance with the conditions for aid that foreign governments and international organisations have laid down.

Albania has a credible administration, the unrest has been contained, the law and order situation is improving and the institutions of the state are being rebuilt. The challenge that remains for Albania’s partners is to move from dealing with the immediate symptoms of a crisis to long-term conflict prevention that can help establish Albania’s domestic capacity for overcoming its own internal conflicts. ₂₀

 

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Endnotes

*: This briefing paper is an expanded and updated version of the author’s article ‘Albania: From Crisis to Stability?,’ Le Monde Atlantique/De Atlantische Wereld, Brussels, No.65, November 1997.  Back.

Note 1: Albania became the stage for the fifth international military intervention in the Balkans since 1992 following the UN peackeeeping operations in Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Yugoslavia and the NATO-led peace implementation force in Bosnia. Cf. ‘The Crisis in Albania: a Failed European State,’ in Strategic Comments, (London), Vol.3, No.4, May 1997.  Back.

Note 2: ODIHR, Observations on the Parliamentary Elections held in the Republic of Albania, May 26 and June 2, 1996, (Warsaw), 11 June 1996.  Back.

Note 3: Fron Nazi, ‘Washington Goes Socialist,’ War Report, (London), No.53, August 1997.  Back.

Note 4: Agence Europe, Brussels, 6 June 1996.  Back.

Note 5: Personal communication from Italian, Greek and US officials who argued that Berisha’s resignation was a prerequisite for resolving the crisis in Albania.  Back.

Note 6: For an account of disagreements among Italian diplomats, cf. International Herald Tribune, 9 June 1997.  Back.

Note 7: Personal communication from OSCE official.  Back.

Note 8: OSCE, Preliminary Statement, 30 June 1997; see also OSCE, Final Report: Parliamentary Elections in Albania, 29 June-6 July 1997, 8 July 1997.  Back.

Note 9: Multinational Protection Force Fact Sheet,, Tirana, 27 June 1997.  Back.

Note 10: ‘Force withdraws final personnel from Albania’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 20 August 1997.  Back.

Note 11: International Herald Tribune, 1 August 1997; Reuter, 4 August and 28 August 1997; Associated Press, 13 September 1997.  Back.

Note 12: Agence Europe, 6 October 1997.  Back.

Note 13: European Commission & World Bank press release, Donors’ Conference on Albania, Brussels, 22 October 1997; Agence Europe, 23 October 1997.  Back.

Note 14: Vranitzky outlined the package at a preliminary international aid conference on Albania in Rome; cf. ‘Vranitzky Urges Immediate and Co-ordinated Asssistance for Albania,’ OSCE press release, 31 Jul 1997.  Back.

Note 15: Cf. UN Security Council’s insistence on conditionality, Associated Press, 14 August 1997.  Back.

Note 16: For some of the improvements cf. Fabian Schmidt, ‘Getting the Guns out of Politics,’ Transitions, (Prague), Vol.4, No.5, October 1997.  Back.

Note 17: Albania received the highest per capita assistance from the EU between 1991–96, (a total sum of ECU 450 million) European Commission press release on European Parlimaent meeting, 12 March 1997.  Back.

Note 18: FYROM authorities reported 110 such incidents in a period of six months up to mid-November. Associated Press, Skopje, 18 November 1997.  Back.

Note 19: Amadeo de Franchis, ‘Albania: the Implications for Balkan Stability,’ Wilton Park Conference, 27 October 1997.  Back.

Note 20: See Hugh Miall’s discussion of ‘light’ versus ‘deep’ conflict prevention in Miall, ‘The OSCE Role in Albania: a success for Conflict Prevention’, in a forthcoming edition of Helsinki Monitor, (The Hague).  Back.