Global Research

USAID Fake News Exposed

Ali Ahmeti, the Macedonian-Albanian leader of the “Democratic Union For Integration” (DUI), revealed late last week that he refused to go along with a plot to partition his country. The author has been consistently warning about this scenario for over five years beginning in January 2015and continuing for the subsequent half-decade into the present day, though it was dismissed as nothing more than a “conspiracy theory” by the Mainstream Media. The USAID-financed “Media Fact Checking Service” in Macedonia went even further by slandering the author in February 2016 when they alleged without any evidence whatsoever that he was participating in a secret Kremlin “propaganda” campaign together with Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin and famous Russian media host Dmitry Kiselyov just because he held firm with his position that the partition of the Republic of Macedonia was the ultimate outcome of the long-running Hybrid War against it. That malicious fake news has since been debunked and the author therefore vindicated by none other than Ahmeti’s public admission that such a plot was indeed in the works this entire time.

Ahmeti’s Excuses

The Macedonian-Albanian leader didn’t say exactly who approached him, but it can be reasonably suspected that the US government played some sort of role in this literal conspiracy after so actively working to smear those such as the author who exposed it. Whoever the culprit(s) may or may not be, the question that naturally follows is why Ahmeti refused to “pull a Kosovo” in Macedonia when all prior indicators strongly suggested that he’d be susceptible to sympathizing with this scenario. He claims that he wanted to avoid bloodshed and that “I wanted to have our symbols and language and we achieved those goals. We have a university, the language in the Assembly and in the institutions, as well as our symbols.” Whether or not he’s telling the truth, the point that he wants to convey is that his goal was basically to set up a “state within a state” on Macedonian territory as opposed to separating from it as its own self-professed “state” or merging into “Greater Albania”. In other words, Ahmeti is saying that he already got all that he wanted from former Prime Minister Zaev (who came to power after a Color Revolution) so there was no reason to go any further.

“Greater Albania” Or Greater Dystopia?

There was a time, however, where it was far from certain that the Albanians would set up their own “state within a state” on Macedonian territory, so one obviously wonders why Ahmeti didn’t make any moves to join the partition plot during that time. It could be that he was either biding his time in the expectation that the Color Revolution would succeed and subsequently give him all that he demanded or that he had more Machiavellian calculations in mind that have to do with the dystopia that’s “Greater Albania”. The author wrote a two–part article series in November 2015 about how “‘Greater Albania’ Is A Myth To Preserve The Country’s Unity” which basically asserted that this geopolitical project is a smokescreen to distract Albania’s population from their many socio-economic woes. Even worse, the only real instance where it was executed in practice, the NATO-occupied Serbian Province of Kosovo & Metohija, has failed to merge with Albania owing to clan and other types of conflicts (including over criminal enterprises). The Albanian Prime Minister is even suing his “counterpart” in Kosovo for “defamation” nowadays, showing how strained ties between the two have become.

Self-Interested Political Calculations

Seeing what a failure neighboring Kosovo has been, it’s understandable why Ahmeti didn’t want the Albanians within his “sphere of influence” in Macedonia to experience the same fate. More to the point, though, he might have also worried about his own political future since he’d either be the leader of yet another artificial landlocked “statelet” with only partial international recognition or the regional capo of newly annexed “Albanian Lebensraum”, neither of which are attractive. Instead, he preferred to play the role of kingmaker in Macedonia where he knew that he could count on foreign assistance for his plans without any “legal” reservations from his patrons. It just so happened that “making the right choice for the wrong reason” did indeed prevent a lot of needless bloodshed so he can thus present his decision as being “noble”, “peaceful”, and “principled” even though it was mostly likely determined solely by his own political self-interests. Understanding this, everything makes sense in hindsight, though that shouldn’t be taken to mean that neither he nor any other Macedonian-Albanian leader won’t reconsider this option sometime in the future.

A “Second Kosovo” In The “New Balkans”?

The plan for the “New Balkans”, as the author described it in one of his works from last year, is still going forward. Concerted efforts are being made behind the scenes by all players of relevance to get Serbian President Vucic to openly “recognize” the “independence” of Kosovo, whether de-facto or de-jure, which in turn might regenerate interest in Macedonian-Albanian separatism sometime down the line. More than likely, however, the Macedonian-Albanians will opt to take a “wait and see” approach before recommencing any separatist campaign since they already live better than their ethnic compatriots elsewhere in the region and do indeed have their own “state within a state” as it is nowadays. Instead of being a “privileged minority” in Macedonia which could easily earn the “sympathy” of the so-called “international community” anytime they decide to make more demands, they’d just be “one among many” other Albanians within “Greater Albania” if they decided to split from their internationally recognized state into what would ultimately be only a partially recognized one at best. As such, they probably won’t secede, but the scenario still can’t be entirely ruled out.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on OneWorld.