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Civil Wars

ISSN: 1369-8249 (Print) 1743-968X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fciv20

How Conflict Spreads: Opportunity Structuresand the Diffusion of Conflict in the Republic ofMacedonia

Pavlos I. Koktsidis

To cite this article: Pavlos I. Koktsidis (2014) How Conflict Spreads: Opportunity Structuresand the Diffusion of Conflict in the Republic of Macedonia, Civil Wars, 16:2, 208-238, DOI:10.1080/13698249.2014.927703

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698249.2014.927703

Published online: 18 Aug 2014.

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How Conflict Spreads: Opportunity Structuresand the Diffusion of Conflict in the Republic of

Macedonia

PAVLOS I. KOKTSIDISSchool of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cyprus, Nicosia Cyprus

This article examines the escalation of protest mobilization into armed conflict

in the Republic of Macedonia (2001). The analysis argues that violence

occurred because of a timely collusion between proximate causes and

permissive conditions (causes). The state’s inherent fragility and the

perpetuation of unresolved grievances provided ground for the utilization of

opportunity structures by dissident contestants. The study looks into the

influence of spillover effects through the lens of contagion and diffusion effects

including political radicalization, disputed borderlands refugee flows, and

rebel capacity, and provides an assessment of the conditions shaping the

decision of the Albanian rebels to use violence. Drawing from a series of elite

interviews and documents, the article offers a critical insight into how ethno-

regional interdependencies render a largely non-violent conflict susceptible to

escalation. The study finds that contagion, disputed borderlands, and the

availability of existing operational networks have played a crucial, if not

decisive, role in the decision of politically active Albanians in the Republic of

Macedonia to use violence.

INTRODUCTION

The puzzle for this article is to explore how conflict spreads across borders and

suggest a possible way of explaining the process of diffusion in the conflict between

the ethnic Macedonians and Albanians in the Former Yugoslav Republic of

Macedonia in 2001.1 The analysis proposes a conceptual mechanism demonstrating

the influence of external proximate causes on domestic conditions (permissive

conditions) in order to explain why and how insurgency spills over borders at a

certain point in time and how this affects the transition of protest mobilization to

organized violence. The conceptual mechanism would then be subject to empirical

testing with the use of first-hand fieldwork and interview material and secondary

documentary sources, collected during the period between 2007 and 2008 in three

consecutive fieldtrips in the region. Since the collapse of Socialist Yugoslavia,

Albanian protests in the Republic of Macedonia intensified, reaching a critical

q 2014 Taylor & Francis

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turning point in 2001, the year in which a group of Albanian militants, known as the

NLA (National Liberation Army, or UCK, Ushtria Clirimtare Kombetare)

undertook an organized and systematic militant campaign against state authorities.

Collective mobilization literature has so far ignored the relevance of spillover

effects in explaining the decision to organize, support, and participate in violent

forms of dissent. Hence, the study’s broader objective is to examine and understand

the interplay between proximate causes and permissive conditions within a broader

theoretical inquiry of mobilization, and offer insights into the critical conditions

affecting the transition from protest to violence.2

A RESPONSE TO THE COLLECTIVE ACTION PROBLEM

The empirical observation that civil war is more likely to occur in countries that are

ethnically diverse, subject to large income disparities, having weak state institutions,

and a partly or largely mountainous terrain, similar to the case study at hand,

provides a solid background for the development of the inquiry.3 The mere existence

of inequalities, weak institutions, and rough terrain does not presuppose a certain

pattern of political reaction, let alone a violent one.4 These variations in the levels

and types of violent and peaceful mobilization pose a significant question for

conflict analysts.5 Although the correlation between low per capita incomes and

higher propensities for internal war is one of the most robust empirical relationships

in the literature, yet claims of a direct line from poverty to conflict must be treated

with caution.6 By this account, poverty, especially in the form of income inequality

and unmet expectations, or the existence of ethnic stratification per se, may indeed

be a critical underlying cause of conflict, but the existence of grievances is

ubiquitous across most countries facing a similar risk of conflict, whereas the ethno-

political strategies employed by ethnic groups vary significantly across cases.

On this matter, Cordell and Wolff have argued that in principle grievances

matter, but it is the opportunity structures that create proximate causes (triggers and

catalysts) for violence.7 Resentment and protest transform into organized violence

through a rational calculation of opportunities available in the wider geo-strategic

environment.8 Lack of opportunity structures reduce the likelihood of success and

influence negatively collective action by raising the costs of participation. There are

two sets of opportunities, internal and external, the impact of which relates to

domestic structural conditions (type of grievances, extent of protest mobilization,

relative state strength), which may be conducive to the outbreak of violence. Internal

opportunities usually emerge from security and legitimacy vacuums in periods of

political transition or crisis. External opportunities are favourable to violence

conditions stemming from the regional and/or international environment. The study

focuses on the later type, exploring the impact of favourable regional conditions on

internal structures in order to explain the escalation of conflict through a process of

conflict diffusion. However, even in the presence of opportunities and among people

who share grievances, by what mechanisms of diffusion do people join together in

violent collective action, when the incentives to ‘free ride’ are so substantial?

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This question calls for a concise analysis of how opportunity structures can

drastically affect the cost–benefit balance in the decision to escalate conflict.

Starting with the classical collective action assumption that individual actors in

ethnic conflicts are able to calculate cost–benefit rations of participation in violent

collective action, we underscore the inherent to society diversity in motivational

sources and review convincing explanations as to how the problem of individual

participation in collective action resolves in the face of opportunity structure.

According to Sambanis, rebel motives are difficult to determine, and while

grievances in societies are ubiquitous, rebel motives are a mixture of disaffection,

resentment, expectations, and interests. However, even if we suppose that social

motives broadly coincide among different people, thus forming a commonly (and

often tacitly) shared conceptual demand for change, it is again unlikely that

collective action problems will instantly disappear. Because even though motives

may coincide, the high costs of participation in violent mobilization can remain

unaltered.

Collective action theory therefore suggests that group motivations alone are

insufficient to produce political mobilization and violent contestation. Simplified

answers reducing the scale of the question to a matter of ‘context and size’ are

profoundly twisted. For instance, the idea that ethnic appeals help overcome

participation dilemmas, or the scale of exclusion from power and the role that

superior size of excluded groups has in terms of available human resources to sustain

rebellion, distorts** the nature of inquiry, and as such they do not effectively answer

to the problem of ‘free riding’. These accounts cannot explain the violence

employed by comparatively less excluded and less sizable groups or explain why a

relatively small portion of the population’s total participates in rebellion. Most

certainly, they hardly define the precise threshold of sufficient exclusion for

inducing violence.

As a result, factors related to the organizational and operational feasibility of

rebellion offer a fuller insight into the actual cost–benefit mechanism that induces

groups to engage violently against the state. Rebel groups or movements act in

contingent opportunity structures that facilitate or dampen their efforts to mobilize,

pattern their strategies, and influence their potential success. Opportunity structures

usually include surrounding factors conducive to the spread of violent conflict.

Through spillover effects, including refugee flows, increased cross-border rebel

mobility, and resource-capacity transfers, regional conflicts create the ideal

momentum for the outbreak violence in states suffering from structural conditions

that are susceptive to confrontation.

Yet despite the sufficient interplay of opportunities and structural conditions, the

central theoretical problem of ‘free riding’ remains unresolved.9 Practices of

forceful recruitment and coercion nullify the inquisitive essence of the collective

action problem by reducing (ipso facto) the influence of free rational choice through

cost–benefit calculations. As such they distort the exploratory nature of ‘free

choice’ in collective action with deterministic constrains. Cost–benefit calculations

provide a reasonably useful answer to the problem. Admittedly, individuals receive

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benefits regardless of whether they actively participate in a dissident group’s

activities.10 According to Lichbach, any certain situation that increases benefits,

resources, and the probability of winning, or lowers the costs of a situation in which

the risks of inaction outweigh the risks of revolt, may be sufficient to instigate

participation in violent collective action.11 Moreover, neglecting the political

context within which collective action dilemmas take place is a critical mistake.

Structuralist accounts offer a useful insight into the role of state strength in the

decision to participate in violent collective action. When states are weak they cannot

hinder rebel group behaviour because of inept policing and counter-insurgency

capacities; this lowers the opportunity costs for participation because it reduces the

likelihood of effective persecution and punishment while increasing the likelihood

of successful rebellion. To the contrary, state repression typically raises the costs of

collective action through punishment and persecution as the costs inflicted by harsh

and indiscriminate forms of state repression on human security lead to increased

participation in collective violence, as a response to preventing individual

victimization by the state.12 Measures for state repression are significant,

reconfirming findings on the increased likelihood of individual participation in

violent collective action when repression is at intermediate levels or indiscrimi-

nately targeted against civilians, albeit with risk of broadening the spectrum of target

selection.13

Alongside to the state’s repressive capacity, individuals weigh the immediate

benefits (selective incentives)14 of rebellion and assess the long-term likelihood of

success in the light of the expected likelihood of ensuring access to power and

resources previously denied, against the existing benefits of maintaining order,

potential losses from failure, and against the state’s capacity to repress dissident

violence. For example, free rider problems reduce when the likelihood of direct and

indirect en masse participation increases because individuals within a political

context (e.g. ethnically or economically stratified society) deem that participating in

rebellion will increase prospects of welfare significantly, without risking a dramatic

change of existing conditions in the event of failure to accomplish their goals

through violence. Even though participation problems are reasonably addressed

when the decisionmaking calculus reaches the point where order maintenance

becomes less attractive against the expected benefits of rebellion, and partly when

the perceived likelihood of success outweighs the costs of regime repression.

Inevitably, some people will disproportionately benefit from collective action.15 In

short, participation in rebel activities rises alongside the availability of selective

incentives and as the perceived cost of repression falls. Having presented a

reasonable way of addressing the problem of participation, we hypothesize that

external conflict spillover effects in the form of contagion through political

radicalization, existence of disputed borderlands (rebel mobility), and transfer of

rebel capacity can critically affect the escalation of conflict from protest

mobilization to violence. Moreover, the analysis acknowledges the prospects of

third-party intervention as a relevant contextual but non-structural variable. These

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conditions can largely shape the decision of disgruntled ethnic groups to use

violence, and are therefore considered important catalysts for violent conflict.16

CONFLICT SPILLOVER: A CONCEPTUAL MECHANISM

The analysis begins with the informed assumption that violent ethnic conflict

spreads across borders, especially when ethnic groups in nearby states are separatist

and violent.17 The frequently observed clustering of regional conflict suggests that

the ‘closed polity’ approach to the study of ethnic conflict, which treats countries as

independent units of observation, is highly inadequate. In fact, a number of studies

revealed strong evidence of a spatial spillover effect of conflict.18 Yet the

mechanisms by which conflict spills over borders is still very much an open issue.

Some argue that conflict spreads through some kind of diffusion, while others focus

on the geo-morphological conditions including territory and the endowment of

natural resources.19

Ted Robert Gurr illustrated a positive spatial diffusion20 of conflict by measuring

and correlating the highest level of protest of a group’s kin in one state with the

highest rebellion level for a group’s ethnic brethren in another state.21 Gurr observed

that spillover variables are highly correlated with group protest and rebellion,

suggesting that ethnic conflict does spread by positive spatial diffusion. As Ayres

and Saideman observed, successful secessions, protests, and rebellions in a given

region increase the chances of a group being violent and separatist. In their words:

‘active separatism of ethnic kin increases the probability of the group in question

being separatist nearly 40 per cent. Protest within the region by other groups

increases the chances of separatism by nearly 63 per cent’.22

The terms diffusion and contagion are often used in an interchangeable manner,

although they do not exactly describe the same processes or events. Yet the

difference between diffusion and contagion is frequently unclear. In many cases of

conflict, both elements of diffusion and contagion influence the process of escalation

(e.g. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo-Republic of Macedonia, Syria, Lebanon,

Afghanistan-Pakistan, Kurdish territories, Caucasus, African Great Lakes). There

are two ways to consider how a conflict spreads: through processes generated by its

own occurrence (diffusion) and through the lessons drawn by others observing the

occurrence (contagion). Spillover generally refers to the former, and contagion

usually refers to the latter. Diffusion and contagion describe a conflict spillover

process by which conflicts in one country directly affect neighbouring countries.23

For analytical purposes, we need to distinguish between the concept of diffusion and

that of contagion. Diffusion is a process of conflict spillover, defined as the spread of

an ethnic conflict from its initial locus where it emerged to neighbouring states by

the implication of additional actors to the conflict channelled by regional proximity.

The organizational involvement and equipment provided by the Kosovo Liberation

Army (KLA) to the NLA in the Republic of Macedonia is an example of conflict

diffusion. Contagion is the process by which one group’s actions provide inspiration

and guidance, both strategic and tactical, for groups elsewhere. For example, the

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successful pleas of Kosovo albanians for external military intervention emboldened

confrantations between Albanians and ethnic Macedonians in the Republic of

Macedonia. Admittedly, conflict onset by contagion often involves the practical

implication of external proximate causes, and thus it may drastically contribute to

the intensification of conflict. Hence, to a certain level, contagion and diffusion can

be hardly treated as separate or unrelated processes.24 Geographic location and

resources (both material and human i.e. finances, raw materials, arms, recruitment

and safe houses) shape the opportunities for the feasibility of violent insurgency and

define the propensity of an aggrieved group to violent insurgency.

In an effort to decompose the conflict spillover mechanism, we examine

contagion effects along with the influence of three factors illuminating the diffusion

of conflict from one country to another, these are namely: disputed territories,

refugee flows, and rebel capacity.25 We argue that the collision of proximate and

permissive conditions of conflict may transform protest mobilization to organized

violence. The conceptual model (see Figure I) suggests that protest mobilization

escalates because of permissive conditions and proximate causes producing violence

through a process of diffusion triggered by cross-border ethnic affiliations.

Permissive conditions, these are conditions relating to the structural components of

conflict itself, which may be conducive to violence, include the existence of a

FIGURE 1

CONCEPTUAL MECHANISM OF CONFLICT SPILLOVER.

=

OpportunityStructures

(War in Kosovo)

DomesticStructures

PermissiveConditions

Mobilization

State Strength (Weak)

Dynamic Process of Diffusion

ProximateCauses

Diffusion

(i)Radicalization

(ii)Emulation

(iii)Precedent ofExternal Intervention

(iv)DisputedSovereignty

(vi)RadicalizationthroughEmpathy and

(vii) Access toRecruitment,Arms,Finances

Disputed Territories

Refugee Flows

Transfer of RebelCapacity

Repressive State and Limited COIN Capacity

Contagion

Ethnic Affiliationand Grievances

Escalation and O

rganized Violence

(v)Safe havens

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sizable, geographically concentrated, and politically mobilized ethnic group with

cross-border ethnic affiliations operating within a relative weak state. Permissive

conditions provide a fertile ground for the utilization of opportunities through

contagion and diffusion catalysts. Proximate causes describe the influence of

opportunity structures in the regional security environment. Opportunities include

the existence of territorial instability due to a nearby conflict, the inflow of

refugees, and the availability of operational capacities and organizational

resources. The existence of a weak state structure is a standard contributing

component for escalation but its influence remains out of the present study’s scope,

as we primarily seek to explore the influence of the actual diffusion factors created

by the proximate causes of conflict. Contagion in the form of emulation, guidance,

and inspiration, and diffusion through refugee flows, borderlands lacking sovereign

control, and the establishment of rebel safe havens within contested zones are

crucial catalysts.

Contagion

Contagion primarily refers to the lessons drawn from other conflicts. Clearly,

neighbouring wars exacerbate volatile domestic conditions, and these wars can

spread into nearby states. Groups are more likely to focus on the behaviour of groups

in their region than elsewhere since these groups are more similar and news of these

other groups is more likely to reach activists within the group in question. This is the

heart of the conventional wisdom – that one successful separatist effort causes other

groups to revise their beliefs about their chances of success. Thus, we should expect

group desires and efforts for rights and autonomy to increase after a successful

secession in their region, and separatist efforts to decrease if other separatists fail.

In fact, the salience of borders highlights the mismatch of nation and state.

Borders exist in order to protect and nurture identities of nation-states: ‘If neither

identity nor territory is structured and protected by the state, there seems no

conceivable reason on why conflict, like people and services, cannot pass through

porous boundaries contributing to the diffusion and escalation of civil wars.’26

Contagion generally refers to the spread of a phenomenon through the lessons drawn

by actors outside of the original conflict. Outsiders observe a particular separatist

conflict, causing them to revise evaluations of their own circumstances. Such events

may simply increase the salience of one’s ethnic identity, which then might lead to

political mobilization and separatism.27 Observing a successful secession may cause

elites and populations elsewhere to reconsider their chances of success, to develop

better strategies, and to become more or less inhibited concerning separatism.

We should therefore expect conflict to intensify in one place after a successful

rebellion by a neighbouring group in the region, and we should expect conflict

intensity to decrease if other conflicts fail.28 However, the above generalization can

be narrowed down into variables that are more precise, encompassing some

variations of opportunities across different locations including the exporting of

ethno-political radicalization and the influence of external intervention in the policy

calculations of neighbouring ethnic king groups.29

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Neighbouring conflicts can affect the political agenda of relevant nearby groups

with similar or related demands. Ethnopolitical radicalization is usually manifested

through different ways. Most common is the intensification of political rhetoric, the

escalation of threats, and the dispatch of recruits to fight by the side of the

neighbouring ethnic fellows. Nevertheless, the political rationale of ethnic

radicalization is primarily internal. Ethnic groups warn of the dangers of continued

state unresponsiveness and demonstrate their resolve to escalate the pattern of

confrontation with the state. Finally, the possibility of third-party intervention is a

critical non-structural variable in the diffusion of conflict. The political gains

deriving from a precedent of external intervention in a neighbouring state can

drastically affect the political calculus of rebel groups in nearby states by

encouraging these groups to emulate the conditions and demands of their ethnic kin.

Disputed Territories and Group Concentration

The location of states, their proximity to one another, and whether or not they share

borders are key variables in the study of conflict.30 The analysis concentrates first on

the feasibility of conflict in and around geographic borderlands and disputed

territorial zones. More precisely, we are mainly concerned with the geographical

disaggregation of conflict across different areas, allowing us to consider the

variations in political geography and examine the transnational factors influencing

rebel strategies. For example, we seek to portray how rebel behaviour evolves in

cases where insurgents can retreat into neighbouring states, politically contested

lands that governments cannot easily monitor or target. Disputed lands can partly

explain how cross-border rebel activity infects vulnerable states causing a regional

clustering of conflicts (spillover).

Studies of ethnic conflict indicate that group concentration across borders can play

an important role in the development and spreading of conflicts. Kristian Skrede and

Gleditsch find that the presence of trans-boundary ethnic groups increases conflict risk.

Both relative size and concentration are likely to influence a group’s ability to engage in

rebellion. Generally, small or widely dispersed groups are less able to mount

widespread and extended civil war campaigns. Raleigh et al. studied the possibilities of

conflict contagion by measuring country size and spatial population concentrations

using ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Events Dataset). They concluded that

conflict events tend to have ‘frequencies in proportion to the size of the population in a

given location [. . .] where populations cluster locally’.31 This clearly suggests that

conflict ismore likely to occur in regionswhere a single ethnic group is clustered locally

in geographic proximity to its ethnic kin (Bosnia-Serbia-Croatia, Kosovo-Republic of

Macedonia, Kurdish territories, Republic of Ireland-Northern Ireland, etc.). We

therefore assume that dense group concentration coupled with issues of contested

sovereignty facilitate the likelihood of conflict diffusion.

Refugees

Refugee flows and humanitarian disasters encountered by ethnic or religious kin

groups can affect heavily the mobilization of aggrieved ethnic kin groups in

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neighbouring states. Research findings demonstrate that hosting refugees from

neighbouring states has a large impact on the likelihood of a domestic civil

conflict.32 According to Ayres and Saideman, ‘separatist conflicts generate refugee

flows that may destabilize the population balances of neighbouring states, increasing

ethnic tensions beyond the state. Refugees act as sparks generated by the fire of

separatism, causing the phenomenon to spread’.33 First, in a solidarity reflex, the

sufferings of ethnic kin may eventually increase the salience of ethnic identity of its

ethnic brethren in a nearby state, thus stimulating separatist and anti-systemic

activity. Second, observing a successful rebellion encourages elites elsewhere to

reconsider their chances of success, to develop better strategies, and to become less

inhibited concerning violence.34 Salehyan and Gleditsch find that refugee flows can

ease arms smuggling, expand rebel social networks, and provide a new pool of rebel

recruits.35

Yet, not all refugee inflows contribute to local conflicts; in fact, the majority of

refugee hosts do not experience civil war.36 There are at least three practical ways

through which refugee flows may affect a neighbouring conflict-prone country: (1)

operational, (2) socio-economic, and (3) emotional-psychological. War refugees

facilitate the spread of arms, ideologies, and organizational structures, and have the

tendency to extend social networks across geographical space and provide resources

to domestic actors with compatible aims. The negative effects posed by the refugees

on the economy, and disruptions of the delicate demographic balances between local

majority and minority populations, competing with each other, increase fears of

subversion, dominance, and interethnic distrust, which may ultimately contribute to

increased tensions.

Finally, the sorrowful perceptions created among ethnic group members by the

suffering of a nearby ethnic kin may increase suspicions of a planned, deliberate, and

ethnically targeted marginalization and/or persecution of the ethnic group in the

neighbouring state. We assume that some or all of the above diffusion effects may

occur only when certain preconditions exist, and thus we propose that refugee flows

may increase the probability of war at the host state when strong ethnic kinship ties

exist between local groups, and when a history of tense relations exists between

ethnic groups within the host state.

Rebel Capacity

Rebel capacity refers to the rebel group’s ability to access financial resources,

develop a functioning operational structure (logistics, equipment, coordination), and

recruit fighters. This requires the existence of supply lines, the establishment of a

functioning social network, and a pool of potential combatants. In an attempt to

explain what makes rebellion possible, Collier formulated the ‘feasibility

hypothesis’, proposing that where rebellion is materially (financially) feasible, it

will eventually occur.37 Similarly, Fearon and Laitin looked at the variables that

make insurgency more feasible and attractive.38 They agreed with Collier that

financing is one determinant of viability or feasibility of rebellion along with the

organizational means making a rebellion possible, such as recruitment, training

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camps, and safe houses. Fearon and Laitin observed that the availability and

readiness of capable foreign actors (active or demobilized rebel groups and

governments) to supply weapons, money, training, and expertise to rebels increases

the possibility for insurgency.39

Availability of willing recruits, and a strong capacity to provide rebel recruits

with immediate and long-term ‘selective incentives’ are essential to the process of

staging a rebellion. Poor social conditions and state repression are conducive to

violence, as the threshold between participation and non-participation becomes

considerably lower since the provision of basic benefits can easily tilt against the

perpetuation of an unrewarding reality. Nonetheless, in some instances, concerns

over personal security rather than economic incentives can largely explain

participation in rebellion.40 Donations by Diaspora groups, external funding by

interested third parties (e.g. states), and gains drawn from the illicit trade of goods

are the commonest financial sources of rebellion.

Notably, the occurrence and number of civil wars in neighbouring countries

increases the availability of arms and seasoned guerrillas. Accumulated physical,

human, and organizational resources enable rebellions to occur. The existence of a

cross-border social network in a region that has previously experienced war can

provide with the required organizational support and coordination, arm flows, and

safe houses. For example, if a country has previously experienced a rebellion, there

will be a residual stock of weaponry, former rebels who know how to use them, and

probably a persistent, if quiescent, rebel organization.

Yet it seems that ethnic ties between intrastate parties and third actors are even

better predictors of third-party support for rebel movements.41 As a rule, financial

sources are generally utilized for purchasing weapons and equipment, and, in some

cases, for the payment of recruits and professional combatants. Collier and Hoeffler,

in their work Greed and Grievance in Civil War (2001), have singled out two major

types of rebel resources: (1) exploitation of raw material resources and (2) financial

flows from Diasporas.42 First, we need to make an essential distinction between

access to and utilization of natural resources (minerals, precious stones, oil, gas,

leather, agricultural goods, etc.) and goods that are produced and sold, such as

narcotics, adulterated alcohol and cigarettes smuggling to sustain conflict. To the

latter, we shall include profit-generating practices such as human trafficking, organ

trade, prostitution, blackmail, and extortion. The difference between these two

sources of income is important for defining the motives of rebel groups. The former

presuppose that rebel groups act violently in order to secure and exploit valuable

resources, while the latter suggests that militant groups seek to sustain rebellion

through the development of illicit income-generating practices. Militant groups do

not merely strive to control resource-rich territories, but they seek to devise and

establish ways of sustaining political rebellion that may well go beyond the myopic

appropriation of natural wealth, especially when the expected rewards of successful

rebellion are deemed higher to the unsecure reliance on short-term material benefits.

The difference lies in the type of objectives and priorities set by militant groups.

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Largely, the distinction between violence-for-resources and resources-for-violence

is crucial and highly perplexed.

Collier andHoeffler emphasize the importanceofnatural resource exploitation as an

enabling factor for conflict (as well as a motivation for personal enrichment per se).

Without a doubt, the involvement of actors seeking private gain and influence in

rebellions is a regular part of war.Warmongers, bandits, and common criminals are all

too common in disorderly situations of conflict. Criminal behaviour is endemic during

political insecurity, social turmoil, fear, and economic decline – partially because such

behaviour gets more room to flourish in these conditions.

However, Kalyvas has accurately recognized that rebel motivations are diverse

and include concerns that go beyond mere banditry.43 The conditions of insurgency

bolster criminal activities of the sort created by the war itself. The motives

prompting militant actors to behave in criminal ways, including looting, extortion,

arms-trade, smuggling, racketing, and protection, are a mixture of destitution,

disorder, capacity, and the endless array of war-related opportunities. Moreover, the

belief that rebellious ethnic groups act merely by seeking to exploit resources or

sustain a war-related income is only true to the extent where these natural resources

are exclusively used for multiplying personal gain rather than sustaining the

rebellion itself. Although ethnic elites seem to benefit disproportionally compared to

ordinary combatants, just like political and business elites in peaceful societies enjoy

privileges that ordinary citizens are denied, the drastic changes brought about by

conflict settlements can elevate the social and political status of formerly

marginalized groups. The fulfilment of long-standing and commonly shared

economic, political, and territorial demands creates opportunities for radical

nationalist and often militant political elites to claim legitimate political access and

territorial control. The diffusion of rights to the people, and the rectification of

former injustices, is often viewed as a result of pressures exercised against the state

through violence. The emergence of new political structures encourages the

reorganization of elite grassroots associations on the local level, creating new

political interdependencies to the proportionate benefit of political elites and their

constituencies alike.

Regardless of the original motivations (if any), militant actors use political

covers to ensure the rebellion receives public endorsement and assure the viability of

their long-term objectives. Forcing a negotiated settlement with the government, one

that partly satisfies public demands, creates institutional and legitimate opportunities

for wealth maximization compared to the dangerous risks and attrition created by

protracted violent conflict. Hence, we regard predatory behaviour as a by-product of

violent conflict, part of the generalized pathologies created by war, such as societal

erosion, moral degeneration, brutalization, and opportunism. The merging of

material resources (gain) with political goals is a highly perplexed issue that depends

on the calculated priorities set by the militant actors vis-a-vis obtaining privileges

through political access or privileges through conflict. Yet in many cases, the

difference between a guerrilla group and a criminal gang – that is the difference

between the prevalence of political and material objectives in organized forms of

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armed violence – is often indistinguishable and interchanging. Be it as it may, rebel

movements tend to underestimate long-term detrimental effects of their resort to

violent, criminal activities. Therefore, their strategic analysis is often far from

perfect, even if based on rational short-term calculations.

Finally, nationalist Diasporas provide rebels with financial resources, recruitment,

or/and organizational support. The availability and capacity of Diaspora groups to

support and sustain rebellion is an important part of the opportunities structure available

to home-grown rebels.44 Diaspora groups provide rebels with fund-raising support,

weapons, and recruitment, but equally important are the publicity, propaganda, and

lobbying services carried out by Diaspora communities. Support provided by migrant

communities increases the insurgents’ capacities and enables rebels to withstand

counter-insurgency operations.45 Migrant communities are generally motivated by a

genuine and objective sympathy for the domestic struggles of their overseas kin.

Nonetheless, they can be equally influenced by a mixture of perceived or induced

grievances. Home-grown radicals and nationalist politicians often exaggerate or even

distort narratives of ethnic domination and suffering in order to manipulate and

mobilize ethnic communities abroad.

ANALYSIS

The Conflict in Kosovo

The conflict in Kosovo presented a time bomb that was pending to explode for over a

decade. Following the withdrawal of Serbian forces, Kosovo has ultimately

provided the human and material resources and the logistical support for a local

insurgency in neighbouring Republic of Macedonia.46 In an interview with the

author, the president of the Helsinki Human Rights Committee in the Republic of

Macedonia observed that ‘( after the death of Tito, from 1981 until the end of the

1980s, the Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia were always concerned about

what was going on in Kosovo’.47 This observation was confirmed by Skopje-based

media correspondent for the Voice of America, who stated that

Albanians of Macedonia are literally connected to those of Kosovo. There are

so many mixed marriages. Until 1991, when Macedonia proclaimed its

independence, closed the borders, and stopped the free circulation of people,

intermarriage and communication of the Albanians from both sides of the

border was very frequent.48

Most Albanians regarded Kosovo as the prime source of Albanianism; while

Albanian assertiveness and Albanian prosperity in Kosovo was idolized to the point

that some believed Kosovo would become the Piedmont of a united Albania. Every

time tensions were raised in Kosovo, the rumblings could be felt in Yugoslav

Macedonia. Kosovo Albanians shifted from non-violence to violence as a response

to the disappointing impact of Ibrahim Rugova’s pacifist campaign to press for a

constitutional change in Kosovo and for Belgrade to restore previously suspended

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autonomy rights. Moreover, frustration mounted because the Dayton Agreement in

Bosnia-Herzegovina overshadowed the significance of Albanian demands in

Kosovo and therefore pressed for the use of more drastic engagements in order to

make Albanian demands more explicit. Finally, the tense relations between Serbia

and the West, and the newly introduced UN humanitarian protection doctrine, which

provided Great Powers with a moral responsibility to protect endangered

populations, encouraged the undertaking of violent acts by Kosovo Albanians and

provoked a drastic military response by the Serbian security forces. Grasping the

opportunity of the large international presence and attention to the region, Kosovo

Albanians hoped they could trigger a new round of international criticism within the

context of Yugoslavia’s break up that would increase the likelihood of external

involvement similar to the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Undoubtedly, the total

independence of Kosovo from Serbia could make a key turning point for the

solidification of the internal political demands held by Macedonian Albanians.

According to fieldwork commentaries, many Albanians in the Republic of

Macedonia felt they could draw support from an independent Kosovo in order to

press government harder for their political demands. Besides, Macedonian

Albanians have a much ‘closer’ affinity and ‘blood relations’ with Kosovo rather

than with the state in which they live in.

In January 1992, six months after the ‘Declaration of the Albanian Republic of

Kosova’ (following a referendum on Kosovo’s independence on September 1991),

an Albanian referendum was conducted in the Republic of Macedonia for the

autonomy of the northwestern part (Illyrida).49 These separatist manifestations in the

early 1990s in Kosovo and the Republic of Macedonia were not coincidental events.

By the way, the Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia were denied rights they had

enjoyed under Tito until the early 1980s, albeit they never enjoyed territorial

autonomy or any of the privileges cherished by their Kosovo counterparts. However,

the violent tensions in Yugoslavia, the threat of generalized war, and the mitigating

role of the UN (UNPREDEP – United Nations Preventive Deployment) cooled

down Albanian reactions against the ethnic Macedonian authorities. From 1996 to

1999, the gradual fading of the pacifist policy led by the self-styled President

Ibrahim Rugova and his Democratic League of Kosovo (Lidhja Demokratike e

Kosoves) encouraged radical Albanian factions in the Republic of Macedonia to

capitalize on the suffering of their fellow Kosovo Albanians. Notably, most radical

leaders among the Macedonian Albanians were educated in Pristina University, and

to a certain extent, the interaction of Albanians from Yugoslav Macedonia with

Kosovo’s underground institutions and rebel movements inspired a maximalist

agenda of Albanian demands in the Republic of Macedonia. As Jankulovski

asserted:

This makes it less surprising that we have such an obvious transfer of the

Kosovo crisis to Macedonia. The rights and wrongs of the situation in

Macedonia in their polemic do not emerge from the facts of the case, but

simply from the prior prejudice and political frustrations. They have not only

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learned to be vocal, they have also discovered how easy it is to tear the flimsy

fabric of Macedonian democracy. They misused the unsolved problems of

Kosovo, namely the threat that ethnic conflict erupting there could spill over

into Macedonia, to demand more and more. In addition, they believe the more

extreme they sound, the more they will get.50

From February 1996, Kosovo started to collapse in violence. Popular support among

Albanians for Ibrahim Rugova’s pacifist policy was dwindling, while the number of

armed incidents by the newly formed KLA or UCK (Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves)

increased. While violent incidents multiplied in Kosovo during the first five months

of 1997, for the first time the radical DPA (Democratic Party of Albanians)

challenged PDP’s (Party for Democratic Prosperity) dominance by winning the most

important Albanian municipalities (Tetovo and Gostivar) in 1997, legitimizing a

new political mainstream. From its very inception in 1994, the DPA sought a more

assertive role against the ethnic Macedonian political majority. As early as 1996 –

the year in which the KLA publicly presented itself in Kosovo – at the unification

congress, which amalgamated the PDPA (Party of Democratic Prosperity of

Albanians) and NDP (National Democratic Party) into the DPA, daily newspaper

Nova Makedonija noted that

The congress resolution referred to an ‘Albanian Cause’ and expressed

appetites for creating a state within the state with ministries and departments

that will be complementary to the Macedonian government, an all-Albanian

parliament for the implementation of Albanian policies, where important

decisions pertaining to all Albanian regions will be made and which will be

aimed at rationalizing Albanian projects. According to testimonies, a group of

about 30 uniformed individuals in black clothes with black berets and insignia,

who were supposed to represent some kind of security staff, were present at

the conference.51

The declared intention to build a ‘state within a state’ implied an initial wish to

inaugurate parallel state institutions, similar to those that already existed in Kosovo.

Furthermore, Arben Xhaferi, in a statement that was to become a self-fulfilling

prophecy, predicted a worsening political climate due to the worsening conditions in

Kosovo:

I think that this year [1998] will see a deterioration of the crisis in Macedonia,

because the crisis is moving from the north-west of the former Yugoslavia to

the southeast, i.e. to Macedonia and Kosovo. I think that the conception of the

state that Milosevic is trying to build is similar to the kind of state that

Gligorov is trying to build, and that these two concepts are both anachronistic

and so do not coincide with global trends or the internal structure of the

population. The crisis follows from this objective situation. 52

In this statement, the DPA attempted to equate the severe grievances and maximal

demands of the Albanians in Kosovo with those of the Albanians in the Republic of

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Macedonia. Violent events in neighbouring Kosovo encouraged DPA to revisit the

pathway of protest politics and adopt a more radical political rhetoric in an attempt

to curb ethnic Macedonian intransigence. The existence of the KLA made the

party’s political adversaries look at it in a different light and take the party and its

policies more seriously. In Arben Xhaferi’s words:

We did have our theses even prior to the emergence of the KLA, which were,

however, ignored, because we did not have any power to impose them. After

the emergence of the KLA in Kosovo, our adversaries and we began to adopt a

more serious approach. The KLA was a phenomenon that appeared on the

scene following the loss of credibility of the Albanian political parties. This

fact accounted for our political adversaries looking at us from a new angle and

our political movement becoming more acceptable than in the past.53

Yet the DPA faced a political dilemma: while the Kosovo Albanians almost

unanimously asked for independence, the Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia

generally preferred to cooperate with the government in order to resolve their

minority issues. The resolution of these issues required systematic consultation and

compromise, rather than the confrontational path chosen by the Kosovars. After the

Serbian crackdown against local militants and their families in the area of Likosane

and Cirez in the Drenica area of western Kosovo (28 February–1998 March),

violent demonstrations erupted in Kosovo towns resulting in 20 deaths and more

than 300 injuries.

In March 1998, large demonstrations organized by both the PDP and DPA took

place in Skopje and Tetovo in which thousands of Albanians expressed solidarity

with their Kosovo brethren, and on 13 April 1998 the DPA pulled back its ministers

from the national and local governments in protest over the arrest of a mayor who

displayed the Albanian flag. Not incidentally, during the peak of the Kosovo conflict

in 1997–1998, incidents involving shootings, riots, arms seizures, bombings, and

disputed killings multiplied in the country. A series of bombings against municipal

buildings and police stations in the towns of Gostivar, Kumanovo, and Prilep

prompted many ethnic Macedonian politicians and journalists to suspect that radical

Albanian parties were responsible of carrying out the attacks.

Hence, the proposition that the instability in Kosovo affected the Republic of

Macedonia needs to be further explored.54 The cause, according to Bashkurti, is

found in the close geopolitical links and human ties across both sides of the border

between the Albanians of Kosovo and the Republic of Macedonia. It is characteristic

of Albanians that in times of crisis they strengthen their ethnic relations no matter

where they are and live.55 Support for the radical camp in the Republic of Macedonia

steadily increased during the height of the 1997–1998 Kosovo crisis. Considering

the widespread Albanian dissatisfaction, the radicals of the DPA were eager to

equate the situation in their country with that of Kosovo; for them, the problem was

the same: Slavic aggression and greed for power. Prior to the 1998 elections, the

PDP denounced the DPA’s decision to withdraw all its elected members from all

public institutions (parliament and city councils) as a dangerously radicalizing and

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destabilizing act. Despite such disagreements, the PDP and DPA agreed to form an

electoral alliance for the 1998 parliamentary elections. In September 1998, one of

the electoral slogans of DPA was ‘Macedonia will either be also the state of the

Albanians, or it just will not be’.56 Questioned about the future political action of

ethnic Albanians, a DPA official stated that

Other measures will have to be taken, at that point including a new referendum

on autonomy, the removal of ethnic Albanians from all institutions, and the

establishing of a parallel parliament and government. It could go as far as the

withdrawal of Albanians from the political scene and the arrival of new

players, like the UCK.57

The International Crisis Group (ICG) observed that ‘the radicalization of ethnic

Albanian politics in Kosovo has brought broader changes to Macedonia and PDP, as

a long-term coalition partner is losing popularity for not being able to bring about

any solutions to long-standing problems of their electorate’.58 Furthermore, the ICG

underscored the fact that ‘( while not advocating secession as a short-term aim,

leading members of the DPA had not excluded it as a long-term objective’.59

Realizing the growing Albanian support for a more assertive agenda, the largest

ethnic Macedonian party VMRO-DPMNE invited the DPA to become a junior

coalition partner in an attempt to incorporate the radicals into the government. E.M.,

spokesperson for the Democratic Union for Integration (Bashkimi Demokratik per

Integrim), the political successor of the Albanian NLA or UCK (Ushtria Clirimtare

Kombetare) in the Republic of Macedonia, commented in an interview on this

seemingly awkward partnership:

The DPA stood for what was the radical political party of the ethnic Albanians

in Macedonia. They were supposed to become the more radical political

option, which would articulate and stand more firmly and eventually

implement all the demands; the political demands that the Albanian parties

stood forever since Macedonia’s independence. However, this was not the

case, as soon as the DPA became part of government it became moderate, and

suddenly shifted its political discourse and took a very different direction . . . 60

In a surprising statement, Arben Xhaferi confessed that the emergence of KLA has

helped his party become part of the governing coalition. He claimed that the

existence of KLA made the party’s political adversaries look at it in a different light

and take the party and its policies more seriously. In an interview published by the

Albanian newspaper Albania, Xhaferi stated that

We did have our theses even prior to the emergence of the KLA, which were,

however, ignored, because we did not have any power to impose them. After

the emergence of the KLA, our adversaries and we began to adopt a more

serious approach. The KLA was a phenomenon that appeared on the scene

following the loss of credibility of the Albanian political parties. This fact

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accounted for our political adversaries looking at us from a new angle and our

political movement becoming more acceptable than in the past.61

For a period, progress on crucial Albanian demands was on the horizon, an amnesty

to Albanian political prisoners was granted, and talks opened to resolve the Albanian

demands on education, self-government, inclusion, and language rights. Yet the

major priority for the new coalition government was to prevent a violent spillover

from Kosovo. In fact, the new government was faced with a potential threefold

spillover effect: first, Macedonian Albanians could engage in fighting within the

country; second, Kosovo Albanians could step up operations on its soil; and, third,

Milosevic’s Serbia could severely stretch and worsen interethnic relations in the

country by interfering in the Republic of Macedonia.

Refugee Flows

The first Kosovo Albanian refugees from the areas around Decani started arriving in

the Republic of Macedonia, staying with local Albanian friends and relatives,

prompting DPA leader Xhaferi to state that ‘if the situation in Kosovo deteriorates,

military involvement by Macedonian Albanians is to be expected’.62 Serbia’s

‘Drenica Offensive’ and the consequent influx of approximately 14,000 refugees in

the Republic of Macedonia had a profound impact on the local Albanian political

parties: their demands became more aggressive, calls for the protection of Albanians

in Kosovo increased, and the proposed means of their realization became more

radical, including resort to political violence.63

However, the conflict in Kosovo took an unpredictable turn, which affected

stability in the Republic of Macedonia. On 28 May 1998, the Foreign Ministers of

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) decided to take military action, if

necessary, to prevent a possible spillover of the Kosovo conflict into Albania or the

Republic of Macedonia. But while President Gligorov stressed that the Republic of

Macedonia could not participate in any NATO intervention against Serbia, the PDP

and the DPA urged NATO to intervene in Kosovo. Prior to the NATO air strikes, the

refugee flow from Kosovo had been relatively small, and Skopje had adopted a

discreet approach.64 Common sense indicated that if war started in Kosovo, it would

inevitably cause an exodus of refugees into neighbouring countries. Skopje feared

the ways in which Milosevic could react, while Macedonian Albanians desired to

see NATO taking action against the Serb forces.

In a dramatic turn of events following the air strikes from March to April 1998,

the total wave of refugees from Kosovo to the Republic of Macedonia grew to

approximately 150,000. Amidst deteriorating conditions, thousands of Kosovo

Albanians crowded its borders in an attempt to escape the war zone. For Skopje, the

refugee inflow raised fundamental issues of national security.65 The ethnic

Macedonian authorities were becoming increasingly reluctant to accept fresh flows

of refugees, given the heavily burdened economy, lack of external aid, and fear of a

conflict spillover from Kosovo to their country.66 The border closure and the scenes

of desperate refugees being denied entry angered the Albanians in the Republic of

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Macedonia despite the sudden refugee presence, which amounted to some 10 per

cent of the country’s total population.

The seriousness of the situation manifested itself when violent incidents became

imminent, especially in the ethnically mixed areas (Tetovo, Kumanovo, villages

around the capital, Skopje, etc.) between the refugees and the local population near

the refugee camps and one could not exclude risk of infiltration by militant

Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia. According to a field research study of high-

rank KLA militants, conducted by Garentina Kraja, ‘the KLA General Headquarters

issued a call for general mobilization, mostly geared toward the recruitment of

young Albanians living abroad or those that made it out alive and settled in refugee

camps in Albania and Macedonia. Hundreds of Albanians in the Diaspora heeded

the general call’.67 Reports from neighbouring Albania of refugee camps turning into

training and recruitment zones for the KLA created fear and panic among the ethnic

Macedonians.68 Yet there were some allegations of forced recruitment practices used

by the KLA on refugee escape routes but not within the refugee camps. Spokesman

of the UN refugee agency, J.F., revealed that ‘we were concerned about the reports

on the conscription of refugees and of the danger of refugee camps becoming too

closely linked to the KLA’, adding that ‘we don’t see evidence that KLA is

recruiting in camps [but] the refugee population and KLA are closely linked, with

many refugee families having members in the KLA’.69

Contrary to reported evidence of recruitment practices among refugees in

Albania proper, indicating the Albanian authorities’ complicity with KLA’s

recruitment and training tactics inside refugee camps, recruitment in camps located

in the Republic of Macedonia seemed to have been happening more discreetly.70

Nonetheless, the KLA found opportunities to actively engage members of the

Kosovar Albanian Diaspora formed in the camps of Macedonia. Broadcasts of heavy

fighting in Kosovo and tensions between the police and refugees in camps created

additional grievances to those felt at home, encouraging some Kosovo Albanians to

join the KLA.71 According to the testimony of a KLA’s commanding officer:

There is no overt display of KLA support in Tetovo. Recruitment by the KLA

is done quietly in cafes along Tetovo’s main street. Small groups of new KLA

fighters are then formed and sent over Tetovo mountain trails to Kosovo. Each

new recruit from Macedonia and Albania must carry at least 66 pounds of

arms and ammunition. Food supplies are also a growing problem.72

The government of the Republic of Macedonia was not willing to ignore the

developing KLA infrastructure in the country, and authorities were actively seeking

to monitor, prevent, and uncover the development of recruitment, arming, or training

activities within refugee camps.73 For example, Kosovo Albanian refugees were not

allowed to exit the camps, while entering the camps without documentation was

prohibited.74 Despite reluctantly supporting NATO operations, ethnic Macedonian

parties did not wish to see the Republic of Macedonia becoming a staging ground for

attacks against Serb forces in Kosovo.75

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Did the refugee crisis render violent conflict in the Republic of Macedonia more

likely? The impression one gets is that the radicalization of the situation in Kosovo

intensified the Albanophobia among the ethnic Macedonian public. Foreign

observers stated that ‘Macedonian Albanians look northward to learn the lessons of

escalation rather than Kosovo Albanians looking south to learn accommodation’.76

Yet despite differences in the proportion and magnitude of repression in Kosovo and

the Republic of Macedonia, there was an obvious attempt by the Albanians in the

Republic of Macedonia to imitate the tactics employed in Kosovo (denial of state

legitimacy, mobilization, referendum, calls for independence, and rebellion). The

impact of Kosovo on the Republic of Macedonia seems to have been proportional to

the scale and type of deprivation faced by the Albanians in the Republic of

Macedonia, and to their numbers. Despite the arrival of overwhelming numbers of

Kosovo Albanian refugees, inter-ethnic relations in the Republic of Macedonia

remained calm. The vast majority of Kosovo Albanian refugees were more

concerned about returning to their homes than stirring up fresh violence in the

Republic of Macedonia.77

During the war in Kosovo and the refugee exodus of the Kosovo Albanians, the

feeling of internal cohesion increased rapidly, not only within the Albanian

community in the Republic of Macedonia, but also between Macedonian Albanians

and Kosovo Albanians.78 However, for the ethnic Macedonians, the refugee crisis

was not just a humanitarian catastrophe as the Albanians saw it, but presented a

demographic earthquake threatening to tip the ethnic balance in favour of the

Albanians. Be it as it may, the refugee crisis, according to Zhelyazkova, exposed

fundamental differences between the ethnic Macedonians and Albanians on vital

security issues and prospects:

Macedonians and Albanians are dangerous for the civil peace in Macedonia.

The first ones are pessimistic and deprived of faith leading to depression as

they do not see any close perspective for a normal development and still less

do they see any prospects for their family prosperity and the Macedonian

nation as a whole. The second are in the apogee of their optimism for the

future and they are filled with enthusiasm and conviction in their abilities,

tested and confirmed in the crucial situation caused by the flow of refugees.79

For the DPA, the satisfaction of Albanian demands in Kosovo would invigorate

Albanian demands in the Republic of Macedonia despite warnings of a growing

militant infrastructure in the country.80

Disputed Territories

Since the end of the war in Kosovo, regional security deteriorated even more. Fresh

conflict emerged in the Presevo Valley in southern Serbia between Albanian

extremists and Serbian security forces. The south Serbian district of Presevo is

located on the border with Kosovo, and it is home to the last remaining Albanian

enclaves within Serbian territory. The Presevo district attracted the attention of the

international media in 2000 after a series of armed attacks against Serb security

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forces and local politicians by an extremist Albanian guerrilla formation called the

‘Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja, and Bujanovac’ (Ushtria Clirimtare e

Presheves, Medvegjes dhe Bujanocit, UCPMB). After the end of the Kosovo war in

1999, a five-mile-deep Ground Safety Zone (GSZ) was established between Kosovo

and Serbia. The UN-administered GSZ was intended to create a demilitarized buffer

zone in order to deter Serbian aggression and prevent further clashes between Serbs

and Albanians. Along this buffer zone, a restricted number of lightly armoured

Serbian troops were allowed to patrol, thus becoming an easy prey for Albanian

extremists who wished to provoke radical border changes in south Serbia. The

guerrilla formation mirrored the tactics and modus operandi of its Kosovo

predecessor UCK (KLA). On 25 November 2000, the Albanian militants of the

UCPMB agreed to a cease-fire, under the auspices of NATO, after the latter

threatened that unless attacks against Serb officers stopped, it would allow the

Serbian Army to intervene. Evidence that violence in Presevo emanated from

Kosovo forced a representative of the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) to state that

‘KFOR will not tolerate Kosovo as a staging area for exporting violence’.81

Nevertheless, throughout December 2000, Albanian rebels engaged in kidnappings,

shooting incidents, and attempts to smuggle weapons into the GSZ. As violence

mounted, NATO allowed the Serbian Army to reclaim parts of the demilitarized

zone in March 2001, pushing out some 600 to 700 ethnic Albanian rebels from the

GSZ. At the same time, NATO gave the rebels the opportunity to turn themselves

over to KFOR; NATO promised to take their weapons and note their names before

releasing them. As a result, more than 450 UCPMB members took advantage of

KFOR’s screen and release policy; all militants were consequently recorded and

released back into Kosovo.82 Political analyst Z.D. stated in an interview that ‘these

conflicts in Kosovo and Presevo are related to the extent that some of the leading

figures of the NLA in the Republic of Macedonia, and a number of its soldiers,

participated in these previous conflicts’.83 The government of the Republic of

Macedonia was convinced that Presevo fighters were entering the country,

suggesting that the NLA was a spillover from the Kosovo and Presevo conflicts.84 As

Tim Ripley from Jane’s Intelligence Review pointed out:

The NATO decision in February 2001 to hand back the Ground Security Zone

(GSZ), or buffer zone, along Kosovo’s boundary with Serbia to Yugoslav

control further confirmed Albanian suspicions that the international

community was set to betray Kosovo to Belgrade. With suspicions that their

cause was about to be betrayed, many former KLA members with family roots

in Macedonia therefore decided the time was ripe to stage their own

revolution.85

The ICG observed that Albanian political leaders in Kosovo and the Republic of

Macedonia supported the insurgencies in the Presevo valley of southern Serbia. The

reasons for this support were diverse, and ranged from parochial protection of

political and economic positions to irredentist aspirations and the ambition to

rearrange the Balkan map.86 The political geography of the region facilitated the

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conduct of militant activity across borders. The borderlands between Kosovo,

Serbia, and the Republic of Macedonia created a suitable geographic terrain that

allowed Albanian militants to act as communicating vessels. During the Presevo

crisis (November 2000–March 2001), Tanusevci (a village in the Republic of

Macedonia bordering Kosovo and very close to the border with Serbia) became a

transit point for weapons bound for Albanian insurgents in the Presevo Valley.

KFOR had established a GSZ within Serbian territory that stretched along the

administrative line with Kosovo, and the Serb army and police were subsequently

deprived of their jurisdiction to patrol and control this strip of land alongside their

border with Kosovo. Similarly, a small part of the borderlands between the Republic

of Macedonia and Kosovo constituted a jurisdictionally disputed area contested by

both. This ‘no-man’s land’ created a situation in which small villages such as

Tanusevci, which formally belonged to the Republic of Macedonia, were practically

surrounded by Kosovo. On 26 February 2001, ethnic Macedonian security forces

entered the Albanian village of Tanusevci to search for illicit weapons, and during

the operation the first armed clashes erupted between ethnic Macedonian security

forces and Albanian militants.87 In the same month, Belgrade’s controversial

decision to grant a strip of land from Kosovo to the Republic of Macedonia to

resolve the border demarcation issue with Skopje infuriated Kosovo Albanians who

saw this as a deliberate provocation against their demand for independence. N.D, a

high-rank ethnic Macedonian diplomat observed that

Initially, the NLA fought for territory and change of borders. [Then the

rhetoric gradually embraced human rights]. The logistic support came from

Kosovo; people there were trained and armed. A number of people did not

have jobs and the Kosovo conflict was over while reforms and progress were

too slow in Macedonia, providing a fertile context for exporting rebellion.88

By contrast, Albanian Macedonian political analyst I.R. acknowledges the influence

of Kosovo through a different light. In his words:.

the Albanians from Macedonia who were involved (militarily) in Kosovo

exported the crisis in Macedonia. For the political forces in Kosovo,

supporting aggression was counterproductive because it undermined the

cooperative and moderate image of the Kosovars. So they were real steps

taken by Rugova, Hashim Thaci and Hajradinai and common appeals to the

Macedonian UCK to stop activities and start negotiation.89

No matter how difficult it is to determine the precise extent to which events in

Kosovo influenced the decision of Albanian militants to use violence in the Republic

of Macedonia, the potent associations and interdependencies of the Albanians in the

region during that period (1998–2001) have become clearer. The fact that conflict

spread from Kosovo to Presevo, and later to the Republic of Macedonia, exposes the

suggested links between more or less opportunistic militant actors functioning

within a politically fluid and permissive environment in a timely effort to advance

political interests.

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Rebel Capacity

By the period when open hostilities broke out between the KLA and the Serbian

forces, the KLA had grown into a large and organized militant formation with an

effective logistical and financial network, thousands of new recruits, an abundance

of imported weapons, and a relatively strong chain of command that united the loose

association of clans forming the backbone of the guerrilla force, allowing thus for an

efficient coordination of military activities beyond Kosovo. There are strong

indications that the NLA drew on existing resources relating to the Kosovo conflict,

providing rebels with a large pool of weapons and war-weary recruits.90 A high-rank

state security official in the Republic of Macedonia explained that

Weapons were transferred to Kosovo after 1996 – following the collapse of

the Albanian pyramid investments – and then transferred to Macedonia. In

1998, small terrorist incidents (by Albanian extremists in Macedonia)

included attacks against police stations and the Supreme Court. Half of that

group was arrested; the other half went to Switzerland. Ahmeti (leader of the

Albanian rebels) was behind these attacks. However, there was no Albanian

rebellion in Macedonia because the conditions were absent. In September

1999, the demilitarization of KLA in Kosovo started with Agim Ceku91 as the

man in charge. There was clear evidence that the quantity of weapons was

enormous . . .92

According to Grillot, Paes, and Stoneman, ‘( the NLA drew heavily on connections

with the former KLA, and however large the stockpiles of the NLA were, it is clear

that connections to former KLA stockpiles and an extensive and active funding

network provided them with many sources of weapons’.93 Several reported incidents

and multiple arrests and weapons confiscations followed the subsequent stepping up

of KFOR’s actions to seal the border with the Republic of Macedonia, thus

confirming the suspicions that Kosovo was a major pool of combatants and

equipment for the NLA.94 The NLA’s ranks were comprised by a mixture of veterans

and local Macedonian Albanian volunteers, adjoined by a number of mercenaries –

mostly ‘professional’ combatants from Kosovo and Presevo. According to regional

political analyst S.O.:.

. . . the force of the Albanian rebels never went more than 1,200 people. They

had five so-called brigades, but the fighting force never went more than several

hundreds. A 30 to 40 per cent were mercenaries from outside, mostly people

who came from Bosnia and Kosovo; people whose profession was war, and

who were paid for participating in rebellions. The majority of the rest 60 per

cent were Albanians who fought in Kosovo, and of course some Albanians

from Macedonia.95

In our interview sessions, government officials suggested that practically the entire

NLA has been made up of former KLA and UCPMB fighters. A senior government

security analyst confirmed that ‘Presevo fighters came in Macedonia. . . Arabs have

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also participated in the ranks of KLA. . . the NLA in Macedonia was a spillover

result of Kosovo’s and Presevo’s exported conflicts’.96 Political analyst I.R. shares

the view that the conflict in the Republic of Macedonia was, at least partly,

encouraged by Kosovo radicals: ‘At the very beginning of 2001, rebels were small

groups of Albanians who were born here and who later became part of the KLA in

Kosovo. These groups did not enjoy special support by the local Albanian

population’.97 The participation of numerous leading figures among the extremists in

Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, and Southern Serbia confirms the strong links

between militant and radical political actors in the region.98

The fund-raising role of Diasporas justifies the emphasis placed by Collier and

Hoeffler on the role played by them in sustaining conflict dynamics. The crucial role

of the Albanian Diaspora in financing regional Albanian insurgencies is well

documented.99 Political self-interests, criminality, and twisted Diaspora perceptions

have all had their impact on the decision to use violence.100 Albanian Diaspora

groups linked to localities in the Republic of Macedonia provided funds and

expertise to buy and smuggle arms. Politically active members of the Albanian

community in Switzerland and German raised and handled considerable amounts of

funding for the NLA through a so-called National Liberation fund (Liria

Komberate).101 Funds were officially claimed to be raised for humanitarian purposes,

but there is little doubt that part of the funds was channelled to the affluent illegal

arms market in Albania and Kosovo to provide a secure flow of weaponry.102

During the war in Kosovo, for the purpose of arming and financing the guerrilla

formation, members of KLA engaged in illicit transactions with criminal

organizations, establishing a firm link between militancy and organized crime.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and NATO confirm that

‘. . . drug trafficking has provided funding for insurgency and terrorist violence in

transit regions like the Balkans (especially Kosovo, with the KLA) . . .’.103 The link

between extremist-nationalist Albanian groups and the large amount of trafficking in

narcotics, arms, and people is indigenous to the region, and to a considerable extent

ethno-nationalist militants of all ethnic stripes have secured their operational

capacity on profits generated by illicit trading.

The flourishing drugs industry (storage processing and trafficking) in Kosovo

and Albania provided rebels with a major financial asset, which ultimately

transformed into a valuable strategic opportunity for sustaining the viability of the

insurgency in Kosovo. Profits generated by the trading of drugs constituted the

primary financial source for arming the KLA in what was known as the KLA’s ‘arms

for drugs’ policy.104 Similarly, the ICG argues that while the NLA’s ties to

criminality were less obvious than those of the KLA, the NLA was the recipient of

funding and weapons linked to criminal groups.105 The United Nations Office on

Drugs and Crime (UNODC) points out that during the conflict (in the Republic of

Macedonia), Albanian traffickers enjoyed a great advantage in the heroin market due

to chaos in their home areas and large Diaspora populations in several key

destinations, including Italy, the second-largest heroin market in Europe, and they

were also highly motivated since they were engaged in a civil war.106 According to

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Mockaitis, ‘Macedonia was facing a ‘mixed force’, with terrorists actively involved

in organised crime in the guise of freedom fighters.’107 He further argues that ‘If we

take a detailed look at the genesis of these forces we will find out that all of them

were connected to organised crime. In this manner, criminals accumulate personal

material wealth and in coordination with extremist (nationalist) and Islamic radical

groups they gain greater authority and political power’.108

Yet there is little evidence to suggest that banditry had entirely displaced the

political objectives held by Albanian extremists. Explaining the engagement of

Albanian militants in illicit activities within the context of ‘greed’ can lead to serious

misunderstandings and simplifications as to the nature, limits, and dynamics of rebel

groups.109 The levels of poverty, unemployment, and the generally low standards of

subsistence in these areas make crime and political violence an appealing option,

especially to the young. The evident lack of legal enforcement and the inability of

the state to control illicit activities have created conditions conducive to the

nurturing of crime. Although the violent-prone attitude among the Albanians is built

upon a traditional ‘arms culture’ and machismo, prevalent in parts of the Albanian

society, the use of violence becomes an even more attractive option for satisfying

demobilized, jobless, and restless ex-combatants. The profound lack of incentives

combines with a bold and almost habitual resistance against the established rule of

law to produce a criminality-prone pattern that creates opportunities for profit in

crises. Again, the grievance-deprivation thesis seems to retain a general validity. In

the current case study, although we acknowledge the symptomatic effects of greed in

conflict, we observe a restoration of the initial position of deprivation depicted by a

cycle of grievance-generated materialism that emerges under favourable strategic

and sometimes cultural conditions.

CONCLUSION

The regional-strategic environment in the Balkans has hardly ever nurtured

conditions for peace and stability. Since the early 1990s, Albanian demands for

constitutional reform in the Republic of Macedonia remained unaddressed, and

discussions on minority rights and equitable representation were put on hold.

However, conditions of violence matured during and after the war in Kosovo.

Admittedly, long-term political intransigence and stagnation over substantial

minority issues constituted the underlying causes of conflict. There is little doubt

that the outcome of international intervention in Kosovo and the perceived

incapacity of the state to contain a potential insurgency encouraged politically active

Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia to adopt a more radical protest policy and

intensify their political rhetoric as a response to the long-stalled dialogue with the

ethnic Macedonian parties.

Albanian militants in the Republic of Macedonia organized at the most crucial

political turning point for Albanian affairs in the region, taking advantage of the

opportunities resulting from the war in Kosovo. During the events in neighbouring

Kosovo, political fractionalization and radicalization intensified within the Albanian

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block as it did during the very early 1990s. This is indicative of the suggestion that

successful rebellion in a neighbouring state encourages political elites to reconsider

existing practices and adopt new ones.110

The case study demonstrates aspects of the multifaceted threats posed by the

influx of Kosovo Albanian refugees on the Republic of Macedonia’s delicate fabric.

Tense relations between the Republic of Macedonia’s authorities and refugees from

Kosovo increased the polarization between the Albanians and ethnic Macedonians

in the country. The Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia exhibited strong ethnic

solidarity to their Kosovo kin during the crisis in Kosovo while political pressures

and threats against ethnic Macedonians intensified. Moreover, the likelihood of

conflict increases due to the local clustering of an ethnic group in geographic

proximity and possibilities for conflict contagion are even stronger across legally

disputed and hard-to-control borderlands.111 The geographic proximity between

Kosovo, Presevo (South Serbia), and the Republic of Macedonia produced an

interesting chain reaction of events (1999–2000–2001). The transit role of Albanian

border villages was critical for the diffusion of conflict in the Republic of

Macedonia. In an effort to restore order and consolidate sovereignty over a disputed

borderland, the government decided to conduct police operations, a decision that

ultimately led to direct confrontation with local Albanian militants.

Finally, the analysis demonstrates that immediate availability of financial and

organizational resources encouraged radical members of the ethnic Albanian

minority in the Republic of Macedonia with ties to Kosovo to use violence. Kosovo

guerrillas fighting in Presevo provided a reservoir of experienced combatants, and

ammunition, guns, and logistical and technological support. To an extent, the

analysis shows that income generated by the trafficking and processing of illicit

products has helped to raise funds for the KLA and the NLA in order to sustain war-

related activities. Nonetheless, the symbiotic relationship between illicit sources of

income and political objectives makes it particularly difficult to maintain that cross-

border banditry had ultimately replaced the political objectives of the insurgency in

the Republic of Macedonia.

The case-study findings confirm the broader suggestion that fragile states are

affected by civil wars taking place in neighbouring states. In this perspective, the

existence of internally permissive (domestic) conditions provides a fertile ground

for the outbreak of violence. Grievances inducing protest mobilization, and the

incapacity of the weak state to counter rebellion, provide the necessary conditions

and drives for violence. Yet the analysis shows that violence erupts when certain

opportunity structures come into play, influencing group perceptions through cost–

benefit assessments, thus encouraging participation in organized forms of violence.

Opportunities relate to the radicalizing impact of cross-border ethnic affinities, the

existence of disputed borderlands, and the transfer of organization capacity. The

impact of refugee flows seems to have presented a minimal impact on the

radicalization of indigenous ethnic kin populations compared to the substantial

political implications triggered by drastic sovereignty shifts in the region

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(contagion). The conceptual framework can be further examined and tested in

comparative ways that include a multitude of cases with similar characteristics.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTOR

Pavlos I. Koktsidis (BA in Politics and International Relations, University of

Lancaster; MA in Comparative Ethnic Conflict; PhD in Security and Conflict

Analysis, Queen’s University of Belfast) is Lecturer on Foreign Policy, Strategy and

War, and EU External Relations at the School of Social and Political Sciences,

University of Cyprus. He has previously taught Comparative Politics of Developing

Nations and International Security. He is an associate researcher with the South-

Eastern Europe Research Centre (SEERC) on Balkan Politics, Security, and

Conflict, and Research Associate with the Hellenic Foundation for European and

Foreign Policy in Athens (ELIAMEP). His research interests include international

security, ethnic conflict, conflict resolution, terrorism, and insurgency. He is author

of the book Strategic Rebellion: Ethnic Conflict in FYR Macedonia and the Balkans

(Peter Lang 2012) and co-editor of the forthcoming edited book Societies in

Transition: Economic, Political and Security Transformations in Contemporary

Europe (Springer 2014). Email: pavlosk@ucy.ac.cy

NOTES

1. According to UNRES/817/1993, the country was formally admitted into the UN under theprovisional designation ‘Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ following an objection to itsconstitutional name (Republic of Macedonia) from Greece.

2. Lars Eric Cederman, Andres Wimmer and Brian Min, ‘Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel? New Dataand Analysis’, World Politics 62/1 (2010) pp.87–119; James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin,‘Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War’, American Political Science Review 97/1 (Feb. 2003) pp.75–90.

3. Philip Le Billon, ‘Scales, Chains and Commodities: Mapping Out Resource Wars’, Geopolitics 12/1(2007) pp.200–5; John O’Loughlin and Clionadh Raleigh, ‘Spatial Analysis of Civil War Violence’,in K. Cox, M. Low and J. Robinson, (eds) Handbook of Political Geography (Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage 2007); Karmen Ballentine and John Sherman (eds) The Political Economy of Armed Conflict:Beyond Greed and Grievance (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2003); Halvard Buhaug and PaiviLujala, ‘Accounting for Scale: Measuring Geography in Quantitative Studies of Civil War’,Political Geography 24/04 (2005) pp.399–418; Benedikt Korf, Michelle Engeler and TobiasHagmann, ‘The Geography of Warscape’, The Third World Quarterly 30/3 (2010) pp.385–9.

4. Research demonstrates that frustration does not invariably lead to aggression. Frustration can lead tononaggression, and aggression can occur without frustration. In some cultures, aggression is not atypical response to frustration, and some situations (such as threat and insult) can evoke moreaggression than frustration. Frustration sometimes provokes aggression; and aggression issometimes provoked by frustration. See: Arnold H. Buss, The Psychology of Aggression (New York:John Wiley 1961); Edwin Megargee, The Psychology of Violence and Aggression (Morristown, NJ:General Learning Press 1972); Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, ‘Greed and Grievance in Civil War’,Oxford Economic Papers 56 (2004) pp.563–595; Paul Collier and Nicholas Sambanis,‘Understanding Civil War: A New Agenda’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 46/1 (2002) pp.3–12,563–595; Paul Collier and Nicholas Sambanis, ‘Understanding Civil War: A NewAgenda’, Journalof Conflict Resolution 46/1 (2002) pp3–12.

5. Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, ‘Greed and Grievance in Civil War’, Oxford Economic Papers 56(2004) p.563.

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6. Christopher Blattman and Edwrad Miguel, ‘Civil War’, Journal of Economic Literature 48/1 (2010)pp.3–57, 4.

7. Karl Cordell and Stefan Wolff, Ethnic Conflict: Causes, Consequences and Responses (Cambridge:Polity 2010) p.3, online at http://www.stefanwolff.com/reset/ethnic-conflict-theories/downloads/cordellandwolff.pdf

8. Fearon and Laitin (note 16); Thomas Mahnken and Joseph Maiolo (eds) Strategic Studies: A Reader(London: Routledge 2007); Halvard Buhaug and Scott Gates, ‘The Geography of Civil War’,Journal of Peace Research 39/4 (2002) pp.417–33.

9. Mark I. Lichbach, ‘Rethinking Rationality and Rebellion: Theories of Collective Action andProblems of Collective Dissent’, Rationality and Society 6/1 (1994) pp.8–39, 7.

10. Ibid, p. 9.11. Ibid. pp.11–14.12. Stathis Kalyvas and Matthew Adam Kocher, ‘How “Free” is Free Riding in Civil Wars? Violence,

Insurgency and the Collective Action Problem’, World Politics 59 (2006) pp.177–216; MarkI. Lichbach, ‘Deterence or Escalation? The Puzzle of Aggregate Studies of Repression and Dissent’,The Journal of Conflict Resolution 31/2 (1987) pp.266–97; Nicholas Sambanis and Annalisa Zinn,From Protest to Violence: An Analysis of Conflict Escalation with an Application to Self-determination Movements (Unpublished manuscript, Yale University 2005).

13. Kristine Eck, ‘Raising Rebels. Participation and Recruitment in Civil War’, Report/Department ofPeace and Conflict Research 89, Uppsala (2010) p.24.

14. The granting of wages, prospective rewards, opportunities for looting and pillage, or privilegedaccess to power, known as ‘selective incentives’, offers a reasonable answer to the problem ofCollective Action (CA).

15. Kristine Eck, ‘Raising Rebels. Participation and Recruitment in Civil War’, Report/Department ofPeace and Conflict Research 89, Uppsala (2010), p. 10.

16. Lars Eric Cederman, Andres Wimmer and Brian Min, ‘Why do Ethnic Groups Rebel?: New Dataand Analysis’, World Politics 62/1 (2010) pp.87–119; James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin,‘Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War’, American Political Science Review 97/1 (Feb. 2003)pp.75–90.

17. Others have argued that ethnic conflict and separatism are not as infectious as conventionallythought. These analysts posit that ethnic conflict is self-limiting and that actors within ethnicconflicts are much more responsive to domestic incentives and constraints than external events. See:James D. Fearon, ‘Commitment Problems and the Spread of Ethnic Conflict’, in David A. Lake andDonald Rothschild (eds) The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion andEscalation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP 1998) pp.107–26; Stephen Saideman, ‘Is Pandora’s BoxHalf-Empty or Half-Full? The Limited Virulence of Secession and the Domestic Sources ofDisintegration’, in David A. Lake and Donald Rothchild (eds) Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion andEscalation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP 1998).

18. Fabrizio Carmingani and Parvinder Kler, ‘Surrounded by Wars: Quantifying the Role of SpationalSpillovers’, Discussion Papeprs Economics 13, Griffith School (2013) pp.2–13.

19. Kristian S. Gleditsch, ‘Transnational Dimension of Civil War’, Journal of Peace Research 44 (May2007) pp.293–309; Nathan Danneman and Emily Ritter, ‘Contagious Rebellion and PreemptiveRepression’, Journal of Conflict Resolution (2013); Alex Braithwaite, ‘The Geographic Spread ofMilitarized Disputes’, Journal of Peace Research 43 (Sep. 2006) pp.507–22; Halvard Buhaug andKristian S. Gleditsch, ‘Contagion or Confusion? Why Conflicts Cluster in Space’, InternationalStudies Quarterly 52 (2008) pp.215–33.

20. Positive spatial diffusion: an event within a system increases the probability of similar eventsoccurring subsequently elsewhere.

21. Ted Robert Gurr, ‘Why Minorities Rebel: A Global Analysis of Communal Mobilization andConflict since 1945,’ International Political Science Review 14 (1993) pp.181–6.

22. William Ayres and Stephen Saideman, ‘Is Separatism Contagious as the Common Cold or asCancer? Testing International and Domestic Explanations’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 6/3(2000) pp.91–113, 112.

23. Steven E. Lobell and Phillip Mauceri, ‘Diffusion and Escalation of Ethnic Conflict’, in StevenE. Lobell and Philip Mauceri (eds) Ethnic Conflict and International Politics: Explaining Diffusionand Escalation (New York: Palgrave MacMillan 2004) p.3.

24. David Carment, ‘The International Dimension of Ethnic Conflict: Concepts, Indicators and Theory’,Journal of Peace Research 30/2 (1993) pp.137–50.

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25. See Karl Cordell and Stefan Wolff, Ethnic Conflict: Causes, Consequences, and Responses(Cambridge: Polity, 2009); Michael E., Brown (ed.), The International Dimensions of InternalConflict (London: MIT Press 1996); David A. Lake and Donald Rothchild (eds) The InternationalSpread of Ethnic Conflict (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP 1998).

26. John O’Loughlin and Frank Witmer, Taking Geography Seriously, Dissagraggating the Study ofCivil Wars, Paper presented at the conference on ‘Disaggregating the Study of Civil War andTransnational Violence’, Institute of Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California, LaJolla, 6–8 Mar. 2005, p.10.

27. Timur Kuran, ‘Ethnic Dissimilation and Its International Relations’, in David A. Lake and DonaldRothchild (eds) The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion and Escalation(Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP 1998) pp.35–60.

28. Ibid. p.98.29. Philip Le Billon, ‘Scales, Chains and Commodities: Mapping Out Resource Wars’, Geopolitics 12/1

(2007) pp.200–5; John O’Loughlin and Clionadh Raleigh, ‘Spatial Analysis of Civil War Violence’,in K. Cox, M. Low and J. Robinson (eds) Handbook of Political Geography (Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage 2007); Karmen Ballentine and John Sherman (eds) The Political Economy of Armed Conflict:Beyond Greed and Grievance (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2003); Halvard Buhaug and PaiviLujala, ‘Accounting for Scale: Measuring Geography in Quantitative Studies of Civil War’,Political Geography 24/04 (2005) pp.399–418; Benedikt Korf, Michelle Engeler and TobiasHagmann, ‘The Geography of Warscape’, The Third World Quarterly 30/3 (2010) pp.385–9.

30. John O’Loughlin and Raleigh (note 29).31. Clionadh Raleigh, Andrew Linke, Haringvard Hegre and Joakim Karlsen, Introducing ACLED: An

Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO 2009) p.237.32. Lars Erik Cederman, Simon Hug, Alain Dubois and Idean Salehyan, Refugee Flows and

Transnational Ethnic Linkages, Swiss Network for International Studies (10 Jul. 2009) p.4, online athttp://www.unige.ch/ses/spo/static/simonhug/snis/SNIS_Proposal_Rev.pdf.

33. Ibid. p.94.34. Ibid. pp.93–4.35. Havard Hegre and Nicolas Sambanis, ‘Sensitivity Analysis of Empirical Results on Civil War

Onset’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 450/4 (2006) pp.508–35; Kristian Skrede Gleditsch,‘Transnational dimensions of Civil War’, Journal of Peace Reesearch 44/3 (May 2007) pp.293–309.

36. Salehyan Idean and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, ‘Refugees and the Spread of Civil War’,International Organization 60/2 (2006) pp.335–66.

37. Paul Collier, Anke Hoeffler and Dominik Rohner, Beyond Greed and Grievance: Feasibility andCivil Wars, CSAE Working Paper Series No.10, Centre for the Study of African Economies(Oxford: University of Oxford 2006) p.3.

38. Fearon and Laitin (note 16) p.75.39. Ibid. p.81–6.40. At sufficiently low levels of per capita income, the opportunity cost of conflict might be low enough

so as not to discourage war. Carmignani Fabrizio and Parvinder Kler, Surroudned by Wars:Quantifying the Role of Spatial Spill Overs, Discussion Papers, Economics, No. 2013-13, GriffithSchool, pp.2–13, 6. For a more concise analysis on rebel recruitment see Kristine Eck, RaisingRebels: Participation and Recruitment in Civil War, Report, Department of Peace and ConflictResearch, Uppsala University (2010).

41. Fabrizio and Kler, p. 6.42. A third type of resource acquisition is ‘assistance by third parties’. For the purposes of the analysis, it

is discussed as part of the regional support provided to rebel groups.43. Stathis Kalyvas, ‘“New” and “Old” Civil Wars: A Valid Distinction?’ World Politics 54/1 (2001)

pp.99–118, 104.44. Collier and Hoffler (note 4) pp.574–5.45. Daniel Byman, Peter Chalk, Bruce Hoffman, William Rosenau and David Brannan, Trends in

Outside Support for Insurgent Movements (Santa Monica, CA: RANDCorporation 2001) pp.1–156,41–2, online at www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1405

46. Peter H. Liotta, Spill Over Effects: Aftershocks in Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia, Wilson CentreEuropean Studies Meeting Report 268, Washington, DC (2003); International Crisis Group,Macedonia: Towards Destabilisation? The Kosovo Crisis Takes Its Toll On Macedonia 21 May1999, online at http://www.refworld.org/docid/3de62e004.html; Vladimir T. Ortakovski, ‘Inter-

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ethnic Relations and Minorities in the Republic of Macedonia’, Southeast European Politics 2/1

(May 2001) pp.24–45.47. Interview with the author (15 Jul. 2007, Skopje); Hugh Dellios, ‘NATO Air Strategy under Fire:

Macedonians Fear Divisive Spill Over’, Chicago Tribune News 29 Mar. 1999.48. Interview with the author (17 Jul. 2007, Skopje).49. An Albanian liberation movement that has the goal of establishing the ‘Republic of Ilirida’, a

subgroup called ‘Unikom’ and its activities, particularly near Struga (1990–1999), Immigration and

Refugee Board of Canada, 7 Jan. 2000, online at http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6ad6868.html;

Macedonia Timeline, BBC, online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1410364.stm50. Zvonimir Jankuloski,WhyMacedonia Matters: Spill Over of the Kosovo Conflict to Macedonia, The

Kosovo Crisis RSP Working Paper 1, Refugee Studies Programme, Oxford (1999) pp. 24–38.51. ‘Commentary: Irina Stojkovska Slams Speech by Leader of New Ethnic Albanian Party’, Nova

Makedonija 10 Jul. 1997, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, online at www.lexisnexis.com/uk52. Ibid.53. ‘Xhaferi Praises Role of Kosovo Rebels in Party’s Successes’, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts,

18 Feb. 1999, online at www.lexisnexis.com/uk54. Lisen Bashkurti, ‘Political Dynamics within the Balkans: The Cases of Bosnia Herzegovina,

Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro’, Chicago Kent Law Review 80/1 (2005) pp.1–70.55. Jankulovski, pp. 24–38.56. Gilles De Rapper, Crisis in Kosovo: Reactions in Albania and Macedonia at the Local Level,

Ethnobarometer Programme Working Paper No. 3 (1998) pp.1–40, 17.57. De Rapper (note 56) p.38.58. The 1998 Elections in Macedonia, ICG Balkans Report No. 45 (Skopje-Sarajevo, 9 Oct. 1998)

pp.1–25, 14.59. Macedonia: New Faces in Skopje, ICG Balkans Report No. 51 (Skopje-Brussels, 9 Jan. 1999) p.11.60. Interview with the author (10 Jul. 2007, Skopje).61. ‘Xhaferi Praises Role of Kosovo Rebels in Party’s Successes’ (note 53).62. Ibid.63. Jankulovski, p.32.64. Astri Suhrke et al., The Kosovo Refugee Crisis: An Independent Evaluation of the UNHCR

Emergency Preparedness and Response, EC/50/SC/ CRP.12 (2000) pp.1–162, 106.65. Ibid.66. ‘Europe Macedonia Using Refugees as Lever’, BBC News April 1999.67. Garentina Kraja, Recruitment Practices of Europe’s Last Guerilla: Ethnic Mobilization, Violence

and Networks in the Recruitment Strategy of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Dissertation, Yale

University (2011) pp.1–78, 67, online at http://politicalscience.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/

KRAJA_GARENTINA.pdf68. Peter Duignan NATO: Its Past, Present, Future (California: Hoover Press 2000) p.91.69. James Rupert, ‘Kosovo Rebel Army Not All-Volunteer’, Washington Post Foreign Service, 26 Apr.

1999, online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/balkans/stories/kla042699.

htm70. Stephen John Stedman and Fred Tanner, Refugee Manipulation: War, Politics, and the Abuse of

Human Suffering (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press 2003) 178–9; ‘Macedonia Fears

Recruitment in Refugee Camps’, CNN 17 Apr. 1999, online at http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/eu

rope/9904/17/kosovo.refugees.01/71. Klaudia Tani, Understanding Conflict-Generated Diaspora Mobilization: The Case of Kosovan

Albanian Refugees Relocated in the Camps of Albania and Macedonia, Conference Paper, Kent

University (2012) p.1–22, 14.72. Brian Murphy,‘Kosovo Guerrillas Quietly Aid Effort fromWorried Macedonia’, Associated Press 5

Apr. 1999, online at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/bit.listserv.makedon/6Ou74zFH35s/

EiNmJrmAwJ0J73. ‘Discovery of Arms Caches May Destabilize Macedonia’, Los Angeles Times 20 Apr. 1999, online

at http://articles.latimes.com/1999/apr/20/news/mn-29201; ‘Macedonia Fears it Could Become

KLA Staging Ground’, CNN 17 Apr. 1999, online at http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9904/

16/kosovo.refugees.02/index.html74. ‘Macedonia Fears it Could Become KLA Staging Ground’, CNN 17 Apr. 1999, online at http://

edition.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9904/16/kosovo.refugees.02/index.html

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75. Michael Waller, Kyril Drezov and Bulent Gokay (eds) Kosovo: The Politics of Delusion (London:Frank Cass 2001) p.65.

76. Biljana Vankovska-Cvetkovska, Between Preventive Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution: TheMacedonian Perspective on the Kosovo Crisis, Conference Paper, International Studies Association40th Annual Convention, Washington, DC, 17–20 Feb. 1999, online at http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/biljana.htm

77. By 28 August 1999, almost 95 per cent of Kosovo refugees returned to their homes.78. BiljanaVankovska, ‘Impact of the Kosovo Conflict on Macedonia: Between the Hammer and the

Anvil’, Information Management in the Field of Security Policy in SEE (May 2000) p.5.79. Antonina Zhelyazkova, Macedonia and Kosovo after the Military Operations, International Centre

for Minority Studies, Sofia (1999) pp.1–11, online at www.omda.bg/imir/mk_concl.html80. Jeffrey Fleishman, ‘Battles StirringMacedonia’s Albanians’, The Philadelphia Inquirer 3 Jun. 1998.81. ‘Ceasefire Agreed in Southern Serbia’, BBC News 25 Nov. 2000.82. John R. Fulton, ‘NATO and the KLA: How the West Encouraged Terrorism’, Global Security

Studies (Fall 2010) 1/3 pp.130–41, online at http://globalsecuritystudies.com/NATO%20and%20the%20KLA%20TWO.pdf

83. Interview with the author (14 Aug. 2007, Skopje).84. Interview with the author (15 Dec. 2006, Skopje).85. Tim Ripley, ‘Who Are the NLA?’, Jane’s Defence Weekly 24 Aug. 2001, online at groups.yahoo.

com/group/sorabia/message/1762286. Macedonia: The Last Chance for Peace, ICG Balkans Report No. 113, Brussels (20 Jun. 2001)

pp.1–20, 5.87. The Macedonian Question: Reform or Rebellion? ICG Balkans Report No.109, Skopje-Brussels

(April 2001) pp.1–14.88. Interview with the author (15 Dec. 2007).89. Interview with the author (14 Jul. 2007, Skopje).90. Andreas Heineman-Gruder and Wolf-Christian Paes, Wag the Dog: The Mobilization and

Demobilization of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Bonn International Centre for Conversion, Brief No.20 (2001) pp.1–50; Tim Ripley, ‘The UCK’s Arsenal’, Jane’s Intelligence Review 01 November2000 (volume number unknown) pp.20–2; Tim Ripley, ‘Insurgency in Macedonia Drives BalkansArms Trade’, Jane’s Intelligence Review 13/7 (Jul. 2001) pp.20–2; Michael S. Lund, ‘Greed andGrievance Diverted: HowMacedonia Avoided Civil War, 1990–2001,’ in Paul Collier and NicholasSambanis (eds) Understanding Civil War, Evidence and Analysis: Europe, Central Asia and OtherRegions, Volume 2 (Washington: World Bank 2005) p.241.

91. Commander of KLA, chief of Kosovo Protection Forces and currently Minister of Security Forces inKosovo.

92. Interview with the author (15 Dec. 2007, Skopje).93. Suzette R. Grillot, Wolf-Christian Paes and Shelly O. Stoneman, A Fragile Peace? Guns and

Security in Post-Conflict Macedonia, Small Arms Survey Special Report for the United NationsDevelopment Programme, Bonn International Centre for Conversion and South Eastern EuropeClearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (2004) pp.1–86; see also ZoranKusovac, ‘How Many Weapons in Macedonia?’, Jane’s Defence Weekly 29 Aug. 2001), online atwww.iansa.org/oldsite/news/2001/aug_01/how_many.htm

94. Jeff Bieley, Kosovo Peacekeepers Clash with NLA, The Centre for Peace in the Balkans, 27 Aug.2001, online at www.balkanpeace.org/index.php?index¼article&articleid ¼ 8123; Paul Holtom,Henry Smith, BernardoMariani, Simon Rynn, Larry Attree and Juliana Sokolova, Turning the Page:Small Arms and Light Weapons in Albania, Small Arms and Security in South eastern EuropeReport, Centre for Peace and Disarmament Education and Safeworld (Dec. 2005) pp.1–126, onlineat http://www.seesac.org/uploads/salwsurveys/Turning_the_page_Small_Arms_and_Light_Weapons_in_Albania.pdf; Blerim Haxhiaj, The NLA’s Arms Suppliers: Weapons traffickers Weave anIntricate Network to Counter Increasing KFOR Seizures on the Macedonian Border, BalkansRegional Reporting and Sustainable Training, BCR Issue 272 (Aug. 2001), online at www.iwpr.net/report-news/nlas-arms-suppliers

95. Interview with the author (15 Dec. 2007, Skopje).96. Interview with the author (15 Dec. 2007, Skopje). Note: the Kosovo Liberation Army is alleged by

Serbia to include about 1,000 foreign mercenaries from Albania, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan,Bosnia and Herzegovina (Muslims), and Croatia. See Kosovo Liberation Army, Global Security,online at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/kla.htm; ‘Fear over Islamic Terror

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Groups Using Macedonia as Base’, The Scotsman 4 Apr. 2002; ‘Foreign Militants Killed inMacedonia’, BBC 2 Mar. 2002, online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1850501.stm

97. Interview with the author (17 Dec. 2007, Skopje).98. Arben Qirezi, Kosovo: KFOR Crackdown on Albanian Rebels Balkans: Regional Reporting &

Sustainable Training BCR Issue 358 (2002), online at http://iwpr.net/report-news/kosovo-kfor-crackdown-albanian-rebels; Lidija Kuzundjic, ‘Balkan Fuse’, NIN 8 Mar. 2001, online at www.ex-yupress.com/nin/nin83.html; Euro-Balkan Briefing, ’The Balkan Human Rights Web Pages;,Briefing, 26 Mar. 2001, online at http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/bhr/english/organizations/eurobalkan/br_26_03_01.html

99. Jolle Demmers, ‘Diaspora and Conflict: Locality and Long-Distance Nationalism andDelocalization of Conflict Dynamics’, The Public 9 (2002) pp.85–96; Jolle Demmers, ‘NewWars and Diasporas: Suggestions for Research and Policy’, Journal of Peace Conflict &Development 11 (Nov. 2007) pp.1–26; Barbara Balaj, ‘Kosovo’s Albanian Diaspora: Blessing orCurse on the Economy?’, Transition Newsletter, The World Bank Group (Jan. 2001) pp.15–16;Nicholas Wood, ‘Albanian Exiles Threaten to Escalate War’, The Guardian 21 May 2001; MaryKaldor and Joshua Robinson, ‘The Virtual and the Imaginary: The Role of Diasphoric NewMedia inthe Construction of a National Identity during the Break-up of Yugoslavia’, Oxford DevelopmentStudies 30/2 (2002) p.185; Neil Cooper and Michael Pugh, Security Sector Transformation in Post-Conflict Societies, The Conflict, Security and Development Group Working Papers No 5 (Feb.2002).

100. Macedonia: The Last Chance for Peace, ICG Balkans Report No 113 (Jun. 2001); Jolle Demmers,‘Diaspora, and Conflict: Locality, Long Distance Nationalism and Delocalization of ConflictDynamics’, The Public 9/1 (2001), pp.85–96. Daniel Byman, et.al. Trends in Outside Support forInsurgent Movements (Santa Monica, California: RAND Corporation 2001) pp.1–164; PaulHockenos, Homeland Calling: Exile Patriotism and the Balkan Wars. (Ithaca: Cornell 2003).

101. Paul Buttersby, Joseph M. Syracusa and Saso Ripiloski, Crime Wars: The Global intersection ofCrime, Political Violence and International Law (California, CA: Abc Clio 2001) pp.73–4.

102. Nicholas Wood, ‘Albania Exiles Threatened to Escalate War’, The Guardian 21 May 2001.103. Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Conference

on Combating Terrorist Financing, Vienna (Nov. 2005) pp.1–7, online at www.unodc.org/pdf/EDspeechtoOSCE.pdf

104. Jerry Seper, ‘KLA Buys Arms with Illicit Funds’, The Washington Times 4 Jun. 1999; ZoranKusovac, ‘Another Balkans Bloodbath?’, Jane’s Intelligence ReviewNo. 2 (Feb.-Mar. 1998) pp.13–16; ‘Albanian Mafia: This Is How It Helps The Kosovo Guerrilla Fighters’, Corriere della Sera,Milan, Italy, (15 Oct. 1998); ‘Major Italian Drug Bust Breaks Kosovo Arms Trafficking’, AgenceFrance Presse 6 Sep. 1998; Barry James, ‘Albanian Groups at Centre of Huge Traffic in Balkans –Arms for Drugs’, The New York Times 6 Jun. 1994.

105. Macedonia’s Public Secret: How Corruption Drags the Country Down, ICG Balkans Report. No.133 (14 Aug. 2002) p.27; Jerry Seper, ‘KLA Finances War with Heroin Sales’, The WashingtonTimes 3 May 1999; Ted Legett, et al. Crime and its Impact on the Balkans, United Nations Office ofDrugs and Crime Report, Vienna (2008) pp.53, 105–7, online at www.unodc.org/documents/Balkan_study.pdf

106. UNODC, Crime and Instability: Case Studies of Transnational Threats (Vienna: UNODC Feb.2010) pp.35–7, 1–55, online at www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Studies/Crime_and_instability_2010_final_26march.pdf?ref¼010410

107. Thomas R. Mockaitis, South Eastern European Security: Terrorism in Context, in Counter-Terrorism Challenges in Southeastern Europe, Slovenian Ministry of Defence (8–12 Sep. 2008)p.119.

108. Ibid. pp.119–20.109. Lybov Mincheva and Ted Robert Gurr, Unholly Alliances: How Trans-state Terrorism and

International Crime Make Common Cause, Paper presented at the annual meeting of theInternational Studies Association, Panel on Comparative Perspectives on States, Terrorism andCrime, San Diego, CA (2006), online at www.cidcm.umd.edu/publications/papers/unholy_alliances.pdf

110. Ayres and Saideman (note 22) p.91–113.111. Raleigh et al. (note 31) p.237.

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