Word: macedonia
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...acronym, in Albanian, is UCK - the same as the KLA. NATO's firm opposition to any further redrawing of Balkan borders prompted the NLA to hurriedly proclaim itself a civil rights movement, but its strategy and tactics - even its negotiating positions - make clear that the objective is to divide Macedonia on ethnic lines...
...such an eventuality now appears to be upon us is in no small part a product of NATO's failure, out of concern for the safety of its own personnel, to do two things: Tackle the Albanian extremism incubated in its Kosovo protectorate, and lend a firm hand to Macedonia's efforts to stop it from taking root...
...NATO was certainly well-advised to press Macedonia to begin addressing the grievances of its Albanian minority - after all, it is those grievances that have created fertile soil for the extremists to grow their insurgency. NATO was also aware that the ham-fisted Macedonian military might make a mess of a counterinsurgency campaign against the lightly-armed but mobile guerrilla forces and cause civilian casualties that would irreversibly radicalize the Albanian population...
...essentially elevating the status of the NLA to that of a legitimate protagonist in Macedonia's future, NATO and the European Union may have already effectively conceded the carving up of Macedonia on ethnic lines. And that's another great victory for the hard men in Kosovo dedicated to the pursuit of a Greater Albania through guerrilla warfare. By looking more to the safety of its troops than the accomplishment of its mission, NATO has made sure it will remain reluctantly engaged in the Balkans for the next decade - with the real victims the region's long-suffering people...
Monday night, Macedonians stormed their parliament building and forced the president to flee. They were protesting a cease-fire he'd agreed to, at the West's insistence, with ethnic-Albanian rebels. Is Macedonia's slide into a full-blown civil war now unstoppable...