For a short four years, matters looked promising and Albanian enthusiasm for fascism was unabashed. Sixty-two thousand Albanians eagerly marched into Greece with Mussolini's blue shirts. Omer Nishani, first president of communist Albania, had fashioned himself as the theoretician of fascism. But when his fascist past surfaced at the Paris Peace Conference, even V.M. Molotov blushed. Under the fascist-Nazi umbrella, the Albanians gained control of Kosovo, efficiently cleansed it of 300,000 Serbs and kept the Yugoslav resistance busy, thus relieving Nazi troops for duty in Normandy.
History repeats itself.
Under a different patron, the Kosovars are now cleansing the territory of non-Albanians. In the meantime, ancient Orthodox Churches are destroyed and innocent farmers massacred by NATO's local allies. Madeleine Albright and Tony Blair may still harbor illusions about a multi-ethnic Kosovo, but that is not what Albanians have in mind. Since KFOR's arrival, the Serb and Gypsy populations have been reduced by 75 percent and 90 percent respectively. The irony is that the Serbs who are now being expelled are those who thought they had no reason to leave their ancestral homes.