Tirana Shekulli 23 Sep 08 pp 1, 17Commentary by Skender Minxhozi:
"Hostage to 28 October"On the morning of 28 October 1940, the Italian ambassador to Athens handed the Metaxas government an ultimatum from Mussolini to allow the transit of Italian troops through Greek territory. The Greek 'no' that followed the Italian request marked the beginning of the Italian-Greek War. This date is recorded in Greece's modern history as the expression of the Greek people's indomitable spirit which made them rise against a great power, like Italy was at that time.
Along with many other developments in the Balkans during World War II, that day also marked Albania's passive involvement in a war most of which was waged on Albanian territory. The Italian-Greek War was to have an adverse effect on Italian-Greek relations for a period of time, but, strange as that may seem, it was to condition Greece's absurd attitude toward Albania and the Albanians down to this day. Greece still keeps in force the Law on the State of War with Albania regardless of the fact that the two countries have signed a treaty of friendship and have established relations that rule out any eventuality of military conflict between them.
Yet, the recurrence of 28 October indirectly brings to the fore a diplomatic problem that continues to bedevil the relations between the two nations, a problem that has to do with the draft of an agreement proposed by the Greek side on the location of four graveyards for the Greek soldiers who fell on Albanian territory during the Italian-Greek War.
Up to now the Albanian authorities have come out with no public statement about the negotiations that are being conducted to this effect, so there is complete silence on the part of the Albanian state about a project fraught with nationalist symbolism and, indeed, something more than that.
Many people recall that a serious incident posed a threat to the relations between the two countries when, some three years ago, while exhumations of the remains of Greek soldiers were carried out in the vicinity of Kelcyre, in an Albanian village called Kosine, graves of Albanian civilians -- men, women, and children -- who had nothing to do with the Italian-Greek conflict, were opened and desecrated. A memorial to the Greek soldiers fallen in World War II rises in that place now, after the incident was dealt with as a "technical error."
Things, however, are not as simple as that. The appetite of the Greek authorities has gone on increasing. Now they propose not one or two, but four memorials to be erected in southern Albania, both in the areas of the ethnic Greek minority and in Korce. Behind this initiative people see a surreptitious attempt on the Greek side to convey the idea that in this area, which, on the map of Albania, corresponds to what is known under the name of Northern Epirus in the Greek nationalists' vocabulary, the Greeks have fought and shed their blood. The symbol is clear enough. So clear is it that, faced with an agreement that is being imposed on it, the Albanian Government is trying to postpone its finalization as long as possible.
Still, things would have been much easier and simpler were this proposal not related to a Greek veiled blackmail to the effect that, if Albania failed to agree to it, it would put in jeopardy its chances of integration into the European Union. All this seems absurd and irrelevant, but it is precisely like that. During Greek Deputy Foreign Minister Kasimis' visit to Tirana some months ago, the Greek side made it clear that, in the event of a negative reply from the Albanian authorities, the Greek Government would not pass on to parliament the Stabilization and Association Agreement [SAA] which Albania signed with Brussels. By motivating this move with the presence in parliament of certain parties which have at heart the project of the Greek soldiers' graveyards in southern Albania, official Athens is using an unexpressed right of veto on Albania's SAA. Something like that, although under different circumstances and in another context, happens with Greece's blocking Macedonia's bid for NATO membership over the latter's name.
This state of things is indicative of Greece's use of violence toward Albania, on one hand, and of official Tirana's capitulating and submissive policy toward Greece, on the other. Only the Greek Government may know what relationship there is between a standard agreement that has also been ratified by the parliaments of the other Balkan countries and some graveyards of Greek soldiers fallen during World War II.
But, on the other hand, the stand of the Albanian Government is just as incomprehensible over an issue in which the future is being held hostage to the past. All the more as something more than it seems is at stake on the smooth surface of Albanian-Greek relations.
Ανδρέας Μεταξάτος
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