The men of violence are still there

Eventually, Ali Ahmeti will be gone.  Gone from the political scene, gone from the headlines, gone from this earth.  I mean, everyone dies eventually.

And yet for 22 years he has been an unfortunate force in Macedonia, and in Macedonian politics.  He was – I would say he still is – a man of violence.  He started a war in which innocents were murdered, kidnapped, subject to sexual torture, and in which police and military were ambushed and killed in gruesome ways.  And yet, after a remarkably short period, he was celebrated as a man of peace.

Ahmeti – and many around him – are still men of violence.  But they wear suits, talk to and get photographed with foreign ambassadors, diplomats, politicians and others, and are hailed as people that can be worked with.  Today their violence is more difficult to see, shrouded in the dark spaces around drug dealing, arms trafficking, money laundering, trafficking in women and girls, and more.  These actions and activities contribute to all sorts of violence, some of which is actually leaking out into the public square as evidenced by more recent – and brazen – mafia-style killings, and more.

This will only increase as others, finally, begin to challenge Ahmeti and the men of violence.  As their power and prestige is threatened, actual raw violence will increase; again, innocents will be killed. 

There are splits with Ahmeti’s DUI party, there are splits within the junior ruling party of SDSM, there are splits between the now-government party, Alliance of Albanians and DUI, and, well, the splits are not healing.  Ahmeti is now called “the greatest evil in this country over the past 21 years” by other ethnic Albanians, openly and directly.  Ahmeti has personally groomed Arben Grubi, he of the no-bid Bechtel contract, and Grubi is under attack as well, verbally and through other means of intimidation (his car was recently torched).  I will not be surprised in the least if and when it erupts into a literal shooting match.

And Ahmeti is old.  Rumors of his health have been around for years but for a man who smokes as much as he does, well, that can’t possibly improve whatever underlying medical conditions he has.  Arben Xhaferi left this world at age 64 and Imer Imeri at 66, to name just two of the more powerful ethnic Albanian leaders in Macedonia over the past 25 years.  Their smoking surely didn’t help.  Ahmeti is 64 today.

Those who have been supporting Ahmeti and the men of violence around him these 22 years – successive US and EU ambassadors, various politicians in Macedonia (yes, from the left and the right) the US State Department and the EU bureaucracy, NATO and others – all of these institutions and people are slowly, but steadily, coming to the end of their relationship with him as, at some point, he will not be of use to them.  And then they will discard him and the men of violence around him as the useful fools and useful tools they have always been.

Granted, this cannot happen soon enough and too many people have suffered as a result of these men of violence walking the earth.  But again, nothing lasts forever and these men of violence will be gone at some point. 

Ironic, isn’t it?  Ahmeti, and the men of violence started a war designed to split Macedonia into two and were never prosecuted.  A handful of individuals who defended Macedonia, on the other hand, were prosecuted.  Up is down and right is left, and truth is a lie, and on and on it goes.  Ahmeti and the men of violence around him get away – in some cases, with literal murder.  The further irony is that Ahmeti and the men of violence who started a war justify their actions then and now under the mantle of victimhood; they are always victims and must have more and more restitution.  Victimhood, it turns out, is profitable in many ways.  And yet in doing all of this they voluntarily abandon their own personal agency, corrupting themselves and society.

Ahmeti and the men of violence around him are still with us, being feted and celebrated, even as their victims cry out for justice.  But the cracks are appearing and one day, Ahmeti and his men of violence will be no more.  I’m looking forward to that day; Macedonia and Macedonians are looking forward to that day.