We wanted Mr. Anan to come sooner
Kofi Anan
Yesterday, the Secretary-General of the UN, Mr. Kofi Anan, paid a brief visit to Albania. He was received as a personality of such stature deserves to be received. But in this brief note we wanted to point out that the Albanian people, our brothers of the same blood from Kosovo, who have now reached half a million people arriving in Albania over the course of a month and a half, would have liked to have had Mr. Anan among them much earlier. Why? Albanians have profound respect for the United Nations, this giant mechanism of modern life, guarantor of peace and security in the world. They have profound respect for all the mechanisms that operate in the service of this organization, and for the personalities who lead them. But over the past six weeks Albania has faced an entirely extraordinary situation, as hundreds of thousands of refugees from Kosovo in need entered its territory. The Albanian authorities have, in due time, taken action regarding UNHCR, both concerning its failure to anticipate the situations that could arise in Albania from such an almost uncontrollable influx of refugees, and the lack of urgency shown by its representatives in intervening with concrete aid to cope with the situation that had arisen. The truth is that UNHCR is now on its feet to face the situation, as are dozens and dozens of organizations, foundations, and groups of friends from all over the world. Even for this reason, Mr. Anan should have come to Albania earlier, because we do not know of any situation in the world today more dramatic than the humanitarian catastrophe threatening our country. If Albania and its people opened their doors to those arriving, uncovering and averting a genuine catastrophe in the heart of Europe, we do not believe this should have been a reason for the UN’s top official to feel reassured. If we view this delay in the context of the ineffectiveness that has characterized the UN and its bodies, first and foremost the Security Council, in condemning the genocide that continues to be inflicted on the unprotected Albanian people of Kosovo by Milošević’s fascist regime, then it appears that this universal organization has two sets of spectacles for viewing the problems of large and small states. For it is not difficult to observe that the Security Council has issued extremely strong statements about dramatic events in which there were two or three victims, while at times it has hesitated to consider the expulsion from their homes and native lands of more than a million Albanians from Kosovo in just over a month and a half. It must be admitted with regret that the UN and its bodies have not played the role that we Albanians rightly expect of them in finding a solution to the crisis in the region, and especially to the Kosovo tragedy. Perhaps we have reached this conclusion from a narrow perspective, which might also be called nationalist, and which is nonetheless far removed from the calculations made in the great palace in New York. But we fear that the UN’s distance from the “Kosovo tragedy,” unfortunately demonstrated on more than one occasion to date, may influence the finding of solutions for Kosovo’s future that will do no more than dress the wound, without healing it definitively. The arrival of a UN Secretary-General in Albania is an event. We are reminded of the arrival of Mr. Pérez de Cuéllar twenty years ago, when the Albanian authorities, under international pressure, were compelled to recognize or accept an obligation to take some first steps toward democratizing the life of the country. We recall that past visit because we do not want yesterday’s visit by Mr. Kofi Anan to become part of a series of routine visits without leaving any trace.