Political disintegration can be a terrifyingly rapid and destructive phenomenon, as the Albanian events have graphically shown in recent weeks. The country now needs to be rebuilt, preferably from the bottom up. The scale of this task extends from basic needs of food provision, security from gunmen and armed gangs, to reconstruction of civil society and putting credible governmental and economic structures into place. All this cannot be left to Albanians alone to accomplish. They will need external help, arising from human solidarity and prudential concern for the gravely destabilising regional consequences of a failure to respond to their plight.
It is necessary to but the Albanian story in this longer perspective if it is to be evaluated properly. The dramatic accounts of the rescue missions and the call for immediate intervention forces make it difficult to assess requirements in rapidly changing circumstances. It is essential to respond effectively; but this requires judgments about the balance between the external and internal dynamics of the Albanian crisis, as well as about the most appropriate level and nature of international intervention. These debates ran through the weekend deliberations of European Union foreign ministers in Apeldoorn. They decided to send a small team of expert and ministerial personnel to evaluate what is needed. Their report will have to cover the span of humanitarian, security, economic and political concern, even if they conclude that military intervention is not appropriate.
Already the regional consequences of the conflict are all too apparent. In the north of Albania spillover to Kosovo remains a dangerous possibility and in the southeast Macedonia and Greece are powder kegs awaiting to erupt. Italy has had to mobilise major resources to deal with the flow of refugees. But although several neighbouring states have been urging military intervention, backed by major European powers, notably France, there is much to be said for a cautious and more carefully calibrated approach before such grave decisions are taken. Military intervention may do more harm than good if it adds to the immediate conflicts on the ground or appears to tilt the advantage to one group over another. The provision of food, safe barb ours and havens for refugees and other humanitarian supplies must be expedited.
It may well be that the internal political dynamics will resolve the question of who holds power and how it should be transferred in coming weeks and months. President Sali Berisha has now accepted that he would have to relinquish power if his party were to lose the forthcoming elections. This gesture, which clearly influenced the EU foreign ministers, may be less convincing that appears at first sight, given that his party still controls the interior ministry, which will run the election and was substantially discredited after a similar exercise last May. In that case more political brokerage will be needed with the opposition parties; external actors may have to insist that the president should resign in order to resolve the political impasse. It is essential that a credible domestic political process be in place before the next stage of international involvement is decided upon. This is not a matter of delaying involvement, but of reaching a clear and broad consensus on how best it should be conducted and mandated, including, at the highest level, by the United Nations Security Council.