On the ‘Albanian Question,’ No Answers : Balkans: A people long separated vow to unite to prevent the spread of ‘ethnic cleansing’ to their region. But that could mean a horrific war.

No one would call him a rich man, but Ismet Ljuma is confident he is better off than almost every one of his 3 million ethnic brethren in the nation of Albania that lies just across a snow-capped mountain ridge.

The 31-year-old trader makes what passes for a good living in the Balkans by selling soaps and sponges at the local bazaar, providing his young family an austere apartment, regular meals and a wheezing Yugo compact car.

Albanians across the mountains, by contrast, are just emerging from the most brutal and isolated existence in the former East Bloc, leaving them socially incompatible with Albanian minorities in the more developed regions of the former Yugoslav federation.

Contending that those in Albania have too backward a lifestyle and “mentality,” Ljuma and most others among Macedonia’s Albanian minority dismiss the notion of unification within a “greater Albania” as an irrational quest that would imperil their own relative prosperity.

But the lack of enthusiasm for political union among Albanians scattered across four countries in no way suggests that they are indifferent to the plight of their brothers.

Clannish loyalty among the region’s 6 million Albanians has been diligently protected through decades of division and now provides the connecting fuse with which the ticking Balkan time bomb could be exploded.

If Serbia seeks to extend its heinous “ethnic cleansing” campaign to its predominantly Albanian Kosovo province, Albanians from throughout the region will rush to the Kosovans’ defense, plunging half a dozen nations into a war of unimaginable scope and savagery.

“All the people here are afraid of war, but we would have to go to defend our brothers,” said Ljuma, drawing sober nods of agreement from fellow traders at the central market in this 80% Albanian town. “It’s not a question of wanting to fight--it’s a moral obligation.”

About one-third of Macedonia’s 2 million people are believed to be ethnic Albanians, although the statistics are a matter of controversy because the minority refused to take part in the last government census.

In neighboring Kosovo, Albanians number close to 2 million and make up well over 90% of the Serbian province’s population.

Tiny Montenegro, with only 600,000 people, also has a nearly 30% Albanian minority, and Greece is home to tens of thousands more.

Not since this region was linked by the yoke of Ottoman Turkey have the Albanians been under common rule. Their political leaders are now warning, from Tetovo to Tirana, that until the “Albanian question” is resolved, there will be no stability in the Balkans.

The “Albanian question” is regional shorthand for problems that have resulted from the drawing of borders at the start of this century that left as many Albanians living outside their designated nation as within it. Their language, culture and religion bear no resemblance to those of the Slavic peoples, thwarting their integration in the Balkan states in which they live.

The official line among leaders of ethnic Albanian political parties in Macedonia, Kosovo and Montenegro is that no one wants union with Albania, at least not now.

Forty years of dictatorship under the late Stalinist leader Enver Hoxha left Albania, by a huge measure, the poorest and most damaged country in Europe. Century-old factories are idle, and even the system of collective farming is in abject ruin. Monthly income averages about $10 for those lucky enough to have work, and Albania is now completely dependent on foreign aid for food, fuel and medicine.

Rather than taking on the economic basket case of their “mother country,” Albanians in the former Yugoslav republics say they seek a kind of political autonomy as a transitional status until “greater Albania” becomes more desirable.

In the case of Kosovo, both independence and autonomy are categorically rejected by the Serbian leadership. Kosovo, scene of Serbia’s crushing but glorious defeat at the hands of the Turks in 1389, was the Serbian medieval heartland before five centuries of Ottoman rule fostered migrations that led to Albanians outnumbering Serbs.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic rose to power in 1987 by manipulating Serbian nationalist feelings over Kosovo and convincing his supporters that the Albanians were plotting to secede and wrest away the cradle of their nation.

A vast and repressive police force has kept Kosovo under virtual martial law for more than three years, exacerbating tensions that now threaten to break out into armed conflict.

Serbs are the minority in Kosovo, but their ubiquitous police force is heavily armed, and any eruption of fighting would be expected to inflict massive deaths and injuries on the largely unarmed Albanians.

Macedonia’s Albanians live in considerably better conditions, with the minority complaining more about cultural and linguistic inequities than any deliberate, state-sponsored attempt at discrimination.

Albanian political leaders here say they are content to live within the nation of Macedonia as a community with the same rights as the more numerous Slavs. But they express fears that such a nation may not survive much longer.

Macedonia remains a diplomatic no-man’s-land because Greece has quashed Western recognition of the new nation by raising objections to its name, which is shared by a northern Greek province.

The lack of formal ties with the international community has hamstrung foreign attempts to protect Macedonia against the spread of war through the chain of Albanian communities.

“We unconditionally recognize the statehood and territorial integrity of Macedonia,” said Mithad Emini, a leader of the Albanian Party for Democratic Prosperity. “However, if Macedonia were to be destroyed, as much as we are against this, it would be natural for Albanians to then unite their people.”

Just such a destruction of Macedonia is what the diplomatic world has begun to fear.

If Milosevic provokes ethnic war in Kosovo, Macedonian Albanians say they are ready to protect their neighbors against genocide. The Macedonians’ involvement could then provide a pretext for a Serbian invasion of diplomatically isolated Macedonia, in turn luring Bulgaria, Greece and Albania into a catastrophic fight for territory that each once ruled or where sizable numbers of ethnic brethren live.

“I would say there is about a 90% chance of war coming here,” predicted Tetovo lawyer Merse Bilalli, an activist with the People’s Democratic Party, another ethnic Albanian alliance. “There is a collective concept that we must help our brothers in Kosovo. . . . So, war in Kosovo will mean a Balkan war. Albanians all over will help with arms for defensive purposes, because the objective of war waged by Serbs is ethnic cleansing. They have no other reason to attack Kosovo except to commit genocide, because they already hold all of the reins of power.”

Some Albanians in Macedonia say they worry that U.N. peacekeeping forces recently assigned to protect the republic from a spillover of the Yugoslav war will get in the way of their plans to defend Kosovo Albanians, when and if such action is necessary.

“If the troops are being sent here to keep the Serbian army out of our country, that’s good,” said Diamant Nagavci, a quilt-maker whose business has long straddled Kosovo and Macedonia. “But if they are coming to stop us from helping our brothers in Kosovo, that’s bad. They need our help, and it’s our duty to help them.”

Linking the forefingers of his hands in a gesture of unity, Nagavci insisted passionately, “We Albanians are all like this.”

Times Vienna bureau chief Williams was recently on assignment in Albania.