By Christine Spolar
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 11, 1998; Page A26

TIRANA, Albania, June 10—The upsurge of violence against ethnic Albanians in neighboring Kosovo has ignited nationalism here and stoked war passions, making it difficult for the country's weak government to advocate a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

In the past week, opposition groups, national newspapers and popular entertainers have been calling for all-out war to wrest an independent Kosovo from Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic -- even though Albania barely has a functioning army.

The Albanian military was decimated during civil violence here a year ago. According to sources, it now consists of about 5,000 soldiers -- the size of a typical NATO brigade -- and 5,000 officers. In 1990, before the collapse of the hard-line communist state, the army had 60,000 troops. Eighteen months ago, it had a strength of 36,000.

Kosovo province, home to 1.8 million ethnic Albanians, has become a battlefield between Serbian security forces and separatist guerrillas who have been waging hit-and-run attacks against Serbian targets in a campaign to win independence.

The conflict, which erupted in late February and has led to the deaths of at least 250 people and sent tens of thousands fleeing their homes, threatens to ignite a broader Balkan war involving Albania and neighboring Macedonia.

In late May, Yugoslav army and Serbian police units, in an intensified effort to put down the separatist guerrillas, rolled across the western half of the province, shelling and burning homes and emptying villages.

Although Kosovo has agitated for independence since being stripped of its political autonomy in 1989, Albanians have remained largely aloof from the demands and travail of their ethnic brethren.

But as thousands of those brethren pour over the mountains into isolated northern Albania, carrying accounts of Serbian destruction, they are arousing the sympathy -- and support -- of this country's 3.2 million people.

Today, more than 1,000 people converged on the main square here in the capital, shouting and chanting demands that Kosovo should be independent.

Leaders of the Democratic Party, Albania's largest opposition group headed by former president Sali Berisha, egged on the demonstrators waving Albanian flags, European Union seals and one large U.S. flag.

It was the latest attempt by Berisha, who was forced to resign last year after his party's defeat in parliamentary elections, to reap political gain from Kosovo's problems by stoking Albanian nationalism.

Albania's largest-selling newspapers are spewing pages of opinionated reportage that supports Kosovo's claim to independence. State-run television is airing vintage films about Albanian war heroes such as Bajram Curri, who in 1913 became the first leader of the Kosovo independence movement. An early evening news program routinely reports on the conflict by referring to Serbs as "the enemy" and "the forces of the occupier."

Even an outdoor song festival, planned weeks in advance, was changed at the last minute this week to make the fires of Kosovo something to sing -- if not wail -- about.

"Long live free Kosovo, long live the KLA," rocked one headline performer, referring to the Kosovo Liberation Army, the province's separatist guerrilla force. Nearly every act in the raucous two-day festival was tinged with rhetoric about Albanian destiny.

Some analysts said government leaders, smarting from Berisha's taunts, are changing their own language about the crisis. Others said the government of Prime Minister Fatos Nano, in power for only one year, is struggling to maintain a near-impossible balancing act in this primitive democracy.

"What we expect from them is clear: peaceful dialogue," one European diplomat said. "But it's becoming more and more dangerous for this government, in the face of all this nationalist feeling. They know that nationalism has become a profitable pose for their opponents."

Indeed, some recent government attempts to curry favor with Kosovo nationalists have been poorly calculated.

As international aid agencies scrambled last week to ferry food supplies to refugees in the north, the army, according to sources, rebuffed the idea of airlifting food to the region. Two days ago, however, the government dispatched two military helicopters to airlift Bujar Bukoshi, who has the title of prime minister in the Kosovo Albanians' government in exile, to visit the refugees in the north.

Bukoshi spent a few hours in the border village of Tropoje, shaking hands with refugees. He was photographed by German journalists, who also were flown in by government helicopter for the event.

Nano has formally asked NATO to supply humanitarian assistance to the refugees and to deploy troops along the border to prevent the conflict from spreading. The political opposition, by contrast, is calling for NATO troops to be sent to Kosovo to put an end to the fighting.

This week, NATO opened a three-man office in Tirana to consult with the Albanian government and military. NATO defense ministers are scheduled to meet in Brussels Thursday and Friday to discuss possible military action to stem the conflict.

NATO already is planning two exercises in Albania this year to shore up this country's military. Next month, NATO will conduct naval exercises off the coast of Durres, an Adriatic port. Ground and air exercises will be held near the town of Bize, about 30 miles from Tirana, in late August.

NATO has calculated that as many as 20,000 troops would be needed to secure the border now easily traversed by smugglers and armed Kosovo rebels heading back to battle.