INTRODUCTION - Part 02

On the other hand, Belgrade circles intensified their police regimes which, outside of torturing, arresting and interning Albanians under false charges and without court trials, forced many Muslim Albanians to move to Turkey. As a result of these Serbian genocidal policies, during the 1950s and 1960s alone, over 50 thousand were killed and approximately 300 thousand were displaced outside of Yugoslavia.

However, the national consciousness of Albanians was not crushed and neither was their spirit to resist. After a quarter century of abuses, the Albanians were the first nation in the Yugoslav federation to publicly protest against national oppression.

The oppressed Albanians erupted into strong demonstrations in 1968 by which they made requests that Kosovo (unfortunately only to a part of Kosovo) be given the status of republic within the Yugoslav federation. The 1968 demonstrations, which can be considered as the first shot fired at the federal Yugoslav structure, announced the approaching storm. Oppressive measures were taken by Belgrade which made the situation tenser from year to year. To avoid things

from getting even worse, in 1974, the Yugoslav federal authorities gave the province of Kosovo a new constitution. Kosovo and Vojvodina, under this Constitution were recognized as autonomous provinces of Serbia and at the same time, constituent elements of the Yugoslav federation. As a consequence of this decision Kosovo and the six Yugoslav republics each had their own special constitution, their own executive bodies, provincial assembly and constitutional court. Each had a representative in the Yugoslav Presidency and Yugoslav Federal Executive Council. Serbian republic authorities could not exercise their jurisdiction over Kosovo without approval from the Kosovo Provincial Assembly, Executive Council and Constitutional Court. Participation in the adoption of laws was done through the Board of delegates from the republics and provinces that sat on the Federal Yugoslavian Assembly. So, the province of Kosovo, although it continued to be called an autonomous province, practically acted like one of the Yugoslav federal republics.

The 1974 Constitution, compared to the previous situation, was a victory for the Albanians in the area of national rights, especially in the field of education and culture. But very quickly they saw that it was not enough. It had limitations.

Sanctioned within it was the possibility of once again separating the province of Kosovo from the other Albanian territory within the Federal Republics of Yugoslavia. The mere creation of a province, and not a republic with a population greater than some of the other republics in the Federation legalized the inequality between the Albanians in the province and the Albanians in the other Yugoslav republics. As a result of these limitations, the Albanians were treated as second-class citizens and as such they were discriminated against economically and culturally.

But even though they were restricted, Serbian nationalist circles continued to revolve, stubbornly persisting in totally denying the Albanians their national rights. The reason for their intervention; to quell the Albanian student demonstration at the Pristina University, which erupted in the spring of 1981, which, according to these Serbian nationalists, were attempts by the students to apply 1968 principles in order to convert Kosovo into a Yugoslav Republic. Belgrade tanks suppressed the popular events, just as Moscow did in

Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968. Regardless of how these 1981 demonstrations were seen, they marked another shot taken at the now porous Yugoslav federation. The shakeup that Belgrade suffered from the Albanian national movement showed how porous the Yugoslav federation had become. With the brutal Serbian military intervention which crushed the 1981 demonstrations, there was gradual loss of autonomy for the province’s institutions which, by March 1989, were liquidated and in an arbitrary manner so was Kosovo’s autonomy with military violence. By the end of the year, the province of Kosovo was converted into an administrative unit of the Republic of Serbia and was no longer a constituent element of the Federation. The 1974 Constitution was unilaterally withdrawn by Serbia’s Parliament, which was inconsistent with its Constitution and by the tanks which were imposed on the Assembly of Kosovo. Albanian protests in Kosovo were bloodily crushed. A Serbian military occupation was established accompanied by a police regime of terror, arrests, internments, murder and pressures to alienate the youth from their homeland. Albanian schools were closed and their teachers removed.

Proclamation of the Republic of Kosovo

The Kosovo provincial Government authorities remained passive against Belgrade’s military and police violence. But representatives from the Albanian population of Kosovo, relying on the well-known principle of the right to self-determination, on September 7th, 1990 gathered together in Kachinik, during the time just before the Yugoslav Socialist Federation fell apart. There they proclaimed Kosovo a Republic and tried to separate it from Serbia. They proclaimed it an equal subject of the Yugoslav federation and adopted a Constitution. With the proclamation of the Republic of Kosovo, they finally realized the demand made in the Bujan Conference in the beginning of 1944, when such a request was again made by the popular protests from the autumn of 1968, and repeated with strong demonstrations in the spring of 1981.

Even though the Republic of Kosovo did not ask for inclusions in the framework of all its ethnic Albanian regions that suffered under Yugoslav occupation, the special proclamation it did make however, marked an important step towards the realization of the greater

program - Albanian national revival. Even more so, it marked the beginning of the breakup of Socialist Federal Yugoslavia...

(Following are some pages that describe conditions and events in Kosovo from 1981 to 1989 when a state of emergency was declared in the province, about the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, and about the Peace Conference on the former Yugoslavia/Carrington, which does not take into account Kosovo’s requirements for independence, the usual compendium of facts and harsh national rhetoric).

As is well known, in the month of February this year (1989 DM), when the Serbian armed police began its terror campaign, the Kosovo Albanians could no longer remain patient. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA-UCK) appeared on the scene with its armed wing of Albanian resistance. Getting out on stage the KLA collided with the political line of the international community about the resolution of the Kosovo “crisis” in a peaceful manner. Because of the intransigence on the part of Belgrade this line found itself in a deadlock, the international community, rather than putting pressure on Slobodan Milosevic, reacted negatively about the KLA justified armed action. This reaction gave Milosevic reason to undertake military operations against the peace-loving Kosovo population. But Belgrade’s hopes that with these operations, the violence in Kosovo would quickly end and the Kosovo “crisis” would be solved before the international forces intervened in Bosnia, was a complete failure. Even after killing thousands of Albanians, burning tens of thousands of homes, causing major destruction to the provincial economy, displacing hundreds of thousands of Kosovo residents, the spirit of the Albanian resistance was not destroyed. The KLA, rather than weakening after each battle, intensified its pressure. By now, in the eyes of the international community, it had become a major factor in the Kosovo crisis. Belgrade charged that the KLA was a terrorist organization and it could no longer be trusted. Day by day the belief intensified that the cause of this great stain on this humanitarian disaster that was taking place in the heart of Europe at the end of the 20th century, was Slobodan Milosevic, together with his Serbian political class, from the time it was drugged with aggressive nationalism. Every day more and more voices were raised demanding that Slobodan Milosevic and his associates be taken to

The Hague and tried for the mass murder they committed against the peaceful people and crimes against humanity.

However, there were still influential international circles which could not easily be separated from the outdated prejudices that Kosovo was Serbian land. It was necessary that these circles understood that it was not because of the guilt of two million Albanians demanding national freedom, but because of these prejudices cultivated by Belgrade, the so-called “Kosovo crisis” was now no longer only a Serbian crisis, but a widely expanding crisis in the entire Balkans. Consequently, a solution was needed to resolve the crisis in Serbia together with that of the entire Balkan Peninsula.

Also, there is a need for the international factor to observe the “Kosovo crisis” not only at a political level, but also at a historical, economic, social and cultural level. The issue of the Albanian territory separated from the Albanian state is a matter of a fractured nation. We are talking about a nation whose territory from centuries ago, before it crumbled in 1913, had achieved economic, social and demographic balance between the field (agriculture) and Mountain (livestock), a balance which was broken when this territory was given to the neighbouring countries by the great diplomacy. The most productive parts of the Albanian territory were given away while squeezing the narrowing Albanian independent state mainly in the mountains and wetland areas. Therefore, the Albanian national question is not only about the spiritual aspiration of an ancient nation unjustly torn apart by the great diplomacy, it is also about a crippled nation with imperative requirements, half of which is in danger of physical extinction, while the other half, even though it has its own independent country, continues to feel the effects of territorial fragmentation in the economic, social, cultural and demographic fields.

The road to resolution

Posed a long time ago, in itself arises the question that worries all Albanians: “what should be done to overcome this drama in which the Albanian national question is found today?” All Albanians, no matter where they are settled, from this or that side of the border, inside or outside of their ethnic territory, all desire faster unification

of their territory into a single Albanian state, and as they put it in their programs, “our great renaissance from the last century”. But are there objective and subjective factors, national and international circumstances, political and material possibilities for their realization?

There is no doubt that the present Albanian national question situation is more complicated than that in the period of their national revival. In those days all Albanian regions were under the domination of a single state - the Ottoman Empire. In those days all Albanians were together in one line and fought against the Sublime Porte. Today, however, the ethnic Albanian territory is broken up between five countries, four of which are foreign. But, unlike the period of the national revival, today there is an independent Albanian state, acknowledged in the international arena, whose primary task is to hold open the flag for the national question. This, certainly, is a positive circumstance. But on the other hand, in order to realize this great program the boundaries of the four Balkan national states need to change, and to also be affirmed in the international scene. This is a negative circumstance, but if we want to be realistic, we should recognize that there are difficult obstacles that we need to overcome in the current environment. Our national question cannot be addressed without the support of the international community.

In regards to the international community, we need to keep in mind the epoch when the Great Powers manipulated the political map of the continents which lasted up until 1946. After World War II, regulation of national issues was left in the hands of the United Nations (UN), in whose charter was fixed the basic principle of self-determination of peoples. The post-war years unfortunately were characterized by a division of the world into antagonistic blocks and attempts to establish order was done by force. The international situation in the last decade however, thoroughly changed.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, with the end of the Cold War, the time for political realignment and attempts to bring change to world order by force, came to an end. Consequently, the time for the Balkan states being established in opposing blocks, now also belongs to the past. With the end of the Cold War, the Warsaw Pact,

created by the Soviet Union to defend the communist world, fell apart. With its disintegration, all countries belonging to the communist world made attempts to enter NATO. Today, regulation of national issues has fallen into the hands of strong world and continental bodies such as the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Safety and Security in Europe (OSCE), the European Parliament, the Council of Europe and other organizations, acting on the basis of the charters and statutes adopted by Assemblies. And, as is well known, their main aim is to prevent armed conflicts that bring suffering to humanity and to protect the weaker states from military violence from the stronger ones.

For these reasons, all international organizations respect the principle of political borders, regardless of injustices inherited from the past and strive to correct wrongs peacefully and through talks. International and European political bodies have repeated three basic points in their post-war doctrine: no violent change in state borders, recognition of the rights of minorities, and peacefully handling all disputes between neighbouring countries. Otherwise, no state will be admitted into the ranks of NATO, nor will it be included in the circle of the European Community, nor will it have backing from the United States.

The use of violence against any party for whatever motive, including denial of national rights, will be penalized with a penalty ranging from economic sanctions, to military intervention. International bodies are convinced that this road will be traveled painlessly from a Europe of countries to a Europe of nations, whose political borders will be turned into ethno-cultural boundaries.

However, international bodies, particularly the United States, do not rule out the use of military force when it comes to government circles using their police forces to violently suppress human rights, and with their arrogant attitudes, to endanger peace in the region. As an example of this we have the Western powers pressuring Serbia to renounce aggression against Slovenia, to stop military operations against Croatia and to definitively not divide Bosnia.

With their intervention, the Balkan conflicts were resolved in some places by pressure and threats, in others by military means, while some problems still remain without a final solution.

However, although a number of issues have not been resolved definitively, some significant results have been achieved. Serbians in Bosnia, for example, previously did not have the status of a republic, not even an autonomous province. With the Dayton Agreement Bosnian Serbs established their own republic (Republika Srpska) within Federal Bosnia. Conversely, Kosovo which previously was an autonomous province with a constitution approaching the status of a republic, arbitrarily lost its autonomy which it had gained in 1974, when in effect it should have acquired the right to be a republic within Federal Yugoslavia. The international community, aware of the problem, rightly asked Serbia; why the Albanians of Kosovo, who by population were three times more than the Serbs in Bosnia, were denied that right? Or; why did Western forces deny the Albanians the same right that was given to the Serbs?

Several months passed during which time there was talk about NATO militarily intervening in order to force Belgrade to stop the terror against the Albanians and to withdraw its police and paramilitary forces from Kosovo. Military intervention was understood to be a means of saving the Albanian population from a humanitarian disaster, but then what would be the political status of Kosovo? Many ideas have been proposed in order to give Kosovo broader autonomy, according to some within Serbia, and according to others in the Yugoslav Federation.

Why must the problem get worse, misunderstandings fired up, debates made difficult, solutions made complicated, when all the international bodies, from the UN and the OSCE to the Council of the European Parliament, have already proclaimed in their charters that the highest principle for solving national rights is the right to self-determination. According to the Albanian Academy of Sciences: if the ethnic problems in the Balkans, including the rights of the ethnic Albanians in the region, are addressed by the application of the principle of self-determination, then the Balkan Peninsula will find peace, and only then will the Balkans no longer

be a “powder keg”, and there will be no more need for political deployment of states against each other.

The Balkan neighbouring states, within whose borders exist ethnic Albanian regions, have formally accepted this doctrine in principle, but not entirely in practice; some have accepted more some less. Serbia, which leads the rest of Yugoslavia and governs outside of Albania, has used police violence to oppose these principles. Consequently, the ethnic Albanian regions, annexed in 1913 by Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Greece, have problems relating to their national rights. But because of the large weight of the Albanian population, or because of the political conditions these compatriots find themselves in, the tasks put forth to address the route to a solution are not the same. Regardless of that, the resolution should be sought within the historical process that engulfed the European continent - meaning the road to peace, with democratic means and with the support of international bodies, which proclaimed and defend these principles.

The Kosovo Question

The most critical and immediate problem to solve is the state of affairs of the Kosovo Albanians. There is a need above all to explain once again that the province of Kosovo, totaling 10,877 square kilometres, with Pristina as its capital, does not cover the entire Albanian territory that lies within the Republic of Serbia’s borders. Without considering the historic parts of Kosovo, which Federal Yugoslavia divided and gave to Macedonia and Montenegro, in Serbia, outside of the Kosovo province, there are three other territories that are located in southern Serbia; the Kosovo Province (along with the three territories) accounts for about 14 thousand square kilometres, meaning approximately half the territory occupied by the Republic of Albania.

These special features should be taken into account together with the Kosovo issue.

The end of July 1998 marked 85 years from the day that the Conference of Ambassadors took place. The Conference was held in London under the presidency of the British Foreign Secretary, Sir

Edward Grey, where, among other things, six Great Powers decided that Kosovo and Macedonia be annexed by the Kingdom of Serbia. On August 12, 1913, two weeks after the signing of the verdict, Grey, head of the Foreign Office, while explaining the situation to the House of Commons, with regard to determining Albania’s borders by the Conference of Ambassadors, admitted that this injustice was committed on the backbone of the Albanian people, and at the same time pointed out that this injustice committed by the Great Powers did, in fact, one important thing, save the peace in Europe. But did the sacrifice of the rights of the Albanian people truly save the peace? No it did not!

A year later, on August 4, 1914, the First World War broke out, whose spark was ignited by Serbia, led by the appropriation of foreign territories.

We should not forget that Europe gave the Serbian dynasty Kosovo and Macedonia in 1913 because they were allegedly Serbian lands, as claimed by Belgrade, but the real political and strategic reasons for this was to prevent the expansion of Austria-Hungary to Solun.

But this factor no longer exists. With the establishment of the Republic of Macedonia with its acceptance by the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade admitted that the part of Macedonia, which was annexed in 1913, was not Serbian land. Kosovo, which is also not Serbian land, has the same right to separate just like Macedonia did.

During these 85 years, since Kosovo was annexed by Belgrade, not only did the Albanians but also the Serbs themselves never had peace. History in the last 85 years has shown that Serbia, treating Kosovo as “Serbian territory”, which needed to be cleansed of its Albanian inhabitants, is in fact punishing Serbia. By its own policies Serbia has turned Kosovo, not into a healing wound, but into a festering gangrene that is eating away at it from the inside. It is true that Kosovo has fertile agricultural lands and rich mineral deposits that bring Serbia revenue, but the Serbian authorities must also take into consideration the damages that come from it. The police terror, which was to secure Serbian peace inside, is definitely not working. The gap between the Serbian government and the Albanian population is only deepening. To keep the Albanians under

surveillance, Belgrade constantly burdened the state budget with parasitic military spending. Similarly, the policy of ethnic cleansing is not working. Moreover, the policy of ethnic cleansing weakened the Serbian government’s awareness in solving other problems that would have accelerated its economic progress. The aggressive Serbian nationalism, which, after the whirlpool in Bosnia, concentrated in Kosovo, ignited tension in the Balkans and in Europe. It also has continued to discredit Serbia’s image in the international arena. Serbia’s stubborn continuation of its policy to ethnically cleanse itself has already been defeated, and will only lead Serbia in the hopeless adventure on which it has been since 1913. Briefly, Serbia can only get rid of the gangrene it calls Kosovo if it removes it from its body.

Serbia has evolved much since it annexed Kosovo (1913) - during the Kingdom of Serbia, during the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, after that during the socialist federation and now in the Federation of Republics - has even changed its legal status towards Kosovo. The valuation of Kosovo in the Yugoslav Constitution as a component of the Federation; with the breakup of Yugoslavia and with the separation of some of its republics; with the non-participation of the Kosovo Albanian in parliamentary elections in Serbia; with the special parliamentary elections which in the meantime were organized by the Albanians in Kosovo; with the proclamation of the Republic of Kosovo by the Assembly in Kachanik; and in the end, with the national referendum in September 1991, which proclaimed the independence of the Republic of Kosovo, based on the principle of self-determination, Serbia lost its legal title which justified its sovereignty over the province of Kosovo.

Finally, despite the policy of ethnic cleansing that Belgrade led from the time of the Russo-Turkish wars of 1887-1878 to this day, despite the pain it caused for the Albanians, mostly in historic Kosovo, the Albanians still are where they were all these centuries. Despite mass migrations, forced by Belgrade, their numbers are increasing.

Today these Albanians represent about 90 percent of the province’s population. If their demographic growth is to continue at the current pace, and even at a reduced pace, the day will come when the Serbian authorities will have to deal not like today with two million

Albanians, but double that and even triple. Do the Serbian authorities think they are confident that they can keep them all under surveillance, in the bay of the European continent, this mass of people thirsty for freedom, at a time when the gap between the Serbian political mass and the Albanian population in the province is so deep so that their coexistence in the future is almost impossible?

The present international situation for resolving the Kosovo issue is more favourable than at the time of Socialist Federal Yugoslavia, when the European Union did not take into account its rights. Today, thanks to the continuous growth of the Albanian national movement and the arrogant attitude of the nationalist government in Belgrade, the international community is very sensitive towards the Kosovo issue and especially towards the national rights of Albanians in general. The sensitivity and concern from the international bodies extends even further, to the danger of unrest caused by Belgrade expanding in Kosovo and outside its boundaries. Consequently, the question of international military intervention in Kosovo to end Slobodan Milosevic’s nationalistic-territorial ambitions, like it did in Bosnia, has been on the agenda for several months. Under these circumstances and at the present stage Albanians should be able to use all the tools and all the opportunities offered to them by the international community. It is essential that they demonstrate the necessary commitment to take such actions, which will encourage international political factors to overcome the current hesitation to adopt the necessary decisions for a fast resolution of the Kosovo issue, proclaimed by the universal principles of human rights and the right of government. At the same time, Albanians should guarantee to the international community that the Republic of Kosovo in the centre of the Balkan Peninsula will equally be open to Serbia and to Albania as a factor of peace in Southeast Europe and beyond. To be above party differences is a necessary condition for the realization of this sacred task of uniting all Albanians into a single national front.

In conclusion, given that international standardized principles for freedom of peoples and nations and for the self-determination of nations are on the Albanian side, and especially considering that the then coexistence of Serbian political circles with the Albanian masses in Kosovo forever will be a source of unrest in the region,

we think that the only possible solution that will ensure peace, welfare and prosperity of the two peoples is the quick involvement of the international community to force Belgrade to recognize the Republic of Kosovo separated from Serbia, leaving its people alone to decide its status as a republic.

The Albanian Question in Macedonia

Just like in the Republic of Serbia, a considerable number of ethnic Albanians live in Macedonia. Just like in Kosovo, these ethnic Albanian regions too have territorial continuity. Until a few decades ago they were part of historic southern Kosovo. The Albanian regions here span from the north and west of the Republic of Macedonia, from Debar to Kumanovo. There are, say, twenty years during which time Macedonian authorities did not publish the exact number of Albanians. Officially they say that the Albanians represent 23 percent of the Republic’s total population. At the same time they locked out 170 thousand Albanians under the pretext that they lost their Macedonian citizenship, which is not true. But other sources speak of a greater number of Albanians. It can be said without fear that they represent not less than 35 per cent of the total population. The Macedonians represent only 55 percent of the population, including those who consider themselves Bulgarians (the rest are Serbs, Turks, Roma, etc.).

With their significant numbers the Albanians in general cannot be treated as a minority, and thus must be treated the same as the Macedonians in their own state. Sadly, no matter that they enjoy some rights in primary and secondary education, and more or less in local administration, the Albanians in Macedonia are treated as discriminated citizens in comparison to other citizens. The Skopje authorities are doing their best to reduce or even to offset the weight of Albanians in state structures and political life in Macedonia. In fact, the participation of Albanians in state structures is about two percent of the civil and military apparatus. The number of Albanian members in the Macedonian Parliament, because of the maneuvers made during the election, do not represent the exact numbers in the Albanian population. There is one Macedonian MP in parliament in Skopje representing about 8 to 10 thousand Macedonians, while in

the Albanian zones one Albanian MP represents 15 or 18 thousand inhabitants, and in some cases more.

As a consequence of this discrimination against Albanians, regardless of positive assessments from international circles, the Republic of Macedonia is a porous state. International military forces stationed on ethnic Albanian territories are attempting to hold up the Macedonian building on its feet with crutches.

World news mediums repeatedly broadcast on the police violence perpetrated by the Macedonian administration, whose victims are Albanians. Certain international circles have even made attempts to silence the crisis which is eroding the Macedonian state from the inside. But the crisis will not soften, let alone be overcome, if they do not recognize the national rights of the Albanians, as required by fundamental international laws.

What was said about Serbia, over the pace of growth of the Albanian population, applies even more to Macedonia. If the same pace continues, there will be a distant day when the Albanian population will be the same, and even surpass the Macedonian population. Consequently, today’s problems in ethnic relations will not be reduced, but will rise. So, in order to prevent the deepening of the internal crisis that exists in Macedonia, which causes violation of the Albanian national rights, there are two options for a solution: a) either the Albanians will be considered equal to the Macedonian citizens, and therefore, Macedonia will be considered their common country, according to the famous example of the Austro-Hungarian state, or b) the Albanians will enjoy the right to an autonomous province within the Republic of Macedonia. Only then will today’s treatment of Albanians in Macedonia, as second-class citizens, be removed, among other things, the discrimination in terms of budget funds, the inequality in the courts, the prohibition of Tetovo University, the national flag, the use of the Albanian language in official acts, etc., etc...

(There are also five more pages of text left out of the volume, which refer to the Albanians in Montenegro, Greece and the Albanian ethno-linguistic minorities in Italy, inside Greece, Bulgaria, Thrace, Croatia etc. The point of the text is non-recognition of their ethno-

cultural rights but more than that - in Montenegro (autonomy) and the same in Greece.)