After largely ignoring the deteriorating situation in the Balkans since President Bush was elected in 2000, the Bush administration has decided on a new strategy designed to finally settle whether Kosovo will become fully independent of Serbia, U.S. officials said.
Ethnic tensions have been rising in Kosovo, which is still administered by the United Nations six years after NATO bombed Serbia over its treatment of the Kosovars. Sporadic violence has erupted between the majority Albanian and minority Serbian populations, most recently in March, as the region's status has remained in limbo.
"If you freeze the situation for two or more years, you are likely to create a pressure cooker," a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the plan has not been announced. He said the United States is signaling that it is now committed to resolving the outstanding issues in Bosnia and Kosovo.
The plan, which Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns will announce in congressional testimony tomorrow and a speech Thursday, has been carefully worked out in intensive discussions with U.N. and European officials. The United Nations will shortly appoint Kai Eide, the Norwegian ambassador to NATO, to assess whether Kosovo is ready for final-status talks. Once that certification is made, probably by mid-autumn, then the United Nations will sponsor international negotiations on whether Kosovo should remain part of Serbia, become independent or achieve a hybrid status.
Russia, the traditional defender of the Serbs, initially appeared to support the idea but has since expressed reservations, the official said.
The administration will combine this push on Kosovo with a warning to Serbia that a normal relationship with the United States and NATO depends on the capture of the two most-wanted war criminals from the Bosnian war -- former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, Ratko Mladic. Over the past two months, the Serbian government has delivered about a dozen people to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, but Karadzic and Mladic are crucial because they ordered the killings of nearly 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica.
Karadzic was recently spotted having lunch with his wife in southeastern Bosnia, according to reports in the region. The administration official noted that July 11 will mark the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. "We can't forget that," he said. "That is the next big step for the Serbian government. They have to face that."
Richard C. Holbrooke, who in the Clinton administration was instrumental in forging the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the Bosnian war 10 years ago, applauded the initiative. "They inherited a Balkans policy they neither understood nor appreciated," the former U.N. ambassador said. "They were warned by many people that the situation would deteriorate. They are now -- and I am very glad to see it -- in the process of revising their policy significantly."
The administration's push appears to be part of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's effort to clean up the diplomatic underbrush that gathered as policymakers in Bush's first term focused on the war on terrorism.
Burns also has been a key player in engineering the administration's renewed interest in Kosovo. As a former ambassador to Greece and to NATO, Burns is intimately familiar with Balkan issues. He recently traveled to Europe to line up allied support for the initiative.
Holbrooke said there is "no way U.S. troops can leave Kosovo" unless there is an agreement on its final status. "The key thing is for the U.S. to assume the leadership role that it had abdicated. We cannot have a strong NATO or a stable Europe if the Balkans are on fire."
Bush administration officials say that they cannot predict how the multi-year process of determining Kosovo's future will end, and that the administration will not advocate a particular option.
But Holbrooke predicted that eventually Montenegro will separate from Serbia and that Kososo will become independent, laying the groundwork for all seven parts of the former Yugoslavia to move toward membership in the European Union. Slovenia already has been granted membership.
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14 comments:
Great News
This is great news! Wondering what Solana think about it? Knowing that he's greatest career achievement is the formation of the union Monte Negro - Serbia. Needless to say that independence of Kosova means a short life of Solanion and of course end of his career.
Yes, the Bush administration didn't understand the situation in the Balkans that they had inherited, just as Holbrooke says. What they didn't, and don't, apparently understand is that it is based on a completely false premise and that the unrest and wars in the former Yugoslavia were engineered by people for whom it either furthered their careers or lined their pockets, or both. Holbrooke is one of THE biggest recipients of benefits from this fiasco and has been paid off by the Albanians for years in what was a land grab for them and a potential military base for the U.S. What he and his cohorts like Clinton and Albright did was to turn lies into a propaganized "truth," white into black - in other words, they caused a needless war predicated on lies that benefitted them and the Albanians. I challenge anyone to follow the money. Start with Holbrooke's accounts and move through the others'. But nobody needs to expect Bush to improve anything. His family is so buddy-buddy with the Clintons now as to make any differences laughable. Kosovo is doomed unless somebody stands up for what is the truth. As for Srebrenica, they have yet to prove anything. Why, for example, have they kept official U.S. government reports SECRET? If there is something to tell, they should tell it. If they don't want us to know what's in the reports, then it stands to reason that the reports would undermine their propaganda claims and prove them to be the liars they are. Yes, yes, the Iraq war(s) are based on lies, but you ain't seen nothin' until you actually examine the lies created to "justify" the billions of dollars spent to bomb Serbia and Kosovo. Shame on this country for what it has done to other countries! Shame on this country for tolerating such manipulating bastards in our government and keeping the population dumbed down.
It is great that Bush is taking initiative in the Balkans. He has had a lot on his hands with the Middle East but he does take care of business.
I am sorry to hear that some of the bloggers do not believe in the leadership of America. To those of you who do not stand behind this country, I would hope that you consider the leadership of China or Russia and how different our world would be if they were the America today. Yes America has its flaws but it also has its merits. Merits that no other country comes close to.
One of the children killers posted the comment above.
Again and again with this crap. Accusing Albanians and Bosnians of manipulating world politics, as if we are the strongest political and financial countries in the world. What a dumbass. Serbs and their conspiracy theories; they never cease in creating this kind of bullshit and then turning into myths for the future Serb generation to violently brainwashed by these myths. What a bunch of anachronists.
I think the last poster commented appropriately about the hateful venom spewed by the "anonymous" poster at 1:41 pm. If the Kosovar Albanians had so much clout so as to manipulate and pay off the US government, as the commentator above argues, they would have gotten their act together long ago. You have presented no proof of "the money" that you claim has enriched Holbrooke and others. And if your argument had any merit at all, you completely undermine it by trying to argue that the Srberenica massacre is a myth. You are going to have to come to terms with it -- Srebrenica happened. Racak happened. Serbs were responsible.
The second posting is correct but you are too gullible to realize it. It's easier to believe the propaganda, isn't it? Most of you live in lala land where the you believe what you would like to be true instead of what actually is true. It's harder to think for yourselves, isn't it, then to believe what you're told? You disbelievers, I challenge you to actually check the facts - I mean SERIOUSLY check them. You'll find out some day, in any case, and then you can kick your own behinds for being so bigoted -- if you have enough character to face yourselves. I leave you with one question: if Serbia was the culprit, then HOW IS IT that of all the parts of the former Yugoslavia, Slovenia (now almost ethnically pure), Croatia (now ethnically cleansed), Bosnia (severe segregation), and ESPECIALLY KOSOVO (almost 100% ethnically cleansed by murder, arson and intimidation committed by Albanians), are either ethnically cleansed or have serious segregation - except for Serbia? Only Serbia proper has more than 30 different nationalities living peacefully side by side, and has had so for its entire existence, including over a hundred thousand Albanians in Belgrade, alone.
This whole country should be blushing with shame for what it did to one of its staunches allies (through 2 world wars!) that gave so many of its own to beat Hitler. This country, under Clinton, chose to support those who were on the side of fascism in WWII -- who brutally killed over 600,000 Serbs, Jews and Gypsies at Jasenovac (the WWII concentration camp with the 3rd biggest loss of life at the hands of fascists, Croatian fascists, also supported by Albanians -- do you even know about that? No, it's not in your government's interests for you to know. Go and read up about it. Educate yourselves, just for a change...
You can demonize a people, but at least admit that it's nothing more than checkbook demonization, and not based on the truth.
Take your own advice and do some research into jasenovac. 600, 000 victims is absurd. Stop spreading communist propaganda. And stop trying to manipulate the victim count in order to justify cetnik (serb) crimes in srebrenica, vukovar, bleiburg etc etc. Three independand studies were conducted into jasenovac and all came to the conclusion that only 50, 000 - 70, 000 victims died. Also the belgrade museum of the holocaust in serbia confirms this figure. STOP spreading propagander, and stick to fact.
Directed at 6:00 pm poster.
Historical Documentation of Serbian Oppression & Atrocities
The following excerpts are taken from ≥Gathering Clouds,≤ which contains five seminal texts regarding Serbian ethnic cleansing that were written from 1913 to 1944 and include both viewpoints; victims and the perpetrators. (1) Albaniaπs Golgotha. Indictment of the exterminators of the Albanian people; Leo Freundlich (1913); (2) The situation of the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia. Memorandum presented to the League of Nations; Catholic Priests, Father Gjon Bisaku, ShtjefÎn Kurti & Luigj Gashi (1930); (3) The expulsion of the Albanians. Memorandum by Vaso Cubrilovic (1937); (4) Draft on Albania; Ivo Andric; and (5) The minority problem in the new Yugoslavia. Memorandum by Vaso Cubrilovic (1944). Not only are the Serbian atrocities documented, but the Serbs themselves present their plans for territorial expansion and the creation of an ≥Ethnically Pure Greater Serbia.≤
The Mode of Evacuation[14]
As we have already stressed, the mass evacuation of the Albanians from their triangle is the only effective course we can take. In order to relocate a whole people, the first prerequisite is the creation of a suitable psychosis. This can be done in various ways.
It is well known that the Moslem masses are generally readily influenced by religion and are prone to superstition and fanaticism. Therefore, we must first of all win over the clergy and men of influence through money and threats in order for them to give their support to the evacuation of the Albanians. Agitators, especially from Turkey, must be found as quickly as possible to promote the evacuation, if Turkey will provide them for us. They must laud the beauties of the new territories in Turkey and the easy and pleasant life to be had there, and must kindle religious fanaticism among the masses and awaken pride in the Turkish state. Our press can be of colossal assistance by describing how gently the evacuation of the Turks from Dobruja took place and how easily they settled in their new regions. Such information would create the requisite predisposition for the masses of Albanians to be willing to leave.
Another means would be coercion by the state apparatus. The law must be enforced to the letter so as to make staying intolerable for the Albanians: fines, imprisonment, the ruthless application of all police regulations, such as the prohibition of smuggling, cutting forests, damaging agriculture, leaving dogs unchained, compulsory labour and any other measure that an experienced police force can contrive. From the economic aspect, this should include the refusal to recognize old land deeds. The work of the land registry should be accompanied from the start by the ruthless collection taxes and the payment of all private and public debts, the requisitioning of all public and municipal pasture land, the cancellation of concessions, the withdrawal of permits to exercise an occupation, dismissal from government, private and municipal offices etc., all of which will speed up the process of evacuation. Health measures should include the harsh application of all regulations, even within homes, the pulling down of encircling walls and high hedges around private houses, and the rigorous implementation of veterinary measures which will result in a ban on selling livestock on the market, etc. All these measures can be applied in a practical and effective way. The Albanians are very touchy when it comes to religion. They must therefore be harassed on this score, too. This can be achieved through the ill-treatment of their clergy, the demolition of their cemeteries, the prohibition of polygamy, and especially the inflexible application of the regulation compelling girls to attend elementary school, wherever they are.
Private initiative, too, can assist greatly in this direction. We should distribute weapons to our colonists, as need be. The old form of Chetnik action should be organized and secretly assisted. In particular, a mass migration of Montenegrins should be launched from the mountain pastures in order to create a large-scale conflict with the Albanians in Metohija. This conflict should be prepared and encouraged by people we can trust. This can be easily achieved since the Albanians have, indeed, revolted. The whole affair can be presented as a conflict between clans and, if need be, can be ascribed to economic reasons. Finally, local riots can be incited. These will be bloodily suppressed by the most effective means, tough by colonists from the Montenegrin clans and Chetniks, rather than by means of the army.
There remains on more method. Serbia employed with great practical effect after 1878, that is, secretly razing Albanian villages and urban settlements to the ground.[15]
Reasons why the minority problem in Yugoslavia must be solved.[16]
Quite aside from the disloyalty of the minorities, there are other important interests of state which compel us to take advantage of the current war to solve the problem of minorities by expelling them. Our minorities, as we have previously stressed, do not constitute a danger to us because of their numbers but rather because of their geopolitical position and the ties which they maintain with the neighbouring peoples to whom they are related. It is because of such ties that the neighbouring peoples have been able to use them to wage war against us. At present, the minorities are nothing more than stumbling-blocks in our relations with these neighbouring states. The democratic federation of Yugoslavia will only achieve peace and ensure its development if it can be made ethnically pure and if, by solving its minority problems, it can remove the causes of friction with neighbouring states once and for all.
Commission of Atrocities
The above sheds some understanding on the reasons for being aggressors, and how they come to justify their oppression and aggression, but we need to now address their ability and willingness to rape, mutilate, torture and kill women and children, and to wipe out entire families all with the support of their Church. The words ≥expulsion,≤ and ≥ethnic cleansing≤ provide the goal, and additional insight. The point is not merely to ≥attack first≤ as a ≥defense strategy,≤ it is one of territorial expansion that does not see a ≥need≤ or real ≥use≤ for these potential conquered and if not eliminated, they may become another real threat in the future.
The reader needs to keep in mind that all of the following atrocities that were done by Serbs in 1912-1913 had been done previously and were repeated again in 1987 ≠ 1999. In the following excerpts, although all is especially relevant, I have taken the liberty to boldface sections that I thought need special attention.
A courageous people full of character is being crucified before the eyes of the world and Europe, civilized Christian Europe, remain silent!
Tens of thousands of defenceless people are being massacred, women are being raped, old people and children strangled, hundreds of villages burnt to the ground, priest slaughtered.
And Europe remains silent!
Serbia and Montenegro have set out to conquer a foreign country. But in that land live a freedom-loving, brave people who despite centuries of servitude have not yet become accustomed to bearing a foreign yoke. The solution is obvious. The Albanians must be exterminated!
A crazed and savage soldateska has turned this solution into a gruesome reality.
Countless villages have been razed to the ground, countless individuals have been butchered. Where once the humble cottages of poor Albanians stood, there is nothing left but smoke and ashes. A whole people is perishing on Calvary cross, and Europe remains silent!
Leo Freundlich
Vienna, Easter Sunday 1913[17]
The Serbs took a man, an old woman and two children captive and burnt them alive in this village. In Gjylekar / Djelekare a pregnant woman had her belly slit open with a bayonet and the offspring wrenched out of her body.[18]
In its issue of 21 March, the Neue Freie Presse reports: We have been told by informed sources that, according to recent reports, Catholics and Moslems are being persecuted both in the district of Gjakova / Djakovica and in the district of DibÎr / Debar. Many deaths occur every day. The population has fled, leaving behind all their possessions. It is not only the Albanians who are the object of such persecution, but also Catholic and Moslem Slavs.[19]
On 20 March, the Neue Freie Presse reported: On 7 March, the soldateska joined fanatic Orthodox priests in and around Gjakova / Djakovica to forcefully convert the Catholic population to the Orthodox faith. About 300 persons, men, women and children, among whom Pater Angelus Palić, were bound with ropes and forced under threat of death to convert. An Orthodox priest pointed to the soldiers standing by with their rifles in hand and said, ≥Either you sign the declaration that you have converted to the one true faith or these soldiers of God will send your souls to hell.≤
All the prisoners then signed the forms prepared for them which contained a declaration of conversion to the Orthodox faith. Pater Angelus was the last. He was the only one of them who had the strength, in a calm and dignified manner, to refuse to give up his faith. Pater Angelus stood by his word, even when ordered three times to convert and even when entreated by the other forcefully converted Catholics. The result was one of the most appalling scenes imaginable in twentieth-century Europe.
After a sign from the Orthodox priest, the soldiers fell upon the Franciscan, ripped off his tunic and began beating him with the butts of their rifles. Pater Angelus collapsed after several of his bones and ribs had been fractured. At this moment, the Orthodox priest stopped the soldiers and asked him if he was now willing to convert. Again he shook his head and said placidly, ≥No. I will not abandon my faith and break my oath.≤ Pater Angelus was beaten with the rifle butts again until one of the soldiers plunged a bayonet through the priestπs lungs and put an end to his suffering.[20]
The Serbs have destroyed Catholic churches, saying that they are Austrian constructions and must disappear from the face of the earth.[21]
In Prizren, the Catholic Priest was not allowed to administer communion to the dying. Whoever approached the parish priest was brought before a military tribunal.[22]
On 20 March, the Reichspost published a letter from Albania, reading as follows: The parish priest of the sanctuary of Cenagora or Setnica, Don Tommaso, was robbed by Serbian soldiers of all the funds belonging to the church. The soldiers drew their bayonets, forced him to open the safe and took out all the money belonging to the pilgrimage site.
The parish priest of Gjakova / Djakovica was threatened with death. He was told, ≥Either you give up your links with the Austrian protectorate or we will roast your brains!≤ The courageous reaction of the priest blew the wind out of their sails, however. For three months now, the Serbs have been hindering the parish priest of Ferizaj / Uroševac in his freedom to exercise his office. They have been jailing anyone who talks to him or who goes to mass or confession. The same thing has happened to two priests from Prizren.
All imaginable pressure has been exerted against the Catholics of Janjeva / Janjevo (four hundred families, almost all of whom are ethnic Slavs) to convert to the schismatic church.
For hundreds of years now, about 8,000 Catholics, so-called Laramans or secret Catholics, have been living in this archdiocese. Because of Turkish persecution, they did not profess their faith openly. When the Serbs arrived, several hundred of these Laramans wanted to declare openly that they were Catholic. When a representative of the new government got word of this, they were ordered, ≥Either Moslem or Orthodox. Not Catholic!≤
Near the sanctuary of Letnica is the village of Shashare (ninety families, all of them Catholic). Serbian soldiers took the village, assembled the men on a field and tied them up with ropes. They then looted the homes and brutally raped the women and girls.
Countless Albanian Catholics have been murdered. In Ponoshec / Ponoševac, for instance, thirty men were slaughtered one day while they were going about their business in the village. Their only crime was to admit that they were Albanian Catholics. Near Zhur / Žur, entire families of innocent Catholic tribesmen who had come down to Prizren to purchase salt, oil, sugar etc. were treacherously murdered on their way. The same thing happened near Gjakova / Djakovica where a further seventy Catholics from the parish of Nikaj were slaughtered. The Catholics are persecuted, whereas the native Orthodox are left alone.
In the vicinity of DibÎr / Debar and Monastir / Bitola, as well as in Kosovo, many villages have now been burnt to the ground. The looting is unspeakable. It is sufficient to note that sheep are now being sold at a price of two francs each because nobody knows what to do with them all. So many have been stolen from the Albanians by the Serbs and Montenegrins.
They are now trying to stop us from speaking Albanian. A number of schools teaching Albanian have already been closed down.
The letter ends with the words, ≥May God have mercy upon us, and Europe come and save us. Otherwise we are lost!≤[23]
All the young women and girls of Strumica have been raped and forcibly baptized. The rest of the wretched Moslem population is dying of starvation, destitution and disease ä[24]
All the inhabitants of Drenova / Drenovo were put to death. Between this village and Palikura, a number of graves were found with the heads sticking out of the earth. These are the graves of wretched individuals who were buried alive![25]
The Serbian thirst for blood: The special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph reported the following: All the horrors of history have been outdone by the atrocious conduct of the troops of General Janković. On their march through Albania, the Serbs have treacherously slaughtered not only armed Albanians, but in their savagery even unarmed individuals ≠ old people, women, children and babies at their motherπs breasts.
Drunk with victory, Serbian officers have proclaimed that the only way of pacifying Albania is to exterminate the Albanians. They slaughtered 3,000 people in the region between Kumanova / Kumanovo and Skopje alone. 5,000 Albanians were murdered by the Serbs in the Prishtina area. These people did not die with honour on the battlefield, but were slain in a series of gruesome raids. The Serbian soldiers have found new methods of butchery to satisfy their thirst for blood. Houses were set on fire in several villages and the inhabitants slaughtered like rats when they tried to flee the flames. The men were slain before the eyes of their wives and children. The wretched women were then forced to look on as their children literally hacked to pieces.
Executions were a daily entertainment for the Serbian soldiers. All inhabitants who had been found with weapons in their homes were executed. They were either shot or hanged. Up to thirty-six executions took place a day. How strange it is that the Serbian nationalists living in Hungary should complain about massacres in Albania. Mr Tomić, the former secretary to the Serbian Prime Minister Pašić, reported on his trip from Prizren to Peja / Pec that on both sides of the road he saw nothing but the remnants of burnt-out villages which had been razed to the ground.
The roads were lined with gallows from which the bodies of Albanians were hanging. The road to Gjakova / Djakovica had become a Boulevard of Gibbets.
The Belgrade newspapers reported quite without shame on the heinous atrocities of the Serbs. When Colonel Osbićπs regiment took Prizren, he commanded his compatriots, ≥Kill!≤ When his order was heard, so the Belgrade papers report, ≥the Serbian soldiers stormed into homes and slaughtered every human being they could lay their hands on.≤
The Daily Telegraph then gives the authentic statement of an Albanian notable: Anyone who denounces an Albanian to the Serbs can be sure that the Albanian will be executed. There were people who owed money to Moslem Albanians. They went and denounced them to the Serbs as traitors. The wretched Albanians were immediately hanged and the informers later found ways of acquiring the home and land of their victims for a ridiculously low price.
In Skopje, unarmed Albanians were simply shot and killed by Serbian officers. If even a hunting knife was found in a home, its owner was executed.
In Ferizaj / Uroševac, the Serbian commander invited Albanian fugitives to return to their home and surrender their weapons. When over four hundred of them did return, they were slaughtered. There were no more than a dozen Moslem families left alive in Ferizaj / Uroševac. The way correspondent of the Messaggero has confirmed this report.
In Pana, the Serbs killed their prisoners, in Varosh / Varoš and Prishtina the population was literally decimated. Serbian officers admitted themselves that they were on the åhuntπ for Albanians, and one of them boasted having killed nine Albanians in one day with his own hands.
A doctor working for the Red Cross reported, according to the same source: The Serbs have been massacring throughout Albania with no sign of mercy. Neither women nor children nor old people have been spared. I have seen villages burning in Old Serbia every day. Near Kratovo, General Stefanović had hundreds of prisoners lined up in two rows and machine gunned gown. General Živković had 850 Albanian notables put to death in Senica because they had offered resistance.≤[26]
The following report was received from Durres (Durazzo) on 6 March: Serbian troops have burnt the following villages to the ground: Zeza, Larushk, Monikla, Sheh and Gromni. In Zeza, twenty women and girls were locked in their homes and burnt alive.[27]
Three Albanian villages in the vicinity of Prizren were totally destroyed and thirty local officials slain. They were accused of being pro-Austrian. In one of these villages, the soldiers forced the womenfolk out of their homes, tied them to one another and forced them to dance in a circle. They then opened fired and amused themselves by watching one victim after another fall to the ground in a pool of blood.
Women and children were tied to bundles of hay and set on fire before the eyes of their husbands and fathers. The women were then barbarously cut to pieces and the children bayoneted.[28]
The Albanische Korrespondenz reports from Podgorica: After the battle of Brdica, which resulted in a sound defeat for the Serbs, Serbian forces entered the village of Barbullush on their retreat. The terrified inhabitants came out of their homes with crucifixes in the hands and begged for mercy, but to no avail. The crazed troops attacked the unarmed villagers and slaughtered men, women, old people and children. The maimed body of an eight-year-old child was found to contain no less than six bayonet wounds.[29]
The Serb are people with no conscince. The highest servant of the Devil is their highest priest. He is the one who directs the minds of this puppets known as the Serbs. He is the one who kissed the hands of those who murdered children. He is the one who blessed them before taking campaigns on a mission to murder children. He is the one who used God's name and God's word to justify the hundreeds of thousands murders of children around the Balkans. He is the one who these brainwashed freaks known as the Serbs go to for moral guidance. Yes you're right I'm talking about Artemije.
the Eastern Orthodox Church, unlike the Catholic Church in the West (and all the Christian derivative religions) celebrates the liturgy, nothing more! As difficult as this may be for western nations to believe, there is no moral intellectualism or development within the Serbian Orthodox Church that did, and does occurs in the West. In the West, the church, through its development of moral intellectualism, and writings, had significant influence in the development of Nations, Governments and their laws. Therefore, the civil code arose from a morality base, which means that the people had an internalized understanding and respect for the laws and the reasons they were written.
Serbs do not have a moral code in the Church and no historical moral code as contained in the Albanian Kanun[30]. Therefore their laws, derived from their government are civil laws that are designed to control behavior but they do not arise from an internally developed sense of what is ≥right.≤ In the absence of a conscience and in the presence of what Serbs claim to be a threat to their existence, they will act on their primitive emotions and drives, and therefore, ≥anything goes.≤ It is not that Serbs were taught how to be capable of committing such atrocities; it is the fact that they were not taught that such behavior is an atrocity, and that we are all ≥capable≤ and it is our conscience that keeps us civilized!
In essence, there is ≥no moral guardianship≤ within the Serbian Orthodox Church or the Serbian Government, with the resultant lack of any establishment of an individual or group Serbian conscience. Violence, in any form, is condoned and encouraged when Serbs view that the ≥church≤ and ≥nationalism≤ are threatened, and this Serbian view of ≥Nationalism≤ places them above all others, superior in all ways, and motivates the necessity for assimilation, or ethnic cleansing of others.
The lack of a conscience is not relevant in the absence of a threat and people are getting their needs met and this is likely why there have been situations or periods of Serb peaceful coexistence with Albanians. Also, in the absence of ethnic conflict on a broad scale, the Serbs definitely know about the Albanian Kanun, the Albanianπs strong sense of Honor, and that if they dishonor an Albanian, ≥blood≤ will be shed to restore their honor. In these cases, Serbs are simply using the rules of the Albanian Kanun as their ≥external conscience,≤ in the same manner they do in following any written laws that have consequences they wish to avoid.
≥Greater Serbia≤
For ten years, during the rule of Slobodan Milosevic (1989-1999) Serbia created five wars; there have been thousands of civilians killed, millions of others deported, and in these wars the Serbs committed some of the worst atrocities and mutilations and massacres. The Serb forces were organized in several different formations, formal and paramilitary, but all were under the direct command of Milosevic and fully supported by the Serbian people. This repetition of Serbian history was another attempt to develop their ≥Ethnically Pure Greater Serbia,≤ a desire and plans that they boast about in their own writings.[31]
In 1999 the international community was again convinced that Serbia had to be stopped, but some Serb allies were hesitant, and they covertly and overtly supported Serbiaπs efforts. Thanks to the stand taken by the USA, and its sincere allies, this bloodshed machine of Milosevic was stopped. But even after this recent Serbian horror in the eyes of world, we have some nations, such as France that continue to support Serbia. Some European countries, under the ≥leadership≤ of France, help Serbia to remain free from accountability as a State, and ≥as a people,≤ while they attempt to only punish a few Serbian leaders in the Hague International Tribunal.
After several wars that Serbia made at the end of the twentieth Century, Serbia tried to preserve the name of Yugoslavia, in spite of the fact that only Serbia, Montenegro and Vojvodina[32] remained. The ≥Final Status≤ of Kosova has not been determined as yet, but it is not under the rule or domination of Serbia, and there is no way that the people of Kosova will ever return to any form of Serbian rule. Serbia Attempts to survive in their artificial formation, Serbia-Montenegro, are ignoring the existence of Vojvodina, and camouflaging the ≥Kosovo Situation≤ with their latest Constitution Preamble, where Kosova was included as a territory of Serbia. Serbia has never been held accountable; therefore her goal and policies of an ≥Ethnically Pure Greater Serbia≤ continue to exist even into 2005.
It is interesting to note that since it lost the war in 1999, Serbia has demanded that all efforts ensure a ≥multiethnic≤ Kosovo in order to ≥protect≤ the rights of the Serb minorities. When not in power, the Serbs are the first to demand equality and protection; something that they have never provided to others.
During the ethnic cleansing attempt by Serbia in Kosova from 1997 to 1999, the Patriarch of the Serbian Church, Bishop Artemije encouraged the commission of atrocities, and blessed the troops (and Para-military, such as Arkan) who committed them. The Patriarch Artemije was never removed; he never expressed or demonstrated remorse; and was even rewarded in positions of recognition following the war. Mr. Bernard Kushner, the Special Representative to the Secretary General of the UN (1999-2000) met with this leader of atrocities in Kosova on several occasions, seeking his guidance and input in post-war management. His meetings with this priest elevated his position, and they were seen as an open slap in the face against ethnic Albanians and morality.
Ethnic cleansing in Kosovo by the Serbs? You would be hysterically funny if not for the fact that the truth is that Albanians have pushed Serbs out for yonks. It was Serbian tolerance for the influx of Albanians from Albania into Kosovo that got them to the situation today -- a planned land grab by the people they gave more rights to in Kosovo than they had themselves. The Albanians in Kosovo have been harrassing and harming Serbs in Kosovo for decades, forcing many of them to flee their homeland province for the sake of the safety of their children who were not safe to walk the streets because of Albanian aggression.
I notice that NOBODY has addressed the question of ethnically cleansed Kosovo and other regions of the former Yugoslava, EXCEPT FOR SERBIA, that is, which remains tolerant as always and ethnically not only diverse, but richly diverse. I suggest you talk to one of the many Albanians in Belgrade about how they are treated compared to how a Serb is now treated in Pristina. I CHALLENGE any of you to actually go and live in Kosovo and then come back and tell me what's what. That stinking hell hole was once upon a time a nice place, ruined by those lining their pockets with KLA money raised in the heroin trade and human slave trade.
If you want tit for tat accusations, it wouldn't be much trouble to post references to the Pavelic papers etc., etc., etc., etc. What's the matter -- don't you like having Croatian history exposed?
One sided, aren't you? Haven't the Albanians cut off enough Serbian heads yet? I dare say they don't think so. They've done that to the Serbs for a very long time. Nothing new in Iraq when it comes to muslim "justice!"
70,000 at Jasenovac! -- what lies! I can post a list of the victims of Jasenovac -- names and places of birth of the victims. And, no -- not 70,000 who "died," but 600,000 - 750,000 who were BRUTALLY MURDERED AND VIOLATED. And, of course, you are probably one who would go on and on about Sreberenica where a few hundred bodies have been found and you keep going on about 10,000. Is that number derived in the same way as the fictitious 100,000 who were killed in Kosovo that it turned out was more like 2,500, both Albanian and Serbian who were victims of that conflict? Of course, some of the Albanians were killed by the KLA for not following the party line. Racak was exposed long ago as an event staged by William Walker on behalf of the KLA, but that's another one you won't hear any truth about unless you go out of your way.
70,000, even if that were true apparently isn't many to you. Well, it wasn't 70,000 - that's the figure that the Croats who cannot deal with their history of inhumanity use to try to ease their consciences. As if 70,000 were few enough to make it OK. It was the 3rd largest killing camp of WWII. 600,000-750,000. The same people who deny that are those that don't "know" about the multitudes of Serbs expelled during the time of the Bosnian war from Kraina. Very selective, your facts and figures. Very one sided. Very much the propaganda. You can tell that to the IGNORANT and DUMBED DOWN, but not to me.
Here you will find the documented names and facts about at least 650,000 innocent victims of Jasenovac.
http://www.jasenovac.org/index.asp
Kosova deserves its independece
Really, can't understand how is possible that all serbs I know, think that talking too much means convincing. No, its impossible to cover sun with a grid says an albanian proverb. That of Serbs in Kosova is a history of massacres, injustices and oppression. Just read the history from an independent source nor serb neither albanian (Noel Malcolm for ex. If anonymous serb don't find him corrupted by our dirty money). Anyway, I understand serbs rage at any sign of legitimate sign of albanian's cheerfulness. They know that Kosova is definitely out of their reach in its road to independence. Good bye dream of Great Serbia.
Yes! Goodbye the false dream of a Great Serbia that never existed in the first place!
YES WE THE SERBS HAVE TO SPEAK A LOT BECAUSE WE HAVE TO TELL A STORY OF GREAT INJUSTICE DONE TO US!!
The concept of a greater Albanian state did not appear as an authentic expression of the Albanian national movement. Until the beginning of the Great Eastern Crisis (1875-1878), Albanians, unlike other Balkan nations – Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians, Rumanians – did not attempt to create a national state through modern political organization. A regional and religious identity was dominant among the Albanians. Disorganized forms of disobedience to the central authority were the only expressions of conservative resistance from feudal Muslim lords to the reforms which the Ottoman Empire tried to implement during the 19th century, under pressure from the great European powers. It is well known that Bosnian and Albanian feudal lords were the sternest defenders of Islamic theocratic society and offered the most sustained and strongest resistance to attempts from central power in Istanbul to introduce a little order into the functioning of the state.
This state of affairs among the Albanians was not simply the result of the economic, social and cultural under-development of Albanian society, or the absence of even an embryonic modern political elite. The main power of the expansionist Albanian movement came from Muslim Albanians. With the exception of isolated examples of cultural efforts among the Albanians, mostly those in Diaspora (Istanbul, Egypt, South Italy), Albanian Muslims were the iron fist of the Ottoman Empire in its efforts to suppress the Christian movement in South Eastern Europe. With their patriarchal-oriental society of Asian type, they constituted the main obstacle to Europeanization of this part of Europe in the 19th and 20th century. Exceptions to this were an insignificant catholic minority in the north of Albania, mainly in the region of Skadar, and the more numerous orthodox community in the south of Albania, which was strongly influenced by the Greek cultural orbit.
All attempts by Balkan Christians to win over the Albanians to the common struggle against the Ottoman Empire and for the aim of national liberation and modernization of their societies were fruitless. At the beginning of the Great Eastern Crisis Albanians were at the forefront of the Turkish regular, and particularly irregular troops (bashibozuk) and committed numerous atrocities in battles against the Christian rebels. During the crisis the Albanians did not join the liberation movements of the Balkan Christians in any way.
It is completely clear that the birth of the Albanian league in 1878 and its political program were not an expression of Albanian original liberation efforts, which anyhow were late in coming compared to other peoples. The league was an instrument, primarily in Turkish hands, and later in the hands of other powers, for the preservation of the Ottoman Empire. The Albanian central revolutionary committee (Abdul Frasheri, Pashko Vaso, Sami Frasheri, Zija Prishtina, Jani Vreto and others) was founded in April 1878 in Istanbul and its was to organize Albanian popular resistance to the liberation actions in Montenegro, Serbia and Greece. Abdul Frasheri used the foreign press to publish alleged protest by the Albanian population against the actions in above mentioned Christian states2. According to the reports from Krijevski, a French consul in Thessaloniki, Turkish powers gave weapons to the Albanian leaders3. It was a way of manipulating the interests of the Albanian people. This is also shown by the fact that Turkey abolished the League as soon as it started claiming greater autonomy from central authority.
It is not by chance that the formation of the Albanian league coincided with the preparations for the Berlin Congress with the Eastern Question on its agenda.
The attempt by Russia, as a major power, to solve the so called Eastern Question on its own, and thus to secure its interests by creating a greater Slav state / Greater Bulgaria, at the peace conference in San Stefan (1878) was met with fervent opposition from other major European powers. Although the project of Greater Bulgaria encompassed a significant part of territory inhabited largely by Serbian or, in other parts, Greek population, Turks, with the support of English diplomacy, persuades other powers that the Albanians would be the best defenders against the Slav and generally Christian “threat”. From that time until the present day the Albanians have been presenting themselves to the public of Western Europe as major defenders against an alleged expansion of pan-Slavism into Southeastern Europe and as a supposedly genuine factor of Europeanization in this region. In essence, the “Greater Albania” project, as a product of the great powers, Balkan policy, is directly opposed to the liberation movement of an overwhelming majority of the Balkan Christians, which have all been (allowing for some exceptions) in the spirit of modernization, based on the original principles of the liberal and democratic European tradition.
This megalomaniac project in the hands of Turkish and other powers was to designed to counteract another equally megalomaniac project originating from Russia. It was yet another sign that neither Russia nor other great powers cared about a just solution to the Easter Question but only about such state creations whish would guarantee their strategic interests in the Balkans.
The Greater Albanian political concept in its original and authentic program was totally imbued with the spirit of pan-Islamism and radical political Islam. Only from time to time did the Albanian political elite try to hide the distinctive Islamic feature of the foundations of their ideology, usually prompted by a desire to secure the support of some Western power. A militant from of Islam prevailed in Old Serbia, primarily in Kosovo and Metohija, as well as in the regions of today’s Western Macedonia, brought by the Albanian population from the mountainous parts of North Albania who forcefully descended into the gentle and fertile parts of this region. The forceful intrusions followed by centuries-long Muslim violence against the local Christians are today insistently presented as alleged repression of Albanians by local Christians.
In the European literature it is well known that the regions of today’s Middle Albania constitute the original centers of Albanian population. A distinguished German Albanologist, Georg Stadtmuller points out that the original regions of Albanian settlement encompass the valley of the river Shkumba, both sides of the river Mat, Kroja and some other neighboring parts4. The history of the Albanians and the Albanian society is far more complex than is usually presented today. This is true not only of the region of today’s Albania but also of the neighboring countries in which Albanians live as national minorities. Their religious heterogeneity and a distinctive tribal identity have always been a permanent source of internal conflict which result in the chronic instability of this country. This “unstable” condition of the young state threatens primarily non-Albanian people in Albania itself, but also in the neighborhood. We must not overlook the fact that in the territory of today’s Albania large Slav settlements have existed for centuries and that Slav toponymisc have been largely preserved up to the present day. In recent time, from the creation of the first Albanian state in 1912, and especially during the rule of the Albanian communist dictator Enver Hoja, a large part of non-Albanian, particularly Slav population, excluding Greeks, were assimilated by the most brutal means of state repression.
The Greater Albania project is directly connected with the consequences of the Turkish conquests in South Eastern Europe, and especially with the wars of European Christian powers against Turkey towards the end of the 17th century. It has remained, in a sense, as a long reaching hand of the Ottoman spirit in Europe, as a vehicle of that kind of life, customs and mentalities which were characteristic for the territory of the South Eastern Europe at the time of Ottoman rule. The Christian population of the European Turkey, primarily of Old Serbia and the northern part of Macedonia, joined the struggle of the European powers after the siege of Vienna en-mass (1683) to oust the Turks from Europe. After the defeat of the Europeans (1690) as a reprisal this population was subjected to massive atrocities and, in essence, the first major ethnic cleansing. Turkish destructive military campaigns allowed the overflow of Albanian people from their original regions into the countries of their neighbors, both Slavs and Greeks. It was not before the 18th century that masses of Albanian stock breeders from the hilly regions of their country started descending into the fertile lands of Kosovo and Metohija populated by orthodox Serbs in overwhelming majority, as well as into the regions of today’s western Macedonia, form Skoplje to Bitolj populated by undoubtedly Serbian and Macedonian Slav population.
Besides the massive and almost regular atrocities which characterized this conquest of Old Serbia, there were also numerous other ways in which the compact Serbian ethnic body was broken up (forced Islamisization, different forms of robbery, plunder, destruction of religious sites, and many other forms of terror). This is testified to by many travel writers, and particularly Roman missionaries and visitors. These processes were convincingly described in, among numerous other Vatican sources, the report of the archbishop of Skoplje Matija Masarek in 1764. The archbishop reports on fresh colonies of Arbanas who had left their hills and settled in the gentle region of Metohija, in the vicinity of Djakovica. These Arbanas, new comers in Serbia, wrote archbishop Masarek, did not obey the orders of Christ’s Apostles, but quickly converted to Islam pushing out the orthodox and catholic population from their villages and taking over their lands (“maledetti Albanesi, I quali per forya si soo impadroniti di quasi tutti li terreni scismatici e cattolici serviani”)
A similar process went on in the Albanian-Greek boundary regions. Albanian migration under the Turks went towards Greek lands, particularly Epir. With the strengthening of the Greek liberation movement Turkey used Muslim Albanians to secure the rule over the largest possible parts of Epir and Thesalia. The Greater Albania ideology explained it thus: “From the banks of the river Bojana up to Janjina lives a unified and homogenous people. From Janjina to the gulf of Ambracia is the terrain which Greek religious and other propaganda denies to the Albanians who prevail there, if not in number, then in strength and power to resist”.5
That Kosovo and Metohija, of which Albanian authors often speak as “Albanian land” were irrefutably the central regions of Serbian settlement, is testified to by the fact that the most important monuments of Serbian architecture and Serbian spirituality were erected there. In Kosovo and Metohija alone 1,400 monasteries, churches and other Serbian monuments were built. The most famous among them are the Patriarchy church in Pec, monasteries Banjska, Gracanica, Decani, St. Archangel near Prizren, Bogorodica Ljeviska in Prizren etc. A logical question can be asked: why would Serbs erect their central church, the Patriarchy in Pec, in the region where they were not in majority and which was not the central point of their people’s homeland?
The greatest changes in ethnic structure of the population of this part of Old Serbia occurred from the middle of the 18th up to the middle of the 19th century, and from the Berlin congress in 1878 up to the liberation of these regions from Turkish rule in 1912. They were basically a consequence of the conflict between the Islamic Ottoman-feudal concept on the one hand, and the European Christian concept of society on the other hand. Samuel Huntington is quite right when he defines similar processes today as “conflicts of civilization”. Kosovo and Metohija may be the most convincing example of such a conflict today, bearing in mind that the radical Islamic features of the Albanian secessionist movement are quite skillfully masked by European phraseology and European symbols.
Numerous foreign authors testify to the ethnic, political and religious circumstances in these regions. These are the works of Ami Bue, Joseph Muller, Johan Georg von Han, Ivan Stepanovich Jastrebov, Aleksandar Giljferding, Viktor Berar, Gaston Gravier and others. For example, Joseph Muller reports the data from 1838 about the religious and linguistic structure of the population in Metohija – in Pec, Prizren and Djakovica; in Pec, orthodox and Muslim Serbs were in a majority (92.09%) in relation to the catholic and Muslim Albanians (4.17%). In Prizren the percentage of Serbs, Muslim and Christian, from the total population (24.950) amounted to 73.68, whereas the percentage of Albanians, Muslim and catholic, amounted to 16.63%. Only Djakovica had a clear Albanian majority – the percentage of the Albanians, Muslim and catholic, amounted to 80.76%, whereas the percentage of Serbs, Christian and Muslim, amounted to 18.05%.6
The facts that Prizren, a town in Old Serbia, and on the outskirts of the Albanian ethnic region was chosen as the place for the session of the Albanian league in 1878 testifies to the extremely expansionist nature of Albanian aims. That is exactly were it was necessary to create a strong obstacle to further strengthening of the Serbian liberation movement in Old Serbia. And it was not a coincidence that the session of the Albanian League was not held in Albania, say in Drac, Valona, Tirana or some other town. From the time of the Great Eastern Crisis (1875-1878) the neighboring regions of Albania such as Kosovo, Metohija, today’s western Slav Macedonia and northern Epir, were Albanians had massively settled, mainly in the 18th and 19th century, started being referred to as “Albanian lands”. So the Albanian league, created on the eve of the Berlin Congress, took it upon itself to prevent the liberation of the “Albanian lands” from the neighboring peoples. The Leagues`s documents reveal the essence of the movement. The sessions were held in a Prizren mosque, and the special feature of the Statute (Kararname) was Islam. Albania and Albanians were not explicitly mentioned in any of the 16 articles of the Statute, but instead they speak in general terms of “nation and motherland”, “country”, “our land”, “Balkan country”, “in the Balkans” and similar. The political subjects of the Union (League) are simply Muslims; the article 7 talks of the need for the Union with “our long-suffering fellow countrymen and members of the same faith in the Balkans”, and the last 16th article qualifies the abandonment of the Union as the abandonment “of Islam”.7 It is also telling that Muslim land owners from Raska, and even Bosnia and Herzegovina were present at this meeting.
Basically the same ideas served as a foundation program for the so called Pec league in 1899 and so called second Prizren league in 1943. After the Turks were ousted from Europe in 1912, and after the formation of an independent Albanian state, the programme`s aims were clearly adapted somewhat to the new political circumstances and new protecting powers. The insistence on a totally pure ethnic Albanian state is typical for the conceptual program of Greater Albania, as is the rejection of any multi-ethnic concept. In accordance with such a program, the organized ethnic cleansing of non-Albanian population from the regions which were proclaimed as “Albanian lands” started right after the Berlin congress. During the period from 1876 to 1912 around 150,000 orthodox Serbs were forced to leave Old Serbia, that is the then Kosovo vilajet.8 We find similar ideas in Ismail Kemal Bey Vlora, the president of the first Albanian interim government. As the government president he demanded that the great powers cleanse “Albanian lend” of Slavs and Greeks.9 He also praised Albanians for having ousted “Christian Slavs”with their guns and violence.
After the First Balkan war in 1912, in which the Albanians fought on the Turkish side, the conference of ambassadors in London in 1913 determined the borders of the newly created Albanian state. In November 1921, at the conference of ambassadors in Paris it was agreed to recognize Albania as an independent and sovereign state (before that, in 1920, Albania was received into the League of National). Although the conference of ambassadors in Paris determined principally the borders which basically reiterated the decisions from the London conference, the definitive border between the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians on one side and Albanians on the other side was determined by the protocol on borders decided by the International committee in Florence, 26th June 1926.
The Albanian state encompassed the biggest part of ethnic Albanian territory. It is perfectly clear that in the Balkans with its large-scale migrations and mixing of races, languages and religions, particularly during the centuries-long Turkish rule, it was not possible to draw clear and pre ethnic borders. A number of Albanians who, as has been mentioned, settled in Old Serbia in the 18th and 19th century, remained within the borders of the Kingdom of Serbia, but also tens of thousands of Serbs, orthodox and Muslim, remained in the newly crated Albanian state, as well as a large number of Greeks, who, following the decision of great powers, were left in the Albanian state. The regions which Greater Albania propaganda claims, have never been a part of an Albanian state. However, a certain number of Albanian political leaders from the time of Ottoman rule, who lost their privileges with the disappearance of Turkey, did not want to accept the borders of the newly created states in the Balkans, and they immediately started their activity aimed at the breaking up these new states, primarily Serbia and Greece. This activity, particularly strong in the eve of the Second World War, was directly supported by fascist powers, especially fascist Italy.
The Greater Albanian irredentist activity between the two World Wars enjoyed strong support form fascist powers, which were also interested in breaking up the newly created Yugoslav state which, they claimed, was the creation of the”Versailles siystem”. Italy was in the firs place, but there was also the Third communist international (Kominterna) with its headquarters in Moscow. The grater Albanian “Kosovo committee” joined the Kominterna in 1920 ; in December 1921 Baajream Curi, one of the leaders of this organization, visited a Soviet emissary in Vienna and discussed the issue of Kosovo and Metohija with him, having handed him a memorandum on the Committee’s intentions.11
It is conspicuous that between the two world wars the leadership of fascists and communist political organizations competed in supporting separatism among the Albanians of Kosovo and Metohija. The fascist Italy directly supported the actions of Albanian terrorists (kacak) in Yugoslavia in the years after the First World War. Hasan Prishtina and Mustafa Kroja, leaders of this movement, received 50.000 liras from the Italian government at the beginning, and later 200.000, and form September 1927 much larger sums. The Italian government coordinated the activities of Croatian and Bulgarian fascists led by Ante Pavelic and Ivan-Vanco Mihailov respectively, and the activities of Hasan Prishtina and other leaders of separatist great Albanian movement among Yugoslav Albanians.12
From 1939 an even stronger and better organized activity of fascist Italy was directed toward Greece and Yugoslavia. As it is known, Italy occupied and annexed Albania on the 7th April 1939. Already in July 1939, Count Cano gave instructions to Albanian emigrant for action in Epir and Kosovo and Metohija; he often repeated that irredentism in Kosovo and Metohija was “a knife aimed at the backbone of Yugoslavia!” The some year a bureau for the organization of the Albanian irredentist movement was opened in Roem. Italy generously helped the new leaders of great Albanian "Kosovo committee” Bedri Pejani and Ibarhim Djakova. The Albanian fascist party was created in Albania, and on the occasion of Count Cano`s visit in Tirana, he promised the speedy realization of the Great Albania project. At the beginning of 1940, Kolj Biba, the secretary of the Albanian fascist party, said in Skadar that Italy would soon annex the parts of Yugoslavia and Greece populated by Albanians. A new “Kosovo committee” with Cerim bey Mahmudbegovic from Pec was formed in Tirana, in the same year.
With the beginning of the Second World War and shortly after, when fascist powers, headed by Germany and Italy, attacked Yugoslavia, a bloody realiyation of the Greater Albania project started. A larger part of Kosovo (with the exception of municipalities of Podujevo, Vucitrn and Kosovska Mitrovica) and the whole of Metohija were annexed to fascist Greater Albania. Parts of Gnjilani, Urosevac, north of Pasjan, Kacanik, Vitin a;nd Sirinic district were annexed to the newly created Greater Bulgaria. Parts of western Macedonia with Tetovo, Gostivar, Kicevo, Debar, Strug and St. Naum were also absorber into Greater Albania. The Vienna agreement from April 1941 determined the demarcation line between Greater Bulgaria and Greater Albania, but the Bulgarians were not content with this division.
On 30th May 1941 Mustafa Kroja, the president of the puppet government, held a lecture in the Italian Royal academy on the natural and historical roots of Greater Albania. In June 1942 he visited Kosovo and Metohija and at the meeting with Albanian leaders he publicly declared that “the Serbian population in Kosovo should be removed as soon as possible… All indigenous Serbs should be qualified as colonists and as souch, via the Albanian and Italian government, be sent to concentration camps in Albania. Serbian settlers should be killed.”13 It was revealed, yet again, that the Greater Albanian national programme leaves no room for any other people but Albanian.
In the four years of occupation a great deal was done towards the realiyation of the Greater Albanian project in Kosovo and Metohija. Local Albanians with the help of their fellow countrymen from Albania and under the protection of the occupying powers, committed massive atrocities against Serbs. The European public is not familiar with the scope of these crimes. According to the data of the American Office of Strategic Service, in the period from April 1941 to August 1942, Albanians killed around 10.000 Serbs.14 Even priests of the Serbian Orthodox church were arrested and killed. Serafim, the Bishope of Raska and Priyren, was arrested and interned to Tirana where he died on January the 13th 1945. In the territory under Italian occupation the Albanians killed 14 priests and one nun. For example, Damaskin Boskovic, the head of Devic monastery, was killed in a beastly way, and some priests Luka Popovic, Uros Popovic and Slobodan Popovic were killed during the service of Holly liturgy.15
After Italy occupied these territories not only did etnic cleansing start, but also a systematic implementation of the Greater Albanian polical and culutral programme in all spheres of life. A small number of Serbian children who attended schools under Italian occupation were forced to study in Albanian language. It was the same with children in western Macedonia. Serbs were massively expelled from Kosovo and Metohija and tens of thousands of Albanians from Albania settled there (some historians say that the number is as high as 100.000 people). By April 1942 as many as 60.000 refugees from Metohija and parts of Kosovo had amassed around the southern borders of Serbia under German occupation which became part of Greater Albania. These events significantly changed the etnic structure of this part of Serbia, that is Yugoslavia, and in essence it was one of the most important assumptions for a successful continuation of the Greater Albanian programme after the Second World War under the communist rule. Such activity of communist oligarchy (Hoja, Nimani, Deva, Bakali, Vlasi) of the Kosovo-Metohija Albanians was fully supported within the party and state elite in Tito`s Yugoslavia.
After the capitulation of fascist Italy, Germany encouraged the formation of a socalled “Second Priyren league” towards the end of 1943 in Prizren. The league was organized under the auspices of Abwehr, the German military secret service and headed by Jafer Deva, Bedri Pejani, Ismet Krieziu and other. The terror to which Serbs were subjected, with numerous individual and large scale crimes lasted until March 1944 when it began to slacken.
Among numerous testimonies to the scopes of ethnic cleansing of Serbs from these regions, there is that of Hermann Neubacher, a special political representative of the Third Reich for Southeast Europe from autumn 1943: “Shiptars were in a hurry to expel as many Serbs as possible from the country. From those expelled local tyrants often took a gift in gold for permission to emigrate… When general Nedic complained bitterly to me, I urgently recommended the Arbanas government to put an end to these expulsions. When I saw that my intervention was unsuccessful, I offered my resignation from the mission in Albania: I will have to give up Albania to someone else to defend it from the territorial greed of Bulgarians. Jefer Deva, who has influence in the Kosovo region, promised me that he would intervene. He did it successfully. Despite that many evils were committed after 1941.”16 After the capitulation of fascist Italy the infamous “Skenderbeg SS division” made up of Albanians was formed under the direction of the German occupation forces. This organization pursued the project of Greater Albania until the final liberation of these regions.
The Communist movement between the two world wars, headed by the Comintern, counted heavily on the activities of Albanian Irredentism. Albanian emigrants in the USSR founded the Communist group of Albania in 1928. As in other parts of Yugoslavia where after 1928 communists started cooperating with fascist groups in what they called “national revolutionary groups”, Yugoslav communists also counted on the cooperation of extreme Albanian nationalists. So, for example, the Fourth Congress of the Yugoslav Communist Party, held in Dresden in 1928, stressed in its Resolution that the Party expressed solidarity with the revolutionary workers and peasants and “Albanian national-revolutionary movement in the shape of the Kosovo committee and invited the working class to fully support the struggle of the dismembered and suppressed people for an independent and united Albania”. Somewhat later, mid-1937, the Yugoslav Communist Party founded a Regional Committee of the Yugoslav Communists Party for Kosovo and Metohija which represented the foundation for future autonomy of this region in communist Yugoslavia. The structure of Tito`s Yugoslavia rested almost totally on the pre-war organizational-territorial structure of the Communist Party.
A whole set of decisions made by Tito`s communist movement show quite clearly that the leadership of Yugoslav communists with Josip Broz Tito on the top were consistent with their strategy of weakening the Serbian factor in future Yugoslavia, and that the Albanian factor was an important means in that strategy. This was also noted by foreign observers of political developments in Yugoslavia during the Second world war. Towards the end of 1944, major John Hanicker Major, a member of the Britsh military mission to the south of Serbia, serving as a chief of the local allied forces mission to the Headquarters of partisan movement in Serbia reported: “I believed Tito when he said that he was not interested in the future of Kosovo, which he was ready to give up to Albania just for asking.”17 Only when we bear in mind this global national strategy of the Communist party of Yugoslavia does it become clear why the communist leadership did nothing to counterbalance the consequences of a forced change of ethnic structure in this part of Serbia which occurred under fascist occupation. It was completely logical to expect that the expelled Serbs would return to their land in Kosovo and Metohija after the Second World War and that the unjustices which had happened as a consequence of fascist aggression against the Yugoslav communist government, headed by Tito, passed a “Temporary prohibition of the return of colonists to their earlier places of residence” (although it was not a case of colonists only but also of indigenous Serbs), which also said: “It has been noticed recently that families of colonists (settlers( who were earlier settled in Macedonia, Kosovo, Metohija, Srem and Vojvodina are migrating and returning without obtaining permission from the people`s authorities”, and therefore a decision was passed which said – “colonists are temporarily prohibited from returning to their earlier places of residence and are ordered to stay in their present places of residence”.18 Soon after the liberation on a “Law on revision of the allotment of land to colonists and farming applicants in Macedonia and Kosovo-Metohija region”19, and on November 2nd 1946, a “Law on the revision of allotment of land to colonists and farming applicants in the National Republic of Macedonia and in Autonomous Kosovo-Metohija region”.20
Thus the result of the occupation of fascist Italy and fascist Germany during the Second World War and the sanctioning of these results by the leadership of Yugoslav communists, represented actually the first stage of the Greater Albanian political project. Everything that was done in Tito`s Yugoslavia contributed to the strengthening of Greater Albanaian political ideology which in new circumstances was cleverly disguised under the communist parole of “brotherhood and unity” and under essentially, false internationalism.
Yugoslav communists remained consistent to the strategy of the communist international to indulge the extreme nationalism of “small nations”. In practice, the Albanian political oligarchy carried on ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and Metohija on a daily basis and prepared the terrain to join the future Greater Albania, and in all of this it used all the means of state government (police, education, judiciary system, cultural institutions) which in this part of Serbia were totally in the hands of Albanians. Albanians as a national minority in Serbia had their Academy of Science in Pristina (probably the unique example for a minority in the world), a University with classes in the Albanian language and numerous other institutions. They abused this maximum possible framework of autonomy obove all European standards and used the total power theu had to indocrtinate the Albanian population and particularly young people with the Greater Albanian national ideology.
The Greater Albanian chauvinist propaganda achieved its greatest success in the period 1975-1980, after the adoption of the federal Yugoslav Constitution in 1974, which gave the provinces in Serbia attributes of statehood and federal constituency. In practice there was no border between Yugoslavia and Albania. At the time when Stalinism was at its peak in Tirana, inspiring incredibly fanatic ideology of hatred towards Serbs, delegations from the Albanian capital come to Kosovo and Metohija almost every day. A lach of any freedom and democracy in Albania was augmented with regressive ideology of entice cleansing of Serbs in Old Serbia and pseudo-academic production. In the period from 1975 to 1980 (according to still incomplete data) 237 professors and teachers from Albania held lectures at the University in Pristina and other schools in Kosovo and Metohija (among them was the current president of Albania, Mejdani); 62 professors and teachers from this Serbian province spent a period of time in Albania, and 62 came from Albania to Pristina. More than 20% of all textbooks used in schools in Kosovo and Metohija, particularly those on social studies, were imported from Albania.21
Together with the processes of stifling Serbian and Slav enclaves in Albania, the same was done in Kosovo and Metohija. In the 70`s the albanological institute composed lists of names which would substitute the existing Serbian and Slav names in order to hide the etnic origin of these settlements.22 Until the beginning of the 80`s the Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija had several scientific magazines, such as Gjurmime Albanologjike, and 10 other publications of general interest in Albanian: Rilindja (daily paper with the circulation of over 100.000 in 1979), Zani I rinis, Jeta e re, Pioneri, Perparimi, Shendeti, Fjala, Bata e re, Skendija, Bat. However, they used all these publications to disseminate national hatred, instead of the spirit of tolerance, understanding and cherishing of civilized relations with other peoples. The paradox of the whole situation lies in the fact that the Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija, who claim to have been systematically repressed and pursued for centuries, have reached such a level of development precisely in Serbia, that today Pristina instead of Tirana wants to play the role of main crator of a Greater Albania.
“Greater Albania” with the leading idea “all Albanians in one state” represents not only a belated example of the national romanticism of the 19th century, but also questions existing internationally recognized borders, jeopardizes stability in the whole of Southeast Europe and threatens to cause a new, third Balkan war. The ambition to set up an ethnically pure Greater Albania at any cost represents an even greater anachronism. The Albanian political and intellectual elite obviously suffer from a large deficiency of European logic.
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