Albanian secessionism in the 1990s 115

Agop GARABEDYAN

ALBANIAN SECESSIONISM IN THE 1990s

Abstract: This work provides an overview of the events in Kosovo and

Metohija from the end of the 1960s to the present, laying out the main lines
of the problem of Kosovo and Metohija, marking the key events during these
several decades and identifying the chief characteristics of the Albanian
separatist movement in Kosovo and Metohija. The author provides a brief
analysis of the methods and means used to achieve the gradual Albanization
of Kosovo and Metohija beginning with the mid-1960s, and presents the most
important data concerning the forced change in the ethnic makeup of the
Province. In essence, the Albanian bureaucracy was an agent of a racist policy
of forming an ethnically clean Kosovo. The considerably broad autonomy,
instead of serving as an encouragement for the Albanians to build a positive
relationship toward Serbia, was instead used as a means of escalating
secessionism, xenophobia, chauvinism and nationalistic exaltation. The work
gives a brief overview of constitutional development and constitutional
changes, especially in the period of 1989–1990, and analyzes the process of
the formation of parallel institutions in Kosovo and Metohija, and the
accompanying, persistent Albanian refusal to negotiate with representatives of
the Serbian government, as well as the terrorist activities of the KLA. The
events in Kosovo and Metohija are brought into connection with events in
Macedonia and the idea of the territorial, political and cultural autonomy of
the Albanians in Macedonia under the auspices of the Autonomous Albanian
Republic of Illyrida. One of the main conclusions of the analysis of the separatist
movement is that the Albanians intend to form a strong ethnic whole, which
will be the dominant force in the region and, as such, control the main roads
going from Turkey to Central Europe.
Key words: Albanization, racist policy, separatist movement, ethnic
cleansing, broad autonomy, secessionism, chauvinism, constitutional changes,
parallel institutions.

As is known, during the formation of federative Yugoslavia the

territory populated by ethnic Albanians was divided into three parts, which
116 Agop Garabedyan

were incorporated into the federative republics of Serbia, Macedonia and

Montenegro. In Serbia they were granted autonomy, which provided a chance
for open legitimization and the Albanian ethnos as a whole. Thus, already
during the first years of the formation of the new state, the Albanian
minority in the autonomous province of Kosovo and Metohija (Kosmet)
succeeded in securing two quite essential changes, which were directly tied to
the province’s further development. These changes are reflected in the fact
that they were recognized as a separate “nationality” which lives on a
specified geographic territory, as well as in the recognition of the Albanian
language as one of the official languages in the province or, in other words, in
the fact that it was guaranteed equality with the Serbo-Croatian language.
The Autonomous Province of Kosmet, which occupies an area of
10,887 kilometers square and 12.2% of the territory of Serbia, is the least
developed part of Serbia (and, earlier, the Yugoslavian federation). A large
portion of the Albanian population are rural residents, illiterate and, in the
cities – unemployed. The means and efforts to overcome their social
inferiority were mainly directed toward the formation of a cultural and
administrative elite, which, however, had the effect of deepening the existing
differentiation. Accelerated urbanization without a sound economic
foundation and a rapid development of education not based on realistic
needs led to the appearance of an unproductive intelligentsia. This
intelligentsia sought to express itself mainly through the affirmation of
nation and national culture, but in ways that isolated it and confronted it with
the other nations of Yugoslavia. Rapid urbanization created a certain cultural
and social vacuum in rural areas, with their preserved patriarchal way of life,
family cooperative mentality and blood vengeance. The disintegration of
traditional values created a certain sort of mobility of population. A mass
psychosis of blaming the country’s other ethnic groups appeared. This led to
divisions, isolation and conflicts between people on a national basis. The
political leadership of the province took advantage of this opportunity and
developed and stimulated nationalist and separatist tendencies in Kosovo
Albanian society.1 The first tangible and fruitful manifestation in this regard
appeared at the end of 1968, when, within the framework of constitutional
changes in the federation, Albanian politicians succeeded in expunging the
word “Metohija” from the province’s name, which signified not only its
Serbian but also its Christian past. The single-component name of “Kosovo”
reflected a desire to suggest an unbreakable political and geographical
—————
1 Waldenberg, M. Rozbicie Jugosławii. Od separacji Slowenii do wojny kosowskiej.

Warszawa, 2003, 272–277.

Albanian secessionism in the 1990s 117

integrity of the province, as well as to serve as reminder of the one-time

Kosovo vilayet (much larger than the territory of the autonomous region). In
the same year, Priština hosted a so-called linguistic festival, where it was
proclaimed that “all Albanians must have a single language, a single literacy,
because they are – a single people,” no matter where its parts are located. A
year later, an Albanian university was formed, where Serbian was only a
working language. During the following twenty years, 237 professors from
Albania would hold classes there in the Albanian language. Along the same
lines, in 1971, within the framework of constitutional changes, the name
“Shiptar,” previously also used by the Albanians in Albania, was changed into
that of “Albanian.”2
The ethnic composition of Kosovo’s population ranks among the most
complex in that part of Europe. It formed during a period of centuries.
During the time of Ottoman rule Serbs and Montenegrins massively
abandoned these areas, which were subsequently settled mostly by Albanians,
who were more receptive to Islam and were, thus, able to expand their ethnic
territory. The mid-1960s marked the beginning of genuine nationalist
bacchanalia: Serbs and Montenegrins were forced to leave the territory. The
Albanian youth was subjected to powerful nationalist indoctrination which,
during various celebratory manifestations, often turned into hysteria. From
that time, all the centers of political power in the province (police, education,
justice, cultural institutions, etc.) were concentrated in the hands of the
Albanian political oligarchy. A campaign of destruction of Serbian cultural
monuments began. Under the pretext of announcing provincial censuses, the
names of settlements and other Serbian toponyms were “translated” into the
Albanian language, the majority being new Albanian names that not even the
local Albanian populace used.
The emigration of Serbs and Montenegrins continued with increased
intensity during the 1980s. While they numbered 129,961 in 1948, or 27.47%
of the population of the province, by 1991, their percentage had fallen to
11.09% (214,555 residents). During the same period, the number of
Albanians grew from 498,242, or 68.5%, to 1,596,072, or 81.6%. The
Albanian numbers did not increase so much due to a large demographic
increase as due to the massive Albanian influx from Macedonia and Albania
into Kosmet that took place during and after World War II.3
The territorial expansion of the Albanian population in the interior of
the province led to a situation in which, wherever they were in the majority,
—————
2 Lukovic, M. Kryzys kosowski oczima serbów. Belgrad, 2000, s. 32, 36, 69.
3 Ibid, 37–39.
118 Agop Garabedyan

the number of Serbs constantly decreased. In this way, entire municipalities

became practically empty of Serbs (being settled by Albanians). The
Albanians began to dominate in towns and settlements in which they were
not previously a majority, while the Serbs remained a majority only in two
small towns, with a total of 30,149 residents at the beginning of 1991. This
process was also accompanied by a change in the ethnic makeup of land
owners, which gave an added push to their secessionist tendencies.
Beginning with 1981, the first demonstrations demanding the
autonomous province’s recognition as a republic were organized in Kosovo.
In essence, this was just a phase in a program reflecting the ambition of
Albanian nationalists to separate Kosovo from Yugoslavia and annex all the
Albanian-populated territories to Albania. An intermediary goal was to
change the demographic and ethnic relationship in the region and lay the
foundations for the internationalization of the “Kosovo problem.” In order
to achieve that goal, the Albanian leadership consistently and methodically, in
all spheres of public life, conducted a racist policy of forming an “ethnically
clean Kosovo.”
The conditions for recognizing the province as a republic lay in the
specific way in which the multinational community of SFR Yugoslavia
functioned until its breakup. From the mid-1970s, the status of both the
autonomous provinces within the Republic of Serbia, Kosovo and Vojvodina,
began to change in the direction of their increased independence. This
process went through several phases, reaching its culmination in the
Constitution of 1974, by which the rights of those autonomous provinces
were essentially made equal to those of the republics. Both the territorial
units gained the right to autonomously bring their own constitutions and
laws, and to directly participate in the federal organs. In this way, they
acquired the attributes of statehood. And not only that: the parliaments of
these provinces had the right to express (dis)agreement with changes to the
constitution of Serbia, while the Serbian parliament had no such rights in
relation to the provinces. In practice, this led to the internal blockade of
Serbia, turning it into a source and catalyzer of disintegration processes in the
country, one of whose chief components were the secessionist tendencies of
the Albanians in Kosovo.
The disproportionately broad autonomy enjoyed by the Albanians not
only did nothing to stimulate a positive relationship toward Serbia but, on the
contrary, contributed to an escalation of secessionism, xenophobia,
chauvinism and nationalist exaltation among them.
Testimony as to the broad rights the autonomous provinces enjoyed all
the way up to the disintegration of the federal state lies in the fact that the
Albanian secessionism in the 1990s 119

Constitution of SFR Yugoslavia could not be changed without the consent

of the parliaments of the autonomous provinces. This kind of consent was
also required for the passage of laws by the Council of Republics and
Autonomous Provinces (which played the role of upper house of the federal
parliament). Regardless of the fact that they were a part of the Republic of
Serbia, the autonomous provinces were represented in the federal organs as
independent and equal to it.
All the above-mentioned leads to the conclusion that the autonomous
provinces in fact had absolutely the same rights and obligations as the
republics. In that case, what was the difference between them ? The answer
lies in the way in which the federal state was constituted, being founded in the
rights of certain peoples to self-determination, which included the right to
secession. However, this right applied only to the republics, not the
autonomous provinces. Thus, the difference between the republics and the
autonomous provinces lay precisely there: whether or not they had the right
to secede.4
Starting with the mid-1980s, the Republic of Serbia began to announce
its intention to function as a unified republic and to carry out a policy of
limiting the autonomous provinces’ elements of independence. This was a
result of the fact that, thanks to the process of decentralization of federative
power that began at that time, the other republics had begun to develop as
separate state entities. The Republic of Serbia did not have such a possibility
because of the two autonomous provinces that were a part of it, which
insisted on their constitutional prerogatives and strove to expand them even
further.
The amendments to the Constitution of Serbia, adopted in March
1989, had the goal of limiting the elements of independence in the status of
the autonomous provinces and to expand Belgrade’s state powers to the
entire territory of the republic. This change did not seek to abolish the
autonomous provinces as a level within the Yugoslavian federation but to
preserve them as such. In fact, it was a matter of taking away the prerogatives
that were turning them into republics.
In considering the constitutional-legal arguments regarding the process
in Kosovo, it is necessary to keep in mind the other arguments tied to
secession. It was considered that the nations of Yugoslavia were able to
realize their right to self-determination by way of secession and the
formation of national states. However, a minority was able to realize that
right at a much earlier phase outside of the federation, in independent and
—————
4 Waldenberg, M. Rozbicie Jugosławii..., 278–286.
120 Agop Garabedyan

sovereign states. Both the largest minorities in the former Yugoslavia – the
Albanians and the Hungarians – were already realizing their rights to self-
determination in Albania and Hungary. The formation of a second Albanian
and Hungarian independent state or republic within the framework of
Yugoslavia held a destructive potential in relation to the integrity of Serbia
and the stability of the Balkan region.
Serbian nationalism was powerfully motivated and activated by the
situation in Kosovo, where the position of the Serbs and Montenegrins was
worsening. They began to organize in order to protect their interests and
organized protest marches to Belgrade. Slobodan Milošević appeared on the
political scene.
Slobodan Milošević put an accent on the unity of Serbia and secured
support within the republic. He worked out a fairly ambitious program
containing several basic demands. In the first place, with the aim of
normalizing the situation in Kosovo – an end to further anarchy and
guarantees of equality for all its residents; in this sense, he proposed a change
in the republic’s constitution toward re-centralization and limiting the rights
of autonomous provinces. The necessity of stabilizing the economy and
consolidating the Serbian nation within the bounds of the republic were
emphasized as priorities. Some authors have qualified these demands as
manifestations of Serbian nationalism but, in my opinion, they should be
viewed in the context of the political reality of the time.
During this time, Belgrade’s decision of November 17, 1998 to replace
a part of the League of Communists leadership in Kosovo caused massive
protests in Priština and other towns in the province. In February 1989,
Albanian miners began their strike in Stari Trg. At the beginning of March,
the government declared a state of emergency and began making arrests. On
March 23, on the heels of strong pressure by the central government, the
Kosovo parliament voted for the constitutional amendments that limited the
province’s competencies. This resulted in a wave of protests. During the
clashes with police that followed, 22 demonstrators were killed, most of
whom were armed, along with two policemen. The next test of strength
occurred at the beginning of 1990. This time there were around 40,000
protesters, mostly university and secondary school students, who began to act
violently. During clashes with security forces, 27 demonstrators and one
policeman were killed.
In 1990, the first multi-party elections were held in Yugoslavia, and all
possible options for the future of the country were offered – from federative
to confederative to secessionist. The disintegration of the Socialist Federative
Republic of Yugoslavia was on the horizon. The Kosovo Albanians
Albanian secessionism in the 1990s 121

proclaimed that the new constitutional regime introduced in 1989 was not in
accordance with the law, boycotted it, formed new, parallel institutions and
declared the province an independent republic. The strong disintegrational
processes manifested themselves in Kosovo in a specific way. On July 2, 1990,
the Albanian members of the Provincial Parliament of Kosovo illegally
gathered and proclaimed the “Declaration on the Independence of Kosovo.”
The Parliament of Serbia reacted to this initiative, which was in violation of
the constitution. It disbanded the Kosovo parliament and government, while
restoring the province’s old name – Kosovo and Metohija (Kosmet). The
prerogatives and obligations of both the institutions were transferred to the
appropriate organs of Serbia until a new Kosovo parliament and government
could be elected. After nine months, the Presidium of Kosovo was also
dissolved, which was explained by the fact that, through their continued
activity, the said organs threatened the sovereignty, territorial integrity and
constitutional order of Serbia.
Following the dissolution of the legislative and executive branches, the
Kosovo Albanians organized a general strike. On September 7, 1990, at their
next illegal meeting in the village of Kačanik, the Albanian separatists
proclaimed the passage of the “Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo.” In
Serbia, on the 28th day of the same month, a short time before parliamentary
elections, a new constitution was proclaimed, by which, among other things,
the status of the autonomous provinces was reduced to the bounds of the
existing autonomy, without elements of statehood.
A series of changes in the law, carried out between the beginning of
1989 and the summer of 1990, put an end to Kosovo’s political independence
and the unlimited domination of the Albanians, which were seen in Belgrade
as a prelude to the formation of a second Albanian state.
All of this caused a great deal of dissatisfaction among the Albanian
politicians in Kosovo, who began a mass exodus from the state institutions,
while citizens of Albanian nationality left their places of work in state and
private enterprises and institutions. The Albanians boycotted the elections for
public office and refused all offers of dialogue from the government in
Belgrade. At the same time, they began to propagate their ideas and desires
for the secession of Kosovo from Serbia before the eyes of the world. In
1991, they held a referendum for independence, by which Kosovo was
declared a republic. International recognition was extended only by Albania.
This was the period during which the largest Kosovo Albanian political
parties, including the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo under the leadership of
I. Rugova, did not recognize the legal order in Serbia and Yugoslavia, and
organized elections for “Kosovo organs” only for their own followers. In this
122 Agop Garabedyan

way, I. Rugova himself was elected as “president of Kosovo,” along with a

matching, illegal “government.”
The crisis in the federation, which spread at the end of the 1980s, and
which pushed to the forefront the choice of either restructuring or
disintegration, caused unrest among the Albanians. In the second half of
1991, in the Political Declaration of the Coordinating Council of Albanian
Parties of Yugoslavia, the idea of a separate state-legal status of all the
Albanians in the federation was formulated. Depending on the outcome of
the developing crisis in the state and the eventual position of the interna-
tional community, three options were developed, all of which, however, had
the same starting premise – an already separate Kosovo autonomous
province, which already had a history of several decades of autonomous
administrative life. According to the first option, should the borders of Yugo-
slavia remain unchanged, Kosovo would have to become a republic within
the Yugoslavian federation. According to the second – should the internal
boundaries be changed, all the territories populated by Albanians should be
attached to the Republic of Kosovo. According to the third option, should
the federation’s external borders change, i.e., if disintegration took place, the
goal would be the unification of Kosovo and other “Albanian” territories in
Yugoslavia with Albania.5
The ensuing disintegration of Yugoslavia forced the Albanian
politicians to reassess their priorities in light of the latest events. As Arben
Hxaferi, a Macedonian M.P. of Kosovo extraction, observed, it was at this
time that the Albanian parties from Serbia and Macedonia agreed on a joint
approach to the solution of the Albanian question, on the basis of Kosovo’s
independence and the autonomy of the Albanian-populated municipalities in
the Republic of Macedonia.6
During the war in the former Yugoslavia (1991–1995), the Albanian
problem became one of the main features of the crisis. The strong
disintegrational processes had their specific manifestation both in Serbia and
Macedonia. The formation of the illegal parliament and government, along
with I. Rugova’s election as president of Kosovo had the primary goal of
encouraging Albanian public opinion to resist Belgrade. Just as significant
were the parallel institutions working on the internationalization of the
Kosovo problem, which helped in bringing international legitimacy to the

—————
5 Κωφου, Ε. Το Κοσσοβοπεδιο και η Αλβανικη ολοκληρωση. Το αγχος του αυριο.
Αθηνα, 1998, 130–133.
6 Σφετας, Σ. Ο Αλβανικος παραγοντας των Σκοπιων µετα τη συµφωνια του Ντειτον.

– Το Κοσοβο και οι αλβανικοι πληθυσµοι της Βαλκανικης. Θεσσαλονικη, 2000, σ. 335.

Albanian secessionism in the 1990s 123

Albanian cause. The method of its development was supposed to be a sign

that an independent Kosovo state would not be formed by military means but
by a policy of “peaceful resistance.” These were the tactics of the Albanian
leaders up to the signing of the Dayton Agreement, when they actively
insisted that the Kosovo issue be included in the peace negotiations on
Bosnia and Herzegovina.7
During the years that followed, a policy of passive resistance was fol-
lowed, whose goal was to attract the attention of the international commu-
nity and secure its support. The Kosovo Albanian leadership, represented by
Ibrahim Rugova, refused all of Belgrade’s offers for compromise and
announced that the only solution was a phased secession accompanied by the
establishment of an international protectorate with an international military
presence, which would prepare Kosovo’s independence.
The Yugoslavian state considered these acts to be illegal, as they were
taking place outside the legal framework of Serbia and Yugoslavia, which also
provided citizens of Albanian origin the opportunity to participate in the
political life of the country and its legal organs, which option the Albanians
were persistently refusing.
The efforts of the Albanians in Macedonia, where they make up almost
a quarter of the population, were also actualized at this time. They live mainly
along the border with Kosovo where, as a result, their numbers exceed 90%
of the population. In 1991, the Albanians boycotted the referendum on
independence and challenged the constitutional arrangement of the state,
which relegated them to the status of a minority. At the beginning of 1992,
they organized their own polls, which helped them in voicing their desire for
territorial, political and cultural autonomy. One of their documents, produced
in the form of a proposal for forming the Autonomous Albanian Republic
of “Illyrida,” called for the said republic to include the cities of Skoplje,
Ohrid, Resen, Bitolj, Prilep, Struga, Debar, Tetovo, Gostivar and Kruševo
within its territory.8
From that moment, the activity of the Albanians in Macedonia was
concentrated around the demand for recognition of their status of
constitutive nation in the republic, a nation that could participate in the
ordering of the state. Still, differently from the Kosovo Albanians, they were
substantially more flexible and began the phased realization of their goal with
the aid of a variety of means, including illegal ones.
—————
7 Хинкова, С. Югославският случай. Етнически конфликти в Югоизточна Европа.
София, 1998, с. 120.
8 Първанов, А. Албанският синдром в Република Македония. Национални

проблеми на Балканите – история и съвременност. София, 1992, 159–161.

124 Agop Garabedyan

The Dayton Agreement, which did not mention the Albanians, caused
a certain amount of disappointment both in Kosovo and in Macedonia, and
the Albanians began to gradually change their tactics. In Kosovo, this took
the form of a more dynamic policy that included terrorism and partisan-style
warfare, while in Macedonia it was manifested in increasingly frequent cases
of civil disobedience and illegal activities. All this was in the center of
attention of Western circles, and the Albanians received the support of
influential personalities in Europe and the U.S.. In addition to this, the
Kosovo Albanian leadership continued to remind European and American
politicians of their ultimate ambitions, which they had made public on the
eve of the disintegration of the federation, in 1991. Their goal, although they
did not mention it publicly – was an independent Kosovo.
Belgrade did not pursue legal action against the Albanian politicians
that headed these actions. After the new Serbian government was elected in
February 1998, a state delegation was formed to negotiate with the
representatives of Albanian political parties and other ethnic groups living in
Kosovo. Heading the delegation was Ratko Marković, university professor of
constitutional law and vice-president of the Serbian Government. This was in
accordance with the wishes of influential Western circles, who insisted on the
renewal of dialogue in Kosovo.
Nevertheless, Belgrade did not agree to conduct the negotiations at the
level of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which was made up of two
republics – Serbia and Montenegro. Any other position would have marked
the transformation of Kosovo into a third Yugoslav republic, which could
subsequently separate from the federation without any problems. The
Government explained its position with the fact that Kosovo was a part of
the Republic of Serbia and its own internal problem, which it had to solve by
itself. Montenegro adhered to this line, since a different approach would have
jeopardized its own position. With the goal of engaging in negotiations, the
Serbian government delegation visited Priština on more than twenty
occasions (subsequently being joined by Serbian president Milan Milutinović)
but the representatives of the major Albanian parties failed to turn up
because, due to internal dissensions, they were unable to form a common
delegation. At this time it became clear that the Kosovo Albanian leadership
sought negotiations that would include international mediators. On the other
hand, the parties representing Kosovo’s other ethnic communities – the Slavic
Muslims, Gorans, Turks, Roma and non-Muslim Albanians – answered the
call for negotiations, which were also joined by the Kosovo Democratic
Initiative and the Kosovo Peoples Party.
Albanian secessionism in the 1990s 125

Until 1998, Rugova’s line of peaceful resistance predominated.

However, it did not achieve results, which led to the intensified activities of
radical separatists gathered around A. Demaqi. Their formula was – “political
dynamism,” whose goal was the use of politics of force toward the formation
of a second Albanian state. The terrorist actions that ensued had the goal of
demonizing the government in Belgrade with the help of Western
propaganda, provoking international intervention.
Beginning with March of 1998, Kosovo became an arena of terrorist
actions against security forces and peaceful citizens, as well as of brutal
clashes between the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and Serbian
police and Yugoslav Army forces. It is important to remember that, up to
1997, the KLA had been on the CIA’s global list of terrorist organizations. In
1998, this label was removed and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard
Holbrooke personally legalized its leader, Hashim “the Snake” Thaqi, as the
leader of the Kosovo Albanians, by meeting with him during his visit to
Kosovo.9
The armed actions of the Albanian separatists had the goal of
provoking large-scale Serbian punitive actions, with consequences familiar
from Bosnian times – the Albanians portrayed as victims of “genocide” by
the Serbs, thereby internationalizing the Kosovo problem and securing
Western intervention. Thus, the mass population flight from combat zones
produced a problem which, nevertheless, began to be identified with the
ambitions of the extremist separatist movement.
During this time, the tension spilled over into Macedonia, where the
army had been raised to a level of increased combat alert since the beginning
of 1997, due to frequent discoveries of illegal arms imports from Albania.
During 1998, the Albanians organized massive demonstrations of support for
the KLA, with demands for NATO military intervention. Arben Xhaferi, the
leader of the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA), stated significantly that
the “development of the situation in Kosovo would also be reflected in
Macedonia.” And not only that – when called upon to explain his decision to
join the government of Ljupčo Georgijevski, he revealed the true aim of his
move, declaring that this was a gesture that was supposed to dissipate “fears
that the international recognition of a Kosovo republic would lead to
destabilization in the Balkans.”10
These facts indirectly indicated the existence of coordinated activity on
both sides of the border, which is in tune with the sentiment expressed by
—————
9 Монитор, 8. 03. 2001.
10 Σφετας, Σ. Ο Αλβανικος παραγοντας…, с. 340.
126 Agop Garabedyan

the Albanians on many occasions, that the Albanian problem is – one, and
that it is necessary to strive to achieve “its complete solution.” This idea was
also raised in the “Platform for the Solution of the Albanian National
Question,” which was published by the Albanian Academy of Sciences (AAS)
in December 1998.11
In the introductory portion of the document it is emphasized that the
reasons for its preparation and publication lay in the Academy’s concern at
the fact that the attention of both Albanian political circles and international
diplomacy was being limited to the solution of only the problem of Kosovo, and
not “the Albanian question in its entirety.” It goes on to explain the essence of
the “national drama” being experienced by the Albanians, and to formulate
the goals and direction on which the policy of the country should be based in
the decades to follow. At the end, hope is expressed that this would become
an action program for all Albanians, whether in the country itself or outside
its borders.
After a detailed historical retrospective of the “national problem,” the
AAS asked the critical question: What should be done in order to overcome
the drama that the Albanians are living through today? The answer was given
immediately: “All Albanians, regardless of whether they live on the national
territory or outside its borders, wish to unite into a single state.” However, as
it was observed further, as realists, they had to accept the fact that, under the
present circumstances, this was impossible to achieve “without the support
of the international factor.” It is worth observing that the latter judgment,
more concretely – defining a time frame: “under the present circumstances” –
was repeated many additional times, which inevitably raises the following
question – under changed circumstances and with the appropriate approach
of the international factor, could the Albanians achieve this imaged goal?
In the opinion of the Academy, the definite solution of the “Albanian
national question,” which would ensure peace in the Balkans, may be achieved
only through the independence of Kosovo, the transformation of Macedonia
into a bi-national state or one in which autonomy for the Albanians is
secured, the establishment of local autonomy for the Albanians in Monte-
negro and the granting of minority rights to the Albanians in Greece.
Characteristic for this platform was the fact that the “Albanian national
question” was presented for the first time by an official organ, which from
the very start clearly announced its goal of turning the new dogma into an
action program for all Albanians, both within the country or outside its
—————
11 Платформа за решаване на албанския национален въпрос (неофициален
превод).
Albanian secessionism in the 1990s 127

borders. For the first time the economic aspect of the question was
specifically underlined, with the observation that, differently from the time
before the partition of the Albanian nation in 1913, when it had reached an
economic, social and demographic balance, the solution subsequently
imposed denied to the newly-formed state its best territories, limiting it to
mountain areas and sentencing it to long years of economic, social and
political degradation.
Such an illumination of the problem became a significant step forward
in defining the Albanian motivation: as long as international reality is viewed
mainly through the prism of economic reality, motives of economic (rather
than just historical) existence give better results. On the other hand, the
reader was deftly served with the impression that the cause of the deep crisis
in which Albania had found itself lay in a decision made by the major states
and that, by extension, it was the latters’ duty to right all the wrongs.
The contents of the new dogma, without doubt, open up many
questions tied to the intentions of the Albanian intellectual elite, which
cannot be considered outside of the broad framework of Albania’s external
and internal politics. These questions cause a certain amount of concern,
especially considering the fact that this dogma was announced in December
of 1998, when NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia was being prepared. It is
also no accident that the Academy raised the question of border changes at
this particular moment – for that is precisely what happened in Serbia only a
few months later. The visible mass presence of NATO troops in the Balkans
produced a climate of a heightened sense of self-worth in the country’s
nationalist circles, which has led to a situation where a large number of
Albanians have begun to fantasize not about a “Greater” but about a “True
Albania,” as they call it.
Consistent in its intentions, as is mentioned in the Introduction, the
AAS presented the Academy’s new national dogma in Priština, expecting it to
be the common platform for the activities of the Albanian spiritual (and,
later, political) elite toward the achievement of the above-mentioned final
goal. However, the Kosovo Academy rejected it, considering it to be too
moderate. This raises a series of questions with which we shall not deal for
now, of which the main one may be formulated in the following way: may it
be concluded that the Kosovo elite has already started considering itself as
the future Piedmont of all the Albanians and, thus, does not wish to share
the initiative in that direction with anyone else?
Initiated under the threat of NATO military intervention, the
negotiations in Rambouillet and Paris (February-March 1999) and the final
text of the agreement were not serious attempts to solve the Kosovo
128 Agop Garabedyan

problem. Their goal was to turn the province into an American protectorate,
through the deployment of NATO troops and a gradual elimination of
Serbian sovereignty. In essence, the peace agreement was a sort of an
ultimatum to Serbia and no Serbian politician would put his signature on it.
This raised the question of the true goal of NATO’s intervention against
Yugoslavia and, in fact, confirmed the already expressed opinion that the
decision to bomb had been made by October 12, 1998, and that the Kosovo-
-related diplomatic initiatives that followed were nothing other than an
ordinary political hoax.12
On March 24, 1999, under the pretext that it is necessary to prevent the
humanitarian catastrophe threatening the Albanians in Kosovo and protect
their human rights, NATO launched a broad bombing campaign against
Yugoslavia, of terrible proportions, by land and by sea. In connection with
this, Noam Chomsky from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in his
essay about NATO’s aerial madness, reminded readers that the Italian
operation in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935 had also pretended to a
humanitarian definition – “for liberation from slavery.”13 The bombing lasted
until June 9, 1999, resulting in large human casualties, as well as (due, among
other things, to Serbian counter-attacks and other causes) a wave of almost
800,000 Albanian refugees, who fled to the neighboring countries. On June 3
of the same year, a peace agreement was signed, providing for the broad
autonomy of Kosovo within Yugoslavia, under temporary international
administration. The Yugoslav army and police were withdrawn and replaced
by 38,000 KFOR troops, while the KLA, which was supposed to be
disarmed, was transformed into a civil defense force (the Kosovo Defense
Corpus). I say “supposed” because, according to U.N. police data, the KLA
continued to retain a covert active apparatus. Der Spiegel adds that close
associates of the organizations chief, H. Thaqi, have continued to lead the so-
-called death squads, used for the liquidation of Serbs and Albanians disloyal
to the KLA.14 One of the provisions called for elections to be held and new
government structures and institutions of autonomy to be formed after a
transition period. The agreement also provided for the return of several
hundred Serbian forces to Kosovo, for purposes of customs control and
protection of Serbian monuments, which the Albanians were already
destroying on a mass scale. However, this part of the agreement has never
been fulfilled.

—————
12 Vreme, 28. 08. 1999.
13 Сега, 14. 02. 2001.
14 Монитор, 15. 4. 2000.
Albanian secessionism in the 1990s 129

This further development of events leads to the conclusion that the

inviolability of borders and the preservation of Kosovo within the bounds of
Yugoslavia, all of which is proclaimed in the agreement, exist only on paper,
since nothing has been left in the province to remind of Yugoslavia’s
sovereignty. The U.N. administration has encouraged the opening of foreign
representative offices, introduced the German mark as currency, issued
personal identification cards and introduced a customs tax for trade between
Serbia and what is still its province.15 Differently from Bosnia, where a certain
military balance between the ethnic groups was preserved, Kosovo was given
over to the absolute domination of the Albanians, under the sponsorship of
NATO. The result has been a horrifying ethnic cleansing, whose victims have
been the province’s Serbian and non-Albanian population. In this way, the
international protectorate has created not a multi-ethnic democracy but a
vengeful dwarf-state full of hate where, according to the admission of the
NATO Joint Commander for Europe himself, General Wesley Clarke, ethnic
cleansing and organized crime are the main problems.16 According to the
London Guardian, KFOR’s failure to disarm the KLA, to protect the Serbian
minority and to create a multi-ethnic society have created a state in which
extremists flourish. KFOR has not heeded the adamant calls of the Albanian
intelligentsia to take strict measures against the members of H. Thaqi’s
army.17 As the U.N. Special Ambassador for Human Rights in the Former
Yugoslavia, Jiří Dienstbier, has put it, the situation in Kosovo is horrifying
and chaotic, with power in the hands of various, often private structures. The
province has turned into a paradise for the widest variety of mafia-type
organizations, which not only control specific areas, villages and towns, but
often war among themselves.18 Political observers have noted that almost half
of the heroin arriving to the U.S. and Western Europe is delivered by criminal
Kosovo Albanian groups, who control the entire narcotics trade in the
Balkans.19 The London Times of March 24, 1999, added that 40% of all
narcotics deliveries in Europe were passing through the hands of H. Thaqi’s
people.20 Each month, Kosovo Albanians earn between 80 and 120 million
American dollars from narcotics deliveries.21 Thanks to the fact that the
border is practically unguarded and to the absence of security forces in
—————
15 Дума, 21. 4. 2001.
16 Сега, 4. 2. 2000.
17 Сега, 13. 3. 2001.
18 Монитор, 22. 3. 2000.
19 Монитор, 15. 3. 2000.
20 Монитор, 8. 3. 2001.
21 Сега, 2. 5. 2000.
130 Agop Garabedyan

Kosovo, in addition to narco-business, the illicit trades in arms, people and

human organs also flourish.22 Italy’s then Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Lamberto Dini, confirming that “all the repression is aimed against the
Serbian population,” concluded that “neither the Albanian extremists nor I.
Rugova were contributing in any way to a normalization of conditions.”23
Of course, L. Dini was far removed from the thought that it was
precisely the NATO intervention that made it possible for the KLA to
construct the foundations of an efficient strategy for achieving several clear
goals. First, to transform itself into the key political force among the
Albanians in Kosovo. Second, to form a government with the majority
participation of the KLA. Third, to achieve Kosovo’s unification with
Albania. Fourth, the new state must include all territories populated by
Albanians. Fifth, the Albanian community that is to be formed must live in
secure conditions, must be the dominant force in the region and must control
the main roads from Turkey to Central Europe.

Translation: Aleksandar Pavić

—————
22 Труд, 27. 5. 2000.
23 Сега, 6. 3. 2000.