Illyrians.org - Serb Projects

SERB PROJECTS

Serb Projects > IMPLEMENTATION OF SERBIAN PROJECTS ON EXPULSIONS OF ALBANIANS IN NINETEENTH CENTURY

Albanian Ethnic Territories in Nineteenth Century
To the majority of the peoples in the Balkans the nineteenth century presented a period of endeavours and struggles for national freedom, independence and emancipation. However, in that time, in the minds of some of these peoples greater state aspirations began to be born and were manifested to the detriment of the being and territories of their neighbours. The Albanians and the land where they lived were the target of such invading intentions for quite a long period. These aspirations became stronger particularly during and after the Eastern Crisis (1875-1878) through propagandistic campaigns, and later through occupations and ethnic cleansing of these territories. This is witnessed by historical sources of the time, various ethno-graphic documents and special historiography documents.
The very important geostrategic position, abundant in natural resources, fertile soil and other favourable climate conditions of the Albanian land made them an object of permanent interests of Serbian and Greek circles.
The Albanian coast, one of the most attractive in this region, that was about 500 kilometres long, had many isles, ports and cities with developed crafts and economy.
In addition to it, the continental part of the Albanian land had fertile soil in Dukagjin and Kosova, and the regions of Toplica, Kosanica, Presheva, Kumanova, Shkup (Skopje), Tetova, Kërçova, Arta and Janina

According to the facts presented by Lord Broughton (1809), the Albanian land extended between 39 and 43 (geographical parallels) and between 17 and 20 (geographi-cal meridians), covering in this way a surface of 62,500 square kilometres.

By some students of Balkan questions, the extension of the Albanians was witnessed to have been up to Niš, Leskovac and Vranje in the north; to Kumanova, Përlep and Manastir in the east; to Konitza, Janina and Preveza in the south.

This region, according to Sami Frashëri, embraced a surface of 70,000 km2, and according to an Italian study it was 80,000 square kilometres.

Within this space (in the vilayets of Shkodra, Kosova, Manastir and Janina), the population, consisting of the Albanians in the greatest majority, lived under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, that had a character of an ethnically compact territory, and was fairly called Albania (Arnavutluk) by many authors writing about their travels, and by some scholars and diplomats of the time. That Albania, although without any special political or administrative character, maintained its simple Albanian and compact physiognomy and opposed to the Slavonic and Greek intentions and threats. However, the space of the Albanian land was not threatened by the Slavonic and Greek aspirations only. After the Eastern Crisis, the Ottoman Empire experienced its natural collapse. Facing its multiple internal contradictions and pressures exerted by big powers from outside, it made its efforts in vain to avoid its decomposition by various new administrative reforms. In this way, many forms of military, political and administrative organisation took place on the Albanian land. Administrative divisions and revisions, undoubtedly harmed the interests of the Albanian people heavily, since the political and ethnic unit of Albania was denied in that way.

On the whole, from the ethnic viewpoint, the Albanian historical territory was divided into two large zones: the ethnic trunk, where the Albanians constituted the absolute majority of population, and the side belt, where the Albanians did not constitute its majority.

In order to create a possibly most real picture of the regions of ethnic Albanians in twentieth century, we bring some data from geographic maps, various ethnographic publications and documents, statistical evidence on the proportion of the Albanian population in comparison to the alien elements that have settled on the land of the latter.
Among the maps that deserve being taken as a basis are those by the German authors, Kettler and Kiepert (Berlin, 1876), as they present incontestable authorities in the field of ethnography and as such, they offer objective evidence.

According to those maps, the Albanian land is called the square surface that extends from north on the line from Novi-Pazar to Niš, in the east from Leskovac to Kumanova, Shkup and Veles, in the west from Novi-Pazar to Gucia and the extreme north-western coast of the Lake of Shkodra.

Another map that shows the compact zones inhabited by the Albanians in 1875 is based on the results of ethnographic research work on Albania. According to it, the Albanian ethnic line starts from Novi-Pazar to the environs of Niš, it comes down to a point in the north-east of Vranje, continuing south to Manastir, and including Presheva, Kumanova, Shkup, Tetova, Gostivar and Kërçova. In the north-west, this line includes Rozhaja, Tutin, Istog, Peja, Plava, Gucia, Podgorica, Hot, Gruda and Ulqin.

Other later maps are close to these borders, with small changes, that are the results brought about by the changes made in the time.
This space of ethnic Albanians is proved also by the evidence provided by outstanding foreign scholars, some of whom have walked and seen those regions with their own eyes.
The well-known scholar and albanologist, Georg von Hahn, when writing on the natural (geographic and ethnic) border of Albania, claimed that the border extended from Montenegro in the north to the bay of Arta in the south, i.e., from north of Tivar (Bar) to the cape of Preveza, pointing out that the Albanians inhabited the whole central region that extended from the north end of the Lake of Shkodra up to Niš.

The same author, in a later work of his (1866), underlined that the River of Morava was the one that divided the Albanian land from the Slavonic one, emphasising that the Albanians had an incontestable majority in Fusha e Kosovës and along the river of Vardar in Shkup.11 Gabriel Louis Jaray also admitted that the Albanian element fulfilled a large space in the Vilayet of Manastir, and the whole Vilayet of Kosova, to the bank of Vardar in Shkup. He said of Shkup that “it is one of the vanguard castles of the Albanians and one of their main cities”. According to the facts that he refers to, it comes out that Shkup had 45,000 inhabitants, of whom 25,000 were Muslims, almost all Albanians, 10-15,000 Bulgarians, 3,000 Serbs and 2,000 Jews. Whereas, he qualified Peja, Gjakova and Prizren as fully Albanian cities.

The Greek consul in Shkodra, Epaminondas Mavro-matis (1879-1881), in his published reports (1884) said that Albania included these parts - regions seen from the ethnographic aspect:
1. South Albania, that extended to Parga;
2. Central Albania, extending between Shkumbin and Mat;
3. Upper Albania, extending between Mat and Montenegro;
4. The north-eastern Part and 5. Western Macedonia.
The north-eastern region extended to the part that was given to Serbia by the Congress of Berlin, as well as to Prizren, Gjakova, Peja, Kalkandelen (Tetova), Luma, Prishtina, Gjilan, Vushtria, Mitrovica, Novi-Pazar, Shkup and Kumonaova. Western Macedonia inhabited by the Albanians included: Prilep, Ohri, Kërçova, Kostur, Follorina, Kolonja and Korça, that had a population of 220,000 inhabitants, of whom 140,000 were of the Islamic and 80,000 of Orthodox religion.

Serbian administration also confirmed the fact that Albania was the region that extended from Sjenica, Novi-Pazar to Prokuplje and further to the internal part of Turkey, to Shkodra.

Dr Vasa Cubrilovic wrote also that “the regions of Prokuplje, Kursumlia, Leskovac up to Niš were called ‘Arnavutluk of Toplica'”.

The administration map of the Ottoman Empire became more or less invariable in the Balkan Peninsula only after the wave of the Eastern Crisis passed (1883). But in this time too, the Albanian land remained partitioned into four vilayets (Shkodra, Kosova, Manastir and Janina). A part of the ethnic trunk (the regions of Ulqin, Podgorica, Shpuza, Vranje, Leskovac and Niš) remained outside the Ottoman Empire, therefore outside the four vilayets of the Albanians.

According to statistical evidence and approximate calculations, the population that lived in the territories of the four vilayets mentioned above in the time of the Eastern Crisis could be around 1,700,000 inhabitants, the majority Albanians.

The platform of the Albanian Renaissance was founded on this basis and its representatives requested their inclusion within the future state of the Albanians.
2. ‘Nacertanija’ - a Project on Serbian Official Planning of Expulsions
On the eve of the Eastern Crisis, among the ruling and diplomatic circles of the Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians dominated the conviction that the collapse of the Ottoman Empire was inevitable. That is why preparations were made and agreements were concluded about its future domination. Serbia was distinguished for such intentions. Ilija Garašanin, the minister of internal affairs of Serbia and one of the most outstanding Serbian officials in nineteenth century, compiled the first programme of the Serbian expansionist policy in 1844, known by the name ‘Nacertanija’.

I. Garašanin found his inspiration for such a huge project in the motive of inheritance of the Kingdom of Dusan, that the Ottomans destroyed in fourteenth century, and that has continued to be a mythic obsession of Serbian politicians to the present day.
The political project of Ilija Garašanin explained and determined the Serbian policy of the time and the intentions of that policy in the future.
Serbia, according to Garašanin, has a historical mission of uniting all the southern Slavs and the regions where they live. In his point of view, Serbia should be the protector of all the Slavs under the Ottoman Empire. Only when it took this duty over itself, the other Slavs would allow it to speak and act in their name.

In order to fulfil the ideas that ‘Nacertanija’ contained, being aware of the possibilities and the degree of the development of Serbia, Garašanin thought about the means, methods and forms of action as well. According to him, when one knows what he aims at and works decisively and powerfully, the means for accomplishing the task are obtained easily and quickly.

He stated that Serbia was small, therefore, if it wanted to extend its existence, it should be expanded territorially, be transformed into a strong Balkan state, capable to exist by itself.

Another condition for future Serbia to be stable, strong and developed, according to Garašanin, was that it had to be ruled by an inherited dynasty. According to ‘Nacertanija’, one could not imagine steady and long-term unification of Serbia and the other Serbs in the neighbourhood without accomplishing this principle.

From ‘Nacertanija’ of Garašanin were transmitted the ideas for multiple falsifications of Serbian historiography between 70-80-s of nineteenth century on the land of the Albanians, such as Kosova, baptised by the name ‘Old Serbia' (Stara Srbija).

This devised term was not mentioned at all in European scientific literature in the past centuries. This term was not noted on geographic maps of south-eastern Europe of 15th-18th centuries either, such as those of Rozeli, Gastald, Mekatore, Kantel, Celebija, Jansen, etc. The term ‘Old Serbia' is not found in the big historical and geographic dictionary either, published in 1884 in Istanbul.

This indicates that the Serbs had not been able to spread this devised term, invented by Garašanin, until that time (nineteenth century).
The national ideology and Serbian state policy coming out of ‘Nacertanija’ of Garašanin had the intention to occupy else's territories, to denationalise, assimilate and expatriate the other peoples, and the Serbian expansion, colonisation and creation of a greater Serbia were foreseen instead.
3. The Great Expatriation in 1877-1878
Making use of the circumstances created in the middle of 1876, Serbia accelerated the preparations to declare war against the Ottoman Empire. The officers of the Serbian military headquarters estimated that the expansion of the rebellion in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the beginning of the rebellion in Bulgaria, the position of the other peoples in the Balkans against the Ottoman Empire, as well as the relationships of Serbia with Russia, Greek and Montenegro were a convenient moment. They thought that small Serbia, of totally 1,400,000 inhabitants, was given a rare opportunity to expand its territory, precisely as it had been projected in ‘Nacertanija’ of Garašanin, in the direction to Bosnia, and also to the Albanian land.
The Serbian Prince himself, Milan Obrenovic, in his proclamation announced in June 1876, on the eve of Serbian-Turkish war, in order to camouflage the occupational aspirations of Serbia, declared that “Serbia is forced to begin the defending war...”

The position of Serbia towards the Albanian population and territory was occupying and hostile, that came out of its threat that “the Albanians will feel directly the pressure of our force, and what cannot be achieved by money will be achieved by force.”

Similar threats with occupying intentions to the regions of the Albanians were manifested by Montenegro as well. The explanations of the Montenegrin minister of forces were identical with those of Serbian officials: “We cannot always be forced to pass a hard life on our hills, but we have to go down to the field that is in front of us.”

Facing such threats, the Albanians did not have many alternatives, and they had to defend their land that was endangered by the occupying intentions of Slavonic allies.
On 30 June, 1876, Serbia proclaimed war to the Ottoman Empire. After some small temporary success, it not only was defeated, but also forced to withdraw within the existing border. It was seen that the Serbian military could not resist war in many fronts, that was imposed by the Ottoman Empire. By the intervention of Russia to the advantage of peace, on 1 September, 1876, the Serbian - Ottoman war came to its end with Serbian defeat.

Serbia made use of the signed cease-fire so that it regrouped armed forced and made necessary preparations to begin war again. International circumstances were in its favour. On 24 April, 1877, Russia proclaimed war to the Ottoman Empire. In the meantime, Serbia signed a treaty with Rumania (16/4/1877), reorganised its forces, provided itself with required financial aids and on the request of Russia, the second Serbian-Ottoman war began on 13 December, 1877.

The first war did not develop in the territory inhabited by the Albanian population, and so there were not remarked considerable displacement of the Albanian population. However, mass movements and forceful ones were caused during the second war (1877-1878), and after its termination.

Therefore, they took place when the Albanian National Movement was about to rise in a new and higher phase, both from the practical and organisational aspect and political and national one, and in the time of its confrontation and disturbance of relationships with the Ottoman Empire, on the one hand, and in the time of sincere endeavours for collaboration with the Balkan states and peoples, on the other hand. Nevertheless, unfortunately, those attempts did not receive any purport and good understanding of the neighbouring countries. On the contrary, led by invading appetites, they put the Albanians and their movement on harsh temptations and alternatives, forcing them to fight for their existence at many fronts. Most mass resettlements, forced by political and strategic motives and planned by the Serbian occupying circles, took place in the winter (December - January) of 1877-1878. The war between the Serbian and Ottoman forces took place mainly in the regions of the Sanjac of Niš, especially in its south-western part, that was inhabited in majority by the Albanians

(Toplica, Pusta Reka, Jabllanica, and other regions of Leskovac and Vranje), as well as the urban centres of that sanjac. The main Ottoman forces were busy on the front with Russia, and they were few on the front against Serbia, therefore they were not able to confront the Serbian attacks. Niš, Prokuple, Leskovac, Ak Palanka with their territories could not manage to defence themselves. However, on the line Permali, Përpelac of Merdari, Samakova, St. Ilia Mountain at Vranje, etc., the Ottoman forces managed to get defended quite well and did not allow the Serbian forces to travel to Kosova. A merit for this successful defence, undoubtedly, belonged to Hafiz Pasha.

The relatively fast defeat of the Ottoman military should be sought in the war on many fronts that was imposed to it, in weak armament of the military, the hatred of the indigenous population towards the regime, as well as in the wheedling and hypocritical attitude of the Serbian circles to this population. The proclamations that were spread among the Albanians in that time read, “if you stay quiet and do not disturb the soldiers, no one will disturb you”; however, in the instructions given to Serbian soldiers was said, “The less Arnavuts (Albanians) and Turks remain with us, the greater will be your contribution to the country”.

In order to put these instructions in practice, the Serbian military used force, committed massacres and genocide on the Albanians, who were forced to leave their homes and run away. These morose scenes were prescribed objectively by a teacher from Leskovac, Josif H. Kostic, who was a witness of these tragic events: “In the winter, very cold and frosty, of 1877-1878, I saw people running away, weakly dressed and barefoot, that had abandoned their warm and wealthy rooms ... On the way from Grdelica to Vranje, all the way to Kumanova, on both sides of the road corpse of children and old people could be seen that had died of the cold”.

Another witness, Sreten Popovic, confirmed the same thing: “I saw frozen children that were falling on their mothers' embrace, or were carried in cradles. When mothers saw their children had died of the frost, they left them on the road side and continued running away. Corpses of old persons that had died of the cold could be seen on road sides.” Plundering, burning down the houses, killing and the frost were misfortunes that accompanied the great wave of forceful displacement of the Albanians from their own land in that unforgotten winter. This harsh situation was confirmed also by the Commissary of the Serbian border, the English John Ross, who, apart from others, when dealing with the situation he had seen, wrote the following: “Almost all the inhabitants of the western part of the Sanjac of Niš, who surrendered to Serbia, were the Albanians of the Muslim religion..., therefore, when this district was occupied by Serbian military, the population could not stand up to the invaders. All of them left for the Vilayet of Kosova, deserting in this way the whole country.”

It is evaluated that there were “60,000 Albanian refugees spread out in the Vilayet of Kosova in 1878. They have never gone back to their former villages, as most of them had lost everything.”

The evidence of the number of Albanian inhabitants forced to run away from the regions of present South Serbia can be found out of the number of the immigrants that left their homes in 1877-1878 and were settled in different parts of the Ottoman Empire, where a large part of them were concentrated, such as in Kosova, Macedonia, Greece, etc. This can also be figured from the talks that the English consul Geuld had with the mayor of Prishtina, who complained of having had troubles with the immigrants coming from the regions of Niš, Leskovac and other ones and had gathered there. In connection to this, the consul informed London that 90,000-100,000 immigrants had come to Prishtina.

On the basis of abundant data of various sources (Turkish, Serbian, Britain, German, Albanian, etc.) dealing with the number of the immigrated Albanians from south Serbia, one can conclude that there were around 640 villages in that region inhabited by the Albanian population. Out of them, 370 villages were inhabited by Albanians in the vast majority, and the others by mixed population, where Albanians were in minority. The total number of the Albanians in the regions of Vranje, Leskovac, Prokuplje and Kursumlia amounted to 158,968 inhabitants.

They had to emigrate by force and terror from their own land after the wars of 1877-1878.
4. Serbia Ignored the Decisions of the Congress of Berlin
The Congress of Berlin (13/04/1878) had on its agenda re-discussion on the Treaty of San Stefano, which had left hard consequences on the fate of the Albanians and Albania. San Stefano confronted the interests of the great powers at the international level as well. That is why the Congress of Berlin became not only an international forum from which the settling of international relationship in Europe was expected, but it also gave the Albanians hopes to escape the partition of their land. Nevertheless, the hopes of the Albanians and the requests of the delegation of the Albanian League of Prizren were ignored. Even the right of this delegation to participate at the Congress was denied. The Albanian territories were treated as a ‘Turkish dominion', and the Albanians as ‘Turkish citizens', although the Albanians had fought against Turkey!
Seeing such an ignoring treatment, Abdyl Frashëri was right to protest: “If the Great Powers will condemn this brave and freedom-loving people to remain in slavery, and worse than that to be partitioned among the neighbouring states, the Balkan Peninsula will never have peace, as the Albanians will never cease to fight to win their national independence. On the other way, if the national right will be recognised to the Albanians, they may become a factor of peace and barrier to tsar expansionism that endangers not only the Balkan Peninsula, but the European continent as well.”

This objective evaluation can be shown true and farsighted even nowadays. The fact that this problem was ignored is one of the main causes of the dangers which the present Europe has faced. The Congress of Berlin regarded the strategic interests of great powers, as well as plundering requests of the Balkan neighbours to the detriment of Albanian territories. Even though Serbia requested Kosova and the Dukagjin Plain, that were not handed over, it still managed to expand its territory from 34,000 km2 to 48,700 km2. This expansion of the territory was more valuable to it, as in that way it came close to Kosova.

Montenegro was expanded from 4,700 km2 to 9,100 km2; as well as Greece from 51,860 km2 to 72,164 km2.

Even though the Albanians did not have the purport of the Congress of Berlin that they deserved and their political identity was ignored, its decisions prevented their misery partition projected by San Stefano, the Russians, Bulgarians, Serbs and Montenegrins.

The most severe violation caused to the Albanians by the decisions of the Congress of Berlin were undoubtedly those that legalised Serbian-Montenegrin violence and occupation of the Albanian land. Serbia was given the regions that had been granted to Bulgaria by the Conference of San Stefano: the regions of Niš, Prokuple, Kursumlia, Vranje and Leskovac; Montenegro was handed over the areas of Tivar, Podgorica, Plava, Gucia, Rugova and Kolasin, and they recognised Cetinja the right to free sailing in the river Buna and the Lake of Shkodra.

Serbia not only was not satisfied with its great expansions, but it began to ignore the obligations coming out of the documents of the Congress itself.
In articles 35 and 39 of the Treaty of Berlin, it was clearly formulated that in the regions mentioned above both Muslims and Christians should enjoy their civilian and political rights in an equal way and they may freely posses their own real estate.

Due to the injustice that was perpetrated and violence that was exerted by the Serbian regime, the Albanians that had emigrated and those who ëere still living in their property addressed petitions to the Congress of Berlin and to diplomatic representatives of great powers. In one of those petitions was said: “...the situation is harsh at all levels of life. We have lost whatever we have had... The Serbian government does not stick to the agreement of Berlin; it has confiscated out property, it has taken everything living, crops, etc., that is why we ask great powers to engage themselves in protection of our real estate.”

The Congress of Berlin did not get deep enough into the article 39, which anticipated the solution of the issue of emigrants' property. It stick mainly to the Peace Regulation of San Stefano. Serbian regime circles, noticing the indifference of the European respective representatives, did not try to create convenient conditions. According to art. 39 of the Congress of Berlin, the Albanian owners, etc., that had emigrated, had the right to go back to their former places by a permission of both states and settle, namely, sell their property remained there, or give it on a rent, or find some other form about it.

However, when the emigrants went there to sell their property, the authorities requested from them to pay for debts and taxes, so that very little or nothing was left after they sold their former property. Accordingly, despite the obligations that were foreseen by the decisions of the Congress of Berlin dealing with the property of the Albanians, Serbia ignored them completely and forced the Albanians to move from their land.
All the forms of pressure, plundering and ill-treatment of the Albanians who continued to live in their own property, or those who had been expatriated, were exerted by the Serbian regime on purpose of ethnic cleansing and colonisation of their land.
5. Ethnic Cleansing and Colonisation of Albanian Soil
As it can be seen, Serbian military actions were part of their strategic planning not only to expand their territory, but also to change the ethnic structure of those regions, always basing themselves on the ‘merits for the fatherland'. Many Serbian authors have written on the causes of the expulsion of the Albanians and measures that were undertaken to accelerate this process. One of them, Jovan Hadzivasiljevic, wrote, “The issue of the expulsion of Albanians has not yet been enlightened to the present day, as the Serbian regime forced to expatriate even those Albanians that had not moved out after the wars of 1877-1878, namely after the Congress of Berlin, and those that had returned to their places after the wars ended”.

Also Milicevic, Spasic, Bogdanovic, etc., have expressed similar opinions and their disagreements with the actions of the Serbian regime.
Nevertheless, J. Hadzivasiljevic found and evidenced the main causes and motives for the expatriation of the Albanians from southern Serbia. According to him, they are the following:
1. that Serbia should become a nationally clean state;
2. that Serbia should paralyse the steps of the Sublime Port at the Congress of Berlin, as those steps were taken to return the land that was inhabited by Albanians;
3. that more convenient possibilities should be created for further actions of Serbia to break out to Kosova, and
4. that peace and security should be created in those regions.

The author adds further that the supreme commander of the Serbian military had in his mind to clean Serbia of the other nations, in order to escape the possibility of forming a state of many peoples, such as was the case with Russia, where Caucasus was formed of many peoples. And the president of Serbian government, M. Pirocanac, wrote, “I am very much afraid of the presence of the Albanians in these regions. I base this fear on their centuries-long experience.” He continued with his conclusion that “if we left them here, they would cause us trouble”.

The Greater Serbian strategy inspired by the doctrinated pan-Slavism of ‘Nacertanija' comprises the danger of annexation and assimilation of their neighbours, and the Albanians in particular. The idea of ethnic cleansing, as it is seen in the declarations of Serbian higher officials of the time, was a permanent obsession of fear from the multiplication of the Albanians and the high degree of their resistance since 120 years ago. The vacant space that the Albanians left in South Serbia was populated in a systematic way by Serbian inhabitants, who were settled by the Serbian regime during the period 1878-1889 as colonists. People from different places, such as Pirot, Niš, Montenegro, Novi-Pazar, Kosova, Raska, etc., went there and got settled.

As it can be seen, ethnic cleansing, as a method of forceful changing of the population structure, for the first time in the Balkans and Europe, was accomplished by Serbia, to the detriment of ethnic Albanians, still in nineteenth century.
However, the danger from Serbian expansionism was not only felt by the Albanians, who fought through their national movement for creation of ethnic Albania, as a steady factor for the stability and prosperity of the Balkans. This important fact was also pointed out by the English representative in Istanbul, Goschen, in his report sent to the minister of foreign affairs, Grinwille, on 26 July, 1880, “...If a strong Albania were established, the pretext for its occupation by foreign forces on the occasion of collapse of the Ottoman Empire would become very weak. A united Albania would block the passage that remained from the north, and the Balkan Peninsula would remain in the hands and under the rule of the races that live there now... I think that by resolving the question of the Albanian nation, the possibility for a European intervention in the Balkan Peninsula would reduced...

Unfortunately, this fair and reasonable thought from all possible aspects did not find the required sustenance.
6. Expulsions - a Consequence of Wars and Border Changes
By unjust decisions, the Congress of Berlin caused harm to the Albanian question, but also to the Balkan question in general. The solution to problems on ethnic principles was not implemented, but the principle of the interests of great powers and their small satellites in the Balkans was inaugurated. On these basis a bargain on the Albanian land was made. For example, Plava and Gucia, inhabited by Albanians, were handed over to Montenegro as an equivalent value for the regions of Herzegovina, since the Congress recognised sovereignty of Austria-Hungary over Bosnia and Herzegovina. When the Albanians defended Plava and Gucia by war, the great powers requested from the Ottoman Empire to move the Albanians from their own hearths and to surrender the territory to Montenegro. But when the Ottoman Empire proposed to the great powers that the aspirations of Montenegro on Plava and Gucia could be paid by Turkish golden liras, England requested that Ulqin should be handed over to Montenegro as an equivalent value, and this became true later.

The unjust decisions of the Congress of Berlin caused a wave of great dissatisfactions among the Albanians, and they were followed by a large number of protests, reactions, requests and memoranda that the Albanians addressed to this forum. The Albanians of those regions, subjected to great violence by Montenegrin military and to pillage of their property, were forced to move to Kolasin, Niksic, Shpuza, Podgorica and Zabljak. According to the Austria-Hungarian consul, 955 families with 3,957 members were expelled from Podgorica in 1883; 112 families with 644 members from Shpuza, 40 families with 293 members from Zabljak; 34 families with 166 members from Tivar; 228 families with 1090 members from Niksic; first 38 and later 50 families from Ulqin, and the expulsion of the other inhabitants of this town remained open.

From the evidence above, it can be seen that only in one year (1883), 7,000 inhabitants were resettled from a part of Albania that was handed over to Montenegro. To face the difficult life, all of these expatriated Albanians were spread out in Shkodra, Lezha and other regions of Albania.
By the decisions of the Congress of Berlin, the great powers, said briefly, did not recognise the right of the Albanians to create a new autonomous state. On the other hand, they recognised the results of the aggression of the Balkan neighbours on the Albanian land and justified ethnic cleansing of the Albanians of Niš, Pirot, Leskovac, Kursumlia, Vranje and Tivar, including their environs. After this wave of forceful emigration and ethnic cleansing, the space of ethnic Albanians became reduced considerably. Nevertheless, the Albanian regions were relatively peaceful, as far as the resettling of population is concerned, up to 1912. According to statistical evidence and approximate calculations, the ethnic structure of the population in four Albanian vilayets in 1912 (out of the total number of 2,351,200 inhabitants) was as follows: Albanians 1,452,100 or 61.7%; Macedonians 317,000 or 13.5%; Greeks 170,700 or 7,3%; Serbs 163,900 or 6.9%; Turks 130,400 or 5.5%; Wallachs 117,400 or 5.4%, and others 2,200 or 0.1%. The proportion of the Albanian population in comparison to others was different from one vilayet to another. In the Vilayet of Shkodra, the Albanians comprised 98.2%; in the Vilayet of Janina 59.1%; in the Vilayet of Manastir 54.1% and the Vilayet of Kosova, without the Sanjac of Shkup, 79.1% of the population.

In 1912, a new epoch of social and political developments was noticed in the Balkans. The Albanian question, as a result of continuous uprisings against the Ottoman Empire, took the central part in those circumstances. It was hoped rightly that finally, all the endeavours, uprisings, battles and sacrifices of the Albanians would be crowned with their freedom and independence.
After the proclamation of the independence of Albania, more than half of the ethnic Albanian land was occupied by the Balkan allies. Only Serbia and Montenegro invaded a territory of 24,000 km2, and the territory occupied by Greece covered around 8,000 km2. The ethnic structure of these occupied territories was almost entirely Albanian.
Here we provide evidence of ethnic and religious structure of these regions, according to the census in 1905-1906.

1. The Sanjac of Prishtina: 254,605 Albanians of Muslim religion; 110,310 Catholic and Orthodox Albanians, Serbs, Bulgarians and Romanies.
2. The Sanjac of Peja: 139,901 Muslim Albanians; 45,784 Catholic and Orthodox Albanians, and Serbs.
3. The Sanjac of Novi-Pazar: 27,980 Muslim Albanians and Turks; 19,795 Christian Albanians and Serbs.
4. The Sanjac of Shkup: 90,840 Muslim Albanians; 60,706 Catholic Albanians and Serbs.
5. The Sanjac of Prizren (including the districts of Tetova and Gostivar): 158,742 Muslim Albanians; 15,323 Catholic and Orthodox Albanians; 11,606 Serbs and 473 Romanies.
6. The Sanjac of Manastir: 457,994 Muslim Albanians and Turks; 264,008 Orthodox Albanians and Wallachs; 198,335 Bulgarians; 55,108 Greeks; 2,760 Romanies; 354 Catholic and Protestant Albanians.
7. The Vilayet of Janina: 227,484 Muslim Albanians; 213,281 Orthodox Albanians and Wallachs; 91,991 Greeks and 4,906 Jews.

SERBIAN OCCUPYING WARS AND OTHER MEASURES FOR EXPULSION OF ALBANIANS (1912-1941)

The District of Jeni-Pazar, including the regions of Jeni-Pazar, Sjenica and Mitrovica, had 45 communes, 571 villages, with 5,398 Serbian houses and 12,287 Albanian and Turkish houses.

The District of Prishtina, including the regions of Prishtina, Vushtria, Gjilan, Llap and Ferizaj, had 71 communes with 628 villages, with 6,787 Serbian houses and 26,288 Albanian houses.

The District of Prizren, including the regions of Prizren, Gjakova, Vranishta, Drin, Istog, Podrimja, Luma and Suhareka, had 118 communes with 463 villages, with a total number of 30,000 houses, the absolute majority of which belonged to the Albanians.

Out of the evidence of the census of population organised in March 1913, it can be clearly seen that the population of these regions that were occupied in 1912 was mainly Albanian.

Consequences Resulting from the Conference of London (1913) for Expulsion of Albanians

The request of the government of Vlora made a positive echo in the public opinion. The Conference of Ambassadors was convoked in London on 17 December, 1912, under the chairmanship of Edward Grey. In its first session it was decided that Albanian should remain autonomous...

The Balkan states had to accept the idea of creation of an Albanian state, but they gained the right, as winners, to present their territorial requests to the Conference of Ambassadors. The governments of Balkan allies made their demands for Albanian territories on chauvinist basis.
The Greek government, apart from the occupation of {amëria, made requests for other Albanian territories. In the list of its requests, the Greek government included the regions of Dukagjin Plain, Kosova and Macedonia; whereas Montenegro, apart from the occupied territories, such as Plava, Gucia and the Dukagjin Plain, wanted Shkodra with its environs and the territory to the river Mat. The Albanian delegation requested that the legitimate right and full independence within its ethnic borders should be recognised to Albania, but the Conference of Ambassadors in London did not accomplish the requests of the Albanians. It took the side of the governments of the Balkan Alliance, whose protector was Russia. As a consequence of these decisions, the Albanian state was formed in less than half of the territory of ethnic Albanians. The Albanian land was partitioned for the second time.

That the Albanian land was occupied is witnessed by a memorandum in 1920 of a Serbian general, where he said, “The Albanians live in a compact mass from the Adriatic Sea to the old Turkish-Serbian border, and very rarely inhabited by Serbian population... By the proclamation of principle on nationalities (The Declaration of February 1918 of the American President, Woodrow Wilson, on the right to self-determination), the Albanians believed that we and Europe would respect that principle, and they aided to some degree in sending away the Austrian regime. But neither we nor Europe showed any willing to respect the principle. The Albanian leadership in Prizren and Gjakova handed a memorandum on the will of the Albanians to the French officers on passing, but we, on the contrary, invaded new regions that did not belong to us by the Treaty of London (Malësia, Has and Dibra).”

The consequences of the London Conference were hard and more than half of its territory was cut off from Albania and awarded to the neighbouring countries. The unjust decisions of the Conference of London were sanctioned by the Conference of Paris in 1919 and 1920.
Territorial Division and Administrative Organisation of Kosova (1912-1941)
After the occupation of Kosova, in October of 1912, state administrative bodies were established. The Serbian regime established state bodies by military decrees, specially for Kosova, by the ‘Law-decree on ruling over and settling the liberated regions', on 27 December, 1912, on which basis executions by fire-arms were anticipated as well.

After having been occupied by Serbia, the territory of Kosova was organised in these administrative centres: the districts of Prishtina, Prizren, Novi-Pazar, Kumanova and Shkup. In November 1913, the district of Zveçan was also established with its centre in Mitrovica. 8 Out of the territory of Kosova under the Montenegrin occupation up to 1915 were Deçan, Peja and Istog with a part of Drenica. By the Montenegrin military breaking into Dukagjin, state-military-police organs were established. Montenegro, as well as Serbia, organised it territorially and administratively in regions, but similar to the model in Montenegro. Peja was made the centre of it. Every region was administratively divided into 10 captainships, and a captainship was divided into five administrative communes.
9 Montenegro, apart from the genocidal crimes it committed during the First Balkan War, converted more than 1,703 Albanians into the Orthodox religion of the East in the region of Gjakova by March 1913 .

In the region of Peja, another 20 Albanian villages were converted by 22 June, 1913, and 200 persons only in the city of Peja. This genocide continued till 1915, when Montenegro was destroyed in the First World War. On 1 December, 1918, the Serbian-Croatian-Slo-venian Kingdom was pro-claimed. Kosova, as far as the territorial aspect is concerned, remained as it had been before the First World War. In 1920, a new territorial organisation of it took place, into these regions: Zveçan, Kosova, Dukagjin, Prizren and Shkup. These regions included 18 districts, 180 communes and 1,439 villages with 549,871 inhabitants.
11 In 1929, the Yugoslav Kingdom made a new territorial organisation in banovinas. The territory of Kosova, according to this new organisation, was divided into three banovinas: the banovinas of Vardar with its centre in Shkup, of Zeta with its centre in Cetinje and of Morava with its centre in Niš. This partition was done on purpose of exerting more pressure for Albanian expulsion, ethnic cleansing of their land.
Legalisation - Expulsion Through Legal Acts
In the First Balkan War, Serbian and Montenegrin military, apart from the genocide exerted upon the Albanian population, carried out also their forceful expulsion. Thus in the territories of the Albanians villages were burned down and the frightened population ran away pursued by Serbian military, and those who remained there were shot or sent to concentration camps, such as Niš and other places. Only in Prishtina, more than 5,000 Albanians were killed by Serbian military on 22 October, 1912.12 On 27 October, 650 Albanians were sent to the camp in Niš, and on 30 October, 1912, another 700 of them.

This genocide continued all the time till 1915, when Serbian military and government moved to Corfu as they were defeated in the First World War.
During the period between 1912-1915, parallel to expatriation of the Albanians, their land was populated by Serbian colonists: officials, policemen and others. On 20 February, 1914, Serbian government passed the Law-decree on Agrarian Reforms and Colonisation in the occupied regions.

The minister of Economy and Forestry formed respective bodies for colonisation. That decree was in effect until 1919.
In the period between 1912-1915, Serbian government colonised the Albanian regions; they took the houses of the Albanians that had been resettled by force; then new colonies were erected, such as the village-colony Tankosic, in the territory of the villages Sllatina, Mirosala, etc. They changed the names of settlements: the town of Ferizaj was named Urosevac (1914). Montenegro acted in a similar way in Dukagjin. The government of Montenegro formed a committee (November, 1912), that was authorised to recognise the ownership of the property to the Albanians only in cases they had papers of more than fifty years ago, verified by the Register (Defterhane) in Istanbul; otherwise their real estate was ordered to get registered as state ownership. The committee was obliged to fix 55,000 acres of land to 5,000 Montenegrins for their colonisation in Dukagjin, by December 1913. On 27 February, 1914, the government passed a law on colonisation of the land ‘annexed' to Montenegro, which was in effect until 1915, when Montenegro was destroyed.
After the end of the First World War and the creation of the Serbian-Croatian-Slovenian Kingdom (SCSK), forceful colonisation in the Albanian land continued. On 25 February, 1919, the government of SCSK passed the Decree ‘Preliminary Regulations on Settlement of Agrarian Relations'

which was in effect until 1931, when ‘the Law on Agrarian Reform and Colonisation' was passed. This law intended the colonisation of Kosova, expropriation of the Albanians' ownership, ethnic cleansing, forceful emigration and serbianisation of the Albanian regions.
Various genocidal measures were used for the expulsion of the Albanians. In the period between 1913-1939, ‘flying detachments' of military and policemen acted to punish and massacre the population. From 1918 to 1938, the military burned and destroyed 320 villages with Albanian population. Only between 1918-1921, it killed 12,346 persons, put 22,160 people into prison, plundered 50,515 houses and burned down 6,125 houses.

These facts and others prove of expropriation, plundering the Albanians and expatriating them from their land, on the basis of discriminating laws and a continuous campaign for their extermination.
Expulsion of Albanians (1912-1941)
The forceful expulsion of the Albanians from Kosova, the Sanjac and Macedonia began during the First Balkan War (October, 1912). According to the documents of Serbian diplomacy, 239,807 people were expatriated until March 1914, without accounting the children up to six years old. Albanian families from Kosova, Sanjak and Macedonia were deported through Cavalo of Greece and by the land road to Turkey. This forceful emigration continued. According to the evidence on this matter, the number of the expatriated people amounted to 281,747, without accounting the children up to six years old, till August 1914.17
In the property of the expatriated families, the government of the Serbian Kingdom settled more than 20,000 Serbian families, and Montenegro planned to colonise 5,000 families.18 The emigration caused by violence continued also after the end of the First World War and to the Second World War. According to the evidence of Serbian diplomacy, it was a mass forceful expatriation of the Albanians without the right to return, as the following table can show:
Year Persons Year Persons
1919 23500 1930 13215
1920 8532 1931 29807
1921 24532 1932 6219
1922 12307 1933 3420
1923 6389 1934 4500
1924 9630 1935 9567
1925 4315 1936 4252
1926 4012 1937 4234
1927 5197 1938 7251
1928 4326 1939 7255
1929 6219 1940 6729
Albanians: 215,412
Turks: 27,884
Bosnians from Sanjak: 2,582
Total: 255,878
A number of Albanians from Kosova emigrated forcefully to the territory of reduced Albania of 1912. According to military documents of the Yugoslav Kingdom, from the Albanian territories that Serbia occupied, 4,046 Albanian families from Kosova, Macedonia, Sanjac and Montenegro, emigrated to Albania between 1919-1938. The Albanian government settled those families in the environs of Shkodra, Durrës, Kruja, Kavaja, Berat, Saranda, Koplik, Lushnja, Fier, Tirana, Leskovik and Kukës.20 Besides Turkey and Albania, the Albanians had to emigrate forcefully to other countries of Europe and the world too. In this way the Albanian Diaspora was formed in Europe and America.
Colonosation of Kosova (1912-1941)
The occupying regime, parallel to the expulsion of the Albanians from their land, carried out the colonisation with Serbs and Montenegrins there. During the First Balkan War, after Serbian military massacred and displaced the population, the hordes came and took forcefully the land and houses of the Albanians. After the end of the First World War and the establishment of SCSK, the expulsion of ethnic Albanians from their land and colonisation of it by Slavs continued.
From 1912 to 1914, Serbia and Montenegro (according to Serbian documentation) plundered 381,245 hectares of land in Kosova and Macedonia. Only in Kosova 228,000 hectares of land were taken for colonists, and it was settled by 15,943 families of colonists.21 Since 1914 Serbian colonies were erected in Kosova. Colonists were settled at many Albanian villages and settlements that had been forced to become vacant. In addition, the colonies and settlements of colonists in Kosova in the period between 1919-1927 are presented in a table.
These facts indicate clear enough the intention of Serbia for the accomplishment of a Serbian Kosova. On the basis of the evidence provided by Dr Vasa Cubrilovic, 11,273 family houses were built in the territory of Kosova for colonists till 31 December, 1935. However, quite a large number of colonists were settled in the houses of the Albanians that were sent away by force, and a number of Serbian colonists moved into a part of Albanian houses, sharing so the houses with them. That is why it is estimated that 13,938 families of colonists were settled in Kosova.
1919-1927
Districts Colonies New settlements
Prishtina 24 22
Llap 20 35
Vushtrri 15 67
Gjilan 10 22
Ferizaj 7 23
Pejë 11 34
Drenicë 9 25
Gjakovë 10 17
Total 106 245
Colonisation intended to destroy the Albanian compactness, who comprised more than 75% of the population. In addition to this, Serbia and Montenegro tried to secure calm for themselves by forcing colonisation along the Albanian border and along the main roads. The ‘serbianisation' of Kosova continued until 1941. In this way the territory for the Serbian national element was created.

Anti-Albanian Projects - Genocidal Acts
The monarchy dictatorship of 6 January, 1929 anticipated, apart from others, extermination of national minorities, particularly the Albanians. The Yugoslav Kingdom intensified the endeavours for ethnic cleansing. This role was taken over by ‘The Serbian Cultural Club', that was purported by the whole state administration.

In the activity of the Club against the Albanians were distinguished Slobodan Jovanovic, Gojko Perina, Orestije Krstic, Dragisa Vasic and Nikola Stojanovic. They were joined by Vasa Cubrilovic with his project ‘The Expulsion of Albanians'.
Cubrilovic (one of the assassins in Sarajevo) engaged himself in the project that state authorities should force all the Albanians to emigrate. He criticised harshly the Serbian regime why it had not exterminated the Albanians entirely as in the time of the Eastern Crisis. He requested that the Albanians should be expatriated forcefully to Turkey or Albania. He gave Anatolia advantage, from where their return was impossible. Cubrilovic proposed details on the manner of expatriation. He emphasised that Muslim masses may come very easily under the influence of religious propaganda. Another device for the implementation of the project was state terror. He insisted that the life of the Albanians should become as difficult as possible by means of laws, creating a situation of anarchy. To accelerate the process of expatriation he proposed an order to be issued for delivering as many arms as possible to colonists.

Cubrilovic requested to stimulate the old action of chetniks and to instigate the Montenegrins in order to cause conflicts in mass with the Albanians in the Plain of Dukagjin. The conflict should be interpreted as an intention for uprising of the Albanians and be explained as a conflict among Albanian brothers and neighbours. He requested that Serbia should use its military force against the Albanians, accomplishing the most efficient method of 1878, burning secretly Albanian villages and their quarters in towns.
All the Albanian regions, according to Cubrilovic, should be colonised without any hesitation. On this purpose, Serbia received international loans in 1880, in order to accomplish the policy of ethnic cleansing without any hindrance. This is a testimony for manipulation with international factors in genocidal actions against the Albanian population. Cubrilovic suggested this form of action as well. In order to accomplish ethnic cleansing of the Albanian element and carry out colonisation, he suggested that all the competencies should be concentrated in the had of the military headquarters. All the plans of actions should be prepared by experts also with the intervention of the Parliament. This indicates that this antihuman action involved all the instances of the Serbian regime and military.
At the end of his project, Cubrilovic confirmed that the Albanians were impossible to exterminate by forceful emigration and expatriation and gradual colonisation, therefore, “the sole way and device for the expatriation of the Albanians is the brutal force of the state organised machinery... ruining villages by guns, by punishments, imprisonment, application of police brutal measures, cutting their forests, denying their ownership papers, extraloading them with taxes, forbidding them to sell live cattle, and by brutal behaviour with their children and women.

Ivo Andric (the later winner of the Noble prize for literature) is the author of the Project on the partition of Albania between Yugoslavia and Italy. The project was presented on 30 January, 1939. The partition of Albania is requested in it, but as the last resort, as Yugoslavia wanted to occupy it entirely, as its former dream to get access to the Port of Durrës.

In his project, AndriC describes the Serbian-Greek plan for partition of the Albanian land.
In the project of Andric it comes out clearly that Serbia was the instigator of discords and intrigues in Albania.29 Accordingly, he requested from the state to avoid an open or secret conflict with Italy, in order to be able to divide Albania between themselves. He insisted also to prevent Italy from invading itself Albania and so from endangering Yugoslavia on the side of Boka Kotorska and Kosova.
The project of Ivan Vukotic on occupation of Albania, that was submitted to the government of Milan Stojadinovic on 3 February, 1939, is another anti-Albanian project. According to him, Yugoslavia should make a coalition with Italy for partition of Albania.

Italian fascist circles estimated this project as a Serbian intention to occupy North and Middle Albania. As a justification for partition of Albania, to Vukotic was ‘the solution to the economic question of Yugoslavia', as well as the abridgement of more than 300 km the way of Serbia to get to the Adriatic Sea.
The project of Vukotic had also a strategic component for hegemonist interests of Serbia. He expected that by ‘partition of Albania' the possibility for any irredentistic action in Kosova would be cut short. According to Vukotic, ‘the ideal partition' of Albania would be the line:
Struga-Librazhd-Elbasan-Durrës.

The projectors of the Serbian policy for partition of Albania made their efforts to copy similar examples in Europe. Vukotic would conclude, ‘it is better an Italian window in the Balkans than an Albanian house, where irredentism, Islamism and the influence of Vatican will always keep Serbia mobilised, spending billions for military in vain.”

The Yugoslav-Turkish Convention of 1938 - an Intention for Ethnic Cleansing
The first state contacts between Yugoslavia and Turkey about the expatriation of the Albanians to Turkey were made in 1926. These contacts produced a new platform in 1933 on the preparation of grounds for general ethnic cleansing.

At the Ministry of Agriculture of Yugoslavia was conceptuated the principle: “expatriation of the Albanians can be achieved through a long-term process, since neither Yugoslavia had sufficient funds nor the international circumstances allowed it to be implemented within a short time”.

The political conceptual activity on preparing the Yugoslav-Turkish Convention took place in Istanbul from 9 June to 11 July, 1938. Eight session were held there. The parties came to an agreement of expatriation of 40,000 Albanian families. The Yugoslav-Turkish Convention was signed on 11 July, 1938, under the condition that it should be in effect after its ratification by the parliaments of both sides.
In art. 2 of the Convention it was anticipated a complete expatriation to Turkey of the Albanians from the regions of Prizren, Dragash, Podguri, Ferizaj, Tetova, Gostovar, Rostusha, Struga, Prishtina, Kaçanik, Gjilan, Presheva, Prespa, Ohri, Kërçova, Krusheva, Poreç, Manastir, Negotin on Vardar, Shkup, Kumanova, Veles, Ovçepole, Shtip, Koçana, Radovishta, Strumica, Dojran, Gevgelia, Kriva Palanka, Kratova, Carevoselo, Berova, Peja, Istog, Mitrovica, Gjakova, Llap, Vushtria and the region of Drenica.

According to this convention, it was foreseen that during the period between 1939-1944 around 400,000 Albanians should be expatriated to Turkey, and they would be settled in the deserts of Anatolia. The expatriation was projected to develop by this dynamism: 4,000 families in 1939; 6,000 families in 1940; 7,000 families in 1941 and 1942, and 8,000 families in 1943 and 1944. It was done so that a family could include up to 250 members. The first ones that should be expatriated were the Albanians of these regions: Peja, Gjakova, Prizren, Kaçanik, Shkup, Tetova, Kumanova, Presheva, Gjilan, Kërçova, Dibra, Ohri, Manastir, Prishtina and Ferizaj. The expatriation should be carried out forcefully.
The Yugoslav-Turkish Convention on the expatriation of the Albanians to Anatolia is one of the original documents that presents permanent genocide exerted on the Albanian population in general., Although this document was not ratified and implemented in the way it was planned, it had hard consequences for the future of the Albanian population.
Consequences of Expulsion and Colonisation between the Two Word Wars
The expatriation and assimilation of the Albanians and colonisation of the land of ethnic Albanians by the Serbian hegemonist regime was considered as a Serbian national sacred mission. To accomplish this mission, the Serbian invading regime made use of all possible means, starting from arbitrary laws, killing, burning villages and whole regions, up to forceful conversion of Islamic and Catholic population into the Serbian Orthodox religion.
As a consequence of the implementation of these measures the relations between ethnic groups became tense, particularly between Albanian villagers and Slavonic colonists that had been settled in their land. Besides many other state measures that were taken, the government organised chetnik bands, such as those of Kosta Pecanac, Milic Krstic, Jovan Babunski, Vasilije Trbic, etc., who organised punishing expeditions exerting violence, terror and organising plunder.
Mass expropriation of Albanian villagers resulted to great poverty. As a consequence of ethnic cleansing and colonisation of the Albanian land, a significant change of the ethnic structure of population resulted. While the Albanians comprised 90% of population in these regions in 1912, they came down to 70% in 1941.
This was also the consequence of liquidation of the Albanian leadership and Islamic and Catholic clergymen.
Settling the Serbs and Montenegrins in the villages and houses of the Albanians and the erection of Serbian colonies in their property had negative influence on their psychological viewpoint and security perspective. The settlement of the Serbs in the whole quarters in cities among Albanians and the life in the proximity of Serbs resulted to emigration of the Albanians and closing elementary religious schools, and that influenced reduction of the educational level of the Albanians.

EXPULSIONS OF ALBANIANS ( 1944-1990 )
1. Intentions and Actions of Chetniks and Partisans to Expel and Exterminate Albanians
Serbian and Montenegrin chauvinists made use of the political changes on the eve of the Second World War to expatriate and exterminate as many Albanians as possible. On the occasion of secret and general mobilisation of Yugoslav military, the Albanians were not treated as equal citizens of Yugoslavia. They behaved with the Albanians in the same way as with the enemy. In the first days of the war many Albanian soldiers were killed by Serbian military officers and soldiers.1 Instead of concentrating itself in protection of the borders, Yugoslav military tried to penetrate as deep as possible into the Albanian land.2 Such planning and actions were intended that at a convenient moment they could exterminate as many Albanians as possible and so rarefy that population. The Yugoslav army killed, persecuted and plundered many Albanians, especially those heading some political-national association, such was the case with Sherif Voca, a deputy and well-known patriot, who was killed on 13 April, 1941. Many Albanians were killed in the barracks of Mitrovica, the post of Vushtria, in Gjakova, where soldiers burnt down the villages of Bec, Gërgoc, Radoniq, Janosh, etc. The wave of persecutions and physical exterminations of Albanians involved all the regions of Kosova. It stopped only after the capitulation, namely, after the consolidation of the Italian and German units in Kosova.
When a part of Kosova was uniting with Albania the chauvinist forces of the Serbs and Montenegrins became disturbed. The government of Nedic, chetniks and communists, openly and secretly, made their efforts to accomplish their plans from long time ago for the ethnic cleansing of Kosova. The government of Nedic requested from Germans to annex the Sanjac of Novi-Pazar, Srem, Eastern Bosnia and Kosova to Serbia.4 It requested from Germans to send away 100,000 Albanians from the district of Mitrovica.5 It concentrated armed forced, chetnik detachments and war refugees on the border on Kosova, directing them to the Albanian land. In this way, parallel to ethnic cleansing and genocide exerted on the Albanians, they caused also an emigration in mass. Chetniks committed unprecedented massacres at Albanian villages bordering on Kosova and Sanjac, and due to this the population was forced to emigrate in mass from Kosova and elsewhere.6
Chetniks' intentions and plans for extermination of the Albanians during the Second World War were very numerous, and projects were prepared in this direction. One of such projects was prepared by the lawyer from Sarajevo, Stevan Molevic, titled, ‘Homogenous Serbia' and was published in 1841. According to this project, which is allegedly based on the ethnic principle, homogenous Serbia would include to the east and south-east - Serbia, Kosova, Macedonia, and being annexed by Vidin in Rumania and Custendil in Bulgaria; to the west - the banovinas of Vrbas, North Dalmatia, Lika, Kordun, Bania and a part of Slovenia; to the south - Montenegro and Herzegovina, including Dubrovnik as well, and the last one would be assigned a special status, and the northern part of Albania, if it would not gain its autonomy.7 Since in a large number of the regions anticipated for homogenous Serbia, practically greater Serbia, the Serbs did not comprise the majority population, in some of them they were even under the minimum, but the Croats, Muslims or Albanians constituted the absolute majority, the project envisaged the emigration of the Croats to Croatia, and of Muslims (the Muslims of Bosnia and Sanjac, and Albanians) to Turkey or Albania. According to Molevic, not only the regions where the Serbs were in majority should be included in the bosom of greater Serbia, but without any exception, all the regions where the Serbs lived, or where Stevan Molevic supposed the Serbs were living, and to him the Macedonians and Montenegrins were considered Serbs, too.8
The plans of chetniks were based on the project of Stevan Molevic. In their official letters of 1941 was planned: “To create a large Yugoslavia and greater Serbia in it, ethnically clean, within the borders of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Srem and Banat. All the territories should be cleansed from the non-Serbian elements. Serbia should border directly Montenegro and Slovenia, by cleansing Sanjac from the Muslims and Croats.”9 The same policy was followed by chetniks in 1942, deepening even more their chauvinist hatred toward non-Serbian peoples, particularly the Albanians.10 To accomplish their intentions they opened concentration camps in that time, at which, besides others, 300 Albanians of the tribe of Kuç were interned, but also of other tribes as well.
11 Chetniks and other Serbian collaborators made their endeavours to accomplish the plans and intentions for greater Serbia and its hegemony, from Salonika to Arad and from Tirana to Split, also in 1943. Informing his Chetnik Supreme Command, Zika Mitrovic, among others, wrote on 28 April, 1943: “On your sign given, we shall depart with arms in our hands in the final clash against all the enemies for sacred Kosova”.
12 The means for the accomplishment of this intention, were, thus, not hidden. To achieve their aim, chetniks planned genocide in mass. The expulsion of the Albanians and other non-Serbian people was not discussed at all. In an information of the Command of II Chetnik Corpus sent to their commander, Draza Mihajlovic, in the beginning of 1944, they wrote that they would “fight to the end, as it has to do with the name of Kosovar (...), a real war against the Turks and Albanians in general, a war without any compromise to extermination (...).”
13 In the same report, the Command of the corpus underlined that its numerical situation depended on the organisation of chetniks based on dissemination of chauvinism against the Albanians and Turks, and such a policy attracted even the ‘fans' of communism. This statement was, undoubtedly, true. The Serbian and Montenegrin communists also made use of internationalism as a means to accomplish similar intentions. In such waters fell all the bodies of YCP (Yugoslav Communist Party) and the Yugoslav National-Liberation Army (YNLA) in Kosova. Their attitude in fact did not differ much from the intentions of chetniks, when Kosova was in question. They did not make any difference between the Serbs of Kosova and colonists, who were settled forcefully on the land of ethnic Albanians. Those bodies blamed the Albanians of Kosova for the emigration of the Serbs and Montenegrins, that was not so overwhelming.14
This shows the hypocritical policy of communists and partisans. Both partisans and chetniks saw the solution of the question of Kosova within Yugoslavia, namely, in greater Serbia. Based on such attitudes, many bodies of YCL and YNLA , as well as chetniks on the border to Kosova awaited openly the amnesty of 25 and 30 August, 1944. After this amnesty, both chetniks, that changed their cockade for the star and Serbian partisans attacked Kosova with their main intention to clean it from the Albanian element. The ethnic cleansing of Kosova and other regions of ethnic Albanians occupied by Yugoslavia became harsher in the period from October 1944 to July 1945, justifying it allegedly as a fight against ‘counterrevolution' and its remnants. It began in peripheral zones, but it spread quickly in the whole regions of the Albanians. In such organised operations several divisions with an effective of 40,000 soldiers took part.
15 These military actions, apart from other forms, were led by a new anti-Albanian project of Vasa Cubrilovic, ‘The Problem of Minorities in New Yugoslavia', on 3 November, 1944. In his project, Cubrilovic admits the fact that the Serbs gained one part of the territories with alien population after the First World War, namely, after the Serbian-Croatian-Slovenian Kingdom (Yugoslavia) was established in 1918,
16 and they became dangerous to Yugoslavia, not because of their counterweigh to Slavonic peoples, but because of the territories where they live and geographical continuation that these territories have with their motherlands - i.e., due to political and strategic reasons.
17 Vasa Cubrilovic proposed before the highest leadership of YNLW and YNLA, without any hesitation, expatriation of millions of people in mass, as, according to him, “the sole fair solution to this question is expatriation of these minorities”. As his purport and example for such an action he took the action of the Third Reich and expulsions and colonisation of peoples in Europe. According to him, such an action would be approved by the Yugoslav allies, after they were persuaded that minorities were to blame for millions of Slavonic victims during the Second World War
(sic!). Based on the spirit of this project, the author suggested that they should not wait long for the allies to agree, as it was the last chance for the accomplishment of that intention, but “the people that made decisions on the fate of our people” should be persuaded of this, and according to Cubrilovic, they were the leadership of YCP and YNLW, headed by Josip Broz Tito.
19 The author of the project foresaw and proposed its accomplishment in details. He proposed that first the Germans should be expatriated, then the Hungarians, Albanians, Italians, Rumunias... Although the Albanians were the first ones on the target of expatriation, this process should not begin with them, not due to good relations between the Albanian National-Liberation War and YNLA, but owing to the risk of a conflict between the two countries. That is why Vasa Cubrilovic advised to act with great caution and tactics during the expatriation of the Albanians. This would not mean that the Serbs and Montenegrins were merciful to Albanians or that the latter ought to be saved. Whereas it was spoken in general of the expatriation of other nationalities, the Albanians and their territories were specified and it seemed as if the project was intended particularly to them.
20 Both the Albanians and other nationalities, in the project ‘The Problem of Minorities in New Yugoslavia” were preferred to be forced to emigrate first from the regions ethnically clean, and then from the mixed areas, as ethnic postblocks were more dangerous, according to the author.
21 For the accomplishment of his project, Cubrilovic anticipated the time as well, that is undoubtedly from the arsenal of the outstanding Machiavelists, racists and genocide-lovers. According to him, the most convenient time for efficient expulsion was war, therefore, the best expulsion was the physical and complete extermination of the people. According to Cubrilovic, military had the decisive role, that is why he proposed that a special section of this question should be formed in the General Command of YNLA. If complete physical extermination would not be successful, he anticipated additional measures, such as: denying all the rights to them, opening concentration camps, plundering their ownership, extermination of intelligentsia and social healthy classes, and then urgent colonisation of these regions with Slavonic elements.
22 Cubrilovic was aware at that time that funds, and trustworthy persons were needed for its accomplishment, but also an organisation at an institutional level. That is why he proposed formation of a special ministry, or at least, a commissariat within the Ministry of Agriculture, as it had experience in such things since the time of the Yugoslav Kingdom. Except for these measures, Cubrilovic proposed that national-liberation committees should be formed from the lowest to the highest instances, and colonists should be selected out of the best warriors, and possibly the Serbs and Montenegrins that had not been colonists before that. The carriers of this mission, according to Cubrilovic, should be provided with high wages, more privileged posts and high status in the society.23 The author has no doubt about the success of the project. He said that news had come from the regions where war operations took place “our people's masses have dealt unmercifully with small national minorities who were against us in this war. This enthusiasm of the population (that was characteristic for attacks, hatred and revenge, editor's remark) ought to be channelled as soon as possible...”24
The armed units of YNLA in Kosova and Macedonia, but also in other areas of ethnic Albanians, acted in their operation as if they had read the project of Cubrilovic. That is why the reply of military officials was not accidental saying that “we have the order to kill 50% of the Albanians”.25 This is documented also by the cynic reply of Macedonian commanders, when a group of Albanian patriots protested against the arrest of 10,000 people and the punishment of 1,200 of them without any court procedure in Tetova, saying “this is nothing, it is a cleaning”. This was strengthened by the decisive order of Svetozar Vukmanovic - Tempo, “Clean fast the ones that you have to clean”.26
Based on the chauvinist and extermination position of chetniks, as well as on the action of many leaders and units of YNLA towards the Albanian population, the crimes and massacres in Kosova and other regions of ethnic Albanians were enormous. According to approximate evidence, above 47,300 Albanians were exterminated, in the areas of ethnic Albanians occupied by Yugoslavia, between 1941 and 1945.27 Such extermination, naturally, made these regions significantly vacant, and that was the intention of Serbian chauvinists who made the Slavonic colonisation possible, opening a new path for such a process. Except this, the exterminations and reprisals of such a nature, that did not stop even in the years after the war, influenced greatly further emigration of the Albanians.
2. Forms and Ways of Pressure on Purpose of Expulsion and Assimilation
After the end of the Second World War, the Albanians of Kosova and other parts in Yugoslavia, not only were prevented to unite with Albania, as they had declared at Bujan Conference, but they were re-invaded and partitioned into four federal units of Yugoslavia, in Kosova, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro.28
The Serbian regime since the time of the occupation (November, 1944) and annexation of Kosova (July, 1945), continuously implemented a policy and propaganda prepared much earlier and based on greater Serbian projects, assimilation and physical extermination of the Albanians. The Albanians felt the annexation of Kosova to Serbia as the negation of their war and betrayal of the leadership of NLW to them. That is why they began to organise themselves in illegal groups and organisations and develope political activity and offered resistance even with arms. Due to persecutions, terror, violence and genocide exerted on them, many Albanians, between 3000 - 4000 people,29 were forced to flee abroad, particularly the members of political and democratic organisations and groups with western orientation that did not accept the new slavery in Kosova. They were directed to western countries through Greece and Italy, and there they continued their patriotic activity. The expulsion of the Albanians from Kosova was caused by the anti-Albanian official policy. In this way, the issue of Kosova, of its independence, political and state status, created new dissatisfactions of the Albanians that had fought for self-determination.
Socialist Yugoslavia and Serbia continued the war against the Albanians by putting them into prison, arresting, isolating, persecuting, and by physical extermination and sending them away from their hearths. The Resolution of Informative Bureau (1948) was used as a pretext to put many Albanian intellectuals and political leaders into prison and liquidate them, accusing them as spies of Albania. On this occasion, 436 Albanians were imprisoned, and the pressure on them continued in other forms too, such as: closing schools in the Albanian language, employing only the Serbs in administration, nationalisation, colonisation, forbidding the use of their national flag, closing their cultural institutions, etc. Another form of pressure against the Albanians was exerted on the occasion of the census of population in 1953, changing even their national identity, and forcing them to declare themselves as Turks.30
The expatriation of the Albanians to Turkey was perpetrated by methods of pressure. The harshest form of pressure on purpose of expulsion of the Albanians was the action of collecting arms during the period between 1955-56, organised by the government and accomplished by state security organs. During this action, 22,048 personal files were opened, including the files of the officials of state bodies. Against a large number of the Albanians measures of persecutions and eavesdropping police treatments were carried out. Under the pretext of searching for arms, the state security organs tortured around 30,000 Albanians. Some 100 persons died because of tortures.31
Another form of a drastic pressure exerted on the Albanians was fabrication of false court processes, and punishment of illegal groups and organisations on political grounds. Thus, in 1956, at the time of the action of searching for arms and expatriation of the Albanians to Turkey, ‘the process of Prizren' was fabricated, by which it was intended to frighten the people through disqualification of the Albanian political leadership and compromising of intellectuals.
Distrust and suspicion in intelligentsia were regular forms of pressure on the Albanians. In the organs of state security the persons that bought the daily paper ‘Rilindja' were evidenced, which was published by the Socialist Alliance (a mass organisation formed by the communists on power). It was the only newspaper in the Albanian language. The Albanians were permanently treated as a distrustful element by the State Security of Kosova. In the ‘Handbook of UDB' (state security), all the Albaian population was considered enemy in 1957. On this basis UDB opened above 170,000 personal files. Among them there were four members of the Central Committee of YCL, 16 members of the Provincial Committee of Communists, a large number of political-social personalities, starting from secretaries of working enterprises to deputies of all the levels of assemblies.32
All this anti-Albanian action that was based on violence and terror was an institutionalised form of the Serbian regime with the intention to force the Albanians to expatriate and to commit their extermination.
3. The Turkish-Yugoslav “Gentlemen's” Agreement in 1953
The agreement on friendship and co-operation between Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey, signed in Ankara on 28 February, 1953, became known as a Balkan Treaty. The agreement contained ten points and took a military character, but without influence and obligation, that resulted from the North Atlantic Contract of 4 April, 1949, dealing with Turkey and Greece. Its fourth point foresaw conclusion of new agreements and formation of the bodies for their application and solution to economic, technical and cultural problems.33 Based on this agreement, common parliamentary groups were formed and they visited Turkey and Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia wanted to establish as closer links as possible with Turkey in order to expatriate the Albanians from Kosova. The links should be established by activating the Yugoslav-Turkish Convention of 1938 on the expatriation of the Albanians to Turkey. First of all, Yugoslavia ought to fulfil some financial obligations of the Convention that amounted to 90 million dollars. Turkey was interested in reactivating this Convention. It was interested to use the Albanians in its war against Curds, settling them on their border.
The question of expatriation of the Albanians was instigated by Yugoslavia through the Turkish press. At the end of 1952, numerous talks were held on the agreement between Yugoslavia and Turkey. Agreements on trade, floating, air traffic, and many other matters were concluded during 1953. In this spirit of collaboration between them the “Gentleman's” Agreement between Yugoslavia and Turkey was signed.34
In case of a future Balkan conflict this agreement intended to secure the Turkish friendship to Yugoslavia. On the other hand, emptying Kosova and other regions of ethnic Albanians by means of this convention, the danger on the part of the Albanians that requested financial compensation from Yugoslavia, as well as from the funds provided for refugees and others that had resettled, could be reduced. Turkey had also its needs to populate its large vacant regions. The Government of Turkey requested from the Government of Yugoslavia, on 4 October, 1951, to fulfil the Convention of 1938. It requested that before the accomplishment of various agreements began, Yugoslavia should fulfil its financial obligations. Due to them, Tito invited the Turkish foreign minister, Fuad Khprili, to visit Yugoslavia. At a lunch organised on that occasion in Split, at the end of January 1953, an agreement on the requests of both parties was worked out, and it was to the detriment of the Albanian population. They did not sign anything on this occasion, and that is why it was called ‘Gentleman's Agreement'. By this convention Tito could accomplish the dreams of the Serbs by expatriating of the Albanians from Kosova, and Turkey would obtain vital inhabitants and financial funds.
The obligations of expatriation of the Albanians from Yugoslavia had to be fulfilled as soon as possible, since at the very beginning Turkey asked for expatriation of 250,000 inhabitants, out of a million inhabitants that were anticipated to be resettled. In the official statement issued on 29 January, 1953 on the talks in Split, neither delegation mentioned the convention and refereed to parliamentary collaboration and the question of the Balkan Treaty.35
At the population census of Yugoslavia in 1953 many Albanians were forced to declare themselves Turks. This self-declaration would save Yugoslavia and Turkey from public reactions to expatriation of the Albanians to Turkey. An it happened so. Almost 260,000 Albanians declared themselves Turks.
4. Expatriation of Albanians to Turkey (1944-1966)
At the end of 1944 and beginning of 1945, seeing that they had been betrayed, the Albanians began to escape in mass to mountains.36 The government bodies made use of such actions of the majority population of the Albanians in Kosova and justified every persecution of any Albanian that opposed reoccupation by Yugoslavia. Due to this, military courts were very busy with Albanians, and arrests, imprisonment, killing of the Albanians became a daily phenomenon. Serbia intended to empty these territories as soon as possible, or at least to leave as few Albanians as possible.
One of the most efficient methods to accomplish such a policy in Kosova against the Albanians after they had been occupied by the detachments of YNLA, and especially after the establishment of military administration, was forceful mobilisation. In that time, 50,000 Albanians were mobilised in Kosova. When one bears in mind the number of those that were held in prisons or in exile, thousands lost and killed, it can be seen that Kosova had remained without the required forces to defend itself. In these circumstances, the Yugoslav regime intended to create conditions that colonisation should take place in the regions of ethnic Albanians. Confiscation of real estate, requisition,nationalisation and ‘solidarity aids' that were implemented by force and that intended to knee down the people economically, in addition to perpertration of repression influenced the expulsion of the Albanians from their homeland. These measures of the Yugoslav regime were directed to the Albanians only; the Serbs and Montenegrins were saved. The opponents of the YCP were in the most difficult position, and also those with western democratic viewpoint, that were deported from Kosova, and their movable property and real estate was confiscated. Their families were forced to leave the country too. As a consequence of such an attitude, the Albanians had to emigrate to Turkey, or Albania, or elsewhere.
Recolonisation of Kosova by the Serbs and Montenegrins in the spring of 1945, as well as the Law on the revision of agrarian reform worsened further the economic position of the Albanians. A part of the land of Albanian farmers was given to colonists. The interest of colonists to usurp the Albanians' land was great. Only in 1945, 10,054 families applied for it, who could get up to 5 hectares of the land of Albanian farmers.37
Forceful collectivisation of a part of farming land in Kosova, then mistreatments and perfidious abuse of the Albanians by the Serbs, touched deeply the national tradition and dignity of the Albanians.
The Law on five-year plan (1947-1951) was also in the function of expulsion of the Albanians. This plan provided more accelerated economic development for the undeveloped republics of Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro), in order to smooth down the existing economic differences, but it left Kosova on the side, despite its being the most undeveloped region in Yugoslavia and its having a great economic and natural potential. Apart from this, the largest part of the plan in Kosova was anticipated to be implemented by ‘voluntary' work, such as: to construct and renovate and restore houses of colonists, to till the soil for them, to provide them with food, etc. Therefore, not only that the regime did not invest anything, but it also worsened the lives of the people here by such measures.38
The Yugoslav regime, parallel to violence and economic kneeling, attacked deeply the national feelings of the Albanians, their past and historical tradition. Very few schools and educational and cultural institutions were opened for the Albanians and the origin of the Albanian population was denied.39
In conformity with the intentions of unitary national-chauvinist policy, State Security perpetrated great repression in order that as many as possible Albanians should declare themselves as members of Turkish nationality. Before this action, 1,315 inhabitants of Turkish nationality were recorded in Kosova in the census of 1948, and 97,954 inhabitants in Yugoslavia. However, according to the census of 1953 the number of Turks in Kosova amounted to 34,583 and 259,535 in Yugoslavia.40 The Albanians that opposed to this policy ended in prisons or were forced to leave the country. Thus, during 1953, as a result of this repression, 37,000 Albanians emigrated to Turkey.41 In 1953 the Yugoslav regime ‘took care' of creating special administrative ‘facilities' for the Albanians wanting to emigrate to Turkey, no matter whether they had declared themselves Turks or not. According to official evidence, 19,300 Albanians were expatriated in 1953, and 17,500 others in 1954.42 To achieve the emigration of the Albanians to Turkey in great mass, the first condition was to create a psychosis of unbearable life. The state machinery exerted pressure of various forms on the Albanians, such as arrests, persecutions, inhuman tortures, physical exterminations, etc. The organs of State Security made use of the action of searching for arms in order to accelerate the expatriation of the Albanians to Turkey.
This punishing activity of the organs of State Security and other organs of the regime, was expressed drastically in the field of culture and education too. The government took measures to close down middle schools in the Albanian language, to reduce the net of elementary schools and to close the sole scientific institution, the Institute of Albanology in Prishtina.

Here is the table of the expatriation of the Albanians during the period 1952-1965.45
Year No. of persons Year No. of persons
1952 37000 1959 32000
1953 17300 1960 27980
1954 17500 1961 31910
1955 51000 1962 15910
1956 54000 1963 25720
1957 57710 1964 21530
1958 41300 1965 19821
The expatriation of the Albanians to Turkey continued also in the period between 1955-1957. In this period, from Kosova and other regions of ethnic Albanians in Yugoslavia emigrated 16,200 Albanians to Turkey.43
In 1958, around 41,300 Albanians were sent away to Turkey, and the year after it another 32,000. According to official evidence of Yugoslavia, 27,980 Albanians emigrated from Kosova to Turkey in 1960.44 The expatriation of the Albanians to Turkey amounted to 115,000 in the period between 196-1965.
The process of expatriation of the Albanians from Kosova and other regions of ethnic Albanians was replaced by the so-called economic emigration in the political circumstances created in Yugoslavia after the Plenum of Brione.
5. Serbian and Yugoslav Policy of Segregation and Apartheid (1981-1989)
Dissatisfied with the position of the subjugated, the Albanian students and youth organised demonstrations in 1981 with the main mobilising slogan - Kosova Republic. The whole Albanian population joined the youth and students.
The Yugoslav leadership valued that the demonstrations organised by the Albanian students and youth, as well as the slogans used in them “threatened the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Yugoslavia”.46 In order that whole Yugoslavia should fight against the right requests of the Albanian people, “The Political Platform on the action of YCL for socialist self-management, unity and brotherhood and common life in Kosova” was compiled and approved.47 This document with greater Serbian intentions was supported by the other republics and the leadership of the Communist League of Kosova. The Platform requested that the Albanians should break the cultural and scientific relations with Albania, abandon their national aspirations, and the request for the Republic of Kosova was evaluated as a reactionary one that intended to destroy Yugoslavia and unite Kosova with Albania.48 Due to this reason, state organs of Kosova, Serbia and Yugoslavia were requested to undertake measures for reduction of curricula of history, literature and other social subjects taught at schools.49 To apply this Platform, the mobilisation of all political-social organisations and state structures was requested. In this way began the isolation of Kosova within Yugoslavia and in relation to the world too.
The first attacks were organised against the institutions of national character, such as University of Prishtina, Institute of History, Institute of Albanology, National University Library, then mass media, museums, secondary schools, elementary schools and even kindergartens, cultural and professional associations and many other organisations.
The first attacks of Serbia, that took the character of segregation and apartheid, were provoked on the shops of Albanians and individuals in Serbia in 1981. In Pozarevac, in Serbia, an Albanian child was taken out his eyes by civilian Serbs. Many physical attacks and ill-treatments were organised, by both Serbian individuals and state bodies, particularly in Belgrade, Kragujevac, Pozarevac, Paracin, NiS and other cities, where Albanians lived.50 Since that time, Serbia began to apply open segregation, seeking only clean institutions consisting of Serbian workers alone, such as schools, cinemas, theatres, cafJs, hotels, even kindergartens, sports fields, swimming pools, etc. To implement the intentions for segregation and discrimination, Serbia applied the policy of apartheid. It passed laws to rule over the Albanian majority, depriving them of their political and citizen rights, human rights, freedom of movement, living, jobs, juridical and social protection. In the period of ten years (1981-1990), more than 1,100 Albanian soldiers were sentenced to many years of prison in political fabricated processes, and 63 Albanian soldiers were killed in the Yugoslav Army.
The Assembly of Serbia approved some changes to the Penal Law of Serbia, in 1986, by which new delinquencies were incriminated for pursuing the Albanians, as if for the penal-legal protection of the Serbian people in Kosova. Such actions were: violation of citizens' equality, violation of the equal use of language and script, violations that threatened the rights and liberties of members of other nations, and threats of security of citizens of other nationalities, attacking the sexual freedom too. These had only one political and legal intention - to exert persecution and repression on the Albanians.
The Serbian regime treated Albanian peaceful demonstrations, requests, political manifestations as severe political acts, but also the cultural and scientific works of the Albanians. In this way, 3,348 Albanians were sentenced by civilian and military courts. In the period between 1981-1990 Serbian police and military killed 183 Albanians by fire arms, 16 of whom were children, and 616 Albanians were wounded by fire arms, 49 of whom were children.51 The former Yugoslav National Army (YNA) organised killing of Albanian soldiers in Paracin and gave the action a political character so that the Albanian soldiers could be treated as badly as possible by military and police organs of Serbia, that had the absolute majority in YNA.
In 1981, Serbia isolated Albanian intellectuals and kept them in prison for several months. The isolation of Albanian intellectuals took place in 1989, when the most draconic measures of torture and repression against 254 Albanian intellectuals were taken, and they were sent to prisons in Vranje, Leskovac, Prokuplje and Belgrade.
The police of Kosova and Serbia had worked out files for 600,000 Albanians; it means that every third Albanian was called to the police. Further on, both in Yugoslav regions of the Albanians and in Kosova around 100,000 Albanians were dismissed from work until 1989.52
6. The Memorandum of Serbian Academy - a Platform on Expulsion of Albanians
Expatriation of the Albanians by force from Kosova and their ethnic land has remained the chief intention of Serbian hegemonic policy. Parallel to state organisms, Serbian academicians of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Serbia compiled projects on ethnic cleansing of the Albanians' land. In 1986, the Serbian Academy, that has always been in service of hegemonic politics of Serbian nationalists, compiled the Memorandum on the political, economic and constitutional position of Serbia in the former Yugoslav federation. The Memorandum did not leave aside Kosova either.53 The Memorandum is penetrated by wild hatred and falsifications of the past and present time of the Albanians.
The Memorandum, which became the national programme of Serbia, deals with the engagement for creation of a greater Serbia. Serbia is presented as ‘threatened and harmed' by the Constitution of 1974. By such constructions, mobilisation of the population for destroying the autonomies of Kosova and Vojvodina and the establishment of Serbian hegemony in former Yugoslavia was aimed at. The principal thesis of the Memorandum was the allegedly degrading and inferior, unequal and discriminated position of the Serbian people in Yugoslavia.54 Serbian academicians manipulated with the figures of the Serbs migrated from Kosova, although according to the Serbian scientist, Cvijic, there have never been more than 5% Serbs in Kosova.55 The structure of population changed after 1912, after the occupation of Kosova by Serbia and its colonisation. According to the census in 1948, there were 170,000 Serbs, or 18.9%, in Kosova, and in 1981 there were 209,488 Serbs, or 13.2%.56 Accordingly, there was no migration of the Serbs from Kosova, much the less, when it is known that Serbia controlled the whole policy in Kosova.
These manipulations from the arsenal of greater Serbian politics, based on fine fabrications, try to justify their policy of colonisation and denationalisation in Kosova, by means of their propagandistic machinery. Serbian propagandistic machinery, attempting to alarm the opinion, goes to its absurdity, confirming that “Kosova will not have any Serb in ten years”.57 The Serbian official policy, led by the spirit of the memorandum of the ASAS, requested the destruction of the federal system of Yugoslavia established by the Constitution of 1974. The processes proceeding in Kosova after 1966 made the accomplishment of independence of Kosova possible to a certain degree. The Memorandum of Serbian academicians treated the process of the independence of Kosova as its Albanisation.58 They requested that Kosova should be deprived of all the rights to and possibilities for constitutional, juridical, economic and cultural-educational self-organisation, by all possible means. This practically took place in 1990, after the Serbian attacks against Kosova.
THE EXPULSION OF ALBANIANS AND COLONISATION OF KOSOVA DURING 1990-1995
1. Destroying Kosova Autonomy - an Instigation for Emigration of Albanians
By the Constitution of Yugoslavia and the Constitution of Kosova, approved in 1974, the autonomy of Kosova was advanced to a higher degree of sovereignty and Kosova became one of eight constituent subjects of Yugoslav Federation. Serbia was not satisfied with this, and in 1976 it compiled ‘the Blue Book', by which it intended to reduce the autonomy of Kosova drastically.
After the mass demonstrations of the Albanians in 1981, a significant polarisation between the Albanians of Kosova and the unitary and chauvinist forces of Serbia began. The former ones requested advancement of their statehood, and the latter ones destruction of the autonomy of Kosova. Serbia carried out the destruction of the autonomy of Kosova step by step. It began it by establishing the state of emergency and sending the police and army to subjugate and occupy Kosova in 1981. Serbia took the demonstrations as a pretext to take over the competencies from the state organs in Kosova. The 13th Congress of the Yugoslav League of Communists (YLC) in 1986, passed ‘the Resolution on Constitutional Changes in the Republic of Serbia', by which destroying the autonomy of Kosova was intended. The memorandum of the ASAS, compiled on nationalistic basis, gave an instigation to Serbian plan for destruction of the autonomy that ought to be accomplished by Serbian state bodies.1 In this spirit was developed the public discussion on the amendments of Serbian Constitution. It was the first phase of destruction of the autonomy of Kosova, and later by special measures Serbia abrogated violently all the governmental bodies of Kosova. In this way the autonomy of Kosova was destroyed completely.
The Albanian people, not accepting the subjugated position and the destruction of the autonomy of Kosova, began to organise themselves. The delegates of the Assembly of Kosova, after many endeavours and handicaps made by Serbia, passed the Declaration of the Independence of Kosova (2 July, 1990). The Assembly of Kosova, purported by the Albanian population, approved the Constitution of the Republic of Kosova at Kaçanik, on 7 September, 1990.
Out of what was said here, it results that they destroyed the autonomy of Kosova in order the subjugate the population of Kosova and force it to emigrate.
2. Approval of Serbian Acts and Laws as a Means for Acceleration of Emigration
Serbia and Montenegro made their efforts in different ways to contest the elements of sovereignty of Kosova, that were determined by the Constitution of Kosova and the Constitution of SFR Yugoslavia in 1974. Due to this they requested from the other republics of Federation to support them and they received their agreement to reduce the autonomy of Kosova. In this way they opened the way to destroy completely the autonomy by approving Serbian acts and laws, that were used to exert Serbian police and military violence. These measures influenced the acceleration of emigration of the Albanians from Kosova and their ethnic territories. The consequences were destructive not only for the constitutional position of Kosova, but also for the economy, health, education, science, culture, mass media,2 as well as the life of the Albanians in general. They accelerated particular emigration of the Albanians. Serbia requested from Yugoslavia to proclaim state of emergency in Kosova, and it did so. These measures created real bases for exertion of violence upon the Albanians. Instead of state bodies, a total supervision of Serbian police and military was established.
The discussions on the changes of the Constitution of Serbia began with amendments. The population of Kosova did not accept the proposals of Serbia. In public discussion organised in Kosova, the absolute majority of meetings and participants declared themselves in favour of maintenance of the autonomy and its advancing. Facing this, Serbia perpetrated violence on the delegates of the Assembly of Kosova. At the time of voting the amendments, the building of the Assembly of Kosova was surrounded by tanks, military and police, and members of the secret police were present in the hall too. In conditions of state of emergency, without the required quorum, without numbering the votes, and by voting of persons that were found in the hall but were not delegates, the then president of the Assembly of Kosova who was a Serb, on 23 March, 1989, proclaimed the approval of the constitutional amendments, and in addition to them some amendments that had not been