MEMORANDUM ON KOSOVA CRISIS
The massacre of armed
Serbian forces against the unprotected Albanian population of
Drenica in Kosova (28.02, 01.03, 05-07.03 l988),
with over 100 victims (children, old men
and women), their homes being demolished and
destroyed, the open ethnic genocide
before the face of the world, makes us recall
that the main cause which is risking the
eruption of a general people's insurrection and
accordingly an almost immediate
implication of several Balkan and other states
in a new inevitable conflict of unforeseen
dimensions lies in the legitimacy of Serbian
occupation of Kosova and other Albanian
areas (in 1912, 1945, 1992) by the Great Powers
and in the disregard of the will of
Albanian people to be independent and live in
normal neighborhood relations with Serbs
and the rest, and not to agree with occupation
and repression (see attached annex).
The cause of the present
crisis can be implicitly identified after having considered the
following moments:
In Yugoslavia, according
to the only legal position of the 1974 Constitution, Kosova had
an equal status with
other 8 constitutional units of then federation;
In 1990 Serbia, one
of 8 federal units, abolished forcefully and without any
constitutional basis
the constitutional status of Kosova. It was this that generated the
decomposition process
of the Federation and hence the independence of Slovenia,
Croatia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina and Macedonia;
In the incomplete decomposition
process of federal Yugoslavia, through re-designation
of the asymmetric federation
of "Serbia + Montenegro" into "Yugoslavia", Serbia tried to
constitute the new state
without and against the political will of Albanians, the second
largest ethnicity, and
Kosova, an equal unit of former federation;
In order to maintain
this situation Serbia undertook systematic repressive police and
military violence against
Kosova and Albanians: it abolished the legitimate, judicial and
political bodies of
the executive government of Kosova; closed down schools of all
levels, all cultural
and scientific institutions, the mass media; expelled Albanians from
their jobs; plundered
the national property of Kosova; created a total apartheid;
The Assembly of Kosova,
on the basis of its constitutional rights, did not agree with the
annexation of Kosova
by Serbia and in 1990 proclaimed the Republic of Kosova. In
1991 a Referendum was
held in which 90% of Kosova population was declared for
Kosova an independent
state.
In the Republic of Kosova,
declared by its Assembly, ruled forcefully by Serbia, the
political life has been
led through Republic institutions and political parties. The
Parliament and the Government
were forced to go into exile, whereas the President of
the Republic, elected
in the multi-party election, continued working in Kosova;
Albanians pursued a
peaceful policy and created their educational, cultural, and public
health system and other
state institutions of the civil society, despite the Serbian
repression and violence.
The European Commission,
known by the name of the French lawyer Badinter,
decided to recognize the decomposition of Yugoslavia
into six federal units, a right which 4
of them made use of, whereas Kosova, despite
the request which had put forward legally
and in due time by its institutions and on the
basis of its legal constitutional position and
the will of its people, was not recognized this
right.
Such unjust attitudes,
as well as the irresolution of international community to stop the
militarist aggressiveness of Serbia, have convinced
and incited even more Serbia to
continue uninterruptedly the systematic terror,
persecution and expulsion of Albanians
from their land in the spirit of its conceptual
and practical system of "ethnic cleansing"
which has already been witnessed.
The public opinion,
political parties and the Albanian political movement have drawn the
attention of the international community for
several years now about the apartheid, the
repression and the state terror exerted upon
Kosova and Albanians. This unprecedented
peaceful movement for Europe of our century has
enjoyed a strong moral support of
international public opinion. The support from
international community institutions has
been mainly verbal. Serbia has continued and
intensified violence at all levels. The
Drenica massacre was only a concentrated eruption
of this situation and its unique
manifestation which could happen to Kosova as
a whole.
Reiterating the attitude
that there is no police and army in the world which is permitted
to massacre the civilian population, that such
punitive expeditions represent an aggression
against Albanians of former Yugoslavia and Kosova
as one of its 8 co-founding units; that
the people of Kosova have the inalienable right
for self-determination as defined by the
United Nations Chart; that the declaration of
the political will of a people through the
referendum cannot be annulled by another state
or people;
Denouncing the continual
violence exerted upon Albanians and Kosova, in particular
the recent ethnic genocide in Drenica against
the innocent and unprotected Albanian
population, since the elements of the state apparatus
which would protect it were crushed
by Serbia;
Denouncing the siege
of villages, the killing and the massacre of population in their
homes, kidnapping of persons and whole families
and their execution without trial
We recommend an immediate
intervention of appropriate international political and
military authorities
(of the Security Council of UN, NATO and OSCE) to stop the further
run of Serbian genocide
against Albanians, and the deployment of peace-keeping
forces in Kosova;
We request to bring
before the international tribunal perpetrators who have committed
such unprecedented crimes
against humanity;
We request to declare
the state and the government of Serbia as the only one
responsible and guilty
for the Drenica massacre;
We protest against the
amoral identification of the Serbian state terror with reactions of
the innocent Albanian
population in their self-defense, against the hypocritical
identification of the
victim with the aggressor;
We request from the
international community to recognize and protect the right of the
Albanian people of Kosova
to declare for their future on the basis of principles of self-
determination, in a
situation when the up to now state is being decomposed, whereas
the state of Yugoslavia
which is trying to be created without and against the political will
of Albanians is treating
them with ethnic genocide and massive expulsion, and to
renounce thus from further
perpetuation of the greatest Balkan crisis.
The Kosova crisis solved
by a peaceful process, negotiated on the basis of the right of
the citizens of Kosova to declare their free
will would be that stability factor which the
Balkans lacks. Kosova repressed by violence and
kept by violence is the source of the
tragedy which is taking place now and which in
an inevitable form may assume serious
Balkan dimensions.
Prishtina March 18, 1998
1. Ajeti Idriz, albanologist,
1. Agani Fehmi, sociologist
2. Altimari Francesco, albanologist
3. Bajraktari Jusuf, historian
4. Basha Eqrem, writer
5. Berisha Engjëll, muzikologist
6. Bokshi Besim, albanologist
7. Çelaj Zenun, journalist
8. Dobreci Simë, physician
9. Gashi Sanije, journalist
10. Islami Hivzi, demographer
11. Islami Nehat, journalist
12. Ismajli Rexhep,albanologist
13. Kabashi Jashar, linguist
14. Kadriu Ibrahim, writer
15. Kelmendi Bajram, attorney
16. Limani Adem, physician
17. Maliqi Shkëlzen, publicist
18. Podrimja Ali, poet
19. Prelvukaj Zake, painter
20. Rexhepi Fehmi, historian
21. Shukriu Edi, archaeologist
22. Surroi Veton, journalist
Annex
Certain condensed points of repression:
- 1876 - 1878: liquidation and expulsion
of 640 Albanian villages from Toplica and
Kosanica regions in the north
of today_s Kosova;
- 1912-1914: massacres of Serbian army
in Kosova, tens of thousands killed and tens of
thousands expelled and persecuted;
- 1924-1939: systematic state repression
by denying all national rights, forceful expulsion
through systematic police
and legal terror such as the Agrarian Reform, systematic
confiscation of property and
colonization with Serbs from other areas;
- creation of the concept and theory
of ethnic cleansing already practiced: the surveys of
Vaso Cubrilovic (1937 and
1944), the survey of Ivo Andric (1938);
- 1945: the Tivar (Bar) Massacre, where
thousands of unarmed Albanians, who were
mobilised by the Yugoslav
Army, were killed by Yugoslav soldiers;
- 1945: the massacre of Drenica;
- 1948-1966: the systematic Serbian/Yugoslav
terror upon the unprotected Albanian
population - repression, beating,
maltreatment, killings and compulsion to migrate to
Turkey through the Gentlemanly
Agreement of 1953 (over 100 murdered by tortures or
killed and hundred thousands
expelled to Turkey);
- violent repression of dissatisfaction
expressed publicly through demonstrations of 1968;
- violent repression of dissatisfaction
expressed publicly in 1981 (estimated over 100
killed);
- imposing the state of emergency (military
or quasi martial law) for the two following
decades;
- 1990: anti-constitutional and forceful
annexation of Kosova to Serbia.
- To Whom It May Concern
We are hereby asking
you to transmit the following text to Your government:
....................................................................................................................................
TO:
The Contact Group - London
British Foreign Office Minister - Mr. Robin Cook
French Foreign Affairs Minister - Mr. Vedrine
German Foreign Affairs Minister - Mr. Klaus Konkel
Russian Foreign Affairs Minister - Mr. Jevgenij
Primakov
Italian Foreign Affairs Minister - Mr. Lamberto
Dini
Secretary of State Department - Mrs. Madleine
Albright
Albanian Foreign Affairs Minister - Mr. Paskal
Milo
Special European envoy for Kosova - Mr. Felipe
Gonzales
Special American envoy for Kosova - Mr. Jim Swighert
Geremek
Vice-president of USA - Mr. Al Gore
Secretary General of NATO - Mr. Havier Solana
senden