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Agop GARABEDYAN
sovereign states. Both the largest minorities in the former Yugoslavia – the
Albanians and the Hungarians – were already realizing their rights to self-
determination in Albania and Hungary. The formation of a second Albanian
and Hungarian independent state or republic within the framework of
Yugoslavia held a destructive potential in relation to the integrity of Serbia
and the stability of the Balkan region.
Serbian nationalism was powerfully motivated and activated by the
situation in Kosovo, where the position of the Serbs and Montenegrins was
worsening. They began to organize in order to protect their interests and
organized protest marches to Belgrade. Slobodan Milošević appeared on the
political scene.
Slobodan Milošević put an accent on the unity of Serbia and secured
support within the republic. He worked out a fairly ambitious program
containing several basic demands. In the first place, with the aim of
normalizing the situation in Kosovo – an end to further anarchy and
guarantees of equality for all its residents; in this sense, he proposed a change
in the republic’s constitution toward re-centralization and limiting the rights
of autonomous provinces. The necessity of stabilizing the economy and
consolidating the Serbian nation within the bounds of the republic were
emphasized as priorities. Some authors have qualified these demands as
manifestations of Serbian nationalism but, in my opinion, they should be
viewed in the context of the political reality of the time.
During this time, Belgrade’s decision of November 17, 1998 to replace
a part of the League of Communists leadership in Kosovo caused massive
protests in Priština and other towns in the province. In February 1989,
Albanian miners began their strike in Stari Trg. At the beginning of March,
the government declared a state of emergency and began making arrests. On
March 23, on the heels of strong pressure by the central government, the
Kosovo parliament voted for the constitutional amendments that limited the
province’s competencies. This resulted in a wave of protests. During the
clashes with police that followed, 22 demonstrators were killed, most of
whom were armed, along with two policemen. The next test of strength
occurred at the beginning of 1990. This time there were around 40,000
protesters, mostly university and secondary school students, who began to act
violently. During clashes with security forces, 27 demonstrators and one
policeman were killed.
In 1990, the first multi-party elections were held in Yugoslavia, and all
possible options for the future of the country were offered – from federative
to confederative to secessionist. The disintegration of the Socialist Federative
Republic of Yugoslavia was on the horizon. The Kosovo Albanians
Albanian secessionism in the 1990s 121
proclaimed that the new constitutional regime introduced in 1989 was not in
accordance with the law, boycotted it, formed new, parallel institutions and
declared the province an independent republic. The strong disintegrational
processes manifested themselves in Kosovo in a specific way. On July 2, 1990,
the Albanian members of the Provincial Parliament of Kosovo illegally
gathered and proclaimed the “Declaration on the Independence of Kosovo.”
The Parliament of Serbia reacted to this initiative, which was in violation of
the constitution. It disbanded the Kosovo parliament and government, while
restoring the province’s old name – Kosovo and Metohija (Kosmet). The
prerogatives and obligations of both the institutions were transferred to the
appropriate organs of Serbia until a new Kosovo parliament and government
could be elected. After nine months, the Presidium of Kosovo was also
dissolved, which was explained by the fact that, through their continued
activity, the said organs threatened the sovereignty, territorial integrity and
constitutional order of Serbia.
Following the dissolution of the legislative and executive branches, the
Kosovo Albanians organized a general strike. On September 7, 1990, at their
next illegal meeting in the village of Kačanik, the Albanian separatists
proclaimed the passage of the “Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo.” In
Serbia, on the 28th day of the same month, a short time before parliamentary
elections, a new constitution was proclaimed, by which, among other things,
the status of the autonomous provinces was reduced to the bounds of the
existing autonomy, without elements of statehood.
A series of changes in the law, carried out between the beginning of
1989 and the summer of 1990, put an end to Kosovo’s political independence
and the unlimited domination of the Albanians, which were seen in Belgrade
as a prelude to the formation of a second Albanian state.
All of this caused a great deal of dissatisfaction among the Albanian
politicians in Kosovo, who began a mass exodus from the state institutions,
while citizens of Albanian nationality left their places of work in state and
private enterprises and institutions. The Albanians boycotted the elections for
public office and refused all offers of dialogue from the government in
Belgrade. At the same time, they began to propagate their ideas and desires
for the secession of Kosovo from Serbia before the eyes of the world. In
1991, they held a referendum for independence, by which Kosovo was
declared a republic. International recognition was extended only by Albania.
This was the period during which the largest Kosovo Albanian political
parties, including the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo under the leadership of
I. Rugova, did not recognize the legal order in Serbia and Yugoslavia, and
organized elections for “Kosovo organs” only for their own followers. In this
122 Agop Garabedyan
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5 Κωφου, Ε. Το Κοσσοβοπεδιο και η Αλβανικη ολοκληρωση. Το αγχος του αυριο.
Αθηνα, 1998, 130–133.
6 Σφετας, Σ. Ο Αλβανικος παραγοντας των Σκοπιων µετα τη συµφωνια του Ντειτον.
The Dayton Agreement, which did not mention the Albanians, caused
a certain amount of disappointment both in Kosovo and in Macedonia, and
the Albanians began to gradually change their tactics. In Kosovo, this took
the form of a more dynamic policy that included terrorism and partisan-style
warfare, while in Macedonia it was manifested in increasingly frequent cases
of civil disobedience and illegal activities. All this was in the center of
attention of Western circles, and the Albanians received the support of
influential personalities in Europe and the U.S.. In addition to this, the
Kosovo Albanian leadership continued to remind European and American
politicians of their ultimate ambitions, which they had made public on the
eve of the disintegration of the federation, in 1991. Their goal, although they
did not mention it publicly – was an independent Kosovo.
Belgrade did not pursue legal action against the Albanian politicians
that headed these actions. After the new Serbian government was elected in
February 1998, a state delegation was formed to negotiate with the
representatives of Albanian political parties and other ethnic groups living in
Kosovo. Heading the delegation was Ratko Marković, university professor of
constitutional law and vice-president of the Serbian Government. This was in
accordance with the wishes of influential Western circles, who insisted on the
renewal of dialogue in Kosovo.
Nevertheless, Belgrade did not agree to conduct the negotiations at the
level of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which was made up of two
republics – Serbia and Montenegro. Any other position would have marked
the transformation of Kosovo into a third Yugoslav republic, which could
subsequently separate from the federation without any problems. The
Government explained its position with the fact that Kosovo was a part of
the Republic of Serbia and its own internal problem, which it had to solve by
itself. Montenegro adhered to this line, since a different approach would have
jeopardized its own position. With the goal of engaging in negotiations, the
Serbian government delegation visited Priština on more than twenty
occasions (subsequently being joined by Serbian president Milan Milutinović)
but the representatives of the major Albanian parties failed to turn up
because, due to internal dissensions, they were unable to form a common
delegation. At this time it became clear that the Kosovo Albanian leadership
sought negotiations that would include international mediators. On the other
hand, the parties representing Kosovo’s other ethnic communities – the Slavic
Muslims, Gorans, Turks, Roma and non-Muslim Albanians – answered the
call for negotiations, which were also joined by the Kosovo Democratic
Initiative and the Kosovo Peoples Party.
Albanian secessionism in the 1990s 125
the Albanians on many occasions, that the Albanian problem is – one, and
that it is necessary to strive to achieve “its complete solution.” This idea was
also raised in the “Platform for the Solution of the Albanian National
Question,” which was published by the Albanian Academy of Sciences (AAS)
in December 1998.11
In the introductory portion of the document it is emphasized that the
reasons for its preparation and publication lay in the Academy’s concern at
the fact that the attention of both Albanian political circles and international
diplomacy was being limited to the solution of only the problem of Kosovo, and
not “the Albanian question in its entirety.” It goes on to explain the essence of
the “national drama” being experienced by the Albanians, and to formulate
the goals and direction on which the policy of the country should be based in
the decades to follow. At the end, hope is expressed that this would become
an action program for all Albanians, whether in the country itself or outside
its borders.
After a detailed historical retrospective of the “national problem,” the
AAS asked the critical question: What should be done in order to overcome
the drama that the Albanians are living through today? The answer was given
immediately: “All Albanians, regardless of whether they live on the national
territory or outside its borders, wish to unite into a single state.” However, as
it was observed further, as realists, they had to accept the fact that, under the
present circumstances, this was impossible to achieve “without the support
of the international factor.” It is worth observing that the latter judgment,
more concretely – defining a time frame: “under the present circumstances” –
was repeated many additional times, which inevitably raises the following
question – under changed circumstances and with the appropriate approach
of the international factor, could the Albanians achieve this imaged goal?
In the opinion of the Academy, the definite solution of the “Albanian
national question,” which would ensure peace in the Balkans, may be achieved
only through the independence of Kosovo, the transformation of Macedonia
into a bi-national state or one in which autonomy for the Albanians is
secured, the establishment of local autonomy for the Albanians in Monte-
negro and the granting of minority rights to the Albanians in Greece.
Characteristic for this platform was the fact that the “Albanian national
question” was presented for the first time by an official organ, which from
the very start clearly announced its goal of turning the new dogma into an
action program for all Albanians, both within the country or outside its
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11 Платформа за решаване на албанския национален въпрос (неофициален
превод).
Albanian secessionism in the 1990s 127
borders. For the first time the economic aspect of the question was
specifically underlined, with the observation that, differently from the time
before the partition of the Albanian nation in 1913, when it had reached an
economic, social and demographic balance, the solution subsequently
imposed denied to the newly-formed state its best territories, limiting it to
mountain areas and sentencing it to long years of economic, social and
political degradation.
Such an illumination of the problem became a significant step forward
in defining the Albanian motivation: as long as international reality is viewed
mainly through the prism of economic reality, motives of economic (rather
than just historical) existence give better results. On the other hand, the
reader was deftly served with the impression that the cause of the deep crisis
in which Albania had found itself lay in a decision made by the major states
and that, by extension, it was the latters’ duty to right all the wrongs.
The contents of the new dogma, without doubt, open up many
questions tied to the intentions of the Albanian intellectual elite, which
cannot be considered outside of the broad framework of Albania’s external
and internal politics. These questions cause a certain amount of concern,
especially considering the fact that this dogma was announced in December
of 1998, when NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia was being prepared. It is
also no accident that the Academy raised the question of border changes at
this particular moment – for that is precisely what happened in Serbia only a
few months later. The visible mass presence of NATO troops in the Balkans
produced a climate of a heightened sense of self-worth in the country’s
nationalist circles, which has led to a situation where a large number of
Albanians have begun to fantasize not about a “Greater” but about a “True
Albania,” as they call it.
Consistent in its intentions, as is mentioned in the Introduction, the
AAS presented the Academy’s new national dogma in Priština, expecting it to
be the common platform for the activities of the Albanian spiritual (and,
later, political) elite toward the achievement of the above-mentioned final
goal. However, the Kosovo Academy rejected it, considering it to be too
moderate. This raises a series of questions with which we shall not deal for
now, of which the main one may be formulated in the following way: may it
be concluded that the Kosovo elite has already started considering itself as
the future Piedmont of all the Albanians and, thus, does not wish to share
the initiative in that direction with anyone else?
Initiated under the threat of NATO military intervention, the
negotiations in Rambouillet and Paris (February-March 1999) and the final
text of the agreement were not serious attempts to solve the Kosovo
128 Agop Garabedyan
problem. Their goal was to turn the province into an American protectorate,
through the deployment of NATO troops and a gradual elimination of
Serbian sovereignty. In essence, the peace agreement was a sort of an
ultimatum to Serbia and no Serbian politician would put his signature on it.
This raised the question of the true goal of NATO’s intervention against
Yugoslavia and, in fact, confirmed the already expressed opinion that the
decision to bomb had been made by October 12, 1998, and that the Kosovo-
-related diplomatic initiatives that followed were nothing other than an
ordinary political hoax.12
On March 24, 1999, under the pretext that it is necessary to prevent the
humanitarian catastrophe threatening the Albanians in Kosovo and protect
their human rights, NATO launched a broad bombing campaign against
Yugoslavia, of terrible proportions, by land and by sea. In connection with
this, Noam Chomsky from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in his
essay about NATO’s aerial madness, reminded readers that the Italian
operation in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935 had also pretended to a
humanitarian definition – “for liberation from slavery.”13 The bombing lasted
until June 9, 1999, resulting in large human casualties, as well as (due, among
other things, to Serbian counter-attacks and other causes) a wave of almost
800,000 Albanian refugees, who fled to the neighboring countries. On June 3
of the same year, a peace agreement was signed, providing for the broad
autonomy of Kosovo within Yugoslavia, under temporary international
administration. The Yugoslav army and police were withdrawn and replaced
by 38,000 KFOR troops, while the KLA, which was supposed to be
disarmed, was transformed into a civil defense force (the Kosovo Defense
Corpus). I say “supposed” because, according to U.N. police data, the KLA
continued to retain a covert active apparatus. Der Spiegel adds that close
associates of the organizations chief, H. Thaqi, have continued to lead the so-
-called death squads, used for the liquidation of Serbs and Albanians disloyal
to the KLA.14 One of the provisions called for elections to be held and new
government structures and institutions of autonomy to be formed after a
transition period. The agreement also provided for the return of several
hundred Serbian forces to Kosovo, for purposes of customs control and
protection of Serbian monuments, which the Albanians were already
destroying on a mass scale. However, this part of the agreement has never
been fulfilled.
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12 Vreme, 28. 08. 1999.
13 Сега, 14. 02. 2001.
14 Монитор, 15. 4. 2000.
Albanian secessionism in the 1990s 129
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22 Труд, 27. 5. 2000.
23 Сега, 6. 3. 2000.