The Albanian question - a colonial question

    The Albanian question is not simply a human rights question. To put it another way, if the Albanian question is simply one of human rights, then all colonial problems must be treated as such, i.e. in terms of human rights.
    The question of Kosovo is a colonial question because Kosovo has the status of a colony. It is no coincidence that French writer Paul Garde described the status of Kosovo in the following terms: "A Moslem majority with a high birth rate versus a Christian minority clinging to political and economic power and with a low birth rate: i.e. a colonial situation."
    There can be no doubt that the human rights of the Albanians in former Yugoslavia, and in Kosovo and Macedonia in particular, have been severely violated and that their basic freedoms have been radically curtailed. These human rights violations and the curtailment of the basic freedoms of the Albanians in former Yugoslavia, as well as in present-day rump Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, are by no means a contemporary phenomenon, nor even a phenomenon of the last 12 to 13 years during which the problem has become better known to the outside world. On the contrary, these violations have been a permanent feature and consequence of the colonial status of the Albanians. It is indeed this status, that of an ethnic community in a colonial situation under the rule of a foreign people, that has made the violations in former Yugoslavia not only possible, but also systematic, i. e. a permanent feature of life there! The Albanians were discriminated against in the past in Yugoslavia and are being discriminated against in present-day Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and in Macedonia as well, primarily because they are Albanians, an unwanted ethnic group within the federation of the southern Slavs. They are not allowed to have their own homeland within the framework of Yugoslavia even though they are more numerous than many other peoples who have their own republics, not because there exists a sovereign state of Albania on the other side of the border, encompassing half the Albanian population, but because Kosovo and Albanian territories in general (including all natural resources above and under ground) are considered to be the exclusive property of those who conquered them in 1878, and in 1912-1913, and yet again in 1945, i.e. the Serbs, Montenegrins, and Macedonians.
    Greater Serbian propagandists have devised slogans for the promotion of Serbian ideals in Kosovo, such as, "Kosovo is the cradle of the Serbian state," "Kosovo is the cradle of Serbian civilization," "Kosovo is the cradle of the Serbian soul," "Kosovo is the Serbian Jerusalem," etc., etc. It is with such slogans that Serbian politicians, statesmen and intellectuals have always endeavoured to justify their occupation of Kosovo. It is naive of them to believe that Serbia has a right to possess Kosovo, with its 90% Albanian inhabitants, on the basis of ancient mythology and for other, primarily religious reasons. Serbia possesses Kosovo because of its natural resources. Kosovo is small in territory, a total of 10,885 km², but it has extensive natural resources. It has excellent farmland and enough water for irrigation, as well as forests and alpine pastures. Kosovo also has substantial mineral resources, including both common and rare minerals: lead, copper, zinc, nickel, chromium, silver, gold, bismuth, indium, germanium, selenium, mercury, and especially coal deposits which, according to Serbian specialists, may amount to thirteen billion tons. These riches in Kosovo have been a source of woe for the Albanians because they have condemned the population to a colonial situation. The mineral resources of Kosovo, some of which are of strategic importance, are never processed in Kosovo itself, but rather by industries in Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia, or are exported as raw materials of strategic importance to countries with which Yugoslavia has had commercial relations. The price of these natural resources was never fixed by their producer, Kosovo, but rather by the Republic of Serbia or by the Yugoslav federation.
    Aside from being exploited as a source of cheap raw materials for Serbian and Yugoslav factories, Kosovo has also been exploited as a source of cheap labour: miners for Kosovo and manual labourers for other regions of former Yugoslavia. Albanians from Kosovo and Macedonia carry out 80% of heavy manual labour in the urban centres of Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia, and to some extent in those of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and at low wages, too. In Maribor, Ljubljana, Rijeka, Zagreb, Belgrade, Novi Sad and Sarajevo there were and are many Albanians who do the jobs that no Slovene, Croat, Serb or even Bosnian would volunteer to do. Even today, there are about 60,000 Albanians in Belgrade, of whom most offer their services at a lower price than Serbian workers do.
    Serbia keeps Kosovo as a colony as did many colonial powers in the past, not only to exploit its natural resources, but also for demographic reasons. Since the time when it took over Kosovo in the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, Serbia has undertaken numerous campaigns to depopulate Kosovo of as many Albanians as possible and replace them with Serbs and Montenegrins. There have been four major campaigns of Serbian and Montenegrin colonization in Kosovo up to the present. Before World War II, Serbia colonized Kosovo with Serb and Montenegrin immigrants from the poorest regions of Montenegro and Hercegovina, thus resolving its own social problems and the social problems of Montenegro. After World War II, Serbia sent to Kosovo its surfeit of workers, including a good number of experts who had not managed to find employment in the other regions of Yugoslavia. There were two reasons for this: on the one hand, it served to solve the problem of unemployment, and on the other it served to alter the ethnic structure of Kosovo.
    Despite the fact that international organizations have constantly criticised Serbia for its crude behaviour in Kosovo, it continues to carry out colonialist demographic policies by importing Serbs who do not find work in Serbia, refugees from Bosnia and even from Croatia - managers, civil servants, technicians, health care workers, security officers, policemen and soldiers, most of whom become permanent residents of Kosovo with a role of their own, that of dominating the political and economic life of the country.
    The colonialist economic and demographic policies of Serbia in Kosovo are also based on a Serbian colonial theory about the origins of the Kosovo Albanians. According to this theory, which we have had pushed down our throats for years, before and after 1981, the Albanians as a people ought to be thankful to be under the rule of the superior Serbs. As the present generation of Serbian racists would have it, we ought to be grateful for the civilizing effects their work has had on the rough and rugged nature of the Albanians who would otherwise have been left behind in the dust of the Balkan Wars. They explain away the reaction of the Albanians who insist they would not only be happier outside of Serbia's iron embrace, but also more advanced, as being due to lack of information. The natives are never grateful to their civilizing, 'well-meaning' rulers.
    Although Kosovo has often come up in Montenegrin politics since the Eastern Crisis, it is not an issue of central importance to the Montenegrins. And how could it be? Kosovo was only part of Montenegro for a short period in the twelfth century when King Baldwin occupied the Serbian principality of Rascia (Raška) and again from 1912 to 1916 when Prince Nikolla occupied Dukagjin. In view of the brevity of Kosovo's links with Montenegro and of the fact that it was only after the First World War that a modest number of Montenegrin colonists ever settled in Kosovo, we cannot consider Kosovo as an issue of historic significance to Montenegro, either from an ethnic or from a territorial point of view.
    Kosovo is not an issue of essential significance to Serbia either, despite the fact that it has been raised to the level of mythology in Serbian national politics.
    Kosovo was Serbian for somewhat longer than it was Montenegrin, but compared to its long history, this period was relatively brief. It found itself within the extensive mediaeval Serbian Empire from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries and again after 1912 when Serbia occupied Kosovo during the Balkan Wars. On the other hand, Kosovo has been Albanian for long periods of its history. In fact, even when it was incorporated into the mediaeval state of Montenegro and into the mediaeval Serbian Empire, and later into Serbia and Yugoslavia, Kosovo was never really theirs from an ethnic point of view. From the time of the Roman Empire, through the Byzantine age, the mediaeval Serbian Empire, the centuries of the Ottoman Empire and the years of royalist Yugoslavia, Kosovo was inhabited by Albanians and by their predecessors, the Illyrians. In other words, the Illyrians and their Albanian successors formed the majority of the population of Kosovo throughout history. They were the native population of the country. All the other peoples, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Serbs, the Turks, and again the Serbs, came as invaders and colonists. They entered the country or passed through, returning to where they had originally come from, and left Kosovo with a number of colonies of varying sizes. If this is the case, and history shows us that it cannot be otherwise, then Serbian interests and Albanian interests in Kosovo cannot be identical. Serbian interests in Kosovo were to a great extent and still are the interests of a colonial power, of exploiters. Albanian interests in Kosovo were and are the vital interests of the native population. From an ethnic and territorial point of view, therefore, Kosovo is an issue intrinsically linked to the destiny of the Albanian people. For this reason, the political struggle of the Albanian people to free themselves of Serbia and Yugoslavia and to gain independence is an anti-colonialist struggle, a legitimate struggle for freedom and independence.
    The consequences of the colonial status of Kosovo and of the other territories inhabited by Albanians in Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and Macedonia, i. e. the countries which have arisen out of the second Yugoslavia, have been multifarious and dire. There are ramifications of social, economic, political and nationalist factors, and factors related to culture and civilization, among others. These consequences are felt not only by the Albanian population of rump Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and Macedonia, but also by the Albanians living in Albania.