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Albanian discovery: Evidence of violence against Albanians in Kosovo in the years 1980-1990

2022-08-29 20:02:16Histori SHKRUAR NGA MARENGLEN KASMI
Albanian discovery: Evidence of violence against Albanians in Kosovo in the
Demonstration of 1981 in Kosovo

The 1980s of the last century turned out to be important years of maturation of the conscience of the Kosovar people for the intensification and unification of efforts to gain their basic rights, which would culminate many years later with the creation of the Republic of Kosovo, of course in a different time and context of the geopolitical map of Europe.

This historic journey of the people of Kosovo towards freedom was accompanied by systematic state violence against them, especially on the eve of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1980s-1990s, to culminate in the genocide of unimaginable proportions that the Serbian state organized against the Kosovar people in 1998-1999.

After the events of 1981, Enver Hoxha ordered the State Security to follow developments in Kosovo as a priority. As a result, the agency network in Kosovo was improved and expanded, and attention to developments in Kosovo increased, which was institutionalized in the documentation, which we already inherited from the former State Security.

If we compare the behavior of the Yugoslav state towards Albanians and other nationalities in the former Yugoslavia, obvious changes can be observed. If against the Albanians who demonstrated in 1981 with their progressive demands, hordes of the militia and the Yugoslav army were poured out, continuing afterwards with a crusade of imprisonment, persecution and violence, against the regressive and revanchist Serbo-Montenegro demonstrators, not only was no repressive measure taken , but on the contrary, as always in these cases, some Albanian militiamen were sacrificed for using rubber sticks against them. One of the most marked events of these differences was that of September 1987, when over 27 fascist-type attacks against private Albanian shopkeepers and Albanian construction workers in Serbia were recorded, where there were at least two Albanian victims.

Meanwhile, from 1981 onwards, the figures show that towards the Albanians in Kosovo, the policy of terror and imprisonment continued as before, with some new features and nuances. If in the period March-April 1981 to November 1985 over 4,000 Albanians were beaten in Kosovo, of which 1,073 were prosecuted for political criminality, that is, for irredentism, and another 3,107 for national political offenses (which meant writing slogans and distributing pamphlets, where almost half of them were punished with imprisonment and the others with counseling), at the end of 1988, the number of Albanians hit by the Yugoslav state reached about 15,000 people, that is, almost four times more than in 1981.

From this figure, until 1988, about 50% of the convicts in Kosovo had served their sentence, but they continued to be ill-treated, they were not provided with work and were once again the object of persecution and beatings. This was also shown by the repeated formula of Zvetomir Lalović, Minister of Internal Affairs of Serbia that "Albanian irredentism is being reproduced and despite the persecutions it does not give up".

The repressive measures in the Yugoslav People's Army against Albanian soldiers and officers speak in these years about the dimensions of a growing anti-Albanian violence. If by the end of 1984, 623 Albanian soldiers and officers had been hit, in August 1987, according to Branko Mamulles, Federal Minister of Defense of Yugoslavia, this figure increased to 1427 Albanian soldiers. If we were to do a simple calculation, we notice that in the period 1981-1987, in the Yugoslav People's Army, an average of 203 Albanians were punished every year for every 50,000 such (it is estimated that Albanians constituted about 20% of the Yugoslav army of 250,000 active soldiers and the time of service was 12 months). This indicator was 2.5 times higher than the annual Yugoslav average of strokes, which was 178 people per 100,000 inhabitants.

In total, always according to the State Security, it was calculated that in the years 1981-1987, i.e. for 6 years, a total of over 2500 Kosovars were convicted for politics and over 7000 others for political and national offences. If we take into consideration that an Albanian family consisted of an average of seven members, these represented about 70,000 people and if we take into account the extent of the tribes, it is confirmed what was often spoken among the people and which was also confirmed by the sources of the State Security that "in Kosovo there is no family that does not have a prisoner or convict" from the raging Serbian chauvinist campaign. While for all Albanians convicted in Yugoslavia, it was estimated that around 110,000 Albanians were affected by this crackdown campaign.

All social strata were affected by this genocide in Kosovo, specifically: until October 1987, the distribution in percentages was approximately as follows: 42.2% students and intellectuals (over 10% were teachers), over 30% workers, farmers and craftsmen and over 22% of students, the vast majority of whom had finished school and could not find a job.

Furthermore, the statistics show that the beatings against Albanians did not make age differences, they started from the age of 15, so even minors were punished. The average age of convicts in Kosovo was 25 years and in the army 20 years.

If we were to summarize the charges against them in a few words, they were convicted of supporting political convicts, denouncing the inequalities of Albanians with other Slavic nations and nationalities, propagandizing that Albanians do not enjoy constitutional rights and are at the center of attacks by Serbian hegemony, that the rights of the Albanians were being narrowed, the politics of Albania were being exalted, etc. While in the army, almost 100% of Albanians were punished with the trick of being "members of illegal groups".

Paradoxically, the punitive policy towards them was covered with phraseology such as "in the name of the guardian of the essential human rights and freedoms of the city; the equality of nations and nationalities and the legal regulation of the order, defined in the Constitution". So the Albanians demanded the equal implementation of the Constitution, the Serbian clique not only did not give it to them, but punished them in the name of the Constitution. Also, it should not be forgotten that in 1987 Kosovo lived the economic level of Slovenia in 1947 or that of Montenegro in 1960 and that it enjoyed only 29% of the average standard of living of Yugoslavia. On the other hand, out of 4,729 persons prosecuted throughout Yugoslavia in the years 1981-1986, 3,086 of them, i.e. about 65%, were Albanians. So, Kosovo was the last in economic treatment and the first in imprisonment.

Also, during these years, the artificiality of the attack on the Albanians in Kosovo is easily evident, in order to keep the repressive campaign against the Albanians alive. In the mid-1980s the blows tended to go in two directions; under the charge of "inciting national hatred" and "violence against members of another nationality". This last article was invented with the sole purpose of having a reason to imprison Albanians, and despite all the opposition, it took legal force as an article of the criminal code. In addition to the control and pressure on the Kosovo jurisprudence bodies, the Serbian press and propaganda echoed and politicized every fight, even between Albanian and Serbian children, from the most common ones.

Despite all the propaganda noise that the Serbs raised against the Albanians as violators, the dynamics of this crime were presented as follows: in 1986, 20 attempted rapes and 9 rapes occurred in Kosovo, of which 3 attempts and 5 rapes were committed against Montenegrin Serbs. As can be seen, this number was far from what the Serbs propagated, at a time when the Republic of Serbia held the first place in Yugoslavia for these crimes. For example, in the years 1980-1984, in the crime "against freedom and human rights" Kosovo occupied 1%, and Serbia 46.8%; "against honor and prestige" Kosovo occupied the 8th place with 0.5%, while Serbia took the first place with 46.1%. As you can see, the logic of the numbers is clear and does not allow you to make mistakes!

Another aspect that was speculated to hit the Albanians was the issue of using the national flag, when it was well known that they would keep it unchanged in their homes!

Finally, it is worth noting that:

Throughout the 1980s, organized Serbian violence and repression against the Albanian people in Kosovo increased, which was also expressed in the increase in the number of militias from 1 per 960 inhabitants to 1 per 450 inhabitants, without mentioning the special federal militia troops that came to Kosovo. Regardless of the motives and justifications why this unit was sent to Kosovo, it constituted a striking force which was primarily intended to be used against the Albanians.

The evidence of violence against the Albanians of Kosovo but also of other Albanian countries in this period best illustrates the anti-Albanian attitudes of the Yugoslav state towards the Albanians and basically outlines the subsequent Serbian policy towards Kosovo after the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia. 


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