Where the Yugoslav crisis began THE decisive blow to the unity of the Yugoslav state came not with the declarations of independence by Slovenia and Croatia in 1990, but with the campaign by Serb nationalists to undermine the national rights of the Albanian majority in Kosovo, culminating in the abolition of Kosovo's status as an autonomous province in September 1990. Since then, Kosovo has lived under a regime of severe repression and systematic discrimination against the Albanian population. Catherine Samary spoke to Kullashi Muhaludin, formerly from Kosovo's University of Pristina, now in exile in France, about the grave situation in his homeland.
We said to the HEP: "If it is necessary you will make an alliance with the RP to get above the 10% limit. Or with the SP if it has the chance to get over 10%. Or even with the SHP". The aim was to give mass support to a parliamentary group which would undertake a democratic struggle — not to get PKK members into parliament but some democratic elements.
Certainly the HEP can be criticized from many angles. But it took steps forward at its last congress. A democratic regroupment in Turkey?
As for us, we are going to act in such a way that our sympathizers and rank-and-file change into a base that can support a democratic regroupment in Turkey. We are going to give a lot of importance to making the mass of Kurds in the West, where we have many sympathisers whose number is growing daily, into a solid basis of support for the democratic struggle in Turkey.
We have to create a very broad pluralist democratic alliance. There have been examples of this in Latin America, in El Salvador and in some Asian countries, including that of the PLO.
We say to the democratic forces in Turkey, and to the Turkish left: "Come, let us organize together.
Take your place in a regrouped front.
Ask for our support. If you want we 18 a common centre". * can build this together. Let us create can build this together. Let us create
T HE constitution of the
Yugoslav ("South Slav") federation did not deal with the national question posed by the non-Slav Albanians of Kosovo. At the start of the revolution the notion of a broader Balkan federation -which would have more adequately met Albanian aspirations — was discussed, but it came to nothing. The split between Tito and Stalin and the tensions between Yugoslavia and neighbouring Albania subjected the majority of Kosovo's inhabitants to decades of oppression. But, contrary to what has been said in the Western press, Yugoslavia was not the USSR; it changed over time. What in your view, brought about the present dramatic situation? The Yugoslav crisis started in Kosovo. To understand it we have to look at the tensions that existed at the start of the 1980s. After the death of Tito in 1980 the Yugoslav regime began to disintegrate, and this coincided with the movements of workers and students in Kosovo. That province then became, whether by choice or coincidence, the point of departure for the events that unfolded throughout the country.
The system introduced by the 1974 constitution, transforming the country into a confederation, allowed a certain balance between the interests of the different republics and provinces. Inter-ethnic tensions existed but they did not reach a critical level.
The 1970s were a time of significant economic prosperity in Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia's relations with other countries, including those of Western Europe, developed significantly. Tito played an important role on the international scene with the non-aligned Third World countries. Even the less developed regions benefited from this progress, which was accompanied by cultural advance and a growth in internal exchanges.
This was the period when mutual tolerance was at its height. The frontiers, now at the centre of war, were far less important. On the other hand, in the 1980s, apart from a short respite in 1988-89, before the descent into war, Yugoslavia experienced a serious economic crisis. • What about the frontiers between Albania and Kosovo?
For a long period, Albania was reluctant about relations with its neighbours. It was Tito who pushed for an opening up of the frontiers between the two countries, but contacts were never extensive.
However cultural exchanges did take place, to be condemned later as a plot by Tito and by the Albanians on both sides of the frontier. • Can one compare the 1970s and
1980s at the level of the school, the language, the professions and the power structure in the province?
There are very big differences. First-
International Viewpoint # 227 • April 27, 1992
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Declaration of the coordinating council
THE national problem of the Albanians of Yugoslavia
HUNGARY
SLOVENIA arises from the dismemberment of Albanian territory at the
Zagreb pubijana
ROMANIA
CROATIA • Novi Sad BOSNIA- HERZEGOVINA BELGA YUGOSLAVIA YUGOSLAVIA Sarapevo SERBIA PORTE Tilograd NEGRO Prisonge rosare • Skop ALBANIA MACEDO ly, in the 1970s, Kosovo saw strong economic development and a significant cultural advance in such areas as cultural institutions, mass media, Albanian-language television and so on; this was to the benefit not only of Albanians, but also of others. This, in my view, was the period when relations between the communities were at their best, compared both to the past and what was to come in the 1980s. Both in the enterprises and in education there were functioning mixed groups.
Throughout the institutions, from the lowest communal level to the highest instances of state and party, the leading functions were always shared between the two nationalities. If a school director, for example, was of one nationality, his deputy would have to be from the other. Furthermore, there existed a system of rotation which, each time a mandate changed, assured that the replacement would be from the other nationality.
Constitutionally, the rights of the Serbs were always guaranteed. Indeed the rotation principle favoured the Serbs, who were always in the minority in the province. Even if Kosovo had formal autonomy, the real centre of power was in the Serbian capital Belgrade. • How do you explain the victory of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia on a programme that boiled down to anti-Albanian racism and recentralization of Serbia to the detriment of the two provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina?
There are several reasons for the rise of Serb populist nationalism and there are historical reasons why it chose Kosovo as the terrain on which to forge its political programme, going beyond the issue of the Albanians there.
After Tito's death the Serb leaders pursued policies which upset the delicate balance of interests in Yugoslavia. When the students and workers' time of the creation of the State of Albania in 1913, which left areas of compact Albanian habitation comprising more than a half of the Albanian population outside of the new state. These have never hand national rights, neither under the Yugoslav monarchy of 1941 nor in socialist Yugoslavia after BULGARIA 1945.
By suppressing in 1989 the autonomy of Kosovo and all its rights of sovereignty, in driving Albanians out of all state VA institutions and suspending the parliament and government of Kosovo along with all the province's municipal and communal councils, by forbidding public education and all Albanian-language media, by imposing the Serb language and the Cyrillic alphabet for all official dealings, and by sacking more than 80,000 Albanians, Serbia gravely violated the Yugoslav constitution.
Since Yugoslavia has shown itself incapable of resolving the national question in the Balkans, on July 2, 1990, the deputies of the parliament of Kosovo issued a declaration of independence and on September 7, 1990 proclaimed the Republic of Kosovo.
The Albanian political parties in Yugoslavia, the legitimate political expression of the will of the Albanian people, employing peaceful and democratic means for resolving their problem in line with the right of self-determination of peoples... offer three variants for solving the problems of Yugoslavia's Albanians:
1. If the internal and external frontiers of Yugoslavia do not change, then the Republic of Kosovo must exist as a sovereign and independent state, with the right to associate with the other sovereign states of Yugoslavia. Those Albanians who continue to live in Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia must be legally recognized as a nation with all the constitutional rights that this implies.
2. If the external frontiers of Yugoslavia remain the same, but the internal frontiers stay the same, then our demand is: for the creation of a republic of all the Albanians of Yugoslavia, based on ethnic principles and whatever other principles are applied to Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and others.
3. If both the external and internal frontiers of Yugoslavia change, a referendum should be held amongst the Albanians living in Yugoslavia to decide the issue of unification with Albania and the creation of a state of all the Albanians of the Balkans.
The crisis of Yugoslavia began in Kosovo, with the discontent of the Albanian people, with the discrimination it suffers; and that crisis cannot thus be solved without the participation of the more than three million Albanians of Yugoslavia.
October 11, 1991
Source: Centre d'information de la République du Kosovo, C. P. 84, CH-1211 Geneva, 8, Switzerland * demonstrations arose in Kosovo they were often portrayed as being centred on the demand for Kosovo to be granted full republican status.
In fact, this was not the movement's only demand; other economic and social issues were raised. The raising of these latter type of demands, however, was cut short by the brutal intervention of the army and police, and the regime's propaganda sought to present the demand for a republic as the sole issue, in order to demonize the movement.
Afterwards, in their desire to undermine the old regime, the Serb nationalists affirmed that this "counter-revolutionary" and "obscurantist" demand was already present in the 1974 constitution which, they said, reflected an epoch of Serb self-hatred and selfdenial on the one hand, and on the other, a plot cooked up by the Croat Tito and other hostile foreign forces, whether the Vatican, Iran or the United States. • What do you make of this presentation of the role of "the Croat Tito"? 19
Tito was above all interested in pur-
April 27, 1992 •
ex-YUGOSLAVIA suing the interests of Yugoslavia as a whole. He was far more "Yugoslav" than others who were to appear on the scene later. Whatever his authoritarian sins, Tito tried to maintain the cohabitation of the country's peoples and he succeeded for almost a half century. After his death he was accused by those who wanted to destroy Yugoslavia of having fomented an anti-Serb plot, as shown by his attitude to Kosovo.
The affirmation of Albanian rights in the 1970s — not only in Kosovo - the access to education, their presence in institutions both in the republic and at at federal level - was taken as a proof of treason.
The presence of another people, language and culture in Kosovo, seen as the cradle of the Serbs, although Albanians had lived there for centuries, was seen as unacceptable. Kosovo became seen as the symbol of Serb revival.
ting plots against the state, the system and the party. Between 1981 and 1988, 1,000 Albanian teachers were sacked on the pretext that they were not sufficiently committed to the fight against nationalism. Having a member of one's family in jail means that the children are deprived of the right to study and so on.
Over the years, the Albanian population has suffered incessant repression for crimes of opinion, but the propaganda thunders on about the terror against the Serbs.
The International Federation for Human Rights, the Helsinki Federation and Amnesty International, who researched the situation on the ground in the late 1980s, have never been able to find the slightest proof of the supposed genocide or even of acts of violence against the Serbs. One wonders why Yugoslav public opinion so easily believed lies spread by official circles, by the Serb regime, and followed it through to its ultimate consequences, war and the hatred of all for all. • There have been some who resisted. The Slovene journal Mladina, for example, offered a platform to the Albanians in the 1980s. Some courageous positions were taken by people such as Branko Horvat, who published a text combatting the propaganda. At this time an Association for a Yugoslav Democratic Initiative (UJDI) was founded which supported the democratic content of the Albanian demonstrations in Kosovo, calling for a democratic solution to the break-up of Yugoslavia.
Branko Horvat is one of the first and rare intellectuals to have dared to think
To justify repression, the official ideology claimed that in the mid-80s the rights of the Serb minority were not respected. It is necessary to underline the role of intellectuals in this, in particular those grouped around the Academy of Serbia; it was they who, starting in 1985, launched the notion of a "genocide of the Serbs" taking place in Kosovo.
Some of these intellectuals had been dissidents under the former regime and there was something really horrible in this regression. They called openly for war for years, affirming that the Serbs had always been the losers from peace and won in war, seen as a way in which the Serbs could make up for past injustice. • How can this kind of regression amongst the intellectuals, which has been seen not only in Belgrade but in Zagreb and Sarajevo, be explained?
Two classic propaganda techniques were used: on the one hand a big lie was constructed made out of supposed truths and half-truths, fed by ordinary legal conflicts and crimes which were transformed in the propaganda into ethnic conflicts. On the other, the lie was repeated incessantly. This made a section of Serb public opinion really believe that the genocide of Serbs in Kosovo was actually taking place.
In fact, since the start of the 1980s the only thing which exists and can be proved is that thousands of young Albanians have been sentenced, not for demanding a republic in Kosovo but for taking part in demonstrations and 20 strikes.
They have been accused of fomen-
General strike in Slovenia
ON MARCH 18, 1992 half of Slovenia woke up in darkness, while the other half passed its evening in the dark. This was the most revealing sign of the success of the "general warning strike".
Access to most of the cities was blocked by trailers and public works' vehicles, shops and services were closed, lessons were abandoned at the end of the day, and even soldiers and customs officers expressed their solidarity. The strike, called by the Association of Free Unions of Slovenia, rallied all the unions apart from a pro-government shop window with the misleading name of Confederation of Independent Unions.
The conflict between the unions and the government, obscured for a long time by the national question, has at its roots the wage freeze and infringements of collective contracts. The effect of these two measures has been a fall in workers' purchasing power beyond any that the contemporary workforce has ever experienced.
The average hourly wage in Slovene engineering is 3 DM (Deutschmarks) compared to 38 DM in West Germany and 30 DM in Italy. The government fixed monthly minimum is supposed to be 260 DM but in enterprises in the sectors in crisis salaries of 160DM are commonplace. It is estimated that it takes 730 DM a month to meet the most elementary needs of a family of four. Thus, only a small fringe group of workers in industry live above the poverty line.
After the total success of their "general warning strike" the wage freeze was immediately abandoned. However, low wages and high living costs make for a volatile social climate. There will be new tests of strength in the near future.
These are inevitable given the strong encouragement provided by this first generai strike, organized by unions independent of the government. For the first time in 40 years the workers have felt their strength.
The independent Belgrade weekly, Vreme, summed up the effects of the strike: "With this victorious strike, the Siovene workers have ceased to be atomized individuals, powerless tools in the hands of bureaucrats or nationalist demagogues and have become - through the vehicle of independent class unions - a social subject capable of delivering a knock-out blow to their main opponent, the state". • - Slavko Mihaljcek, March 30, 1992. *
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Signs of opposition to nationalist tide
IN THE recent referendum in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 63% of registered electors voted for cohabitation and respect for the existing frontiers of the state. It is in Bosnia, which has for centuries been ethnically mixed, inhabited by Muslims, Serbs, Croats and other nationalities, that the peace movement has been the strongest. Dozens of mass demonstrations have taken place in all the country's towns and the pacifists have become an important political force.
On Monday April 6, 30,000 answered the call of the movement's Inspiration and Coordination Collective and assembled in front of and inside the parliament building in Sarajevo. In the afternoon this unarmed and peaceful crowd was fired on by Serb militia.
On Tuesday morning, Radio Sarajevo reported bitter fighting between the Bosnian police and the Serb militia for control of the city's strategic points including the capital's TV transmitter. The headquarters of the UN troops was attacked and the UN officers moved out of their hotels into a fortified building.
On Wednesday April 7 the bombing of Croat-inhabited villages in Herzegovina by Serb/federal airplanes was reported. The Serb militia, who showed the crimes they are capable of in the battle of Vukovar, occupied and looted several Muslim villages close to the Serbian frontier. The Bosnian president called for international intervention.
Nonetheless, there are signs that nationalism is starting to lose ground. The Serb/federal army, which has been protecting the Serb nationalists, has withdrawn from several regions in Bosnia. Undermined by desertions, discredited by its crimes in Croatia, with conscripts refusing to undertake new operations against the civilian population, the army is no longer operational in Bosnia. In the absence of their protector, the various Serb militias have quickly shown their true nature as bands of killers and looters with a racist and fascist ideology.
The Bosnian anti-war movement is perceived, henceforth, as a political alternative to the nationalist formations which have plunged the country into barbarism.
Finally, in occupied Kraina (in Croatia, a multinational region before the war) there have been several demonstrations of Serbs demanding the return of the Croatians expelled from their homes. One of the objectives of the nationalists in this war is the displacement - by terror - of the minority populations with the goal of creating ethnically "homogeneous" areas. This monstrous solution was implemented in Kraina and in Slavonia under the pretext of assuring "the security of the threatened Serb people"
But, instead of assuring the security of the Serbs, the expulsion of the Croat inhabitants could provoke reprisals. Emptied of their Croatian population, the mountains of Kraina and the plains of Slavonia could serve as immense firing fields for the Croat army.This awareness, belated but very real, of the danger represented by the process of ethnic homogenization is weakening, in the short term, the ideological influence of every brand of nationalism. * the recentralization of power in
Serbia in the belief that they could limit that state's expansionist drive to Kosovo.
This belief was at work both before and after the elections. The oligarchies in Slovenia and Croatia thought that the Serbian government would be content with Kosovo, the "cradle of the Serb nation". But they were mistaken. Indeed, Milosevic had already told them this, after the constitutional changes which ended the autonomy of Kosovo in March 1989.
The governments of Franjo Tudjman in Croatia and of Milan Kucan in Slovenia openly declared that the Kosovo issue was an internal Serbian problem, hoping that this would satisfy the Serbian appetite. The events which have followed, and the terrible war in Croatia, have shown that the populist and nationalist movements would go further in pursuit of their Great Serbia policy after getting their way in Kosovo. • Do you place any hopes in the Serb opposition to Milosevic?
The attitude of the Serb opposition over Kosovo has not been much different to that of Milosevic. Often, unfortunately, it has offered Milosevic its support, or even proposed yet more radical measures. The Democratic Party, for example, has declared that "if the Albanians raise the political demand for independence, all necessary means must be employed against them". All the deputies in the Serbian parliament, including those of the Democratic Party, have voted for discriminatory measures against Albanians. This was also true of Draskovic's Party of Serb Renewal, which has developed somewhat since.
Recently Milosevic issued a statement raising the responsibility of the local Serb regime in the events in Kosovo, but all the discriminatory measures remain. People are being killed every day; peasants have recentIv been executed because they forilito.
differently from the official ideology. With exemplary courage he challenged both the formula of a "counter-revolution" and the use of the term "genocide". He tried to demystify the demand for a Kosovo republic, denying its diabolic character. He tried to explain that, on the contrary, this demand did not threaten the interests of anyone in Yugoslavia.
Mladina and some other Slovene publications tried to challenge the official version of events in Kosovo and sought rational explanations for what was happening. At the same time it was deputies from Slovenia who were the only ones to get the federal parlia ment to employ legal and rational criteria. • Democratic currents throughout the federation were concerned by the struggle against the Great Serb danger in the 1980s. One got the impression, on the other hand, that the leaders who came to power in the first free elections made the serious miscalculation of allowing ly been executed because they facilitated the holding of lessons in private houses.
But, a part of the Serb opposition has evolved and is now proposing a Serb federation to solve the Kosovo problem. • Would this be a structure in which the provinces would be the basic unit?
This is not clear. In the Serbian constitution, there still exist two provinces with autonomy, even if this is not the reality according to recent par- 21 liamentary laws. According to these,
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Kosovo will no longer have its own constitution decreed by the Serb Republic, which can over-ride decisions by the provincial assembly.
The Albanian population rejects any solution that would mean a regime imposed from Belgrade or even one to any extent under the latter's control. This is the feeling of the majority and not just of political groups who have succeeded in getting acceptance for the demand for a Kosovo republic. The main Kosovo Albanian opposition party, Rugova's Kosovo Democratic League, was satisfied barely two years ago with the status of an autonomous province as defined in the 1974 constitution. The popular feeling now is formed in reaction to the repression. The people believe that relations with the other peoples of Yugoslavia can only be worked out on the basis of equality, something that, for the moment, Serbia is not ready to accept. • Have there been contacts between the Kosovo Albanian opposition parties and parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Macedonia who face threats from the Serbian regime?
There have been contacts at political party level with Macedonia and also with opposition parties in Serbia. The Albanian parties even expressed their readiness to talk to the Serbian regime in October and November 1991, notably on the schools question; some teachers have not been paid for a year, while colleagues have been receiving double salaries as a result of the infamous law on discrimination according to nationality. The Albanian parties affirmed that they wanted the right to work, respect for international conventions and guarantees for minority rights.
In July 1991, intellectuals from the Helsinki committee and the peace movement wrote a text in which they violently criticized the installation in
Kosovo of apartheid in education.
Albanians took part in this meeting in
Belgrade. This has been the most important step by Belgrade intellectuals so far. It should be stressed that the UDJI, often for tactical and pragmatic reasons, has been very cautious in its statements about the real problems in Kosovo.
• The question of the Serbs of
Croatia raises the question of the different possible visions of the future of what was once
Yugoslavia. The Serbs have demanded certain rights and to be recognized as a people that has ronnanized ae a people that has lived in these territories for centuries. The Albanians have at least the same rights vis-à-vis Serbia.
Currently, the Albanians have been sacrificed not only by Yugoslavia but also by Europe. The emergence of the problem of the Serbs in Croatia has not changed the point of view of the Serbian opposition towards the Albanians. Milosevic considers the Albanians as a minority, whilst the Serbs are a people and a nation. From this flows their right to self-determination. • Do you feel that defence of the interests of the Kosovo Albanians should be conducted by means of an insurrection or by other means of struggle?
It should be emphasized that throughout the 11 years of repression in Kosovo the response of the Albanians has been solely and consistently political. The miners' strike was symbolic from this point of view and illustrated the Albanian approach - nobody was threatened by the miners staying underground. Their demands were modest — they did not call for a Kosovo republic - but by risking their lives they succeeded in attracting international attentions.
We have faced police repression and a propaganda onslaught. There have been on the one hand imprisonments, sackings and deaths, on the other propaganda presenting Albanians as barbarians. We have responded with petitions, demonstrations and strikes, despite many police provocations such as encircling villages and daily repression. Any attempt at insurrection would be used as an excuse for a generalized massacre.
Croatia has been able to organize an army, hospitals and civil defence; the situation is of course different in Kosovo. Tudjman and other leaders called on the Albanians to rise up when the war started. But they know full well that the Albanian population is without arms and that a desperate uprising would only make easy what obsesses the Serbian regime: to put an end to the massive presence of Albanians on this
"sacred soil"; the mass extermination of Albanians has already been put forward by Seselj [a Serb nationalist leader claiming the heritage of the Chetniks] as a solution to the Kosovo problem. Political struggle and organization will continue to be at the centre in
Kosovo.
• What support can that policy find on the trade union or political level?
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There are independent unions which are in a very difficult situation since very few Albanians still have jobs. They send protests to international associations but they do not get much of a response. Given the mass sackings they cannot do a lot. There is also an organization for providing assistance to the most desperate and above all for the unemployed. It suffers from severe police harassment — activists get from 30 to 60 days in jail and the aid supplies are confiscated.
The political parties are trying to keep contact with European and international institutions and they send reports to international associations. Thus the latter know perfectly well what is going on in Kosovo. But nothing has been done to halt the repression in Kosovo apart from seven resolutions from the European parliament condemning the Serbian regime's actions in Kosovo and calling for the restoration of constitutional rights, which are important from the symbolic point of view.
The situation in Kosovo, like that in the rest of Yugoslavia, is a test for the European institutions' will to build a "common European home"
At the Hague conference concessions were made to the Serbian regime on the issue of the Serbs in Croatia, but, although the seventh resolution of the European parliament affirms that the provinces should have the same status and the same right to self-determination, a standpoint taken under pressure from Belgrade in practice is not applied to peoples other than the Serbs. Thus the question is, does a people with an army have more rights than one without, in the EEC's view? • As far as possible appeals can be made to non-state organizations such as unions and human rights organizations to take a stand in defence of Albanian rights in Kosovo.
This is all the more important in that for months most of the European media have not talked about us. While everyone is informed about the end of apartheid in South Africa, they fail to mention that a kind of apartheid is being installed in the very heart of
Europe. Hundreds of doctors have been forced to leave hospitals because of their nationality, while half a million school age children cannot pursue their education, 80,000 people have been sacked, and wage differentials have been introduced for the same reason — on the basis of nationality. If Europe remains deaf to this then its credibility is in question. *
ZIONISM AND RACISM