Serbia’s actions

During the 72nd joint session of the Presidencies of SKS and SRS held April 23, 1981, Albanian communist elites were considered to be responsible for allowing the "spread of irredentism and nationalism among high school students and workers" (AS Đ-2/327/1981).

Afterward, at the SRS level, intermunicipal conferences were organized, such as those in Šabac, Niš, and Kragujevac. At these meetings it was reported that the institutions in Kosovo had not been careful enough, otherwise it was not understandable how hostile groups could organize so well and organize demonstrations at such a level. In Niš, a re-examination of many cadres and students at the UP and at other high school institutions was requested. The assessments of the committee of the University of Niš regarding the "help"

155 that institutions from Serbia gave to Kosova were highly exaggerated. Genuinely harsh remarks were also directed at the leadership and security organs in Kosovo due to their inability to manage the situation in their areas. The Serbian political and academic elites claimed to the masses that Albanian communists had "delayed the information about these demonstrations on purpose" (ibid.). Some of the conclusions and questions that were raised at the meetings of the Serbs with the general public or students were: We are giving a lot to Kosovo, but the communists are not dealing appropriately with the hostile groups. Why hadn’t the leadership of Kosovo reacted earlier? Is it true that the sons of some leaders participated in the demonstrations in Kosovo? Kosovo leadership allowed the fostering of nationalism among Albanians, which is the reason the emigration of ethnic Serbs from Kosovo was taking place. Serbian students could not join in the political-social organs of the UP because the meetings were being held in the Albanian language. Living and studying conditions at the University of Prishtina were better than in Belgrade…the food in dining hall was very good, so this was not the reason that the demonstrations had happened. Some of the papers circulating included statements such as "Dear brothers, our government is not informing you about developments in Kosovo. The Serbian nation is suffering, Albanians are raping our children, beating and cursing our Serbian mothers. Serbian blood is flowing…Serbs, we should not allow our nation to suffer, our children to be raped, and our mothers to be beaten and cursed by the Albanians" (AS Đ-2/304/1981). The issue of Serbs and Montenegrins who were leaving Kosovo during the late seventies and eighties was brought up by Serbian intellectuals and politicians at almost every meeting at the federal, SRS and provincial levels. Serbian songs which praised Ranković were being sung, and graffiti showed up in different regions of Serbia. In contrast, Serbian press headlines promoted the necessity of fighting against "the enemy and the destabilization of the SFRY"

(Borba, April 6, 1981). This sort of propagandistic journalism served to heighten Serbian nationalism. Newspapers published the minutes of the meetings of Local (Municipal) Committees in Suhareka (Rilindja, October 26, 1981), Vushtri/Vučitrn (Rilindja, October 28, 1981), Gjakova/Đakovica (Rilindja, October 31, 1981) and Ferizaj/Uroševac (Rilindja, October 6, 1981), where the reasons for the emigration of Serbs and Montenegrins from Kosovo were discussed. Here Albanian participants argued that "it's the socio-economic reasons that are making them leave," whereas the Serbian participants cited the political character and "pressure of Albanians" as the main reason for emigration. In one of the

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comments published in Rilindja, it was stressed that "while Serbian and Montenegrin nationalists are trying to dramatize this issue by blaming Albanians, some individuals are benefiting from the situation and realizing their career aspirations to get jobs and credits for buying houses and apartments in other republics" (Rilindja, October 28, 1981). Ilmi Hetemi also pointed out that Serbian authorities further exacerbated the already tense situation by insisting that the emigration of Serbs from Kosovo was due to "insecurity and pressure from Albanians." Hetemi, having served as chief of a police station in Ferizaj/Uroševac for two decades, knew the situation in detail and informed his colleagues from Serbia that there was no pressure, and – according to I. Hetemi – Serbs had left for their own reasons. They sold their lands – which during Kosovo's colonization¹³⁹ had been given to Serbs for free – at a very high price to Albanians. With that money, according to I. Hetemi, Kosovo Serbs were guaranteed a livelihood for at least one or two generations and had also managed to buy land in Serbia. Hetemi reminded his colleagues that his claims could be easily verified, simply by checking the bank accounts of the Serbs that emigrated from Kosovo. Given that his colleagues from the SRS intelligence services kept on insisting on "pressure and insecurity," Hetemi formed a special commission composed of both Serbian and Albanian investigators to analyze this issue. The commission went to the towns and villages and talked to people. All of the Serbian neighbors of those that had emigrated said that no one had left due to pressures but for personal reasons. From all those interviewed by the commission, only one "džeparoš” (pickpocket) said that he was forced to leave due to pressure. Indeed, as Hetemi points out, this guy had fought with an Albanian in the bus, who had caught him trying to pick his pocket. The day after I. Hetemi sent this report to the Secretariat of Internal Affairs in Prishtina, a newspaper in Belgrade wrote that "the chief of the police in Ferizaj/Uroševac supported the demonstrators." Hetemi thinks that for similar reasons, they also accused Fadil Hoxha, saying that his son Sharr Hoxha had organized the demonstrations in Ferizaj (Hetemi; April 2017). Similarly, from the perspective of Malcolm, for example (2001: 301), the main reasons for the movement of people during that period were connected with the mismanagement of the Kosovan economy and the level of unemployment, which was the highest in Yugoslavia. There are also sources defending the idea that there was national pressure involved when it came to Serb and Montenegrin

139 For more information regarding "the colonization of Kosovo," please check out Vladan Jovanović’s insights at https://pescanik.net/the-colonization-of-kosovo/ [Last accessed on 19/02/2019]

157 emigration from Kosovo. From my standpoint, however, here the issue is not so much making a claim as to who is right or wrong, but pointing out that after the demonstrations of 1981, the topic of Serb and Montenegrin emigration became heavily politicized.

Nevertheless, even several months after the demonstrations, Serbian authorities kept reporting the situation in Kosovo as unstable and demonstrations were likely to break out at the drop of a hat They were pushing the local institutions for brutal measures and harsh

"differentiation" toward different people. While in some meetings Serbian politicians reported that the worst situation was among high school and UP students, who were extremely likely to engage in demonstrations, but later the situation was reported to be "even worse" among the workers at factories such as Kombinati Obiliç, Amortizeri, Kombinati Ramiz Sadiku, etc. (AS Đ-2/30/1981). The 72nd joint session of Presidencies of LoC of Serbia and SRS somehow started with the claim that for the SRS to be able to follow up with further analysis, two things should be noted: first, Albanian nationalism in Kosovo exists, and, second, there are ideas for the creation of a Greater Albania. Based on these assumptions, Serbian communist leaders insisted that "Albanians have anti-Serb ideas because, due to the existence of Serbs and Montenegrins, they cannot reach their objectives"

(AS Đ-2/327/1981). Every argument at this meeting from that point onward was advanced on the basis of these prejudices. This shows that the SRS state apparatus – politicians, academics, security forces, etc. – was focusing all of its energy and efforts on penalizing Albanians as "counterrevolutionary demonstrators" as well as everything or anyone they considered had anything to do with those assumptions. Inter-ethnic relations worsened further, particularly because of the onslaught of propaganda coming from Serbian intellectuals and media reports. Biserko notes that analyses pointing to alleged Albanian terror in Kosovo were regularly featured in the Serbian media. Dobrica Ćosić claimed that the Kosovo conterrevolution was started by young children who "first started spitting at and insulting old Serbs, beating and abusing them.” “Šiptars began raping Serb women and girls in Kosmet" (quoted after Biserko 2012: 210). Similarly, in his book "Theoria," Đorđe Vuković writes "they rape everywhere: in public spaces, at bus stops, in ambulance cars"

(quoted after Biserko 2012: 211). It is worth noting that the year this statement appeared, only one case of rape was registered in the whole of Kosovo (Biserko 2012: 212¹⁴⁰). Despite

140 The Committee of Serbian Lawyers and Experts for the Defence of Human Rights analyzed the data on rapes and attempted rapes during the 1980s. This analysis resulted in the conclusion that the frequency of this crime was

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the fact that published research contradicts Serbian propaganda of that time, even nowadays the school curricula and history textbooks of the Republic of Serbia teach about the

"pressure against Serbs in Kosovo with repression, rape, destruction of property, and even killings out of nationalist hatred."¹⁴¹ Slovenian politician Sergej Kraigher, who served as the President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia from 1981 to 1982, highlighted the importance of talking about the relations between Kosovo and Serbia. The events in Kosovo provoked a rise of chauvinistic reactions in Serbia. He claimed that the Federation must respond to this issue. Thus, in July 1981 Vladimir Bakarić, one of the main figures of Tito's regime, in a discussion with leaders of the LoC of Croatia held in July 1981, criticized severely what was being written about the events in Kosovo, saying that the published (dis)information was an attack on the Albanians. Similarly, Ibro Hadžić, the President of the Information Council for Bosnia, also confirmed that he fully supported Bakarić's statements, stating that some news agencies (mainly in Serbia and Macedonia) had turned into courts. After that, Sergej Kraigher added in Ljubljana that Serbia should "fight the rebirth of all kinds of Serbian nationalism" (CAA 132-1/1981/28). What can be seen here is the conflict between the Croatian-Slovenian clique and the Serbian clique, or, reading between the lines, of pro-Western and pro-Russian paths, respectively, which was exactly what was happening at that time in Yugoslavia. During this period the same conflicts were also taking place in the province of Kosovo between the Serbian and Albanian leaderships.

Mustafa Rushiti accused "Jedinstvo" of being a Serbian organ in Kosovo. He also attacked the news magazine "NIN," which on June 14, 1981 published an article according to which Albanian national hero Isa Boletini fought against the state structures back in the early 1900s (ibid.). When "progressivists" realized that Serbs were not treating them as

"brothers," to use Tito's words, they also started to raise their voices and allowed articles to be published about Albanian rights and criticizing SRS politics, which threatened the equality of nationalities as well as the implementation of the SFRY constitution (CAA 14-A/1981/28). Apart from the fact that Yugoslav politicians were spending a considerable amount of time dealing with internal affairs, they also followed the “international anti-Yugoslav propaganda” led by the Republic of Albania through speeches, pamphlets, and

significantly lower in Kosovo as compared to other countries of Yugoslavia. It was also concluded that in most of the cases identified, both the attacker and the victim were of the same ethnic group (see Biserko 2012).

141 See Đurić, Đorđe and Momčilo Pavlović. Istorija 8. Belgrade: Zavod za udžbenike, 2010, page 137; Đurić, Đorđe and Momčilo Pavlović. Istorija 3. Belgrade: Zavod za udžbenike, 2010, pages 208, 235, 243, 245, 248.

159 publications. During this period diplomats of different countries started to view the Republic of Albania's attitudes vis-à-vis the situation in Kosovo in a positive light. As a result, Western countries started to look critically at the SFRY's implementation of human rights, etc. (AJ 803/728).