Intellectuals from Kosovo

AIM Podgorica, 16 May, 1999 (From AIM correspondent from Pristina)

Where is the intelligentsia of Kosovo Albanians at this moment is a very complex question. For the time being it has more sense if taken literally - as the question about their physical existence and not as about an intellectual category which is expected to appear in public and state its stands. In normal conditions every question and analysis of the social stratum called intelligentsia would have quite a different meaning, it would mark its creative and social engagement in promoting universal values. However, in the past spring weeks and months, the exodus experienced by Kosovo Albanians did not bypass the intellectuals. On the contrary. They too were forcibly evicted from their homes, they too became homeless, displaced persons, who live either in camps provided from humanitarian aid or in homes of their relatives and friends.

Among Kosovo Albanians, almost all status differences in the social and economic sense have disappeared. The intellectuals are sharing the destiny of their people. For all of them, the most important is to ensure a roof above their heads and feed their families. That is why perhaps it is more appropriate at this moment to ask where in the physical sense the intellectuals from Kosovo are, and not what they are doing. Unfortunately, numerous known and less known among them are not alive any more. At the moment nobody can make a comprehensive list of intellectuals from Kosovo, because it is still uncertain who has been shot or massacred and where those who have managed to save their bare lives are.

Among the known figures, liquidations of the following have been recorded so far: Latif Berisha, Fadil Hajrizi and Fehmi Agani. University literature professor Latif Berisha was shot with his son in Kosovska Mitrovica immediately after having been taken out of his house. One of the most prominent leaders of independent trade union, Fadil Hajrizi was killed in the same manner, also in Mitrovica, but with his mother. The series of physical liquidations of Albanian intellectuals started with the shooting of the most respectable Kosovo lawyer and great fighter for human rights Bajram Kelmendi and two of his sons. After having been ill-treated in their home, they were taken to the police station which later reported that their dead bodies had been found somewhere at the outskirts of Pristina.

Fehmi Agani was the last in this series of liquidated prominent public figures whose destiny is known. It was established that he was on the train escorted by the police which was transporting deported Kosovo Albanians from Pristina in the direction of the Macedonian border. Since the border was closed, the train was sent back and, according to statements of numerous eye-witnesses, Agani was arrested on the way back somewhere near Pristina. This descriprion of his disappearance would have been quite unnecessary if it had not been for the initial Serb information according to which Agani was liquidated by Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) which nobody believed. Agani is one of the best known and most respected Albanian personalities. He was the pioneer of sociological and philosophical thought in Kosovo, and also a professor of all the students that had graduated at these faculties in Pristina. Since more than 30 years ago he has been known for his engagement on the idea of independence of Kosovo, and in the past years he tried to effectuate this idea by direct engagement in politics. With his sense for contacts and interpretation of problems, and readiness to listen attentively to other people, he has become the most respected politician in Kosovo. No other Albanian politician in Kosovo was so respected even among those who did not share his views.

A significant number of public figures and intellectuals are still in Kosovo. The best known among them is Adem Demaqi. The fact that he remained in Kosovo is in accord with the conviction he advocated concerning his behavior in such and similar situations. In the first few days after the beginning of NATO bombing in a public appearance he said that he would not leave his country despite all the danger. In the end of April, rumour spread that he had been arrested in Pristina and later released to go home. Approximately at the same time information arrived that one of the best known students' leaders and secretary of Demaqi's office while he was still the main representative of KLA, Albin Kurti, was also arrested in Pristina. It is claimed that Kurti was arrested together with his father who is also a university professor and who was also politically engaged and with his brother who was an activist of the students' organization.

There are information that the known activist for human and women's rights and physician-pediatrician, Flora Brovina, was also arrested. Nothing is known about her destiny. Nothing is known about the eminent publisher and politician, Veton Surroi, either. After signing of the Rambouillet agreement in Paris, Surroi returned to Pristina and immediately went under cover. There are reliable information that he has escaped from the police with his mother and that he is somewhere in Kosovo, but he still has not issued a public statement, nor has anything about him been made public. In an interview to Albanian television a few months ago, he said that if no other way out was possible, he would be ready to carry a Kalashnykov (machinegun).

Another two persons until recently very present in Kosovo public should be mentioned. They are Bajram Kosumi and Hydajet Hyseni who were in the leadership of the United Democratic Movement of Rexhep Qosja. As representatives of this group in the interim government of Kosovo of Hashim Tachi, Kosumi was entrusted with the ministry of information and Hyseni with the ministry of justice. Kosumi was mentioned in public in the information on visits to liberated territory controlled by UCK. Hyseni has not been mentioned yet, nor has he issued a public statement yet.

Majority or rather all intellectuals and public figures took away with them across the border (and probably they will never get rid of it) the heavy, primarily psychological but also political burden of banished persons. Except for those who have started and led the struggle for freedom, including members of the interim government of Kosovo, almost all politicians have left Kosovo and gone abroad as refugees. Most of them are in Albania, there is quite a few in Macedonia, and some are in western countries. Contrary to politicians, it seems that majority of intellectuals are concentrated in Macedonia. A smaller number of them are in camps where majority of the people are accommodated. But this does not make the weight of the cross of banished persons any ligher.

In the conditions of almost completely limited movement within municipalities in which they have been received as deportees, intellectuals even physically cannot gather, least of all try to make a collective effort in order to mutually clarify what has happened and what is happening to them and their people this spring. That is why there are rare collective or individual isolated public appeals with generally known stands which are nothing but confirmation of the already known feebleness of the intellectual public and their even greater impotence in exile. Rumour goes that one of the best known Albanian intellectuals who has recently become active in politics said that Albanian intellectuals but especially politicians had already said everything they had had to say. He bluntly suggested that anything they would say now would mildly speaking be in bad taste and irresponsible repetition of what they had once already said. If this observation is correct, in the radically changed situation, it is even less possible to tolerate their ignorance, incompetence, ruthless greed, absurd struggle for power, indolent conduct and personal day-dreams which served to put the people to sleep, according to certain opinions. Indeed, what would intellectuals have to say that would be significant for the destiny of the people, but especially politicians in exile, if they had not done what had been their duty to do while they were in Kosovo?

AIM Pristina

FEHIM REXHEPI