Albanians in Southern Serbia - Leave or return?
AIM Pristina, 30 November, 1999
In the streets of cities in Kosovo there are hundreds of posters hanging in all busy places. The following question is on them: "Where are Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja left behind".
Inhabitants of these three municipalities which are in the southern part of Serbia and which the Albanians call municipalities of Eastern Kosovo, are facing a very difficult situation and even banishment from their homes. Albanian activists say that the crisis has been intensified after the arrival of international forces in Kosovo, that is after withdrawal of Serbian security forces on 12 June this year. Banished Albanians who found refuge in many cities and towns of Kosovo (there are also some of Macedonian refugee camps) claim that more than 20 thousand people were banished.
It seems, though, that the most dramatic situation is that of the inhabitants of Medvedja from where, according to data of the association of the banished persons, 800 families or 5500 Albanian citizens of the total of 6000 who lived in this municipality were forced to leave. Most of them have for the time being been accommodated in Kosovo municipalities of Gnjilane and Kamenica. Some of them are living with Albanian families, but a large number of them have found refuge in collective centres, such as stude nts' dormitories, kindergartens or factory depots. There are many women, elderly persons and children among them who will it seems spend the winter without heating, water and adequate clothing...
Persons banished from the mentioned three municipalities formed their association in Gnjilane and they claim that Albanian inhabitants of these municipalities have been subjected to "all forms of ethnic cleansing previously used in Kosovo by Serbian forces". Except for various types of mistreatment, they testify about the ban of use of Albanian language and "tarnishing of their ethnic symbols".
During a protest organised in Pristina on 14 November, more than one thousand citizens gathered carrying banners with inscriptions such as "We want to go back to our land", "Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja are Kosovo", "Do not forget us", and similar. The citizens from municipalities in southern Serbia sent an appeal from this protest to the international community demanding its more serious involvement in seeking solution for their problem. At this protest they were also critical about the Albanian Kosovo who, according to them, thought of nothing else but resolving "the big issues". Jonuz Fetahu, representative of the organisation committee of the protest demanded from the international community and the interim government of Kosovo to ensure "safe return to their places of residence with international guarantees, withdrawal of military and police forces, interruption of violence, liberation of all prisoners without preconditions, preservation of order and ethnic identity , use of ethnic symbols, edu cation in mother tongue, information in mother tongue and finally implementation of the decision reached by referendum held on 1 and 2 March, 1992".
"We think that we are entitled to civilised life like all the free and democratic countries", declared Fetahu. Tahir Dalipi, member of the association of persons banished from Medvedja, Bujanovac and Presevo, thinks that safe return of his compatriots can be ensured only by the international community "if it spread the protectorate which is currently operating in Kosovo". According to him, this should be done in the name of humanness and human rights which are nowadays just modern "trends in the mod ld". However, when speaking about other possibilities which are "offered by others", Dalipi says that "some people say that with democratisation of Serbia a little less rigid situation will begin and that the Albanians will be given a possibility to live in their homes. "Many people address us - the banished - and ask us whether there will be conflicts in places we have been banished from", says Tahir Dalipi, adding that he would wish to be able to answer with a No, but that "in pr inciple where there is vio lence, the conflict always remains potentially opened".
President of the Presevo municipal assembly Riza Haljimi sharply criticised the international community for "skirting the question" of members of his ethnic group in the agreement signed in Kumanovo pursuant which Serbian security forces withdrew from Kosovo and from there came to stay in Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja. He also sharply criticised Albania which, Halimi believes, should "get involved concerning the question of the Albanians" in these three municipalities.
"I appeal on education workers, health workers, Albanian intellectuals and all political activists, instead to leave their homes, to choose the road of resistance and self-sacrificing involvement in defence of our homes. Only with more intensive involvement and involvement of all the Albanians, full support of international community will be ensured, but also of the all-Albanian potential in meeting conditions for return of the banished and a political solution for the Albanians in Presevo, Bujanova edvedja", Mr. Halimi, president of Presevo municipality appeals.
Information on everyday developments in Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja are not always available. Only here and there it is possible to hear that there was shooting. As a result, inhabitants of a village left their homes in fear of revenge, and after a short time a certain number of them returned. A local activist called his compatriots via electronic media not to leave their homes claiming that completely unknown persons had clashed with the Serbian police and that they should not be tricked to bel rious misinformation spread by irresponsible persons. In the context of general politicisation and possible manipulation of these people by petty politicians, it is still hard to make out all the reasons which had made these people leave their homes.
The current position of the Albanians from municipalities in southern Serbia are in the shadow of new developments in Kosovo, but also enormous problems of more than half a million Kosovo Albanians who will have to face a severe winter which is customary for this part of the world.
AIM Pristina
Arbnora BERISHA
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