To the 37th Congress of the Transnational Radical Party

Rome, 7-8 April 1995

THE CURRENT SITUATION IN KOSOVA

speech delivered by Edita TAHIRI, MP, Democratic League of Kosova

Republic of Kosova

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure to speak to you about Kosova today. I hereby express my deep appreciation to the Radical Transnational Party for giving me the opportunity to be here.

Please allow me to take use of this opportunity to extend to you greetings by the President of the Republic of Kosova, Dr.Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of the non-violent movement of the two million ethnic Albanians. He sincerely appreciates the contribution and the support of this party to the affirmation of the peaceful resistance Kosova Albanians have been pursuing.

Kosova [...] are ongoing war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and earlier in Croatia, less international attention has been paid to Kosova.

In the context of the Balkans, Kosova is a "powder-keg" region with the potential to spark a new war that would certainly involve neighbouring countries, especially Albania, the former republic of Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey.

The seriousness of the problem demands increased international awareness and urgent preventive action. Any delay would lead to a Balkan war threatening the entire region.

THE OCCUPATION OF KOSOVA

In the former Yugoslav Federation, Kosova was one of the eight equal units. It was represented in all decision-making levels of the federation with the right of veto power. Kosova had its own constitution and legislative, executive and judical bodies. Kosova was also referred to as an autonomous part of Serbia, but the Federal Constitution made it clear that Kosova's constitutional order existed in parallel to the Serbian constitutional order, rather than under it. According to the Federal Constitution Kosova's borders could not be violated by other federal unit. The autonomous status of Kosova, being of federal nature, was an expression of the right to self-determination enjoyed by people of Kosova and according to the federal constituiton such a fundamental right could not be abolished unilaterally.

In 1989, through the use of police and military force, Serbia abolished Kosova's subjectivity and imposed a state of martial law, trying to enforce Serbian rule in Kosova.

The Albanian efforts to oppose this reality brought about hundreds of killed and wounded Albanians, as well as thousands of others imprisoned, beaten up and intimidated by Serbian police and military.

Since then, Kosova has virtually been occupied by Serbia. The Albanian people live in a constant state of anxiety, as a consequence of daily repression and a state terror launched by the Serbian regime. For five years now, Albanians have been subjected to all forms of violence, and they have been excluded from institutional and public life.

Today Kosova is a region with the greatest Serbian police and military build-up. Actually, in Kosova, there are over 100,000 military and police forces (according to the Serb official sources). However, this is not all. The Serbian paramilitary forces move freely over Kosova and provoke the Albanian population in most brutal ways. The situation becomes especially tragic when even Serb civilians are heavily armed and they do not trouble themselves to hide this fact, while the Albanian people are unprotected and unarmed.

The exclusion of ethnic Albanians from institutional and public life, the daily repression and state terror exerted by the Serbian regime has created a climate of individual and collective insecurity. More than 300,000 Albanians (mostly young men of drafting age) have already fled Kosova. Thus, the process of a quite ethnic cleansing is going on.

At same time the process of colonization and serbization of Kosova is taking place with drastic dimensions. Both processes serve the implementation of Serbian policy aimed at changing of ethnic structure of Kosova, so often experienced by Albanians through their history.

NON-VIOLENT RESISTANCE

Two million Albanians of Kosova oppose the current situation in a non-violent way. Organized in political parties, they are making efforts to build up their own life. The leading party is the Democratic League of Kosova, with a membership of 600,000 that includes many branches abroad. LDK leader, Dr.Ibrahim Rugova was elected President of the Republic of Kosova in the 1992 presidential and parliamentary elections.

Exercising peacefully the principle of self-determination people of Kosova held a referendum in September 1991 voting for an independent [...] multiparty parliamentary and presidential elections were held in the presence of international observers and media. However, the Parliament of Kosova has never been allowed meet. Part of the Government of Kosova has been forced to operate in exile.

Education in private homes and buildings and other self-organized institutions are springing up to fill the gaps in educational, social and cultural life. Economic survival is possible due to the extraordinary inter-albanian solidarity. However, Serbian authorities constantly intervene against.

If it is the internationally recognized principle that the changes in the world can happen peacefully, the international community must support the Albanian peaceful movement for self-determination, independence and democracy.

By supporting the peaceful determination of Albanians, international community would strengthen the stability role of the Albanians and contribute to the prevention of war in the region.

PROSPECTS

The prospect for Kosova would be an independent and neutral State of Kosova, based on the political will of the people of Kosova expressed in a referendum. In political aspects, it would be a democratic state and no ethnic group would be treated as a minority. Its economic philosophy would be a multiparty system with a free market economy and an expanded private sector from agricultural and household industries to larger enterprises. Being rich in mineral resources, Kosova would quickly overcome the economic disparity inherited from the past.

The independent State of Kosova would be an open link between Albania and Serbia. It would provide free circulation of both, Albanians and the others.

The Albanians out of Kosova (South Serbia, FYROM, and Montenegro) who make one million, have been discriminated as well. After dissolution of Yugoslavia their political perspective should be based on the right to self-determination.

Albanians in Former Republic of Macedonia must enjoy the state-forming status, while, Albanians in Serbia and Montenegro sould enjoy autonomy and equal national rights with others.

As to Kosova, if it remains once again under Serbia or the so-called third Yugoslavia, it would be a new tragedy and an unsolved problem. Today, when Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians, as a Slavic people have [...], Albanians with a large ethnic distance from Serbs do not see any reason for living within Serbia, especially after all they have suffered under the Serbian regimes.

Independent Kosova is a solution based on the political reality, created after the falling apart of former Yugoslavia. It will convert Kosova from a "powder-keg" to a factor of stability in the region. If it does not happen, Albanians will ultimately demand unification with Albania.

CONCLUSION

In the crisis in former Yugoslavia, the international community has been manifesting indeciviseness and hesitation in undertaking efficient steps to end the tragedy in Bosnia. This has been perceived by Serbia as a green light to extend its aggression and expansionism. It encouraged Serbia also to kick the OSCE observers in Kosova out.

By expelling the OSCE observers, Kosova has been turned into a concentration camp of two million people, where Serbia is left free hand to practice state terror. The recent violence manifested by hundreds of house raids per day with a pretext of searching for arms and massive arrests has increased tensions so much that it has put in question the survival of the peaceful movement of Albanians.

In order to preserve the peaceful resistance of Albanian people; in order to prevent an escalation of war in the region, which certainly would produce even more devastating and widerspread consequences than the Bosnian conflict, we urge the International Community to take action in finding ways to avoid a situation that threatens international peace and security.

The activity of international community in conflict resolution should concentrate simultaneously in peace process and in preventive diplomacy.

In this respect the role of the Radical Transnational Party would be of great help. So I appeal to this forum to direct its activity and influence to the mechanisms of International Community in exercising principality in the peace process, by sticking to:

- the policy of same standards, where self-determination would be a basic criteria;

- the globalization of the approach to the problems;

- the inclusion of all relevant factors in the peace process.

- [...] in the peaceful commitment of Albanian people in Kosova ther is still space for implementation of preventive diplomacy.

The Radical party should also exert its influence in increasing the international awareness for:

- application of the efficient mechanisms for international supervision and protectorate;

- spreading over the mandate of the UNPREDEP forces and

- demilitarization of Kosova.

This way we would institutionalize non-violence and say stop to the aggression, respectively to the generator of the conflicts in the world.

Thank You.