THE CASE OF UKSHIN HOTI AND POLITICS IN HANDCUFFS

POLITICS IN HANDCUFFS

Is Ukshin Hoti a political prisoner, a hostage or simply a war prisoner?

Five-six months have passed from the end of the court session of the third level, in the Republic of Serbia - the supreme juridical instance, of the case of Ukshin Hoti, after the announcement of the sentence by the court of the second degree against him in September 1994 by which he is sentenced to 5 years imprisonment for endangering the Serbian constitutional order, namely, the Serbian sovereignty in Kosova, but however, the accused Ukshin Hoti has not been issued a court decision in writing. Considering the full juridical inconsistency of the court decision, we have reason to ascertain that Ukshin Hoti is nor an ordinary political prisoner in ex-Yugoslavia; he may now be considered simply a war prisoner of the Republic of Kosova or a political hostage in the hands of the kidnappers of Serbian authorities "until the solution of the question of Kosova".

Who is Ukshin Hoti?

Ukshin Hoti is born in Krushe e Madhe, a village in the commune of Rahovec, Republic of Kosova, in the year 1943 by his father Nazyf and his mother Fatime, in a middle class family (his father was a paper-seller, his mother a housewife). He himself, in the indictment by the Serbian public prosecutor, was qualified as a person with a "poor living standard", which is true.

At the age of 12 he leaves his village to go to school, 8 years of elementary school and 5 years of secondary teachers school in Prizren and Prishtina, 4 years of studies at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Zagreh, 2 years of postgraduate studies in Belgrade in the section of Political and Economical International Relations, after which he specializes for one year in the American universities of Chicago, Harvard, Cambridge-Boston and Washington D.C.

From late 70's until 1981 he has worked on different vocations, polilical and educational in Kosova; he has been lecturer in the third and fourth year of the Juridical Faculty, section - Juridical-Diplomacy, then in the third year of the Faculty of Philosophy, section Philosophy-Sociology, he has also lectured at the polilical schoot of the District Center for Marxist Education "Eduard Kardel"; he has been Secrelary of the Secretariat for Relations with Foreign Countries at the Executive Council of the Assembly of the Socialist Autonomous District of Kosova and has been member of almost all federal forums for international politics.

After his discussion in a meeting at the basic organization of the party of the Faculty nf Philosophy, in Prishtina on November 19, 1981, at which time he openly stands on the side of students, conciliates with their demonstrations and their basic demand of constituting Kosova a Republic, he is arrested and sentenced to 9 years imprisonmenl, which is reduced to 3,5 years by the Supreme Court. After being out from prison he is compelled to return to his native village in conditions of an ostracism isolation.

In 1990 he is engaged to work in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on Albanian magazines "Alternativa", "Republika" and "Demokracia Autentike - DEA" of which he is the chief editor until the year 1991 when it closes down.

Since the magazine is blocked up by f'inancial methods of the certain political circles in Prishtina, he returns to his native land, where he continues to work by contributing political essays and also by lecturing Sociology Politics in the University of Prishtina. At the beginning of the year 1993 (March-April) he goes to prison for the second time because a year ago he had organized a homage to the martyrs of democracy in Brestovc. The same year he is beaten to death by a group of Serbian special units in Gllogovc, on the way back from the visit to the hunger strikers in the Palace of the Press in Prishtina which was initi=E1ted by Adem Demaçi.

During this year he also takes part in the gatherings organized in Tetova with nationwide political representatives where the political decision have been taken about the need of uniting the Albanian Nation into a unique country.

In continuance of this activity he becomes the leader of the party with the political programme of national unity UNIKOMB. But, the auchorities, seeing the danger of his political activity and the danger of spoiling the political balance and of the silent agreement with passive subjects of Albanian politics in Kosova, arrest him again on May 17, 1994 and sentence him to 5 years imprisonment for the reason of illegally becoming member of The Movement for the Republic of Kosova (LPRK) and of UNIKOMB with the aim of destroying the constitutional system and of the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. Actually it is his third year of imprisonment in the prison "Dubrava" in Istog, Kosova.

Missunderstanding of the politics of U. Hoti

Ukshin Hoti has written enough but hasn't published much. But with as much he has published, he is considered by the Albanian experts of polities the first Albanian politician who raised the treatment of the Albanian question to a science.

He, together with Rexhep Qosja, Moikom Zeqo, Luan Omari, Adem Demaçi, Arben Puto and others, can be considered as a forerunner and founder of a new politics and of a new political philosophy characterized by humanism and free of ideological handcuffs of any colour.

With as much he has published and has worked in polities, Ukshin Hoti is considered by his fellow people as one of the most contravenes Albanian political figures. Most of the Albanian intellectuals, for not being able to face him morally (he is now for the third time in prison by the Serbian regime) or for not being able to face him theoretically in the field of politics (U. Hoti has specialized in the University of Harvard - USA, International political and economical relationsy, preterto be silent. The others, seeing the danger of nonexistent power in Kosova or seeing in him the number one political opponent in their battle for power at the time when the state hasn't done even the first attempt for consolidation, they have chosen to fight against him by secret methods (covert action) of political compromising and disqualification declaring him: "crazy", "red", "Enverist", "extremist", "radical", etc., even though with none of his political works has he offered any chance or facts for such kind of qualific

ations, which represents one of the most interesting paradoxes that follow his figure.

There is a considerable part of the youth of Kosova that in him have seen their spiritual, ideological and theoritical leader, but now this youth is also marked leftist and extremist. But, to be correct, we have to say that even this part of the youth looked upon him with doubt and prejudice, as they have looked upon every politician of the political ex-establishment of Yugoslavia, even though he in time had broken apart form Titism. There is a group Albanian scientists and politicians in Tirana, that have succeeded to value him with objectivity and without ideological clichés and Balkan prejudices, but fortunately or unfortunately for the author they also belong to the Albanian intelligence of the leftists, but moderated, which hasn't to do with Ukshin Hoti but with themselves.

This is not so strange since in the near past only the part of the Albanian intellectuals that where near the power of Albania achieved to gather and absorb in a certain quantity the world knowledge of politics about the state and its fundamental functions, most often in their native languages, even though they couldn't make the needed public echo because of the ideological constraints of the time. Meanwhile, the authorities of today of the Albanian politics, most of whom arrived on top of the state functions from the street or from the secondary services of education and medicine, without any experience and without any satisfactory political education, they towards Ukshin Hoti, until today have preferred to close their eyes like towards a dubious and unresolved enigma. According to all probabilities, they didn't like him, because of their political revenge and the rehabilitation of fascism through politics of decorations and nonburial - burials, of draconian punishments towards the anti-fascist veterans and

through impossibility of opposition by dirty means for being a part of the power. U. Hoti compares this with deviant appearances and political regression that have nothing to do with democracy.

On contrary, they are but an alibi of the incompetent powerholders to avoid the great task that history stands face to face with the Albanian people today: Unity and National Unity. Meanwhile the latter ones don't even attack it, for the lack of moral strength or for not being so sure in the righteousness of their activity.

Even in relation to the Serbs and Yugoslavs U. Hoti didn't have better luck. A considerable number of Yugoslav intellectuals undersLand his theoretical scientific capacities but, being burdened with nationalist and xenophobic prejudices, they prefer silence, which they justify in a half voice saying: when his own people don't recognize his values, why should we'? But even this kind of justification reflects the universal ignorance and the Balkan political machiavelism, where such great intellectuals as Bogdan Bogdanovic, Jevrem Berkovic, Ukshin Hoti and Fatos Nano (the latter in Albania), have to suffer in the streets of the world or in prison.

Condemnation of the year 1981

For the first time Ukshin Hoti was punished in the year 1981, after the wellknown demonstrations of that year, which were qualified as contrarevolutionary by the Yugoslav political factors. He could have also been punished in the year 1968, at the time of the demonstrations of that year, but luckily, then he was in the lead of the demonstrations of the Zagreb students and not of the Prishtina students.

In November of 1981 Ukshin Hoti is arrested together with a group of other intellectuals from Prishtina and is accused for hostile activity against the Yugoslav state according to the article 133 of Yugoslav Penal Law. Even though the reasons were some ordinary private conversations that he had with a group of friends of his in connection to the grave political situation in Kosova, the real reason was that Ukshin Hoti, as the only specialized politician of Kosova in the field of international political relations, not only that he didn't become a servant of the Yugoslav repressive politics against Albanians who demanded their legal rights for equality with other nations in Yugoslavia, but he went further: in a party meeting at the Faculty of Philosophy in Prishtina he did his scientific elaborate on the demand for the Republic and he accepted it fully as a demand that not only it didn't endanger the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia but on contrary it made it stronger. Ukshin Hoti is probably the only Alban

ian politician in Yugoslavia that explained the demand for the Republic of Kosova by demanding a more rapid development, because all the economical and financial indexes proved that the difference between Kosova and other more developed Republics not only didn't become smaller but on contrary it became greater. At this meeting, keeping to the sourceful thesis of the constitution and party programme of the Communist League of Yugoslavia, and to all the democratic developments throughout the world (G. Britain, Canada, Belgium, etc.) Ukshin Hoti presented arguments that efforts for greater national equality go side by side with the advancements of democratic processes in different countries of the world, underlining that they are legal and unceasing.

He was also against the implication of Albania into the events of Kosova, since he had been for a while the Foreign Minster of Kosova, he had enough knowledge about the Yugoslav-Albanian relations, especially in the tield of culture and education.

Being afraid that these points of views of his would be spread and accepted by the intellectuals of Prishtina, a preposterous reason was found, a trial process was set up and he was sentenced to 9 years imprisonment. But since the court decision had no juridical foundation, the supreme court was obliged to reduce more than 60% of the sentence, i.e. from 9 to 3,5 years of imprisonment.

After coming out of prison another phase begins, a very hard one in Ukshin's life. After a few misunderstandings while he was still in prison, he gets divorced from his wife Edi Shukriu, an intellectual - an archeologist from Prizren, with a doubtful speedy process by the juridical authorities of Kosova, without a good analysis of the circumstances. Accepting his destiny as it is, he gets married again, this time with a woman from his village.

This marriage also collapses after a few years, terminating in 1991, leaving unsolved the destiny of three children; one with the first wife, a girl now 16 years oId living in Prishtina, and two other children with the second wife. All children, a son and two daughters, live with their mothers. For his disaster in marriages, Ukshin Hoti blames the political relations in Kosova and also the low cultural and civil level of life in it.

Since, after getting divorced to his first wife, Ukshin Hoti had no other solution but to return to his birthplace, as the house in Prishtina remains to his wife, because the state doesn't ensure him any kind of employment, he not only becomes an economical burden to his old parents but he also gets isolated and cannot influence at all the political flows in Kosova. After the campaign of slanders and intrigues by UDB against him in a Belgrade newspaper in the years 88-89, calling him an agent of the Sigurimi of Albania (secret police), he decides to answer to them with a political analysis completely free of ideological cliché, where among other things he demands the opening of doors to democratic institutions of the Western type, thus becoming one of the first callers of the democratic processes in Yugoslavia. But his analysis neither gets published nor commented.

In 1990 with difficulty the doors opers to hirn for publishing in the Albanian reviews "Alternativa" In Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he publishes his political analysis "The Year '81 And Processes of Democracy", where in a convincing way he presents arguments that the events of the year '81 where not a manipulation of any foreign ideological political center, not from East, not from West and neither from Albania, but they showed a political maturity of a people for whom (he autonomous clothes now where to tight and didn't allow thern any normal development in any field whatsoever. Hoti, using the method of "water flow under-political ice". i.e. of the political essence urrder the blanket of ideological slogans, he finds out that the youth of '81 had nothing to do with Marxism nor communism, because they didn't even know this doctrine in essence, which in rural parts of Kosova was the least applied and, even though they used some ideological slogans of the leftists, in essence of all their trials was their dema

nd for Republic of Kosova, i.e. the demand for national unity and not for social egalitarianism.

Finding a suitable political climate in Ljubljana from where he could influence the orientation of political processes in Kosova, he with the aid of a part of the political Albanian immigration, establishes and edits the newspaper "Demokracia Autentike" (Authentic Democracy), through which he tries to ascertain and clarify the political goals that Albanians should accornplish. At the same time, based upon world experience of the democratic systems, he attracts attention to the point that democracy should be born by itself in a place and not planted by others, because in this case that democracy would have to be protected by police forces, and so nothing positive would be achieved. In this spirit, democracy in Kosova was self-born and authentic, both in the prelude of the year 1981 and in the epilogue of the year 1990.

But this time Albanians themselves do not accept it because of the their measured options of the struggle for the Republic of Kosova but not for the destruction of Yugoslavia. It was the time of a universal national euphoria in Kosova, at which point the unity of the Albanian Nation in one unique country is seen as a completely possible alternative. But what made Hoti differ from the other politicians was not only his prudence and carefulness in putting forward political demands, but the consequent struggle for their realization. He didn't often change his points of view, but had the moral and spiritual readiness to fight for them with seriousness and self-denial.

The 90's found him standing up. He saw the proclamation of the independence of Kosova as the realization of his political project, but the tardiness of putting in life of its institutions was making him nervous and disturbed him more and more. At this time her wrote the long feuilleton "Republika dhe lufta né kontekst té Evropés" (The Republic and the fight in the context of Europe) by which he seriously warned not only Alhanian factors about the serious and responsible practice of politics, but also he warned the Yugoslav and foreign factors, not to agree with a half solution for Kosova which would return to them as a boomerang in the future and would be a continuously curbing factor in the development of two nations in Balkans, of Serbs and Albanians. This long political essay, together with the cycle of 5 parts of the same title "Shqiptarét dhe Evropa" (Albanians and Europe), where the political strategic interests of the East and West in the world are analyzed, but especially in the region of Balkans, co

nsist what later will be qualified as a "Political Philosophy of the Albanian Question".

Condemnation in 1992 and his work as a lecturer

Being a citizen of a Kosova region which in 1990 became a fire-place of radiation for all Kosova, because nearby Rahovec and Krusha, in Erestovc, the first movements for democracy were made, in which case 4 people were killed and 19 were wounded. Ukshin Hoti, on February 1992, heading a mass of regional population, goes to pay respects to the killed martyrs. Serbian police, considering this act as an anti-Yugoslav provocation, cuts their way and demands their withdrawal.

But U. Hoti demands the same from them, they use their weapons and a student from Krusha e Vogel gets wounded. Ukshin Hoti is punished to two months imprisonment, which he serves a year later, in 1993. During this period he will also work as a lecturer of Political Sociology in the Faculty of Philosophy in Prishtina.

He lectured in private and semi-private buildings, since, as it is well-known, the locations of the University of Prishtina have been invaded by the Serbian regime since 1990. A cycle of leetures called "The individual and political processes" is known from this period, where the author points out the special role that some individuals play in periods of political changes of historical importance, the years 89-90, as they were for Eastern Europe. He reviews essential Albanian figures of this period: Ramiz Alia, Ismail Kadare, Rexhep Qosja, Adem Demaçi and Mahmut Bakalli. In a special way he elaborates the thesis of Hegel according to which "... life passes through contradictions, on which I stagger and if I don't achieve to solve it, it (life) will be destroyed." In accordance with circumstances in Kosova, he thinks that Kosova has happened to be in front of a difficult contradiction which he will have to solve, and the solution could't be the status quo, but only the advancement to a Republic.

The arrest of 1994

After he left LDK (Democratic League of Kosova, in which he was a local leader of a branch, because of misunderstandings with the leadership of that party in connection to political responsibility of political orientation of the people which was lacking almost altogether in Kosova, Ukshin Hoti seeks new ways of political engagement. He takes part at a few symposiums and All-National gatherings which are held in Skopje and Tetova (Macedonia). There he elaborates his known political thesis, adding another important fact that in new circumstances of Balkans, when a federal state as Yugoslavia didn't exist any more, the only option about which Albanians should gather was the uniting of Albanian nation in Balkans in one unique country. This uniting, according to him, should be done in a democratic and peaceful way since it would be of the interest to all the region. This would provide real peace and an economical and cultural prosperity for all. Since similar thesis were presented by now a legal party in Kosova,

UNIKOMB (Albanian National Unity Party), through a group of young leaders he is proposed to be the president of this party. Not finding reason to refuse this and since its programme was in accordance to his political views, he accepts their proposition. So, he starts writing the political declaration of UNIKOMB, by which the Albanian people will be notified of the activity, freshening-up and revival of the activity of this party and its open political fight for the unity of the nation. But, when he was supposed to take over the leadership of this party, traveling from Prizren to Prishtina, he is captured form the Serbian police, who it seems knew all about his last activities. His car is raided, later his house also and he is arrested on May 17, 1994.

His indictment is short and full of inexactitude: has been member of two illegal organizations (LPRK and UNIKOMB) which work towards anticonstitutional destruction of the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia.

Among other things, he is accused of publishing the review "Demokraci a Autentike" (Authentic Democracy), taking orders from the center of LPRK in Switzerland. Even though he was effectively defended and amongst other it was proved in the court that UNIKOMB is a registered party at the Adequate Ministry of Yugoslavia, same as LDK (Democratic League of Kosova); then it was proved his not being a member of LPRK and the real nature of the newspaper "DEA" which was an independent paper of a group of Albanian intelleetuals in Ljubljana, not negating its financing form LPRK in Switzerland. Ukshin Hoti is again sentenced to 5 years imprisonment in September 1994 by the Serbian judge Nada Haxhi-Periq. For the punishment of Ukshin Hoti more were used his words when he defended himself than the material proofs which can be confirmed easily by his Act of Judgment K. br. 28/94, issued on Sept. 28. 1994, in Prizren, of 6,5 pages where 3 pages are based on his oral witnessing. He himself for real reasons of his last punis

hment declares: "I am arrested by the police of the Republic of Serbia, perhaps with the request of one part of the Albanian Alternative of the Republic of Kosova.

The direct reason of this arrest probahly has been the irrational fear of this part of the Albanian Alternative that by my going to Prishtina as the lcader of UNIKOMB after 9 years of stracism and isolation, the balance of political forces would be disarranged and an unforeseen and uncontrollable situation would be cercated.

During the whole trial, the Serbian judge tried to create an impression that U. Hoti was not on trial because of his political views, which are concluded in his political declaration for UNIKOMB, as well as his earlier works, on thc rights of the Albanian people in Kosova for self-determination and of all the Albanian people in Balkans, i.e. in Albania and in regions of ex-Yugoslavia were they are the majority, for uniting to a unique country, which would be a developing instrument, Europeanism, calmness and securily for itself as well as for all the region. Not refusing this right of his, she formally tried to convince the public that Ukshin Hoti, through his illegal membership in different organizations, had tried to realize by force his views of regulating the borders in Balkans. This remained the main thesies of the courl for deciding upon the verdict, even though the defending party had proved the opposite, i.e. that Ukshin Hoti, in theory and reality had remained a democratic and humanistic activist.

Politicis and Humanism

Reading his defense in front of the court, which he had conceived as a lecture, i.e. as a political essay, on clarification of Serbian and Albanian polilical misunderstandings in connection to the finding of a satisfactory solution that would save these two peoples from confrontaLion, onc finds out one of the basic features of all the political work of Ukshin Hoti: Humanism.

Politics to him is not a simple manipulation of abstract figures, a calculation of killings, wounding and massacres for achieving of the "holy" goals, previous preparations of thousands of plastic bags for soldiers that will be killed in war fronts, etc. etc. To him, politics remains the essential humanistic science as an essential recondition of development of all other sciences, of all other fields of cultural and economical development of mankind, in favour of avoiding contlicts and not causing them, in favour of more just and promising solutions for all the parties and not creating a hearth of permanent crisis.

Being more far-seeing than the others, he in 1981 attraeted attention to constituting the Republic of Kosova. And if his word had been listened then. the results would have been different, not only for Kosova but probably for the whole Yugoslavia. And since political opportunism of various authorities and government people caused the escalation of the events into contlicts and wars, as it was that the same political opportunism brought Hitler into power before the Second World War, and Miloshevic in Serbia in the late 80's, then it should be accepted that Ukshin Hoti's opposition to the philosophy of opportunism consists the essence of the humanistic philosophy of his politics.

For the realization of political goals he never accepted machiavelism as a method. He is convinced that noble aims cannot be achieved without victims and privations. But "privations and sacrifices are done only by those that have a high self moral but that also believe strongly in honesty and nobleness of the goals that they fight for, because a noble aim cannot be realized by machiavelist methods of intrigue and slander. Italy was nut united because of the political thinking of Machiaveli but only of the political thinking of Macini and the self-denying struggle of a very high moral of Garibaldi. Machiaveli has described the political war for power of the different unscrupulous rulers and of princes of the Italian feudals.

He would instruct them how to straighten the state and he believed that one of them would use that power in favour of uniting Italy. Skills that he describes and recommends surely have been used hefore, and after him, in bloody wars for power by different royalties and despots, by tyrants and dicta tors, old and modern, but never, during all history, have they achieved any victory to any serious political movement and neither the strengthening of any democratic power.

They could strengthen the states and their despotic, autocratic, authoritarian and totalitarian powerholders; those are methods of an unscrupulous, shameless and bloody war for power, but they are in violent and deep contradiction with the democratic notion itself, (U. Hoti, Political Philosophy of the Albanian Question, Tirana 1995, page. 163.)

Why didn't Albanian leaders in Kosova put themselves in the lead of the demand of the people for a Republic in 1981, one of the journalists asked him. Because, says he, first, they had been completely apart from the people and, second, because the year 1981 in Kosova demanded generals of politics, people with selfinitiative and which know to give orders and directions.

But, leaders of Kosova were a few mediocre officers who had been used to taking orders all their lives, beginning from the time of National Liberation War to the present time. Since conformism and opportunism are tightly joined together by mediocrity, Ukshin Hoti, as an excellent connoisseur of global and regional political processes, has never fallen to none of these positions.

He never encouraged the war in Kosova, among Albanian pcople, nor he encouraged Albania which, he knew, had an organized army and which at least could cause a serious contlict in Balkans. At the same time he didn't agree with the propaganda of the psychology of submission. For this reason he was heaten and massacred almost to death by a Serhian police unil in Gllogovc in the summer of 1993, but he never stopped believing that Serbian people have enough strength to confront with their own beasts, i.e. with their atavist beast whose spirit was preoccupied by racist illusions of the type of Cubrillovic (Serbian ex-academic, equivalent to the German Gebels). Such preaching, he evaluates, can not be prof table to any people. British massacres against the Indians of India brought to question essential values of English civilization and culture. For this reason, they accepted withdrawal, before definitely falling to the level of beasts and prehistoric hordes. In this sense, Serbs also, he thinks, if they want to ho

ld to their own cultural values and their general social emancipation, have to free themselves from the sense of the false greatness and of any special kind of mission in Balkans. They have to accept the simple fact that Albanians also have the right to develop and become European as all other European nations, moreover since they represent one of the oldest nations in the continent.

The manipulation with false slogans of protecting Christianity from Islamic penetrance is not useful to anyone. The Albanian people is a rare example of harmonious and democratic coexistence of three religions, in the spiritual plan, while in the general cultural and materialistic plan, it is a simple European nation, from its first written documents dating from the XV century until the anti-Turkish wars of Scanderbeg, up to the moral and lawful norms of the inner relations according to its historical law-book.

As an explorer and scholar of political sociology, Ukshin Hoti is an out-standing rigorous critic of social defects of the Albanians. The reasons of the phenomenon of political opportunism among Albanians, especially among a part of the youth, he finds in the anachronic and un-knitted patriarchal and tribal relations in Kosova. The pressure that is practiced by the Albanian family heads towards the young people and towards females is one of the essential reasons of the creation of complexioned generations, of numberless sufferings and tragedies. In his essay "The Young girl and democracy" he will directly study the concrete destiny of a young girl of Kosova who in one of her poems has predicted her own suicide. Since the number of young girls in Kosova that commit suicide in the last decade is too disturbing, Ukshin Hoti in his essay tries to name the reason and the consequence of this state, which feed, influence and alternate one another: the lack of national independence conserves social backwardness, whi

ch is in favour of the Serbian colonial mentality, and the opposite, the disability of Albanians too cure and overcome their non-civilized defects which obstruct a more rapid constituency of the Republic.

In the foundation of all his sociological treatments stands the individual who suffers and bears the political handcuffs. To him the theory of the political scientist Harold Laswell is acceptable according to whom man is simply an egotistical being. But this doesn't mean that he should'nt fight for collective ideals, because only when a collective realizes the desired stace by all, the ego of the egotistical individual will be satisfied.

But in this case it is not the word about an abstract individual citizen of the world. Ukshin Hoti knows that even the most ordinaiy political pragmatism demands that Albanians live and develop there where they are, in their ethnic and historical territories. Exactly this kind of perception of the Albanian question i.e. that Europe with its European quality of life, should go to Kosova and not the people of Kosova to Europe which will contribute best universal Europeanism of the Balkan region.

Conceiving his politics in such a way, Ukshin Hoti is probably one of the rare European politicians in the region, in the positive and humanist sense of the word, completely forgotten by Europe.

We hope that European politicians, not only as state representatives but also as individuals and intellectuals. will at the end understand such a fact and will engage themselves in liberating their colleague from prison, a colleague that personifies classic humanist European values.