Page 812 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

Cultural Genocide of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija
Radosav Stojanović
S pace for an ethnically pure albanian Kosovo was pre- pared not only by means of various kinds of pressured on working people and citizens of Serbian and Mon-
tenegrin nationalities in villages and cities, in work places, in halls, farms and fields, but also by very perfidious meth- ods of cultural, scientific and educational isolation and de- nationalization. a part of this genocidal program was car- ried out by albanian nationalists and secessionists abusing the amnesty of the judicial system (the authorities, the law), when it concerned Serbian people in Kosovo, and through the corresponding provincial institutions. as a consequence of the fact that Kosovo was regarded by the wider Yugoslav community, due to the prerogatives of the Constitution of 1974, as a completely autonomous Province, connected more with PR of albania than to its own Republic—that of Serbia, its scientific—cultural institutions were regarded exclusively as albanian, also. That albanization was espe- cially intensified in the cadre sense. in such away the alba- nians until recently (till 1985) occupied all he leading posi- tions of the cultural, educational and scientific institutions in the Province: in The academy of arts and Sciences, at Priština University, in the Committee for education, Sci- ence and Culture; at the Teaching Council of Kosovo, at The institute for education, at The Federal institute for Cul- ture, in The Kosovo Provincial archives, at The institute of History, in The Society of authors, and many others—in all these institutions the positions were occupied exclu- sively by albanians. Such a cadre policy had not for its aim equality of all the peoples and nationalities in Kosovo, as was proclaimed by the Province of Kosovo’s Constitution, but at a deeper level had an aspiration for the elimination of, above all, the cultural and scientific-educational poten- tial of the Serbian people. By eliminating cadres, pressure was put indirectly on Serbs and Montenegrins to emigrate. Numerous experts were banished simply because they were respected in their profession and among the Serbian peo- ple in Kosovo. Secessionism well knew that if one nation is “beheaded,” by means of the banishment of its experts, the people themselves begin to lose ground, so, willing or not, they are forced to migrate. That is how, besides the mass exile of the engineers and economists from Trepča and electropower of Kosovo, the University professors, the teaching staffs, the medical staffs, and scientific workers
were exiled, too. Their positions, in large numbers, were also taken over by the young albanian intelligentsia and semi-intelligentsia—the batch production of the Univer- sity of Priština. That is how it has happened that in an at- mosphere of fear and hopelessness for their future and even their very lives, more than 250.000 Serbs and Montene- grins have been forced to leave Kosovo and Metohija dur- ing the past 25 years. The albanian national bureaucracy, closely connected with secessionists, carried out their geno- cidal program toward the Serbs and the Montenegrins in Kosovo and Metohija pursuing the policy of total isolation of the Province from its mother Republic of Serbia. The ties with Serbia were completely broken in the fields of edu- cation, science and culture. On the other hand, coopera- tion with albania was fostered, and this became the source of indoctrination of albanian nationalism and secession- ism legally imported through textbooks and other litera- ture, as well as through the employment of lecturers and teaching staffs from Tirana, among whom mostly were Sig- urimi officers of the albanian intelligence service. They allotted themselves courses university posts, teachers and students at The Priština University until the year 1981. They were the authorities for the passing of examinations for M.a and D.a Diplomas. Out of that very cooperation sprang the secessionist counterrevolution in 1981, which has grown into the armed rebellion in 1989.
What are the facts of the cultural genocide of the Serbs and the Montenegrins in Kosovo and Metohija during the past twenty years?
Firstly, although The Socialist autonomous Province of Kosovo is only a Province within the framework of The Socialist Republic of Serbia, and though the albanians are a nationality in SFR of Yugoslavia, i.e. a national minority, the Serbo-Croatian language is almost banished from these areas, it has become the language of secondly status in ad- ministration, legislation and schools. if it is a well-known fact about 700 settlements in the Province have become albanian—ethnically pure—in the past 20 years, then it is clear enough that in these places the Serbian State of SR of Serbia. Beside all this, in mixed communities the Serbian language is in second place. in many cases, the administra- tion issues and forwards documents exclusively in the al- banian language to people of Serbian nationality. in all of-
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