"Dusan T.Batakovic. The Kosovo Chronicles " - читать интересную книгу автора

1943 AVNOJ (the National Antifascist Liberation Council of Yugoslavia -
NALCY) at which it was decided that a new, communist Yugoslavia, headed by
Tito as partisan marshal, be established on a federal principle whereby "all
peoples ... will be fully free and equal", and the ethnic groups guaranteed
all the rights of an ethnic minority.⁹ In his instructions to the
communist leaders in Kosovo and Montenegro, Tito rejected the decisions
reached in Bunaj, believing that they raised issues which should be dealt
with after the war: he realized only too well that his movement would have
lost many followers if he had upheld the demands of the ethnic Albanians, as
he had proclaimed in principle the restoration of Yugoslavia within its
prewar borders. In conditions when the war was not yet over and the
establishment of a communist system uncertain, the decision not to touch the
borders of Yugoslavia was the only possible solution.
The hostility of ethnic Albanians towards Yugoslav partisans did not
wane, despite efforts by party activists to win over fresh adherents. The
membership of the ethnic Albanian Balli Kombetar increased and their
national solidarity proved to be stronger than ideological divisions. After
the capitulation of Italy, the German occupational authorities encouraged
aspirations towards the creation of an ethnic Albania, thus on September 19,
1943, the Second Albanian League was founded on the model of its predecessor
- the First Albanian League (1878), advocating fiercer clashes with
the
Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia, and a separate SS-Division Scenderbey was
set
up from the local Albanian forces.
A delegate of the partisan Supreme Command, Svetozar Vukmanovic Tempo,
sent in 1943 to reorganize the partisan units in Kosovo, Metohia and
Macedonia, informed of "powerful chauvinist hatred between the ethnic
Albanians and Serbs ... The extent of the Albanian chauvinist animosity
towards the Serbs is evident from the fact that one of our [partisan] units,
comprising ethnic Albanians, was surrounded by 2,000 armed ethnic Albanian
peasants, and after several hours of fighting the latter recognized that the
unit comprised ethnic Albanians. They dispersed, leaving the Italians in the
lurch".¹⁰ Fresh partisan units, set up in September and October
1943, operated outside Kosovo and Metohia, with not more than 800 men in
five battalions. The unit was reorganized in the summer and fall of 1944,
but the number of ethnic Albanians remained the same.
A large-scale revolt of the Balli Kombetar followers and Albanian units
mustered into partisan formations (November-December, 1944), which broke out
after the retreat of the German troops and the establishment of communist
rule (the liberation of Kosovo was assisted at Tito's request by two
brigades of ethnic Albanian partisans) was thus not unexpected. The revolt
was crushed when additional troops were brought in, and military rule was
set up in Kosovo and Metohia from February to May, 1945. A leading ethnic
Albanian communist from Kosovo maintained contact with the outlaws. He was
soon discovered, but A. Rankovic, Tito's closest associate at the time,
assessed that his execution would stir up a fresh revolt, thus he was
appointed minister in the Serbian governament.¹¹ Initial
concessions heralding a lenient attitude towards ethnic Albanians in Kosovo
and Metohia were made immediately after the new authorities were