Kastriot, shperngulja e shqiptareve nga Kosova, eshte nje nga fazat e vonshme, te shpernguljes se shqiptareve ne pergjithesi. Ne fazat e hershme ata me sukses realizuan spastrimin etnik ne jug te Serbise. Rreth 500000 shqiptare ne zonat rreth Nishit jane vrare dhe shperngulur. Duhet ti kushtojme shume vemendje ketij fakti.
Cubrilovic presented the following memorandum to the Stojadinovic government in 1937. While it deals with a specific topic, the expulsion of Albanians from southern Serbia, it also expresses Serbian paranoia at losing land or their perceived dominance in the Balkans. It shows the Machiavellian lengths some Greater Serbian ideologists will condone and employ to reach their goals, all of which is apparent in the present conflict. It is also interesting to note that many of the measures Cubrilovic suggests were and still are being used by the present Serbian regime in Kosovo.
The problem of the Albanians in our national and state life did not arise yesterday. It played a major role in our life in the Middle Ages, but its importance became decisive by the end of the 17th century, at the time when the masses of the Serbian people were displaced northwards from their former ancestral territories of Raska and were supplanted by the Albanian highlanders. Gradually the latter came down from their mountains to the fertile plains of Metohija and Kosovo. Penetrating to the north, they spread in the direction of Southern and Western Morava and, crossing the Sar Mountain descended toward Polog and thence, in the direction of the Vardar. In this way, by the 19th century, the Albanian triangle was formed, a wedge which based on its Debar-Rogozna axis in its ethnic hinterland, penetrated as far into our territories as Nis and separated our ancient territories of Raska from Macedonia and the Vardar Valley.
This Albanian wedge inhabited by the anarchist Albanian element hampered any strong cultural, educational and economic connection between our northern and southern territories in the 19th century. This was the main reason why Serbia was unstable, until 1873, when it managed to establish and maintain continuous links with
Macedonia, through Vranje and the Black Mountain of Skopje, to exercise the cultural and political influence on the Vardar Valley that was anticipated because of the favorable geographical and transportation links and the historical traditions in those regions. Although the Bulgarians began their state life later than the Serbs, at first they had greater success. This explains why there are permanent settlements of southern Slavs from Vidin in the north to Ohrid in the south. Serbia began to cut pieces off this Albanian wedge as early as the first uprising, by expelling the northernmost Albanian inhabitants from Jagodina.
From 1918 onwards it was the task of our present state to destroy the remainder of the Albanian triangle. It did not do this. There are several reasons for this, but we shall mention only the most important.
The fundamental mistake of the authorities in charge at that time is that, forgetting where they were, they wanted to solve all the major ethnic problems of the troubled and bleeding Balkans by Western methods. Turkey brought to the Balkans the customs of the Sheriat, according to which victory in war and the occupation of a country confers the right to the lives and property of the subject inhabitants. Even the Balkan Christians learned from the Turks that not only state power and domination, but also home and property are won and lost by the sword. The concept of the relations of private ownership of land in the Balkans was to be softened to some extent through laws, ordinances and other international agreements issued under pressure from Europe, but this concept has been to some degree the main lever of the Turkish state and the Balkan states to this day. We do not need to refer to the distant past. We shall mention only a few cases of recent times. The removal of Greeks from Asia Minor to Greece and of Turks form Greece to Asia Minor, the recent removal of Turks from Bulgaria and Romania to Turkey. While all the Balkan states, since 1912, have solved or are on the way to solving the problems of national minorities through mass removals, we have stuck to slow and sluggish methods of gradual colonization. The results of this have been negative. That this is so is best shown by the statistics from the 18 districts which comprise the Albanian triangle. From these figures it emerges that the population is greater than the total increase in our population from natural growth plus new settlers (from 1921 to 1931 the Albanian population increased by 68,060 while the Serbs show an increase of 58,745-a difference of 9,315 in favor of the Albanians). Taking into account the intractable character of the Albanians, the pronounced increase in their numbers and the ever increasing difficulties of colonization by the old methods, with the passage of time this disproportion will become even greater and eventually put in question even those few successes we have achieved in our colonization from 1918 onwards.
Without a doubt, the main cause for the lack of success of our colonization in those regions was that the best land remained in the hands of the Albanians. The only possible way for our mass colonization of those regions was to take the land from the Albanians. After the war, at the time of the rebellion and actions of the insurgents, this could have been achieved easily by expelling part of the Albanian population to Albania, by not legalizing their usurpations and by buying their pastures. Here we must return again to the gross error of our post-war concept about the right to possession of the land, instead of taking advantage of the concept of the Albanians themselves about their ownership of the land they had usurped-scarcely any of them had title-deeds issued by the Turks, and those only for land purchased, to the detriment of our nation and state, we not only legalized all of these usurpations, but worse still, accustomed the Albanians to Western European ideas of private property.
Prior to that, they could never have had these ideas. In this way, we ourselves handed them a weapon to defend themselves, to keep the best land for themselves and make the nationalization of one of the regions most important to us impossible.
This concentration of Albanians around the Sar Mountain has great national, state and strategic importance for our state. We have already mentioned the way it came into existence and the importance of this region for linking the regions around the Vardar Valley firmly with our ancient territories. The greatest force of the Serbian expansion ever since the beginnings of the first Serb state in the 9th century has always been based on the continuity of this expansion, as well as on the expansion of the ancient territories of Raska in all directions, hence including its expansion towards the south. This continuity has been interrupted by the Albanians and, until the ancient uninterrupted connection of Serbia and Montenegro with Macedonia along the whole of its extent from the Drin River to Southern Morava is re- established, we will not be secure in our possession of this territory. From the ethnic standpoint the Macedonians will fully unite with us only when they enjoy true ethnic support from the Serbian motherland, which they have lacked to this day. This they will achieve only through the destruction of the Albanian block.
From the military-strategic standpoint, the Albanian block occupies one of the most important positions in our country-the starting point from which the Balkan rivers flow to the Adriatic, the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea. The holding of this strategic position to a large degree determines the fate of the Central Balkans, especially the fate of the main Balkan communication line from Morava to Vardar. It is no accident that many battles of decisive importance for the destiny of the Balkans have been fought here (Nemanja against the Greeks, the Serbs against the Ottomans in 1389, Hunyadi against the Ottomans in 1446). In the 20th century, only that country which is inhabited by its own people can be sure of its security; therefore it is an imperative duty for all of us that we should not allow these positions of such strategic importance to be in the hands of a hostile alien element. The more so since this element has the support of a national state of the same race. Today this state is powerless but even in this condition, it has become a base of Italian imperialism, which aims to use it to
penetrate into the heart of our state. Our element, which will be willing and able to defend its own land and its state, is the most reliable means against this penetration.
Besides this block of 18 districts, the Albanians and other national minorities in the other parts of the southern regions are dispersed and therefore, not so dangerous to our national and state life. To nationalize the regions around the Sar Mountain means to bury any irredentism forever, to ensure our power in these territories forever.
The Albanians cannot be repulsed by means of gradual colonization alone: they are the only people who, during the last millennium, managed not only to resist the nucleus of our state, Raska and Zeta, but also to harm us, by pushing our borders northwards and eastwards. Whereas in the last millennium our ethnic borders were shifted to Subotica in the north and Kupa in the north-west, the Albanians drove us from the Skadar and its region, the former capital city of Bodin, from Metohija and Kosovo. The only way and the only means to cope with them is the brute force of an organized state, in which we have always been superior to them. If since 1912 we have had no success in the struggle against them, we are to blame for this, as we have not used this power as we should have done. It is not possible to speak of any national assimilation of the Albanians in our favor. On the contrary, because they base themselves on Albania, their national awareness is awakened and if we do not settle accounts with them at the proper time, within 20-30 years we shall have to cope with a terrible irredentism, the signs of which are already apparent and which will inevitably put all of our southern territories in jeopardy.
As we have already stressed, the mass removal of the Albanians from their triangle is the only effective coursefor us. To bring about the relocation of a whole population, then the first prerequisite is the creation of a suitable psychosis. It can be created in many ways.
As is known, the Muslim masses, in general, are very readily influenced, especially by religion and are superstitious and fanatical. Therefore, first of all we must win over their clergy and men of influence, through money or threats, to support the relocation of the Albanians. Agitators to advocate this removal must be found, as quickly as possible, especially from Turkey, if it will provide them for us.
Another means would be coercion by the state apparatus. The law must be enforced to the letter so as to make staying intolerable for the Albanians: fines and imprisonments, the ruthless application of all police dispositions, such as the prohibition of smuggling, cutting forests, damaging agriculture, leaving dogs unchained, compulsory labor and any other measure that an experienced police force can contrive. From the economic aspect: the refusal to recognize the old land deeds, the work with the land register should immediately include the ruthless collection of taxes and the payment of all private and public debts, the requisitioning of all state and communal pastures, the cancellation of concessions, the withdrawal of permits to exercise a profession, dismissal from the state, private, and communal offices etc., will hasten the process of their removal. Health measures: the brutal application of all the dispositions even in homes, pulling down encircling walls and high hedges around
houses, rigorous application of veterinary measures which would result in impeding the sale of livestock on the market, etc. can also be applied in an effective and practical way. When it comes to religion the Albanians are very touchy, and thus they must be harassed on this score, too. This can be achieved through illtreatment of their
clergy, the destruction of their cemeteries, the prohibition of polygamy, and especially the inflexible application of the law compelling girls to attend elementary schools, wherever they are.
Private initiative, too, can assist greatly in this direction. We should distribute weapons to our colonists as need be. The old forms of cetnik action should be organized and secretly assisted. In particular, a tide of Montenegrins should be launched from the mountain pastures, in order to create a large-scale conflict with the
Albanians in Metohija. This conflict should be prepared by means of our trusted people. It should be encouraged and this can be done easily once the Albanians revolt; the whole affair should be presented as a conflict between clans and, if need be, ascribed to economic reasons. Finally, local riots can be incited. These will be bloodily suppressed with the most effective means, but by the colonists from Montenegrin clans and the cetniks, rather than by means of the army. There remains one more means, which Serbia employed with great practical effect after 1878, that is, by secretly burning down Albanian villages and city quarters.
The method of the colonization of Toplica and Kosanica after 1878, when the Albanians were expelled from these regions, is full of lessons. The method for the colonization of these regions was laid down in the law of January 3, 1880.
On February 3 of the same year, the People's Council approved the law on the amendment of agrarian relations according to the principle of the land to the peasants. Without hesitation, Serbia sought its first foreign loan in order to pay Turkey for the lands taken. It did not set up any ministry of agrarian reform or costly apparatus for the problem of colonization, but everything was done in a simple and practical manner. The police organs distributed the land to all those who wanted to till it. People came from Montenegro, Sjenica, Vranje, Kosovo, Pec, etc. and thirty years later Toplica and Kosanica, once Albanian regions of ill-repute, gave Serbia the finest regiment in the wars of 1912-18, the Iron Second Regiment. In those wars, Toplica and Kosanica paid and repaid, with the blood of their sons, those tens of millions of dinars which Serbia had spent for their resettlement.
Hence, if we want the colonists to remain where they are, they must be assured of acquiring all the means of livelihood within a few years. We must ruthlessly prohibit any speculation with the houses and properties of displaced Albanians. The state must reserve for itself the unlimited right to dispose of the fixed and movable assets of the people transferred and must settle its own colonists there immediately after the departure of the Albanians. This must be done because it will rarely happen that a whole village departs at once. The first to be settled in these villages should be the Montenegrins, as arrogant, irascible and merciless people, who will drive the remaining Albanians away with their behavior, and then the colonists from other regions can be brought in.
Whenever our colonization policy has been criticized for its lack of success, its defenders have always excused themselves with the inadequate financial means the state has allocated for this work. We do not deny that it is so up to a point, although it must be admitted that more has been spent in our country on the maintenance of this apparatus and its irrational work than on the colonization itself. Nevertheless, if the state has not provided as much as it should, it must be understood that every state to ensure the holding of the insecure national regions, by colonizing these regions with its own national element, must be included among the primary interests. All other commitments rank inferior to this task and this commitment. For these problems, the money can and must be found. We have already mentioned the instance of Serbia during the colonization of Toplica and Kosanica and the benefits it had from this. When the small Serbian principality did not hesitate, as a free and independent kingdom, to seek its first loan for the colonization, can it be said that our present-day
Yugoslavia is unable to do such a thing? It can and must do it, and it is not true that it lacks the means to do it.
For such an important national, military, strategic and economic task, it is the duty of the state to sacrifice a few hundred million dinars. At a time when it can spend one billion dinars for the construction of the international highway from Subotica to Caribrod, any possible benefit from which we will enjoy only in the distant future, it can
and must find a few hundred million dinars, which will put us back in possession in the cradle of our state.
In view of all that has been said above, it is no accident that our examination of the question of colonization in the south, we proceed from the view that the only effective method for solving this problem is the mass resettlement of the Albanians. Just as in other countries, gradual colonization has had no success in our country. When the state wants to intervene in favor of its own element, in a struggle for land, it can only be successful if it acts brutally. Otherwise, the native, with his roots in his birthplace and acclimatized there, is always stronger than the colonist. In our case, this must be kept especially well in mind, because we have to deal with a rugged, resistant and prolific race, which the late Cvijic describes as the most expansive in the Balkans.
All Europe is in a state of turmoil. We do not know what each day and night may bring. Albanian nationalism is mounting in our territories too. To leave the situation as it is would mean, in case of any world conflict or social revolution, both of which are possible in the near future, to jeopardize all of our territories in the south. The purpose of this paper is to avert such a thing.
