A NEXO III: B ECAS

The activities of the Second Prizren League appear to have seriously upset the plans of the communist forces and the leaders of the National Liberation Movement in Kosovo and Albania. To minimise this organisation's authority, Fadil Hoxha published an article in the newspaper Urija in October 1943

announcing that a national liberation council for these areas would meet to 'ensure us total freedom and independence1. The decision to hold such a conference was made at a meeting of the Council of the

Kosovo YCP Provincial Committee at Sharr on 4-6 November 1943. 22 Thus the first conference to set up a National Liberation Committee for Kosovo convened on 31 December 1943 and remained in session till 2 January 1944 in a house in the village of Bujan in the Djakovica highlands on the Albanian border. It was attended by forty-nine communist representatives from Albania and Kosovo of whom forty-three were Albanians, three Serbs and three Montenegrins. At this conference, which was later to cause considerable controversy, delegates of the Albanian and Yugoslav communists invited the Kosovo Albanians to join in the struggle against fascism in the hope that their victory would open the way for unification with Albania.

Although the stands taken at Bujan were criticised within the caucus of the CPY even before the end of 1944, they revealed two basic features of the CPY's policy on Kosovo at that time: its desire to have ethnic Albanians from there join the antifascist movement and its orientation towards incorporating Albania into Yugoslavia or possibly a Balkan communist federation after the war. f£

The main objectives of the conference were to strengthen the existing village, local and district national liberation committees and create new ones; to increase political activity among Kosovo's

popu-21PRO, FO, WO204/9536, 196824, File no. 293, 3 September 1944.

22F. Rexhepi, The Struggle of the Albanians of Kosovo and other areas of the Former Yugoslavia for

Self-Determination and National Unification during World War II - The Kosovo Issue - A Historic and Current Problem, Tirana, 1996, p. 105.

23p. simic, The Kosovo and Metojia Problem and Regional Security in the Balkans, Institute of International Politics and Economics, Belgrade, 1996, p. 9.

lation, especially people of Albanian nationality; and to discourage the increasing emigration of Serbian and Montenegrin families from the region. The Bujan Conference appealed in conclusion to the peoples of Kosovo to unite against the Germans and a Resolution was adopted. This contained a paragraph which caused controversy not only at the conference but in post-war political debates:

'Kosovo and the Plain of Dukagjin represent a territory largely inhabited by the Albanian people, which still today, as always, wish to unite with Albania. We therefore consider it our duty to show the correct path the Albanian people must follow in order to realise their

aspirations. The sole path by which the Albanian people of Kosovo and the Plain of Dukagjin can unite with Albania is by a common struggle with the other peoples of Yugoslavia against the occupier and his lackeys, because this is the only way to win the freedom in which all peoples, i.e. the Albanians too, will be able to declare their own destiny with the right to self-determination to the point of secession.1 ^f

Here, explicitly stated in this document, was the acceptance of the unification of Kosovo with Albania. The CPY and the Yugoslav Army headquarters were quick to answer. Marshal Tito, secretarygeneral of the CPY, and Tempo, his military lieutenant for southern Yugoslavia, both wrote letters that strongly criticised the Bujan Resolution. 25 Ever since it has been treated by official Yugoslav historiography as a political blunder: how was such a vague and ambiguous statement allowed to be included in the final resolution of this important conference? There are reasons which partly explain this. There was a certain degree of optimism about the new era which would follow the war. Fadil Hoxha, at that time member of the Bureau of the Regional Committee of the CPY and commander of the General Staff for Kosovo, says in his memoirs that the question of frontiers was avoided, although no one would accept the partitioning of Yugoslavia, but every potential Albanian recruit for the NLM would ask 'What place will my people have in this?1 To this question Hoxha would reply:

"I would say we should fight under the leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia to liberate this land. Even more definitely it is clear that if socialism wins in Albania as well as in Yugoslavia —

24Rexhepi, The Struggle of the Albanians ofKosova, p. 33.

2 5Pipa, and Repishti, Studies on Kosovaf p. 208.

Kosovo will be in Albania. This was not my attitude but that of the Regional Committee.1 ff

In 1943, when the question of the future boundary between Yugoslavia and Albania seemed irrelevant, the CPY could afford to be generous in its promises. Albania itself might even be incorporated into

Yugoslavia as a separate federal unit. Tito rejected the decisions agreed at Bujan because he believed that they raised issues prematurely which should be dealt with after the war. He knew that the Partisans would lose too many followers if the Albanian demands were met. It was therefore agreed not to alter the pre-war borders of Yugoslavia. Enver Hoxha also agreed that

'...the question of the future of Kosovo and the other Albanian regions in Yugoslavia should not be raised during the w a r . . . that Kosovo Albanians should fight fascism within the

framework of Yugoslavia ... that the problem of Kosovo will be resolved after the war by the two sister parties and the Albanian people themselves.' ^

This document produced immediate unease. The Central Committee of the CPY, in a letter of 28 March 1944 to the leaders of the resistance movement of Kosovo and Metohija signed by Tito's closest aide Milovan Djilas, made an assessment of the first regional conference. It endorsed the orientation of the National Liberation Committee of Kosovo and Metohija, but indirectly criticised the part of the Bujan Resolution which referred to the aspiration of the Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija to join Albania.

Similarly a letter had been sent to the CPY's regional committee for Kosovo and Metohija dated 2 October 1943, by Vukmanovic Tempo, who had stayed among the Partisans in Kosovo. He wrote:

'Regarding the question of the future borders between Yugoslavia and Albania, it will be resolved by brotherly agreement and co-operation between the NLM of Yugoslavia and the Council of National Liberation of Albania on the basis of the right of self-determination of nations. How the borders will be drawn will depend on the evolution of the political situation in Yugoslavia and Albania. At present we must not make any definite statements on the issue.'

After receiving a letter from the CC/ CPY dated 28 March 1944, the leadership of the resistance movement in Kosovo undertook to amend that part of the resolution of the first conference of its

26Relationship between Yugoslavia and Albania, p. 67.

2 7E . Hoxha, With Stalin, Tirana, 1981, pp. 137-8.

National Liberation Committee where the problem of the union of these parts with Albania was referred t o . ²⁸

The rights and wrongs of the Bujan Resolution have continued to be bitterly disputed up to the present time, especially among the Albanian diaspora. In a recent debate one Albanian-American, Vasil Camaj, echoed the view of the majority of Kosovars on this subject:

'It is not acceptable to be proud or propagate the political mistakes of the past. This is the case with the overstated propaganda about the Bujan Conference, where I believe,

Albanian, Serb and Montenegrin Communists, instructed by Serb anti-Albanian politicians, helped to establish the second occupation of Kosovo and the other Albanian-inhabited regions of Yugoslavia. Who were the traitors? the Ballists or the Bujan Communists, Fadil Hoxha, Mehmet Hoxha, Ymer Pula, Ali Shukrija, Xhavid Nimani and others like them, who fought for Serb-Montenegrin interests with the Communist star on their caps? In short, the Bujan Conference and the earlier meeting at Mukje in August 1943 were supported by Communist Albanians who set up alliances with Communist Yugoslavs and helped to divide Albanians again.' ^£

In reply, the Albanian-American academic, Sami Repishti, explained that the Bujan Conference was not a political blunder:

'It was politically correct! It was also a sincere effort on the part of many

communist-orientated Kosovars and 'nationalists1 to bring into the open, through a formal document, the prevailing sentiment among the entire Albanian population of Kosovo, namely, the right to self-determination for all peoples, as promised by the 1941 Atlantic Charter. The fact that the resolution was rejected by Tito, and strongly condemned by the Yugoslav Communist Party committed to preserving (even extending) the territory of pre-war Yugoslavia - is an

indication that the Resolution, in its spirit and its letter, was pro-Albanian and anti-Yugoslav.

The dismantling of monarchist Yugoslavia being an act of violence was not accepted by the international community. Consequently, the 'union' of Kosovo with Albania in 1941 was not recognised by the Allies who were winning the war. Then a new group emerged in Kosovo which rejected fascist Italy's (and later Nazi Germany's) policies. They were mostly

communists and their sympathisers. Their political programme, namely, an uncompromising war against the fascist invaders, had the full support of the Allies. With war developments favouring the Anti-fascist Coalition, the role of the communists in

Kosovo became more relevant. Gradually they became the main political force recognised by the victorious Allies. By fighting against fascism, they earned the moral right to represent the Kosovar population. And so they did, in the village of Bujan, where the overwhelming

sentiment of that population was codified in a clear and unequivocal statement: union with Albania! With this act, all sections of Albanian society in Kosovo had reached the same conclusion. Here is the historic importance of the Bujan Resolution.' ^£

In the meantime a source for the British Foreign Office travelled secretly through Kosovo and Albania during August 1944 and reported:

The question of the future status of Kosovo was one of a burning anxiety in the minds of all -even of people living a long way from Kosovo, people of such widely differing views its Enver Hoxha, Mustapha Gjinishi, Ymer Disnica. All agreed on the importance to Albania of a just settlement of the Kosovo problem - which they all agreed could only be secured by a return to Albania of Kosovo. They all implored me to obtain from the Allies a simple declaration, not that Kosovo would be returned to Albania, but simply that the future of Kosovo would be settled by a plebiscite held under Allied supervision in the area; alternatively they requested a declaration from the Yugoslav government in London that they would consent to such a plebiscite... King Zog is not popular in Kosovo mainly because people regard him as a nominee of the Yugoslav government, in exchange for whose support they believe he acquiesced in the Yugoslav domination of Kosovo. The most outstanding political figure in Kosovo (in 1944) is Gani Kryezyu, who is very pro-British and seems a most able and intelligent man. He is one of the very few people who could possibly weld together a powerful common front against the Germans in Kosovo.' li

The Kryeziu brothers advocated a policy of protracted military confrontation, for which he sought British support. Gani conducted dealings with the British in more or less full view of the Partisans. Therefore, both Enver Hoxha and Tito must have already resolved that it would be better from their point of view if there were no resistance in Kosovo rather than a successful one led by Gani Kryeziu with British support. Thus the Kryeziu brothers1 plans were doomed. 32 British sources claim that the NLC knew that

terms like "Ethnic Albania" and "Greater Albania" were coined by the Germans to lure the Albanians into a trap.

'What w e , the LNC, try to do is to organise Kosovo into battalions and NLC brigades to fight the Germans now in cooperation with the Yugoslav Partisans whose war is directed against the Germans and whose aim is to give freedom to all the various Yugoslav peoples. These Partisans will themselves leave Kosovo free to choose her own way based on the Atlantic Charter, which has been guaranteed by the U.S.A., U.S.S.R. and Great Britain. This is the only way the Kosovo question can be settled and Kosovo be given back to Albania.' ££

The United League of Anti-fascist Youth of Yugoslavia (USAOJ), at its Second Congress held in Drvar in May 1944, blamed the prewar Yugoslav regime for the tense state of inter-ethnic relations in Kosovo. A letter signed by 1,150 USAOJ delegates stated among other things:

'The anti-people's regimes of the old Yugoslavia, pursuing a criminal policy towards our

peoples and subjecting the Albanian people of our region to the most brutal exploitation and physical extermination, deliberately fanned chauvinistic hatred between the Albanian, Serbian and Montengrin people of Kosovo.' £1

Until the first months of 1944 there were continued waves of migration from Kosovo of Serbs and Montenegrins, forced to flee following intimidation. It was not possible to organise self-defence in the settler villages. The 21st SS 'Skanderbeg Division' (consisting, as already mentioned, of two battalions) formed out of Albanian volunteers in the spring of 1944, indiscriminately killed Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo. This led to the emigration of an estimated 10,000 Slav families, most of whom went to Serbia, where some settlers joined the Partisan forces while a larger number joined Mihailovic. The Party

organisation in Kosovo was considerably weakened by the departure of the Slav settlers who were replaced by new colonists from the poorer regions of northern Albania. Recruitment to the NLM of Albanians thus began on a more concerted scale. By January 1944 the Party membership for Kosovo stood at around 400, of whom forty-five were Albanians. ££

33PRO, FO, WO204 /9536, 196824, 5 June 1944. An extract from an NLC document printed in Albania on 9 April 1944.

34Relationship between Yugoslavia and Albania, Belgrade, 1984, p. 129.