yugoslavias implosion

110
ChApter 1
National Renewal (sno) party of Mirko Jović. They effectively promoted
the Chetnik movement and drew on its traditions.
The spo program looked upon the Serbian entity as independent
of other republics and implied that Yugoslavia was entirely Serbia’s
creation. As to Croatia, the program was explicit: “Croatia within its
present borders cannot be confederated before an autonomous province
of Serb Krajina is established in Baranja, parts of Slavonia, Kordun,
Lika, Banija, and northern Dalmatia, and before autonomy is
guaranteed to Istria and Dubrovnik.” Should Croatia nevertheless
secede from Yugoslavia, “the autonomous province of Serb Krajina
would be incorporated into the Serb state.”
With regard to Kosovo, the spo program envisaged “abolishing
the Albanian state” created in Kosovo and Metohija, giving back
to the Serbs the property “wrested from them in the Second World
War,” setting up a fund to finance “settling Kosovo with Serbs, with
the object of re-establishing the comparative numerical strength of
Serbs and Shqiptars [i.e., ethnic Albanians] as it was on the last day
of freedom, 6 April 1941.” It stressed that “all Shqiptars who established
themselves illegally in Kosovo and Metohija or elsewhere in
Serbia [are to be] returned as foreign nationals back to Albania”
and, further, “all Shqiptars who were in any way involved in the
Tirana occupiers’ plan for ‘Greater Albania’ [stretching] as far as
Skopje, Nikšić, Mt. Kopaonik, and the Morava River be banished.”
In the event of a confederation, the program called for “abolishing
the autonomous status [of Kosovo and Metohija], [official use of ]
the Albanian language anywhere in Serbia, the right of Shqiptars to
[display] the Albanian flag, and all anti-Serb oriented schools, police
employment, hospitals, post offices, law courts, and the like.” 133
Besides building its reputation on Chetnik traditions, the
srs resorted to Fascist methods in its political activities, copying
133 ‘Radikalizacija društva u Srbiji’ (The Radicalization of Society in Serbia), ‘Program SPO’ (The
SPO programme),(Beograd: Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, 1997), p . 152 .