yugoslavias implosion

Local Serb inhabitants are perpetrating vicious crimes and the present
disordered state of affairs in the aforesaid parts is largely due to their
effects. 324
A state of siege was in effect in Kosovo for the years between the
two world wars. Albanians were forbidden to move from one place
to another and schools were prohibited from teaching in the Albanian
language. Dragiša Vasić, a leading intellectual of the Chetnik
movement, wrote about the Serbianization of the Albanians:
The villages we passed through were deserted, having been put to the
torch by our troops after being first demolished by artillery; the smoke
that rose from a house here and there indicated that their occupants
were still alive. The houses that had been spared belonged to our commissioners.
… We are thinking about hapless Albania which always
was and will remain our grave and our disgrace for a long time to
come, the Albania where on three occasions I had seen people die horrible
deaths, (the country) whose tribes we pit against each other in
order to rule them: that cold Siberia of ours is a promised land for corrupt
officials who return from it wallowing in wealth; it is also there
that every spring brings death to our wonderful soldiers and officers,
our young martyrs the unwitting protectors of plunderers and the
deceived defenders of criminals. 325
In addition to abolishing feudal relations by means of agrarian
reform, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia attempted to colonize Kosovo.
The idea was to settle Serbs and Montenegrins in order to nationalize
and assimilate Kosovo. Between 1931 and 1941, Albanians were dispossessed
of fertile land in the hope that they would emigrate to Turkey.
The Inter-Ministerial Conference held in Belgrade in 1935 decided to
displace Albanians from the border areas. After that, the authorities
324 Petrit Imami, Srbi i Albanci kroz vekove, Beograd 1999 .
325 Dragiša Vasić, Dva meseca u srpskom Sibiru (Two months in
Serbia’s Siberia), Geca Kon, Belgrade, 1921, p . 21, 60 .
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