yugoslavias implosion

of encouraging Albanians to emigrate by impressing on them how
beautiful Turkey is and by encouraging religious fanaticism among
them. He also advocated more blunt and repressive steps:
The state apparatus ought to exploit the law to the full in order to
plague the life of the Albanians through fines, arrests, relentless application
of all police rules, punishment of smuggling, wood cutting and
setting dogs loose, statute labor and all other resorts an enterprising
police force can think of … the payment of taxes and all public
and private debts must be enforced without mercy, all access to stateowned
and municipal rough grazing prohibited, concessions and operating
licenses for inns, trading establishments and artisan workshops
revoked … dismissal from state, private and self-government employment
will accelerate emigration … the Albanians are most sensitive
about religious matters, so it is in that department that we ought to
make them smart. This could be achieved by harassing priests, clearing
cemeteries, prohibiting polygamy, and especially by stringently
enforcing the law that female children must attend primary school …
Our colonists should be given weapons. Old Chetnik methods should be
introduced in those parts and their objectives advanced quietly. In particular,
a wave of highland Montenegrins should be let loose to provoke
a massive clash with the Albanians in Metohija … the whole affair
should be presented calmly as a clash between fraternities and clans …
In extremis, local revolts could be provoked and quelled in blood … not
so much by the army as by colonists, Montenegrin tribes and Chetniks.
There is yet another expedient: in 1878, Serbia put violence to very good
use when it stealthily burned Albanian villages and neighborhoods in
towns. 327
As part of an arrangement with Turkey, which wanted to withdraw
ethnic Turks from the Balkans, the Yugoslav government in
1938 drew up a plan to move 40,000 families between 1939 and 1944. 328
327 Ibid .
328 Turkish-Yugoslav Convention of 1938 on Regulating the Emigration of the
201
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