William Dorich: It is more than clear that there is a "Greater Albania" at work
5 September 2007 | 17:56 | FOCUS News Agency
The interview with the leader of the Kosovo Self-determination Movement Albin Kurti, which was published by FOCUS News Agency on September 2nd, has obviously stirred the interest not only of Bulgarians, but also of foreign readers interested in the situation in Bulgaria and the Balkans from our English section: http://www.focus-fen.net/. FOCUS News Agency received a letter signed by the US historian William Dorich, who reacted harsh to the positions expressed by Kurti in the interview with FOCUS.
With regards to the pluralism in the different points of view that FOCUS News Agency has always tries to present and follow, we decided to publish the letter of Mr. Dorich.
The writer is the author of 5 books on Balkan history including his 1992 book, Kosovo. He is the recipient of The Order of St. Sava, the highest recognition given to a lay person by the Holy Synod of Serbian Orthodox Bishops, and An Award of Merit from the Serbian Bar Association of America.
The points of view published in this column are independent and reflect only the positions of their authors and do not necessarily coincide with those of the agency.
Albin Kurti's comments on Kosovo are immoral. More than 40% of the Albanians in Kosovo are illegal aliens who cross the border from Albania into Kosovo as easily as Mexicans cross our border each night in San Diego California. Granting Albanians superior rights over the 350,000 Serbian citizens whom they have successfully cleansed shows the contempt Kurti has for international law and equal human rights.
I remind this political opportunist that during the 1999 NATO bombing over 90,000 Albanians fled to Belgrade... into the arms of their Serbian enemies? The only time Albanians "will no longer treat the Serbs as a threat" is when there is not a single Serb or a single Serbian church left standing and a total Genocide has been accomplished in Kosovo.
Serbs were the majority (80 percent) in Kosovo for a thousand years and built more than 1,500 churches and monasteries. Serbia was internationally recognized as a nation at The Congress of Berlin in 1878 and it was ONLY Serbia who gave up her statehood to form Yugoslavia with her former Slovene and Croat enemies in WWI. A good reason why the new nation was called The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918. When that country was formed the Albanians represented less than 5% of the population according to numerous historical documents. It was also a time when the nation of Albania was formed, do we really need two Albanian nations in the heart of Europe or all we all pretending, like Kurti, that a "Greater Albania" is not the end game here?
In my lifetime, Serbs have become a minority in Kosovo, starting with the Holocaust under Benito Mussolini when the liquidation of Serbs reduced their numbers to 45 percent. After the war, Broz Tito forbade the 155,000 ethnically cleansed Serbs from returning to Kosovo, giving their land to Albanian Nazis thereby reducing Serbs to 39 percent.
When the dictator Tito granted Albanian "autonomy" in 1974, the Serbian language was banned and 100,000 Serbs lost their jobs—in the process over 2 million books on Serbian religion, history and music were burned—more than 120,000 Serbs were cleansed as Serbian farms were burned and Serbian girls and nuns were raped, reducing the Serbs to 29 percent. Just seven years ago the Serbs represented 21% of Kosovo, how shocking that Albin Kurti acknowledges that Serbs are now "6%" but looks the other way as to why they suddenly dropped to this appalling level. It is apparent that Kurti does not believe Serbs are entitled to equal human rights or justice.
If the 350,000 recently cleansed Serbs and the 90,000 non-Albanian minorities were allowed to return to Kosovo and the 40 percent undocumented Albanians were forced to go back to where they came from, there would not be this fictitious "90 percent Albanian" population to seek independence. It is more than clear that there is a "Greater Albania" at work here as the Albanians have already exposed their hand in wanting other parts of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and northern Greece where large minorities of Albanians live.
But Kosovo is not just about population count, it is about the "jihad" taking place in the Balkans. Kurti fails to mention the dozens of new Islamic mosques that have been built in Kosovo including the Osama bin Laden Mosque. I wonder what the attitude will be once Serbia is totally destroyed and the Muslims start coveting Bulgarian territory?
William Dorich
Los Angeles
http://www.focus-fen.net/?id=f1432i na bugarski
http://www.focus-news.net/?id=f7300
se se vrti nekogas i nekoj srbi mozebi pak ke se vratat.a iskreno meene bas me zabole dali kosovo ke dobie nezavisnost ili ne.Albancite go zasluzuvaaa po sekoja cena
