In 1912 and 1913, 120,000 Albanians were exterminated - men, women, boys, old men and women, children - hundreds of villages were shot by heavy guns, a large number of them were burned down, more in Kosova and less in Macedonia.
It is to observe that the representative of Russian imperialist tsarist politics, minister of Russia in Belgrade, Hartvig, blessed this policy of extermination that was carried out by Belgrade. The Russian Orthodox Tsar extended his assistance to the Orthodox Serbian brother, king Petar and his son Aleksandar, to exterminate a whole people and expand the Orthodox religion in the Balkans. At least 50,000 Albanians were forced to emigrate to Turkey and Albania and become immigrants, in order to save their lives.
The extermination of the Albanians rarefied Albanian masses in Kosova to a certain degree, but it could not change the Albanian character that Kosova has had. The intention to exterminate the Albanians in Kosova was to settle Serbs instead of them, to colonise Kosova by Serbs, serbisianation of Kosova. Nevertheless, until the end of 1912, owing to great resistance on the part of the Albanians, colonisation made a relatively slow progress. Only a small number of Serbs were settled in the region of Kosova in the first stages.
Here we shall provide some official statistics of Serbian government, that indicate the Albanian character of Kosova. Out of 25,407 rural houses, only 6,311, i.e., only 17% were Serbs in the province of Kosova in 1919. In KaГ§anik, there were totally 2.5% Serbs in 1924, the rest were Albanians. In the district of Prizren, there were 17% Serbs in 1921. This proportion was similar in the districts of Prishtina, Mitrovica, Gjilan, Peja, and Gjakova, and in some other districts the proportion of the Serbs was even smaller. In 1921, there were mostly 17% Serbs in whole Kosova. The Albanian national resistance was put up in two ways: in the legal way, by the Muslim organisation Cemiyet, and in the revolutionary way, by fighting with arms by Albanian national detachments that are called в€˜kaГ§akГ«' (outlaws). We shall speak of Cemiyet later. The Serbian government attempted to present Albanian в€˜kaГ§aks' as robbers and put them out of the law. Every governmental service and every Serbian fascist has the right to kill them. в€˜KaГ§aks' in fact are not robbers at all, but they are good Albanian guerrillas. There are people that can sacrifice everything, their houses, property and goods, and go to mountains, form guerrilla detachments and fight against the misdeeds and barbarisms of Serbian military and police. в€˜KaГ§aks' believe they can dislodge the Serbian regime from Kosova in that way.
These national warriors have fought a great fight, a fight that ought to be admired, against very big forces of Serbian gendarmerie and military. The names of Bajram Curri, Azem Bejta and hundreds of other brave men that have fallen at that war, have been carved in the hearts of the Albanians of Kosova. In 1920 more than 10,000 в€˜kaГ§aks' were on the mountains of Kosova. There were 2,000 of them in Llab only. In 1920, in the time of the uprising of Llab, the Serbian military, under the command of colonel Radovan Rodovic, bombarded the big Albanian village of Prapashtica, and all the houses were ruined. Similar to Llab, Albanian national movements were organised in many other regions of Kosova, and were crushed by great Serbian forces in 1919 and 1924. We can mention here the movements of Plava, Gucia, Rugova in 1919, of Prishtina in 1921, Drenica in 1923, Mitrovica in 1924 and again of Drenica in 1924. By quelling these uprisings, the Serbian military killed 2,600 Albanians.
National resistance in this way was limited to the fights of detachments of &primekaзaks′. According to an official report of Serbian government, there were 1,200 organised &primekaзaks′ in detachments in 1924. In 1927, the Serbian police published a report: 310 Albanian в€˜kaГ§aks' were killed, 175 caught as prisoners and 626 surrendered.
In 1927, the movement of &primekaзaks′ ceased to act, but the spirit of &primekaзaks′ lives in every village and will never cease to exist until Kosova is free. The pan-Serbian regime knows this quite well. That is why it has decided to denationalise Kosova totally, not only by crushing wildly the Albanian movement, but also by grabbing their land and colonising Kosova by Serbs. I am going to discuss this matter in the next issue of Liria KombГ«tare."
