LABERIA
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- Albanian
The presence of troops of the Albanian National Liberation Army in the area is confirmed by an American report of the 25th March to the effect that the 5th Division of the Albanian National Liberation Army was in the Kosovo with its headquarters at Kosovoska Mitrovica. General Velebit said that in the north-west corner of Macedonia there was a certain amount of brigandage, but this had been the case even before 1941. The Minister for Macedonia made much the same comment.
18. I am sending copies of this despatch to the Resident Minister, Central Mediterranean; His Majesty's Ambassador in Athens; Lieut.-Colonel Clarke, 37 Military Mission, in Bari; and to the British Delegation in Belgrade.
I have, &c.
RALPH SKRINE STEVENSON
[from: Bejtullah D. Destani (ed.), Albania & Kosovo: Political and Ethnic Boundaries, 1867-1946. Documents and Maps. Slough: Archive Editions, 1999, p. 939-944.]
1945
Brigadier Edward Hodgson:
Report on the Present Administration of Albania
Report on the Present Administration of Albania
May 29, 1945
7. The Albanian National Liberation Army
(a) A.N.L.A. strength is estimated at about 60,000 including all personnel under arms.
(e) The Albanian formations previously fighting in Yugoslavia have now been withdrawn to Albania or Kossovo.
[British Foreign Office document, preserved in the National Archives in London (FO 371/48091).]
About the albanian units who fought for the liberation of Yugoslavia:
I will quote you another source, which I have no desire to quote, I am forced, Enver Hoxha. I am an anticomunist and i hate him.
Communist leaders in Eastern countries had a habit that publish their memoirs. They were very careful when talking about international problems, because they knew that their books were read out of the country. For international problems they were correct, the interpretation of those facts was of course ideological. Of course their style of writing causes inconvenience.
http://www.enverhoxha.info/english/books.php
"I was in Berat when I received the news about the liberation of our beloved capital city, and a little later, the news of the liberation of virtually all Albania. From Berat I issued the order to some other brigades of our triumphant army to cross our state borders and advance into Yugoslavia. There these brigades, together with two other brigades of our army (the 5th and 3rd), which had received orders to cross the border in September and had liberated most of Kosova, were to continue thle war against the German nazis, fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Yugoslav partisan comrades. I instructed our partisans that they must fight unsparingly in complete unity with the Yugoslav partisans and in an internationalist spirit for the liberation of the peoples of Yugoslavia. And the Albanian partisans made the word of their Communist Party a reality. They fought with great heroism in Kosova, Montenegro, Sandjak, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Serbia and Macedonia. In these battles hundreds of our partisans were killed and thousands wounded. But the Titoites trampled with both their feet over their heroism and blood and repaid us with hostility and plots against our Party and our socialist Homeland. Nevertheless, we carried out an internationalist duty, and irrespective of what happens, the peoples of Yugoslavia will never forget this sacrifice which the Albanian people made for them.
I mentioned above our action in sending some units of our army to assist in the liberation of Kosova and the peoples of Yugoslavia in the hot pursuit of the nazi beast.
The entry of our forces finto Kosova once again confirmed the patriotic vitality and undaunted revolutionary spirit of the people of Kosova. What the Tempos and others had been deliberately saying for years on enti about the people of Kosova describing them as «linked with reaction» was quickly refuted. From valiant Kosova, especially after the entry of our forces, 53 000 young men and women filled the ranks of the brigades of the National Liberation Army of Albania and those of Kosova. Although young partisans, they distinguished themselves for their bravery in the war against the nazi-fascists, just like the older partisans. The entry of our brigades brought about that the state power of the national liberation councils, comprised of the finest patriotic sons of Kosova, was extended over the whole province.
However, precisely when the whole of Kosova had turned finto a hotbed of the National Liberation War, suddenly an order Game from Tito's staff that the partisan forces of Albania and those of Kosova should leave Kosova and pursue the nazi enemy «to the north» of Kosova, deep finto Yugoslavia. Our forces carried out this order, becausa they had gone there to pursue fascism until the complete liberation of the peoples of Yugoslavia. But later we were to learn that the purpose of Tito's order about «the pursuit of the enemy in depth» was nothing but an almost precise repetition of that trickery which the kraljs and princes had tried to carry through in the past. in the fight against the Ottoman yoke. Especially when they saw clearly that the Ottoman forces were being routed and Albania was on the eve of independente the kraljs of Serbia and the princes of Montenegro left nothing undone so that the Albanian insurgent forces should leave Kosova which was liberateti and engage themselves as long as possible in the pursuit of the Ottoman torces in other regions «to the south». Their aim was that the Serbo-Montenegrin armies could occupy Kosova and other Albanian regions without meeting the resistance of the Albanian insurgent forces, or even of the Ottoman occupation forces. This is precisely what Tito was doing in 1945. The Titoite forces entered Kosova, liberateti by the forces of our army and the Kosova forces, in order to eliminate the national liberation councils that had been set up and to launch the unrestrained mass terror against the Albanians. These unprecedented reprisals of the Titoites quite rightly caused a great popular revolt which put the «new Yugoslavia» in doubt, because the people of Kosova were not seeing any differente from what they had suffered under the «old Yugoslavia». In this extremely difficult situation the patriotic people of Kosova demanded «the return of the Albanian partisans», with the aim that the situation should be resolved justly and the savage terror stopped. In order to avoid the further complication of the situation Tito and company were obliged to agree to this demand, and the partisans returned. No kind of «organized reactionary» forces, such as the Yugoslav propaganda talked of, were found in Kosova, but a people who welcomed our partisans exactly as if they were carrying out a second liberation of Kosova. Calm was re-established and after this Tito planned new manoeuvres. Now that the war was over, in the new situation he could solve the acute problems in Kosova with his own forces. However, in order to do this, far from the eyes of the world, and especially far from our eyes, fit was necessary that our forces should be finally withdrawn from Kosova and return to Albania. But how? The direct withdrawal of our forces from Kosova over the then state borders would create unpleasant, perhaps grave, scenes for the Titoites. The people of Kosova might rise in revolt again when they saw that the forces of our army were withdrawing. To overcome this stuation Tito again copied the kraljs of the past and staged the need to pursue reactionary bands towards the south, towtds Greece» and for this he sought the «aid» of those forces of ours which were there. We, who stili did not understand Tito's filthy plans, ordered our divisions to act. After they reached the southernmost borders of Macedonia our forces were told that «there was no further need» for them to stay in Yu;oslavia! The border was crassed in the zone of Korça and Preda, far from the eyes of the people of Kosova. Tito and Rankcvié were left free tc operate, as they did, with their barbar)us methods against martyred Kosova.
IV
WITH TITO
Tito's unexpected invitation to go to Belgrade • Official talks between the Albanian and Yugoslav delegations. Discussion of the ques.tion of Kosova and the other Albanian regions in Yugoslavia • Tito aims to gobble up the whole of the Balkans m Policy of extermination in Kosova • Tito's haughtiness and scandalous luxury • About the visits in Croatia and Slovenia • Ceremony in the Presidium of the Yugoslav Skupstina • A meeting with Tito in Bled. HNas Tito» or «Duce a noi!»? • On the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Aid • «Aid» in driblets.
Looking down from the aircraft on the territory of Montenegro and other regions of Yugoslavia I thought with deep grief and great respect of the hundreds of my partisan comrades who were killed in these parts while fighting the German nazis. On the order which I issued from Berat on the eve of the complete liberation of Albania two divisions of young men and women of Albania crossed the border and won fame in those parts for their heroism, self-sacrifice, discipline, internationalism and fighting skill, in fierce battles with the occupiers. Sitting in the aircraft I thought about those dear Albanian mothers who unhesitatingly sent their sons and daughters to join in the war for the liberation of the Homeland, a war which required these sons and daughters, educated by the Party of communists, to think about and go to shed their blood for the freedom of the neighbouring peoples, too. Thousands returned from these heroic battles, but hundreds fell on the battlefield in the territory of Yugoslavia, and at those moments I thought about the hundreds of Albanian mothers who were waiting for us to bring the sacred remains of their sons and daughters home. «We shall do it!» I said to myself, «It is our duty! They will lie in the most beautiful places in the Homeland where the generations will sing to their glory and heroism throughout history.»* *( The remains of hundreds of our martyrs who fell in Kosova, Montenegro and elsewhere were brought back to Albania and buried in the Cemetery of the Martyrs of the Nation or in the martyrs' cemeteries of the respective districts in 1947 and in 1975.)
[FONT="]The aircraft reached Belgrade and we were looking down on the capital.[/FONT]....."
To put it simple.
Because of the genocide committed by the Serbs, for almost a century, Kosova Albanians were determined to fight the Serbs after the withdrawal of the Germans. To avoid this, the Yugoslav Communists sought the assistance of the Albanian communists. Albanian partisans entered in the province and were welcomed by Kosovo Albanians. They organized communist structures and at the request of Yugoslavs continued operations in Sandzak and Bosnia. After departure the Albanian partisans in the north, in pursuit of Germans, Serbs treacherously entered the province and committed atrocities against Albanians, among them the massacre of the Tivar (Bar).
These two issues are today known to all in Albania and are part of the political debate in Albania between the left and right. Because the right accused Communists as traitors to the national cause. But these are other problems.