As the Albanian American Civic League approaches its fifteenth anniversary in January and after another hard year of work, I believe that it is important on Flag Day to think about how the Civic League has contributed to resolving the national cause for all Albanians in our generation. It is also important to examine how the Civic League has focused its energy and resources as a volunteer lobby in 2003 to build on the success of its past efforts as the only officially registered and independent Albanian issue advocacy group in Washington, DC.
Began on January
27 in the U.S. Capitol
It was especially fitting that the Civic League officially began its important lobbying agenda for 2003, perhaps its most important since it was founded, in the U.S. Capitol building right next to the House chambers, while President George Bush was delivering his State of the Union Message on January 27. The Civic League was the only outside group allowed into the building with the president. And as Congressman Tom Lantos said in his address to the forty members of our Board of Directors and key supporters assembled in the House International Relations Committee’s official reception room that evening, “This clearly shows how far the Civic League and its work for Albanian issues in Washington has come in fifteen years.”
While the Board came to the Capitol to hear President Bush, it came also to celebrate a milestone in the life of the Civic League and the Albanian nation: the introduction earlier that day of House Resolution 28 in support of the independence of Kosova now by Congressman Tom Lantos (ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee) and Congressman Henry Hyde (the Committee’s Chairman). The bill, which gives a comprehensive analysis of the legal, political, and economic reasons why Kosova deserves independence now, outlines the dangers that continued delay in the resolution of Kosova’s final status poses for the viability of Kosova and the future stability of Southeast Europe. It was especially significant that H.Res. 28 was introduced by the two most important legislative leaders of foreign policy in the U.S. House of Representatives, who work with the White House on all significant foreign policy issues. It is the only piece of legislation promoting the official recognition of independence for Kosova by another state.
Nothing Is More Important for All Albanians than the Immediate Recognition by Washington of Kosova’s Independence
H. Res. 28 was introduced fourteen years after then-Congressman Joe DioGuardi met with some of his major political supporters in the Albanian American community to form the Civic League as a vehicle to begin the diplomatic effort at the end of the 20th century to bring attention internationally to the oppression of Albanians in the Balkans, especially in Kosova. H.Res. 28 could not have been introduced in 2003 without the professional expertise and great success of “the lobby” (as the Civic League has become known throughout the Albanian world) in support of freedom and democracy in Kosova, Macedonia, Montenegro, Presheve, Albania, and Chameria. On Flag Day, I believe that it is important to recognize that H.Res. 28 was the product of almost two years of work on the part of the Civic League to break the silence imposed by the international community since the NATO war’s end in 1999 about the final status of Kosova and the realities on the ground, including 70 percent unemployment, the ongoing de facto partition of Mitrovice, and the criminalization of the Kosova Liberation Army. I believe that it is important to recognize that H.Res. 28 and the Congressional hearing that followed it opened up, in a way that nothing else had previously, the core issues that the international community would like to avoid but can no longer afford to ignore in Kosova.
Through Congressional legislation, advocacy, fact-finding missions, intensive research, and hard-hitting analysis, the Civic League, at the beginning of the 21st century has taken its unwavering vision for an Albanian nation that is free, independent, and secure to a new level. On May 21, in a follow-up to the introduction of H.Res. 28, the House International Relations Committee held a full committee hearing on “The Future of Kosova,” with Chairman Hyde and Congressman Lantos presiding. Following an eloquent introduction by Chairman Hyde, Congressmen Lantos gave a tour-de-force presentation in opposition to the State Department’s policy of “standards before status.” He asserted that, “Those who argue that we must put ‘standards before status’ are applying a double standard to Kosova. Kosova, he said, deserves independence for the same reasons that the other constituent parts of the former Yugoslavia did. Security, democracy, and pure justice demand it.” To emphasize his point, Congressman Lantos cited twelve nations with populations under 100,000 that are independent and recognized by the United States. In a bold rebuttal to the State Department, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican member of the Committee, stated that, “If the United States had been required to meet standards before status, we would still be governed by the British.” The May 21 hearing sent an unambiguous signal to the international community that the most important foreign policy leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives supported Kosova’s independence now, while the U.S. State Department and the European Union continue to oppose it.
At the urging of Congressman Hyde after the May 21st hearing, the Civic League traveled throughout Kosova from June 29 to July 6, with the goal of reporting back to Congress on conditions there. The Civic League visited with students, workers, veterans, professionals, activists, religious leaders, and political officials in Gjilane, Podujeve, Suhareka, Skenderaj, Peja, Gjakova, Prishtina, and Prizren. The most important theme that emerged from this trip was the ever-widening gap between the official version of reality in Kosova and the day-to-day experience of Kosovar Albanians, who make up 95 percent of the population. Catholic Bishop Mark Sopi summed up well the national sentiment when he expressed his consternation at the seeming inability of the international community to realize that Kosova is “their best ally in the Balkans, and that if given independence and even a nominal amount of investment monies, the society would succeed rapidly.” In addition, he stated correctly that, “Kosova is the source of peace, not of violence, in the region.” In Prishtina, Adem Demaci praised the Civic League for effectively challenging efforts to partition Kosova or put it back under Serbia. “If you were doing something different, you would be doing the wrong thing,” he said. “Even if your work does not bear fruit right now, it will step by step, because the mentality of the people is changing.”
In keeping with its mission to help all Albanians in the Balkans, the Civic League held a separate meeting in Gjilan with all of the major political and civic leaders from Presheve, Medvedje, and Bujanoc. We received distressing confirmation at this meeting that most of the terms of the 2001 NATO-assisted agreement with Belgrade were being either sabotaged or violated outright. Jonuz Musliu, formerly the political head of UCPMB, lamented a pattern of arrests and violence since the war and concluded by asking rhetorically, “How will we be a part of Serbia, when Serbia does not like or want us?”
The Civic League Brings a U.S. Congressman to Visit the Albanians of Montenegro for the First time
In the second half of 2003, faced with the inaction of Albanian political leaders in Montenegro to challenge our State Department’s failing foreign policy there and the push by Serbia to force Kosova back into the newly created rump Yugoslav state called Serbia and Montenegro, the Civic League unfolded an historic campaign, more than a year in the making, to internationalize the plight of Albanians in Montenegro. With the support of the Patriotic Association of Kraja and the Shoqata Ana e Malit, we led a fact-finding mission to Ulqin, Ana e Malit, Kraja, Tuzi, and Plav-Guci from July 30 to August 4 with Congressman Tom Lantos and his wife, Annette. This was the first visit ever of a U.S. Congressman to the Albanian areas of Montenegro. Organized around forums with experts in a variety of fields and on-site inspections of the conditions in Albanian communities, we were able to confirm that the state-sponsored effort of the Montenegrin Slav majority to either drive out or assimilate the Albanian population of Montenegro is not the stuff of history, but a contemporary and shocking reality that threatens the very existence of Albanians in Montenegro.
Congressman Lantos echoed the feelings of the delegation (including Civic League Board members, Luan Bukolla, Shirley Cloyes, Gjergj Dedvukaj, Joe DioGuardi, Adem Dukaj, Sadri Gjonbalaj, and Marash Nuculaj, AACL Student Coordinator Faton Bislim, Shoqata Ana e Malit member and former Member of the Montenegrin Parliament Xheladin Zeneli, Kraja Association Vice President Xhevat Kraja, and Kraja Association Board member Adem Cukaj), when he described his feeling as “one of outrage that in the twenty-first century civilized people [Albanians] living in Europe could be discriminated against so profoundly simply because they want to maintain their linguistic, cultural, and ethnic heritage.” Based on what they heard and saw in Montenegro, Congressman and Annette Lantos agreed to hold a hearing in the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on “The Future of Albanians in Montenegro,” in order to put the spotlight on Montenegro “in the highest corridors of power.” On October 30, the hearing was held in the main House International Relations Committee, cochaired by Congressmen Lantos and Rohrabacher. Dr. Nail Draga and Anton Lajcaj (Albanian educators from Montenegro who had provided expert testimony to our delegation last summer), Xheladin Zeneli, former member of the Montenegrin Parliament, and I were the expert witnesses.
The Civic League Continues to Reveal the Buried History of
Oppression of the Albanian People
The Civic League delegation to Montenegro was capped by meetings that focused on two important and historic events that took place in Macedonia and Montenegro. Joe DioGuardi joined thousands of Albanians in Qafa, Macedonia, where he spoke at the ninety-year commemoration of the death of Sultana, the teenager who killed three Serbian army officers with scissors at the end of the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 in retaliation for their murder of her father and impending massacre of all adult males in the village. Meanwhile, back in Prishtina, I was fortunate to find Azem Hajdini, one of the few living survivors and recorders of the 1945 massacre by Serbian and Montenegrin forces of 4,300 anti-fascist Albanian soldiers in Tivar, Montenegro. In bearing witness to the dead and the living, Hajdini is an example for all Albanians who care about ending more than a century of arrest, imprisonment, torture, expulsion, and genocide. The Civic League had a remarkable and lengthy visit with Hajdini before heading home to the States with copies of his books on the Tivar massacre, an horrific example of how Albanians have been treated by Montenegrins in the past.
On this Flag Day, as Congress concludes an intensive serious of votes on a range of domestic and foreign policy issues, the Civic League is planning the next phase of its most important work to secure support for the independence of Kosova before the national elections at the end of 2004. In this difficult time in the life of the scattered Albanian nation of 15 million people (7 million of whom are still being deprived of real freedom and economic opportunity in the Balkans), it is worth recalling President John F. Kennedy’s now famous quote: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” On Flag Day, I believe that all Albanians, especially the 500,000 in the United States, should ask themselves what they are doing to protect the Albanian nation—its language, culture, and history—and what they are doing to help build a secure, free and independent Kosova as a political and economic base for Albanians in the Balkans and around the world. Membership in the Albanian American Civic League in 2004 would be a good place for every Albanian family to start.
November 2003