DioGuardi: I have to begin by talking about my career as a Congressman. I was elected to the U.S. Congress in November 1984. At that time, Albanians didn’t know me at all. My father was born in Italy in December 1913, in the province of Avellino (between Naples and Bari) in an Albanian-speaking village called Greci in Italian and Katundi in Albanian. Greci is one of the fifty-one Albanian-speaking, or "Arberesh," villages and towns in present-day Italy. In 1929, at the age of fifteen, my father came to New York to escape the Great Depression in southern Italy. He was poor and uneducated, but America is such a good country that it provided opportunity for work and success. Like many ethnic Albanians, my father worked very hard, and saved money in order to raise a family. In 1939, he married my mother, Grace Paperella, and she subsequently gave birth to three children. I was the eldest and was born in New York City on September 20, 1940. As a hardworking Albanian American immigrant, my father always pushed me to succeed and to accomplish important things—just as Albanians do today all over the world.

In April 1984, I decided to leave the business sector, where I had worked for more than twenty-two years as a Certified Public Accountant and partner in one of the world’s largest and most prestigious accounting firms, Arthur Andersen & Co. At the age of forty-three, I became a candidate for the U.S. Congress. Nobody was expecting me to be elected, because I had never been involved previously in politics. But, with the help of then-President Ronald Reagan and Vice-President George Bush, who campaigned with me, I ran a successful congressional campaign and won.

Then, on September 20, 1985, something very important happened to awaken me about my heritage. Some Irish Americans who had supported my run for office brought some Albanian friends to my first birthday party as a sitting Congressman, and they overheard my father speaking Albanian to his youngest sister. Extremely surprised, they asked me: "How is it that your father speaks Albanian?" I responded that I had Albanian blood, like

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other Arberesh Albanians living in Italy. They then told me: "We are Albanians from Kosova, and your father’s people probably left Kosova more than five hundred years ago. I was astonished and asked them to elaborate. They replied that, "Your father’s people fled the Ottoman Turks and sought asylum in Italy five hundred years ago. You are a special Albanian to us, because the Arberesh protected our culture and preserved our language, customs, and history from Ottoman and Slavic ethnic cleansing campaigns for more than five hundred years. Congressman, we need to talk to you about what is happening to your Albanian brothers and sisters in Kosova today."

I agreed to meet with a group of Albanians living in and near my district, and the next day twenty Albanians, originally from Kosova, came to my house in New York and spoke for hours about the history and politics of Kosova, a place that I had never heard of. Looking back, it seems almost incredible that I, along with the majority of Americans, knew nothing about Kosova. Out of 535 members of the U.S. Congress in 1985, I eventually discovered that only about a dozen had heard of Kosova and knew about the plight of the Albanian majority there.

After that meeting, I got really interested in my Albanian roots and began to avidly pursue information about Kosova. I first went to Congressman Tom Lantos, since we had worked closely together on many human rights issues, including the oppression of Tibetan monks in China, Blacks in South Africa, and Jews in the Soviet Union. He responded immediately and positively, saying, "I was born in Hungary and I know the Albanian people and their history well. I will work with you."

The first resolution that I introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives as a congressman was in June 1986 in support of the human rights of Albanians in Kosova. I then asked my friend, Senator Bob Dole, to introduce the same Resolution in the U.S. Senate, which he did just a day after I submitted mine in the House. A year later, in the spring of 1987, Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic started his barbaric campaign against the Albanians of Kosova and made his notorious speech in Kosova Polje, blaming the Albanians for the calamities that had befallen Yugoslavia (just as Hitler made the Jews the scapegoats for the tragedies that befell post-Weimar Germany). This is why it was necessary to initiate more Congressional Resolutions, statements, and hearings in 1987 and 1988. These actions led to our great success in getting the support of more than a hundred congressmen to challenge the then anti-Albanian State Department policy in Washington and to educate the U.S. press about what was really happening in Kosova.

In November 1988, I narrowly lost my third election in a political ambush by the Democratic Party to regain the district that I had taken from them in 1985. But Albanians still wanted me to work on the Albanian cause. And so, with the support of many Albanians across the country who had supported me when I was a congressman, I founded the Albanian American Civic League in January 1989, so that our voice could still be heard in Washington and around the world.

DioGuardi: As I said before, American Albanians desperately wanted me to continue the work that I had begun in Washington, because conditions for Kosovar Albanians were worsening each day. Milosevic was becoming stronger politically, and, as a result, Kosova was invaded and completely occupied by the Serbian military and special police in March 1989. While it was necessary for us to organize many demonstrations in the United States and to introduce new resolutions in Congress, I decided to do something even more important for Kosova—I decided to go there! I was advised by many Albanians that there were tanks and armored vehicles on every street corner in Kosova, but that, if I did not go to Belgrade and Prishtina to take photos and get testimony from Albanian journalists, the U.S. government would never know what was really happening there. Milosevic was busy concealing from the international press all of his brutal actions against Albanians, and he was using his total control of the Yugoslav wire service, Tanjug, to lie about the true conditions in Kosova.

With the support of Congressmen Tom Lantos and Ben Gilman, I went to Belgrade and then to Prishtina in November 1989. The U.S. State Department knew nothing about my visit until my plane landed in Belgrade. Congressman Lantos notified then-U.S. Ambassador Warren Zimmerman that I had arrived in Serbia. He immediately got agitated and said that I should neither stay in Belgrade nor proceed to Kosova. (Lantos had intentionally not notified the State Department in advance of my trip, because they would have prevented it.) Nevertheless, I was already on my way to the Intercontinental Hotel in Belgrade, and eventually Ambassador Zimmerman phoned to arrange a meeting. I explained to him the reasons for my trip and why I felt that it was necessary to witness firsthand the conditions of the Serbian occupation of Kosova and to report back to Congress. He told me that it was dangerous for me to be in Belgrade and that I should immediately return to the United States. I responded that I refused to return without first meeting the Serbian and international press in Belgrade.

I then invited the media to the Intercontinental Hotel. The Serbian director of the hotel told me that, if I were going to hold a press conference there, he would be fired from his job. To avoid a confrontation with him, I went to my hotel room and phoned representatives of the foreign media and the Serbian press and invited them to join me at the International Press Building in the center of Belgrade. More than twenty journalists came to the press conference. They asked me about my trip and why the U.S. Congress had sent me. I distributed a letter signed by Congressmen Lantos and Gilman stating that

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I was representing them in Belgrade, because they could not be there at the time. I also gave the journalists copies of recent articles against Milosevic and his brutal actions in Kosova from the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. It was clear to me that they had not seen them and that Milosevic censored the truth by preventing the U.S. media from reaching Belgrade.

After that, against the wishes of the State Department, I decided to go to Prishtina. The Yugoslavian Secret Service sent an agent to escort me on the plane and around Kosova.

The agent was fluent Albanian, English, and Serbo-Croatian, and he ostensibly came with me to act as an interpreter. I checked in at the Grand Hotel in Prishtina, and again I was informed that I would not be allowed to hold a press conference. This is why I decided to stand in the street in front of the hotel and to invite the media to join me there, in front of the tanks. In the confusion of the moment, I got away with this action, and I recorded this historic confrontation with photographs and an audiotape for Congressmen Gilman and Lantos.

DioGuardi: When I came back to Washington from Kosova, I reported my experience and impressions to Congressmen Lantos and Gilman. I showed them my photos of the tanks on the streets of Prishtina, and I also showed them the photographs of Serbian brutality that I had obtained from Zenun Celaj and Zekaria Cana. Lantos and Gilman were shocked at what they heard and saw. Lantos told me that Kosova reminded him of Nazi Germany and the concentration camps, which he, his siblings, and his parents, Jews in Hungary during World War II, had managed to escape. I begged Lantos, in particular, to do something, because at that time the U.S. Congress was in the hands of the Democrats, and he therefore had the power to act that I lacked as a junior member of the minority Republican Party. I also asked him to come with me to Kosova, which he readily agreed to do in May 1990.

After I returned from Belgrade and Prishtina, and before I returned to Kosova with Tom Lantos six months later, the Albanian American Civic League brought to the United States fifteen representatives from Kosova, including Ibrahim Rugova, Rexhep Qosja, Anton Ceta, Luljeta Pula, Hajrullah Gorani, Idriz Ajeti, Marc Krasniqi, Veton Surroi, and others. At that time, the West knew almost nothing about Ibrahim Rugova. The Democratic League of Kosova (LDK) had not yet been formed, and Rugova was known only as a political activist and professor of literature. The Civic League took this delegation of Kosovar Albanians to Washington on April 24, 1990, to testify before

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Congress. We organized such a great hearing that the Serbs were worried and tried to prevent it from happening, but they did not succeed.

As a countervailing measure, the Serbs brought their leading philosopher on Serb nationalism, Dobrica Cosic, high-level representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and other prominent Serbs to the hearing in Washington in an effort to try to confuse the issue of Kosova. The hearing was conducted by Congressmen Tom Lantos and John Porter, the cochairmen of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. They reserved the largest hearing room on Capitol Hill. Albanians filled one side of the room, with more than a thousand more forced to wait patiently outside for three hours until the hearing ended, and the Serbs sat on the other side. Our friends, Congressmen Lantos, Gilman, Porter, Broomfield, and Hank Brown and Senators Dole and Pell, were present. On the other side, Helen Bentley, the Serbian American Congressman tried to interrupt and confuse all of the good testimony on behalf of Kosova. But Lantos, a great friend of mine and of all Albanians, allowed me to testify and then to cochair the hearing, even though I was no longer a Member of the U.S. Congress. This made it possible for all Albanian witnesses to be heard without interruption and to be asked many important questions that exposed the terrible human rights violations in Kosova and the brutality of the Serbian Communist regime headed by Slobodan Milosevic. Congressman Lantos was so impressed with all that he heard at this hearing that he agreed, at my urging, to come with me to Kosova in May 1990.

A month later, in Kosova, Lantos and I were greeted by tens of thousands of Albanians in front of the Grand Hotel in Prishtina with hugs, flowers, and cries of "USA" and "Long Live Democracy." This was the first big step that the Civic League took for Kosova, but, since then, we have never stopped working for Kosova and the Albanian national cause. From Kosova, Lantos and I traveled to Albania. Even though the Communist regime of Ramiz Alia did not welcome us with open arms, we felt that it was necessary to go there to put pressure on the Communists to open Albania to democracy.

For the next eleven years, I would work constantly as a strong voice for the Albanian people, and, since the end of 1993, when I met my wife, Shirley, a U.S. publisher and author, she has been a partner in this effort. In February 1998, when the Serbian military attacked Drenice, Shirley, through her connections with CNN and other media, helped bring international attention to the plight of Kosovar Albanians. In August 1998, during the Serbian summer offensive, she and I went to the front lines. When the NATO bombing campaign began in March 1999, Shirley and I continued our fight for Kosova as spokespersons for the Albanian cause on CNN, Fox News, ABC, NPR, BBC, and many other television and radio networks in the United States and throughout the world. We were well received as qualified experts on Kosova. Our web site also brought us to the attention of the media, academics, and journalists across the globe. In June 1999, National Geographic magazine asked us to collaborate with them on a major, thirty-five-page article on the Albanian people, which was subsequently published in February 2000, under the title of "Albanians: A People Undone."

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Thus, the Civic League, Shirley, and I have never stopped working for Kosova, and our work has had many facets and entailed strategies that have been implemented in both Washington and in the Balkans. Had the Civic League not continued my work as a congressman on behalf of the Albanian national cause in 1989 and persisted in our lobbying, diplomatic efforts, and media campaign for Kosova until now, Kosova would be like Chechnya today, with few Americans understanding or caring about it, and, consequently, the Russians were able to kill with impunity tens of thousands of Chechnyans. The Chechnyan people had never previously made public who they were and what was happening to them, as we have done in relation to Kosova since I submitted the first Congressional Resolution in 1986. As a result, Russian President Vladimir Putin was able to blame everything on the Chechnyans and got away with mass killing and destruction. On top of this, Putin was able to use his military offensive against the Chechnyan people to his political advantage with the ill-informed and misled Russian people, who elected him president in the wake of the destruction of Chechnya.

WE HAVE RAISED OUR VOICE ON KOSOVA IN THE UNITED STATES AND WILL NOT STOP UNTIL KOSOVA GAINS ITS INDEPENDENCE FROM SERBIA….

Beginning with my work as a congressman in 1985 and later as the volunteer president of the Albanian American Civic League, the Albanian people have made great friends in Washington and all over the world. This is why Slobodan Milosevic had to think many times before waging war in Kosova. He made a great mistake when he attacked Slovenia and Croatia, and he committed his worst atrocities in Bosnia, killing more than 300,000 and displacing two million. But, as we had warned our friends in Congress all along, Milosevic was preparing to implement his worst offensive, his plan for Albanian genocide, which began at the end of February 1998.

Ibrahim Rugova should have seen what was coming, when Bosnia was attacked in the early 1990s. He should have used the international prominence that the Civic League had gained for him, and prepared the Kosovar Albanians for what lay ahead, but he did not. Instead, we have the Kosova Liberation Army (UCK) to thank for coming to the defense of the Albanian people. I believe that Rugova made a terrible mistake by not supporting UCK, and for a time his actions threatened the defense of the civilian population in Kosova and caused great confusion in the United States.

But since NATO drove out the Serbian army, there is a new era of democracy in Kosova, and Albanians hold the keys to their future. Shirley and I made our fourth trip to Kosova since the end of the war on October 25, 2000, to observe the election process and then report back to Congressman Ben Gilman. The U.S. Congress was worried that there might be a repetition of what had happened in the elections in Albania on October 1, 2000, where there were many complaints about voter manipulation. This is why Shirley and I went to observe the elections in Kosova, and we were delighted to report back to Congressman Gilman, as chairman of the House International Relations Committee, that

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the elections in Kosova were conducted according to the highest Western standards and with massive voter participation. The lack of violence before and during the local elections in Kosova demonstrated to the world how mature Kosovar Albanians are and that they deserve independence. I am convinced that these first elections will produce good leaders. What also impressed me was that there were many candidates to choose from. It is good that voters had many qualified people from which to choose as their local leaders. This was a great election for Kosova, and it earned the respect and admiration of many world leaders.

Zeri: The Serbs have said that you are the cause of all the problems that Serbia has with the United States. In what ways have the Serbs tried to stop your activities in the United States?

I HAVE SAID THAT I WILL NEVER COMPROMISE THE INDEPENDENCE OF KOSOVA AND THE ALBANIAN NATIONAL CAUSE….

DioGuardi: Milosevic’s barbaric actions caused Serbia to lose any respect it may have had in the United States. Americans saw what the Serbs did to innocent Bosnian and Albanian civilians. When the world saw what Milosevic did to maintain his power, the Serbs lost many of their friends around the world. Among those who did not abandon the Serbs were people from the Greek lobby in the United States. There has been a kind of pan-Orthodox partnership among the Serbs, Russians, and Greeks. The Greek lobby in Washington was powerful under the Clinton administration, and they tried to create misinformation and confusion about Albanians concerns and interests. There are at least a dozen Greek Americans in the U.S. Congress, and, until a few years ago, Helen Bentley, a Serb-American, was a member of the House of Representatives. The Greeks, Serbs, and Russians created problems for us. They spread the propaganda that DioGuardi was a radical and that he exaggerates everything. In this way, they tried, and continue to try, to put obstacles in our way. (It is interesting to note that while the Greek lobby was telling the State Department that I was a radical who threatened the prospects for peace in the Balkans, they were saying nice things about Ibrahim Rugova. They referred to him approvingly as a "moderate" leader, since he had never used the word "independence," only the word "self-determination"—which many of us felt was a code word for "autonomy.")

The Albanian people want their independence, and the Civic League will never compromise the issue of independence for Kosova. This fact has always disturbed the Greeks and their allies, because they want to dominate and control the Albanian people in the Balkans. This is why they support the Socialist government and helped to remove the democratic regime of Dr. Sali Berisha. Just after Berisha made it clear that he was going to support the independence of Kosova, the Greek lobby in the United States brought Gramoz Pashko to work with them in Washington to overthrow the Berisha government.

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They managed to convince the State Department that Berisha was a person who could not be kept under control. Thus, with the help of their friend Fatos Nano, who was also the leader of the Socialist Party in Albania, they were able to create a puppet government in Albania. I am afraid that Greece still wants to use its influence to keep Kosova under Serbia. This is why the Civic League must work harder than ever before.

Now, I would also like to mention something unfortunate, which may even shock you. In the United States, there are some Albanians who can be easily influenced by our adversaries, whether through ignorance or for personal gain. This is why during the first ten years of the existence of the Civic League we had people who left the organization. The Civic League is an independent voice for the Albanian national cause. We do not represent the concerns of political parties; we represent the concerns of the Albanian people.

Zeri: You registered the Albanian American Civic League as a lobby in Washington in 1989. What was the League when it was formed, and what is it now?

DioGuardi: In 1989, our agenda was 100 percent devoted to Kosova, because this was

the main Albanian problem, and Kosova was being turned into a nightmare before our eyes. During these early years, we managed to educate the U.S. Congress and the media about the brutal occupation of Kosova by Serbia’s Communist regime led by Slobodan Milosevic. Later, working with Shirley, we convinced more and more people about the righteousness of our cause in Kosova, especially during the NATO bombing campaign. Today, the Civic League has a broad agenda, encompassing all Albanian issues. Nevertheless, Kosova remains a priority for us, because we believe that its independence is the solution to all of the national problems that Albanians face outside of Kosova as well.

On our Civic League membership cards, you will see the Albanian eagle positioned on top of all ethnic Albanian lands--Kososva, southeast Montenegro, western Macedonia, northern Greece (Chameria), southern Serbia (Presheva, Medvegja, and Bujanoc), and Albania—the regions where Albanians live side by side. Because of Serbian and Greek propaganda, most people do not know anything about the unjust political division of seven million Albanians in the Balkans, which placed 3.5 million Albanians inside the State of Albania and 3.5 million outside.

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The Civic League’s membership card drives the Greek and Serbian chauvinists crazy. They send threatening and defamatory letters, and they accuse us of supporting a "Greater Albania." Our response has been that we fight for the human and national rights of all Albanians, who are one nation and one people, even though they do not live, and may never live again, in the same state. Even Pope John Paul II supported this view. On the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations, he said that the UN had accomplished a great deal on behalf of individual rights in the half century since its founding, but he then urged the UN to do the same for the rights of nations. He did not use the word "state," but "nations." This is why seven million Albanians in the Balkans must be respected as one nation of people and, to insure this, Kosova must become independent. Without the guarantee of statehood for Kosova, there will always be problems for Albanians all over the Balkans.

On the front of the Civic League membership card you will find the Albanian eagle on one side and the American eagle on the other, symbolizing the partnership between Albanians and the United States. This partnership needs to be made even stronger than it already is. Ever since President Woodrow Wilson protected the nation of Albania from dismemberment at the hands of the socalled Great Powers, U.S. foreign policy has shown Albanians that they can only trust Americans. So, to conclude on this question, the Civic League started out as a lobby for Kosova and then became a lobby for all Albanians in the Balkans.

DioGuardi: When Shirley and I returned to Kosova after the war, in August 1999, it was almost ten years since my first trip with Tom Lantos. I immediately noticed very great changes. In 1990, the Serbian armed forces and special police were present everywhere. Tom Lantos and I were shocked when we saw how people were beaten in front of our eyes for simply trying to congregate in order to hear us speak. In 1999, Shirley and I saw all of the destruction and devastation wrought by the Serb army and paramilitaries, and we knew that at least ten thousand people had been killed and thousands more were still missing. But we also saw the smiles on the faces of all who had returned and we saw the determination to rebuild Kosova as quickly as possible.

We made two more trips to Kosova at the end of 1999, in October and November. Now, a year later, we are here again, and we see great improvements. Most of the badly damaged homes have been reconstructed, not by the UN, but by Albanians themselves.

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As I said earlier, we have observed the municipal elections, and we are impressed by how well the process functioned.

While the difference between 1990 and the present is very significant, we should not forget how much the Albanian people suffered during the occupation. Not only were innocent people killed, but all of their jobs were taken from them and given to Serbs. Many were imprisoned, and most families did not know how they would survive from day to day and whom they could trust. These were terrible years, and only the great will power and positive energy of the Kosovars enabled them to survive. It is obvious to me that while fifty years of communism weakened the spirit of the Albanian people in Albania, the Albanians of Kosova maintained their individual and national spirit and optimism. This is why an independent Kosova is necessary even for Albania, which needs its national spirit reenergized, its economy strengthened, and its people put on the road to western-style democracy once and for all. A free, democratic, and independent Kosova will accomplish this.

DioGuardi: In the early years, every resolution and Congressional action met with difficulty, because Congresswoman Helen Bentley worked hard to block them. This forced us to think strategically in order to pass resolutions and to arrange hearings. Thanks to great friends, like Senator Bob Dole and Congressmen Ben Gilman and Tom Lantos, we succeeded on many occasions, and also in spite of the U.S. State Department opposition to any official actions in relation to Kosova.

The Bush and Clinton administrations made great mistakes under Secretaries of State Baker and Eagleburger and Assistant Secretary of State Holbrooke. It was a signal from James Baker in 1991 that Milosevic took as a green light to do whatever he liked to keep Yugoslavia alive. Later, in 1995, it was a signal from Richard Holbrooke, who brought Milosevic to the negotiating table at Dayton without any Albanian representation, which brought about the war in Kosova. And this is why the Albanian American Civic League, along with thousands of Albanians, demonstrated in front of Holbrooke’s offices in New York, saying to him, "You are becoming a new Neville Chamberlain. You say that there is peace, but there is none for Albanians, and now you have made an agreement with the devil, Slobodan Milosevic." Under these circumstances, with the State Department trying at all costs to keep Yugoslavia together, it became very difficult to pass resolutions in Congress in support of Kosova’s right to self-determination and independence from Serbia.

But, why were the resolutions important, even though they did not pass and did not guarantee anything for Albanians? Because each time we introduced a Congressional

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Resolution, it gave us an opportunity to put the facts and our appeals for justice on paper, and to show the State Department that the Congress was watching its activity. The U.S. government is great, because the executive and the legislative branches balance each other. And since the legislative branch controls the funds for the State Department and has oversight responsibility for its activities, this puts pressure on the State Department and other executive branch officials to respond more favorably to Congressional action pushed by our Civic League.

DioGuardi: Knowing how power works in Washington, I knew that if I complained directly to the State Department about the plight of Albanians in the Balkans without the support of key congressmen, they would never believe me. Instead, they would listen to the Greek lobby and their powerful friends, like Henry Kissinger and Lawrence Eagleburger, who knew Milosevic from the time he was a banker in Belgrade. So it was necessary to get the attention of the State Department through our Jewish American friends in and outside of Congress. There are thirty-four Jewish members of the House and Senate, and it was necessary to enlist their help by demonstrating to them that Albanians were their friends and protectors during World War II, when Albania was the only occupied country that saved its own Jewish population and every Jew who fled there. Albania was the only country where not a single Jew was surrendered to the Nazis, and it was the only country in Europe that had more Jews after the war than before it. We did this by distributing ten thousand copies of Rescue in Albania, which was written by Harvey Sarner, a Jewish American philanthropist, and prepared from information received by Congressman Lantos and me on our trip to Albania in 1990. Lantos and another great Jewish American congressman, Ben Gilman, wrote forewords to the book at the request of the Civic League. This book had a lot to do with bringing the Jewish lobby on our side.

We also distributed "The Expulsion of the Albanians" by Vaso Cubrilovic, a paper that was published in Belgrade in 1937, two years before the Nazis issued the memorandum on the "final solution" for exterminating European Jewry. It outlined a plan for ridding Kosova of its Albanian majority through mass expulsion and extermination. With the Jewish community on our side, the Civic League gained great impetus in our fight against the complicity of the State Department, which, in the early 1990s, wanted to cover up what was really going on in Bosnia and Kosova.

DioGuardi: When I went to Kosova for the first time in November 1989, there were no political parties. There was a movement for democracy, and Dr. Rugova was leading the Albanian people of Kosova in their struggle against communism. Hundreds of thousands of Albanians were encouraged to burn their Communist party membership cards in huge bonfires after the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989. When I met Rugova in his office by the soccer stadium in Prishtina, he was not representing a party. He was a leader for democracy, and this is why we supported him and invited him to Washington and New York in April 1990.

I remember that in late 1990, Ali Aliu, Alush Gashi, and other Kosovars came to the United States and Canada to create branches of LDK, but they did not discuss this with me. They did this behind my back, using the connections that they had gotten through the Civic League. I had brought Ali Aliu to Chicago in June 1990, and months later my supporters there told me that he was speaking against supporting the Albanian American Civic League, saying that Albanians did not need the Civic League anymore, because they now had their own political party and should work to strengthen LDK. "Joe, they are trying to replace our lobby with a Party from Kosova," my friends told me. But, regrettably, I didn’t believe them, until 1992, when Alush Gashi and some members of the Civic League Board of Directors told me that I should resign as president and that LDK would then pay me to be the voice of the Party in Washington. I was so angry at this suggestion that I cursed these betrayers of the Albanian lobby and abruptly left them sitting at a table in Bruno’s restaurant in New York City. (Several members of the Civic League Board resigned at this time in order to spend their time and money supporting LDK, which served their personal interests in the United States and their captive families in Kosova. Later they established a competing group called the National Albanian American Council.)

This brings up the question that some people have asked about why some of the original Civic League Board members quit supporting Joe DioGuardi. One reason this happened is that some of Rugova’s people convinced them that LDK was more important than the Civic League. I told them that if they wanted to create political parties, they were free to do so, but that they still needed a strong lobby in the United States. I said further that political parties belonged in Kosova, not in the United States, and that the Civic League belonged in America and should be supported here, not interfered with. But LDK opportunists and careerists were more interested in maintaining their positions in the Party and in raising money for LDK than in creating a strong international voice for Kosova.

The consequences of this divisive behavior in America were revealed later. Had LDK worked with me to strengthen our Albanian lobby in Washington, I am convinced that Milosevic would have been stopped before the Dayton Accords allowed him to believe that he could get away with genocide in Kosova, as he already had in Bosnia. I truly believe that Rugova and other LDK officials made a big mistake in abandoning the Civic

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League, after the League had spent so much time and money to bring them to the United States, to open up doors in Congress, and to organize contacts with so many influential people in Washington. They were naïve to think that I was simply going to resign and to turn over the lobby to people who pretended to speak for Kosova, but who were only acting out of their self-interest.

While I did not tell Albanian Americans to abandon LDK, I told them not to forget to support the Civic League. But many LDK supporters in America did not understand that they needed to back the lobby for things that LDK was not qualified to do, especially in Washington, where I, as a former U.S. congressman could, did, and still do accomplish a lot for Kosova.

Albanians from Macedonia initially followed the same pattern in America with the encouragement of LDK. But later they solved the problem by eliminating the U.S. branches of PDP. Arben Xhaferi came to America in February1995 with Iljaz Halimi, Ismet Ramadani, and Fadil Sulejmani, and together they signed a statement that branches of political parties and other associations from Macedonia would be disbanded in the United States. This left only LDK with branches in America. Today LDK is very weak, because its failure to back the Kosova Liberation Army leading up to and during the NATO war alienated many of its former members and supporters. When the LDK leadership realized too late that they were losing support to UCK, they abandoned the organization and reemerged on the Board of the National Albanian American Council. This is why many Albanians refer to NAAC-LDK as one entity. (You can easily see for yourself by comparing the current Board of the National Albanian American Council with the list of former leaders and key financial supporters of LDK—it’s almost the same!)

DioGuardi: Albanians from six Balkan political jurisdictions (Albania, Kosova, Macedonia, Montenegro, Presheva, and Chameria) live in the United States and they each have their own thoughts about what they think is the best way to politically represent their families in the Balkans. This is why it is very difficult to create a united voice for Albanians in America. We still have problems with Albanian officials coming to America as representatives of Kosovar and Albanian political parties that do not work with our lobby in Washington. They have even tried to create another lobby by putting some people in Washington as paid agents. But this only serves to confuse U.S. officials and to weaken our voice for Kosova, in particular. Before the NATO war, this allowed some State Department officials, such as Richard Holbrooke, to think that Albanians would accept "substantial autonomy" instead of independence, which the Civic League had been calling for since 1989. We have never compromised on the sovereign status of Kosova.

DioGuardi: Yes, I am. I do not know what the National Albanian American Council actually tells the State Department, but, before the war, they led the State Department to believe that they could count on some Albanians to settle for something less than full independence for Kosova from Serbia. This follows in the footsteps of the LDK representatives who frequently came to Washington before the war, but who never asked for independence. Needless to say, this represents a big problem for the Albanian national cause. For this reason, we do not cooperate with NAAC, and also because they were formed with the expressed purpose of undermining our lobby—a goal that they will never achieve because we have friends in Washington and many supporters in America and around the world.

The other problem is that NAAC represents people from Albania who support Fatos Nano, someone that I could never support. He is not only against the independence of Kosova, but he is a puppet for Greek foreign policy for Albanians in Kosova, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Presheva, and Chameria. Some of the NAAC Board members are wealthy businessmen who support the Nano government because they want to protect their properties in Albania and have no problem supporting the former Communists. This conflict complicates our work and, together with Shirley Cloyes, I have had to redouble our efforts in Washington and in seeking support throughout the United States. Shirley and I are not paid; we are volunteers. But we collect money to fund the activities of the lobby in New York and Washington. The Civic League has many independent-thinking supporters who will never support the Nano government in Albania and who will never abandon independence for Kosova. I hope that, after the November 2001 elections in Kosova, Albanian leaders will be wise enough to sit down and decide that the Civic League—led by a former U.S. congressman with Albanian blood, and his wife, a writer and former publisher, both of whom work incessantly as volunteers for the Albanian national cause—is the best voice for Kosova in Washington.

DioGuardi: Unfortunately, with Milosevic, there was no other solution than war. And, thanks to the KLA, a defensive force of freedom fighters, the Albanians of Kosova had an army that protected the people, their lives, and their property. The United States acted the same way during the American Revolution. The bottom line is that if you do not stand up for your freedom, nobody is going to give it to you.

I had always thought that a war in Kosova would take place, because Milosevic was on a quest for "Greater Serbia," while he was accusing Albanians of planning for a "Greater Albania." But Albanians did not have the power to create a Greater Albania. They did not have a big army, or an atomic bomb. But Milosevic’s propaganda misled the Serbian

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people, and he proceeded to wage war for ten years across the Balkans. If there had been no war in Kosova, Holbrooke would probably have gotten away with making a false peace with Milosevic in October 1998. (This was when he made the flimsy "October agreement" with Milosevic, which allowed international monitors into Kosova and mandated the withdrawal of Serbian military forces--something that Milosevic never intended to do.) This one-sided agreement, if implemented, would have been the beginning of the end for the Albanian national cause, because Kosova would then never have had the chance to become independent.

Shirley and I went to Rambouillet in February 1999 to tell Hashim Thaci not to sign the agreement. We believed in what Adem Demaci said at that time—that if Albanian leaders signed a paper that said the Kosova was a part of Serbia, it would be used against them in the future. As it turned out, Milosevic refused to sign the agreement anyway, and this garnered world sympathy and U.S. support for Kosovar Albanians, leading to a new opportunity to achieve freedom for Kosova. Today, we must work hard to convince the international community, especially the United States, that without independence, there will never be peace and stability in the Balkans, and Europe will be constantly in turmoil as a result.

DioGuardi: I was very concerned that air attacks would kill a lot of innocent civilians. President Clinton did a good job in ordering air strikes, but history will show that he was reluctant to do it and that he waited too long. The United States should have confronted Milosevic earlier in Bosnia. But Clinton looked the other way when more than 300,000 Bosnians were killed, and he almost did the same in Kosova.

When the bombs started to fall against the Serbian forces invading Kosova, we witnessed the massive expulsion of the Albanian population, civilian massacres, and the wanton destruction of Kosovar Albanian homes and property. This is why we told President Clinton that if he was afraid of the political consequences of losing American soldiers, he should arm Albanian freedom fighters—the KLA. The U.S. government had secretly armed the Croatians, and this is why the Serbian military suffered damages in Bosnia and were driven out of the Krajina in September 1995. In June 1999, we got a Congressional Resolution sponsored in the House by Congressman Jim Traficant and the Senate by Senator Joseph Lieberman in support of arming the KLA, but a peace agreement was signed shortly thereafter that made this unnecessary. Perhaps Milosevic realized that the KLA was going to be armed and that General Wesley Clark was pushing hard to deploy the ground troops that were based in Macedonia and Albania. It is obvious to all now that conducting air strikes without deploying ground troops was a very inefficient way to stop the war. It led to the death of many innocent civilians, destroyed much property, and allowed Milosevic to displace almost a million people, creating one of the largest refugee

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crises since World War II.

DioGuardi: Having followed the elections in Kosova closely, I congratulate the Albanian people for their disciplined behavior and their respect for the rule of law. This demonstrates to the international community that Kosova is ready for a democratic society and for self-governance. Comparing the problems that I saw during the elections in Albania, Serbia, Macedonia, and other Balkan countries, the Albanians of Kosova deserve great praise for their peaceful participation in the local election process in October 2000.

Shirley and I have followed the campaigns of the major political parties, in particular, and they all realize that democratic elections are the starting point to the process of self-government and, ultimately, statehood. We would like to see leaders who are ready to demonstrate to the world that Albanians in Kosova are ready to solve problems, such as security, unemployment, sanitation, environmental pollution, crime, and corruption. This will speed up the process of democratizing Kosova and then of solidifying international support for the independence of Kosova.

DioGuardi: Every election in the United States is important, because of America’s huge impact on world developments. Though the Republicans have a small advantage, the result will be very close and cannot be predicted. The good news is that Albanians have friends on both sides of the political spectrum. Whoever becomes the president and the vice president of the Untied States, Shirley and I will go to Washington to continue to lobby the White House and the Congress for the independence of Kosova. And we must demonstrate that it will be in the self-interest of the United States to support the independence of Kosova, because the United States has even greater, more intractable, problems in the Middle East, China, and Africa. Since Albanians have demonstrated that they understand democracy and trust America, and that they are prepared to create a democratic Kosova, the United States should support the independence of Kosova as the key to peace and stability in the Balkans and, therefore, in Europe.

Zeri: Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, you have greatly helped the Albanian American Civic League in its commitment to the Albanian national cause. Was this a sacrifice on your part?

Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi: Joe and I have been a team since we met at the end of 1993. One might say that we have sacrificed a lot, but this was our decision. It has been a privilege to work on bringing peace with justice to all Albanians in the Balkans, and especially because the resolution of the Albanian national cause, in my opinion, will determine the future for all of us, Albanian and non-Albanian alike.

The reason that Joe DioGuardi and I met was that I was the first book publisher in the United States to publish a book on the former Yugoslavia from the perspective of the anti-Milosevic forces inside the Balkans. At that time, people in the United States knew very little about Kosova. And, then, the information that they got was mostly from the British academy. This was the case because, for fifty years, Albania was isolated under Enver Hoxha, while Kosova was under the rule of Josip Tito. Throughout this period, the Slavs dominated the academy and the media in the United States and Western Europe. They had numerous people studying in America, working the in the media, and working against Albanians in Washington. Meanwhile, senior U.S. officials, such as Secretaries of State James Baker and Lawrence Eagleburger had many contacts with Belgrade, and this is why there was little understanding of the Albanian reality. In fact, the Albanian reality was hidden, and, as a result, it was easy for Milosevic to rise to power in 1987 on a political platform of anti-Albanian racism.

When the war started and escalated in Bosnia, I was one of the main publishers of books on domestic and foreign policy in the United States. I, along with many Americans, watched in horror as images of atrocities from Bosnia-Hercegovina flashed across my television screen. But then, day after day, week after week, month after month, as the images multiplied on the screen, so too did the rationalizations from the U.S. government for its inaction. And my shock mounted when I suddenly realized that nothing was being done to stop the carnage inside the former Yugoslavia, that nothing was going to be done, and that in effect all of us were being forced to become complicit in it.

We were witnessing unspeakable acts of violence and then being told that this was "not our war," that there was nothing we could do about it, that it was a potential "quagmire" into which we would only venture at our peril, and that we could not possibly understand an outbreak of savagery that was rooted in "ancient hatreds." But, I responded that, "No, this is our war," and that if we did not stop Milosevic now, he would become a new

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Hitler. I believe strongly that we cannot take democracy and freedom for granted, that each generation has to wage the fight against fascism and ultranationalism. This is why I decided to publish a book that would enable Americans to understand the Balkan conflict from the perspective of the anti-Milosevic forces inside the former Yugoslavia.

The book included authors who were resisting Milosevic from Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, and Macedonia. When I met Joe, he criticized me for not including any Albanian author in the book. It was through him and members of the Albanian American Civic League Board that I became educated about the Albanian dimension of the Balkan conflict. And, then, as is so often the case when an outsider comes in to a particular situation, he or she can cast a new light on it. Before I knew anything about the history of the Albanian national question, I grasped its import, and I came to call the Albanian nation "the largest divided nation in Europe and the largest invisible minority in the United States."

Cloyes DioGuardi: It is a fact that the majority of the great problems in Kosova have not been resolved. But, this has very little to do with the Albanians of Kosova, because this must be solved, at least in the beginning, by the international community. The Kosovars, with their education, energy, and personal sacrifice have made a lot of progress in postwar Kosova. But, today, it is the obligation of the UN to administer Kosova and to solve the problems that are affecting daily life in Kosova. Let us take, for example, the Trepca mines and the fact that Mitrovice is still partitioned. During the war, Joe and I were the first spokespeople to mention the significance of the Trepca mines on CNN, Fox-TV, BBC, and other networks. Many commentators were asking at that time why Milosevic was so interested in Kosova. And we responded that, while Kuwait had oil, Kosova had incredible mineral deposits, including the chromium, gold, silver, and coal, in Trepca.

Then, there is the problem of the Serbian war criminals. We witnessed NATO withdrawing its military forces from Serbia and Kosova without insisting that the indicted Serbian war criminals be apprehended and extradicted to The Hague. Over and over, on internationally televised broadcasts, Joe and I said that there would be no solution in Kosova, if Milosevic and other indicted war criminals were not brought to justice in the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.

Equally important is the unresolved issue of the Albanian prisoners of war, who were illegally brought to Serbia at the end of the war, in violation of the Geneva Conventions. The U.S. government, regrettably, dropped from the Kumanova agreement that ended

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the war the provision that would have guaranteed the release of the Albanian POWs. This is why we demanded that the Clinton administration talk about this issue, especially to the Russians. While Bernard Kouchner did the right thing when he asked Serbian President Kostunica to immediately release the Albanian prisoners in Serbian jails, unfortunately, other countries, such as Greece and France, failed to support his demand.

Finally, I am pleased that much progress has been made in Kosova, but the progress would have been much greater if the UN Mission were replaced by an Albanian administration and retained only a supervisory role. Without a homegrown Albanian administration, we will always have major problems in Kosova. If we want real peace in the Balkans and in Europe, then we must continue to press the West for the independence of Kosova. We should not delay the resolution of the final status of Kosova, as the world has done with the Palestinian issue with predictable and devastating consequences. Joe and I have often reminded Washington that if the independence of Kosova is not recognized, a fifth Balkan war could be triggered. The latter can be avoided through intensive U.S. diplomatic intervention now, and this will require the Albanian American Civic League to continue its lobbying and media activities in Washington and around the world.

Note: Please visit the Albanian American Civic League website (www.aacl.com) for more information about the work of Congressman Joe DioGuardi, from 1985 to 1989, and the work of the Albanian American Civic League from 1989 to the present.

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