Balkan Repository Project - ALBANIA AND TERRORISM IN KOSOVO AND METOHIJA

ALBANIA AND TERRORISM IN KOSOVO AND METOHIJA

1. The so-called Kosovo Liberation Army includes about 1,000 foreign mercenaries from Albania, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Muslims) and Croatia. Among the mercenaries there also British and German instructors. Most of these mercenaries are Albanian nationals, especially former Albanian army officers, policemen and members of the state security forces. Foreign mercenaries, that is, ordinary fighters, are paid 1,000-5,000 DEM a month, while instructors receive up to 30,000 DEM.

2. The foreign mercenaries, who joined the terrorists, are supplied by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army with false identity cards with Albanian names in order to hide their true identity in case they are captured or killed.

3. In the last two months, the terrorists in Kosovo and Metohija were joined - by secret channels via Albania - by about 300 former members of the terrorist groups within the Muslim army of Bosnia and Herzegovina(e.g. �Mosque Pidgeons�, �Black Swans and �Yellow Wasps�) who, before being sent to Kosovo and Metohija, receive military- terrorist training on Mount Majevica. In conflicts with members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kosovo and Metohija, a certain number of members of the �Black Swan� was killed, including Nermin (Ragib) Jukic from the village of Gornja Brka near Brcko.

4. From the document found on the terrorist Alija Rabic from the village of Crnovljevo, the Municipality of Presevo, who was killed on 18 July, 1998, during the terrorist attack on the Yugoslav border authorities at border post ��eravica�, it can be seen that he belonged to the group of about 50 terrorists who tried to enter the FR of Yugoslavia illegally from Germany, via Bari, Durres and Tropoja. The document also shows that among the terrorists there were 16 foreign mercenaries from Saudi Arabia (six of them had passports with the names of Macedonian Albanians) and one from Yemen.

5. In Albania, there is a number of Arab firms which, under the pretext of performing business activities, organize the transfer of the mujahedin from Arab countries, Transcaucasia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to Albania. After coming to Albania, foreign mercenaries are trained in camps, which are located near the Yugoslav border (Tropoja, Bajram Curri and Has), and from there they are transferred to Kosovo and Metohija to join the Albanian terrorists.

6. The leaders of the Albanian separatist movement in Kosovo and Metohija state in public that their aim is the secession of Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia and Yugoslavia, within the scope of their national-political aspirations for the creation of a �Greater Albania�. The state of �all Albanians in the Balkans� would also include parts of Montenegro, the Republic of Macedonia and Greece, which gravitate towards the �mother country�, Albania, and are mostly populated by the Albanians.

7. The strategy of the Albanian separatists was formulated as early as the 1960s and it anticipates the achievement of this aim through three phases: the formation of separatist organizations, attainment of massive participation in the �movement� and taking of armed actions. Due to the evaluation that all political means of their struggle for secession have been exhausted, the so-called third phase of struggle has been activated, resulting in the emergence of the �Kosovo Liberation Army� and the intensification of its activities.

8. The organization was formed in 1993 on the initiative of the �Kosovo National Movement� (Levizia Popullore e Kosoves) during the transformation of the organization whose roots go back to the early 1960s.

9. The KLA appeared for the first time in public in June 1996, assuming full reponsibility for a series of acts of sabotage committed against the police stations and policemen in Kosovo and Metohija.

10. At the beginning, members of the KLA were recruited in secret, mostly in the Albanian clubs in Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Sweden and other West European countries. Terrorist training was organized mostly in the abandoned NATO bases (Hechingen near T�bingen, �Kaltei� barracks near N�rnberg, the barracks in Hannover, Bonn and Frankfurt) in some camps for asylum seekers (Singen in Germany, Traiskirchen in Austria), as well as in private paramilitary camps, at rifle ranges and in martial arts clubs (especially in Switzerland).

11. Training consists of three parts: learning the strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare, handling and shooting from semiautomatic and automatic weapons, exercises, specific military training and training in martial arts.

12. Instructors are military experts of the German, American, British, French and Italian armies within the NATO forces, former officers of the Yugoslav People's Army, former Yugoslav policemen of Albanian nationality and reputed athletes.

13. Specialist military training of the commanding staff was also carried out in Turkey where, in the barracks at �ekmese, the pilots of the future �Kosovo army� were trained as well. This is also where the candidates from among the Macedonian Albanians were trained.

14. Terrorist training of the Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija was also organized in the Republic of Albania, in the Albanian army barracks in Durres, Daiti, Labinot and other towns, where the groups of 500 asylum grantees each were coming from Western Europe, in addition to smaller groups of Yugoslav Albanians. Training was conducted within �official� cooperation between the Albanian Ministry of Defence and the illegal �Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Kosovo�, and its details were agreed through direct contacts between the Albanian Minister Safet Zhulalli and Haizer Haizeraj from Pristina, who was secretly appointed by Ibrahim Rugova as �Kosovo Minister of Defence�.

15. The instructors in these centres are the Albanian army officers. It has been confirmed that some of them directly participated in terrorist actions in Kosovo and Metohija in the course of 1996 nd 1997.

16. Training and the acquisition of weapons and equipment are financed out of the �Fund of the Government of the Republic of Kosovo�. Authorized for the disposal of the assets of this fund are �Premier� Bujar Bukoshi and �Finance Minister� Isa Mustafa.

17. The KLA set up a special fund - �Homeland Calling� - which has branches throughout Europe and the United States. Their contact addresses and phones are regularly published in �Zeri e Kosoves� (�The Voice of Kosovo�), the organ of the extremist organization �Kosovo National Movement�, which is printed at Aarau in Switzerland.

18. The central leadership of the �Kosovo Liberation Army� is abroad and consists of the extremists holding the highest positions in the �Kosovo National Movement� in Switzerland and Germany. The operational leadership of the organization is in Kosovo and Metohija. It coordinates the activities of the central leadership and operations zones, whose centres are Decani, Pe}, Srbica, Jablanica, Malisevo and Prizren.

19. In the organizational structure of the KLA, the territory of the Republic of Macedonia represents a separate operations zone. In this zone, in Gostivar, Prilep and Kumanovo, in December 1997 and January 1998, the Albanian terrorists planted explosive devices in order to frighten the non-Albanian population and induce it to move out, thus creating an ethnically homogeneous Albanian territory.

20. In the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, the population is forcefully recruited for the KLA �units� according to the principle - one representative of each family. The persons who do not have their own weapons, are issued new submachine guns or semiautomatic rifles and pistols, brought illegally from Albania.

21. Appointed to the so-called �team of advisers� for the talks with the Serbian side (which is also called the �Group of 15�) are Rugova's tested supporters (Fehmi Agani, Edita Tahiri), intra-party �opposition� (Hydajet Hyseni, Bujar Bukoshi) and representatives of other significant Albanian political parties (Adem Demaqi, Mark Krasniqi), politicians from the former, socialist period (Mahmut Bakalli, Pajazit Nushi), so-called independent intellectuals (Veton Surroi, Shk�lzen Maliqi), as well as the student representative (Bujar Dugolli). The radical current in the separatist movement in Kosovo and Metohija is represented by the leader of the Kosovo Parliamentary Party, Adem Demaqi, who is a renowned activist of the �Kosovo National Movement�, due to which he was sentenced to a perennial prison term.

22. At the intra-party elections in the LDK, the radical current won a relative majority in its leading bodies, which led to pressures on Ibrahim Rugova to convene, at all costs, a constituent session of the illegal �Parliament of the Republic of Kosovo�, to hold single- national Albanian parliamentary and presidential elections, and even to incite an uprising of the Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija against Serbia.

23. Rugova gave in to radical pressures only to the extent being necessary for maintaning a reputation among the compatriots. Such a concession was the scheduling of illegal Albanian elections in Kosovo and Metohija, which were held on 23 March, 1998, with political support of the United States and some European countries, from which Rugova's major rivals abstained, i.e. the Parliamentary, Social- Democratic and other parties, as well as so-called independent leaders.

24. According to the report of the illegal �Kosovo Republican Polling Committee�, 10 political parties, 3 associations and 3 independent candidates took part in the Albanian paraelections, and the turnout was 85.4%. As the only �presidential� candidate, Ibrahim Rugova ostensibly received about 98% of vote. The opponents of the LDK regard these elections as irregular and undemocratic due to a greater number of so-called procedural omissions and evidently �rigged� results.

25. Since the 1970s, the terrorists, who took part in a series of terrorist acts against the Yugoslav diplomatic-consular and trade missions, have been selected, trained and recruited from among the Albanian �migr�s from Kosovo and Metohija, with the support of some intelligence circles in Albania. In a number of these attacks there were victims among the official Yugoslav representatives. Thus, in August 1981 and July 1990, the Albanian extremists broke into the Yugoslav Embassy in Brussels, killing one Embassy employee and wounding two. After these attacks, the Belgian authorities did not take adequate measures against the Albanian terrorists.

26. The Government of the �Republic of Kosovo� in exile, which is headed by Dr Bujar Bukoshi, who has been granted asylum in Bonn, financed Sali Berisha's election campaign generously. In return, Berisha not only provided a strong diplomatic support to the secessionists but also announced the official recognition of the �Republic of Kosovo� as an independent territorial entity. Berisha also approved the opening of the bureau of the �Republic of Kosovo� in Tirane, as its paradiplomatic mission, with such powers with respect to the Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija which are officially accorded to consulates.

27. The editorial office of the Pristina newspaper "Rilindja" has been moved to Tirane.

28. Tirane TV broadcasts a satellite programme for the "Republic of Kosovo" which is financed by Bujar Bukoshi.

29. Tirane is the seat of "Dardania Banka" which invests the assets of the "Fund of the Government of the Republic of Kosovo", seated in Aachen, Germany. It should turn into the "National Bank of the Republic of Kosovo".

30. Soon after the announcement of the results of the pre-term elections in Albania, in the middle of 1998, all relevant representatives of the Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija, from Ibrahim Rugova, Bujar Bukoshi and Adem Demaqi to radical student leaders and extremists from the "Kosovo National Movement", established direct contact with the current Albanian President, Rexhep Meidani, Premier Fatos Nano and some members of the Government.

31. It has been confirmed that the terrorist groups infitltrate into the region of Kosovo under the control of members of the Albanian intelligence. Moreover, in each of these groups there is one member of this agency or the Albanian military intelligence.

32. The population of Albania does not sympathise much with their compatriots in Yugoslavia due, above all, to great economic differences between them, which is often the reason for the arrogant and aggressive behaviour of the Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija in Albania.

33. Considering its evident economic superiority, there is an assumption that the "Republic of Kosovo" would "annex" Albania without great difficulty. Such an assumption can also be felt in the statements of some separatist leaders (on Sarajevo TV, Azem Vlassi talked about "the state of all Albanians in the Balkans, with Pristina as its capital").

34. The activists of the Financial Committee, which operates within the Albanian para-governmental structures, collect a "tax" of 3% on total receipts from the employed Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija and abroad. From time to time, they organize concrete humanitarian activities (e.g. for "soldiers killed in action", for the families of terrorists serving a sentence and the like) and collect "voluntary" contributions for the population in Kosovo and Metohija, in addition to explicitly requesting money for the acquisition of weapons for terrorist acts.

35. In addition to the "Fund of the Government of the Republic of Kosovo" seated in Aachen and the "Homeland Calling" ("Zeri e adtheu") Fund seated in Switzerland, there is a greater number of humanitarian funds which are mostly registered under the name "Mother Theresa" and provide a sound financial basis for Albanian terrorism. There are indications that the mentioned funds are also used for "laundering money" from drug trafficking, in which a great number of the Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija is engaged, as well as from other highly profitable illegal activities.

36. According to some estimates, the so-called Albanian diaspora disposes of capital amounting to about 10 billion US dollars, but it does not want to invest it in development projects. Instead, it is prepared to invest half of this amount in the acquisition of weapons and armed conflicts for the secession of Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia.

37. The weapons of Albanian terrorists captured by the Serbian police show that they belonged to the Army of the Republic of Albania from whose depots they were most likely pilfered during the last year's riots. The appeal of the Albanian authorities to the population to return these weapons had almost no effect. It is estimated that 80 per cent of the pilfered weapons is already in the hands of the terrorists in Kosovo and Metohija.

38. It is assumed that about 95% of the Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija are Muslims, which is an essential cohesive factor of the population. Therefore, the Islamic Religious Community led by Rexhep Bojaj, tied itself to Rugova's party LDK and upholds the secession of Kosovo and Metohija openly.

39. In this connection, the Community enjoyed significant support from Alija Izetbegovi�'s Party of Democratic Action and the Muslim-Croat Federation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This political party set up its branch for Kosovo and Metohija and incited the separation of the regional Islamic Religious Community from the Yugoslav Federation of Islamic Religious Communities, thus imposing the incorporation of this religious community into the parastatal structure of the so-called Republic of Kosovo.

40. During the religious ceremonies, on the orders of Rexhep Bojaj, the Albanian khojas instruct the believers how to retain a high degree of ethnic homogeneity and influence their behaviour in concrete situations, such as the boycott of official elections and participation in the illegal Albanian elections, participation in anti-Serb demonstrations, payment of "tax" imposed on the population by the Albanian separatists and the like.

41. The arbitrarily separated Islamic Religious Community of Kosovo acts under a strong influence of the state authorities of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other Muslim countries.

42. The "Kosovo Information Centre" has been opened in Istanbul. This pseudodiplomatic mission of the "Republic of Kosovo" is run by Enver Tolaj. Through his mediation the members of the Islamic hierarchy are constantly sent to Kosovo and Metohija, as well as to Albania.

43. Large quantities of weapons and military equipment for the so- called KLA are stored in the border towns of the Republic of Albania, especially at Tropoja and Bajram Curri, from where they are illegally passed into to the territory of the FR of Yugoslavia.

One of the significant centres for the reception of terrorists and weapons is the family estate of the former Albanian President, Sali Berisha, located in the village of Vu�idol near Tropoja. The family houses have been turned into arms depots and the practice grounds for terrorists have also been set up.

In this place only, in the course of 1998, there were more than five thousand terrorists who, as "volunteers" from the West European countries, infiltrated into Kosovo and Metohija through Albania.

S. Berisha's family estate has been practically turned into a military camp, which is constantly guarded by uniformed members of the KLA. The reception of terrorists and weapons is organized with an active participation of the members of his family, his brother Sulejman Berisha and his close relative G�zim Berisha. Skender Meza, leader of the Democratic Party of Albania for the region of Tropoja, is also engaged in these activities.

The data have been taken from the press and electronic media in Belgrade, May-August 1998