STROGO POVERLJIVI IZVEŠTAJI MINISTRA SPOLJNIH POSLOVA ALBANIJE O POLITIČKOJ SITUACIJI U JUGOSLAVIJI I NA KOSOVU I METOHIJI 1966–1968.

Abstract

Strictly confidential reports from the Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs add a new dimension to events in Serbia and Yugoslavia in the second half of the 1960s. According to their content, the strengthening of the autonomy of Kosovo and Metohija was the result of a change in the balance of power at the top of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia after the Brioni Plenum in 1966. Leading Croatian and Slovenian officials held the majority of the party’s control. According to the reports, party leaders Vladimir Bakarić and Edvard Kardelj intended to disintegrate Yugoslavia and allow Croatia and Slovenia to gain independence, and the League of Communists of Yugoslavia’s Kosovo policy was a key component of that strategy. Leader of Kosovo Albanians Fadilj Hoxha gained complete control of the province’s party, judicial, and security apparatuses thanks to the political support he received from Broz, Kardelj, and Bakarić. Reports also confirm the emergence of mass emigration of Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija, owing to threatened security and ethnically motivated persecution from the province’s companies and institutions. The Albanian population in Kosovo and Metohija developed national euphoria as a result of the new circumstances, which was reflected in public demands for the province’s separation from Serbia, the use of the Albanian flag in state institutions, and the establishment of a special official status for the Albanian language in the province. According to the report, the German intelligence service aimed at the secession of Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia and Yugoslavia and the establishment of another Albanian state in the Balkans.

Keywords

• albania
• yugoslavia
• kosovo and metohija
• enver hoxha
• nesti nase