The Emergence of the Kosovo “Parallel State,” 1988–19921

Besnik Pula

doi:10.1080/0090599042000296131

2. See, for instance, Susan Woodward, Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War (Washington: Brookings, 1995).Google Scholar

3. Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 13–22.CrossRef Google Scholar

4. For an example of an analysis of ethnic conflict based on models of strategic action see Roger Petersen, Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons from Eastern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). As the reader will notice, the approach taken in this paper does not preclude the possibility of strategic behavior; however, it assumes that such behavior can take place under particular institutional conditions—which must themselves be subject to historical analysis—and that its sphere of possibilities are limited by previously shaped identities and cultural repertoires.Google Scholar

5. For a summary see Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, “Toward an Integrated Perspective on Social Movements and Revolutions,” in Mark I. Lichbach and Alan S. Zuckerman, eds, Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and Structure (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).Google Scholar

6. See Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), especially pp. 71–80. The quote is from p. 18.CrossRef Google Scholar

7. McAdam et al., “Toward an Integrated Perspective on Social Movements and Revolutions,” p. 155.Google Scholar

8. See ibid.; Tarrow, Power in Movement. See also Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald, eds, Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 1–22. The component of the theoretical edifice that I do not embrace here is the largely social psychological approach to “framing,” or identity formation among members of collective movements. In Dynamics of Contention (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), D. McAdam, S. Tarrow, and C. Tilly make efforts to overcome this problem in the overall framework, but without great success in explicating the cultural and symbolic processes that go into identity construction. I prefer to think of identities themselves being historically embedded and emerging within contexts infused by power relations. For an alternative approach to framing see Marc Steinberg, “The Talk and Backtalk of Collective Action: A Dialogue Analysis of Repertoires and Discourse among 19th Century English Cotton Spinners,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 105, No. 3, 1999, pp. 736–780.Google Scholar

9. The parallel state carried on until the war of 1999; however, the political dynamics of parallelism between 1993 and 1999 are not the subject of this article.Google Scholar

10. In contemporary usage, the geographic term “Kosovo” (Albanian Kosova or Serbian Kosovo-Metohij) is used to refer to both a current and a historical entity. However, it is important to emphasize that Kosovo as a territorially bounded administrative unit emerged only in 1945. The advent of a regional government in Kosovo was a direct result of the federal territorial arrangements that emerged in post-1945 Yugoslavia ruled by the CPY.Google Scholar

11. Quoted in Radošin Rajović, Autonomija Kosovo: istorijsko-pravna studija (Belgrade: Ekonomika, 1985) p. 85.Google Scholar

12. It should be noted that the request for separation from the Communist Party of Montenegro was made at a time when the regional party for Kosovo was dominated by Montenegrins. See Branko Horvat, Kosovsko pitanje (Zagreb: Globus, 1988), p. 92.Google Scholar

13. Quoted in Michele Lee, “Kosovo between Yugoslavia and Albania,” New Left Review , No. 140, 1983, p. 77.Google Scholar

14. Quoted in ibid., p. 77.Google Scholar

15. Horvat, Kosovsko pitanje , p. 92; Lee, “Kosovo between Yugoslavia and Albania,” pp. 85–86. The boundaries were reportedly set on “ethnic and historic” criteria. It is clear that the criteria in the case of Kosovo were more or less arbitrary; Albanian-inhabited parts in Montenegro and western Macedonia were left outside of the frontiers, whereas historically the Ottoman province of Kosovo included large chunks of the Republic of Macedonia and the Sandjak region.Google Scholar

16. Immediately after the war, Kosovo was placed under military administration, to fight Albanian insurgents in the Drenica region and “reactionary elements” active in the province. The military administration was removed in 1946; however, various repressive measures continued to be exercised in Kosovo, with Albanians representing a particular target. An especially brutal episode was the so-called arms collection campaign of 1955–1956, in which hundreds of mostly Albanian homes were raided in the search for weapons. “Ethnic cleansing” was also attempted. During the 1950s, Tito's security chief, Aleksandar Ranković, made efforts to revive a 1938 treaty between Yugoslavia and Turkey to expel 40,000 Muslim (largely Albanian and Turkish) families from Kosovo and Macedonia to Turkey. See in particular Bojan Korsika, Srbija i Albanci: pregled politike Srbije prema Albancima od 1944. do 1989. godine, Vols 1–3 (Ljubljana: Casopis za kritiko znanosti, 1989). For an English translation of the text of the Yugoslav–Turkish agreement see Robert Elsie, Kosovo: In the Heart of the Powder Keg (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1997), pp. 425–434. According to the Kosovar demographer Hivzi Island, by 1966 around 230,000 Albanians had left Yugoslavia. For a discussion of the agreement between Ranković and Turkey see Hivzi Island, “Kërkimet antropogjeografike në Kosovë,” Gjurmime Albanologjike: Seria e Shkencave Historike (Pristana), Vol. 1, 1971, pp. 115–162.Google Scholar

17. The term Šiptar is now considered by Kosovo Albanians a derogatory name. In the 1950s and 1960s Belgrade made attempts to distinguish between Kosovo Albanians and Albanians of Albania, by calling the former Šiptari and the latter Albanci. This policy ended in the 1960s.Google Scholar

18. For a detailed discussion of Yugoslav federalism see Sabrina Ramet, Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia, 1962–1991 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

19. Elez Biberaj, “Kosovë: The Struggle for Recognition,” in The Albanian Problem in Yugoslavia: Two Views (London: Institute for the Study of Conflict, 1982), p. 33.Google Scholar

20. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy , pp. 50–57.Google Scholar

21. Dennison I. Rusinow, The Other Albania: Kosovo 1979, Part 1 (Hanover, NH: American Universities Field Staff, 1980), p. 10.Google Scholar

22. Patrick F. R. Artisien and R. A. Howells, “Yugoslavia, Albania and the Kosovo Riots,” World Today, Vol. 37, No. 11, 1981, pp. 421–422.Google Scholar

23. According to Yugoslav census counts taken in 1948 and 1981.Google Scholar

24. For instance, in 1974, out of the 128,000 employees of the state sector, 36% were Serb and Montenegrin, while nearly 39% of managerial positions were held by Serbs. Disproportionate Serb and Montenegrin representation was also evident in administration. Out of 251 presidents of administrative agencies, nearly 38% were Serbs and Montenegrins. See Biberaj, “The Conflict in Kosovo,” p. 46. According to statistical data from the 1980s, Kosovo Serbs were still employed in greater proportion to their population than Albanians, their income was higher, and they comprised a smaller percentage of the unemployed. While according to one survey Albanian households in 1989 had on average nine members with only one person permanently employed, Serb households had five members, out of which two had permanent jobs (see Slavko Gaber and Tonči Kuzmanić, eds, Zbornik: Kosovo —Srbija—Jugoslavija [Ljubljana: Krt, 1989], p. 288). Official employment data showed that in 1986, when Serbs and Montenegrins constituted less than 15% of the total population, they constituted 25% of the total employed workforce (see Rexhep Ismajli, “Albanski jezik u Jugoslaviji,” in Slavko Gaber and Tonči Kuzmanić, eds, Zbornik: Kosovo—Srbija—Jugoslavija [Ljubljana: Krt, 1989], p. 95). In 1981, in terms of per capita income, the income of Serbs was 24% greater than that of Albanians. Albanians were the poorest group in Yugoslavia and, after the Croats, the second poorest in Kosovo itself (based on data in Julie Mertus, Kosovo: How Myths and Truths Started a War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 24). In 1970, 1980, and 1981, the vast majority of the unemployed in Kosovo were Albanian. Out of those unemployed in the given years, on average 77% were Albanians, while 16% were Serbs (excluding Montenegrins). Montenegrins were the fewest among the unemployed, with an average of 2% for the years indicated (according to data in Mertus, op cit., p. 28).Google Scholar

25. Author's interview with Fadil Hoxha, Prishtina, July 2000. Hoxha was a leading figure in Kosovo's communist leadership and chaired the committee that drafted the proposals for constitutional amendments in 1968. Hoxha stated that his personal view at the time was that Yugoslavia was not prepared to accept Kosovo as a republic, and rather sought to gain republican powers for the province while maintaining its provincial status. Another Kosovar party leader who was involved in the discussions over Kosovo's status, Mahmut Bakalli, in an interview in 1995 stated that while the Kosovar leadership hoped to gain republic status, they were aware of the constraints. He notes that the stability of Yugoslavia was for them a greater concern than the desire to get republic status (see Momčilo Petrović, Pitao sam albance šta žele, a oni su rekli: republiku … ako može [Belgrade: Radio B92, 1996], pp. 12–20).Google Scholar

26. The paranoia that the riots induced in the party leadership is exhibited by the statement of Stane Dolanc, a member of the Central Committee of the LCY: “behind [the riots] lie the most reactionary forces in the world, fascists, and the most dogmatic [communists], which at this time have probably united and formed a single platform. And that platform is the destabilization of Yugoslavia. … We will deal in the same manner with any display of nationalism … [and with] whomever is linked to international reactionary circles of the right or of the left, pro-fascist or pro-dogmatic, pro-Informbureau elements” (quoted in Spasoje Daković, Sukobi na Kosovu [Belgrade: Narodna knjiga, 1984], p. 300). The image of an internationally unified reactionary-nationalist-fascist-Marxist-Leninist conspiracy to destroy Yugoslavia was the “sum of all fears,” which all combined to signify the “enemy within” who needed to be dealt with forcefully. The point de caption, the bludgeoning stereotype of this discourse which combined an impossible array of conspiracies into a single embodied enemy became “Albanian irredentism,” which in 1980s Yugoslav public discourse became the catch-phrase representing all of Yugoslavia's ills, stigmatizing Yugoslavia's Albanian minority as one of the central threats to the integrity of the country and, for Serb nationalists in the CPY, the perpetrators of “genocide” against the Serb minority in Kosovo. The juridical side of this discourse was the persecution of Albanians for the most bizarre reasons, such as for naming children “nationalist names,” for not playing non-Albanian music at weddings, or for having expressed admiration for Enver Hoxha's Albania. On the events of 1981 see Mertus, op cit., pp. 17–46. One of the most insightful critiques of the growing discourse of hate against Albanians in public institutions is Fehmi Agani, “Kriticki osvrt na politicki diskurs o Kosovu i Albancima,” in Gaber and Kuzmanić, op cit., pp. 111–135. Another discussion is found in Muhamedin Kullashi, “The Production of Hatred in Kosovo (1981–91),” in Ger Duijzings, Dušan Janjić, and Shkelzen Maliqi, eds, Kosova/Kosovo: Confrontation or Coexistence (Nijmegen: Peace Research Centre, 1997), pp. 56–69.Google Scholar

27. Dissatisfaction with the high degree of autonomy the provinces enjoyed surfaced as early as 1977, in the so-called “Blue Book” drafted by the Serbian party leadership. After the events of 1981, measures were taken to re-establish republican control over provincial governments. In 1984, the Serbian party published an elaborate proposal for reform, which included the revision of the 1974 constitution. In the following year, the Constitutional Court of Serbia annulled a series of decrees that sought to insure the national composition of the provincial leadership was proportional to the population, which had effectively secured Albanian dominance in the provincial government. See Viktor Meier, Yugoslavia: A History of Its Demise (New York: Routledge, 1999), especially p. 9.Google Scholar

28. Though there was undoubtedly a perception of intimidation and threat among Kosovo Serbs during the 1970s and 1980s, there is no evidence of systematic, institutionalized attempts to force Serbs to migrate out of Kosovo, as claimed by the Serbian leadership at the time and maintained by some Serbian scholars. A strong but empirically unsupported argument of systematic discrimination of Kosovo Serbs in the period 1970–1989 is found in Marina Blagojević, “The Migration of Serbs from Kosovo during the 1970s and 1980s: Trauma and/or Catharsis,” in Nebojša Popov, ed., The Road to War in Serbia: Trauma and Catharsis (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2000). Nonetheless, the issue was masterfully exploited by elements of the Serbian party to advance internal power struggles. On those struggles, particularly in relation to the rise of Slobodan Milošević, see Nebojša Vladisavljević, “Institutional Power and the Rise of Milošević,” Nationalities Papers, Vol. 32, No. 1, 2004, pp. 183–206. For evidence on the connections between Serb protest groups in Kosovo and the Serbian party leadership and the top–down engineering of acts of revolt see Laura Silber and Allan Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), pp. 34–35.Google Scholar

29. Sabrina Ramet, Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia, 1962–1991 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), especially pp. 221–3.Google Scholar

30. It took until January 1989 for the provincial party to decide on the character of the miners' protests, and the haggling between local, provincial, and republican party organizations revealed the growing disunity between different segments of the administration in their perception of Albanian protests. See Aziz Abrashi and Burhan Kavaja, Epopeja e minatorëve (Prishtina: Koha, 1996), pp. 25–30. See also Miranda Vickers, Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), p. 233.Google Scholar

31. Howard Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo (London: Pluto Press, 2000), p. 53.Google Scholar

32. The text of the appeal is found in Harillaq Kekezi and Rexhep Hida, eds, Ç'thonë dhe ç'kërkojnë kosovarët, Vol. 1 (Tirana: 8 Nentori, 1990), pp. 7–14. The list of signatories practically represents a who's who list of Kosovar politics of the 1990s. Out of those who signed the petition, at least 65 were detained and imprisoned in the subsequent months.Google Scholar

33. In its early phase the LDK was an ill-defined organization, it did not have a legal status, since there was no law on opposition parties, and initially its name included the description “Political, Social, and Cultural Association.” Rugova's statement to the Voice of America soon after the organization was formed indicates the LDK's untypical position. According to Rugova, the LDK “at the moment is a political and cultural association. In the future we shall see that, when these issues of political pluralism are legalized here in Yugoslavia, it may even become a political, cultural [sic] party, etc” (Kekezi and Hida, Ç'thonë dhe ç'kërkojnë kosovarët, Vol. 2, p. 16). Rugova later claimed that the LDK was not a party but a movement.Google Scholar

34. Details of the LDK's foundation are found in a book by one of the LDK's founders, Mehmet Kraja, Vitet e humbura (Tirana: [no publisher], 1995), as well as Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 66–67. On the role of official academic associations in the formation of political parties see Shkëlzen Maliqi, Kosovo: Separate Worlds (Prishtina: Dukagjini, 1998), pp. 26–27.Google Scholar

35. Jim Seroka and Radoš Smiljković, Political Organizations in Socialist Yugoslavia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1986), p. 80.Google Scholar

36. Nikë Gjeloshi, former provincial secretary of the Kosovo SAWP, provides ample evidence that illustrates the extent to which opposition to the constitutional reforms was aired in SAWP chapter meetings throughout the province during 1989. See Gjeloshi, Kosova në udhëkryq ‘89 (Gorle, Italy: Editrice Velar, 1997).Google Scholar

37. Albanian police officers were massively laid off from the service in 1990.Google Scholar

38. The move was largely conceived by Kosovar legal scholar Gazmend Zajmi, who authored the text of the “Declaration of Sovereignty” proclaimed that day by the Albanian delegates of the Assembly. Zajmi was not a member of the LDK. See Shkelzen Maliqi, “Why Did Kosovo's Nonviolent Movement Resistance Fail?” unpublished manuscript, 2001, p. 9.Google Scholar

39. For the text of the document see Kushtetuta e Republikës së Kosovës (Zagreb: Dielli, 1990).Google Scholar

40. Maliqi, “Why Did Kosovo's Nonviolent Resistance Movement Fail?” p. 9. Compare the legalist argument for independence in Gazmend Zajmi, Vepra I (Prishtina: Akademia e Shkencave dhe e Arteve e Kosovës, 1997), especially pp. 143–164, and the historicist approach in Rexhep Qosja, Çështja shqiptare: historia dhe politika (Tirana: Toena, 1998), especially pp. 287–316. Although neither Zajmi nor Qosja was a member of the LDK, their arguments are representative of both schools of thought.Google Scholar

41. Denisa Kostovičová, Parallel Worlds: Response of Kosovo Albanians to Loss of Autonomy in Serbia, 1986–1996 (Keele, England: Keele European Research Centre, 1997), p. 40.Google Scholar

42. See Woodward, Balkan Tragedy , pp. 199–222 Google Scholar

43. Gjeloshi, Kosova në udhëkryq ‘89 , pp. 143–4; Kostovičová, Parallel Worlds, p. 31.Google Scholar

44. See Ibrahim Rugova, Çështja e Kosovës: bisedë me Marie-Françoise Allain dhe Xavier Galmiche (Peja, Kosovo: Dukagjini, 1994).Google Scholar

45. For example, in 1995, over 2,324 households had been searched for weapons (Kostovičová, Parallel Worlds , p. 53).Google Scholar

46. The LDK's version of the incident is found in “Barbarët në Prekaz,” Illyria, 4 January 1992, p. 2. In an interview with Illyria, Rifat Jashari, one of the family members present during the police raid, confirms that the LDK's and CDHRF's mediation helped avoid bloodshed. See “Rrethimi i tretë,” Illyria, 22 February 1992, p. 4. Rifat is the brother of Adem and Hamzë Jashari, who in 1998 were massacred together with 28 members of their family by Serb police, in a raid similar to that of 1991. The massacre triggered the rise of the Kosovo Liberation Army and turned the Jasharis into martyrs.Google Scholar

47. Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo , p. 1.Google Scholar

48. Ample evidence of this is found in ibid.Google Scholar

49. Quoted in ibid., p. 59.Google Scholar

50. Tarrow, Power in Movement , p. 30.Google Scholar

51. See ibid., pp. 91–105.Google Scholar

52. Ibid., pp. 37–12.Google Scholar

53. Ibid., pp. 103–104.Google Scholar

54. Ibid., pp. 98–103.Google Scholar

55. Although demonstrations in 1989 and 1990 did sometimes contain violence, the overall character of the protests was largely nonviolent. See Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo .Google Scholar

56. Judah, Kosovo, p. 110.Google Scholar

57. As testified by Xhavit Haliti, a key activist in the LPK (interviewed in “Në vitin 1985 nis lëvizja guerile e Kosovës,” Zëri [Prishtina], 5 February 2001, p. 5).Google Scholar

58. Maliqi, Kosovo, p. 32.Google Scholar

59. Gjeloshi, Kosova në udhëkryq ‘89 , p. 92.Google Scholar

60. Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo , p. 76.Google Scholar

61. Ibid., p. 74.Google Scholar

62. Illustrating his fear that nonviolent protest events would provoke a Serbian backlash, Rugova stated in 1994 that “under these circumstances, we cannot organize even peaceful manifestations because it has become exceptionally dangerous to venture out on the streets” (quoted in Rugova, Çështja e Kosovës , p. 141).Google Scholar

63. The key protagonists, including the shadow defense minister Hajzer Hajzeraj, were arrested and imprisoned in 1993. On the activities of Hajzeraj's group, see his interview in Zëri (Prishtina), 26–27 February 2001.Google Scholar

64. Judah, Kosovo, pp. 87–89. On the parallel interior ministry, see also the interview with Avdi Mehmeti, leader of the “interior ministry” group, in Zëri (Prishtina), 4–13 December 2000.Google Scholar

65. Judah, Kosovo, p. 87–9. See also Rugova's admonishment of organizing armed resistance in Rugova, Çështja e Kosovës, pp. 124–9.Google Scholar

66. Maliqi, Kosovo, p. 101.Google Scholar

67. Sabrina Ramet, Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia, 1962–1991 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), pp. 70–78.Google Scholar

68. Esat Stavileci, “Ecje përgjatë historisë politike të çështjes së Kosovës,” in Esat Stavileci and Pajazit Nushi, Të vërteta për Kosovën (Prishtina: Lidhja Shqiptare në Botë, 2000), pp. 34–38.Google Scholar

69. At least this is how dismissed workers perceived the rationale behind their dismissal.Google Scholar

70. I.e., with only the manpower available, one cannot reorganize a factory outside of its premises. However, through the maintenance of union organizations, workers maintained organized networks and pressed their claims for reinstatement. The strength of these organizations became apparent in 1999, after NATO forced Yugoslav forces out of Kosovo, when former employees rushed into former workplaces, demanding their jobs back or re-establishing socialist-era enterprises.Google Scholar

71. Prior to 1990, curricula were adopted by the provincial Secretariat for Education. See Pajazit Nushi, “Shkatërrimi i arsimit, i shkencës e i kulturës shqiptare dhe i sistemit institucional të tyre nga sunduesi serbomadh,” in Bardhyl Çaushi, ed., Rrënimi i autonomisë së Kosovës (Prishtina: Shoqata e Pavarur e Juristëve të Kosovës, 1992), pp. 73–74.Google Scholar

72. Nushi, “Shkatërrimi i arsimit,” p. 74–76.Google Scholar

73. Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo , p. 96–97.Google Scholar

74. Initially, the authorities responded to the setting up of parallel schools by repression. Police actions in the period 1991–1993 resulted in the death of 18 students, two teachers, one principal, and three parents. Two thousand teachers and principals and more than 400 students were maltreated by police, while 140 teachers and six students received jail sentences of 20 to 60 days (Clark, ibid., p. 100). Furthermore, in the early start of parallel schools, teachers worked without pay. In 1993, the government of the Republic of Kosovo began paying teachers token salaries (ibid., pp. 102–104).Google Scholar

75. Ibid., p. 98. A factor that played a role in Serbia's targeting of schools for closure was undoubtedly the sheer number of primary students. There were nearly 300,000 Albanian primary school students, and closing all primary schools down would be an immense task for the authorities. Figure from Denisa Kostovičová, “Kosovo's Parallel Society: The Successes and Failures of Nonviolence,” in William Buckley, ed., Kosovo: Contending Voices on Balkan Interventions (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 2000), p. 130.Google Scholar

76. There was a gradual decline in enrolment from 1991 to 1992. In 1996/1997 enrolment fell to 13,805 full-time and part-time students. Figures from Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo , p. 101.Google Scholar

77. Ibid., p. 106.Google Scholar

78. Ibid., p. 106.Google Scholar

79. Ibid, p. 107.Google Scholar

80. Albanians relied on foreign broadcasts and a satellite TV program broadcast from Tirana, established in 1993 with funding provided by the Kosovar government in exile.Google Scholar

81. Quoted from Maliqi, Separate Worlds , p. 182.Google Scholar

82. However, there was skepticism among the Kosovar leaders that the request would actually be granted (see “Kosovo Formally Appeals for EC Recognition,” Illyria, 28 December 1991, p. 1). A copy of Bukoshi's letter requesting independence was reprinted in “Kosovo Asks EC for Recognition,” Illyria, 18 December 1991, p. 1, while the text of the formal request is reprinted in “Republika e Kosovës kërkon njohjen e pavarësisë,” Illyria, 28 December 1991, p. 1. Five U.S. Congresspersons sent a letter to EC envoy Lord Carrington supporting the Kosovars' request (copy in “Republika e Kosovës duhet të njihet,” Illyria, 15 January 1992, p. 3).Google Scholar

83. For brief background on the Albanian-American community and its political movements see Fron Nazi, “Balkan Diaspora I: The Albanian-American Community,” in William Buckley, ed., Kosovo: Contending Voices on Balkan Interventions (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 2000), pp. 132–135.Google Scholar

84. “Kërkesë për njohjen e republikave që shpallen sovranitetin,” Illyria, 16 November 1991, p. 2, and “D'Amato kërkon nga SHBA njohjen e pavarësisë së Kosovës, Kroacisë, Sllovenisë …,” Illyria, 1 February 1992, p. 2.Google Scholar

85. “Crowd Hails Bukoshi at JFK,” Illyria, 23 November 1991, p. 1; “Bujar Bukoshi në Danimarkë,” Illyria, 22 February 1992, p. 1; “Alois Mock priti Bujar Bukoshin,” Illyria, 29 February 1992, p. 1; “Bukoshi Meeting U.S. Leaders,” Illyria, 4 March 1992, p. 7.Google Scholar

86. Besides the support from the U.S. Congress, an April 1992 resolution of the European Parliament also endorsed elections for Kosovo (“Ç'thuhet në rezolutën më të re të Parlamentit Evropian për Kosovën,” Illyria, 29 April 1992, p. 9).Google Scholar

87. Twenty-three political groups, including two ethnic minority parties, and over 500 candidates contended in the elections. 721,554 voters participated in the polls, comprising 87% of the total number of registered voters. The LDK received 96 seats out of the 98 single-member districts, while the Parliamentary Party of Kosovo (PPK) and the Bosniac Party of Democratic Action (SDA) got one each. The remaining 42 seats were distributed proportionally to the LDK (15), PPK (12), SDA (4), and Turkish People's Party (1). Ten seats were reserved for Serb representatives. See “Nesër në Kosovë mbahen zgjedhjet e lira,” Illyria, 23 May 1992, p. 1; “Rugova Elected in Massive Turnout,” Illyria, 27 May 1992, p. 1; “Rezultatet përfundimtare të zgjedhjeve,” Illyria, 27 May 1992, p. 1; Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo, pp. 83–84; Vickers, Between Serb and Albanian, pp. 259–261; Maliqi, Kosovo, pp. 39–40.Google Scholar

88. Surroi's remarks are quoted in Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo , pp. 83–4, Qosja in “Sulm mbi regjimin militarist,” Illyria, 27 May 1992, p. 12.Google Scholar

89. See interviews with Rugova in “Ne kemi legjitimitet për zgjedhje të lira në Kosovë,” Illyria, 16 May 1992, p. 12, and “Bota e di çka do të thotë okupim,” Illyria, 27 May 1992, p. 12. The government continued to function in exile and wielded no real authority in Kosovo.Google Scholar

90. Weeks prior to the elections, the Assembly had passed a series of amendments to the Kaçanik constitution, giving the president a series of special powers. See “U shpall ligji kushtetues për zbatimin e amandamenteve II–IV në kushtetutën e Republikës së Kosovës,” Illyria, 16 May 1992, p. 9.Google Scholar

91. Quoted in Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo , p. 84.Google Scholar

92. Valerie Bunce, Subversive Institutions: The Design and Destruction of Socialism and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).CrossRef Google Scholar

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