The Simmering Pot

Only last week the editor of the Albanian weekly newspaper "Zeri" Bljerim Salja and painter Musa Kaljavesi were given 60 days in prison with the explanation that in their celebration issue (the All-Albanian festivity on November 28) the issue at stake referred to the cover page with a two-headed eagle without a red star, a map with all of the territories with Albanian majority and the articles "One Albania for all the Albanians", "United Albania - the most ethnic country in the Balkans". Salja was accused of having prepared and allowed the publishing of this issue, which was later banned by the Court, and Kaljavesi - as the author of the mentioned map.

Kosovo is a big concentration camp: a Siberia and a Gulag for the entire nation, says Skeljzen Malici, a publicist. With the exception that here the journalists are being arrested for projecting political aims into geographic maps. In the last few years the Serbian regime did all it could to arouse revulsion in Albanians at the very thought of living with the Serbs in the same state, or even at the thought of participating in the wider federal or confederal community. It also managed to destroy the already existing federation and its institutions. This is why the Albanians are projecting their desires into a separate state of Kosovo, or as a part of Albania.

At the time when the creation of the ethnic Serbian state is under way, when the Serbs are being forcibly unified, when eight or nine quasi - Serbian states are already in existence in the Balkans, the same Albanian ethnic aspirations can not be stifled by police terror. A few thousand Albanians experienced the Serbian prisons. Thus the problems of the Serbian regime can not be addressed to this or that journalist, this or that editor, this or that political party. The point is that Bljerim Salja has a thousand replacements. Serbia does not have enough prisons to confine all the Albanians who are prepared to sacrifice their lives for freedom, concludes Malici.

Veton Suroi, one of the leaders of the Parliamentary Party of Kosovo, says that Salja is for this system only one of the potential winners of the Serbian prison instant- lottery. Yes, Salja is responsible. He is responsible for publishing this issue and for all the drawings and articles in it. But is he responsible for the creation of those articles and drawings? No. The two-headed eagle has been created and recreated in the course of the Albanian history: on the cover page stands the creation of the Albanian people. "One Albania for all the Albanians" - is a motto of the Albanian national revival since last century. "United Albania - the most ethnic country in the Balkans" states the photograph. Let the court establish that united Albania would not be the most ethnically compact country in the Balkans. The map of the territories with Albanian majority is also an established fact, since in these parts it is true that the Albanian population is in majority. It could be that the court wanted to say that such a map represents the politically desired aim. So what: don' t people have the right to a political project? Will the court by implementing a single decree abolish the right to wish,an ideal, a project? A man can be put behind bars, but they have proved to be very flexible with regards to ideals and political projects. Don't they know that words can not be imprisoned?

The Pristina board for human rights has established that until now 150 journalists were "treated" by the police. Shortly before closing this issue, Saban Hiseni, the former director of Radio-Pristina was arrested.