Back To School

All signs in Kosovo point to September being a time of schoolchildren and students. The new school term for Albanian secondary school children is a matter of uncertainty. Once again they came to their schools but were prevented from taking their places in the classrooms. There were no major excesses if one ignores the detaining of directors and teachers for so-called informative talks. The educational authorities in Pristina and Belgrade are evidently not bothered much by this. They are preoccupied by the latest announcement of PM Milan Panic that "not only will the University in Pristina be opened, but all the schools". A delegation of Serbs and Montenegrins, most of them members of SPS, which travelled to Belgrade in four buses for talks with the Federal Prime Minister, didn't achieve the expected result of damaging the premier's reputation.

However, Albanian educationalists have no intention of teaching children that they derive from the Slavs, or of sending their plans and programmes to Belgrade for verification. In the absence of good will on both the sides it is those who are least guilty who suffer - the children.

In the meantime the Municipal Council of Pristina has quickly changed the names of the schools which carried the names of famous Albanian personages. The Albanians have not been lazy either - they have replaced the names of schools named after well-known personalities from Serbian history and culture with their own! All in all, the outwitting continues. The only thing is that for the last twenty days Redzep Osmani, president of the Association of Albanian Teachers "Naim Frasheri", has been lingering in jail.

How can the painful Kosovo "situation" be resolved? All eyes are on the latest "disagreement" between President Slobodan Milosevic and Prime Minister Panic. Even though not one of the leaders of Albanian political parties has openly commented on this, the impression is that they want both of them to go to the end in carrying out their promises in order to get an idea of the resolution of the Kosovo question. Panic has on a number of occasions said that all discriminatory laws against the Albanians will soon be cancelled, and the Serbian government, as could be expected, categorically denies that they exist at all! Nekibe Keljmendi, a lawyer from Pristina, has come upon a number of interesting facts by following the continuity of the Official Gazette of Serbia: "Between 1990 and 1992, the former General Assembly of Federal Republic of Serbia, that is the present National Assembly of Serbia, has passed 34 laws which violate the human rights of Albanians in Kosovo, the autonomy of the province was repealed, all provincial laws were revoked; 308 decrees on the introduction of emergency measures in over 400 companies were issued; 10 decrees on the changing of urban development plans, with the aim of colonizing Kosovo, were issued; 57 municipal officials in all the Kosovo councils were voted out of office - all Albanians, to be replaced by Serbs and Montenegrins; 21 Albanian judicial officials were replaced by Serbs and Montenegrins; 11 decrees were passed on the changing of the names of streets, schools and cultural institutions in Kosovo. In other words, from 26 June 1990 to 8 August 1992, on the questions of Kosovo and the Albanians, an average of 18 laws, decrees or regulations per month were passed by the Serbian Parliament", concludes Nekibe Keljmendi.

Federal Prime Minister Milan Panic has announced a visit to Kosovo soon. The malicious, however, don't exclude the possibility that Milosevic will appear here before him. Before its too late, they say....