Petrit Latifi
In 1913, the paper “Tiroler Land-Zeitung” published details and names of Albanians being raped, murdered, tortured, burned and slaughtered by Serbs and Montenegrins in Albanian villages. Cited from the article:
Emrat e shqiptarëve të vrarë, të përdhunuar, të varur, të torturuar dhe të djegur në Fsh dhe Ujzë nga serbët në vitin 1913.
Имена Албанаца убијених, силованих, обешених, мучених и спаљених у Фшу и Ујзи од стране Срба 1913. године
“What’s going on in Albania?
The Serbian government is desperately trying to portray the Albanian population as the originator of the renewed unrest, when in truth, driven to despair, they are only fighting for their lives. Already at the beginning of the departure of the international commission tasked with determining the northern and southern borders of the new state.
The Roman official “Tribuna” pointed to the highly probable outbreak of unrest, by means of which the two interested states, Greece and Serbia, would try to delay or even prevent the work of the said commission.
From which side the unrest, which already resembles a popular uprising, is emanating can be seen from the following appeal, which comes from Shkodër and, in fact, from a clergyman who vouches for its content.
It is now taking its bitter revenge that the Conference of Ambassadors rejected the entirely objective proposals of the German Reich at the time, or rather, giving in to the demands of Russia and its vassal France, which arose from petty political egoism, handed over large, purely Albanian areas to their Serbian and Greek henchmen.
The appeal reads:
In the name of humanity! Hear us! Many already know of the unheard-of cruelties committed by the Greeks in southern Albania – while diplomacy is preparing to carry out the demarcation with a slowness that reveals the intrigues at work. But many know what happened around Gjakova.”
Atrocities in Fshaj and Ujz
“The villages of Fshaj and Ujz no longer exist! 72 people, women and children, were captured and locked in a house, and the house was then set on fire. These beasts burn the living! And after the monstrous crime was committed, the houses were razed to the ground with dynamite.”
Atrocities in Bistazhin and Smac
“The villages of Bistazhin and Smac were also first plundered and then burned down, the men stabbed with bayonets or shot. Kramaviq and Cifilik suffered the same fate. In Maznike, many of the unfortunate ones had their arms, legs, noses, and ears cut off, and the luckier ones ended up under the bayonet or on a leash. In Zhabel, in Djakovar, Reka, and Pejë, one can no longer count the looted, burned, and torn down houses, the people shot or slaughtered.”
Albanian territories became Serbian slaughter houses
“These arable Albanian territories, which were given to the Serbs, have become a single, gruesome slaughterhouse, a single firebox where there is no life left and “one no longer hears the barking of the dog or the cry of the roar.”
Names of Albanians murdered:
“Do you want more names? More details? Here they are. They were shot and their bodies hanged: Emir Bey of Plava with 13 of his neighbors; Idris Asllani; Ndue Kola; Edhem Azemi with his son; Adem Milikuli; Beqir Dauti”
Pjeter Gjeli was captured, had his limbs cut off, was shot and then hanged by the Serbs
“One of the murdered men, Pieter Gjeli, was hanged after being shot, and then the order was given that no one was allowed to touch the body until it had been destroyed by the weather, even on the gallows. This father Gjeli, while peacefully going to his field for his daily work, was attacked by the Serbian-Montenegrin soldiers. His hands and feet were bound and his limbs were cut off.”
Murdering two Albanian shepherds
“The heads of two elderly shepherds, universally respected for their kindness and revered by the population for their venerable gray hair, were cut off and sent to Gjakova. If the representatives of the powers do not want to believe us, let them send for it to that city; there, even today, you can see the heads of the two poor men impaled on stakes in public!”
“We hereby extract only from a long list and in a few pages what we have written down according to the dictation of the survivors who managed to escape the crushing and who tell us by the thousands the details of the cruelties of the Serbs and Montenegrins.”
Tun Ceta, Avdyl Zeqa and 25 others were burned alive
“Tund Ceta was burned alive along with 18 people, including three women. Avdil Zeqa and 25 other unfortunates likewise. Wherever the Serb, the Montenegrin, appears, there is rage, fire, and despair”
Albanian women are raped and then killed
“Anyone who does not become a spy, anyone who does not betray the refugee’s beliefs, be it about father, brother, or son, is massacred without mercy; and women are stripped and raped before being burned alive or killed.”
Serbs kill mainy unarmed civilians
“If we were one armed man against two, we would show the enemy and the whole world how the Albanians know how to die; but there are too many butchers and the victims are for the most part unarmed and starving.
If that were not the case, we ourselves would know how to uphold the inalienable rights of humanity; but from the moment that effective resistance is impossible and, on the other hand, no one will demand of us that we offer our heads like lambs to be spared from the enemy, the decreed our extermination, let the honest people of the whole world ask the governments of Europe what the reasons are for which half of the Albanian people have been condemned to extermination….”
The appeal then expresses the hope that someone will finally be found to help the poor people and hear the cry of doubt, and concludes with the words: And if not, if not, we would have to say: what hypocrisy this European racism is; what comedians these civilized people are!”
Reference
Balkan Academia 