Written by: Ismail Gashi-Slovenia
The end of the year of Serbian occupation in the Lypljan region. Serbian violence in Albanian schools 1998 – 1999
The beginning of 1998 warned that spring, summer and the whole year would be full of dangers and sacrifices. There were attacks in the war zones controlled by the KLA. There was also a military and non-military division in the Lypljan region. From Magura, where the inscription “Enemy Zone” was placed, the entire Drenica e Epërme to Klecke and Divjakë, were overwhelmed with the population coming from Central Drenica and the villages endangered by the Serbian forces.
After a few days, the Albanian population from the endangered areas spread to the villages around Magura and beyond. The displacement of the Albanian population increased in the offensives of the summer of 1998, when Serbia attacked the villages of Shala, Krojmir, Pjetërshticë, Klecke, Divjakë, Baice, Resinoc, Mirenë, Magura, Vërshecë, Qylage, Leletiq, Ribar i Madh and Varigoc. Serbian forces forcibly expelled the Albanian population from their homes.
Some of them, under the protection of the KLA, remained sheltered in the nearby mountains, while the rest took refuge in the quieter villages of the plain. At this time, the plain villages of the Lypjan municipality were burdened with over 20 thousand people who had fled the war zones. Among this persecuted population were also school students from those areas; the KKA had to take care of the persecuted students, both in terms of school inclusion and in providing them with textbooks and teaching aids.
At this time, in March 1998, due to difficulties and needs, the Emergency Council was formed at the Kosovo level, and at the same time this emergency structure was also formed at the municipal level in Lypjan. This council was intended to provide aid and supplies to the KLA, and to take care of the shelter, accommodation, food and clothing, as well as health care for the population persecuted from the war zones.
The schools of this municipal district could not even start the new school year 1998/1999 in a normal state. In practice, out of the 16 primary schools with separate classes, only eight/8/ schools on the eastern side, in Janjevë, Sllovi, Smallushë, Llugaxhi, Gadime, Babush, Gllogoc-Banulë and Rubovc, with their units, could start the school year.
While the other eight schools on the western side, Rufci i Ri, Kroishta, Ribari i Madh, Dobraja. Magura, Shala and Krojmiri with their classes and the 6 units of the high school “Ulpiana” for the same reasons and circumstances of danger from the war did not start the teaching process on time.
Students and teachers constantly at risk
The schools in Shala and Krojmir, while they did not even have a population, were penetrated by the Serbian army, who destroyed the houses and expelled the civilian population. Meanwhile, Serbian forces were stationed in the school building in Magura. The KKA decided that these schools should not start teaching until minimal conditions were created and the causes of endangerment of students and teachers were avoided.
Four primary schools, those in Ribar i Madh, Kroishte, Dobraja and Rufc, despite the still difficult conditions from the war, started working on September 7, while the high school “Ulpiana” started the new school year on September 14 in 5 of its points, but not in the Shala unit. The three schools in the war zone will start the teaching process only with the agreement of the Political Director of the KLA and the municipal entities selected by this directorate.
Work in these schools began only after the assessment of the KLA Civil Directorate, the school directorate and the consent of the parents, in coordination with the KKA. In those days, the situation there had worsened after the capture of two Serbian journalists. On December 9, 1998, the school year also began in two schools in Upper Drenica in Shala and Krojmir.
The Directors of the General Directorate for Civil Services had been formed there, these entities also took over governance in education, finance, information, health, etc. After Recak, the situation had also worsened in school facilities. The Serbian police did not allow work to be carried out only in the “Jeronim De Rada” primary school in Magura. Serbian forces stayed there from July 15 to October 10, 1998, destroying all school and pedagogical documentation, inventory, cabinets and all other teaching aids.
Teaching at the Magura school began on February 1, 1999. On March 21, 1999, the KKA in Lypljan, in aggravated circumstances before the NATO bombing, and the escalation of Serbian threats to an unbearable extent, the KKA made a decision on the temporary interruption of the teaching process at all levels of schools in the Lypljan region from March 22 to 29, 1999. The continuation of teaching depends on the circumstances of the threat in the future. This decision of the KKA was published by TVSH in the evening newspaper.
Survival resistance
As everywhere in Albanian areas and settlements in Kosovo, the Albanian population of the Lypjan region, during these acts of military violence, was expelled from their schools. 8368 students from 16 primary schools with 32 separate physical classrooms and 2044 students from the “Ulpiana” high school in Lypjan were expelled.
The violence of the late 20th century was extended by all subjects of the state system, from the Serbian Orthodox Church, the League of Serbian Writers and the ASSHA and the executive subjects, the army, the police and Serbian paramilitary groups, all directed by the political and state system and the Serbian government power.
This group, transformed into a state and power, escalated the measures of violence, attacked the Albanian school system, imposed discriminatory curricula and textbooks, with the aim of extinction, began to limit the use of the Albanian language and school, poisoned Albanian students, differentiated, arrested, convicted and dismissed teachers, tortured the Albanian school, just as it tortured the entire Albanian people.
This medieval Orthodox action encountered defensive resistance from the Albanians, which after international recognition of the unbearable situation. International settlement centers with the aim of saving from the human catastrophe on March 24, 1999 NATO intervened militarily. As everywhere in the Albanian areas and settlements in Kosovo, the Albanian population of the Lypjan region was also expelled from their centuries-old territory during these acts of military violence.
The Albanian students and people, from this horror of Serbian violence, found refuge in the Albanian territories of Albania, Macedonia and the Albanian lands in Montenegro. In all these sheltered areas, Albanian teachers, under unnatural circumstances, continued the teaching process in tents, while in some settlements Albanian teachers also held the teaching process in local school premises. During the two Serbian offensives, 167 civilians were killed from this area of Kosovo, 72 citizens were injured.
Due to Serbian violence, the Albanian inhabitants of 42 settlements were completely expelled, and 21 other settlements were partially emptied. The flame of Serbian fire engulfed 46 Albanian villages. The massacre and terror against Albanians was mainly led by local Serbs. The total material damage amounts to approximately 78 million euros.
The Albanian school system in Kosovo was not spared from the devastation of this violence against Albanians; the students, teachers and Albanian schools in the Lypjan region also experienced this terror. Here we are recording the number of students and education workers who were killed or injured during the Serbian offensives of 1998 and 1999 by Serbian military and police forces.
Education workers killed: 6.
Students killed: 13.
Injured students: 17.
Injured workers: 9.
Serbian violence against Albanian education was manifested in the burning, bombing, destruction and looting of school buildings. In the region of Lypjan, 6 school buildings and a schoolhouse in Lypjan were burned down. As a result of this Serbian barbarity, the primary school in Shala, which had 10 classrooms on 560m2 and the accompanying offices with a library with nearly 10 thousand copies, as well as all school and pedagogical documentation, was completely burned down.
The school buildings in Plitkovic on the Black Sea Coast and Hanrovc were partially burned down, while the old school building in Shala was shelled. None of the 16 mother school buildings and all the separate classrooms that were objects of attack escaped looting; 16 of the mother school buildings and 12 other school buildings were demolished by Serbian forces.
The Serbian material destruction in the school premises of Lypljan is extensive, with the burning of documentation, inventory, interiors and libraries. In the school building in Magura alone, where Serbian forces have been stationed since the 1998 offensive, the looting, burning and material destruction exceed the value of over 100 thousand euros.
After the biblical return of the Albanians from Golgotha, the students and teachers of these schools, returning to their school buildings in a new time and reality, continued their educational work. The Technical Agreement of Kumanovo broke the positivist historical tradition, and the monumental return of the Albanians persecuted in the scorched earth of post-war Kosovo began.
In these spaces, the Albanian letter, the book, the teacher and the language were returned to stay forever, practically in Kosovo life and a new reality returned. The Albanian school returned in time and a new journey towards new paths with new forms and methods in learning knowledge, free expression of thought and free circulation of ideas and goods in the free market economy in the time of the democratic world.
Author: The writing was read at the roundtable, “Challenges of the Albanian school in the Lypjan region” held on October 7, 2022 in Lypjan.
Article
https://pashtriku.org/dhuna-serbe-ne-shkollat-shqipe-1998-1999/
