by Bardh Mustafë Nengurra
Therefore, everyone who reads these pages understands that in Lubozdë all Serbs and Montenegrins came there as occupying colonists, lived to oppress and continuously mistreat their native Albanian neighbors, and at different periods they killed and disappeared several men and boys of Albanian families, always with the support of the occupying Serbian-Yugoslav government to mistreat and rape Albanians.
The Albanian lands were truly as if cursed by God. Over the centuries, they were coveted and then conquered by many different invaders.It was attacked and its people were massacred, raped, exterminated and maimed by peoples from Asia and Africa who, over a historical period of over 3000 years, came and went one after the other. Fortunately, no matter how much we were trampled and conquered, we managed to survive and did not disappear.
It is strange that our lands and our people were never invaded by any European nation with the intention of conquering and claiming to assimilate and exterminate them. In all cases, when European tribes and states invaded our lands, they were saviors because they brought us freedom from an occupation that we had previously been under and thus saved us from extinction and assimilation.
There are only two peoples who never stop attacking us, conquering, raping, deceiving, and using other forms of assimilation to wipe us off the face of the earth, and these two peoples are the Turks and the Serbs, who are helped in various ways by the Russians and Muslim Arabs. The international European community, led by America, came to our aid at the end of the last century and saved us from the total extinction that was threatened by the barbaric Serbian rule of the terrible satrap of the late 20th century, Slobodan Milosevic.
This community also guarantees the steps of state formation of a new Albanian state in the Illyrian Peninsula, the state of Kosovo. The commitment of the European internationals to help us was and is colossal and for this there is no Albanian who is not aware and the majority of the Albanian people are eternally grateful for the European and especially American assistance.
I said the deplorable part because unfortunately an Albanian-speaking layer has emerged that puts religion before the nation and national culture, and such people are not only ungrateful, but because America and its Western European allies are in conflict with Arab countries, some Albanian-speakers not only hate America and the Europeans, but unfortunately have also committed terrorist acts against American soldiers, against American and NATO military facilities.
So there is an ungrateful Albanian-speaking part in the Albanian lands. However, some European countries and often even some senators, congressmen and important personalities of American politics are being unjust, often unconsciously but due to euphoria and the need to make decisions, they are leaning and coming out in support of those who in the spring and early summer of 1999 were bombed and forcibly removed from Kosovo to save our people from a total massacre.
It has been three or four days since the case of the return of several Serbian families to the village of Lubozhda in the municipality of Istog was made public. Since I was born in that village and since I consider myself one of the best connoisseurs of the history of that village and for which since my childhood I have collected material from the elders and their numerous testimonies and also archival documents, in 2009 I managed to publish a monograph book for the village of Lubozhda with the title “NENGURRA E ISTOGUT”.
In this book from pages 117 – 130 I have mentioned in detail the families of the village and their stories. There I have written the heads of each house and their nationality. The village of Lubozhda in 1950 had 108 houses with a total of 616 inhabitants.Of these, there were: Albanian ……71 houses with 425 inhabitantsSerb…….17 houses with 121 inhabitantsMontenegrin ….. 8 houses with 34 inhabitants Magjup (now Ashkali) …. 7 houses with 34 inhabitants Rom (gabel)… 1 house with 4 inhabitants.
In 1981, the village had 193 houses with 1211 inhabitants. Albanian…..140 houses with 909 inhabitants Serb …33 houses with 173 inhabitants Montenegrin….5 houses with 26 residents Magjup (Ashkali) 14 houses with 91 inhabitants Rom (gabel) 1 house with 10 inhabitants.
From page 131 to page 142 I talk about each family of the village, about their tribal roots and the time when and in what circumstances they settled in the village of Lubozhdë. There I wrote with facts and evidence that none of the Serbian and Montenegrin families were ever autochthonous or natives of the village.
There is not and never was a Serbian and Montenegrin family that lived in this village before 1913. They came there as colonists in the so-called Agrarian era when Kosovo was occupied by the so-called Kingdom of SKS (Serbo-Croatian-Slovenian) and they came some earlier and some later, but mainly in these years: 1913, 1918, 1924, 1928, 1945, and 1960. They came to the village as colonists, which means that with the help of the occupying Serbo-Yugoslav state they usurped the lands and properties of the indigenous Albanian locals.
Since I must limit myself here to avoid writing a long article since it is an article for publication in a newspaper, I am referring to the pages of my book “NENGURRA E ISTOGUT” and the book can be found by anyone in the libraries of Kosovo, such as the NATIONAL one in Pristina, the municipal one in Istog, the school ones in Istog (primary school and high school), the primary school in Vrelles, Gurakoc, Banja, Stradran and also in the Lezha Library in Albania.
There I wrote about each Serbian and Montenegrin family in the village, about the time they settled in the village and whose properties they usurped or, better said, colonized.Such material is found in the book on pages 49 – 57.You can find material on the neighborly behavior of the Serbs and Montenegrins of the village of Lubozhdë with their Albanian neighbors on pages 51-57.
So, while addressing their manner and arrival as colonists in the village, I also address their behavior with the local Albanians.Therefore, everyone who reads these pages understands that in Lubozhda all Serbs and Montenegrins came there as occupying colonists, lived to oppress and continuously mistreat their native Albanian neighbors and in different periods they killed and disappeared several men and boys of Albanian families always with the support of the occupying Serbian-Yugoslav power to mistreat and rape Albanians.
Here I will mention only two periods of Serbian-Montenegrin violence against Albanians in Lubozhda. Year 1940-1945. From the village of Lubozhdë at this time, the following Albanian men were taken and disappeared without a trace by some Serb and Montenegrin settlers of the village:
Sokol Shala – Hata disappeared without a trace in the Pop’s Tower in Istog, year 1945.
Musë Tahir Pepaj was killed by Toma Zhariq’s Chetnik-communist forces in Dobrushë, 1945
Zenel Januz Haziraj disappeared without a trace in the Sheremet Kulla prison in Peja, 1945
Ukë Kadri Pepaj was killed while trying to escape from the infamous Kulla a Popit prison in Istog, in 1945,
Rrustem Nimon Kadaj disappeared in the Pope’s Tower in Istog, in 1945.
Ramush Isuf Çetina disappeared without a trace in the Kulla e Sheremetit prison in Peja, in 1945.
Hazir Mustafa Januzaj was killed in the Kulla e Sheremeti prison in Peja in 1945.
Nezir Tahir Januzaj disappeared in the 1945 Tivar Massacre.
Rexhep Shaban Kadaj, Mayor of the municipality in Vrellë, Istog, was murdered by Albanians incited by the Yugoslav OZNA in 1949.
Mirsad Zenel Idrizaj was murdered on 28.07. 1998.
Afrim Qazim Meshi – murdered on 24. 03. 1999.
Bashkim Qazim Meshi – killed alongside his brother Afrimi on 24. 03. 199.
Gani Arif Pepaj was murdered by his Serbian neighbor, Žika Milić Ristić, who slashed his throat with a scythe in 1999.
Arif Arif Pepaj was murdered in 1999.
Arif Fak Pepaj was murdered in 1999.
Shake Çetina – Demaj, an old woman over 100 years old, was burned alive in 1999.
Arben Xhemajl Januzaj was killed when he fell into a mine on 24.06. 1999 and the minor son of Nazmi Bajram Dauti, whose name I did not remember, who disappeared without a trace on the day that the brothers Afrim and Bashkim Meshi were killed, on March 24, 1999.
And as if you see all these men, the old woman Shake and the minor child son of Nazmi Dauti were killed and massacred by the Serbs and Montenegrins of Lubožda.
In the years 1945-1970, the Montenegrins Vujadin Zarije Popović, Živojin Kosta Radivojević, Vuća Živković, Milić Jovan Ristić, Mina Garqević, Radulle Maslavarič, Janko Masllavaric, Dragoljub Maslavarič, Andrija Zarič, Vladimir Zarič, etc. etc. At the time of the occupation of power by the oppressive Milosevic and the massacre of Albanians, there were the sons of Risto Radosav Ristić: Radenko R. Ristić, Radomir R. Ristić and Ranko R. Ristić.
Then Vujadin Mika Ristić, the son of Vukić Mika Ristić, whose name I do not remember.Barbaric behavior towards Albanians was also committed by Mirko Milan Simić, Mikan Milan Simić, Velko Stojan Simić, and Lubomir Stojan Simić.
And now that we have these facts, that is, when we have the facts that Serbs and Montenegrins came as colonists to Lubozdë, they had documents for the lands they colonized from the government that brought them there, and they not only usurped the properties of Albanians, but they also behaved like murderers, vandals and criminals towards Albanians, how is it possible that someone would return them to the lands colonized and occupied by Albanians, how is it possible that even though they have killed Albanians and burned the homes and properties of Albanians, now the peacekeeping forces of EULEX and KFOR are guarding them and doing everything they can to restore them to the properties that they claim are theirs.
Experience has shown that Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo throughout history have miraculously played the role of victim, no matter how much they were and are the criminals. They have usurped Albanian lands, made them their own with documents because they had the opportunity since Kosovo was occupied by Serbian-Yugoslav authorities, later they have sold those properties, received huge sums of money from the Albanians and with that money they have gone somewhere in Serbia where they have bought much more land and property, but as soon as they have had the opportunity they have returned and have asked for the return of the properties and as soon as they have managed to return them they have put them up for sale again.
How is it that no Albanian politician from Kosovo, starting from the local level to the deputies in Parliament, is coming out and discussing this phenomenon with the international community, with our friends, and explaining to them with facts that are all over Kosovo that this commitment to bring them back is in vain because they return to Kosovo only to benefit and exploit and rule, never thinking of living together with others there.
There are hundreds of thousands of houses that were built for Serbs and Montenegrins from the poor budget of Kosovo under the coercion of international friends, but almost none of those houses are inhabited, they are empty and on their walls it is written; house and property for sale.I appeal to the Mayor of Istog, Mr. Haki Rugova, to do his best to explain to the international community those who are demanding the return of Serbs and Montenegrins to Ljubožde that they have nowhere to return because they have never had their own property in Ljubožde, they have lived in usurped properties that were taken by force from Albanians, and they have Albanian blood on their hands up to their elbows.
Don’t spend money to build houses for those who burned everything to the ground 18 years ago. Use that money to build houses for those who present our TV shows where all over Kosovo there are families who have nowhere to sleep, no roof over their heads.Dear Chairman Haki Imer Rugova, don’t forget that the murderous attack had a terrible impact on you, the Rugova family of Cerrca, look at those houses in the Lugu neighborhood of Istog that you have built, each of which is advertised as “Property for sale.” Don’t give Albanian properties the chance to be sold off by Serb vandals who are not at all desirable neighbors.
(For VOAL.Ch, from Norway, April 9, 2017)
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