LETTERS Bustards?
Sir: In his article on the Yugoslav province of Kosovo (Two-faced buzzards', 12 De- cember) Richard West makes it plain that he has walked into one of the most troubled political minefields of Eastern Europe with little or no idea of what has been going on there since 1981, let alone during the preceding period. Having de- cided to avoid the hard slog needed to unravel some of the historic, political, economic and social complexities of the smouldering province of Kosovo he has chosen instead to write a trivial, gossipy piece at the expense of some of the lesser breeds of darkest Yugoslavia (Serbs, Alba- nians, etc) about whom the outside world knows very little, and cares even less.
Just a few examples. 'This may be fanciful [he writes]; but nobody knows who the Albanians or the Illyrians are.' Nobody knows? Fiddlesticks. The only one who does not know because he couldn't bother to find out is Richard West himself. Then he goes on to repeat the old Serbian official chestnut that the Albanians of Yugoslavia and the inhabitants of Albania itself are two quite distinct racial groups. He offers this piece of crude deception as straightfor- ward information.
He has missed, among other things, one of the root causes of the present crisis in Kosovo. First in 1968, then far more forcibly in the 1981 demonstrations, the Albanians of Kosovo have asked for the right to have their own republic within the Yugoslav federation. Their claim has been rejected, thus causing frustration, anger and outbursts of rebellion among them. The rejection is based on the official assumption that what the Albanians really want is, not a republic within Yugoslavia, but political union with Albania. It is on the basis of this fanciful reading of the darkest recesses of their minds, and not on the basis of any rational evidence, that many thousands of young Albanians of Yugoslavia (many of them teenagers) have been sent to prison following numerous political trials, which still go on.
Richard West's own verdict on this issue is the following: The noisier of the Alba- nians want their own separate republic, perhaps including the present state of Albania.' Did he get this from some local official source or did he conduct his own private opinion poll whose results he has chosen not to disclose?
His report on Kosovo would not have been spicy enough without just a little bit of racism. He says he asked Peter Kemp, who was parachuted into Albania during the last war, what he thought of the Albanians as a people. Kemp's reply was: `What can you think of a nation whose emblem is a two-faced buzzard?' Now what could possibly be simpler than that? You demote the two-headed eagle of the Alba- nian flag to a two-faced buzzard, a bird which happens to be a perfect symbol for a bunch of two-faced bastards like the Alba- nians. Got it?
A reporter burdened with such steamy prejudices was bound to miss some of the crucial features of the Kosovo crisis: the fear and utter confusion into which the serious Albanian riots of 1981 and their aftermath have plunged the Yugoslav lead- ership ever since; the continuous harsh persecution of the Albanians during the past six years; the consequent rising ten- sion not only between Serbs and Albanians but also between Serbs and the other national groups of Yugoslavia; the high unemployment, the mounting inflation and the great poverty of Kosovo, and so on.
Anton Logoreci
18 Disraeli Gardens, London SW15
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