A REPLY TO NICHOLAS GAGE/
BY AGIM LEKA M.D.*/
I read with great concern Nicholas Gage’s Washington Post op-ed on April 11 entitled “Kosovo Powder Keg.”
Gage’s attempt to equate the autonomy of 2 million ethnic Albanians, representing over 90 percent of the population of Kosova- a formerly autonomous province of the former Yugoslavia- with a small Greek minority in the Gjirokaster region of southern Albania near the Greek border(population approximately 60.000), is an untenable argument.
With the fall of the communist regime, which had ruled Albania since the end of World War II, and the advent of democracy through freely held elections in March 1992, the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva and the U.S. State Department have removed Albania from the list of countries violating human rights.
The Human Rights Party. which represents the Greek minority in the freely elected Albanian Parliament, was able to elect only two deputies out of 140, The Greek minority represents about 2 percent of Albania’s population of 3.3 million people.
Gage’s inflation of the number of Greeks in southern Albania, which he calls “Northern Epirus,” appears to be in his refusal to acknowledge the existence of the Albanian Christians(approximately 20 percent of the population) as part of the Albanian nation, although their only affinity with the Greeks, Serbs or Russians is the Eastern Orthodox faith, not language or nationality.
The devotion of the Albanian Orthodox people toward their nationality is vividly manifested in the historically unique preservation and survival of the Albanian character, language and customs in the Albanian villages of southern Italy and Sicily. Tens of thousands of Arbreshe(Albanians of Italy), whose ancestors emigrated to Italy 500 years ago, following the death of the Albanian national hero George Castriota Skenderbeg, still continue to speak the Albanian language and call themselves Albanians. Most of these Albanians continue to practice the rites of Eastern Orthodoxy.
Similarly, the Albanians of Greece, called “Arvanitas,” who emigrated to Greece during the same period and build their villages on the Greek peninsula, and on some of the Greek islands, continue to keep their language and sense of nationality and often have been instrumental in fostering good relations between Greece and Albania.
It is interesting to note that the Albanian Autocephalous Orthodox Archdiocese founded in 1908 in Boston, Mass. – which serves the spiritual needs of the substantial Albanian-American Diaspora- is a member of the Orthodox Church in America and not of the Greek Archdiocese.
Albania is, indeed, a unique example in the Balkans where there is no history of inter-religious strife. The state has been secular since its rebirth in 1912, and the civil and penal code reflect western European jurisprudence. During World War II, many Jewish families fleeing from other Balkan countries found a safe haven in Albania. The visit of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II to Albania last week, where he consecrated four Albanian bishops and received an overwhelmingly enthusiastic reception from the Albanian people, in a country where the Catholic population is only 10 percent, is a testimony to the religious harmony among Albanians.
The catholic clergy of Albania have played an important role in the preservation of the Albanian Nation. The Albanian people see in Pope John Paul II, a friend who knows the sacrifice the Albanians made in the 15th century led by Skenderbeg (called Prince of Christianity by Pope Callixtus II), to protect western civilization against the Ottoman invasion. Because of geography, religious composition and culture, Albania can now act as a bridge between Eastern and western civilization.
Gage’s notion that there is a potential among Albania’s Moslem population is without evidence. In fact, Albania’s Moslems, even though representing 70 percent of the population, have promoted a secular state since Albania’s independence and helped enact Western civic and penal codes in the country. Further, they have been sensitive to equal representation in government. Indeed, the president of Albania is Moslem, the speaker of the Parliament Catholic and the prime minister Christian Orthodox.
The preservation of Albanian territorial integrity is not only a vital concern for the Albanians, but also a concern of the United States and Europe. President Woodrow Wilson, after World War I, as well as subsequent U.S. administrations- as recently declassified State Department documents show – have been resolute in the preservation of Albania’s territorial integrity.
Albania owes her political survival not only to the determination of her own people but also to the her geographical position and to her people’s historical identification with the Western world, successors of the Illyrians as the Albanians are. The delicate equilibrium in the Balkan peninsula which Albania provides, has been an important reason for the Western world not to allow any further dismemberment of the Albanian state among its neighbors.
Gage’s assumption that Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian Communist Dictator, now turned ultranationalist, and a well known racist, would not mind restoring autonomy to Kosova’s Albanian majority if Albania were to give “parallel autonomy” to her Greek minority, credits Milosevic with an inconceivable sense of selective devotion toward Albania’s Greek minority.
Milosevic has shown no such concern for the fate of his fellow Slavic peoples, whom he has, so inexorably, catapulted into a macabre civil war with no end in sight. Regrettably, such an assumption on the part of Gage, accentuates a kinship with, and a desire for cooperation with the present Serbian Government no matter that such an association would make the Greeks bedfellows with alleged war criminals.
Gage, who is of Greek descent, speaks of ethnic minorities in other countries in the Balkans, but he does not mention the Albanian minority in Chameria, northern Greece, in the area near the village where he was born, which is being slowly but systematically hellenized. Indeed, the previously strong Albanian minority in Chameria, became a victim of ethnic cleansing immediately after World War II. American historian Prof. W.H. Mc Neil documented these events in Greek Dilemma: “ Nobody could believe that most of those that found refuge and fraternal aid in the dark days of 1941 and 1942, would direct their weapons against the unprotected Albanian minority living in Greek territory, and that armed bands of General {Napoleon } Zervas would form regular units, called Albanoctones (killers of Albanians), to exterminate this population. More than 23,000 Albanians that could escape the massacre, crossed the Albanian frontiers during 1944 and found refuge in Albania where they are still living.”
In contrast, the Albanians did not respond in kind. No Greeks were expelled from Albania, and the Albanian refugees from Greece were relocated in central Albania, away from the Greek frontier. Therefore, Gage’s hypothesis that the democratic government of Albania, which is committed to the Helsinki Accords,
would attempt to “resettle the southern part of Albania with Albanians from
Kosova in order to push out ethnic Greeks who live there” has no basis in fact or precedent.
Gage’s warning of conflict in the Balkans, at “the close of this century”,” if the Greek minority of southern Albania is not granted “parallel status” with the Albanian majority of Kosova, presages tension rather than promoting the opportunity for the Greek minority to enjoy, together with the Albanians, the fruits of Albania’s newly won democracy.
The Serbs may be the Greeks coreligionaries, but historically Albanians and Greeks,the original settlers of the Balkans have a long tradition of friendship as well as shared oppression and sacrifice under the Ottoman rule and more recently under Fascist rule during World War II. Thus, among the Albanian and Greek peoples, there are many more historical and traditional ties which unite them than political problems that divide them.
In clandestine elections, held under Serbian occupation, the Albanians of Kosova have selected their own representatives. Ibrahim Rugova, president of Kosova, and a literary critic, is widely respected in diplomatic circles for leading a movement which advocates non-violent resistance against Serbian oppression. The Albanian leadership in Kosovais counting on the international community led by the United States to protect Kosova’s vulnerable population against Serbian attack.
Gage’s unsubstantiated assertion that “Kosova Albanians are quietly amassing arms sent by friendly Moslem countries waiting for the right chance to strike against the Serbs” is absolutely untrue and irresponsible for it provides the Serbs with the excuse they have been seeking to expedite the policy of ethnic cleansing in Kosova.
Finally, Gage never expresses moral outrage for the actions of Serbian authorities who are the primary culprits of genocide in the former Yugoslavia, including the systematic rape of innocent Bosnian women and children. Gage, as the sensitive writer of Eleni, could have used his literary talents to describe the human condition and the holocaust that has befallen the peoples of Yugoslavia by the madmen of this generation of Yugoslav leaders. Further, one would have hoped that he would express some compassion for the Albanian population in Kosova, now living in their third year under martial law.
All of this convoluted thinking makes one wonder whether Gage is using his literary talents to express concern about “Kosovo Powder Keg,” in the former Yugoslavia, as the title of this article implies, or rather, to promote Greek chauvinistic views, regarding another geographical location, namely southern Albania.
AGIM LEKA M.D.
May 3, 1993
* This is a reply to an article published in the Washington Post op-ed of April 11 entitled “Kosovo Powder Keg” by Nicholas Gage. The writer Nicholas Gage is the author of the book “Eleni” in which he speaks about his mother’s death in the hands of Greek communists during Greece’s civil war following World War II. Nicholas gage is a prominent leader and lobbyist of Greek-American organizations. The reply was published in The Albanian- American Newspaper
“ILLYRIA” of May 3,1993. Its translation in Albanian was published in the Tirana ‘s daily
“Rilindja” of the Democratic Party of June 30, 1993. The translation from English into Albanian was done by Denisa Leka.