But this did not last long. After the war, Yugoslavia re-acquired Kosovo and the communist regime embarked on a Turkish-like brutal suppression of the Albanian population. For twenty-one years, secret units of the police hunted, executed and mutilated free spirited Albanians all over Kosovo. In more ways than one, Albanians were the first true dissidents in the entire communist bloc. How ironic, if one recalls the Albanian Enver Hoxa, the leader of next-door Albania and the fiercest of all communist leaders. In 1968 Albanian students joined their colleagues the world over and demonstrated against Serb repression. These particular outbursts were easily squashed but in 1974 Kosovo was made an autonomous province of Yugoslavia by constitutional reforms. School instruction in Albanian was legalized. During all this period, Serbs - especially battle hardened war veterans - were economically encouraged to migrate to Kosovo. Albanians were encouraged to go the other way and many did. About 200,000 Albanians left between the years 1954-7 alone!!! By now, these human waves and military trampling left Kosovo dilapidated to the core, a backwater both economically and culturally. People left Kosovo in this period because it offered no present work and no future prospects. One hundred thousand Serbs left between 1961-87. Much later many would claim that they were harassed by the Albanian majority but this sounds fake, a re-writing of history. Albanians left as well. Everyone who had a choice chose to leave impoverished Kosovo. Then Tito died and nothing was the same. The 1981 riots in Kosovo led to the imposition of martial law. As students from Pristina University rampaged in the streets, the government sealed Kosovo off, sent in the militia to restore order (which it did with vehement cruelty and bestiality) and closed down educational institutions. Pristina University was always a hotbed of nationalism - witness its Maoist-Marxist graduate, the head of the KLA and the self-appointed Prime Minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci. But that particular spring was exceptional. Public disorder was coupled with grave acts of economic sabotage. The students demanded an end to discrimination and certain freedoms but really they demanded jobs commensurate with their training, jobs, which they believed went to the Serbs. Five years later, a hitherto obscure communist leader (he was just elected Serbia's party secretary) visited Kosovo. In a chance encounter with angry Serb mobs in the streets of Pristina he accused the Albanians of genocide. "No one should do this to you" - he said, grim faced, visibly shaken, cunningly calculating. His name was Milosevic. (Article published August 16, 1999 in "Central Europe Review" volume 1, issue 8) Return The Plight of the Kosovar