Trading with the enemy in Mitrovica, Kosovo. - RUhosting

sent all colonists back to Kosovo. This causes such alarm in the Albanian population that eventually a
compromise was reached in which colonists could only return under certain conditions. While the Albanian
demands were only partly met here, their demands regarding the free use of their language in education and
official life were met. The Serbianization of Albanian names, a policy of the inter-war period, was halted.
Many Albanian language schools were opened and Albanian was given equal status in official and legal
matters with Serbo-Croat. In practise not so much changed as on paper because most key officials and judges
were still Slavs.
The first 20 years after the war were not the easiest for Albanians, because of the Slav dominance in almost
all state positions. In 1953 Serbs and Montenegrins accounted for 50% of the party membership and 68% of
'administrative and leading' positions, while making up only 27% of the population. Also, because of the
break between Albania and Yugoslavia in 1948 Albanians in Kosovo were quickly suspected of being spies
for Albania and severely pressured by the secret police. This police force consisted for 86% of Serbs and
Montenegrins in 1956 in Kosovo, which is another example of the still dominant position of Slavs in
Kosovo. On top of this Yugoslavia invested less in Kosovo than in other regions, despite it being the region
with the fastest growing population. To make matters worse for the Albanians, the new Yugoslav constitution
of 1963 reduced Kosovo's autonomy. It is very likely that this imbalance of power between Albanians and
Serbs further widened the gap between them.
In 1966 things started changing again, now in favour of the Albanians. Tito's policy changed and Kosovo
was given a much larger autonomy in 1968, and given the power to exercise almost all the powers of a
republic. Kosovo Albanians were even allowed to fly their Albanian flag again, which alarmed Serbs who
feared this would increase the growth of separatism. Indeed, with their larger autonomy achieved the Kosovo
Albanians had a new goal: Kosovo as a republic within Yugoslavia.
While in the 1960´s the rights of Albanians in Kosovo increased on paper, in the 1970´s the balance between
Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo on the ground really started changing. The university of Pristina played a
role in this. In 1969 a handful of educational faculties in Pristina were transformed into a full university – the
university of Pristina – which gave way to a much larger proportion of the Albanians being highly educated.
This probably had a large influence on Albanians getting into more important positions in the following
years. At the beginning of the 80's about 2/3s of the Kosovo league of communists were Albanian, and the
police and security forces consisted of Albanians for 75%. Serbs and Montenegrins while being only 21
percent of the population, still held more than half of the managerial positions but in many ways, Albanians
were correcting the imbalance between them and Slavic population. This empowerment of Albanians started
to worry local Serbs who would complain about discrimination by Albanians now they were in power in the
majority of local organisations. Malcolm (2002) argues that there may have been some cases of
discrimination but these were incidents compared to the systematic way in which Albanians were
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