Left-Extremist Endeavours

patriots to transfer their contributions, as of 1 August, to a Stuttgart
account for donations; the new Fund also has an office in
Stuttgart.
In late March, the UÇK called upon all Kosovar Albanians aged
between 18 and 50 to join the general mobilization against the
Serbian offensive in Kosovo. An exemption applied only to Kosovar
Albanians "conscripts" who financially supported the struggle
for liberation in the home country. Thousands of Kosovar Albanians
from Germany complied with the recruitment appeal. The
main recruitment bureaus were set up in a discotheque in Solingen
and at the office of "Albanischer Verein für bildende Künste
und Theater - Aleksandar Moisiu - e.V." in Stuttgart-Feuerbach.
No cases of compulsory enlistment were reported.
Even during the war in Serbia and its Kosovo Province (24 March
until 10 June), functionaries of Kosovar Albanian and Serbian organizations
declared themselves against military action in Germany.
The Kosovar Albanians generally took the view that the
struggle for liberation must be carried out in the home country.
Germany was seen as a resting area and funding basis for the
support of the struggle. Also the Serbs who have mostly been
living in the Federal Republic for many years already, did obviously
not wish to jeopardize the bases of existence which they
have built up here, by conducting militant actions. Nevertheless,
at numerous demonstrations held from the start of NATO air
strikes on 24 March, feelings both among the Serbs 170) and
among the Kosovar Albanians 171) ran high, with aggressive undertones.
However, there were only few instances of direct confrontations
between Kosovar Albanians and Serbs.
In early July, in Pristina (the capital of Kosovo Province), the LPK
was transformed into a political party named "Party of Democratic
Union" (PBD); Bardhyl MAHMUTI who formerly had lived in
Switzerland and there had acted as the UÇK's spokesperson was
elected its chairman. On September 20, the Kosovo (Peace)
Force (KFOR) and the UÇK, represented by its political leader
Hashim THAQI and the "Chief of Staff" Agim CEKU, agreed to set
up a "Kosovo Protection Corps" (TMK) after THAQI and CEKU previously
had consented to the self-directed dissolution of the UÇK.
The head of the UN Mission to Kosovo appointed CEKU as the
provisional chief of the Protection Corps. As the political successor
organization of the UÇK, the "Party for Kosovo's Democratic
Progress" (PPDK) - into which the PBD was incorporated - was
founded jointly by THAQI and MAHMUTI on 15 October. The organization's
new chairman is THAQI, with MAHMUTI as his deputy.
In Zurich on 28 November, the PPDK Foreign Mission was
founded in MAHMUTI's presence.
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