1929
Petition of Hasan Prishtina
Petition from Hasan Prishtina received by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 2 March 1929,
protesting against the oppression of Albanian minority in Yugoslavia, and the response of
J. Shumenkovich, Permanent Delegate of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, dated
11 July 1929, rejecting the said petition.
Hasan Prishtina
Former Albanian Council President
Hintere Zollamtstrasse 3,
Vienna III
to
the President of the League of Nations,
Geneva
In my letter of 15 March 1927, I ventured to set forth to the
League of Nations several complaints from the Albanians
living in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and
to draw its attention to the deplorable fact that the Albanians
in the above-mentioned State, although one million in
number, and therefore more numerous than the inhabitants
of independent Albania, are being deprived of all the rights
accorded to national minorities under international conventions and in line with the principles of
humanity.
The Secretary General of the League of Nations, Sir Eric Drummond, informed me in his reply of 15
April (41/58664/11379) that the general nature of the statements made in my letter did not enable
the League of Nations to ascertain whether the procedure set forth by the Council for a minorities
complaint was applicable.
I should therefore like to explain once again, in a more concrete manner, the complaints made about
the treatment inflicted upon my Albanian compatriots in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes.
The Albanian minority is being oppressed in the S.H.S State. The most obvious evidence of this is
that there are one million Albanians living in that country without Albanian-language schools.
This bears witness, more than anything else, to the fact that the Government of the S.H.S. State is
aiming at the annihilation of the Albanian people in that country.
Since young Albanians are not permitted to get an education in their own language, they are faced
with two options: either give up their nationality or to renounce all possibilities of education. Both
of these options are painful and destructive for the future of our people with the border dividing it
as it does, and are unworthy of Europe. It is thus to the highest-ranking officials of Europe that the
Albanians, through me, address their painful cries.
In all spheres of public and national life, the Government of the S.H.S. State is acting along the same
principle - the open pursuit of the annihilation of our people.
The Albanians of Kosovo and of the other territories they inhabit in the S.H.S. State are, in their
great majority, farmers who hand their trade down from father to son. They cultivate the land that
they have inherited from their ancestors capably and assiduously, as all foreign scholars have
noted, and they are passionately attached to this land and their homes on it. Using different forms
of violence and treading upon human and national rights, the Government of the S.H.S. State is
treating the Albanian people deeply entrenched in their native soil as subjected and conquered
peoples were treated in ancient times. The Albanians are being driven from their land, the soil of
their ancestors that they so love, a soil that has been drenched in their blood and sweat. They are
being forced to abandon it and to emigrate to Albania, to Turkey or to other countries on this
continent to live in miserable conditions, without home and country, deprived of all their
possessions, while the Government of the S.H.S. State divides their property up among the Serbs,
Montenegrins and Russian immigrants.
It is here in our beloved country, on the soil that our forefathers cultivated, on the soil to which our
young people have devoted their energy, and which we have defended over the centuries from our
enemies that the tragic fate of our poor people is being played out in this century of progress and
humanity, the fate of our poor people who appeal to the League of Nations for aid and assistance.
What it cannot achieve by force, the Government of the S.H.S. State is accomplishing with its
administration by having its authorities and organs systematically oppress the Albanian people.
By the simple fact that it refuses to recognise the right to Albanian-language education, the
Government of the S.H.S. State has done wrong to the indigenous population and brought about
fatal consequences. The administration is a silent instrument in the hands of the dominant Serbs in
their fight against the Albanian nation.
It is impossible for an Albanian to demand his rights before a Serbian tribunal. The Government
gets rid of Albanian politicians it does not want by sentencing them, though innocent, to long years
in prison.
Acts of terror and violence, even the killing of Albanians, are not prosecuted, even when the courts
know who the perpetrators are.
For instance, the Albanian Nazim Gafuri, a former deputy of the Skupshtina, was wounded in an
ambush in Belgrade and was then killed in Prishtina, and another Albanian member of parliament
for the municipality of the same town, Jusuf Ahmeti, was murdered, too. The murderers were not
prosecuted although their names were known to the authorities. All the authorities and their
organs, in particular the omnipotent police, are playing an active role in the inexorable war of
extermination against our people. Both secretly and openly they give active support to the bands of
Serbian criminals who attack Albanian villages and farmsteads, plundering and murdering while
they do so.
The tax administration is equally partial. Albanians are arbitrarily forced to pay the heaviest taxes
in order to ruin them economically and reduce formerly well-off people to begging in the streets.
There is no freedom of the press, the basic symbol of human rights, for the Albanians in the S.H.S.
State. Albanian newspapers are forbidden and the poor people are not even allowed to groan and
complain about it.
There is no freedom of assembly for Albanians in the S.H.S. State.
During the last elections, the Yugoslav Government destroyed the Albanian electoral movement
with truly barbaric methods. All the authorities, the gendarmes and the most dangerous bandits
attacked Albanian voters.
The consequence of the terrorism exerted during the elections was that there were only six deputies
to represent one million Albanians in the Skupshtina. The situation of the Albanians in the S.H.S.
State cannot be compared with that of any other national minority in Europe. In all the other
countries, individuals are at least allowed to live. There are laws that provide for both duties and
rights.
The Albanians in the S.H.S. State have been made outlaws. They suffer under arbitrary tyranny that
is aimed at exterminating them and their nation. Even the fist of a gendarme is above the law.
In their struggle for their rights, for justice for their language, for their future, for their jeopardised
lives, for the fields of their forefathers and for their existence as a people, fate has condemned the
Albanians to live under the Serb yoke. They turn to the League of Nations as a personification of
European civilisation and appeal to it as follows:
We would ask the League of Nations to carry out an on-site investigation, by an impartial
commission, of the situation of the Albanians who live in the S.H.S. State and take the requisite
steps to ensure that this oppressed and persecuted people be able to enjoy the rights recognised to
minorities.
On behalf of my wretched compatriots living in the S.H.S. State, I submit this request to the League
of Nations and hope that this appeal for help for my wretched compatriots will not be in vain.
Mr President, the cause that I am presenting here is of the utmost importance, for the League of
Nations, too. It is the cause of humanity and peace for the prevention of wars which are the scourge
of humanity. With it, the League of Nations will show that it is not simply a front but that it is
acting in the service of civilisation and culture. If the League of Nations wishes to overcome war, it
must ensure that oppressed peoples receive their rights. This is the only means of preventing the
Balkans from remaining the dangerous volcano it is. The non-accomplishment of this task would
make the League of Nations an accomplice, responsible for the sombre and menacing future.
Mr President, it is to you and your illustrious colleagues that I turn. Do not forget that the issue of
minorities is the most important problem of our age. Do not forget that a favourable solution to this
problem can ensure peace in Europe and, at the same time, drape the flag of the League of Nations
in glory.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my utmost consideration to the League of Nations.
(signed) Hassan Prishtina
Response of the Serbian-Croatian-Slovene Government
Permanent Delegation
of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
at the League of Nations
to
Sir James Eric Drummond,
Secretary General of the League of Nations,
Geneva
Geneva, 11 July 1929
Mr Secretary General,
In your letter sent from Madrid on 17 June this year, you were kind enough, pursuant the
procedures in force, to transmit to me for the Government of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes, the petition dated 5 April 1929 and signed by Hassan Bey Prishtina for possible
observations on the Government’s part.
I have the honour to transmit to you herewith a response from my Government on the
aforementioned submission.
1.
The petitioner, Hassan Bey Prishtina, is the main promoter and direct agent of irredentist and
revolutionary activity aimed at interrupting the political ties between the Albanian minority and the
Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In addition to this, his political activity as far as the
Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is concerned, constitutes a series of acts of treason.
Having admitted himself that his attitude towards the Serbian Army during its retreat in 1915 and
towards the Serbian population of Kosovo during the enemy occupation of the region was clearly
hostile – because of which he was accorded special honours by the occupation troops – he fled
abroad without waiting for the return of the liberating Serbian Army.
Once he was abroad, he organised a two-fold activity against our country. Firstly, he worked to stir
up trouble among certain elements of our Muslim population in Southern Serbia with a view to
causing them to rise against the security and integrity of the Serbian, Croatian and Slovene State. It
should be noted, however, that the activities of Hassan Bey Prishtina did not receive support from
the Albanian masses, who do not agree with this political beliefs and who harbour feelings of
loyalty towards the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. It must also be mentioned that he
has collaborated closely with foreign revolutionary organisations hostile to the Kingdom of the
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, in particular with the Macedonian Committee and the Kosovo Albanian
Committee.
Secondly, he has also been active on the international scene endeavouring to sway international
public opinion against the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. This activity is evident more
than anywhere else in a Vienna newspaper called Ora e Shkipinize. It is enough to read through this
newspaper to understand the defamatory nature of the activities of Hassan Bey Prishtina against
our country.
2.
There is no doubt that Hassan Bey Prishtina has submitted his petitions to the League of
Nations in this same spirit. Misusing the right of petition, he wishes to create the impression that he
enjoys the august protection of the League of Nations. It is more than apparent that his objectives in
appealing to the League of Nations and his political activities are in flagrant violation of the ideals
upon which the League of Nations was founded and of the essence of the regime for the protection
of minorities. It is also clear that the petition in question, though it may have been drafted so as to
fulfill the formal criteria set forth by the Council Resolution of 5 September 1923, is contrary to the
principles set forth under item (b) of this Resolution due to the aim it pursues.
It is therefore normal, faced with the petition of Hassan Bey Prishtina, that the Serbian-Croatian-
Slovene Government should highlight the dangers that this type of petition entails. Such petitions,
as we saw during the great debate held in Madrid on the minority issue, caused Mr Briand to
express legitimate fears not only for the governments and minorities concerned, but also, and
primarily for the League of Nations itself.
Under such conditions, it is understandable that the Serbian-Croatian-Slovene Government has
been placed in a delicate situation. Firstly, it has an overriding duty to protect its own interests and
those of the Albanian minority and, as such, must reject the petition of Hassan Bey Prishtina.
Secondly, it is conscious of the great respect it has and has always shown for the Council. For this
reason, the Serbian-Croatian-Slovene Government, while considering the petition of Hassan Bey
Prishtina null and void, intends, out of courtesy and respect for the members of the Council, to
provide you, in good time, with a memorandum on the current situation of the Albanian minority
in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
Mr Secretary General, please accept the assurance of my highest consideration.
(signed) J. Shumenkovich
[British Foreign Office document FO 371/13711, preserved in the National Archives at Kew, U.K.
Courtesy of Bejtullah Destani. Translated from the French by Robert Elsie.]
Hasan Prishtina (1873-1933)