[ALBSA-Info] {QIKSH «ALBEUROPA»} PRESS: Kosovar politician predicts promising future for region (The Hoya via U-WIRE, February 2, 2001)

[Wolfgang Plarre]

http://news.excite.com/news/uw/010202/politics-167

Kosovar politician predicts promising future for region

Updated 12:00 PM ET February 2, 2001
By Aly Carpenter
The Hoya
Georgetown U.

(U-WIRE) WASHINGTON -- Though the Serbian conflict in Kosovo is just
over a year and a half in the past and anything but forgotten, Kosovar
political leader Dr. Alush Gashi spoke of a potentially promising future
for the region Wednesday morning in Georgetown University's Healy Hall. 
    Once a self-described impartial, "innocent physician looking to help
others," Gashi quickly became a political leader, serving as an adviser
to the prominent Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova and a member of
the Prishtina-based Kosovo Council for the Defense of Human Rights and
Freedoms. He played a fundamental role in working to end the genocide,
war crimes and torture inflicted upon Kosovars by Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic's forces. 
    A target to the Serbs because of its rich natural resources and
wealth, as well as its 90 percent ethnic Albanian population, Kosovo is
striving to be the next of the regions to gain independence from Serbian
rule and earn the right to statehood, Gashi said. For almost 10 years,
the region in the southwestern part of Yugoslavia has been a "divided
society," segregated between Serbs and ethnic Albanians after Serbs
closed down all media and separated schools by ethnicity. 
    "It's going to be very hard, almost impossible, to force (normal
interaction between the ethnic groups,)" Gashi said. He said he
"believe(s) freedom and peace and justice in Kosovo" are crucial to the
well-being of Europe and important to the world. 
    Gashi said he remembers cheering for the NATO pilots bombing Serbian
forces because they were the Kosovars' "only hope, coming from the free
world," fighting for people they had never met, but fighting for the
global goal of freedom. 
    With Milosevic's forces out of the region, Kosovo is far from the
level of autonomy it desires, he said. Establishing a self-governed
democracy would help repay those people who risked their lives to rescue
the Kosovars, Gashi said. If Kosovars invest for the next few decades in
democratic institutions, he believes the nation would benefit for
generations to come. 
    Additionally, he said "it would be very good to bring investment
(into Kosovo) and (with this economic investment) will come security"
for the area. Despite their intense reluctance to release the area,
Gashi said he did not "believe Serbs care for Kosovo," at least apart
from their own economic interests. Furthermore, he said, "Serbs are not
helping us at all." He then cited the fact that approximately 70 percent
of Serbs living in Kosovo voted for Milosevic in the last election,
further highlighting the need for a self-governed, undivided Kosovar
nation. 
    Much credit must be given to the Americans initiating NATO air
strikes in 1999, Gashi said. Kosovars firmly acknowledge, "without
American leadership, there is no trust among Albanians in Kosovo," for
with or without reason, Kosovars as a general rule are very reluctant to
trust others, he said. Americans gave Kosovars "hope that people cared"
and followed through on promises of support and aid to the Kosovars.
"They established our so-called democratic institutions," Gashi said.
Even today, if they withdraw from the country he said he believes there
will be war again. 
    In a time of intrusive foreign policy and morally debatable
international intervention, he said Americans made the ethically right,
yet obvious decision, responding to the call of desperate need. In the
aftermath of the Serbian presence in Kosovo, mass gravesites are still
being found and innocent lives lost due to ethnic cleansing, and those
lost fighting are painfully remembered, Gashi said. 
    Gashi said that he is committed to Kosovo statehood, the safety of
the ethnic Albanians and the return of refugees to Kosovo from
surrounding areas. Although the war crimes and genocide of this region
can never be revoked and the Kosovars' plight against ethnocentric
murder cannot be forgotten, Gashi sees the future that lies before them,
centered around their own autonomous region. 
    Gashi's speech was sponsored by the Center for Eurasian, Russian and
East European Studies. 

(C) 2001 The Hoya via U-WIRE


------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-~>
eGroups is now Yahoo! Groups
Click here for more details
http://click.egroups.com/1/11231/1/_/920292/_/981205252/
---------------------------------------------------------------------_->

Na dërgoni vërejtjet dhe sugjerimet tuaja, që QIKSH Albeuropa të jetë më e pëlqyeshme, më efikase dhe më e dobishme - në shërbim të Mërgatës, të mbarë kombit dhe të atdheut tonë - Shqipërisë Etnike.

Nëse e sheh të arsyeshme dhe të dobishme, dërgo shkrimet e ALBEUROPËS në E-mail-et e miqve tuaj dhe i regjistro ata në:

albeuropa-subscribe at egroups.com

Nëse don të çregjistrohesh nga ALBEUROPA, dërgo një Email në:

albeuropa-unsubscribe at egroups.com