#2067 12 - 14 korrik, 2011 albanians in montenegro in montenegro.pdf · about the albanians in...

I#2067 12 - 14 KORRIK, 2011

By Cafo Boga & Stefan Wolff

“Why are we here, that is the question. Andwe are blessed in this, that we happen toknow the answer. Yes, in this immense con-fusion one thing alone is clear. We are wait-ing for Godot to come…”

“Let us not waste our time in idle discourse!Let us do something, while we have thechance! It is not every day that we areneeded. But at this place, at this moment oftime, all mankind is us, whether we like it ornot. Let us make the most of it, before it istoo late!”

–Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

INTRODUCTION

It is surprising that some don’t even knowabout the Albanians in Montenegro, thoughthey have been living in this area since theantiquity. As a matter of fact, the Albanians’ancestors, the Illyrians, laid the very foun-dations of modern Montenegro.

Montenegro was founded as a state underits present name during the 15th century,continuing the tradition of the Illyrian stateof Genta or Zenta, later the Roman state ofDukla. During next three centuries, the Re-public of Venice dominated much of thecostal area, which became known as AlbaniaVeneta. Following Ottoman invasion muchof today’s Montenegro fell under Ottomancontrol, except the costal area, which re-mained under the Venetian control. Withhelp from Russia, the central Montenegro(the Slavic speaking area) was able to main-tain its quasi-independence during the Ot-toman Empire’s reign in the Balkans; its in-dependence was formally acknowledged atthe Congress of Berlin in 1878, which alsobrought about a substantial expansion ofits territory at the expense of Albania. AfterWorld War I, it was absorbed into the King-dom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, whichlater became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in1929. Montenegro was also later part of var-ious incarnations of Yugoslavia, until it re-gained its full independence from the fed-eration of Serbia-Montenegro in June 2006.

Montenegro is a small country with a pop-ulation of approximately 630,000 people.Montenegrins and Serbs are the predomi-nant ethnic groups, together forming about74 percent of the population. Albanians inMontenegro account for approximately 8percent of the total population. They live inrelative compact settlements along the Mon-tenegrin-Albanian border, which stretchesat times further inland to the eastern out-

skirts of the Montenegrin capital of Pod-gorica. Albanians in Montenegro are a na-tional minority (members of an ethnic groupwho live within a host-state, but are simul-taneously ethnic kin of another, often neigh-bouring kin-state. As such, Albanians belongto a type of minority group that is very wide-spread across Europe. Its country was cre-ated and shaped by the redrawing of Eu-rope’s political map following conflicts inits region—primarily the Balkan wars of theearly 20th century, World Wars I and II, andthe dissolution of the Soviet Union andCzechoslovakia as well as the collapse ofYugoslavia after the Cold War. Albanians’minority status within Montenegro, there-fore, is not a matter of choice, but one ofhistorical circumstance: inhabiting a con-tiguous homeland, nations were divided be-tween expanding nation-states either in theprocess of direct territorial contests, as aconsequence of post-war border changes,or after the disintegration of multinationalstates.

National minorities living in European host-states have been tolerated citizens at best.But in most cases, they continue to sufferthe consequences of past and present dis-crimination. At the same time, it is a widelyheld belief among academics and policy-makers that members of national minoritiesdeserve and require specific legal protectionin order for them to express, maintain, anddevelop their own identities without fear ofdiscrimination or disadvantage:

“Persons belonging to national minoritieshave the right freely to express, preserveand develop their ethnic, cultural, lin-guistic or religious identity and to main-tain and develop their culture in all itsaspects, free of any attempts at assimi-lation against their will.”1

This fundamental assertion of national mi-nority rights was approved by the partici-pating states of the Conference on Securityand Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) at the1990 Copenhagen Meeting on the HumanDimension. Section IV, Article 32, of theCopenhagen Document that resulted fromthe meeting details particular rights of mi-norities such as:

The right to speak their ethnic language•freely in private and in public (includingthe right to disseminate, receive, andaccess information in that language); The right to establish and maintain ed-•ucational, cultural, and religious insti-tutions and organizations (includingthe right to participate in internationalnon-governmental organizations); The right to profess and practice their•religion; and The right to establish and maintain con-•

tact among themselves and across bor-ders.

The signatory states of the CSCE furthercommitted themselves to protecting the eth-nic, cultural, linguistic, and religious iden-tities of their minorities and to creating con-ditions in which these identities can bepromoted, including, “appropriate local orautonomous administrations correspondingto the specific historic and territorial cir-cumstances” of their minorities, whereverpossible.

The approval of the Copenhagen Documentin 1990 was not accidental. After the EasternBloc collapsed in 1989, minorities’ rightsand protections have become recurring po-litical issues in central, eastern, and south-eastern Europe. Not only did the dissolutionand disintegration of multinational stateslead to the creation of new host-state mi-norities, but also liberalization and democ-ratization in these states set the stage forcompetition among new or redefinedgroups. Group interests were increasinglydefined in ethnic terms, and ethnic groups’claims to resources and security became in-fluential factors in domestic and interna-tional politics across the region.

Confronting these issues, governments havehad to formulate and implement policiesthat address a wide variety of minority-re-lated issues—from separatist demands toEU accession conditionality—as one part ofcreating more fair and open societies.Against the background of foreign and do-mestic policy goals, governments have hadto strike a balance between the interests oftheir majority and minority populations.Often the majority sentiment is more tra-ditional and nationalistic while minorities’top priorities include equal rights and recog-nition.

The former Yugoslavia has seen this typeof interest conflict play out more often thanmost other regions. Here the debate on howbest to achieve such a balance of diverseand often competing interests has takenplace in a setting shaped by the characterand consequences of violent conflicts withinand between several states. Moreover, withthe exception of Albania, all the states ofthis Western Balkans region are essentiallynew states. That is, they had to build up orcreate their identities as individual states—rather than merely redefine themselves—and obtain legitimacy both domestically andinternationally. In this context in particular,questions concerning minority rights haveplayed a crucial role: they have determined,to some extent, the acceptance of these newstates by their minorities and by third-partystates recognizing them, and by interna-tional and regional organizations offering

them membership, although, some after aconsiderable delay.

The regional environment in which thesedynamics unfold continues to be shapedsignificantly by hostility, mistrust, and re-sentment in both majority-minority and in-terstate relations. At the same time, the un-precedented involvement of theinternational community—especially of Eu-ropean and transatlantic regional organi-zations as well as the United Nations andits sub-organizations—has helped sustaincrucial conversations around minority rightsand protections. While the commitmentsmade around these issues are often vaguelydefined, third-party organizations can offera lot of value by mediating talks and helpingto define accountability in regards to thesecommitments.

Despite the fact that the protections of na-tional minorities has been a high-profileitem on the agendas of international organ-izations, NGOs, and national governments,progress in many cases has been incremen-tal at best. Albanians in Montenegro, forexample, have seen much political changein the Western Balkans over the past twodecades but little improvement in their owngroup’s situation. They are worse off in cer-tain aspects than they were during the com-munist regime in former Yugoslavia. Havingbeen subjected to discrimination for almosta century in the various incarnations of Yu-goslavia, Albanians welcomed the democ-ratization process and hoped it would usherin a new dawn. They expected to work withMontenegrins and other communities aspartners in building a new democratic andmulti-ethnic state, and thus voted over-whelmingly for their nation’s independence.The reality of what has since transpired hasfallen far short of their expectations; mostAlbanians now find themselves disillusionedabout their future.

Montenegro’s privatization process and eco-nomic reforms have created significant so-cial dislocations, economic hardship, andcorruption, all of which has contributed torising tensions between Albanians and Mon-tenegrins. These tensions could easily es-calate, which could, in turn, spread to othernationalities and minority groups, threat-ening the very existence of Montenegro. Aheightened conflict also could seriouslydestabilize this still volatile region, whichincludes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedo-nia, Serbia, and Kosovo. A weak economyhas exacerbated tensions between the dif-ferent ethnic groups in Montenegro as eachgroup fears it will lose access to resourcesthat are already scarce. These tensions, al-beit not violent ones, are likely to persistinto the future and need to be addressedthrough long-term preventive efforts such

Albanians in Montenegro Waiting for Godot?

__________________________

1 Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE. http://www.osce.org/documents/html/pdftohtml/13992_en.pdf.html.

II#2067 12 - 14 KORRIK, 2011

Albanians in Montenegro - Waiting for Godot?

as a renewed focus on the political status ofAlbanians in Montenegro.

The purposes of this paper are to: examinethe current situation in Montenegro andthat of the Albanians within it; analyze whatspecific grievances this community has; andidentify possible solutions that can addressthese grievances in a way that anchors Al-banians in Montenegro and prevents thecountry from destabilizing. Such results alsowould help Montenegro attain one of its keyforeign policy goals: integration into the Eu-ropean Union.

The paper begins with an outline of the cur-rent situation in Montenegro with respectto the protection of national minorities inlaw and policy. We then discuss Albanians’specific grievances in regards to the currentstate of affairs. The second part of the paperlays out a range of options for protectingnational minorities, drawing on a broadrange of examples from comparable situa-tions across the Western Balkans region andbeyond. We conclude with some recommen-dations on a sustainable approach to ad-dressing Albanian grievances in Montenegromoving forward in a constructive and in-clusive manner.

THE CURRENT SITUATION IN MONTENEGRO

Montenegro gained independent statehoodin 2006 following a referendum in which amajority of the population, including manymembers of non-Montenegrin ethnic com-munities, voted in favor of dissolving theregion’s union with Serbia. Broadly speak-ing, most ethnic Montenegrins strongly sup-ported the Montenegrin government’s drivetoward independence. Albanians and otherethnic minorities mostly favored independ-ence, though some had expressed doubtsconcerning their status in an independentMontenegro. The voting results show thatMontenegro would not have been able toachieve its independence without the Al-banian vote.

Following the country’s declaration of in-dependence, the Montenegrin Parliamentissued a new constitution in 2007. Accord-ing to the Constitution, Montenegro is anindependent and sovereign state with a re-publican form of government. Furthermore,the Constitution states that Montenegro isa civil, democratic, and ecological statebased on a social justice and the rule of law.But despite the fact that ethnic Montene-grins only account for 43 percent of the totalpopulation, the new official state symbolsadopted by the legislature in 2004 and bythe constitution in 2007 are based on theroyal standards of King Nikola. To Mon-tenegrins he is a national hero, a leader whomanaged to establish good relations withpowerful European nations and Russia andachieved recognition of its nations inde-pendence in 1897. However, he was also aruthless leader who embroiled his countryin a series of wars between 1862 and 1878.He carried out these wars under the bannerof liberation from the Ottomans, but withthe ultimate goal of expanding Montenegrin

frontier and acquiring an outlet to the Adri-atic Sea, primarily at the expense of Albania.Albanians and the other minorities who suf-fered under Nikola’s rule have difficultiesaccepting him as a national hero of the newMontenegro.

The preamble to Montenegro’s Constitutionidentifies the nationalities and national mi-norities of Montenegro—Montenegrins,Serbs, Bosniaks, Albanians, Muslims, Croatsand others as citizens of Montenegro—free,equal, and loyal to a civic and democraticMontenegro. The new Constitution changedthe country’s official language from Serbianto Montenegrin, but also recognizes Serbian,Bosnian, Albanian, and Croatian. Genderequality right has become a separate cate-gory under the Constitution, while otherrights, which have already existed in theMontenegrin legislation, such as the rightto asylum, free access to information, andthe right to conscience (the right to objectserving military or other duty involving theuse of arms based upon religious groundsor personal conviction) are now guaranteedby the Constitution. For the first time inhistory of the Montenegro the new Consti-tution gave precedence to international lawsover the country’s own laws.

While determining that “the official lan-guage in Montenegro shall be Montenegrin,”the Constitution also notes that the “Cyrillicand Latin alphabet shall be equal” and that“Serbian, Bosniak, Albanian and Croatianshall be in official use” (Article 13). Specialminority rights, whose exercise is subjectto further legislation, are detailed in PartII, Chapter 5, and include:

“The right to exercise, protect, develop•and publicly express national, ethnic,cultural and religious particularities”; “The right to choose, use and publicly•post national symbols and to celebratenational holidays”; “The right to use their own language•and alphabet in private, public and of-ficial use”; “The right to education in their own•language and alphabet in public insti-tutions and the right to have includedin the curricula the history and cultureof the persons belonging to minoritynations and other minority nationalcommunities”; “The right, in the areas with significant•share in the total population, to havethe local self-government authorities,state and court authorities carry outthe proceedings in the language of mi-nority nations and other minority na-tional communities”; “The right to establish educational, cul-•tural and religious associations, withthe material support of the state”; “The right to write and use their own•name and surname also in their ownlanguage and alphabet in the officialdocuments”; “The right, in the areas with significant•share in total population, to have tra-ditional local terms, names of streetsand settlements, as well as topographicsigns written in the language of minor-ity nations and other minority national

communities”; “The right to authentic representation•in the Parliament of the Republic ofMontenegro and in the assemblies ofthe local self-government units in whichthey represent a significant share in thepopulation, according to the principleof affirmative action”; “The right to proportionate represen-•tation in public services, state authori-ties and local self-government bodies”; “The right to information in their own•language”; “The right to establish and maintain•contacts with the citizens and associa-tions outside of Montenegro, withwhom they have common national andethnic background, cultural and his-toric heritage, as well as religious be-liefs”; and “The right to establish councils for the•protection and improvement of specialrights.”

The right to access “mother-tongue” edu-cation is separately regulated in decrees onprimary and secondary education. Explicitly,the Constitution of Montenegro prohibitsforced assimilation and obliges the state to“protect persons belonging to minority na-tions and other minority national commu-nities from all forms of forceful assimilation”(Article 80).

While this is a fairly impressive constitu-tional entrenchment of minority rights, sig-nificant shortcomings exist in terms oftranslating these constitutional commit-ments into law and policy. A Law on Na-tional Minorities has been under discussionfor many years; interethnic controversieshave kept it from passing. As a result, anewly adopted law specifically addressingminority rights has already been contestedas unconstitutional. The absence of a specificminority law in Montenegro and the earlierfailure to adopt and implement the federallaw concerning minority rights has createda significant level of ambiguity in regardsto these issues. A recent report by the Par-liamentary Assembly of the Council of Eu-rope states that “in the opinion of the VeniceCommission, the wording of some provi-sions of the constitution, especially, thosedealing with human and minority rights,could be further improved and broughtcloser to the wording of the convention forprotection of Human rights and Fundamen-tal Freedoms.”2

Discrimination against ethnic communitieshas always been a problem in Montenegro;it is particularly widespread in the case ofRoma. Local authorities often ignore or tac-itly condone intimidation and abuse ofRoma, some of whom are internally dis-placed persons (IDPs) from Kosovo. In2007, 76 percent of Roma were illiterate,80 percent did not speak the local language,90 percent were officially unemployed, 40percent had no access to public utilities, and90 percent lived below the poverty level.Even though the unemployment rate hadslightly improved from 95 percent in 2005and 2006, the situation had worsened interms of illiteracy and language competence.An additional problem is police harassment

of members of ethnic communities, partic-ularly of Roma and Albanians, who sufferfrom ill treatment and, in some cases, tor-ture at the hands of police officers.

The government does fund minority-relatedprojects, but resources for such projects arevery limited. For example in 2006, the gov-ernment allocated €17,000 to the “RomaPresence in the Labour Market” programand €35,000 to the “Second Chance” proj-ect, while the Ministry of Education andScience supported a program for scholar-ships for Roma pupils in secondary schoolsand allocated €14,000 for minority educa-tion purposes. Other communities, includ-ing Albanians, receive even less state sup-port and thus remain heavily dependent onforeign support.

By law, minorities are entitled to autonomyof cultural institutions and the freedom ofreligious expression. In the sphere of edu-cation, culture, and information, measureshave been implemented to enhance equalitythrough tangible projects and programs.The Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Media,for example, assists ethnic minorities inpublishing magazines and books in theirown language; presenting programs of folk-lore, traditions, and practices; and cooper-ating with institutions in their kin-state.

Specific media programming for minoritiesremains rare due to a lack of relevant legis-lation. The Albanian community is the onlyone in Montenegro that has received accessto minority-specific broadcasting and mediain recent years. As the Advisory Committeeof the Council of Europe’s Framework Con-vention on National Minorities pointed out:“national minorities in Montenegro meritincreased attention in the on-going processof developing a public broadcasting serv-ice.”3

Radio Montenegro broadcasts programs inAlbanian twice a day for 10 to 15 minuteseach. There are also private and commercialradio stations that broadcast in Albanian.In addition, Radio Montenegro broadcasts24 shows a year intended for the Roma pop-ulation. A large number of printed mediaare published in Albanian, Croatian, Ro-mani, and Bosniak.

The Montenegrin Commission for Educa-tion of National and Ethnic Groups ap-proved the use of textbooks in minority lan-guages and allows 15 to 20 percent of theteaching to be done in minority languages.Albanian is used at all educational levels,while the education of other minorities, suchas Bosniaks and Croats, happens within thesingle educational system because their lan-guages are essentially the same.

Education in the Albanian language reliesheavily on textbooks translated from Ser-bian and devotes little space to Albanianhistory and culture (2.5 percent of theclasses in primary schools and 5.9 percentin secondary schools).4 The establishmentof teacher training in Albanian has causedtensions between the Albanian communityand the government. At first, the govern-ment opened an Albanian-language section

__________________________

2 Committee on the Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by Member States of the Council of Europe (Monitoring Committee), Honouring of obligations and commitments byMontenegro, Strasbourg, 31 March 2010, http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc10/EDOC12192.pdf.

3 Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Opinion on Serbia and Montenegro, Strasbourg, 27 November 2003 ACFC/INF/OP/I (2004) 002.

4 Minority Issues Mainstreaming: A Practical Guide for European Agency for Reconstruction Programmes, European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI), 2006.

III#2067 12 - 14 KORRIK, 2011


in Nikšic in 2003, but Albanians boycottedit, saying it was too far from major Albaniansettlement areas. The program reopened in2004 in Podgorica with 45 students andfaculty from the University of Montenegroand the University of Shkoder in Albania.

Political representation of minorities inMontenegro is guaranteed by law. In prac-tice, it takes place both through minoritypolitical parties and their inclusion intomainstream parties. Ethnic Albanians, Mus-lims, Bosniaks, and Croats participate inthe political process and their parties, can-didates, and voters participate in all elec-tions. In 1998, five out of seventy-eight seatsin the Parliament were set aside for Albanianvoters. These five seats were to be electedin polling stations in districts populated pre-dominantly by Albanians. In 2005, a totalof 11 members of ethnic minority originwere elected to the 75-seat Parliament andthree minority members were appointed tocabinet positions. By 2006, the number ofethnic minority members in the 81-seat As-sembly had gone up to 14, but their numberin the cabinet dropped to two. In 2007, mi-norities’ political representation improvedslightly, with 16 minority members in theAssembly and two in the cabinet. In July2006, the Constitutional Court struck downa law that would have added reserved seatsfor Muslims, Bosniaks, and Croats.

GRIEVANCES OF ALBANIANS IN MONTENEGRO

Against this backdrop of minority policy inMontenegro, it is not surprising that thecountry’s Albanian community has signifi-cant grievances about its situation. The Gov-ernment of Montenegro has failed to changethe paradigm of written and unwritten poli-cies of previous regimes, which in substancewere designed to colonize lands inhabitedby Albanians and squeeze non-majority pop-ulations out of the country. Sadly, thesepolicies have been largely successful, reduc-ing the Albanian population in Montenegroby almost half since their territories wereannexed by Montenegro. This decline con-tinues today.

This process has not involved open violence,but was instead managed through demo-graphic “engineering”: withholding basicservices; confiscating thousands of hectaresof land; limiting access to education, em-ployment, and political participation; en-couraging Albanian emigration from Mon-tenegro; and privileging those Albanianswilling to renounce their language and cul-ture. Even those rights guaranteed by Mon-tenegro’s Constitution are not realized inpractice or are otherwise circumvented bylaws (municipality or otherwise) that areclearly unconstitutional. The difference be-tween law and actual policy is striking inalmost every aspect of Albanian life in Mon-tenegro.

The Albanian community in Montenegro,so fare, does not harbor any secessionistclaims against the state in which they live,but their desire to play a full and active partin building a liberal, democratic Montenegroand contributing to its integration into theEuropean Union are hampered by the coun-try’s denial of basic minority rights.

Albanians remain second-class citizens inmany respects and are not accepted as equalmembers of Montenegrin society. They havelittle recognition or protection of their dis-tinct history, language, and culture. Even

though the Albanian-populated lands thatwere annexed by Montenegro pursuant tothe Treaty of Berlin are clearly delineatedareas with a long history of Albanian cultureand tradition, Montenegro has never soughtto develop a policy to preserve the Albanianlanguage, culture, and heritage in these ar-eas. To the contrary, there has been a longtradition of changing the local demographyof these lands by bringing in non-Albaniansettlers and by putting pressure on the Al-banian population to assimilate into Mon-tenegrin culture and society.

EDUCATION

Montenegro’s denial of basic minority rightsis most evident in the education system,where everything that is Montenegrin is dis-proportionately glorified and almost every-thing Albanian is omitted, downplayed, oractively demonized. As one Albanian putsit: “First they teach their children to hateours, then our children to hate themselves.”

Albanians demand that they should haveequal rights to use their own language and

develop their education systems in the areasthey live in. However, most of the schooltextbooks continue to be printed in Slavic(Serbian or Montenegrin as it is now calledin Montenegro) and university education isoffered only in Slavic. Albanians have longinsisted that denying them university edu-cation in their own language has hinderedtheir national development. As previouslymentioned, several formal requests by Al-banians to establish a Teachers College inthe Albanian language within the Universityof Montenegro have been denied by the gov-ernment. Instead, the government has of-fered to open a Department of AlbanianStudies in a city that has only Slavic speakers(the University of Nikshiq/Nikšic), ratherthan in Albanian population centers likeUlqin, Tuz, or Tivar.

The quality of education in Albanian ele-mentary and junior high schools is verypoor. The curriculum, for example, is es-tablished by the state in a centralized man-ner. A very limited number of classes coverAlbanian history, literature, music, and arts.Albanian students are instead forced to learnabout the history and culture of Slavic na-

tions. From the fifth grade to the eighthgrade, students spend just 3 of 120 hoursin history class studying Albanian history.This is equivalent to just 2.5 percent of theirclass time. In high schools, the percentageis slightly better: 10 of 170 academic hours(or 5.9 percent) are dedicated to Albaniannational history. In Slavic schools, Albaniannational history and culture are not taughtat all.

Most Albanian schools are in such de-plorable condition that hardly any meet theminimum state requirements for holdingclasses. The Montenegrin government hasdone nothing to improve these conditions;to the contrary, it has hampered an effortby the Diaspora in the United States to helpimprove or rebuild some of the schools. Inaddition, pursuant to applicable laws andregulations, the administration of theschools and the admission policy is to beestablished and managed by the schoolcouncil. However, in many high schools withmixed nationalities (such as the one in Tuz),the Ministry of Education disregarded thecouncil’s decision and opted for offeringmore classes in the Slavic language. This

Physical Map of Montenegro (Elizon Maps).

IV#2067 12 - 14 KORRIK, 2011


was done despite the fact that most of thestudents were Albanian and had successfullypassed the entrance exam. Another inter-esting phenomenon is that, despite the col-lapse of communism more than 20 yearsago, Albanian schools are still named aftercommunist heroes and events, while otherschools across the rest of Montenegro havebeen renamed since the 1990s. Requestsfrom Albanians to change the names of theirschools have been denied.

THE ALBANIAN LANGUAGE

The Albanian language is recognized as anofficial language only in Ulqin, which has apredominantly Albanian population. In spiteof the area’s demographics, official docu-ments are issued in the Montenegrin lan-guage (though some are translated into Al-banian). With the exception of schooltranscripts of students who have attendedAlbanian-only schools, no official docu-ments are issued in Albanian. Bilingualismin Ulqin is applied only to local institutions,whereas the state institutions speak onlyMontenegrin. Inter-institutional correspon-dence in Ulqin is predominantly conductedin Montenegrin even though the people in-volved are Albanians.

Albanian linguist Haxhi Shabani reached aconclusion in his book, The Endangermentof Albanian Language, that the Albanian-speaking population uses the Albanian lan-guage far less today than it did 10 or 15years ago. This is due in large part to theincreasing use of the Montenegrin languagein written communication. Now the onlytime the Albanian language is used is whenit is spoken out loud between Albanians. Incommunicating with Montenegrins, Alba-nians use only Montenegrin, even thoughmost Montenegrins living in Ulqin under-stand Albanian. Road signs and city namesin Albanian-populated areas are mostly inSlavic; in only a few places are they also inAlbanian. The signs to Orthodox monaster-ies are all in Slavic, although some of them

have Albanian origin. Most importantlythere are absolutely no signs for Catholicor Muslim religious buildings or monu-ments.

Another interesting phenomenon is the“correction” of Albanian surnames from thepreviously Slavic version into Albanian bybasically using Albanian pronunciation andthe Latin alphabet. The issue stems fromthe time of King Nikola who, upon annexa-tion of these territories inhabited by Alba-nians, forcefully modified their surnamesby adding suffices like “ic” or “vic” to makethem sound Slavic. Regardless of the factthat now all citizens have the constitutionalright to have their original and unadulter-ated surnames, some are still denied thisright by excuses such as “our computersdon’t have such letters.” There are still Al-banians in Montenegro of the same surnamewhose names are listed in two or more ver-sions, creating problems with travel docu-ments and other official records.

THE ALBANIAN NATIONAL ACADEMY AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS

Although Montenegro claims to be a multi-cultural state, not one Albanian institutionin the entire country does empirical researchaimed at gathering, studying, and preservingAlbanian culture and heritage and present-ing it to the world. In addition, the Ministryof Culture and Tourism has not financedany serious cultural or scientific project con-cerning the Albanian heritage. To the con-trary, tourist brochures and other marketingmaterials designed to develop tourism inMontenegro contain almost no mention ofAlbanians and their culture. To the outsideworld, Albanians are all but invisible.

International standards of minority protec-tion, particularly those of European Union,are unequivocal about the fact that it is agovernment’s responsibility to provide fi-nancial support for cultural activities thatpreserve the national heritage of all its citi-

zens, regardless of their race or origin. Whilethis responsibility is implicitly accepted inthe extensive catalog of national minorityrights in the Montenegrin constitution, gov-ernment funding for cultural activities ofnon-Montenegrin communities is extremelylimited; therefore, the opportunities for Al-banians in Montenegro to pursue any mean-ingful government-supported cultural ac-tivity are limited as well. Albanians inMontenegro have no national institutionsto develop their folklore, ethnology, andethnography. They have no national theater,national arts gallery, publishing houses, me-dia centers, or national institute devoted topreserving the Albanian language and cul-ture. Except for a weekly newspaper, KohaJavore, all other publications of books, jour-nals, and magazines have been substantiallyfinanced through donations contributed byforeign organizations, NGOs, and Albaniansfrom Montenegro living abroad (mostly inthe United States). A radio station and atelevision station that broadcast in Albanian,established by private individuals, are strug-gling to stay on air.

CHANGES IN THE STRUCTURE OF ALBANIAN TERRITORIES AND THE ASSIMILATION OF THE ALBANIAN POPULATION

As already noted, following the provisionsof the Treaty of Berlin that were ill-fatedfor Albanians, one of the primary objectivesof the Government of Montenegro has beento change the existing ethnic structurewithin annexed Albanian lands. Hundredsof Slavic families were brought in to colonizeAlbanian cities as part of the government’splan to mechanically change the demo-graphics of both the cities and their subur-ban areas. The goal was to suppress Alban-ian culture until it would simply cease toexist. Regrettably such policies, which werein place during King Nikola’s regime (1860–1918), continued to some extent during theexistence of Yugoslavia, and are still prac-ticed in today’s democratic Montenegro.

Here are some explicit examples of the mis-uses of Albanian land in Montenegro:

The establishment of a new settlement•in Karabushko Pole near Tuz for 500non-Albanian Muslim families from thenorthern part of Montenegro;The Municipality of Podgorica granting•500 real estate lots to a commercial en-terprise to solve the housing problemfor its workers. The properties are lo-cated in an Albanian- populated terri-tory near Dinosha and Mileshi, landsthat lawfully belong to Albanian ownerswith valid deeds in their possession.Albanian landowners have filed law-suits, but the court’s decision has beencontinually postponed;The additional granting of land to a•commercial enterprise promising toemploy young peasants from all overMontenegro, although the lot is situatedright next to Tuz High School and wasdedicated by the predominantly Alban-ian community for expansion of edu-cational infrastructure. The Municipal-ity of Podgorica ignored the primarydedication of this land and the proposalto build an elementary school there; The allocation of a strip of land called•Plantazhe to build 170 apartments andhouses along the Tuz-Podgorica roadnear a Muslim graveyard. The govern-ment expropriated this land in 1975.According to the Law on the Return ofthe Property, the land should be re-turned to the legitimate owners; how-ever, their demands have been ignored;The expropriation of an olive tree or-•chard that has historic significance; itwas used during the Yugoslav regimeas the site for an army base. The armydestroyed hundreds of olive trees toprovide military personnel with luxu-rious apartments and firewood. Sincethe Yugoslav army has gone, the prop-erty has not been returned to its rightfulUlqin owners. Instead it was trans-ferred to the state. In effect, ownershipof the Albanian land will now transferto Montenegrins, Serbs, and others;The expropriation of the most valuable•lands in the Municipality of Ulqin forthe purposes of promoting tourism.Lands within the two beaches - Plazhat,Valdanos, Ada, and other parts withpotentially rising value were transferredto the state without any compensationto the municipality; andThe most vital enterprise in Ulqin, the•salt factory, was also transferred to thestate and then privatized so that a closerelative of Milo Djukanovic, formerprime minister of Montenegro, couldbecome the owner for a negligible price.Apparently, plans are now underwayto drain the area and build thousandsof high-class condominiums and apart-ments on it without any considerationfor sustainable development or ecolog-ical consequences. A World Bank studyand other international studies havedescribed this area as ecologically sig-nificant for birds migrating from north-ern Europe. It is one of the restingpoints for the birds during their wintermigration to Africa.

There are many similar efforts designed tochange the demography of Albanian-popu-lated areas. Albanians recognize that in afree and democratic society, it’s the right ofall citizens to choose where they live, andthat property owners have the right to buyor sell to whomever they want. But Albani-ans object when the state undertakes meas-

Montenegro and the territories acquired over the years. Most of the Albanian populated territories were acquired in between 1878 and 1881 (and are shown aspertaining to year 1878 in this map provided by http://terkepek.adatbank.transindex.ro/).

V#2067 12 - 14 KORRIK, 2011


ures designed to change the demography ofthese areas without any consideration forthe local inhabitants and sustainable devel-opment.

THE DECENTRALIZATION PROCESS AND LOCAL SELF-GOVERNANCE

Following the collapse of communism andthe implementation of democratic principlesin Montenegro, Ulqin was the country’s firstmunicipality to establish a democraticallyelected local government. However, to coun-teract Ulqin’s newly acquired municipalityrights, the state of Montenegro enacted lawsthat essentially centralized the rights of localgovernments and stripped the municipali-ties of many competences and rights thatshould fall under their authority. While thiscentralizing move by the government mayhave had some plausible explanations, it iseconomically and politically harming to theAlbanians in Montenegro. For example, theMunicipality of Ulqin—the only municipalitygoverned predominately by Albanians—hasno authority to manage, explore, and di-rectly benefit from its natural resources.Ulqin also has no authority over its judicialsystem, education system, health centers,or police departments. These are just a fewof the municipal matters over which the lo-cal Ulqin government has no control. Themunicipality’s powers essentially consist ofcollecting sales taxes and maintaining thecity’s sanitation systems.

Ulqin’s authority was much stronger duringthe communist regime. Directors of all stateinstitutions are now appointed by the centralgovernment without local input and withminimal consideration for the professionalcapacities of the appointees. Decisions re-garding appointments to state institutionsare primarily based on appointees’ politicalaffiliations. Similarly, appointments that lo-cal governments are responsible for fillinghave become bargaining commodities forlocal political parties in order to form coali-tions.

Albanians in other Albanian-populated ar-eas have not been able to establish or reor-ganize their own communities, althoughsuch rights are constitutionally guaranteed,representing a basic step toward self-gov-ernance. The law on local self-governmentstates that local populations are guaranteedthe right to participate in decisions con-cerning their own needs and interests. Theorganization of local communities is deter-mined both by the Constitution of Mon-tenegro and the laws of the Republic. It isimportant to recognize that, pursuant toMontenegro’s law on local self-governance,a municipality can be established where cer-tain prescribed conditions for realizing therights and duties of the local inhabitants,their immediate and mutual interests, andtheir economic and social development aremet.

In establishing a municipality, importantstarting points to consider include: the his-toric development and traditions of the re-gion; whether the proposed municipalityrepresents a geographically and economi-cally integrated entity vis-à-vis the localpopulation; the number of inhabitants inthe area; the organization of services of im-mediate interest to the local population;natural gravitation toward a civic center;development and economic conditions; andother reasons or conditions important tothe citizens of the area for the realization oftheir mutual interests and needs. Two fea-

sibility studies of these factors were inde-pendently conducted in the Malesia-Tuziregion. Both confirmed that the region sat-isfies all the historical, legal, economic, andother criteria prescribed by law for it to be-come an independent municipality and alocal self-governing unit. Moreover, underthe Constitution of Montenegro and inter-national conventions for the protection ofhuman rights and civil liberties, membersof national and ethnic groups are guaran-teed the preservation of their national, eth-nic, lingual, cultural, and religious identities.Albanians strongly believe that in the regionof Malesia-Tuzi, which is populated pre-dominately by ethnic Albanians living onthe land of their ancestors, these protectionscan best be assured by affording citizensthe right—guaranteed to them under theConstitution of Montenegro—to form theirown municipality and assume responsibilityfor their own governance and affairs.

Regardless of these facts, the central gov-ernment has ignored several applicationsand written requests by Albanians for theformation of the Malesia municipality withits center in Tuz. This is a typical exampleof the double standard used by the Mon-tenegrin government when dealing with eth-nic Albanian issues vis-à-vis those of ethnicMontenegrins. For example, the govern-ment approved the municipality of An-drievica, a city entirely populated by Slavicinhabitants that has a much smaller territoryand fewer resources than Tuzi and Malesia.

ECONOMIC UNDERDEVELOPMENT

During the Ottoman Empire’s occupation,the well-established trade and artisan in-dustries in Montenegro’s Albanian-popu-lated regions made them some of the mostdeveloped areas in the state. Unfortunatelya long history of little or no investment inthe development of these areas has allowedthem to slip into poverty. Likewise, the in-dependence of Montenegro and its democ-ratization process did not bring muchchange for the Albanians living there. Infact, it made things worse in many respects,completely ruining what few enterprises hadpreviously been productive. Albanians werethus left with few choices in order to survive:use Albanian generosity to help one an-other—including relatives living abroad—or emigrate in search of a better life.

The municipality of Ulqin provides a goodexample of this economic destruction. Ho-tels that were once full of European touristsare now dilapidated or have been demol-ished. Other enterprises were privatized;essentially their assets were sold throughpolitical connections at nominal values, forc-ing businesses to fail. Municipalities’ mostvaluable real estate has been expropriatedby the state and is being sold to investorsthrough long-term leases and other arrange-ments—without local consent or direct com-pensation to the municipalities. Similar con-ditions are prevalent in other Albanian areasincluding Tuz, Kraje, Plave, and Gusi, wherepreviously profitable enterprises haveceased operations. In all fairness, the samehas happened with other enterprisesthroughout the country.

The economic state of Montenegro today isa growing concern. There is hardly any pro-duction; the country relies almost exclu-sively on tourism and trade, including thesale of real estate and other assets. The ab-sence of a functioning economy gives riseto corruption and the black market, both of

which flourished during the civil unrest informer Yugoslavia. Unemployment is highthroughout the country, but Albanians aresuffering the most due to a lack of access togovernment jobs. Over 20 percent of Mon-tenegrins are employed by the state, as com-pared to only 10 percent of Albanians, whichare employed mainly in Albanians-popu-lated municipalities and localities. Albaniansare underrepresented in the department ofjustice, internal security, and certain min-istries. This is contrary to the internationalnorms to which Montenegro has subscribedand a major concern for Albanians. Quali-fied Albanians are employed mainly by theeducational and informational institutionswithin the Albanian sector and rarely by thestate institutions of Montenegro.

Despite the current economic difficulties,Montenegro has tremendous potential todevelop its economy, particularly tourismand related sectors of the economy. TheMontenegrin government has managed toattract foreign investors including Russians,western Europeans, and Canadians, whorecently bought properties along the Adriaticcoast, supposedly for building high-class re-sorts for celebrities and other wealthy indi-viduals. While these plans are admirableand promising, such plans should also in-clude Albanian-populated areas, which com-pose the most beautiful part of the coast.Rural areas are still a major concern for Al-banians in Montenegro. Without govern-ment intervention to develop these areasand bring economic opportunities to thepeople living there, high emigration rateswill continue until these areas are com-pletely empty. Regrettably, that has alreadybecome a reality in many Albanian villages.

BIASED APPLICATION OF LAWS

Montenegro has enacted a number of im-portant laws that on the surface meet in-ternational standards, but are either notfully implemented or are circumvented byother statutes or local municipality laws.The gap between what is legally declaredthrough laws and what is implemented inpractice is evident in every aspect of life inMontenegro.

The biased application of laws affects everyonein Montenegro, but Albanians are affected themost. For example, following the referendumon independence (which included significantcontributions from Albanians), the Constitu-tional Court on July 17, 2007, revoked twoimportant paragraphs of the “Law of MinorityRights and Freedoms.” This law had guaranteedrepresentation of Albanians in the MontenegrinParliament. But the court declared that estab-lishing a system of guaranteed representationfor minority groups is unconstitutional becausethe articles are inconsistent with the principleof equality enshrined in the 1991 MontenegroConstitution. Considering the wording of thenew constitutional text in 2007, a system ofreserved seats must not be considered uncon-stitutional; but so far, the dispositions of nationalminorities’ political representation have notbeen reintroduced.

Another example of an unfairly applied lawis the law known as Morsko Dobro, whichmeans “sea wealth.” The law purports toregulate the development of the coastalzone. On the surface, this is a good law, butone can argue that it is also an unconstitu-tional mechanism designed to allow the cen-tral government to exploit municipality andprivate lands without fair (or any) compen-sation to municipalities. In the city of Ulqin,

in which Albanians are a majority, thecoastal zone under the control of the gov-ernment extends 2.5 kilometers inland.However, in other cities along the Montene-grin coast, the state’s control extends justsix meters inland. Because of this discrimi-natory law, the most beautiful parts ofUlqin’s coastal area (i.e., Ada, Valdanosi,Long Beach, the Buna River) are expropri-ated from the municipality and are beingsold by the government with 99-year leases.Similar discrimination is found in the draftof the “Law for the Territorial Organizationin Montenegro” in which Albanians in Tuziare denied the right to reinstate their townas an independent municipality.

Abuse of the law is also evident in the pri-vatization process in which local authoritiesare hardly involved and ownership rightsare essentially ignored. One example of thisabuse of power is the privatization of a pro-duction facility and 500 hectares of land,sold at 6 cents per square meter to a relativeof Milo Djukanovic, the former Prime Min-ister, according to the factory workers andthe local population. Despite the fact thatthe area surrounding the factory is wetlandswith significant importance to the Europeanbird migration, the owner wants to buildhigh-priced homes and condominiumsthere, completely altering the ecological anddemographical makeup of the area. A num-ber of the hotels that were supposedly pri-vatized lay dilapidated or demolished, andno one knows whom to hold accountable.Local citizens were left out of investmentopportunities, except during initial privati-zations when workers received vouchersrepresenting their share of the enterprise,based on government-approved formulas.Enterprises were then intentionally mis-managed to make the vouchers essentiallyworthless. That way the informed investorswith government connections could acquirethem for a nominal value. Albanians fromDiaspora who submitted bidding proposalswere all turned down for one reason or an-other; (e.g., due to an offer to acquire HotelOtrant, equity ownership in Otrant Komerc).

VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

In a society with developed civil rights, ju-dicial process is based on the democraticvalue that an accused person is innocentuntil proven guilty, not guilty until proveninnocent. The case of “Operation Eagles’Flight” involving the arrest of several mem-bers of an alleged terrorist cell in Malesia isan example of how Montenegro has violatedjudicial process: the state allowed the mediato publish state evidence against the accusedbefore the trial began in order to impact thepublic’s opinion.

Just days prior to the 2006 election on Sep-tember 9, the Montenegrin Special Policeand fully armed SWAT teams apprehendedfourteen Albanians , including three whohad dual American citizenship and who atthe time were on vacation visiting theirbirthplace. According to media reports, dur-ing this action, the men and their families—including seniors, women, and children—were physically abused and also robbed bythe police. The next day, the governmentreleased a statement to the press statingthat the men were part of a terrorist groupthat was preparing to overthrow the gov-ernment. For three months they remainedin prison without being charged with anycriminal offense, and yet they were routinelyidentified in the Montenegrin press as “ter-

VI#2067 12 - 14 KORRIK, 2011


rorists,” thus violating their presumptionof innocence. During this time, they werehumiliated, beaten for hours at a time,forced to remain in various positions forprolonged periods of time, and starved fordays. No one knows exactly why they werearrested and what the government’s moti-vation was for apprehending them.

When the Montenegrin government finallyfiled formal charges, they did so against theentire group for “planning crimes of terrorismand insurrection,” yet according to court pro-ceedings, the government failed to produce asingle piece of conclusive evidence. Moreover,it is not clear why the government initiatedthis action or which branch of the governmentauthorized these arrests. Some believe that thisincident was fabricated to break the link betweenthe Albanian-American Diaspora and the Alban-ian community in Montenegro. The growingstrength of this link emerged in an effort by theresidents of Albanian-inhabited Malesia toreclaim the municipal status of Tuzi, whichwas taken away by the Montenegrin govern-ment in 1957. Whatever the case may be, thisaction was a degrading act by the Montenegringovernment. Acts of this nature are not in thebest interest of the country and they hamperefforts of those who are working to build amultiethnic state, including most of the Albanianpopulation. Moreover, this type of measurecan evoke further animosities between Albani-ans and Montenegrins. If Montenegro intendsto be a democratic country, its government hasa responsibility to adhere to the rule of law andto protect the freedoms and human rights ofall its citizens regardless of their race or ethnic-ity—especially with regards to its large ethnicAlbanian population living in the land of itsancestors.

EMIGRATION

Albanians in Montenegro have been strug-gling to protect their identity from the daytheir lands became part of Montenegro in1878. Immediately following the annexation,a large number of Albanians moved toneighboring cities in Albania, such asShkoder, Durres, and Lezhe. According toDr. Nail Draga’s testimony to the Congres-sional Human Rights Caucus on October20, 2003, this emigration was massive. Forexample, 413 households with more than3,000 family members moved to Shkodrafrom Ulqin between 1878 and 1880. Ulqinlost 35 percent of its population, whichcaused a sizable shift in the demographicmakeup of that city and damaged its econ-omy. The Montenegrin government wel-comed this Albanian exodus since it plannedto bring thousands of Slavic families to Ulqinas colonists to change the ethnic structureof the city and its surrounding areas.

Political pressures exerted on Albanians duringthe existence of Yugoslavia was coupled (asnoted above) with economic deprivation, caus-ing a mass emigration immediately after WorldWar II and again throughout the 1970s, 1980s,and 1990s. There are no statistics on the numberof Albanians from Montenegro who live abroad,but the number is undoubtedly larger thanthat of those living in Montenegro, accordingto Diaspora estimates and listings. Most Alba-nians from Montenegro live in the UnitedStates, predominately in Detroit, Chicago, andthe Tri-State area of New York, New Jersey,and Connecticut. Such mass emigration haschanged the ethnic structure within most Alban-ian-populated areas. For example in Plave andGusi, the Albanian percentage of the total pop-ulation has dropped from 83 percent in 1908to just 21 percent in 1991. Based on the past

trend, it is probably even lower by now. Similarphenomena have occurred in other areas suchas Malesi, Kraje, Shestan, and Ana e Malit.Many rural towns have been abandoned dueto a lack of resources and economic viability.

* * *

Albanian grievances about their situationin Montenegro are very real; they stempartly from history and partly from the cur-rent situation in the country. But ratherthan seeking to point the finger of blame inany direction or look back in history, thepurpose of this paper is to offer options fora constructive and sustainable solutions tothese problems. Hence, the next part of thispaper looks to comparable cases in theWestern Balkans and beyond to identify po-tentially suitable models for addressing Al-banian concerns in Montenegro.

THE MANAGEMENT OF POPULATION DIVERSITY IN THE WESTERN BALKANS AND BEYOND: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Albanians in Montenegro are a national mi-nority living compactly as a local majorityin their historical homeland. This homelandis adjacent to the border of their kin-state,Albania. Given the trajectories of Europeanhistory, this is far from a unique situation.Similar circumstances also apply to French-speakers in Italy, Germans and Lithuaniansin Poland, Hungarians in Slovakia, Serbs inKosovo, and Swedes in Finland. These andother cases offer important insights intohow different countries manage such in-stances of population diversity within a lib-eral democratic context.

Apart from a general commitment to non-discrimination and human and minorityrights (which are relatively standard mech-anisms for the management of populationdiversity and are enshrined in constitutionsacross the region and beyond, albeit withvarying levels of policy implementation),two other mechanisms have been widelyapplied: territorial self-governance andpower sharing. In the majority of relevantcases, groups demand a certain level of ter-ritorial self-governance and meaningful par-ticipation in the wider policy process in or-der to have greater control over their ownaffairs and the development of their country.

TERRITORIAL SELF-GOVERNANCE

As a mechanism to manage population di-versity, territorial self-governance has beenwidely applied across Europe. Five differentforms of territorial self-governance can befound:

Confederation: extensive self-rule

without institutionalized shared

rule. This is an empirically rare form ofvoluntary association by sovereign memberstates that pool some competences (e.g., de-fense, foreign affairs, and currency man-agement) without giving executive powerto the confederal level of government. Rel-evant examples include Serbia and Mon-tenegro under the terms of the 2003–2006constitution (which was never fully imple-mented), and Switzerland between 1291 and1848 (Switzerland formally retains the termconfederation in its official name; function-ally, however, it is a federation). The rela-tionship between Republika Srpska and theFederation of Bosnia-Herzegovina also re-

sembles a confederal arrangement, but alsohas increasingly clear federal characteristics.

Federation: extensive self-rule with

institutionalized shared rule. In con-trast to confederation, this implies a con-stitutionally entrenched structure in whichthe entire territory of a given state is dividedinto separate political units, all of which en-joy certain exclusive executive, legislative,and judicial powers independent of the cen-tral government. The most commonly citedcontemporary example of a successful pluri-national federation is Canada. Recent de-velopments in Belgium, as well as the pro-longed inability to form a federalgovernment, have cast some doubt over thelong-term viability of that federation, eventhough there is no suggestion of a violentdisintegration. Historically failed federationsare those of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union,and Czechoslovakia.

Federacy arrangement: constitution-

ally entrenched extensive self-rule

for specific entities. The main distinctionbetween a federacy arrangement and a fed-eration is that the former enjoys similarpowers and constitutional protection as fed-eral entities, but is distinct in that it doesnot necessitate territorial subdivisionsacross the entire state territory. In otherwords, federacy arrangements are a featureof otherwise unitary states. Examples in-clude the Åland Islands (Finland), SouthTyrol (Italy), Gagauzia (Moldova), andCrimea (Ukraine).

Devolution: extensive self-rule for

specific entities entrenched in ordi-

nary law. Like federacy arrangements,devolution can be applied to selected terri-tories in a unitary state. In contrast to fed-erated entities, however, the degree of legalprotection is weaker in the sense that it iseasier to reverse, and it extends only to pro-tection by regular laws versus constitutionalones. The primary example here is theUnited Kingdom with its four devolutionsettlements (London, Northern Ireland,Scotland, and Wales). Northern Ireland en-joys additional international legal protectionof its status through the Agreement betweenthe Government of the United Kingdom ofGreat Britain and Northern Ireland and theGovernment of Ireland (the so-called BelfastAgreement of 1998), to which the NorthernIreland Agreement was appended.

Decentralization: executive and ad-

ministrative powers at the local level.

Guided by the principle of subsidiarity, de-centralization refers to the delegation of ex-ecutive and administrative powers to locallevels of government. It does not includelegislative competences. Recent examplesof the application of this form of TSG as amechanism of conflict resolution in dividedsocieties include Macedonia (under the 2001Ohrid Agreement) and Kosovo (under theterms of its 2008 constitution and related“Athisaari legislation”).

Apart from these examples, the broadertrend across Europe is that 50 national andother minority groups have in the past de-manded some form of territorial self-gov-ernance, of which 36 have some such status:There are nineteen federacies, seven decen-tralization arrangements, five federations,and three devolution arrangements.

Looking more specifically to the WesternBalkans region in which Montenegro andits Albanian community are deeply embed-ded historically, politically, socially, and

economically; the picture is quite similar.Among the region’s national minorities, Al-banians in Greece, Greeks in Albania, andSerbs in Croatia are the only three groupsthat do not enjoy any particular form of ter-ritorial self-governance. On the other hand,Albanians in Macedonia and Serbs inKosovo benefit from extensive decentral-ization arrangements; Bosniaks and Croatsin the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovinaand Hungarians in Vojvodina have federacyarrangements in place; and the State ofBosnia and Herzegovina is itself a federa-tion.

Territorial self-governance is only a mean-ingful mechanism to manage population di-versity if it involves substantial compe-tences. In this sense, the specific nature ofthe arrangement is less important: federa-tions can be highly centralized with few realcompetences in the purview of the federalentities, while decentralization can be de-signed in such a way that it provides forvery substantial autonomy in decision mak-ing for local communities. The latter pointis well illustrated by Kosovo and Macedonia,where local administrations enjoy wide-ranging powers within their respective con-stitutional and other legal frameworks.These additional frameworks include com-petences for education, economic develop-ment, and various aspects of cultural policysuch as maintaining links with and receivingsupport from their respective kin-states. Atthe same time, the most successful devicefor managing (and preventing) potentiallyviolent conflict in such cases has historicallybeen a federacy arrangement (i.e., consti-tutionally entrenched extensive self-rule fornational minorities).

POWER SHARING

As noted earlier, territorial self-governanceis not the only mechanism by which popu-lation diversity can be managed successfully.In order to contribute to a sustainable set-tlement of potential conflicts, the self-rulethat it implies is normally combined withmeasures of shared rule. Power sharing isthus another important dimension of en-suring that minority communities canmeaningfully participate in managing boththeir own affairs and the overall develop-ment of the states in which they live.

Power sharing in Western Balkan countrieshappens both at the local level (that is, inethnically diverse self-governing territories)and at the national level. Power sharingmechanisms include guaranteed represen-tation in the government and/or parliamentof a self-governing entity. Such is the casein the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovinaand the District of Br�ko, where certaindecisions are also subject to qualified orconcurrent majority voting. As far as powersharing in central government institutionsis concerned, guaranteed representation inthe central government is a feature of thepower-sharing arrangements in Bosnia andHerzegovina, Kosovo, and Macedonia. Qual-ified or concurrent majority voting proce-dures apply to a limited number of decisionsin these three cases as well.

The combination of self-rule and sharedrule has almost become a standard now formanaging a wide range of minority conflictsinvolving geographically compact commu-nities. Older examples include Belgium (andwithin it Brussels) and South Tyrol (withits nested consociations at the provincialand regional levels). Both of these examples

VII#2067 12 - 14 KORRIK, 2011


stand out for their longevity (the recent pro-tracted government formation in Belgiumnotwithstanding). More recently, Gagauziain Moldova has had an arrangement in placesince 1995 under which senior officials fromthe autonomous government are co-optedinto the national government. Farther afield,the 2005 constitution of Iraq involvespower-sharing mechanisms, as do provi-sions under the 2006 Comprehensive PeaceAgreement for Nepal. Power-sharing andterritorial self-governance arrangementsalso operate in Bougainville (Papua NewGuinea) and have made a significant con-tribution to conflict management in Sudanunder the 2005 Comprehensive PeaceAgreement.

A MODEL FOR MONTENEGRO: STATUS, COMPETENCES, AND GUARANTEES

As the illustrative overview of grievancesamong Albanians in Montenegro has indi-cated, the situation in this country is farfrom satisfactory. Albanians’ identity as acommunity here is seriously threatened bya number of interrelated factors includingthe denial of citizens’ rights and protectionfrom discrimination, lack of meaningful op-portunities for political participation, eco-nomic underdevelopment, assimilationpressures, and steady emigration. While themistreatment of Albanians in Montenegrogoes back generations and there is a histor-ical dimension to it, bemoaning past injus-tices will not help bring about meaningfulreforms moving forward. More importantly,contemporary opportunities need to be cre-ated and explored to improve the situationof Albanians in Montenegro and also tomake Montenegrin democracy fit for thechallenges of the 21st century. Potential ben-efits include Montenegro’s aspiration forinduction into the European Union, an as-piration widely shared across all of its com-munities.

The problems that the Albanian communityexperiences relate to questions of status,competences, and meaningful guaranteesfor a fully implemented legal frameworkthat regulates status and competence issues.The comparative experiences that othercountries have had in managing populationdiversity offer examples of what might beconsidered sustainable approaches to man-aging the challenges that have arisen inMontenegro.

STATUS: TERRITORIAL SELF-GOVERNANCE AND POWER SHARING

Given the size and territorial concentrationof the Albanian population in Montenegro,as well as the overall ethnic and territorialdemography of the country, the most con-structive approach to the question of statusfor the Albanian community is to find a fea-sible and viable territorial self-governancearrangement. Bearing in mind the differentoptions available (from confederation to de-centralization), here are three options thatdeserve closer examination:

A territorial reorganization of Mon-•tenegro that introduces large regionsas intermediate layers of governance(similar to Spain) with exclusive com-

petences and possibly differential sta-tuses in terms of the powers they exer-cise (similar to Iraq). In this scenario,all Albanian-majority districts couldbecome part of a single region, recog-nizing their historically rooted distinc-tiveness and constitutionally entrench-ing this kind of self-governing status.Other regions could be created to in-corporate Serbian-majority and Mon-tenegrin-majority districts, possiblymore than one for each community toachieve approximate equity betweenregions in terms of their populationsize. In such an arrangement, Podgoricacould also become a region; capitalcities often have special territorial sta-tus (e.g., Washington, DC; London;Berlin; Canberra). These regions couldbe represented in a special chamber ofparliament, or representatives of theirgovernments could be co-opted intothe national government in order tocomplement self-rule with shared rule.(This option may require a redrawingof local/municipal borders.)A federacy arrangement specifically•aimed at a single territorial entity com-prising all Albanian-majority districts(possibly after a redrawing of local gov-ernment borders). Such single-federacyarrangements have traditionallyworked well in places like the Åland Is-lands in Finland, offering wide-rangingautonomy (self-rule) and combining itwith specific mechanisms of coordina-tion and cooperation with the centralgovernment (the Åland Delegation). Al-ternatively, or additionally, co-optationcould ensure an appropriate level ofshared rule to anchor the self-governingentity firmly in the common state, as ithas in Gagauzia in Moldova.Decentralization would require no par-•ticular changes to the current territorialorganization of Montenegro in princi-ple. However, it would require that: theexisting law on the territorial organi-zation of Montenegro give due consid-eration to the formation of Albanian-majority municipalities5 and that it beimplemented and applied in a fair andequitable manner; that substantial andmeaningful competences be assignedto municipalities; and that thesearrangements be properly guaranteedin the Constitution and legal order ofMontenegro. While Albanians, underthis option, would not be able to forma single self-governing entity incorpo-rating all or most members of theircommunity in Montenegro, they wouldgain significantly enhanced status andcontrol over their own affairs (providedthat meaningful competences are as-signed to municipalities). Moreover, inline with similar provisions in Kosovo,it should be left to municipalities to co-operate with each other in the executionof some or all of their competences,thus creating opportunities for Alban-ian-majority municipalities (as well asothers) to work more efficiently and ef-fectively for the well-being of their cit-izens.

Beyond the few power-sharing mechanismstouched on above in relation to the regional-ization and federacy arrangements, additionalprovisions can and should be introduced regard-less of the precise nature of the self-governancearrangement eventually adopted. While current

arrangements already provide for Albanians tohave reserved seats in the Parliament of Mon-tenegro, there is at present no arrangement fortheir participation in government or for anyformal role in Parliament (such as speaker ordeputy speaker positions, or the chairmanshipof parliamentary committees). Given the ethnicdiversity of Montenegro as a whole, specificprovisions just for Albanians to be representedin this way may not be feasible, but a broaderset of provisions might specify that particularposts or a proportion thereof be filled by mem-bers of national minorities. A different strategyfor selecting chairs of parliamentary committeescould be the application of a mathematical for-mula, like the d’Hondt system, which offers asequential method for selecting chairs basedon the strength of political parties in a parlia-ment.

Moreover participatory power sharing couldbe extended to parliamentary decision-makingprocedures, requiring qualified majorities forthe passage of legislation affecting in particularminority communities, such as legislation onlanguage, education, or cultural policy matters.To the extent that specific legislation affectsparticular municipalities, concurrent majoritiescould be required; that is, legislation wouldonly be passed if supported also by a majorityof deputies representing the constituenciesaffected.

This could also apply to the ownership, ex-ploitation, and sustainable management ofnatural resources—a key issue for Albaniansin Montenegro—and special arrangementsshould be put in place to give local munici-palities a say in these matters. While own-ership should be shared by all Montene-grins, local municipalities should be ableparticipate in decisions on how natural re-sources are exploited. They should also re-ceive a fair share in revenues gained andhave significant input into policies that en-sure the sustainability (and renewal, as itapplies) of these resources.

COMPETENCES

The earlier overview of grievances that Albani-ans in Montenegro have with their current sit-uation provides a reasonable guide to the com-petences that will need to be assigned to one ormore self-governing, Albanian-majority entities.Territorial self-governance can only be mean-ingful and sustainable as far as managing pop-ulation diversity if it involves substantive andwell-resourced competences. Comparative prac-tice offers a reasonable guide to the kinds ofcompetences that self-governing entities shouldacquire: public services, urban and rural plan-ning, environmental protection, economic devel-opment, finances (including the right to decide,collect, and spend municipal revenues andreceive appropriate funding from the centralgovernment), communal activities, culture,sport, social security and child care, education,and health care. Depending on the nature ofthe arrangement chosen, competences mayalso extend to inter-municipal and cross-bordercooperation.

Enabling minorities to maintain cross-bor-der contacts with their ethnic kin is a veryimportant competence for national minori-ties and is widely practiced across Europe.So too is allowing minorities to receive sup-port for their various concerns (e.g., educa-tion, cultural development, preservation oftheir native language). The fact that this

right and practice is now widely recognizedis also demonstrated by the fact that theOSCE High Commissioner on National Mi-norities has issued its Bolzano Recommen-dations, which deal with precisely this issue.

The constitutional entrenchment of thesecompetences and of adequate central gov-ernment funding for their exercise is equallyimportant for the proper functioning of de-centralization arrangements and thus fortheir overall contribution to the constructivemanagement of population diversity.

GUARANTEES

No system of territorial self-governance andno allocation of competences can fully en-gender the support and commitment of na-tional minorities unless it is secured byproper guarantees in a country’s constitu-tion and other domestic legal orders, as wellas international law, where relevant.

In line with the options for a sustainableapproach to managing population diversityin Montenegro, the proposed institutionalarrangements that require guarantees go tothe core of the Albanian community’s con-cerns: territorial self-governance, two di-mensions of power sharing (representationin the core institutions of the state and therules that govern decision-making proce-dures there), and human and minority rightsprovisions.

When it comes to guarantees for territorialself-governance arrangements, the specificnature of arrangements is less importantthan how they are institutionalized. The twomost common channels for doing so are astate’s constitution and ordinary legislation.For example, the 2001 Ohrid FrameworkAgreement for Macedonia includes the fol-lowing provision:

A revised Law on Local Self-Governmentwill be adopted that reinforces the powersof elected local officials and enlarges sub-stantially their competencies in conform-ity with the Constitution (as amended inaccordance with Annex A) and the Eu-ropean Charter on Local Self-Govern-ment, and reflecting the principle of sub-sidiarity in effect in the European Union.Enhanced competencies will relate prin-cipally to the areas of public services, ur-ban and rural planning, environmentalprotection, local economic development,culture, local finances, education, socialwelfare, and health care. A law on financ-ing of local self-government will beadopted to ensure an adequate systemof financing to enable local governmentsto fulfil all of their responsibilities.

This provides guarantees for territorial self-governance at several levels and in differentways. First, it prescribes the specific nature ofthe self-governance arrangement as local self-government (rather than as, for example, afederation). Second, it anchors the extent ofcompetences for local self-government by listingthem and by making reference to two regionalstandards: the European Charter on Local Self-Government and the principle of subsidiarityin effect within the European Union. Third, itprovides a further guarantee in the form ofspecific constitutional amendments, alsodetailed in the Ohrid Framework Agreementas follows:

__________________________

5 The relevant provisions of this law could be phrased in a manner that they apply more generally to reflect local population preferences rather than exclusively to the Albanian community.

Cafo Boga is a senior executive with astellar professional career spanning mul-tiple industries including public account-ing, banking, investments, informationtechnology, business process outsourc-ing, and real estate. In 2001, i-flex solu-tions, ltd. (an Indian software companyand a subsidiary of Citigroup) recruitedhim to establish operations in the UnitedStates and Canada. Mr. Boga served asthe company’s chief operating officer

and chief financial officer, and was a member of its Board of Directorsuntil 2009. In this capacity he spearheaded finance and operations forwhat became a $250 million–plus company providing software solutionsand services to the financial service industry in the United States,Canada, and South America before the company was acquired byOracle. Mr. Boga currently leverages his business expertise to performbusiness consulting and to handle real estate investments.

Mr. Boga’s career includes expertise in domestic and foreign bank op-erations as well as corporate management. He has leveraged a breadthof financial and corporate acumen to deliver achievements in high-level transactions such as new business start-ups, corporate acquisitionsand integrations, and infrastructure development, including all aspectsof financial and operational management. He has conducted businessin Canada, England, India, Chile, and all the Balkan countries. As a mul-ticultural executive, he speaks fluent Albanian and Serbo-Croatian, aswell as basic Russian, Italian, Slovenian, and Spanish.

Mr. Boga has been a highly visible leader in the community, the founderof Albanian-American Culture Foundation, and a charter member ofthe National Albanian American Council. For the past 14 years, he hasbeen a member of the Board of Albanian-American Enterprise Fund—a prestigious appointment he received from former U.S. president BillClinton. He currently serves on the Board of the Albanian AmericanDevelopment Foundation, the Albanian American Chamber of Com-merce, the International Virtual e-Hospital Foundation, and the EDENII School for Autistic Children.

Born in Montenegro of Albanian descent, Mr. Boga was always interestedin the plight of Albanians in Montenegro and has previously writtenon this topic. By teaming up with a world-renowned expert on ethnicconflict resolutions, Stefan Wolff, he hopes that together they can con-tribute to broader reforms for the benefit of everyone in Montenegro,including Albanians who have lived in this region since antiquity.

Mr. Boga holds a Bachelor’s in business administration from BernardM. Baruch College, City University of New York. He is also a certified in-ternal auditor and a certified public accountant.

_____________________________________________________

Stefan Wolff is a political science pro-fessor at the University of Birmingham.He is a specialist in contemporary secu-rity challenges and has written exten-sively on ethnic conflict, internationalconflict management, and state build-ing. Among his 15 books are Ethnic Con-flict: A Global Perspective and The Euro-pean Neighbourhood Policy in Perspective(2010, with Richard Whitman).

Bridging the divide between academia and policymaking, Mr. Wolffhas been involved in various phases of conflict settlement processesin Sudan, Moldova, Sri Lanka, and Kosovo. He is the author of the Hand-book on Power Sharing, Self-governance and Public Participation and ofthe forthcoming Handbook on Guarantees in Conflict Settlements.

Mr. Wolff is a graduate of the University of Leipzig, the University ofCambridge, and the London School of Economics and Political Science.He writes here in a personal capacity as an independent academic, ex-pressing his views only and not those of any institution with which heis or has been affiliated.

VIII#2067 12 - 14 KORRIK, 2011


Article 114 (5) Local self-government is regulatedby a law adopted by a two-thirds majority vote ofthe total number of Representatives, within whichthere must be a majority of the votes of the totalnumber of Representatives claiming to belong tothe communities not in the majority in the popula-tion of Macedonia. The laws on local finances, localelections, boundaries of municipalities, and the cityof Skopje shall be adopted by a majority vote of theRepresentatives attending, within which there mustbe a majority of the votes of the Representativesattending who claim to belong to the communitiesnot in the majority in the population of Macedonia.

Article 115 (1) In units of local self-government, cit-izens directly and through representatives partici-pate in decision-making on issues of local relevanceparticularly in the fields of public services, urbanand rural planning, environmental protection, localeconomic development, local finances, communalactivities, culture, sport, social security and childcare, education, health care and other fields deter-mined by law.

While the revised Article 115 (1) constitutionally en-trenches the competences of local self-governmentunits, Article 114 (5) provides guarantees by deter-mining the procedures according to which relevantlaws are adopted (or amended), including by quali-fied-majority and concurrent-majority votes in Par-liament.

The latter procedures cross over into political institutionsgoverning the participatory dimension of power-sharingarrangements. Similar procedures are enshrined, for exam-ple, in the 1998 Agreement on Northern Ireland and arange of other settlements. These procedures often applyto core issues of vital interest to specific communities (alsoreferred to as vital interest legislation). Yet power sharingalso has a representation dimension: rules and regulationsgoverning the representation of different parties withindifferent institutions of government, such as the legislature,executive, judiciary, civil service branches, or armed forces.The Constitution of Kosovo, for example, guaranteesminorities’ representation in Parliament, the central gov-ernment, and local governments.

A third area of sustainable management of populationdiversity concerns human and minority rights provisions.Guarantees here often occur in multiple forms simultane-ously, including human and minority rights laws, specialdomestic and possibly international oversight mechanisms,direct applicability or incorporation into domestic legislationof international and regional standards, and, where appli-cable, direct access to relevant international courts. Suchguarantee mechanisms are built into the 1995 DaytonPeace Accords for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Apart fromthe broad guarantees built into the General FrameworkAgreement on Peace, the Constitution of Bosnia andHerzegovina (Annex 4) provides for the direct applicabilityof various human and minority rights mechanisms, asdoes the European Convention for the Protection of HumanRights and Fundamental Freedoms and its Protocols andthe European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

A separate Agreement on Human Rights (Annex 6) providesfor the establishment of a Human Rights Commission,consisting of a human rights ombudsman, initially appoint-ed by the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, and a Human RightsChamber, eight of whose fourteen members were initiallyappointed by the Committee of Ministers of the Council ofEurope. These eight were to come from countries otherthan Bosnia and Herzegovina or its neighbouring states.Annex 6 also issued an invitation to “the United NationsCommission on Human Rights, the OSCE, the UnitedNations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and otherintergovernmental and regional human rights organizationsto monitor closely the human rights situation in Bosniaand Herzegovina, through the establishment of local officesand the assignment of observers, rapporteurs, or otherrelevant persons on a permanent or mission-by-missionbasis, and to provide them [i.e., the monitors] with fulland effective facilitation, assistance and access.”

The Constitution of Kosovo, similarly provides for the

direct applicability of international agreements andinstruments in the area of human and minority rightsand is given priority over provisions of laws and otheracts of public institutions, including:

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the•European Convention for the Protection of HumanRights and Fundamental Freedoms and its Pro-tocols; The International Covenant on Civil and Political•Rights and its Protocols:The Council of Europe Framework Convention•for the Protection of National Minorities; The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms•of Racial Discrimination; The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms•of Discrimination Against Women;The Convention on the Rights of the Child; and •The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,•Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punish-ment.

The direct applicability of these international instrumentsoften includes the application of their respective monitoringand reporting mechanisms, as well as access to complaintprocedures and legal redresses within the national andinternational judicial system. This can serve as a furthermechanism for guaranteeing the full and faithful imple-mentation of agreed provisions, as well as for dispute res-olution.

Depending on the precise nature of the governance arrange-ments eventually adopted for an enhanced managementof population diversity in Montenegro, a significant rangeof options exists for guaranteeing the proper implementa-tion and sustainability of these arrangements. These optionsshould include a constitutional anchoring for minorityrights, including references to relevant international instru-ments, specific provisions for the status and competencesof self-governing entities in the Constitution and relevantlegislation, and provisions that require qualified or con-current majorities to change these constitutional and/orother legal provisions to this effect. Mechanisms and pro-cedures for dispute avoidance and dispute resolutionshould also be created, such as a parliamentary commissionto preview any legislation that might have an impact onmembers of minority communities and a specific mandatefor the constitutional court to resolve disputes over theexercise of competences between the central governmentand the self-governing entities.

CONCLUSION

While focused on the Albanian community in Montenegro,the intention of this paper is not to create an exclusive“Albanian arrangement” in Montenegro, but rather tocontribute to a broader reform of governance arrangementsfor the benefit of all of Montenegro’s communities. How-ever, the authors do not presume that this offers a blueprintsolution that can be uniformly applied across Montenegro.

Having analyzed the current situation in Montenegro,itself partly a consequence of previous conflicts that stretchback almost a century, and the grievances that Albaniansin the country therefore rightly have, we have emphasizedthe importance of looking forward rather than backward,of finding a constructive approach to solutions that aresustainable into the future rather than apportioning blamefor past and present failures.

The analysis and recommendations in this paper aremeant to compose one particular set of options, ratherthan represent the only prescription for future gover-nance arrangements in Montenegro. They are pre-sented as they relate to Montenegro’s Albanian com-munity, and within a context of current minoritygovernance arrangements in Montenegro that are morebroadly lacking in sustainability and that bear the po-tential for protracted conflict between the differentcommunities that exist there. Seen from this perspec-tive, the authors invite all of Montenegro’s communi-ties—minorities and majorities alike—and their polit-ical representatives to engage