Originally posted by Andy
[email protected] 3 2005, 12:31 AM
Does anyone know about KLA past links to Enver Hoxhas regime - I read they went from having Marxism-Leninism on their paper to thankyou NATO at one point...
<_<
They were never leftist, they are and always have been a nationalist organisation with strong links to organised crime. In fact the KLA only came into existance after Socialist Albania fell- the name 'Kosovo Liberation Army' was first used in '92 (Albania collapsed '91). The thing about the KLA is that they ganered a whole lot of support from almost every section of society during the war because they were pretty much the only ones to be out there fighting the Serbs. However their ideology has always been fairly hazy, some want Kosovo to be indepenent, some want it to be part of Albania ('Greater Albania'), some what it to be an autonomous region in Serbia, like the Serbian areas of Bosnia and some are happy to be part of Serbia- they just want to continue to exist as living, breathing human beings.
Hoxha was in favour of 'Greater Albania' and always claimed that Kosovo should be part of Albania and this was a point of tension between Yugoslavia and Albania for pretty much their entire existance. Ethnically people in Kosovo are Albanian, and they speak a form of Albanian, but culturally they're distinct (but even within Albania there are two distinct groups- the Tosks and Gheg). Hoxha set up and supported organisations within Kosovo that agitated for Greater Albania and there were various riots and civil unrest in Kosovo during the existance of Yugoslavia (but that goes for pretty much everywhere).
There is a Macedonian version too, the Ushtria Ēlirimtare Kombėtare (UCK, same shortening as the KLA, whose proper name is the Ushtria Ēlirimtare e Kosovės) who are essentially the same as the one in Kosovo, much of the membership is the same too. Ethnic Albanian Nationalists with strong links to organised crime.
Don't support either of them.