Speech of Slobodan Milosevic to the 9th Congress of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia
June 1987, Belgrade

Kosovo - When Abuse and Humiliation are in Question, Appeals for Patience Sound Hypocritical

This meeting of Yugoslav communists about Kosovo has been long and impatiently awaited. It needs to be a turning point in relation to the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, but also for our entire people against our greatest problem this many years. From this Central Committee is expected, further, not only that we take up a position regarding this problem and be the bearer of its solution, but also that the changes be radical and the solution correct, in keeping with the politics of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.

With that I don't think we can conclude that amongst ourselves alone that we can bring good results. Quite the contrary. Till now there have been good conclusions that addressed everything. But they weren't realized.

That's why this Central Committee must take upon itself the responsibility for realizing the conclusions that it reaches.

The Communist Party as an organization, and especially its Central Committee, dissociates the mechanisms in the area of its programs and statutes, which can endanger the realization of its conclusions, not to mention when the vital interests of further survival of its institution are in question.

This is due to the fact that, for a full six years our community has had on the record an appraisal of counter-revolution in Kosovo, and for that full six years how that counter-revolution hasn't been smitten.

The state of things in Kosovo isn't good and, our data and assessments show, it's getting worse in the sphere of national, political and economic relationships. There is great poverty in Kosovo, but that isn't the cause of the situation which isn't good. It's correct that, while in some portions of our nation we note all the more greater economic and cultural upsurge, in Kosovo we have the lowest rate of growth in Europe. But the citizens of Kosovo don't need our charity. They need more than anything for there to be a charter for legal and political appropriations of the relationships of this body to be administered to them, as on all the rest of the citizens of Yugoslavia.

Only so can they cease being the majority of Yugoslavia's poor for whom things are so difficult.

But really, how can they grow, how can they catch up with Yugoslavia, let alone Europe, if one portion of the population lives in fear of what will happen to them in their workplace? And even greater, what waits for them at home when they arrive from work, are the children alive and healthy, or is the house even there? This is because the laws of this nation don't apply in large numbers amidst the Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo.

Yugoslavia as a state isn't defunct, so in light of that, it needs to and must serve its function. I don't know a more basic function of a state than her obligation to protect the physical integrity of all her citizens.

That obligation of hers isn't, nor can it be, distributed unevenly according to nationality, on the contrary, it must be enforced equally, without regard to nationality.

Present among us is the belief that the Kosovo problems that have been piling up for so long can't be solved over night. That belief is correct, but only in part. Overnight one can't create employment and economic growth in Slovenia, Vojvodina, or Dalmatia, for example.

Overnight it can and must be made clear to everyone that this nation will protect all of her citizens, down to the last one.

Now Unity is on the Agenda

As a part of the Socialist Republic of Serbia, Kosovo is a part of Yugoslav territory, the Yugoslav State, and this leadership of Yugoslav communists, by the nature of things, carries the responsibility to judge Kosovo and all her inhabitants.

This is why I find that Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo no longer need to hear political dictates full of appeals for patience. When in question are abuses and humiliation which many of them have endured for years, appeals for patience sound at worst hypocritical.

The patience that they've shown till now isn't all that is needed to solve and reform things - dispose of their problems. On the contrary, the position of Serbs and Montenegrins has worsened. That fact is the primary reason why today we are conducting this discourse, and it's good that during it we are dictating politics, and even placed congress bringing up the state and position of the nation on the agenda. The community and party that has opted for socialism and democracy cannot behave in any other way. And that it has often been otherwise is one of the reasons we have found ourselves in this crisis that we are in.

In these last six years of crisis there were a few completely plebiscitarian situations: (discourse on the submitted conclusions of the XIII congress CK SKJ; discourse on the political system; the bringing of a second-hand program for economic stabilization, pre-congress discourse, etc). They all showed that the nation and nationality of this country, especially the working class, are in basic decisions clear and unified. In any case, those resolutions were never realized, or at least not with the timing which was crucial.

There is no doubt that this was because there was disunity, or inadequately capable leadership. There aren't any separatist, nationalist, or hegemonistic nations. Many in Yugoslavia were justifiably worried and unsettled from the actions of Serb nationalists who exploited understandable unhappiness and indignation of Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo, and their use of the difficult times in Kosovo as proof that the Communist Party of Yugoslavia is an organization without influence, and that Yugoslavia is in a crisis from which it can't extract itself.

Serbian communists and the Serbian nation never never had an understanding with those that betrayed her. Today the new generation, with memories of repugnance, remember its Chetnikism as the greatest betrayal in the history of the Serbian nation. That is why everyone in Yugoslavia should know that, neither in war, nor today, no older or neo-Chetnikism, neither old nor new nationalism will ever pass in Serbia.

From Dimitriy Tutsovich to present day, progressive people in Serbia have fought for the Albanian nationalities in Serbia to be fair from every angle.

Meanwhile, things have now changed and in Kosovo today Serbs and Montenegrins are in the minority. Most of them are enduring economic, political, national and even physical pressure from the side of the bearers of counter-revolution. With those kinds of displays its not just Serbs and Montenegrins fighting alone, but rather with the support of all Serbs and Montenegrins and this leadership. The situation with the Serbian nation in Kosovo must, in a positive way, be changed by Albanians in Kosovo most of all.

Time for change in Kosovo is running out quickly. Either we will go about it quickly and energetically, or it will definitely be out of our hands.

This session isn't significant only because Kosovo is on the agenda as the biggest problem of the Yugoslav people, but rather we're wrestling such an important and delicate question, along with others, in the open. Regarding that I wish to say that, from today forward, congresses regarding Kosovo will be difficult to held in closed session. Thus the possibility will shrink for persons in open session to speak differently from what they do, as in so-called closed sessions.

Differences exist in the understandings of the Kosovo situation and ways out of it, that is indisputable. If there was unity, Kosovo would have been solved for years already. These differences had been demonstrated much earlier and were one of the reasons Kosovo is in crisis.

Now, however, the time is at hand to transcend differences in understanding in the leadership from past and present. Now unity is on the agenda. This is difficult to achieve, but has been achieved conceptually by this session and in the prepared conclusions for this session of the Presidency CK Yugoslavia. When it comes to anything involving Kosovo, I think that the degree of unity is greater than it has ever been in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, in terms of information resources, between intellectuals, not to mention in the working class. Naturally, we must build further on this unity, especially in the leadership.

The goal we have, like all the others, can only be achieved with the help of unity. In our country this unity necessarily relates to, above all, the Communist Party, but also the rest of the nation and nationality of Yugoslavia.

Already for more than forty years communists and the people of Yugoslavia have fought huge battles together: for freedom, for socialism, for the dignity in international worker commerce, for control of our own destiny, for input and insight into today's world.

This is why now, in Kosovo, we must wage one more battle for a way out of this crisis, but also a way out hatred, because, I am convinced, this crisis and hatred came together and fed off of one another.

Earlier generations knew heavier fighting, in wars which were fought by heart alone, and victories which were achieved with great sacrifice.

To win this battle, which we now must win, we have many conditions. We have many achievements: we have freedom, an independent voice in international commerce throughout the entire world, control of our destiny which, deficient practices aside, represents today's political ideal for all progressive businesses and peoples of the world, we have a powerful army, highly trained experts in every field, and a youth that is aggressively educated.

Are these not the assets that shall deliver us from this crisis, which will carry us into a new world and a new century?

Further, a time of change is before us. That wish for change is being expressed by the entire Yugoslav public. The largest number of people, especially young people. That which we must change for socialism to persist does not mean we must tear it down and nullify it. Quite the contrary. We want to, debugging its failings, build the best together.

Unity in the realization of this conclusion isn't necessary only for peace for Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo and for peace in Kosovo. It is necessary for peace in Yugoslavia. The loss of peace in any part of this nation threatens peace in this nation as a whole. History knows no faster, more effective and tragic variant of loss of freedom than this. With this surety all our peoples and nationalities must feel as and behave as Yugoslavs.

For everything that we've achieved in this community, we've achieved together. When we began to divide, we began to lose. The nature or our independence and autonomy in the Yugoslav collective excludes each other not mattering to us.

Debts, unemployment, inflation, Kosovo, all these can only be solved together and with the cooperation of the Yugoslav people, nations, and Yugoslav leadership.

Our goal isn't only an exit from this crisis. Our goal is economic prosperity which will bring us closer to Europe, and political and cultural growth which will bring us closer to the ideals which were purchased by every revolution in the 20th century.

The changes that need to happen in our community in the spheres of economics, politics and culture are huge and urgent.

These can't be carried out by just any people. On the contrary, they can be carried out by only those who in essence belong to this time, who know what those changes are and who are qualified to carry them out.

This plenum may signify the start of the victory of the spirit of unity and solidarity of the nations and peoples of Yugoslavia, on such a critical and key question like Kosovo. It can be expressed by the prosperity and bravery carried within by a million Yugoslav citizens, youth, and communists, who at last must be those that throw all doors open wide.

TRANSLATED BY: TIM SKORICK
Original Serbian Text (PDF File)