ALBANIAN REFUGEE CONGRESS HELD IN YUGOSLAV TOWN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00809A000600400700-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 25, 2011
• Sequence Number: 700
• Publication Date: August 10, 1951
• Content Type: REPORT

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/08/25 :CIA-RDP80-00809A000600400700-9
CONFI~~NTIAL
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY REPORT
INFORMATION FROM
FOREIGN DOCUMENTS OR RADIO BROADCASTS CD NO.
rniiNTav v+inn513vi&: Albania DATE OF
SUBJECT Political ?? Albanian minority
HOW
PUBLISHED Daily newspaper
VJHERE
PUBL1SHED Zurich
DATE
PUBLISHED 28 *tay 1951
L~?":GUAGE German
TNIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS IN TORY ATION Ai iECTINO TN[ NATIO NAA D[iEN SB
OP THE UNIT[D STAtE3 WITHIN TN[ Y[ANIND Oi [SPIONADE ACT !0
V. S. C.. 31 AND 3A. AS AY[NDED. ITS TRANSMISSION OR THE PEN [CATION
NIBITFDC BT TLAWS (REPRODUCTION 0i TNI! TORY /SI PRDNI BIT[0. '! PRO?
DATE DIST. l~Aug 1951
N0. OF PAGES 2
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT N0.
THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
ALBANs4N REFLiGEE CONGRESS HELD IN YUGOSLAV TOWN
'Ph= Y:LR~joslaV ATe88 and radio have hitherto maintained silence concerning a
congress :geld in tie Yugoslav border city of Prizren on 10 May 1951 Four hun-
dred delegates representing the 4,000 Albanian refugees currently i.n Yugoslaeis
participated in the gathering. The chairman was the 25-year-o1d.Red~ev Betsa,
president ~f the .Albans:-n emigre organization in Serbia, formerly an officer
instr~zctor of engineers at the Albanian noncommissioned officers` school in
Sbkodex, whe hari Pled to Yugoslavia in 1.949 The Yugoslav represeatatlve
present w~ss the Montenegrin Dusan Mgosi, who played s decisive role in the A1-
~ianian Commu!aiet partisan movement during the war He was one of two emissaries
sent 'oy order of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia iu 1941 to unite the Albanian
Communists, then divideAi iA;tU vFU' lulls smell e:c;:pao This activity laid the
grCL`.t73:VO.~k.fOr Communist paxti.san warfare and the later coup d.'etat~ During
meet of t:e war he was political liaison man between the Yugoslav and Albanian
partisans '
The politir..s1 significance of the congress is also emphasized by the choice
of Prizren, only 16 kilometers from the Albanian border, as a meeting place
This city his played an important role in the recent history of Albania The
"League of Pri~r~ren," formed in 1878 to protest the cession of foear Albanian
cities to Montenegro as ordered by the Congress of Berlin, may be designated ,
as the first move~pent in the struggle for national independence, which finally
led to the formation of an independent Albanian states In the 19th Century,
-under Turkish control, the Prizren region was still regarded as an integral
part of .Albania However, even between the world wars, when the city lay wit2tin
ire Yugoslav boundaries, it continued to be a center of Albanian political acti-
vity directed against the Tirana government
Less than 10 percent of the delegates to the capgz?ess of 10 May 1951 appear
to be former members of the. Communist F:arty, Obviously, however, control is
firmly in Communist hands One gains the impression that the management was
organized on the pattern of the People?s Front with which the Yugoslav Communists
attained so great a success during the warn The congress expressed itself in
favor of an "independent democratic Albania,." A resolutlon was passed atmouncing
C06~FI~~~TIAL
NSRB
F81
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/08/25 :CIA-RDP80-00809A000600400700-9
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/08/25 :CIA-RDP80-00809A000600400700-9
CO~FI~~~~~'iAl
CONFIDEt :':AL
s. vigorous struggle ?gainst the foreign slave regime of Enver Hosha, and demand-
ing the liberation of Albania from the "second occupation," that is, from Soviet
occupation However, the congress expressed itself dust as decisiveljr against
Albanian emigres in Italy and Greece, whom it declared to be collaborationists,
and attacked their efforts to re-establish the old regime In addition, Yugoslavia
wes given a vote of thanks for its acceptance and protection of Albanian refugeeao
CONFIDENTIAL
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/08/25 :CIA-RDP80-00809A000600400700-9