Country: Montenegro
Group: Albanian
Finalized Date: 2/23/2020
Team: Johanna McCombs (lead), Leilani Alva, Giselle Chavez Lopez
Content Warning: genocide
Approximate Time Period: 1910-1945
Albanians residing in Montenegro are an ethnic minority group that face the struggles of underrepresentation in political/public sectors, indirect discrimination and exclusion from economic life (Minority Rights n.d.). During the Balkan Wars in the early 1910s “forced killing and conversions” occurred against Bosniaks and Albanians in Montenegro, although Montenegro does not commonly acknowledge these events” (Milosevic, 2018). In April 1945, Albanians were under Yugoslavic rule and ordered to march to Tivar. More than 80 people were shot and killed and then set on fire or thrown into the sea. Once at Tivar the Bar Massacre took place, in which possibly two thousand Albanians were killed (ATA News from Albania, 96-09-19, n.d.). The government said there were 200 people killed but a mass grave found by historian Dr. Zekeria Cana showed the true number of deaths (ATA News from Albania, 96-09-19, n.d.). The mass murders that occurred during NATO wars were also recorded and are internationally recognized as “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide for the Albanian population” (Russett, 1999). The evidence for ethnically-targeted lethal violence is a 3, given the numerous sources and forensic evidence.
Sources
- Minority Rights Group (n.d.), “Montenegro.” Accessed February 13, 2020. https://minorityrights.org/country/montenegro/.
- https://balkaninsight.com/2013/03/06/montenegro-minorities-raise-up-voice-about-past-terrors/
- Russett, B. (1999). Is NATO’s war just? Commonweal, 126(10), 13-15.
- ATA News from Albania, 96-09-19. (n.d.). Retrieved February 16, 2020, from http://www.hri.org/news/balkans/ata/1996/96-09-19.ata.html#03