When the Government of the Republic of Serbia invited the representatives of the Albanian political parties and of all national minorities and ethnic groups living in Kosovo and Metohija to a public dialogue about all questions in that Autonomous Province, it started from the conviction that dialogue was the only legitimate political means for the solution of the problems. It was understood that the talks should have take place within the institutional framework of the State of Serbia, which has its constitutional and legal order, its territory and its borders, within which it performs its sovereign authority. The requirement of the government that the framework of the talks be the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia in force, and that its state territory and its sovereignty must be respected was, therefore, quite normal, in accordance with the mentioned facts.

In order to solve the problems in Kosovo and Metohija, the Government of the Republic of Serbia opted for an open dialogue, without any conditions, thus expressing the maximum of tolerance and patience. Since March, 10 1998, the Government of the Republic of Serbia invited 18 times political personalities of the national minorities living in Kosovo and Metohija.

The leaders of the Albanian political parties and associations did not respond 18 times to the invitations of the official representatives of the Republic of Serbia (of the President of the Republic of Serbia, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia, the Members of the Governmental Delegation, consisting of the Vice-Prime minister of Serbia, of Ministers and of the Personal Envoy of the President of the FR of Yugoslavia, of members of the Parliament and of political parties of Serbia).

They refused the first invitation to the dialogue with the excuse that "it was not addressed". When the invitation was sent to the addresses of 11 leaders of the Albanian national minority, they rejected it for, allegedly, they did not have an official representative of the FR of Yugoslavia as counterpart in the talks. When that request was satisfied (the President of the FRY, S. Milosevic nominated his Personal Envoy), they rejected the repeated invitation to dialogue saying that the proposed agenda was too general, and that it did not concern the questions of the status of Kosovo and Metohija. When that request was satisfied as well (the suggested subject for the agenda was: the study of the Proposal of a Statutory Decision, i. e. the question of self-government), they stated that they are not ready to talk before fixing the composition of their delegation. When they published the composition of their delegation, they rejected the next invitation to talks, saying that they still had not determined their platform for the talks.

Since March, 10, they refused the dialogue 18 times, always with a different "excuse".

THE RIGHTS OF THE MEMBERS OF NATIONAL MINORITIES

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia recognizes and guarantees the rights of the members of the national minorities to the preservation, development and expression of their ethnic, cultural, language and other specific features, and the use of their national symbols, in accordance with the International law (Art. 11).

According to the last census in 1991, there lived, in the territory of the FR of Yugoslavia, beside the Serbs and montenegrins, the members of 26 national minorities and ethnic groups, who represented one third of the total population. The most numerous were the Albanians, Bulgarians, Croats, hungarians, Macedonians, Moslems, Roms, Rumanians, Slovaks, Turks, Wallachians....

Article 41 of the Yugoslav Constitution guarantees to the citizens the freedom of political, trade unionist, and other association and activities, without approval, by simple registering by the competent organ.

The members of the national minorities are entitled, in accordance with the law, to establish educational and cultural organizations and/or associations, financed on the principle of voluntarily, and may be assisted by the state (Article 47).

Article 45 of the Yugoslav Constitution guarantees the freedom of expression of national belonging and of national culture, and the use of one’s own language and alphabet (Addendum 1 - parties, associations and organizations of Albanians, Turks and Roms in Kosovo and Metohija.

Serbian language and Cyrillic alphabet are in official use in Yugoslavia. In the regions populated by national minorities, according to the law, their languages and alphabets are in official use (Article 15). Together with Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, Rumanian and Ruthenian are in official use in Vojvodina, and Albanian in Kosovo and Metohija.

The members of the national minorities are entitled to schooling in their own respective languages (Article 46). The positive regulations of the FRY open the possibility of organizing the entire teaching in the languages of the national minorities, on all levels of education. The law also envisages the organization of bilingual education, or of additional teaching of mother tongues, with elements of national cultures.

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In Vojvodina, the education in primary schools is performed in 5 languages, secondary education in four languages. High education in Hungarian is organized at 7 faculties at the university, and in Slovak, Rumanian and Ruthenian languages at 2 faculties each.

The members of the Albanian national community, which represents the majority population in Kosovo and Metohija (some 90%), boycott the legal educational system in Albanian. The boycott represents the expression of the secessionist policy based on the ethnic criterion oriented to the non-recognition of the legal state organs and institutions of the Republic of Serbia, and the endeavors aimed at the independence of this part of Serbia and the constitution of the so-called Republic Kosovo. Such endeavors of the members of the Albanian national minority represent a kind of discrimination. Before the boycott, there existed 904 Albanian primary schools, 69 secondary schools and the Pristina University, with 37.000 students, 80% of them being Albanians who studied in Albanian.

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The Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija established a parallel educational system, based on illegal programs, criteria and textbooks, whose contents were oriented against the Republic of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The diplomas they issue are not recognized, neither in Yugoslavia nor abroad.

The FRY Constitution guarantees to the national minorities the right to public information in their own respective languages (Article 46).

There exist, in Yugoslavia, over 150 newspapers and magazines published in the languages of the national minorities. That number includes 58 daily, weekly and periodical publications in Albanian, prepared and edited by the members of the Albanian ethnic community. The annual circulation of those publications, published in Albanian and owned by private persons, and declared as independent media, is somewhere around 2.5 million copies.

The Radio and TV Pristina broadcasts programs in Serbian, Albanian, Romani and Turkish. The Novi Sad Television broadcasts its regular programs in five different languages - Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, Rumanian and Ruthenian. The radio stations in Vojvodina broadcast in 8 languages of the national minorities.

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The weekly paper of the Turkish national minority "Tan"

LIST

OF POLITICAL PARTIES, ASSOCIATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS OF ALBANIANS, MOSLEMS

AND TURKS IN K & M

POLITICAL PARTIES

The Socialist Party of Serbia

The Yugoslav Left

The New Democracy

The Radical Party "Nikola Pasic"

Group of citizens from Debrevo, Kosovo Polje

The Communist Party of Yugoslavia

The Movement of the Yugoslav Perspective

The Workers’ Party of Yugoslavia

The New Communist Party of yugoslavia

The Serbain Radical Party

The Social Democracy

The Serbian movement for Renewal

The Renaissance

The The Party of Natural Law

The Party of Serbian Citizens

The Serbian Resistance Movement - Democratic movement

The Democratic Union of Kosovo

The Farmers’ Party

The Party of Democratic Action in Kosovo - Pec

The Democratic Union of Turks - Prizren

The Democratic Reform Party of the Moslems - Prizren

ASSOCIATIONS

The Humanitarian Association "Mother Theresa"

The Association for the Return of Displaced Albanians from Kosovo

The Association of Authors from Kosovo

The Moslem Humanitarian Association "Merhamet"

ORGANIZATIONS