Fragments from the Promemory presented to the League of Nations by Dom Gjon Bisaku, Dom Shtjefėn Kurti and Dom Luigj Gashi, in 1930 

Forceful Emigration 

1) Emigration as the result of persecutions
Before the Serbian occupation, emigration was completely unknown to the Albanian population, that had lived in the regions that now are under the Yugoslav regime. It is true that workers migrated to some places around, but never with their families. The reasons for emigrations in mass, that have been evidenced since 1912, are undoubtedly all kinds of persecutions perpetrated to this misery mass to make their lives impossible and force them to abandon their own hearths. 

2. Means used for expulsion
The means used by the Yugoslav regime to force the Albanian mass to abandon the country are numerous. Threats to their lives, freedom limits in all the fields of human activity, expropriation without compensation, intervention into their houses, raids, frequent imprisoning without sufficient reason, banning schools in their mother tongue and expression of their national and other feelings differently from those liked by Serbian patriots, are means that have been used daily. 
In most cases, the commitment of these means of violence is done through associations, such as ‘Narodna odbrana' (National defence). 

3.  Emigration to Albania
At present around 10,000 unfortunate Albanian immigrants are found in Albania in a difficult situation. The Albanian government has made its maximal efforts to settle these immigrants, but it is clear that its will solely will not be sufficient to accomplish the requirements of all those wanting to come here. Albania was forced to refuse entrance visas to many of them, and that forced them then to seek some other settlement, chiefly in Turkey. 

4. Emigration to Turkey
The number of immigrants in Turkey reaches beyond 130,000. Turkish government made use of the misfortune of these people and inhabited in this way the deserted regions of Anatolia, where most of the Albanians have suffered because of the climate and poverty. This real emigration does not seem to stop until the persecutions that have caused them will stop. Earlier, 200 Albanian families have gone to Turkey. But in order to get free of the Albanian element, the government in Belgrade has begun talks with the government in Angora on expatriation of 300,000 - 400,000 Albanians from Kosova. If that plan has not been yet accomplished, it has obviously not been done so only due to the fear from the League of Nations and the world public opinion, that would surely show their astonishment and anger. 

5. Emigrants are plundered
To accelerate the emigration to Turkey, Yugoslav circles have made various concessions, such as the case of a young man of Albanian descent shows, who was released from military service before time, in order to be able to emigrate with his parents. 

That is why the emigration to Albania is not considered a good thing. Yugoslav government has its clear interest, that all those persecuted and plundered should be placed as far beyond its border as possible. Due to this reason, thousands of misfortunes are caused to those wanting to go to their relatives in Albania. 

Groups of lawyers and officials have come together to work against the interests of those unfortunate ones. To get their passports they are ill-treated until they are forced to pay sums of 4,000 to 5,000 dinars. This amount in some cases presents the whole property of theirs. The last victims of this anti-human exploitation came to us before our departure from the country. 

a) An Albanian peasant - Muslim, from the village Leshan, district of Peja, had to pay 6,000 dinars tax to the Serbian lawyer, Zonic, in Peja, for his passport. 
b) The Serbian lawyer, Ljuba Vuksanovic, from Peja, asked 8,000 dinars from another Albanian peasant to get his passport, as it was allegedly a very difficult case to get it. 
c) Gegė Meta, a Catholic Albanian, from Shkup, immigrated to Albania. He received the passports for his wife and son after five months of maltreating and after he paid a bribe of 2,000 dinars. 

We would add that, according to the rules, the common tax for a passport is not higher than 50 dinars. 

6. Forcing Albanians to emigrate so that Montenegrins and Serbs could take their property
The Montenegrins and other Slavs are brought from Bosnia, Srem and Banat to the villages and property confiscated and expropriated from the Albanians that were forced to emigrate. They are settled on purpose to change the ethnographic picture of the Province. Similar grafts have been made more or less everywhere and this process has continued with increasing speed. 
We are bringing you these places as examples: 

a) In the district of Gjakova, the villages: Lugbunar, Piskota, Dubrava, Mali i Ereshit, Dushinoc, Mali i Vogėl, Fushė Tyrbja, Betesh and Murilum, Negj, etc. 
b) In the district of Peja: Fusha e Isniqit, Turjaka, Fusha e Krushecit, Malet e Leēanit, Krusheva, Vitomirica, etc. 
c) The District of Prizren: Fqaju, Gruniqe, Gjergje, Lapova, etc. 

It has happened that inhabitants of Albanian descent that had gone away from their houses for some time, found Slavs in them when they came back. 

Published by KIC (Kosova Information Center), ©Copyright KIC