JEDDAH, 21 June — Sulejman Tomcini, the Albanian ambassador-designate to Saudi Arabia arrived in Jeddah on June 2. I had the opportunity of interviewing him and obtaining a first-hand account of developments in the Balkans.
Ambassador Tomcini came to the Kingdom as Albanians experience difficult time. The ambassador said, “Unfortunately, there is a war going on between some Albanians and the government in Skopje. The roots of the conflict lie in discrimination against Albanians in their own land. After proclaiming independence from former Yugoslavia, Macedonia formed its own government and adopted a new constitution. But this constitution recognized Macedonians as the only citizens of the country while the Albanians constitute nearly half of the population. These Albanians must enjoy the same rights, which the Macedonians have. Albanian Macedonians have tried to secure their rights by peaceful means but they have failed to do so. Because of this, they took up weapons against the Macedonian government.”
The ambassador continued, “Perhaps their methods were wrong but the issue is a genuine one. It is a problem to change the constitution of Macedonia and give Albanians the same rights, enabling them to have their schools in their own language, to have their own university and get their language recognized, having equal status with Macedonian. Though Albanians are nearly half the population, they are very inadequately represented in the government. For example, their numbers in the army, civil service and police is only two and half percent. Most of the jobs are reserved for Macedonians. Before Macedonian independence, Albanians enjoyed more rights than they have today.”
Tomcini observed that the fighters in Macedonia had not chosen “a good moment, but this is a revolution against oppression and non-recognition of right. We hope now that the pressure applied by the international community and in particular, by European governments, will result in changes to the Macedonian constitution.” He also observed, “The problems now are that Western countries are against negotiations with the fighters. I think, this is wrong. It is necessary to find a common language for solving the problem. Any other course of action will worsen the situation.”
The Macedonian government blames the Albanian government for helping the Macedonian Albanians. In clarification, Tomcini commented, “That’s not true. Albania has no interest in an unstable Macedonia. Of course, we want the Macedonian Albanians to have the same rights but not through weapons. Albania was the first country to recognize Macedonia and when there was some problem between Greece and Macedonia, Albania opened its ports to Macedonia. Albania was never opposed to the Macedonian government. The Macedonian government has no right to condemn Albania and allege that Albania is helping the fighters. It’s not true. The government, which is helping the fighters, is that of Macedonia because of its policies. They have nobody to blame.” Sulejman Tomcini learnt Arabic at Baghdad University in the 1960s. He returned to Albania and worked as the chief of the Arabic section of Radio Tirana. He was appointed ambassador of Albania to Egypt where he served from 1977 to 1980. Then he worked for ten years at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as chief of the Middle East desk. Then he served as Albanian ambassador to Algeria from 1990 to 1993. Then he returned to Albania, left government service and worked in business. His most important literary contribution is his involvement in the translation of some books from Arabic into Albanian. He has prepared a dictionary of Arabic-Albanian containing nearly 50,000 words.
