Kosovo’s acting Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, has stated that the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) and its influence on Serbian political discourse should continue to be the subject of scientific study.
Kurti made these statements on Friday at the scientific roundtable “SANU Memorandum: The Role of Serbian Academic Discourse in Inciting Conflicts and Violence in the Former Yugoslavia”, organized by the Institute for War Crimes in Kosovo and the “Ali Hadri” Institute of History.
According to Kurti, four decades after the publication of the Memorandum, it is important to analyze the circumstances in which it was drafted, the ideas it articulated, and its impact on Serbia’s political and social discourse.
He said that Kosovo had a special role in this narrative and that, during the late 1980s and 1990s, claims of “endangering Serbs” in Kosovo were used as part of political mobilization in Serbia.
“This was followed by the suppression of Kosovo’s autonomy, the massive departure of Albanians from public institutions and economic enterprises, systematic discrimination, state repression and, later, war,” Kurti said.
He emphasized that the path from ideology to violence is complex, but according to him, the history of the former Yugoslavia shows that narratives produced and legitimized by academic and public authorities can create the political and moral climate in which discrimination is normalized and violence is accepted as a political tool.
Kurti also spoke about the responsibility of academic institutions and public intellectuals, saying that scientific authority should not be used to give an academic character to ethnic prejudices or political claims.
He requested that the SANU Memorandum and the role of the Serbian intellectual elites of that time continue to be studied through credible documents and sources, with scientific methodology.
In his speech, Kurti also focused on the glorification of figures convicted of war crimes in Serbia, mentioning the former commander of the Army of Republika Srpska, Ratko Mladic, who died in prison in The Hague.
“When a society publicly honors a person convicted of genocide, it is difficult to talk about confronting the past, repentance or distancing oneself from the politics that produced those crimes,” Kurti declared.
He also criticized the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, for the way in which, according to him, the figure of Mladić is being treated, linking this to Serbia’s lack of confronting the past of the wars in the former Yugoslavia.
Kurti said that for Kosovo, documenting crimes and preserving evidence are state and scientific responsibilities, mentioning documents, archives, testimonies of survivors, families of victims, and persons still missing.
He stated that documentary and scientific work is important to prevent the denial, distortion and relativization of past crimes. /Telegraph/
