Academicians strongly denounce the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonian (FYROM) counterparts

TIRANA, Sep 21 – The Centre of Albanian Research in Tirana strongly denounced a recent publication of the FYROM Academy defining ethnic Albanians there as coming from the rough mountains and also some interpretations of events affecting the whole Balkan region.
“Academic freedom is everything but freedom of deceit,” said a statement. “That cannot be a science when it fabricates fiction and produces hatred.”
There was sparked a loud cry from the Albanian historians and other personalities denouncing the fact set in the new FYROM Encyclopedia on the authenticity of Albanians living there.
The Albanian Centre said that all the research has shown the fact that Albanians are natives in such territories, adding that the Slav populations have come much later to the area.
They denounced the claims of the FYROM academicians of a violent expansion of Albanians in these territories.
In the area of FYROM today, Albanians have always fought for freedom and independence starting with the fight against the Ottoman Empire after which the area was passed to Serbia. The FYROM nation started to get affirmed only after World War II with the creation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, they said.
FYROM was created in 1991 when the former Yugoslavia started to be dissolved.
Albanians in FYROM make up about one-fourth of the population.
“Unfortunately they have still to draw lessons from the bitter recent past when identical pseudo-scientific documentation of the Serb academicians were exploited by chauvinist ultranationalists to start the campaigns of the ethnic conflicts and cleansing in former Yugoslavia, also inspiring the genocide against Kosovo Albanians and the armed revolt of the [FYROM] Albanians,” wrote the statement.
“[FYROM] academicians are showing they consider democracy as a threat and not as a project of development and civilian freedom,” it said. “Distortion of history, offence of the identity of the Albanians in FYROM and Albanians in general Šartificially create inter-ethnic tension in the country putting in difficulty the regional euro-Atlantic prospects.”
“It is time the violent part of the defragmented history of the Balkans remains in history so that it reciprocally reminds us how we should not build up our ties in a Europe of the free people,” the Center said.