Source: "Dictionary of Misconceptions," pp. 121-122

"SERBIA IS EXPLOITING KOSOVO"

There are many exact economic and social indicators which refute this assertion. From the end of the Second World War to date, Yugoslavia and Serbia have been investing in Kosovo and Metohija much in excess of their return therefrom. It has been estimated that about 10 billion dollars have been invested there in the mentioned period.

In the thirties of this century, the population of Kosovo and Metohija was about 600,000, of which about 10,000 were employed, and there were 290 elementary and seven secondary schools in which Albanian language was not in use. Mining was just beginning at about that time, and there were hardly any manufaturing industries, apart from two brickworks, three small power station and five sawmills. As for medical services, there were 21 physicians and only one dentist.

Today, the population of Kosovo and Metohija is about two million. More than 200 modern industrial facilities have been erected, and there are 800 elementary and 87 secondary schools. Pristina, the capital of Kosovo and Metohija, has a big university where tuition is in Serbian and Albanian. The 333 health care centres there are staffed by 1,500 physicians, 320 dentists, 92 pharmacists and about 5,500 medical staff. The private sector of the economy has been undergoing rapid expansion there in the last few years, and ethnic-Albanian businessmen prevail overwhelmingly.
   
The ethnic-Albanian separatists are refusing to recognize these facts which are indicative of an impressive transformation and progress in Kosovo, for which Serbia deserves credit. The overwhelming majority of the ethnic-Albanian population of Kosovo and Metohija has been indoctrinated with separatist ideology, they are not paying taxes in the state in which they live, they are not allowing their children to go to the schools (in which tuition is in Albanian) in which the programmes and carricula are the same as in the rest of Serbia, they don't want to receive medical treatment in the medical institutions in which Serbian physicians are working, and they are regularly boycotting the free and democratic elections, at which they would have been able to elect their own representatives in local, republic and federal governments. [N.J.]

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