Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1912-12-21
Balkan Complications Looked
Upon as Likely to Give
Them independence
TWICE WARLIkE PEOPLE
HAVE TRIED FOR UNITY
Welcomed Regime of Young
Turks but Soon Found It
Was Failure

The advance Of the Seryians upon
Durazzo and the complications that
| have grown out Of their insistence
upon a port of their own on the Ad-
! ratio have brought the Albanians in
to more prominence than has their
warlike activity in the present Bal
Kan disturbance. While diplomacy
Is still denying to the Servians the
Albanian port of DurazZo, there
seems to be good reason to believe
that 1t will realize the dream OF an
independent nation, for which the Al
banians for centuries have been
struggling. ...
1t would be difficult to say which
the Albanians would prefer 10 be in
possession of this port-the Turks or
the Servians. Both have been their
enemies, but their dislike for the Ser.
vians dates further back and is per
haps the more intense. T..
What! Permit the Servians to
have our best and most important
commercial port" exclaimed Thames
Goruzzi, the secretary of the Alban-
ian Society in the United States.
Never! 1t would deprive us not only
of port but it would at the same
time take from us our richest and
most productive farming section. On
the land along this strip of the sea
coast are now grown fine crops of
olives and great quantities of cotton.
Under the better government which
We shall now have and the conse-
quent encouragement to industry the
land will yield prodigiously. We
shall not surrender this region to
the Serbs. And so far Alessio- why,
there was buried our hero Skenden.
beg. Neither shall we give up foot
Of High Albania along the Montene-
grin boundary. The Albanian will
never be content under Serb rule and
our land shall not be divided to their
advantage.
Lose Many Men. ii
The Albanians nave lost in the
last two struggles in which they have
been engaged 10000 or $4,000 men.
In the revolt which began about two
years ago the people were merely
struggling for what by every right
was their own. They had favored the
revolution which had overthrow Alb.
dull Hamid, and some of their most
useful and valiant men were leaders
In the Young Turk movement. They
accepted the new government when
they might have wrecked 1t at the
outset by declaring for the deposed
Abdul Hamid. Conditions instead of
becoming better grew worse; nothing
that the Young Turk had promised
Gid he fulfill.
The Albanians protested and final
for development of their country,
right to public meeting, liberty of
speech and press and especially for
schools and education. They are
virile, progressive race and nothing
that they have suffered their
wrongs have been many and great
has dampened their racial enthus-
iasm. They lack education, but what
else could be expected from the treat
ment that they have received from
their Turkish rulers? 1t was a part
Of the Ottoman statecraft to keep the
people ignorant. To gain freedom
and the blessings that come with 1t
have been the goal of the Albanian
ambition, and in fighting to this end
there has been no sacrifice too great
They won against the Turk and will
not lose to the Serb" "~.
Albanian Claims Ignored.
The claims of the Bulgar, Serb and
Greek in the Balkan peninsula are
well known, but it has been the way
of Europe to ignore tue claim of the
Albanian, the oldest inhabitant. The
Albanians are Illyrians, an Aryan|
race. When the Slavs appeared they
did not displace the native population
of old lllyria, they merely absorbed
1t. The language died out in some
parts of the peninsula, but not in Al
bania. 1t survives there today and
with it has survived the fierce ra-
cial instinct that has led the Albanian
to- regard the Slav as his first and
worst enemy. -".-.,.. -
Religious hatred was added to race
hatred, for the Slays, converted by
missionaries from Salonica, decided
for the Greek Church; the Albanians
remained faithful to the Church OF
Rome. When the Turk came and
Greek Slav and Bulgar fell before him
the Albanian retired to his mountains
and he was the last to be conquered.
Forced to accept the Turkish suzer-
ainty. the Albanians yet remained a
semi-independent people under their
own chiefs and retained many privi- |
leges. They hated the Turks, but
they hated the Slavs more, and their |
racial instinct led them to war against |
the Slavs.
Hate Serbs FiereeIy.
A missionary travelling in the Bal |
kan Peninsula in the fourteenth Gen.
fury wrote of the hatred of the Alba |
MAN for Serb rule. That same spirit |
exists today and has caused the AL |
banians. although less than year ago |
fighting the Turk fiercely themselves, |
to make common cause with him in |
the present war against Slavic invad- |
ers.
In spite OF the almost continuous
warfare for their rights and their free |
dom the Afbanians succeeded in at
tanning only twice anything like poll
teal unity. For brief period under
George Kastriot, the Skendenbeg OF |
DODular legend thew had dooroo of |