That shaping of ours, and especially since I might have been the kind of guy we call bold, more advanced, or however you want to put it. […] The idea came to me to establish the Association of Albanian Students in Belgrade.

 

This wasn’t simply a cultural-literary association. It was, in a legal sense, an organization through which we would then carry out our underground activities. But we needed this legal aspect of the organization as a shield, not the underground one. You might say that I thought it through well. At first, I discussed it with the most loyal and devoted friends. They agreed. They accepted the idea of establishing it. A meeting was held, it was during a literary session. I stood up and presented the concept, the idea, and the proposal to create the association. It was approved by everyone.

 

To avoid it seeming like we were just a group, we formalized it on paper and had everyone sign their agreement for the establishment of the association. Additionally, Setki Imami was there, an experienced worker in Belgrade. I’m not sure if Anton Çetta was there, I don’t quite remember. Dančetović, who was the head of the department, did not sign it.

During that period, it was more difficult to go… also due to the nature of the play. It wasn’t like we staged it in a cultural hall because it was a performance that, in a way, was unacceptable to the regime of that time. However, we performed it in, let’s say, halls, in schools that were improvised. In the physical education hall, if there was one. They were somewhat larger halls, if I can say so, or, for instance, when we were invited to villages, all over Kosovo, not just in Drenas.

 

It happened that we performed even on tractor trailers that had been set up and improvised in schoolyards for their performances, and we used them. Or in school corridors, where they were longer, desks were set up, and on top of the desks, so to speak, the play was performed by us, the actors, while the audience sat on seats, chairs, desks, or even stood. Children, teachers, and often even villagers from the surrounding houses would come to see a performance in Albanian.

My task was to stay in the courtyard of the Faculty of Philosophy, watch, and wait for Selatin to arrive with the carriage carrying the posters, the flag, and the slogans. There weren’t any posters back then, just slogans. At that meeting with Selatin Novosella, Selatin proposed that the demonstrations in Podujeva, Gjilan, and Ferizaj be held in the morning.

 

[…] When Selatini arrived, I told him, ‘Selatin, hurry up because I’m about to get blocked.’ I just knew, it started, among the students, a kind of panic began. When they saw the police, all of them, with helmets, a bit of panic set in.

 

Then, I didn’t wait  for it to become five minutes to 4:00, but I began the demonstration twelve minutes to 4:00, seven minutes early. I started it. I grabbed the flag, it wasn’t my task to take the flag or lead. But when I saw that things were about to get blocked, I took the flag and led, and then the students and others followed behind me. When we reached the main road, I was the first to confront the police.

 

They were speaking Serbian, most of them were Serbian police. ‘Step back,’ I said, ‘No.’ That’s where I first clashed with the police. I hit one of them with the flagpole. Then three or four police officers came at me with batons, hitting my body, my head, everywhere. They knocked me out. Blood was coming from my mouth and nose, and I fell down there. The students dragged me, pulled me onto the sidewalk, and left me there. They continued towards the city.

The demonstration on April 1, [1981] was very massive, as is known from history, from the photographs you have seen. They first chased us with tear gas to disperse us along the road above the assembly, behind the theater. Then we gathered again and went out behind where Skanderbeg Square is now, and we stayed for hours. Chanting. Eventually, they again threw tear gas at us. They dispersed us. On April 2, it continued above the Student Canteen. Singing, chanting, and the road was under construction. The large sewage pipes, the male students… the police were below at the Student Canteen, and we were rolling the pipes down.

 

[…] On April 11, we then went to visit my father [in prison] in Mitrovica. Because at that time, he was in Mitrovica. On May 1, they came to arrest me, in ‘81. I didn’t want to at first, since I wasn’t at home, I got the news about the house search and stayed at my uncle’s. Then I went into hiding until August 4, [1981]. I tried, with a few, to leave abroad. The goal was to get a fake passport, but I couldn’t secure one. On August 3, I decided, I said, I’m going to prison, let them sentence me and I’ll serve the sentence because I can’t live underground.

We talked, ‘What do you think? Are you up for a demonstration tomorrow? Do you support us?’ Most of them supported us, but there were also those who did not know what a demonstration was. Because there were no demonstrations until then. Then I had to explain to a group of two or three what a demonstration was. ‘When protested for Vietnam.’ Back then there was the war in Vietnam. Same with the slogans and that’s how we went over it. ‘Now we know what a demonstration is.’ So around 6:00-6:30 at the corner of Hotel Ljubeten we met with the rest of our friends. Some of them came later, but most importantly, we, the friends of the organizing group of the demonstration in Ferizaj, met.

[…] The demonstration continued until 3:30 PM. The time… our goal was for the workers who leave the factories they worked at at 3:00 PM, to see what their children were demanding. We did not want to implicate the workers in the demonstration. Our goal was to save them because they were being fired from their jobs, and if one worker lost their job, it would be a problem for their family. So we talked all the time with my friends that there should be no workers at the demonstrations, but that the main ones carrying it should be the students of Ferizaj, of course also the pupils who were in Ferizaj.

So at 3:30 PM, up to five thousand demonstrators gathered in Ferizaj. They also reported this on the radio from Ferizaj, but they also asked me several times during the investigation, ‘How were you able to gather five thousand people in two days? When we have to spend three months propagandizing for one gathering and barely bring five thousand people to the gathering?’