How many Albanians live in Macedonia?

demetra

11.03.2008 / R.Veliu

The number of Albanians living in Macedonia is not absolutely clear to everyone. People grow more interest in this matter when dealing with the dubious official data of the population in Macedonia.

On one hand Albanians are being accused of having high birth rate (simultaneously being the highest in Macedonia), on the other hand the official statistics of the population are not in accordance to the true birth rate of Albanians in Macedonia.

This paradox has been to foreign and local authors an incentive for studying the Albanian population movement in Macedonia. In the official post WW2 statistics, registered in 1948, 1953, 1961, 1971, 1981, 1994 and the last updated in 2002, there is lack of real information, especially in the data concerning Albanians. In all these registrations, the "motto" of the whole process was to minimize the true existing number of Albanians, so that Albanians would stand out as a minority, which is why during socialism Macedonia delayed up to two years their final reports on population registration to the Federative Statistical Institute. It needed time to "harmonize" the percentages of ethnicities in this Republic.

The Statistical Institute of Macedonia had a strict principle of exaggerating in a hyperbolic degree the number of Slav Macedonians and minimizing that of other ethnicities. As a result of this ineloquence, in 1991 Albanians boycotted the whole process of citizen registration, although the process was repeated in 1994. Unfortunately, again the process proved to be unreal and one of the most manipulated up to that time. Instead of the number of population ascending, it showed as if it seemingly was descending, which is impossible in demography - unless there are outside borders migrations, which was not the case throughout those years, because Western Europe was not accepting foreign workers.

Back in that time, daily Slav Macedonian newspapers, and Albanian ones, reported that in year 1991 Macedonia would have an estimated 2.208.014 number of citizens based on the birth rate of 15.7 per thousand per year. That was not to happen. In year 1994 Macedonia recorded a minus of 41.253 citizens compared to the final outcome of 1981. This once again proved that the official reports of Macedonia were being manipulated.

It is important to stress that Macedonia has two different official data of the total population number: one of them is for the local opinion and the other for the foreign opinion. In order for this information not to be labeled as haphazard, I'll stress some remarkable cases:

In the State Department Report for Human Rights in Macedonia is stated that there are an estimated 2.2 million citizens living in Macedonia (3.12.1993).

Why then was this number ignored? Why wasn't the truth told? Another evidence that the number of population in Macedonia is manipulated is that of BBC, the British television, in 2001, which said that a number of 2.3 million citizens live in Macedonia. (BBC, 7:30 evening news, 07.06.2001)

As far as the Albanian population movement is concerned, it has had its ups and downs. It is a number that has never been based on the true birth rates, but it has always been predefined by the Statistical Institute of the Republic. The Slavic authorities were stressing in a negative way this natural growth of Albanians (1981-1991) and accusing this movement of being nationalistic, separatist-irredentist, chauvinist and many other labels that were an output of the vile Slav Macedonian national-chauvinists. All in all the true number of Albanian citizens was never to be reported based on the natural growth statistics, but rather on those that the Statistical Institute reported, ranking Albanians as the second largest ethnicity in Macedonia.

This chart shows the population movement of Albanians in Macedonia after WW2 - compared to the population movement of Slav Macedonians and Turks:

YEAR 1948 1953 1961 1971 1981 1994 2002

Slavs
789'648 (68.6%) 860'699 (66.0%) 1'000'865 (71.2%) 1'142'375 (69.3%) 1'279'000 (67.0%) 1'296'964 (67.0%) 1'297'971 (64.2%)

Albanians
197'389 (17.1%) 162'594 (12.4%) 183'108 (13.0%) 279'871 (17.0%) 377'208 (19.8%) 441'104 (22.8%) 509'083 (25.2%)

Turks
95'940 (8.3%) 203'938 (9.4%) 131'481 (6.6%) 108'552 (4.0%) 76'365 (4.0%) 78'014 (4.4%) 77'959 (3.9%)

Chart No. 1

This chart shows the official statistic of the population. The information used by BBC is different from the official one:

No. Percentage
Slav 920.00 (40.0)
Alb 880.00 (38.3)
Rom 220.00 (9.6)
Serb 160.00 (7.0)
Turk 60.00 (2.6)
Other 60.00 (2.6)

Chart No. 2

An official in the Statistical Institute, also a lecturer in the Faculty of Law, would stress that in year 2000 the number of Albanians and Slavs will be equivalent. The daily newspaper "Fakti" reported: "In year 2025, the number of Albanians in Macedonia will be equal to that of [Slav] Macedonians" (6th of August, 2007). One can tell that the number of Albanians was the same with that of Slav Macedonians since 2000. This is proved by the facts given below:

- Macedonia has a number of 750.000 Albanian speaking citizens ("Lajme", 30th of August, 2007).

- "The number of this population represents 33% of the whole population number"(R.Veliu: "geographical span and the Albanian population movement in Macedonia" Tetovë, 2002. pg.40)

- A few days ago the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) reported that there is an estimated 15 million total of Albanians worldwide, including details about the places where Albanians live. It says that "1 million Albanians live in Macedonia". (LAJM Newspaper)


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Adapted in English for vargmal.org, originally appearing in:
http://albeu.com/lajme/lajmi.php?sub...t_from=&ucat=1

Shqipe

What does "Rom" mean: Romanian-Vlach, or Roma?

mesdimr

Roma.