11.03.2008 / R.Veliu
The number of Albanians living in Macedonia is not clear at all to no one. People grow more interest in this matter when dealing with the dubious official data of the population in the country.
On one hand Albanians are being accused by Slavs of having high birth rate (while simultaneously being the highest in Macedonia), on the other hand the official statistics of the population are not in accordance with the real birth rate of Albanians.
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 last updated in 2002, there is a lack of real information, especially on data concerning Albanians.
In all these registrations, the "motto" of the whole process by the Slav-dominated government has been to minimize the real number of Albanians, so that the latter would appear as a minority, which is why, during communism, Macedonia delayed up to two years their final reports on population registration to the Federative Statistical Institute. The government needed time to "harmonize" the percentages of ethnicities in this Republic.
The Statistical Institute of Macedonia had a strict principle of exaggerating to 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 an ascending number of population, the statistics showed a number seemingly descending, which is impossible in demography - unless there are migrations, which has never been 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 the fact that the official reports of Macedonia were being manipulated.
It is important to stress that Macedonia has two different official records regarding the total population number: one for local consumption, and another for foreign consumption. 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 are the data from BBC, the British television, in 2001, stating that a total 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 real birth rate, 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 characteristic of the Albanian population as being nationalistic, separatist-irredentist, chauvinist and many other labels that were a product of a vile Slav chauvinism themselves. 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 in the following documents:
- 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" Tetovė, 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)
_________________
Adapted in English for vargmal.org, originally appearing in:
http://albeu.com/lajme/lajmi.php?sub...t_from=&ucat=1