History
It is often said that the Balkans have been a crossroads of cultures and peoples throughout history. Their location in southeastern Europe between the large, powerful countries of Western Europe, the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire, and Russia has meant that the many peoples of the Balkans have been buffeted by strong outside forces.
Nestled in the mountains of southern Former-Yugoslavia is the impoverished Kosova, whose historical significance lies at the heart of a conflict that has haunted the region for decades. On the surface, the fighting is a bloody tug-of-war between ethnic Albanians and Serbians, where ethnic Albanians comprise a majority of the population. Fighting for an independent Kosova state are the ethnic Albanians. Fighting against the Albanians are Serbian forces of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who did not want cede control.
Stirring Serbian Nationalism
Being that Albanians have there own language, culture and traditions and in former Yugoslavia were the third largest nation by number, calls for independence increased. Responding to the growing social unrest, Yugoslavia's Communist President Marshal Tito granted Kosova autonomy by 1974. A revised constitution granted a large degree of self-governance to the six republics forming the Yugoslavian federation – Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia – and to Vojvodina and Kosovo, the two provinces within Yugoslavia. In the constitution of 1974 Kosova was a equal member of Yugoslavian federation.
Although Kosova and Vojvodina were granted self-rule since Tito and the Communists founded the Yugoslavian federation in 1945, the constitutional revision gave ethnic Albanians in Kosova control over local affairs and the Albanian language equal footing with Serbo-Croatian.
Tito's death in 1980 offered opportunity to Slobodan Milosevic, a rising criminal and politician who became leader of the Serbian communist party in 1986. Capitalizing on the Serbian resentment toward ethnic Albanians, Milosevic used the Kosova issue to stir nationalism. In rallies, he exhorted Serbs to fight for the province that he declared they would win back.
When Milosevic became president in 1989, he stripped Kosova's autonomy, and later forced Albanians from their state jobs, shut down their media and suppressed the Albanian language. Milosevic also dismantled the legislative assembly after ethnic Albanian legislators declared independence.
One Land, Two Kosovas
Amid the broader Bosnian war that engulfed the former Yugoslavian federation between 1992 and 1995, two Kosovas emerged – one in which ethnic Albanians and a small number Orthodox Christian Serbs lived uneasily side by side. While the Serbian government forcefully was the official one, the Albanian ethnic majority operates a parallel government which stages its own elections. The government collects money to fund social services from Albanians in Kosova, Albania and abroad. Ethnic Albanians also run their own schools and universities and get their news from Albanian-language sources; Serbians rely on Serbian TV and Belgrade newspapers.
Leading the unrecognized political entity is Ibrahim Rugova, a writer and political intellectual voted "president" during the 1992 shadow government elections. Rugova's nonviolent stance against Serbian rule fueled the formation of an armed guerrilla group who decided to take matters into their own hands.
Rise of the KLA
In 1996, the Kosovo Liberation Army (established around 1991) claimed responsibility for a series of violent attacks and triggered warfare with Serbian troops that forced thousands to flee into neighboring Albania. By February 1998, a new military offensive Milosevic launched against the Albanians spurred reports that police were committing atrocities such as "ethnic cleansing."
Pressure intensified for a quick resolution to the conflict many feared would spill over Kosova's borders. In the months following Milosevic's renewed attacks, the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy – the "Contact Group" responsible for negotiating peace in the Balkans – leveled sanctions against Yugoslavia. The six-nation group was formed in 1994 to help resolve the Bosnian conflict and was instrumental in the 1995 Dayton Peace Accord.
The Kosova turmoil has revealed staunch political differences among members of the international community. The United States and Western allies condemn repression against ethnic Albanians, the Albanians – many of whom have taken their refugee brethren into their own homes – support a NATO attack. Russia, which shares religious and cultural ties to the Serbs, opposes NATO intervention and sees the conflict as Yugoslavia's affair. Meanwhile, the West, including the Clinton administration, came under fire for inaction and failing to carry out threats of military action against Milosevic.
Attack on Serbia
After peace negotiations, sanctions, and the threat of NATO military intervention failed to halt the conflict, NATO renewed its threat of air strikes in October after reports that the massacre of ethnic Albanian civilians was committed by Serbian troops.
On Oct. 13, Milosevic and U.S. envoy Richard Holbrook agreed to a cease-fire that required partially withdrawing government forces, and allowing 2,000 inspectors under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the cease-fire and activities of both sides. The truce temporarily ended the eight-month offensive that killed more than 1,000 Albanian people and left over 125,000 homeless.
Sporadic fighting and the Jan. 16 discovery of 45 slaughtered ethnic Albanians in the Kosova village of Racak threatened to unravel the truce. In the face of international condemnation, Milosevic refused a request for an investigation into the killings by the U.N. war crimes tribunal. His hard-line stance against pleas to end the fighting revived the threat of NATO air strikes. Fearing that the civil war in Kosova could provoke a wider Balkans war that could destabilize neighboring Albania and Macedonia, which in turn may pull in Turkey and Greece, Western allies pushed Serbian officials and ethnic Albanian representatives to meet for peace talks in Rambouillet, France. Two rounds of negotiations in February ended with the ethnic Albanians signing the peace accord and Milosevic rejecting it because he opposed a provision allowing for peacekeeping troops in Yugoslavia.
As a result of Milosevic's new offensive launched in March 1999 against Kosova Albanians, and his defiant rejection of peacekeeping troops as outlined in the peace accord, NATO approved punitive air strikes against Yugoslavia. Faced with its gravest challenge since World War II, the Alliance mounted its first attack March 24 against a sovereign nation in its 50-year history, with the goal of preventing a wider Balkans war and ensuring a stable Europe.
NATO bombs pummeled Serbia and Kosova for 78 days, while on the ground, Yugoslav troops began forcibly expelling ethnic Albanians from the region into neighboring countries. Approximately one Million fled their homeland to refugee camps in neighboring Albania and Macedonia.
Yugoslavian representatives met with NATO military commanders in Macedonia to hash out a peace plan that would halt NATO strikes and allow the safe return of the refugees. On June 9, Milosevic and Yugoslavia realized that they were finally unmasked and that they can't play innocent any longer and they signed an agreement that allowed for the withdrawal of their forces from Kosova and the implementation of a 50,000-member international peacekeeping force into the Kosova.
