IV.

History

From the second millennium bc, the Illyrians (ancestors of the present-day Albanians) inhabited the Balkan Peninsula, including what is now Kosovo. The Illyrian territory of Dardania, which comprised present-day Kosovo, part of what is now the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), and lands now in south-west Serbia, was eventually annexed by the Roman Empire. From the 8th to the 12th century, Kosovo was the centre of the medieval state of Raska (Rascia). Towards the end of the 12th century, the Serbian ruler Stefan Nemanja annexed Kosovo and, for a time, Prizren served as the capital of Serbian princes. During this period, the Serbian population in Kosovo increased.

A.

Incorporation Into Yugoslavia

In 1389, an invading Ottoman Turkish army inflicted heavy casualties on a Serbian army in the Battle of Kosovo, leading to the subsequent conquest of all of Serbia (in 1459) by the Ottoman Empire. Kosovo was the scene of a numerous subsequent anti-Turkish uprisings, but only in mid-1912 were the Turks finally expelled, and an independent Albanian state proclaimed, which was to include Kosovo and portions of the western part of the region of Macedonia. However, at Russia's insistence, the Great Powers divided Kosovo between Serbia and Montenegro. In 1918, Kosovo was incorporated into the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later called Yugoslavia. Local Albanians staged uprisings between 1918 and 1919 which were ruthlessly crushed. The Belgrade government resorted to forced expulsions of Albanians, closure of Albanian schools, land confiscations, and importation of Serbian settlers.

During World War II, Kosovo was appended to Italian-occupied Albania—a move generally welcomed by local Albanians—and local Serbs were forced out. Kosovo's Albanians resisted reincorporation into Yugoslavia, but by July 1945, the Partisan army of Josip Broz Tito succeeded in crushing Albanian resistance. Kosovo was organized as an administrative subunit of the Republic of Serbia—at first as an autonomous region, but later elevated to the status of an autonomous province after Albanian riots in 1968. Renewed riots in 1981 resulted in the purging of Albanians from positions of power and protests by local Serbs.

B.

NATO Air Strikes

In March 1989 Slobodan Milošević eliminated all vestiges of Kosovo's autonomy and extended anti-Albanian discrimination, placing the region under effective military occupation. Increasing Yugoslav pressure on separatists in Kosovo from 1998, including attacks on the Albanian population, drove Western powers to threaten military action against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. With attacks continuing and no peace deal reached, the West launched an air offensive across Serbia and Kosovo in March 1999. In response, Yugoslav army and security units drove hundreds of thousands of Albanians out of the province in a prearranged plan of ethnic cleansing, creating a refugee crisis in neighbouring states.

By May 1999 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that almost 650,000 civilians had been forced out of Kosovo since March. There were also reports of massacres inside Kosovo, especially of young men. The Western air bombardment steadily increased in intensity, with over 4,500 sorties flown by the end of April, but began initially at relatively low intensity with infrastructure targets also included, and many Yugoslav units in Kosovo were able to operate with little interference. The West hesitated to commit ground troops against them, while Kosovo guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) could do little against regular Yugoslav army units. On June 9, 1999, after 11 weeks of NATO air raids, the Milošević regime agreed to withdraw all its troops from Kosovo.

C.

UN Administration

The UN Security Council endorsed the Kosovo peace agreement and established the UN Interim Administration Unit in Kosovo (UNMIK) in the province, which included an interim administrative council of four UN and four local representatives. K-For, the NATO-led multinational peacekeeping force (numbering about 40,000), was set up to oversee the return of approximately 860,000 Kosovo Albanian refugees. The KLA disbanded in September, but was reconstituted as a 3,000-strong civilian defence body called the Kosovo Protection Corps (TMK). It is restricted to emergency and humanitarian work. The international police force is yet to reach its full strength of 4,700 officers. The first graduates of the multi-ethnic Kosovo Police Service graduated in March 2000. The international community has pledged US$2.1 billion to aid reconstruction in the wake of the Serb military operations and NATO air strikes. Approximately 500,000 people were left homeless, and over 120,000 buildings damaged or destroyed. Mine clearance remains an important task with around 40,000 mines still to be deactivated. Around 190 mass graves have been discovered (containing over 2,000 bodies). A further 300 sites have yet to be excavated. Hundreds of people—Serbs, Albanians, and Roma (Gypsies)—have been killed in ethnic violence since June 1999.

The first democratic parliamentary election in Kosovo took place in November 2001. The Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), under ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, won almost 46 per cent of the vote. The Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) came second, with nearly 26 per cent of the vote. Although the new parliamentary institutions have no say on the independence issue, the establishment of the Kosovo Assembly has changed the political landscape of the province. A power-sharing deal between LDK and PDK was agreed at the end of February 2002, after three attempts by the Assembly to elect the province’s first president had failed. Rugova was finally voted in at the beginning of March; he nominated Bajram Rexhepi of the rival PDK as prime minister. A ten-member government was also appointed by the Assembly.

In March 2004 violence broke out between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in the town of Kosovska Mitrovica. Nineteen people were killed in the clashes, and churches and houses were destroyed—the unrest was the worst in the region since 1999. Parliamentary elections were held in October, and Rugova’s party—the LDK—performed well. However, only around 1 per cent of the Serbian electorate voted, following an appeal by Serbian prime minister Vojislav Koštunica for all Serbs in Kosovo to boycott the polls. After the elections, President Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo forged a coalition with former rebel commander Ramush Haradinaj’s Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK). In December, Rugova was re-elected as president by Kosovo’s parliament, with Haradinaj appointed as prime minister.

In March 2005 Haradinaj was indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague, on charges relating to his role in the conflict in the region in 1998-1999. He immediately resigned as prime minister, nominating Bajram Kosumi, deputy leader of the AAK, as his successor. Later that year, in November, the preliminary phases of UN-sponsored talks on the future status of the province began. However, President Rugova died in early 2006, shortly before the direct negotiations between the ethnic Serbian and Kosovan leaders were scheduled to open. The following month the Kosovo Assembly named Fatmir Sejdiu, a former LDK parliamentarian, as Rugova's successor, and shortly afterwards Kosumi was replaced as prime minister by Agim Ceku, a former commander in the KLA. The long-awaited meeting between Sejdiu and Ceku and the Serbian president Boris Tadić and prime minister Koštunica—the first such meeting since 1999—finally took place in Vienna in July. The talks, which were presided over by UN officials, failed to reach a significant breakthrough and a final decision on the province’s future status remains unresolved.

A plan for Kosovan independence was unveiled by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari in February 2007 and was supported by Albanian Kosovans and rejected by the Serbian populace. Russia threatened to veto the plan, although the US and a significant part of the EU was in favour. Elections were held in November 2007 and were won by Hashim Thaci’s opposition PDK, which won 34 per cent of the vote compared to the ruling LKD with 22 per cent. The Serbian turnout was low, in response to the Serbian government’s call for a boycott. The PDK announced its intention to declare independence for the province in December but the EU advised caution, requesting that independence be supervised under the auspices of the international community.

The declaration of independence was formally approved by the Kosovar Assembly on February 17, 2008. Over the days that followed the declaration, a number of foreign parties—including the United Kingdom, the majority of the EU member countries, and the United States—officially recognized Kosovo’s independence. However, Serbia refused to acknowledge the declaration, dismissing it as illegal.