Talk:Kosovo/Proposed history rewrite

Kosovo and the Breakup of Yugoslavia

Inter-ethnic tensions continued to worsen in Kosovo throughout the 1980s. In particular, Kosovo's ethnic Serb community, a minority in Kosovo, complained bitterly about mistreatment from the Albanian majority. Milosevic capitalized on this discontent in Kosovo to consolidate his own position in Serbia. In 1987, Serbian President Ivan Stambolic sent Milošević to Kosovo to "pacify restive Serbs in Kosovo." On that trip, Milošević broke away from a meeting with ethnic Albanians to mingle with angry Serbians in a suburb of Pristina. As the Serbs protested they were being pushed back by police with batons, Milošević told them, "No one is allowed to beat you." This incident was later seen as pivotal to Milosevic's rise to power.

On June 28, 1989, Milosevic delivered a speech in front of 1,000,000 Serb citizens at the central celebration marking the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, held at Gazimestan. During the speech, Milosevic said that "six centuries later, now, we are being again engaged in battles and are facing battles. They are not armed battles, although such things cannot be excluded yet." This quote was widely interpreted as being a pivotal moment in the violent breakup of Yugoslavia, although others have since asserted that it was not a bellicose speech.

In 1989, Milošević, employing a mix of intimidation and political maneuvering, engineered the revocation of Kosovo's special autonomous status within Serbia. Soon thereafter Kosovo Albanians organized a non-violent separatist movement, employing widespread civil disobedience, with the ultimate goal of achieving the independence of Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians boycotted state institutions and elections and established separate Albanian schools and political institutions. On July 2, 1990 an unconstitutional Kosovo parliament declared Kosovo an independent country, although this was not recognized by Belgrade or any foreign states. Two years later, in 1992, the parliament organized an unofficial referendum which was observed by international organizations but was not recognized internationally. With an 80% turnout, 98% voted for Kosovo to be independent.

Kosovo War

Main article: Kosovo War

In 1995, as the issues that sparked wars in Bosnia and Croatia were largely addressed in the Dayton peace agreement, the Kosovo situation remained without resolution. As Kosovo Albanian complaints over Serb oppression mounted, an armed resistance movement led by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) began to employ guerilla-style tactics against Serbian security forces. Violence escalated dramatically in 1998 through a cycle of KLA attacks and Serbian reprisals. Both sides sometimes targeted civilians.

In the fall of 1998, as the violence worsened and displaced more people, representatives of the international community brokered a ceasefire. Under an agreement negotiated by Richard Holbrooke, observers from the OSCE moved into Kosovo to monitor the ceasefire, while Yugoslav military forces partly pulled out of Kosovo.

But the ceasefire did not hold and new violence erupted over the winter. On January 16, 1999, the bodies of 45 Albanian civilians were found in the village of Racak. OSCE monitors alleged they were the victims of a massacre by Serb forces. The Racak event in particular brought new international attention to the conflict in Kosovo.

Within weeks, the international community -- including representatives of Russia, the European Union and the United States -- convened a conference in Rambouillet, France, to seek a way to end the violence. A draft agreement was prepared (the "Rambouillet Accords") that would have resulted in a NATO peacekeeping force deployed to Kosovo and the establishment of meaningful autonomy in Kosovo; the agreement also would have led to an international conference in three years to resolve the issue of Kosovo's status. After more than a month of talks, Yugoslavia refused to sign an agreement. Kosovo Albanians, after initially rejecting the accords because they did not promise immediate independence, eventually agreed.

Largely as a result of the failure of the Raimbouillet conference, NATO launched a 78-day NATO aerial bombing campaign in the spring of 1999 with the announced goal of compelling Milosevic to withdraw his forces from Kosovo. Milosevic capitulated in June 1999, agreeing to the full withdrawal of all security forces from Kosovo.

During the conflict roughly a million ethnic Albanians fled Kosovo, several thousand were killed (the numbers and the ethnic distribution of the casualties are uncertain and highly disputed). An estimated 10,000-12,000 ethnic Albanians and 3,000 Serbs are believed to have been killed during the conflict. Some 3,000 people are still missing, of which 2,500 are Albanian, 400 Serbs and 100 Roma.

Kosovo After the War

After the war ended, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1244 that placed Kosovo under transitional UN administration (UNMIK) and authorized KFOR, a NATO-led peacekeeping force. Almost immediately returning Kosovo Albanians began to attack the remaining Kosovo Serbs, causing large numbers of Serbs to flee (note: the exact number of displaced Serbs is highly disputed, with estimates ranging from 65,000 to 250,000). Many displaced Serbs are afraid to return to their homes, even with UNMIK protection. Around 120,000 Serbs remained in Kosovo, but were subject to ongoing harassment and discrimination.

In 2001, UNMIK promulgated a Constitutional Framework or Kosovo that established the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government (PISG), including an elected Kosovo Assembly, Presidency and office of Prime Minister. Kosovo held its first free, Kosovo-wide elections in late 2001 (municipal elections had been held the previous year). UNMIK oversaw the establishment of a professional, multi-ethnic Kosovo Police Service.

In March 2004, Kosovo experienced its worse inter-ethnic violence since the Kosovo War. The unrest in 2004 was sparked by a series of minor events that soon cascaded into large-scale riots. Kosovo Albanians mobs burned hundreds of Serbian houses, Serbian Orthodox Church sites (including some medieval churches and monasteries) and UN facilities.