KOSOVA
Kosova
(Koh-SOH-vah), also known as Kosovo, is the disputed region between Kosova's
Albanian majority and Serbia. Once an autonomous federal unit of Yugoslavia, in
1989 it was stripped away of its autonomy by the government of Slobodan Milosevic,
whose later actions would result in the break-up of Yugoslavia, which Serbia is
a part of, and the ensuing wars in Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Kosova. After
the revocation of Kosova's autonomy, the Serbian authorities closed schools in
the Albanian language, massively dismissed Albanians from state-owned enterprises,
and suspended Kosova's legal parliament and government. Serbia instituted a regime
of systematic oppression of the Albanian population in Kosova, and flagrant violations
of basic rights of Albanians occured frequently. Initially
the Albanians responded to the repression with peaceful and passive resistance.
In 1992 the people of Kosova held free elections in which they chose their leadership,
expressed their determination for the independence of Kosova in the 1991 referendum,
and in the same year the Kosovar parliament declared the independence of Kosova.
They formed a parallel government, found means of continuing Albanian-language
education outside of occupied premises and providing health care (most Albanian
doctors were dismissed from state-owned hospitals by Serb installed authorities).
In
early 1998 the Serbian government began a crackdown against the Kosova Liberation
Army (UÇK), a guerilla movement which emerged after it became apparent
that the peaceful approach was ineffective in face of the brutal regime of Milosevic.
After 1998 Serbian security forces conducted a scorched earth policy in Kosova,
raising villages to the ground, creating an exodus of over one million refugees
and internally displaced persons, and committed horrific atrocities against unarmed
civilians, including women and children.
The
NATO bombing campaign, which began in March 1999 after Serbia's refusal to sign
a peace accord for the settlement of the conflict in Kosova, lasted until June
1999 when the Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic capitulated and agreed to
withdraw all Serbian security forces from Kosova. United Nations Security Council
resolution 1244 established a United Nations civilian administration in Kosova
(known as the United Nations Mission in Kosova; UNMIK) and allowed a NATO-led
peacekeeping force to enter Kosova to ensure security. The
war in Kosova had created over one million refugees and internally displaced persons,
left over 300,000 people without shelter, an estimated 10,000 dead, and mass graves
containing bodies of up to one hundred civilians, including women and children,
who have been summarily executed. The
Kosovars, UNMIK, NATO and the international community are now making efforts to
rebuild Kosova, revitalize its economy, establish democratic institutions of self-government,
and heal the scars of war. (For more up-to-date information on the deveopments
in Kosova please check out the Kosova
Crisis Center.)
Geographic
FeaturesKosova
borders Serbia in the north and northeast, Montenegro in the northwest, Albania
in the west and the FYR of Macedonia in the south. It covers a total of 10,887
squared kilometers and its population is around two million, 90 percent of which
are ethnic Albanian. |
