Kosovo
self-declared independent country
Official name Republika e Kosovës (Albanian); Republika Kosovo (Serbian) (Republic of Kosovo)1
Form of government/Political status multiparty transitional republic2 with one legislative body (Assembly of the Republic [1203])
International authority UN Interim Administrator4
Chief of state President
Head of government Prime Minister
Capital Pristina (Prishtinë [Albanian], Priština [Serbian])
Official languages Albanian; Serbian
Official religion none
Monetary unit euro (€)
Population estimate (2008) 2,143,000
Total area (sq mi) 4,212
Total area (sq km) 10,908
Self-declared independent country (pop., 2008 est.: 2,143,000), formerly a province of Serbia.
It occupies an area of 4,212 sq mi (10,908 sq km). The capital and administrative centre is Pristina. Before 1999, ethnic Albanians (most of them Muslim) made up about four-fifths of the population, with Serbs (mostly Christian) accounting for the bulk of the remainder. Kosovo was an autonomous region until 1989, when Serbia took control of Kosovo’s administration, prompting protests from the region’s Albanian population, which in 1990 voted to secede from Yugoslavia. Serbia responded by tightening its control of Kosovo, which led to the Kosovo conflict. The region was administered by the UN beginning in 1999. Kosovo declared independence in 2008. That December the UN transferred most of its powers of oversight to the European Union.
self-declared independent country in the Balkans region of Europe. Although the United States and several members of the European Union (EU) recognize Kosovo’s independence, Serbia, Russia, and a number of other countries, including some in the EU, do not. For most of the 20th century, Kosovo was a part of Serbia, one of the constituent republics of Yugoslavia. By the end of the century, however, ethnic Albanians, not Serbs, constituted the bulk of the population. In 1998 a secessionist rebellion in Kosovo escalated into an international crisis, including an air bombardment of Yugoslavia (by then a rump of the former federal state, comprising only Serbia and Montenegro) by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1999. Following the restoration of peace, Kosovo was administered by the United Nations (UN), during which time Yugoslavia not only changed its name to Serbia and Montenegro but eventually separated into those independent states. Tensions between Kosovo and Serbia remained high throughout this period, and in February 2008 Kosovo formally declared independence.
Kosovo is bordered by Serbia to the north and east, Macedonia to the south, Albania to the west, and Montenegro to the northwest. Its terrain consists largely of two intermontane basins. In the east the Kosovo Basin is drained by the northward-flowing Sitnica River, a tributary of the Ibar River. The principal cities in the basin are Pristina (Prishtinë; Priština)
the capital and administrative center and Mitrovicë (Mitrovica). In the west the Metohija Basin lies along the border with Albania
, drained by the southward-flowing Beli Drim River; its principal cities are Pejë (Peć) and Prizren. Kosovo’s mineral resources include lignite, asphalt, and nonferrous metals. Its soils are among the most fertile in the Balkans and support the cultivation of grains (wheat, barley, corn [maize]), fruits and vegetables, and such commercial crops as tobacco. However, Kosovo is one of the least-developed parts of the Balkans.
In the later Middle Ages the Kosovo region lay at the heart of the Serbian empire under the Nemanjić dynasty. Between the mid-12th and the mid-14th century the region was richly endowed with Eastern Orthodox monuments, such as the Dečani Monastery (Deçan Monastery; 1327–35) with its more than 1,000 frescoes. (In 2004 the monastery was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, and two years later the site was expanded to include several other
monasteries including Gračanica [Gracanicë], with 14th-century frescoes, near
Pristina and the Church of the Virgin of Ljeviša.)
In 1389, however, at the Battle of Kosovo fought just west of Pristina, an army of the Turkish Ottoman Empire defeated a force of Serbs and their allies. By the mid-15th century the Turks had established direct rule over all of Serbia, including Kosovo. Kosovo had been populated by a mixture of Albanian and Slavic speakers since the 8th century. In the centuries following the Ottoman victory, a significant portion of Kosovo’s Christian Serb inhabitants emigrated northward and westward to other territories, while many others converted to Islam. Following the defeat of an Austrian invasion in 1699, during which many Serbs sided with the invaders, many more Serbs joined the retreating Austrian army.
The ethnic balance of the region steadily changed in favor of Albanian speakers, and the abolition in 1766 of the Serbian Orthodox patriarchate at Peć (Pejë) substantially diminished the importance of Kosovo as a Serbian cultural centre. Nevertheless, Kosovo came to symbolize Serbia’s golden age of national greatness. A tradition of epic poetry emerged, in which Kosovo represented Serbian national suffering and aspirations. At the same time, ethnic Albanians increasingly identified with the region, and by the late 19th century Prizren had become an important
center of Albanian culture and national consciousness.
Serbia, which had won independence from the Ottoman Empire early in the 19th century, regained control of Kosovo in 1912, and Kosovo entered the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia) in 1918 as a part of Serbia. In the 1920s and ’30s, Serbia’s attempts to resettle Serbs in Kosovo met with resistance from local ethnic Albanians. During World War II, Kosovo was briefly united with
neighboring Albania under Italian patronage. Toward the end of the war, however, Yugoslavia’s new communist government crushed a revolt in Kosovo by ethnic Albanians who wanted to unite with Albania. The postwar government of the new federal Yugoslavia granted Kosovo the status of an autonomous region (and later autonomous province) within the republic of Serbia, but it also continued to suppress nationalist sentiments among the region’s Albanians.
From the mid-1960s the Yugoslav government followed a more tolerant policy of encouraging Albanian national identity and enabling Albanians to advance in the provincial and federal administrations. This Albanization of the province was also stimulated by the rapid departure of Serbs to urban areas. As a result of Serbian migration and higher Albanian birth rates, the Albanian share of the population rose from half in 1946 to three-fourths in 1981 and to four-fifths in 1991, by which time the proportion of Serbs had fallen to about one-tenth.
Under the Yugoslav constitution enacted in 1974, Kosovo’s status as an autonomous province was that of a republic in all but name. Sharp rises in international energy prices in 1973 and 1979, however, placed growing strain on the Yugoslav economy, and conflict deepened among republics over the issue of aid to underdeveloped regions. There was serious civil disorder in the province during 1981.
In the intense process of inter-republic bargaining for economic and political advantage, Serbian politicians began to resent the ability of the Kosovars to act together with representatives of other Yugoslav republics, even against Serbian interests. The indignation felt by Serbs over the situation in Kosovo was capitalized on by Slobodan Milošević, a rising politician whose manipulation of Serbian grievances helped him to become leader of Serbia’s communist party in 1987 and president of the Serbian republic in 1989, thereby dominating the government of Yugoslavia. Soon after becoming president, Milošević stripped Kosovo of its autonomy, and Serbia took direct control of the province’s administration. When the province’s ethnic Albanians staged violent protests over these measures, Milošević in 1990 sent Yugoslav military units to Kosovo, dissolved the province’s assembly, and closed schools in which the Albanian language was used. In an officially unrecognized referendum held in September of that year, the Kosovars voted overwhelmingly to secede from Serbia and Yugoslavia.
The cost to the Yugoslav government in economic aid to the province and the toughness of Serbia’s response to Kosovar Albanian nationalism were among the contributing causes of the breakup of the federal Yugoslav state in 1991. In 1992 a new Yugoslav state consisting of only Serbia and Montenegro (the name by which it was known during 2003–06) was created; the component republics ultimately separated in 2006. Kosovo’s Albanians, faced with the Yugoslav government’s evident willingness to use military force against them, adopted a course of passive, nonviolent resistance to Serbian control. Under the leadership of the pacifist Ibrahim Rugova, they organized their own network of Albanian-language schools and other civil institutions.
The Kosovar Albanians became increasingly frustrated by the failure of their
non-cooperation campaign to win for them independence or even autonomy from the Serb-dominated Yugoslav government. Though most Albanians remained committed to nonviolence, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a small ethnic Albanian guerrilla organization that emerged in 1996, began attacking Serbian police and politicians in Kosovo. With arms obtained in Albania, the KLA stepped up its attacks in 1997, prompting the Yugoslav military to stage a major crackdown in the rebel-held Drenica region in early 1998. The brutality of this campaign drove hundreds of new recruits into the KLA’s ranks, and by summer widespread fighting had broken out between the KLA and heavily armed Yugoslav and Serbian forces. Yugoslav military tactics also drove thousands of ethnic Albanian villagers from their homes, and by late summer the plight of these refugees had become a source of serious international concern.
International negotiators, especially from the United States, met repeatedly with Yugoslav and Kosovar Albanian representatives in an attempt to stop the fighting. A cease-fire agreement negotiated in November 1998 had broken down by the end of the year, when the Yugoslav army, with the aid of Serbian forces, launched a major offensive against the KLA. Talks held at Rambouillet, France
, in February 1999 had secured no results by mid-March, and NATO soon began an aerial bombardment of selected targets in Yugoslavia. Yugoslav and Serbian forces responded by initiating a widespread campaign of ethnic cleansing against Albanian Kosovars that by June had driven hundreds of thousands of refugees into
neighboring Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro. The NATO bombardment continued until June, when a peace agreement called for the withdrawal of Yugoslav and Serbian forces from Kosovo and their replacement by NATO peacekeeping troops. Beginning in mid-1999, the UN sponsored an interim administration in Kosovo. As the terms of the peace agreement were being carried out, Kosovar refugees began returning to the province, and
Serbs sometimes facing sporadic reprisals began to flee the region.
Talks initiated by the UN in 2005 on the future of Kosovo led in 2007 to a plan, submitted by a UN envoy, that laid the groundwork for self-rule but stopped just short of full independence. Rapid endorsement of the plan by Kosovar Albanians was countered with intransigent opposition from the Serbian government. Months of further talks between Serbian and Kosovar leaders failed to resolve Kosovo’s future status, and by early 2008 Kosovo was determined to secede.
In February 2008 Kosovo formally declared independence. Serbia, backed by Russia, called the declaration illegal. Serbs living in Kosovo largely opposed Kosovar independence as well; they soon elected their own assembly as a direct challenge to Kosovo’s new constitution, which took effect in June. In October the UN General Assembly, following a request by Serbia, submitted the question of the legality of Kosovo’s independence to the International Court of Justice. Meanwhile, Russian objections postponed the withdrawal of the UN mission, which ultimately was expected to transfer its powers of oversight to the EU. The EU finally deployed its mission, known as Eulex, in December. Eulex, made up of about 1,900 officials from a number of European countries, would oversee police, judicial, and customs activities in
Kosovo.
Different Views On Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo , Albanian Kosova, Serbian Kosovo i Metohija and Kosmet, officially Republic of Kosovo, republic (2002 est. pop. 1,900,000), 4,126 sq mi (10,686 sq km), SE Europe, a former province of Serbia that unilaterally declared its independence in 2008. Located on the Balkan Peninsula, it is bordered on the north and east by Serbia, on the south by Macedonia, and on the west by Albania and Montenegro. Prishtinë (Priština) is the capital and chief city.
Land, Economy, and People
Kosovo is largely mountainous, with the North Albanian Alps in the west, the Sar Mts. in the south, and the Kopaonik range in the west. Surrounded by the mountains are the fertile valleys of Kosovo and Metohija; the land is drained by the Drin, Ibar, and Južna Morava rivers. Agriculture, stock raising, forestry, and mining are the major occupations. There are rich deposits of lignite (brown coal), lead, nickel, zinc, and other minerals. Unemployment is very high, because of the disruptions caused by the end of Communist rule and the struggle for independence, and the economy is dependent on foreign aid.
Kosovo's population before 1999 was about 80% Albanian; ethnic Albanians now make up about 88% of the inhabitants. Serbs are the largest minority, concentrated especially in the north along the Ibar River. The Albanian, Serbian, Bosniak, and Turkish languages are spoken. The main religions are Islam (largely Albanians), the Serbian Orthodox church (largely Serbs), and the Roman Catholic church.
Government
Kosovo is governed under the constitutional framework of 2001, which was established by the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). UNMIK retains some authority in the country despite Kosovo's declaration of independence (which has not been recognized by the United Nations). The president, who is the head of state, is elected by the Kosovo Assembly to a five-year term. The government is headed by the prime minister, who is chosen by the Kosovo Assembly. Members of the 120-seat, unicameral Kosovo Assembly serve three-year terms; 100 members are directly elected, 10 seats are reserved for Serbs, and 10 seats are reserved for other minorities. Administratively, Kosovo is divided into 30 municipalities.
History
Anciently inhabited by Illyrians and Thracians, Kosovo was settled by the Slavs in the 7th cent. The region passed to Bulgaria in the 9th cent. and to Serbia in the 12th cent. From 1389, following the Turkish victory at Kosovo Field , to 1913, it was under Ottoman rule, and the Albanian and Turkish population greatly increased; by 1900 Albanians were the dominant ethnic group in the region. Partitioned in 1913 between Serbia and Montenegro, it was incorporated into Yugoslavia after World War I. Most of the region was incorporated into Italian-held Albania from 1941 to 1944. Following World War II, Kosovo became an autonomous region within Serbia. In 1990, demands for greater autonomy were rebuffed by Serbia, which rescinded Kosovo's autonomous status. Albanians were repressed and Serb migration into the region encouraged; in response Albanians pressed for Kosovo's complete independence.
Harsh Serbian repression and a breakdown in negotiations to settle the issue provoked NATO into attacking Serbia by air in Mar., 1999. Serbia responded by forcing hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians to flee Kosovo, creating an enormous refugee problem; perhaps 1.5 million Albanian Kosovars were expelled from their homes or fled. An estimated 7,000 to 10,000 Kosovars were killed by Serbian forces. An agreement resulted in the end of the bombing campaign and withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo in June, and NATO peacekeepers entered the province. Many Serbs fled; those that remain are largely in areas bordering Serbia.
In municipal elections in 2000, Ibrahim Rugova 's moderate independence party, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), won 60% of the vote; Serbs boycotted the polls. The 2001 elections for the provincial assembly, in which Rugova's party won 46% of the vote, saw greater Serb participation. Differences between Albanian parties delayed the formation of a government until Mar., 2002, when a power-sharing agreement led to the election of Rugova as president. Real power, however, resided with the UN adminstration that was imposed after NATO forces entered
Kosovo.
The process of rebuilding was slow and marred by retaliatory Albanian attacks on Serbs and other non-Albanians. In Mar., 2004, there was a major outbreak of anti-Serb rioting that many observers believe was orchestrated to drive Serbs from areas of mixed population. Assembly elections in Oct., 2004, resulted in a plurality for Rugova's party, which formed a coalition government with Rugova as president. Kosovo's Serbs largely boycotted the vote.
Rugova survived an assassination attempt in Mar., 2005, but died of natural causes in Jan., 2006; the following month, Fatmir Sejdiu, a law professor and assembly deputy, was elected to succeed Rugova as president. In 2006 Serbia and Kosovo began discussing the province's final status. The vast majority of the Albanians favored independence, a solution rejected by Serbia, which adopted a new constitution in Nov., 2006, that called Kosovo an inalienable part of Serbia.
In Mar., 2007, after months of talks failed to yield a compromise, UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari presented a proposal for Kosovo's eventual independence to the UN Security Council. Serbia strongly opposed the plan, and Russia, a historical Serbian ally, called for an agreemeent acceptable to both sides, ensuring a veto on any proposal unacceptable to Serbia. Remarks by U.S. President Bush, during a 2007 visit to Albania, that Kosovo would eventually be independent provoked outrage from Serbia's government.
In the Nov., 2007, elections, the Democratic party (PDK) won a plurality; a coalition government, headed by Hashim Thaçi, was formed with the LDK. Sejdiu remained president. In Feb., 2008, Kosovo declared its independence; the action was not recognized by Serbia, and there were
demonstrations some violent against the move by Serbs in Serbia and Kosovo. Serbia subsequently sought a de facto partition of Kosovo that would give it control over Serb-majority areas there. In June, Kosovo's constitution took effect; at the same, Serbs in N Kosovo established parallel government institutions. Some 16,000 NATO-led peacekeepers remain in Kosovo.
|
|
