KOSOVO:FROM AUTONOMY TO INDEPENDENCE

KOSOVO : FROM AUTONOMY TO INDEPENDENCE

Kosovo is a landlocked region with presenlt an area of 10,887 sq km and was part of the lands of Thraco-Illyrian tribes, then of the Roman, Byzantine, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Ottoman empires.

It comprises of various Ethnic groups:
Albanians 88%, Serbs 7%, other 5% (Bosniak, Gorani, Roma, Turk, Ashkali, Egyptian)

Religions:
Muslim, Serbian Orthodox, Roman Catholic

The official currency of Kosovo is the Euro and GDP – per capita (PPP) is $1,800 as by 2007.

In the 20th century it was part of the kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro and their successor state, Yugoslavia. Following the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia with its stated goal to halt killing of civilians during the Kosovo War, the territory came under the interim administration of the United Nations (UNMIK). In February 2008, the Assembly of Kosovo declared Kosovo’s independence as the Republic of Kosovo. As of 5 December 2008, its independence is recognised by 53 UN member states and the Republic of China (Taiwan) though not by others.

“Kosovo” is a Serbian place name, more fully “kosovo polje”, meaning the “field (or plain) of blackbirds” which is the harbinger of spring.
It’s capital is Prishtina.Kosovo’s “black bird” is no crow, nor raven, no starling nor grackle, but “turdus merula”,European cousin of the North American rusty-bellied thrush (“turdus migratorius”), which Yankees call the “robin”.The term Kosovo is used for the eastern part, while the western part is called “Metohija”.

HISTORY

The formation of the Republic of Kosovo is a result of the turmoils of the disintegration of Yugoslavia, particularly the Kosovo War of 1996 to 1999, but it is suffused with issues dating back to the rise of nationalism in the Balkans under Ottoman rule in the 19th century, Albanian vs. Serbian nationalisms in particular, the latter notably surrounding the Battle of Kosovo eponymous with the Kosovo region.

BALKAN WARS TO WORLD WAR II

The Young Turk movement supported a centralist rule and opposed any sort of autonomy desired by Kosovars, and particularly the Albanians. In 1910, an Albanian uprising spread from Pristina and lasted until the Ottoman Sultan’s visit to Kosovo in June 1911.In 1912, during the Balkan Wars, most of Kosovo was captured by the Kingdom of Serbia, while the region of Metohija (Albanian: Dukagjini Valley) was taken by the Kingdom of Montenegro. An exodus of the local Albanian population occurred. The Serbian authorities planned a colonization of Kosovo.Numerous colonist Serb families moved into Kosovo, equalizing the demographic balance between Albanians and Serbs. Kosovo’s status within Serbia was finalized the following year at the Treaty of London.

In the winter of 1915-1916, during World War I, Kosovo saw a large exodus of the Serbian army which became known as the Great Serbian Retreat, as Kosovo was occupied by Bulgarians and Austro-Hungarians. In 1918, the Serbian Army pushed the Central Powers out of Kosovo. After World War I ended, the Monarchy was then transformed into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians on 1 December 1918.

Kosovo was split into four counties, three being a part of Serbia (Zvecan, Kosovo and southern Metohija) and one of Montenegro (northern Metohija). However, the new administration system since 26 April 1922 split Kosovo among three Areas of the Kingdom: Kosovo, Rascia and Zeta. In 1929, the Kingdom was transformed into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the territories of Kosovo were reorganized among the Banate of Zeta, the Banate of Morava and the Banate of Vardar.

In order to change the ethnic composition of Kosovo, between 1912-1941 a large-scale Serbian re-colonization of Kosovo was undertaken by the Belgrade government.Meanwhile, Kosovar Albanians’ right to receive education in their own language was denied, as they weren’t officially designated as a minority. Albanians and other Muslims were forced to emigrate,mainly with the land reform which struck Albanian landowners in 1919, but also with direct violent measures.In 1935 and 1938 two agreements between the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and Turkey were signed on the expatriation of 240,000 Albanians to Turkey, which was not completed because of the outbreak of World War II.

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia lasted until the World War II Axis invasion of 1941, when the greatest part of Kosovo became a part of Italian-controlled Albania, and smaller bits by the Tsardom of Bulgaria and German-occupied Military Administration of Serbia. At the 1944 wartime Bujan conference the Kosovar communist resistance leaders passed a resolution on the postwar assignment of Kosovo to Albania, but their opinion was later disregarded.After numerous uprisings of Partisans led by Fadil Hoxha, Kosovo was liberated after 1944 with the help of the Albanian partisans of the Comintern and became a province of Serbia within the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia.

KOSOVO IN YUGOSLAVIA

The province first took shape with its present borders in 1945 as the Autonomous Kosovo-Metohian Area.Prior to world War II, no entity by the name of Kosovo had existed where-as in the Ottoman Empire (which previously controlled the territory), it had been a vilayet with its borders having been revised on several occasions. When the Ottoman province had last existed,it included areas which were by now either ceded to Albania, or found themselves within the newly created Yugoslav republics of Montenegro, or Macedonia (including its previous capital, Skopje) with another part in the Sandžak region of Central Serbia.

The violent oppression and forced expatriation of Albanians resumed, particularly after 1953, when Josip Broz Tito reached an agreement with Turkish Foreign Minister Mehmet Fuat Köprülü to push Yugoslavian Albanians to declare themselves Turks and leave for Turkey.[18]

The harsh repressions and expatriations came to an end when the 4th Plenum of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia held at Brijuni (the Brioni Plenum) in July 1966 ousted Yugoslavian Interior Minister and Vice President Aleksandar Rankovic who was instrumental in the brutal treatment of Kosovar Albanians.In the late 1960s Kosovo gained limited internal autonomy.In February 1970 the University of Pristina was opened, providing higher education in Albanian.In the 1974 constitution, the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo’s government received more powers, including the highest governmental titles – President and Prime Minister and a seat in the Federal Presidency which made it a de facto Republic within the Federation, but remaining a Socialist Autonomous Province within the Socialist Republic of Serbia (similar rights were extended to Vojvodina). In Kosovo Serbo-Croatian, Albanian and Turkish were defined as official languages on the provincial level. Due to very high birth rates, the number of Albanians increased from 75% to over 90%. In contrast, the number of Serbs barely increased, and in fact dropped from 15% to 8% of the total population, since many Serbs departed from Kosovo as a response to the tight economic climate and increased incidents of alleged harassment from their Albanian neighbors. While there was tension, charges of “genocide” and planned harassments have been debunked as an excuse to revoke Kosovo’s autonomy.

For example in 1986 the Serbian Orthodox Church published an official, though false, claim that Kosovo Serbs were being subjected to an Albanian program of ‘Genocide’. Even though they were disproven by police statistics, they received wide play in the Serbian press and that lead to further ethnic problems and eventual removal of Kosovo’s status. Beginning in March 1981, Kosovar Albanian students of the University of Pristina organized protests seeking that Kosovo become a republic within Yugoslavia and human rights.The protests were brutally suppressed by the police and army, with many protesters arrested.During the 1980s, ethnic tensions continued with frequent violent outbreaks against Yugoslav state authorities resulting in a further increase in emigration of Kosovo Serbs and other ethnic groups.The Yugoslav leadership tried to suppress protests of Kosovo Serbs seeking protection from ethnic discrimination and violence.

Since Serbians viewed Kosovo as their cultural heartland. Under Milosevic’s leadership,Kosovo’s autonomy was drastically curtailed.Kosovo Albanian leaders responded in 1991 by organizing a referendum that declared Kosovo independent from Serbia.The Milosevic regime carried out repressive measures against the Albanians in the early 1990s.Dissatisfied with passive resistance of Ibrahim Rugova who led the unofficial government of Kosovo,they created the Kosovo Liberation Army and launched an insurgency. In 1998, Milosevic authorized a counter -insurgency campaign that resulted in massacres and massive expulsions of ethnic Albanians by Serbian military, police, and paramilitary forces.

NICOLE KIDMAN IN KOSOVO

Kidman arrived in Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, after attending the premiere of her movie “Fur” at the inaugural Rome Film Festival.She shook hands with Kosovo’s top U.N. official, Joachim Ruecker, dozens of local leaders and diplomats attending a welcome reception.
Kosovars

She is to spend two days in Kosovo as UNIFEM(United Nations Development Fund for Women) Goodwill Ambassador.”I’m here … to learn so that I can help your country at this crucial, crucial time for the future,”.Kidman said. “To meet people, hear their stories and educate myself, and I suppose be a voice for you if you need it.”She pledged to provide a voice for the troubled province.

The visit provided Ms. Kidman an opportunity to learn first-hand about the experiences of women in Kosovo and UNIFEM’s efforts to support them. Together with UNIFEM Executive Director Noeleen Heyzer, she met with women who had been victims of sexual violence,war widows, and women who are still searching for missing family members. She also met with women leaders and representatives from civil society. read more

“I was very moved by the many women I met during my Kosovo trip. I learned so much from the experiences that they were willing to share — they spoke about how violence has disrupted their lives and the lives of their children.They talked to me about the tragedy of losing sons and husbands, but they also inspired me with their determination to build a better future for themselves and their families, and to claim their rights as individuals and citizens”.