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 Features
Kosova 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, 93 percent of which are ethnic Albanian.
By:
Ertan Bikliqi
