20th-century history of Kosovo
Its status was as a vilayet and it occupied a territory significantly larger than today's entity and with Üsküp (now Skopje) as provincial capital.
Whilst Albanians (with a slim majority of just over 50%) did not welcome Serbian rule,[3] the non-Albanian population (mainly Bulgarian, Serb and Bosniak) considered this a liberation.
[5] The peace treaties of 1919–1920 established a Yugoslav state named "The Kingdom of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs", also called "Yugoslavia".
Since the Italian occupied Albanian political leadership had decided in the Conference of Bujan that Kosovo would remain a part of Albania, they started expelling and killing the Serbian and Montenegrin populations.
[18] In the Nuremberg trials, it was established that the SS Skanderbeg committed crimes against humanity in Kosovo against ethnic Serbs, Jews, and Roma.
One such explanation for Kosovo's lines of demarcation never having been properly defined is that its Slavic and Albanian populations have even disputed the origins of the name.
In the 1970s, an Albanian nationalist movement pursued full recognition of the Province of Kosovo as another Republic within the Federation, while the most extreme elements aimed for full-scale independence.
This combined with a very high birth rate of Albanians, and emigrations of Serbs to other parts of Yugoslavia further tilted the ethnic balance of Kosovo.
Those protests rapidly escalated into violent riots "involving 20,000 people in six cities"[28] that were harshly contained by the Yugoslav government.
[31] Although they were many reports of genocide and rape against the Serbian population in Kosovo, some civil rights groups dismissed them as untrue[32][33][34] and that economical situation (with Kosovo being the poorest area) was the catalyst for many Serb and Albanian migrations: "There were genuine grievances by both Serbs and Albanians in Kosova, and both groups felt threatened.
Similarly, the alleged destruction of Serb shrines turned out to involve isolated cases of vandalism, graffiti, and cutting of trees on church property – hate crimes, perhaps, but surely not the organized, genocidal annihilation that was claimed.
According to SANU, Yugoslavia was suffering from ethnic strife and the disintegration of the Yugoslav economy into separate economic sectors and territories, which was transforming the federal state into a loose confederation.
[37] On the other hand, some think that Slobodan Milošević used the discontent reflected in the SANU memorandum for his own political goals, during his rise to power in Serbia at the time.
During the meeting, outside the building where this forum was taking place police started fighting the locals who had gathered there, mostly Serbs eager to voice their grievances.
He gained effective leadership and control of the Serbian Communist party and pressed forward with the one issue that had catapulted him to the forefront of the political limelight, which was Kosovo.
[42] In 1989, Milošević, employing a mix of intimidation and political maneuvering, drastically reduced Kosovo's special autonomous status within Serbia.
[45] After the constitutional changes, the parliaments of all Yugoslavian republics and provinces, which until then had MPs only from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, were dissolved and multi-party elections were held for them.
The constitution made creating privately owned media possible, however their functioning was very difficult because of high rents and restricting laws.
[53] After the Dayton Agreement in 1995, some Albanians organized into the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), employing guerilla-style tactics against Serbian police forces and civilians.
Violence escalated in a series of KLA attacks and Serbian reprisals into the year 1999, with increasing numbers of civilian victims.
According to the report, other historic structures associated with the culture and religion of Kosovo's Albanian population had also been singled out for attack by Serbian forces.
The report also noted that damage from Nato bombs was limited and that, after the withdrawal of Serbian forces, many orthodox churches were destroyed by Albanians.
[62] 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.
Many left along with the withdrawing Serbian security forces, expressing fears that they would be targeted by returning Albanian refugees and KLA fighters who blamed them for wartime acts of violence.
Thousands more were driven out by intimidation, revenge attacks and a wave of crime after the war as KFOR struggled to restore order in the province.
[76] Some sources put the figure far lower; the European Stability Initiative estimates the number of displaced people as being only 65,000, with another 128,000 Serbs remaining in Kosovo.
[78] On 17 March 2004, serious unrest in Kosovo led to several deaths, and the destruction of a large number of Orthodox churches and monasteries in the province, as Albanians clashed with Serbs.
Whilst Serbia's continued sovereignty over Kosovo is recognised by the international community, a clear majority of the province's population (which was mainly Albanian) would prefer independence.
[81] Russia, which holds a veto in the Security Council as one of five permanent members, stated that it would not support any resolution which is not acceptable to both Belgrade and Pristina.
[82] After UN-sponsored negotiations failed to reach a consensus on an acceptable constitutional status, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008.
