I.

Introduction

Kosovo, United Nations-administered region in the Balkan Peninsula. Kosovo is bounded on the south by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, on the west by Albania, and on the northwest by Montenegro. Serbia, which claims Kosovo as a province, is to the north and northeast. Kosovo was the location of the fourth conflict in the wars of Yugoslav succession, which took place in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) during the 1990s. In 1999 the United Nations set up an interim administration in Kosovo, pending a settlement on the region’s status. Subsequent negotiations were inconclusive, however, and its status remained a matter of dispute. In 2008 Kosovo declared its independence, but Serbia refused to recognize the declaration.

II.

Land and Resources of Kosovo

Kosovo covers an area of 10,887 sq km (4,203 sq mi). Several peaks in the Šar Planina mountain range rise to more than 2,500 m (8,200 ft) in Kosovo. The mountain slopes are covered with deciduous forests, meadows, and pastureland. A branch of the Drin River rises in Kosovo, and the Ibar and Sitnica rivers also flow through the region.

Agriculture is of chief importance in Kosovo; major crops include grains (including corn, wheat, and barley), potatoes, plums, grapes, and tobacco. There are also industries relating to agriculture, including winemaking. Cattle and sheep are raised in the highlands. Timber is an important product. Kosovo has significant deposits of lead, zinc, lignite, chromite, and magnesite. Industries in Kosovo include mining and the production of cement and sulfuric acid. A small skiing industry has developed.

III.

Population of Kosovo

In 1991 Kosovo had a population of 1,956,196. The administrative center of Kosovo is Priština; other major cities include Prizren and Peć. More than 90 percent of Kosovo’s inhabitants are ethnic Albanians, with the remainder being mostly Serbs and Montenegrins, and smaller numbers of Roma.

IV.

History of Kosovo

From the 2nd millennium bc, the Illyrian tribe of Dardanae occupied a territory that included present-day Kosovo. The region was later subdued by the Romans, and toward the end of the 12th century the Serbian ruler Stefan Nemanja annexed Kosovo. In 1389 an invading Ottoman army inflicted heavy casualties on the Serbian army in the Battle of Kosovo, leading to the subsequent conquest of all of Serbia by the Ottoman Empire in 1459 and driving many Serbs northward. In 1878 Albanians in the region formed the League of Prizren to resist Ottoman rule, and a provisional government was formed in 1881. But it was only in 1912 that anti-Ottoman resistance in Kosovo assumed a broad scale and succeeded in expelling the Ottomans. Kosovo was included in the newly independent state of Albania in 1912, but the following year the Great Powers (Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, and Russia) forced Albania to cede the region to Serbia. In 1918 Kosovo was incorporated into the newly established Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later renamed Yugoslavia.

A.

Serbian Control

During World War II (1939-1945) Kosovo was briefly assigned to Albania. In 1946 it was granted autonomous status within Serbia. Periodic uprisings by ethnic Albanians gradually led to greater autonomy for Kosovo, but riots in 1981 fueled a Serbian backlash. Rising Serbian resentment against Albanians resulted in protest marches and helped facilitate the rise to power of Slobodan Milošević in 1987. As Serbia’s Communist party leader, Milošević brought an end to Kosovo’s autonomy in March 1989, placing the province under de facto military occupation. Albanian media was suppressed, and all Albanian-language education was suspended (although elementary education was restored in late 1994).

Serbian authorities abolished Kosovo’s parliament in 1990, forcing the province’s political leaders to seek refuge in the Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, where they declared Kosovo a separate political entity within Yugoslavia. However, the underground government of Ibrahim Rugova, elected in May 1992, was declared illegal by the Serbian government. Meanwhile, by April 1992 four of Yugoslavia’s republics had seceded. The remaining two republics, Serbia and Montenegro, formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), which they claimed to be the successor to Yugoslavia. (In 2003 the FRY was renamed Serbia and Montenegro, which became two separate and independent countries in 2006.)

B.

Conflict in Kosovo

Albanians in Kosovo continued to agitate for secession from Serbia, seeking either annexation to Albania or outright independence, and tensions mounted between Albanians and Serbs. In August 1995 Kosovo became the destination of several thousand Serb refugees from the Krajina region of Croatia; Krajina had been recaptured by Croatian military forces after several years of Serb occupation. The government of Albania protested the resettlement of Serbs in the predominantly Albanian province.

In the mid-1990s an armed ethnic Albanian group called the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) formed in the province to seek independence for Kosovo. The KLA attacked Serbian police repeatedly from late 1997 to early 1998. In March 1998 a major Serbian crackdown began in Kosovo, with Yugoslav army units joining Serbian police to fight the ethnic Albanian separatists. In the months that followed, hundreds of people were killed and more than 200,000 were driven from their homes; most of these people were ethnic Albanians. The two sides fought until October, when Milošević, under threat of air strikes by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), agreed to withdraw some troops from Kosovo. However, Milošević did not honor the agreement and, on the contrary, strengthened his forces in Kosovo in succeeding months. Fighting resumed in November, and Serbian forces began a major offensive against ethnic Albanian villages in late December.

Under growing international pressure, the FRY government and Kosovo Albanian representatives agreed to negotiate in February and March 1999 outside of Paris, France. However, Yugoslav leaders refused to sign the peace agreement for Kosovo, objecting to a provision calling for a NATO security force in the province. On March 24, NATO forces began a campaign of air strikes against FRY military targets. Serbian-led assaults on ethnic Albanians intensified, with Serbian police and paramilitary units and the Yugoslav army razing villages and forcing residents to flee. NATO intensified its campaign of air strikes during April, bombing roads, bridges, oil production facilities, and other targets in the FRY. The Chinese embassy in Belgrade was also hit. The United Nations (UN) estimated that nearly 640,000 people were forced from Kosovo between March 1998 and the end of April 1999. Most of the refugees went to Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or Montenegro. In late May the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) unsealed an indictment accusing Milošević and four other senior Yugoslav officials of committing war crimes in Kosovo.

On June 3, the day after the indictment was made public, Milošević finally agreed to an international peace plan for Kosovo. A diplomatic envoy from Russia, an ally of the FRY, participated in the negotiations between the FRY and NATO that led to an agreement. FRY military leaders approved the agreement on June 9, following intense negotiations over the details of FRY troop withdrawals and the composition of an international security force to be posted in Kosovo. After verifying that FRY troops were beginning to withdraw from Kosovo, NATO suspended its bombing on June 10, and the UN Security Council authorized NATO-led peacekeeping forces to enter the province. A 50,000-member international peacekeeping force was to help ensure the safe return of Kosovo refugees, who numbered about 780,000 by the time the peace agreement was reached.

C.

UN Administration

As NATO-led troops began occupying Kosovo, the UN Security Council set up a temporary administration for the province, which was legally recognized as still being a part of the FRY. More than 220,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians fled Kosovo in 1999 and the early 21st century as revenge attacks by Albanians on Serbs and Roma mounted. (Many Roma were suspected by local Albanians of spying for the Serbs, stealing, or participating in the persecution of ethnic Albanians.) Milošević’s regime collapsed in 2000 and a democratic government was established in Serbia in early 2001, but Kosovo remained under UN administration.

C.1.

Elections in Kosovo

The first democratic parliamentary election in Kosovo took place in November 2001. The Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), under ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, won almost 46 percent of the vote. The Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) came second, with nearly 26 percent of the vote. Although the new parliamentary institutions had no say on the independence issue, the establishment of the Kosovo Assembly changed the political landscape of the province. A power-sharing deal between the LDK and PDK was agreed at the end of February 2002, after three attempts by the Assembly to elect the province’s first president had failed. Rugova was finally voted in at the beginning of March; he nominated Bajram Rexhepi of the rival PDK as prime minister. A ten-member government was also appointed by the Assembly.

In March 2004 violence broke out between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in the town of Kosovska Mitrovica. Nineteen people were killed in the clashes, and churches and houses were destroyed. The unrest was the worst in the region since 1999.

Parliamentary elections were held in October 2004, and Rugova’s party, the LDK, performed well. However, only around 1 percent of the Serbian electorate voted, following an appeal by Serbian prime minister Vojislav Koštunica for all Serbs in Kosovo to boycott the polls. After the elections, President Rugova’s Democratic League of Kosovo forged a coalition with former rebel commander Ramush Haradinaj’s Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK). In December, Rugova was reelected as president by Kosovo’s parliament, with Haradinaj appointed as prime minister.

In March 2005 Haradinaj was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the UN body in charge of ongoing war crimes trials, on charges relating to his role in the conflict in the region in 1998-1999. He immediately resigned as prime minister and was succeeded by Bajram Kosumi, deputy leader of the AAK. (In 2008 the ICTY acquitted Haradinaj of all charges of war crimes.)

C.2.

Status Negotiations

In November 2005 the preliminary phases of UN-sponsored talks on the future status of Kosovo began. However, President Rugova died in early 2006, shortly before the direct negotiations between the ethnic Serbian and Kosovar leaders were scheduled to open. The following month the Kosovo Assembly named Fatmir Sejdiu, a former LDK parliamentarian, as Rugova’s successor, and shortly afterward Kosumi was replaced as prime minister by Agim Ceku, a former commander in the KLA.

The first face-to-face meeting between Kosovar and Serbian leaders since 1999 took place in Vienna, Austria, in July 2006. The meeting was part of ongoing negotiations led by a UN special envoy, former Finland president Martti Ahtisaari, on the status of Kosovo. The UN-led talks broke off in March 2007 without a compromise between the two sides. Ahtisaari declared an end to the talks and submitted his proposal for Kosovo’s status to the UN Security Council for a final determination.

Ahtisaari stated that “independence is the only option for a politically stable and economically viable Kosovo.” He proposed granting Kosovo de facto independence—including an army, a constitution, a flag, and an anthem—with a period of oversight by a European Union-led mission. The Serbian government strongly objected to the proposal and called for further negotiations.

Elections to the Kosovo Assembly in November 2007 gave the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) the most seats, followed by the LKD. Low voter turnout of 45 percent was attributed in part to a Serbian boycott of the election. PDK leader Hashim Thaci became prime minister of a coalition government.

On February 17, 2008, the Kosovo Assembly unanimously endorsed a declaration of independence from Serbia. Most Western countries, including the United States and most of the European Union (EU), subsequently recognized Kosovo’s independence. However, Serbia and its allies in the UN Security Council refused to recognize the declaration, and the official status of Kosovo remained unresolved. In April 2008 the Kosovo Assembly adopted a new constitution, which was to come into force on June 15. On that date the UN mission in Kosovo was due to expire, with a new EU-led supervisory mission of 2,000 police taking over.