Kosovo

In 1389 the Serbs under Prince Lazar fought ferociously against Sultan Murat I in

Kosovo in order to keep the Ottoman troops out of their lands. This was a battle

that had more to do with land than nationalist ideologies, as modern nationalism

was not part of the European and Balkan landscapes at the time. Nevertheless,

modern Serbian elites have since capitalized on this epic battle in order to

amalgamate consensus and advance their national demands over the region.

During the First World War the Albanians, the majority ethnic majority of the

province, supported the Central European Empires against the Serbs. The Serbs,

in turn, suppressed Albanian rights, launching a campaign of intimidation and

colonization among them. Kosovo thus became part of modern Yugoslavia (then

the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) in 1919, but the Serbs never

managed to streamline developments in the province without violence. All

Kosovar Albanian revolts in the 1920s were brutally suppressed. During the

Second World War, Kosovo was incorporated into Albania under Italian suzer-

ainty and the Albanians again fought with the Germans and Italians, this time

against Soviet and Bulgarian troops, and towards the end of the war alone, when

German and Italian troops were withdrawing from Greece and Albania. During

Tito’s communist era (1945-80) Kosovo enjoyed spells of greater autonomy,

particularly after 1974, when a new Constitution was introduced. Yet, the

minority Serb population (then constituting about 28% of the provincial total)

enjoyed special privileges, such as high status in party membership and, in

general, was more empowered. Yugoslavia suffered a severe economic crisis in

the 1970s and 1980s, as a result of ‘stagflation’ (economic stagnation accom-

panied by inflation) and Yugoslav exports being blocked from Western markets.

Yugoslavia thus became dependent on the International Monetary Fund for

financing its debt obligations. The collapse of the USSR further accentuated

Yugoslavia’s problems, as the non-aligned policy envisaged by Tito and various

Arab leaders became inoperative. The Kosovar Albanians, following other ethnic

communities in the country, demanded independence or, possibly, annexation by

Albania. Meanwhile, ethnic Albanians were already about 90% of the total

population of the region (1.8 million in total). During the 1990s Serbian elites

under Slobodan Milosˇevic´ attempted to impose order in the rebellious province,

while fighting, either diplomatically or militarily, on several other fronts at the

same time (mainly in Bosnia and Croatia, but there were also issues in

Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro and Vojvodina). In summer 1998, when

Yugoslavia was already a rump composed only of Serbia and Montenegro, the

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in a show of strength, flew over

Albania and Kosovo (known officially as Kosovo and Metohija) with the

apparent aim of quelling the warring parties. The Dayton Accord of 1995, which

stopped the war in Bosnia between the Serbs, on the one hand, and Muslims and

Croats, on the other, had no provision for the Kosovo problem. Milosˇevic´

continued his campaign against the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which he

considered to be a terrorist group. The USA, momentarily, flirted with the idea of

supporting Milosˇevic´, but finally sided with the rebellious Albanians. A number of issues were at stake for the US when NATO launched its air strikes against Belgrade on 24 March 1999. First, there was a matter of European security, which is to say, a matter of the USA asserting hegemony over the Balkans and eastcentral Europe, driving a wedge between Russia, which wanted to have a say in Serbia’s future, and an enlarging European Union. Secondly, there were a number of oil and gas pipeline projects under way, which were financed by Halliburton, the oil corporation headed by Dick Cheney (later the US-Vice President to George W. Bush). A major trans-Balkan pipeline was planned to cross Kosovo and terminate at the Albanian port of Durre¨s. The issue of Albanian human rights played also an important part in justifying the campaign and in amassing the coalition of NATO forces, although Greece and Italy opposed the campaign in private and raised their concerns in NATO meetings and other international forums. Milosˇevic´’s forces were finally driven out of Kosovo in June 1999, but the province’s status is still unspecified today, remaining nominally part of Serbia. In 2007 the international community recommended effective independence for Kosovo as a solution, with guarantees for the Serb minority, but this was strongly opposed in Serbia proper.