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 (UĒK), 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, 90 percent of which are ethnic Albanian. 

Source: ALBANIA.COM