|
KOSOVO IS ALBANIAN LAND - THE REAL NAME IS KOSOVA
 KOSOVA
(Koh-SOH-vah), also known as Kosovo, is the
disputed region between Kosovo'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 Kosovo.
After the
revocation of Kosovo's autonomy, the Serbian
authorities closed schools in the Albanian
language, massively dismissed Albanians from
state-owned enterprises, and suspended
Kosovo's legal parliament and government.
Serbia instituted a regime of systematic
oppression of the Albanian population in
Kosovo, 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 Kosovo held free elections in
which they chose their leadership, expressed
their determination for the independence of
Kosovo in the 1991 referendum, and in the
same year the Kosovoian parliament declared
the independence of Kosovo. 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 Kosovo Liberation Army (UΗK), 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
Kosovo, 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
Kosovo, 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 Kosovo (known as the
United Nations Mission in Kosova; UNMIK) and
allowed a NATO-led peacekeeping force to
enter Kosovo to ensure security.
The war in
Kosovo 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 people of
Kosovo,
UNMIK, NATO and the international community
are now making efforts to rebuild Kosovo,
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
Kosovo
Crisis Center.)
Geographic
Features
Kosovo 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.
|
