Kosovo Independence: Jumping the Gun?

Throughout history, time and time again we've seen that the struggle for independence is rarely one that is fought peacefully. When Yugoslavia began that push in the early 1990s, the United States and its European allies have defended multi ethnic society in the Balkans. The military interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, the ongoing peacekeeping missions there, the hundreds of millions of dollars given annually in economic aid -- these sacrifices have been made to preserve the individual states that once made up a federal Yugoslavia and to prevent bloodshed among the numerous ethnic groups that populate them. Now the time for change has come and the move toward complete independence for Kosovo is here. The question is, where do we go from here? What does the recent proclamation of independence mean for the future of Yugoslavia? How have things changed since the end of a totalitarian government and the implementation of a democratic society?

Before we can examine the future, we must examine the past, considering the complexity of the situation. Although Kosovo has a war-laden history predating the current situation, most of my review is in relation to the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic first visited Kosovo in April 1987. Until this time he had said little about Kosovo. At a political rally of Serbs, he was emotionally greeted and literally mobbed by crowds of Serbs demanding action against the Albanians for condoning attacks on Serbs and Montenegrins (Heil, 24). In November 1988 a five day demonstration for national liberation and autonomy involving 100,000 people was ignited by a miners strike. In February 1989 another miners strike brought life in Kosovo to a standstill with Albanians abandoning work and school to attend protest meetings. Serbs in Kosovo were terrorized and thousands of Serbs in Belgrade demanded that order be restored in Kosovo (Heil, 25). Self-government by the province's Albanian majority, now estimated to constitute 90% of Kosovo's population was ended. In response, the Albanian members of the Kosovo Assembly voted in 1990 to declare Kosovo an independent state, though this was only recognized by Albania. A state of emergency and harsh new security rules were subsequently imposed by Serbia following mass protests by Kosovo's Albanians. The Albanians established an unofficial "parallel state" to provide education and social services while boycotting or being excluded from Serbian-run government institutions.

Kosovo remained peaceful through the Yugoslav wars of the early 1990s, although the severity of the Serbian regime in Kosovo was criticized by the international community and human rights groups. In 1996, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) began attacking Serbian security forces and civilians who they regarded as "collaborators". As the civil war heated up in Kosovo, Western Europe and the United States in early 1998 increasingly became concerned and involved.. A "Contact Group on Kosovo" was established consisting of representative from Germany, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Speaking before the group in March 1998 Secretary of State Madeline Albright put the blame for violence in Kosovo squarely on Milosevic. She outlined terms which he and his government must accept including the presence of international observers in Kosovo, "enhanced" status for Kosovo within Serbia and stopping of the killing. These terms and others were not met and the war intensified. The conflict between Serbian and Yugoslav security forces and the KLA insurgents escalated until Kosovo was on the verge of all-out war by the end of 1998. (Curtis,10).

In January 1999, NATO warned the Yugoslav government that it would intervene with military force if Yugoslavia did not agree to the introduction of an international peacekeeping force and the establishment of a democratic government in Kosovo. Peace talks following the event failed from March 24th to June 11th 1999, NATO carried out an extensive bombing campaign against targets in Serbia and Montenegro, including in Kosovo itself. The war ended with Milosevic agreeing to allow peace keepers into Kosovo and hand over its power to the United Nations. At this time, Milosevic was arrested for his war crimes and crimes against humanity. Milosevic was found dead in his prison cell in March of 2006.

A number of the researched articles I've examined have stated that the end of Milosevic's regime was really just the beginning of an uphill battle towards independence. It is clear that a political process providing self-government for Kosovo all the while recognizing the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia was a band-aid but not a solution to the Kosovo crisis. Kosovo was at the time an integral part of the territory of Serbia within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Bat Ye'or pointed out, “To anyone with some knowledge of the centuries-old history of Serbian resistance to Ottoman domination, it was obvious that the return of a form of Islamic power in Bosnia- Herzegovina would be rejected by Orthodox Serbs" (Ye'or, 126). But, even more so would be the loss of Kosovo, considered to be "Old Serbia" and the heart of Serbian culture. It was clear at this point that the Albanian Kosovars wanted total separation from Serbia..

In the year following the ending of the war in Kosovo, ethnic Albanian terrorists started destabilizing the Presovo Valley in Serbia on the Kosovo border by carrying out terrorist attacks. These events were condemned by the UN Security Council but continued. By May of 2001, the situation had worsened to the point that NATO was forced to agree with its old adversary Serbia to disarm the violent rebels. The Albanian terrorists signed a demilitarization agreement with NATO but it was doubtful that they have given up. Many of the terrorists moved to Macedonia to continue the struggle.

In March, 2007, after seven years of Kosovo being under a United Nations protectorate, UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari proposed independence. The United States supported this proposal but Russia and obviously Serbia did not. The United States proposed a three part plan to stabilize an independent Kosovo: First, all high government posts will be distributed based on religion and ethnicity, second, a new constitution must specifically safeguard the rights of the Serbian minority and third, a substantial peacekeeping force must be in place to protect the Serbs and other minorities. While this sounded like a great plan, it failed to consider that under the last seven years of the UN protectorate, hundreds of Orthodox Christian churches were destroyed and thousands of Serbs removed from Kosovo. Before the UN took over there were 40,000 Serbs living in Pristina, the capital, compared with about a hundred today.