KOSOVO

Albanian Kosova pokrajina (province) within the republic of Serbia, Yugoslavia, occupying the southwestern portion of the country. Kosovo is bordered by Serbia proper to the north and east, Macedonia to the south, Albania to the west, and the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro to the northwest. In 1998 a secessionist rebellion erupted in Kosovo that escalated into an international crisis, including a NATO air bombardment of Yugoslavia in 1999. Area 4,203 square miles (10,887 square km). Pop. (1991) 1,954,747; (1996 est.) 2,151,000. The province's terrain consists largely of two intermontane basins. In the east the Kosovo Basin is drained by the northward-flowing Sitnica River. The principal cities in the basin are Pritina (the administrative capital) and Kosovska Mitrovica. In the west the Metohija Basin lies along the border with Albania, drained by the southward-flowing Beli Drim River; its principal cities are Pec and Prizren. Kosovo's mineral resources include lignite, asphalt, and nonferrous metals. Its soils are among the most fertile in the Balkans and support the cultivation of grains (wheat, barley, corn ), fruits and vegetables, and such commercial crops as tobacco. The province, however, is one of the least-developed parts of Yugoslavia. In the later Middle Ages, the Kosovo region lay at the heart of the Serbian empire under the Nemanjic dynasty. Between the mid-12th and the mid-14th century, the region was richly endowed with Eastern Orthodox monuments, such as the monastery of Gracanica, with its 14th-century frescoes, near Pritina. In 1389, however, at the Battle of Kosovo fought just west of Pritina, the Ottoman army defeated a force of Serbs and their allies. By the mid-15th century the Turks had established direct rule over all of Serbia, including Kosovo. Kosovo had been populated by a mixture of Albanian and Slavic speakers since the 8th century. In the centuries following the Ottoman victory, however, a significant portion of Kosovo's Christian Serb inhabitants emigrated northward and westward to other territories, while many others converted to Islam. Following the defeat of an Austrian invasion in 1699, during which many Serbs sided with the invaders, many more Serbs joined the retreating Austrian army. The ethnic balance of the region steadily changed in favour of Albanian speakers, and the abolition in 1766 of the Serbian Orthodox patriarchate at Pec diminished substantially the importance of Kosovo as a Serb cultural centre. Kosovo came to symbolize Serbia's golden age of national greatness. A tradition of epic poetry emerged, in which Kosovo represented Serb national suffering and aspirations. Ethnic Albanians also identified with the region, and by the late 19th century Prizren had become an important centre of Albanian culture and national consciousness. Serbia, which had won independence from Turkey early in the 19th century, regained control of Kosovo in 1913, and Kosovo entered the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia) in 1918 as part of Serbia. In the 1920s and '30s, Serbia's attempts to resettle Serbs in Kosovo met with resistance from local ethnic Albanians. During World War II, Kosovo was briefly united with neighbouring Albania under Italian patronage. Toward the end of the war, Yugoslavia's new communist government crushed a revolt in Kosovo by ethnic Albanians who wanted to unite with Albania. The postwar government of the new federal Yugoslavia granted Kosovo the status of an autonomous region (and later autonomous province) within the republic of Serbia, while it also continued to suppress nationalist sentiments among the region's Albanians. From the mid-1960s, the federal government followed a more tolerant policy, encouraging Albanian national identity and enabling Albanians to advance in the provincial and federal administrations. The Albanization of the province was also stimulated by the rapid departure of Serbs to urban areas. As a result of Serb migration and higher Albanian birth rates, the Albanian share of the population rose from half in 1946 to three-fourths in 1981 and to four-fifths in 1991, by which time the proportion of Serbs had fallen to about one-tenth. Under the federal constitution enacted in 1974, Kosovo's status as an autonomous province was that of a republic in all but name. Sharp rises in international energy prices in 1973 and 1979, however, placed growing strain on the Yugoslav economy, and conflict deepened among republics over the issue of aid to underdeveloped regions. There was serious civil disorder in the province during 1981. In the intense process of inter-republic bargaining for economic and political advantage, Serb politicians began to resent the ability of the Kosovars to act together with representatives of other Yugoslav republics, even against Serbian interests. The indignation felt by Serbs over the situation in Kosovo was capitalized on by Slobodan Miloevic, a rising politician whose manipulation of Serb grievances helped him to become leader of Serbia's communist party in 1987 and president of the Serbian republic in 1989, thereby dominating the government of Yugoslavia. Soon after becoming president, Miloevic stripped Kosovo of its autonomy, and Serbia took direct control of the province's administration. When the province's ethnic Albanians staged violent protests over these measures, Miloevi c in 1990 sent Yugoslav military units to Kosovo, dissolved the province's assembly, and closed schools in which the Albanian language was used. In an officially unrecognized referendum held in September of that year, the Kosovars voted overwhelmingly to secede from Serbia and Yugoslavia. The cost to the federal government in economic aid to the province and the toughness of Serbia's response to Kosovar Albanian nationalism were among the contributing causes of the breakup of the federal Yugoslav state in 1991. A new Yugoslav state, consisting only of Serbia and Montenegro, was created in 1992. Kosovo's Albanians, faced with the Yugoslav government's evident willingness to use military force against them, adopted a course of passive, nonviolent resistance to Serb control. Under the leadership of the pacifist Ibrahim Rugova, they organized their own network of Albanian-language schools and other civil institutions. The Kosovar Albanians became increasingly frustrated by the failure of their noncooperation campaign to win for them independence or even autonomy from the Serb-dominated Yugoslav government. Though most Albanians remained committed to nonviolence, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) emerged in 1996, a small ethnic Albanian guerrilla organization that began attacking Serb police in Kosovo. With arms obtained in Albania, the KLA stepped up its attacks in 1997, prompting the Yugoslav military to stage a major crackdown in the rebel-held Drenica region in early 1998. The indiscriminate brutality of this Serbian campaign drove hundreds of new recruits into the KLA's ranks, and by summer widespread fighting had broken out between the KLA and heavily armed Serbian units. Serbian military tactics drove thousands of ethnic Albanian villagers from their homes, and by late summer the plight of these refugees had become a source of serious international concern. International negotiators, especially from the United States, met repeatedly with Serb and Kosovar Albanian representatives in an attempt to stop the fighting. A cease-fire agreement negotiated in November 1998 had broken down by the end of the year, when the Serbs launched a major offensive against the KLA. Talks held at Rambouillet, France, in February 1999 had secured no results by mid-March, and NATO soon began an aerial bombardment of selected targets in Yugoslavia. The Serbs responded by initiating a widespread campaign of ethnic cleansing against Albanian Kosovars that by June had driven hundreds of thousands of refugees into neighbouring Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro. The NATO bombardment continued until June, when a peace agreement was reached that called for the withdrawal of Serb forces from Kosovo and their replacement by NATO peacekeeping troops. As these terms were being carried out, Kosovar refugees began returning to the province, and there were sporadic reprisals against Serbs who remained there. John B. Allcock