Kosovo`s liberation: The birth of the world’s newest country

Ipsita Baishya “We have waited for this day for a very long time... from today, we are proud, independent and free” Hashim Thaci, Kosovo Prime Minister February 17, will remain a red letter day in Kosovo’s history as the day in which the southern European province managed to formally sever ties with Serbia after years of persecution and bloody struggle. Kosovo, an impoverished, territory with a population of mainly ethnic Albanians, unilaterally declared independence from Serbia. Kosovo`s parliament unanimously endorsed a declaration of independence, in a historic session making clear its acceptance of the limitations on independence outlined in the UN plan drawn up by Martti Ahtisaari. In April 2007, UN envoy Ahtisaari recommended that Kosovo be granted internationally supervised independence. The clauses under such an arrangement would include a) upervision by an international presence; b) limited armed forces; c)strong provisions for Serb minority protection; d)commitment to multi-ethnic democracy; and e)neither Kosovo nor any part of it will be allowed to join another region. As can only be expected, Serbia has refused to recognize the defiant move denouncing it as the formation of a “false state”. Turbulent times Kosovo was a southern autonomous province within Serbia before the breakup of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It first hit international headlines during the ethnic conflicts in 1990s under then Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Serbs and ethnic Albanians had vied for control in the region throughout the 20th Century. While Serbs latterly only made up about 10% of the population, the historic and emotional importance of the province for them was enormous. Serbs consider Kosovo the cradle of their culture, the site of many important Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries. So they insist that the area remain under Serbian sovereignty. The 1974 Yugoslav constitution laid down Kosovo`s status as an autonomous province of Serbia. In Tito`s Yugoslavia, Kosovo`s Albanians enjoyed a significant degree of autonomy. Pressure for independence mounted in the 1980s after the death of President Tito. Beginning in the late 1980s, Milosevic tightened Belgrade`s grip, and ethnic Albanians suffered repression and political and economic exploitation. Milosevic actually smelling political opportunism, became a champion of Serbian nationalism. He responded to armed Albanian resistance with a campaign of ethnic cleansing that began in 1999, killing at least 10,000 Albanians and driving hundreds of thousands from their homes. Milosevic became the first serving head of state to be indicted for crimes against humanity, by the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague. According to the indictment, Milosevic and a number of his colleagues bore direct responsibility for crimes that are alleged to have included the deportation of almost 750,000 Kosovo Albanians and the murders of about 600 individually identified ethnic Albanians. The indictment listed six specific charges of crimes against humanity. It detailed massacres of ethnic Albanians in several towns where men were separated from women and machine-gunned. Kosovo has been under UN administration since mid-1999, after NATO air strikes drove Serbian forces out of the province. The UN was put in charge, pending agreement on whether Kosovo should become independent or revert to Serbian rule. In 1999, investigations by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, including the interview of some 3,000 witnesses or survivors, uncovered a grim catalogue of murder, mutilation and rape. It found that Serbs had carried out human rights abuses on a massive scale - but had also suffered appalling revenge attacks following the war Overview The landlocked region is one of Europe`s poorest, with more than half of its people living in poverty. Although it possesses rich mineral resources, agriculture is the main economic activity. Ethnic Albanians number about 2 million - about 90% of the population. Some 100,000 Serbs remain following a post-war exodus of non-Albanians. The Serbian minority have a ghettoized existence in areas watched over by NATO peacekeepers. History Slavic and Albanian peoples have co-existed in Kosovo since the eighth century. The region was the centre of the Serbian empire until the mid-14th century, and Serbians regard Kosovo as the birthplace of their state. Over the centuries, as the ethnic balance shifted in favour of Albanians, Kosovo came to represent a Serbian golden age, embodied in epic poetry. Serbia`s defeat at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 ushered in centuries of rule under the Muslim Ottoman Empire. Serbia regained control of Kosovo in 1913, and the province was incorporated into the Yugoslav federation. Allies and detractors Britain, France, Germany and Italy, along with the United States, are in favour of Kosovo’s independence move. But Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Spain have rejected the one-sided declaration of independence at least in the short term for fear that it would become a dangerous precedent for other secessionist movements. Russia has vehemently opposed Kosovo’s separation, with the contention that to recognize a separatist region as a new state without the consent of the country-affected sets a dangerous precedent for scores of other territorial conflicts around the world. Broader opposition to separating Kosovo from Serbia stems from concern about the potential precedent that would be set by redrawing boundaries along ethnic lines and the likely impact this move would have on the integrity of the borders of Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia. Case for independence Pragmatic considerations made independence for Kosovo inevitable. Relations between the Albanian majority and the Serbian minority have remained tense for a long time. Throughout the area, walls of hostility divide ordinary Albanians and Serbs. In spirit as well as fact, multiethnic society is nowhere to be found The Albanian leadership in Pristina, which governs Kosovo in partnership with UN authorities, wanted nothing to do with Belgrade. The case for independence seems a bleak one if one assesses the ground realities. Serbs do not enjoy freedom of movement, one of the main reasons that only a handful of those who fled since 1999 have returned. The process of decentralization meant to empower local communities has proved stillborn. Political and legal institutions have yet to mature, stymied by infighting among political parties, crime and corruption, and patronage systems deeply embedded in the clannish structure of Albanian society. Poverty is pervasive, with unemployment topping 50 percent even among ethnic Albanians. An inadequate power supply makes for daily blackouts, and Kosovo`s uncertain political status leaves it unable to attract the foreign capital it needs to invest in basic infrastructure. But nothing seemed to be able to hold it back any longer. A referendum vote last weekend sealed Kosovo’s fate. A new country was born.