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).

Video archive: CNN reports on Kosovo Text of Kosovo military technical agreement Full text of the U.N. resolution draft on Kosovo

In early 1998 the Serbian government began a crackdown against the Kosovo Liberation Army (UÇK), 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.