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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
(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.
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