Why Independence for Kosovo?

Seven years after the conclusion of the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, 2006 is bound to be another decisive year for Kosovo. Unfortunately, the issue is still unresolved but the understanding among almost all sides is that this problem will be resolved by October. Because Albanians have been coerced to join Serbia; because Serbia has carried out the ethnic cleansing of the territory in such a way as to change its Albanian character; and because the area desperately needs stability that can allow for its economic development; year 2006 must unequivocally lead to an independent Kosovo.

For Albanians a Kosovo under Serb authority can clearly be traced back to the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. This aggression by the newly militarized and euphoric Serb state was outrageous and showed no concern for the people living in the territories affected. For an illustration of the Serb mentality at this time, at one point its policymakers determined that Serbia also needed access to the sea and proceeded to temporarily occupy the central Albanian port of Durrës. Serbia returned to Kosovo a victor at the end of the First World War and established its long term authority with the help of French allies returning home from the Eastern World War I front of Thessalonica.

Albanians were not recognized even as a minority at this time, with their education denied and some 200,000 hectares of arable land taken by force and given to 60,000 Serb colonists as an inducement to settle (Kullashi). Vasa Cubrilovc, an architect of Serb state policy at this time, on his memorandum, “Expulsion of Albanians”, lays the method that Serbia should use in Kosovo: "the only method and only means is the brutal force of an organized governmental power, and we have always been above them [i.e. Albanians] in this" (Anzulovic, 93). With “always” Cubrilovic had in mind the successful and therefore well forgotten ethnic cleaning of 1878 of Albanian villages from the Nis region of southern Serbia.

The only time when the status of Kosovo was decided on some sort of crude self determination was at the end of World War II. Kosovo's communists "decided to join" their Serb brothers towards the end of that war. That decision was seen as controversial for four reasons. At the time when the fate of Kosovo was being decided, Albanian partisans were strategically sent to "liberate" Vojvodina in the north of Serbia, and another group of 4,300 was ordered to march to Tivat, Montenegro where it was cut down by machinegun fire; the people of Kosovo were never allowed to express their opinion and Kosovar communists had no support that would have made them representative of the people; there were false promises that Albania would join the
Yugoslav federation and thus Kosovo would be able to join its motherland as a full-scale republic; and insurrections and war state in Kosovo continued well into 1946, which attests to the unpopularity of the decision (DioGuardi).

Kosovo's legal status was advanced further with the Yugoslav constitution of 1974 which stated that "Federal Yugoslavia consists of six republics and two autonomous regions" (Kullashi). While this constitution didn't go far enough to break the formal links between Serbia and Kosovo, like that of other republics, "political administration of Kosovo consisted of structured wielding autonomous legislative, executive, and judicial powers" (Kullashi). In 1989 this structure was abrogated when the Parliament of Kosovo, encircled by tanks and in a Kosovo under state of war, "choose" to surrender its authority to Serbia, which then proceeded to fire all public service employees that declined to sign formal allegiances to the state of Serbia (Campbell, 193).

The burning of whole villages such as in 1999 was not an isolated event. Drenica, a region of Kosovo that has stood up to all invasions, has been burned by Serb military at least three times in the 20th century. In these circumstances, the fear is genuine that any provision such as the one done after WWII that had the people of Kosovo and Serbia in one "brotherly-unified" state turns sour with the darkest fears coming finally to life. After having NATO bomb whole of Serbia, a country that shows extensive pride in its military history/myth, Albanians cannot afford not to have the sovereignty that would legally protect them from another invasion from Serbia that could this time prove decisive.

Serbia has not improved much since the war or the ouster of Milosevic nor has it apologized for the ethnic cleansing and other more permanent crimes committed in Kosovo. Its enlightened prime minister was assassinated in 2001 while entering the government building. The Serb Radical party currently constitutes the largest party in the Serb parliament with some 30% of the seats, and their leader, Vojislav Seselj, is an outspoken paramilitary leader currently in The Hague. Seselj in 1995 proposed among other things infection of Albanians with AIDS (Blueprint). Serbia's current prime-minister was a fervent supporter of expanding the Serb borders to Sarajevo, as he stated in a recently released tape to the international tribunal in The Hague (B92). Ratko Mladic, Serb military commander who is wanted for genocide in Bosnia, was supported by the Serb Army and may still be under its protection. Vuk Draskovic, presently in the weak government coalition serving as foreign minister, led Chetnik paramilitary units in Bosnia and Croatia. Although some six high government officials are at The Hague with charges for war crimes and ethnic cleansing, Serb state and its citizens deny any responsibility for the crimes committed in the 90’s and continue to perceive themselves as victims, an attitude that gave rise to the ethnic hatred in the first place. For Miodrag Popovic, a Serb historian, "it was the intelligentsia who turned the Kosovo myth into the myth of modem Serbian national ideology" (Anzulovic, 80). And it was the members of the Serb Academy of Sciences that in 1986 awakened the status of victimhood of Serbs in Kosovo, an euphoria which Milosevic only rode along. With denazification virtually nonexistent, it will take decades for Serbia to cleanse its elite of those that provided the rationale behind the crimes of the 90’s.

Albanians still suffer directly or indirectly from Serbia. It took well into 2000, several months into the replacement of Milosevic, for all the Albanian prisoners of war (most of them were actually civilians kidnapped from refugee columns) to be released from jails in Serbia. The transfer of 800 bodies hidden in mass graves in Serb military installations and along rivers is still not completed, four years after they were found. Many more are missing while those involved stay unpunished and those that know about the massacres stay quiet.

The population of Kosovo is somewhere around 2,000,000 depending on how
many of the several thousand emigrants that have settled in the Western countries are counted. With 90% of the population Albanian, and at least as many striving for independence, this makes another big argument for Kosovo to go its own way. Its population is young, restless and has vivid memories of massacres and losses of property. Forcing Albanians to live in one state with their former aggressors will be like having the wolf and the lamb stay in the same sheep pen.

Not only Serbia has not shown remorse, but it has also kept Kosovo hostage economically. It has threatened possible investors in Kosovo with trials in case they decided to invest in Kosovo’s companies to which Serbia claims ownership. There are currently over 350,000 students in Kosovo, who in a few years will join the labor market (Kullashi). If this population cannot find jobs and a future in Kosovo, it will destabilize the region and will soon find its way to the doorsteps of West European countries.

A solution for the problem of Kosovo must ultimately satisfy its people. Kosovars must be able to live free of fear of another invasion, to decide their economic destiny, and develop their own culture without intervention from Serbia. In fact, The Kosovo Report, an extensive study done by technocrats from across the globe recommended that the country be granted conditional independence five years ago (Report, 283). While seven years have been lost since the end of the conflict the country is still in limbo. The very fact that it took only four months for 95% of more than 800 thousand Albanian refugees to return to Kosovo is a testament of the love and determination that Kosovar Albanians have for their country (Kullashi). Serbia has had several chances over the last century, and each of those ended in bloodshed. Now it is time for Kosovo and the majority of its people to have a shot at independence. Whereas for Serbia, the biggest compensation for
losing Kosovo is loss of Kosovo itself (Bugajski).


Works Cited

Anzulovic, Branimir. Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide. New York:
New York University Press, 1999.

Campbell, Greg. The Road to Kosovo: A Balkan Diary. Westview Press,
2000 Kosovo Report : Conflict, International Response, Lessons Learned. USA:
Oxford University Press, 2001.

Kullashi, Muhamed & Besnik Pula. "Why Independence for Kosovo? The
Status Issue, Political Challenges and the Path to European Integration ."
< http://www.newkosovo.com/Why%20Independence%20For%20Kosovo.pdf>. 6
Mar. 2006.

DioGuadi, Joseph. “Është radha e breznisë sonë për të bërë gjithçka që
kombi shqiptar të çlirohet njëherë e përgjithmonë!” Albanian-American
Civic League.
6 Jun. 2006.

The Serb Blueprint for Cleansing Kosovo.
5 Mar.
2006.

B92: Bosnia and Herzegovina Representative Showed Recording of
Kostunica in Sarajevo.


Bugajski, Janusz. Bugajski speech, "Kosovo's Future and Balkan
Stability 5 Mar. 2006.