History of Kosovo
The following article describes the history of Kosovo from human settlement to the present day. The history of Kosovo has been influenced and determined by the great powers of the region for most of the time. Important trade routes between the Occident and the Orient ran through the Balkan region and also made it the scene of the confrontation several times.
Recent history has been shaped by the ethnic-national conflict of the mainly Albanian populated Serbian province within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and especially within the Republic of Serbia. After the military intervention of NATO in the Kosovo war , the forced withdrawal of the Yugoslav security forces from the province and the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the province declared itself to be the independent Republic of Kosovo on February 17, 2008 and has since been going through a development phase of the state system as well as an integration into the structures of European Union and NATO.
prehistory
The area of today's Kosovo was already in the 6th millennium BC. Settled by humans. It was located in the Vinča cultural region mentioned by archaeologists , which was characterized by the typical western Balkan black and white pottery. The Vinča culture is also understood as one of the “ cultural provinces ” within the interaction area of Old Europe , whose core area is Kosovo with the neighboring areas of Southeast Europe . For Old Europe, whose status as the oldest high culture in Europe is currently being discussed, the so-called Danube script is proven to be possibly the world's oldest written culture , the center of which was again in Serbia, Kosovo (with Fafos, Priština , Predionica, Rudnik and Valač) and Romania . Around 1900 BC The Bronze Age began , followed around 1300 BC. From the Iron Age . Iron Age graves have so far only in Kosovo's western part, in Metohija ( Serbian Metohija Метохија ; Albanian Rrafsh i Dukagjinit found and in the eastern part, the) Kosovo Polje , is not.
Antiquity
The earliest known settlers in the region include various Indo-European peoples . As a border area between Illyria and Thrace lived next to Illyrians , who since about 2000 BC. In the western part of the Balkan Peninsula , also Thracians . From this mixed population, believed to have originated Dardanians whose origin has not yet been clarified. In addition to the Dardans, Celtic , other Illyrian and Thracian tribes and the Triballians also settled .
The Dardanians - whose settlement area is called " Dardania " after them - were able to found short-lived kingdoms for several centuries, which were constantly in competition with those in southern Illyria (now Albania ). The Dardanian Kings coined their own silver coins, led large armies and built cities from. Important city settlements of the Dardaner were found in Niš , Skopje , Suhareka and Ulpiana .
After a final war against the Labeatic (Illyrian) kingdom in Scodra under King Genthios , the Romans were able to settle in Illyria after 168 BC. In the long run the Illyrian monarchies asserted and finally destroyed, although the Romans had already de jure since 219 BC. Ruled over Illyria. 59 BC Today's Kosovo came to the Roman province of Illyricum and in 87 AD to the province of Moesia superior .
Emperor Diocletian redistributed the provinces at the end of the 3rd century. Kosovo and parts of what is now North Macedonia now formed the province of Dardania in the diocese of Moesia. The most important Roman settlement on the territory of Kosovo was the (newly) founded Municipium Ulpiana at the time of Emperor Trajan . Its ruins are near the present-day city of Lipjan . Otherwise, the area of what is now Kosovo in Roman times was poor in cities. Late antique settlements in particular have been archaeologically proven.
middle Ages
Immigration of the Slavs
In the course of the Slavs' conquest of the Balkans in the 6th and 7th centuries, various Slavic and Avar tribes raided the ancient cities in south-eastern Europe , which brought about the disappearance of Roman culture . After the looting, however, an increasing number of Slavic tribal associations came and settled in the poor regions. They founded some new cities and adopted Christianity .
After the Great Migration and the Slavs' conquest of the Balkans, the Byzantine Empire was able to stabilize again in the 7th century. Although the Balkan Peninsula was now largely inhabited by Slavs, the Byzantine emperors ruled over what is now Kosovo until the beginning of the 9th century. In 814 the region was conquered by the Bulgarian tsarist empire . The oldest Serbian principalities ( Raszien ) began to emerge north-west of Kosovo in the 10th century . A final period of Byzantine rule over Kosovo followed in the 11th century. In this century a Byzantine author first mentioned the Albanians as a settling people in what is now Albania.
Forging of the Serbian Empire
Around 1200, under the Nemanjid dynasty, the Serbs established a medieval state with a king and a Serbian Orthodox national church. Between the end of the 12th century (conquest of eastern Kosovo) and the first two decades of the 13th century (the city of Prizren was conquered no later than 1216 ), Kosovo became part of the Serbian kingdom of the Nemanjids. The empire became a hegemonic power in the Balkans in the 13th and 14th centuries due to the weakness of the Byzantine Empire.
The first King Stefan Nemanjić (1196–1227) was crowned in 1217, his brother, the monk Sava of Serbia (1169–1236), was the first Serbian Archbishop (1219–1233) to establish the independent ( autocephalous ) Serbian Orthodox Church . In 1345 King Stefan Uroš IV. Dušan (1331–1355) was crowned " Tsar of Serbs and Rhomeans " and thus claimed to be the successor of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. In 1346 the Serbian archbishop was promoted to patriarch . He took his official residence in the Trinity Monastery in Peć . Prizren in the Metohija region became one of the centers of the medieval Serbian state as a trading town during this period. Kosovo was also the economic base of this empire: it was a granary, wine-growing area and pasture land; iron ore, lead, silver and gold were mined there.
In the Serbian Middle Ages, Albanians already lived as a minority in Kosovo. In many Serbian written sources from this period they were referred to as shepherds. On the other hand, there was also a Serb minority in northern Albania, for example in the vicinity of Shkodra .
The Serbian claims in relation to the Kosovo conflict in the 20th and 21st centuries are primarily asserted against the background of the Serbian Empire of the Middle Ages:
Kosovo is the birthplace of national culture in the Serbian self-image. The monastery of Peć was the seat of the Serbian patriarch from 1346 to 1463 and from 1557 until the Ottomans abolished the patriarchy in 1766. Even today, the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church bears - although since 1920 in Belgrade resides - the title of Archbishop of Peć. The close interweaving between the Serbian national movement and its own national church is characteristic: the church sees itself as the bearer of national culture and statehood .
Saxon miners in Kosovo and Serbia
 
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Late medieval communities (dots) and places of residence (crosses) with "Saxon" miners in Kosovo |
In the 14th century, in addition to the ethnic groups of Serbs, Albanians and Wallachians , the “Saxon” miners also represented a small but economically significant population group. These “Saxons” were descendants of immigrant German miners, mostly from historical Hungary or came from today's Slovakia . The Serbian Empire, for which the economically important mines of Trepča (Alb. Trepça / -ë ) and Novo Brdo (Alb. Novobërda / -ë ) were of great economic importance, granted the Saxon miners privileges and one for their important activity own jurisdiction . Within Kosovo, the Saxon miners were mainly settled in the east.
The presence of Saxons in late medieval Serbia is evident from several documents, which are basically regulations on the rights, duties and privileges of the Ragusans and the Saxons in the Serbian state. With the oldest of these documents from the years 1240–1272, King Stefan Milutin determined the privileges of the Ragusans and the way in which judicial matters were carried out in which Saxons and Ragusans were involved: “If it is a Saxon, the one [judge ] one Saxon and the other a Ragusaner; they can negotiate in front of them. "
Other documents, often with similar content, exist, among others, from King Stefan Dušan from 1355, from Prince Lazar who died in the battle on the Blackbird Field from 1387, from Vuk Branković from the same year, from Stefan Lazarević or from Đurađ Branković from the Years 1428 and 1445. From the medieval Serbian sources, which concern the today's area of Kosovo, it emerges that the Saxons were only explicitly mentioned in this area in the 14th century.
The appearance of miners is associated with the revitalization of the mines or mining in this region , both for the area of today's Kosovo and for all other areas of the Balkan Peninsula . Accordingly, the Saxons first settled in the mining towns in Kosovo, which later became the marketplaces of the miners. At that time it was Novo Brdo , Trepča , Janjeva , Kishnica (Kisnica, Kishnicë, Kižnica) and Vrhlab (today's village of Bellasica near Podujeva ).
As Sasbi trebbčkii , the "Trepča Saxons", ie Saxons who worked in the area of the still existing mine Trepča, are mentioned in the document of King Milutin from the years 1313-1318. In the travel notes of the French Bertrandon de la Broquière from 1432 and 1433, a Saxon colony and a Catholic Church of St. Mary are mentioned for Trepča . It is believed that this is the medieval settlement of Stari Terg near Mitrovica, which after 1610 developed into an unknown place of little importance.
De la Broquière also testifies to the appearance of Saxons in Novo Brdo. He reports that the Serbian rulers have a city called "Neyeberge" with a rich gold and silver factory. As the Latin form of the place name for Novo Brdo, he also gives “Novo Berda” and “Novus Mons”, as Italian “Novomonte” or “Monte Novo” and as German “Neyberghe”.
According to official Yugoslav data, which for 1991 are based on estimates, such “Saxons” still lived as a very small minority in Kosovo in the early 1990s.
Compared to this late medieval phase of colonization, when Kosovo had Albanian, Serbian, “Saxon” (German) and Wallachian populations, this was mainly supplemented by Roma , Turks , Jews and Circassians in the course of Ottoman rule .
Conquest by the Ottomans
After its greatest development of power under Stefan Uroš IV. Dušan, the Serbian Empire quickly disintegrated into a series of more or less rival principalities - these also divided Kosovo. This development, combined with the rivalry between neighboring Christian states, favored the defeat of the remnants of the Serbian Orthodox Empire and the expansion of the Muslim Ottoman Empire .
After the invasion of the Ottomans in 1385, the battle of the Amselfeld broke out in 1389 . The significance of this battle for real history is rather minor (it probably ended in a draw), but very great for Serbian intellectual history: The reports about the battle establish and shape the 19th century Serbian political myth of sacrificial death in the defense of Christianity Serbian national identity to date. After the battle, the Serbian princes who ruled Kosovo became Ottoman vassals . With the capture of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottomans went over to rule Kosovo directly. From 1455 Kosovo was completely under Ottoman rule.
As a result, the settlement movements of the Serbs were reversed: during the expansion of the Serbian Empire they had spread from north to south, now - due to the expansion of the Ottoman Empire - the centers of the Serbian settlement from Kosovo moved north.
Ottoman time
During most of the Ottoman rule, Serbia did not exist as a political unit for several centuries. At the same time, Albanian tribes (alb. Fise / t ) began to spread more and more to the north-east and east of northern Albania. This process was favored by several factors over the next few centuries:
- The adoption of Islam by the Albanians made them more privileged citizens in the Ottoman Empire.
- For economic reasons, the Albanians immigrated from the comparatively barren areas of today's northern Albania to the far more fertile areas of Kosovo, which were poorer in population due to the Serbian emigration, which was partially promoted by the Turkish authorities.
- Some of the Serbs also adopted the Islamic faith and were largely Albanized; a similar tendency could be observed among the Bosniaks and the Caucasian Circassians who immigrated to Kosovo in the 19th century.
At the same time, there was massive emigration of Serbs to the north, primarily to the Kingdom of Hungary , which was ruled by the Habsburgs , with the emigrants not only coming from Kosovo but from all of Serbia. In 1686 the Habsburgs conquered Budapest from the Turks, and in 1689 Belgrade . In a subsequent campaign, Habsburg troops penetrated as far as Kosovo and even Macedonia . The Ottoman army was able to drive them out of this region again. The Christians of Kosovo, which welcomed the Habsburg troops as liberators and their engaging an uprising led by the Catholic Archbishop of the region of Skopje , Pjetër Bogdani , rehearsed, fled in 1690 from the vengeance of the Ottomans. About 40,000 Christians, mostly Serbs, moved with the Patriarch von Peć to the Habsburg ruled Vojvodina . However, the latest research indicates that the Patriarch of Peć was already in Belgrade when the refugees arrived in Belgrade. This was a significant proportion of the population at the time: the largest city in Kosovo in the middle of the 17th century, Prizren , only had about 13,000 inhabitants.
Time of nationalism, Balkan wars
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In 1877, the Vilayet Kosovo was founded as an independent administrative unit of the Ottoman Empire . Due to its decline and the subsequent formation of the independent nation states of Serbia , Bulgaria , Greece and Romania , new territorial claims arose. In addition, all major European powers, especially Austria-Hungary and Russia , tried to assert their own interests in Southeast Europe.
Few Albanian intellectuals and politicians thought of establishing an independent Albanian state until the end of the 19th century. Mostly Muslim, they saw their future under the rule of the sultan, the few opponents of the Ottoman system usually had few troops at their disposal to be able to expand any sphere of influence. The Muslim Albanians demanded reforms in the Ottoman Empire, the Albanian language area should be united in a vilayet and Albanian should be introduced as the language of instruction in the few schools. During this time, the Albanian national movement Rilindja began . The aforementioned demands were represented by the League of Prizren , which was formed in Prizren in 1878, and later also the League of Peja (1899), in order to prevent the cession of Albanian-populated areas of the Ottoman Empire to the Slavic neighboring states. Although the league was able to militarily defend some cities in Montenegro , Albania and also in Kosovo, it was forcibly dissolved by Ottoman officers just three years later, the Ottoman government even worsened the legal situation of the Albanian population and banned all Albanian organizations. The Albanians tried to reorganize themselves in the diaspora , especially in Bucharest , Boston and New York , but these groups usually could not do much against the troops from neighboring countries invading their homeland.
From the 1860s onwards, the Ottomans began to develop their European provinces in terms of transport. European companies were commissioned to build the railway . An important route was to lead from Thessaloniki on the Aegean Sea via Skopje and Kosovo to Sarajevo . The planning followed the traditional main route of trade in the Balkans, which ran over the " Amselfeld ". Until the outbreak of the Serbian-Turkish War in 1876, only the line to Kosovska Mitrovica was completed. After the loss of Bosnia in 1878, no further construction was carried out. In 1885 the line from Skopje was connected to the Serbian railway via the city of Vranje, which had just been incorporated into Serbia . The most important north-south connection in the Balkans now ran from Thessaloniki via the Vardar - and the Morava Valley to Niš and Belgrade. Kosovo was thus cut off from the central traffic artery and became a peripheral province. This was not to change later, even under Serbian rule.
The occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by the Danube Monarchy decided by the Berlin Congress in 1878 angered Serbia, as this country was claimed as a territory inhabited by Serbs for themselves ( Greater Serbia ) or a South Slav state as a whole. Since then, the differences between Austria-Hungary and Serbia have grown . At the Berlin Congress, Serbia was awarded the area between Niš and Vranje . The Albanians living in the area of Vranje were expelled to Kosovo, which was still under Ottoman rule, with the result that the Albanian population there grew significantly and the area of Vranje was "de-Albanized".
In the following decades, the Serbian government tried to expand its territory to the south at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, the Albanian and Bulgarian (= Macedonian) population. As a result of the first Balkan War in 1912, the Ottoman Empire lost its remaining European possessions , apart from Eastern Thrace . Kosovo, which at that time already had a non-Serb majority, and the north-western part of Macedonia fell to the Kingdom of Serbia .
Austria-Hungary tried to limit the expansion of Serbia and managed to have the Serbs denied access to the Adriatic near the northern Albanian city of Shkodra by the conference of ambassadors of the great powers . At the same time they supported the formation of an Albanian state .
A small Albanian political elite had only been concerned with the question of what would become of the Albanians when Ottoman rule disappeared from the Balkans since around 1900. When the victors of the first Balkan War began to divide up the conquered territories, the Albanian leaders decided on November 28, 1912 to proclaim the independent state of Albania . On the Declaration of Independence in the port city of Vlora were Kosovo Albanians , including Isa Boletini involved. The future borders were completely unclear and the provisional government of Albania had no power whatsoever, but nevertheless sought the unification of all Albanian settlement areas in the nation state. Kosovo and north-western Macedonia fell to Serbia and the trading city of Ioannina and its surroundings to Greece. Although the Albanian leaders only called for the unification of the Albanian inhabited areas, the neighboring countries saw here an effort to conquer the regions they had claimed. The Albanians were therefore also accused of nationalist ideologies of a “large” nation state (cf. also Greater Albania ). With the establishment of the Albanian border , large areas of settlement for the Albanians remained outside the Albanian state.
Since 1912, the history of the Albanians in Albania and Kosovo has thus been very different: Even the atrocities perpetrated by the Serbian army during the conquest of Kosovo - around 10,000 civilians were killed in the process - the relationship of the Albanians to the new rulers from the beginning heavily burdened. The Serbian government had planned to bring the newly gained areas into line with the rest of the state as quickly as possible. This also meant that the Serbian state language and the Serbian school system were enforced everywhere. These measures were not very popular not only with the Albanians, but also with the Macedonians and other affected minorities. The emigration of Turks , Albanians and Slavic Muslims to Turkey (as the most important remaining area of the Ottoman Empire) had already started in the first years of Serbian rule , because these Muslims did not want to live under Christian rule and in some cases even under the repression of the new masters had to suffer. This emigration continued in more or less strong spurts in the interwar period.
Serbian nationalism found itself in 1912 - as is typical of European nationalism in the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th - and to some extent to this day it is in a dilemma , which is the contradiction between the two principles of liberation ( national Self-determination , freedom from foreign rule ) and dynastic moment (vision of a powerful great empire) exist, especially if one referred to a medieval empire (the Serbian, the Bulgarian, the Croatian, the Byzantine) set as the origin. In a feudal way, the nationalists of that time invoked “historical claims and rights” all over Europe, even when their own nationality was in the minority in the areas concerned. The connection of their dynastic interests with nationalism enabled the monarchs not only to absorb the aggression directed against them, but also to turn around in their favor and place themselves at the head of this strong, new movement. One attempt at a solution to this dilemma was to convert the affected population into a population that was “actually” identical to its own nationality (Islamized Serbs and Croats in Bosnia, Albanized Serbs in Kosovo or Macedonians who were “actually” Serbs or Bulgarians or Greeks). The attempt failed because of his internal contradictions, especially because he completely ignored people's own identities. The liberation moment of national self-determination was thus turned into a new foreign determination. In addition, there was the problem of many ethnically strongly mixed areas. However, apart from the socialist ideas , there were hardly any ideas available which would have offered an answer to this problem. And even the socialists skipped overcoming the problem as an issue that was inherently already resolved in socialism / communism .
First World War
However, the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and the occupation of Serbia in the following year prevented the plans to “Serbize” Kosovo from being implemented quickly. When the Austrians started the war against Serbia, there were revolts against Serbian rule in Kosovo. In 1915, the Austro-Hungarian army occupied the northern and western parts of Kosovo around Mitrovica and Peć. They were greeted as liberators by the Albanian population. The occupying power handed the local administration into the hands of the locals and invested in the infrastructure. In addition to roads that were important for the war effort, the Austrians also set up numerous primary schools in which lessons in Albanian were given for the first time. After the Austrians withdrew in the autumn of 1918, the returning Serbian troops had revenge against the Kosovar population because they had collaborated with the enemy.
The southern and eastern part of Kosovo with the cities of Pristina and Prizren was occupied by Bulgaria and placed under the Macedonia Military Inspection Area .
At the end of the war, a resistance movement of Kosovar Albanians formed around Hasan Bej Prishtina and Bajram Curri , who fought against the Serbs who were returning to Kosovo and wanted to join the province with Albania. In October 1919 Hasan Prishtina went to Paris with a Kosovar delegation to speak at the peace conference for the annexation of Kosovo to Albania. The Kosovar delegation was not allowed to attend any official meeting and their request was ignored.
Up until the beginning of the twenties, the province was shaken by uprisings by the Albanians who refused to bow to Serbian rule. Between 1918 and 1920, tens of thousands fled the uprisings to Albania, where the refugees could not be supplied for a long time.
Interwar period
In 1919 the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople renounced church sovereignty over the eparchies in Kosovo and Macedonia in favor of the Serbian Orthodox Church .
As early as 1921 a delegation of Kosovar Albanians called on the League of Nations in Geneva to complain about the disregard for their human and minority rights and about the massacres carried out by Serbian troops. Your complaint was ignored there.
After the First World War, the Serbian-dominated government of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia began the Serbization of Kosovo. The ideological leitmotif was that the ethnic structure must be restored, which should have existed in Kosovo before the Turkish conquest in the 15th century. The entire administration was occupied by Serbian officials, Serbian was the only official language and all state schools only taught in this language. By giving land to newcomers from Serbia and Montenegro, the government tried to increase the Slavic population in the 1920s. For this, the property of emigrated Turks and Albanians was confiscated, and some large Muslim landowners were expropriated. The whole program was not very successful. The Serbian population increased for a short time, but by the early 1930s, more Slavs emigrated than newcomers to Kosovo. Many Serbian new farmers even sold the land they had received from the government to Albanians, which aroused the government's particular displeasure. The reason for the Serbian emigration was the catastrophic economic situation in Kosovo. In contrast to the Albanians, the members of the state nation had better chances of finding work in the northern regions of Yugoslavia.
Before World War II, the government of Yugoslavia had neither a coherent concept nor the financial means to develop the economies of the poor southern areas. They remained countries of emigration dominated by agriculture.
1937: The planned expulsion of the Albanians via state treaties
The disappointment about the failed Serbization of Kosovo was also reflected in the memorandum written by the Serbian nationalist Vasa Čubrilović in 1937 , which deals with the further course of action in Kosovo. In The Resettlement of the Albanians , the historian was convinced that the “Albanian problem” could only be solved by force to the satisfaction of the Serbs. The methods used to date to marginalize the Muslim-Albanian population have failed because "attempts to solve ethnic problems with Western methods" have been made. In the Balkans, however, they are prepared to adopt stricter approaches, as shown by the population exchange agreed between Greece and Turkey in 1922 of one million Orthodox Christians for 400,000 Muslims.
He pleaded for a complete expulsion of Muslim Albanians to Turkey and Albania. The Albanian government wanted to win Čubrilović for the plan through financial aid and by bribing individual politicians. Foreign policy problems, said Čubrilović, would not trigger the "resettlement":
“ If Germany expelled tens of thousands of Jews and Russia could relocate millions of people from one part of the continent to another, the expulsion of a few hundred thousand Albanians will not lead to the outbreak of a world war. "
In contrast to the previous, unsuccessful colonization projects, the subsequent resettlement would be successful because the colonists could now be given the houses and movable property that the Albanians would have to leave behind. In addition, Čubrilović pleaded for the establishment of compulsory service for Yugoslav youth to support the new settlers. He explicitly named Adolf Hitler's Reich Labor Service as a model.
Čubrilović's writing remained hidden from the public for decades. It was not intended for publication by the author, but was intended to influence the policy of the Yugoslav government. Dušan Bataković , a Serbian historian, reports that the memorandum became known to a broader group of people only in January 1988 when it was published in a series of articles in the Yugoslav newspaper “Borba”.
The resettlement of the Muslim population from Yugoslavia was organized in 1938. According to an agreement signed with the Turkish government in 1938, around 200,000 Albanians, Turks and Muslims from Kosovo and Macedonia were to be relocated to those sparsely populated regions of Anatolia that formed the border area to the densely populated Kurdish border region. The Turkish government was to receive an amount of 500 Turkish pounds for each of the 40,000 families. Because of the German attack on Yugoslavia in 1941 and the ailing state finances of Yugoslavia, this never happened. Nevertheless, between 90,000 and 150,000 Albanians left Kosovo during this phase.
Second World War
The German invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 quickly led to the defeat and collapse of the Yugoslav state. Germany's allies Italy and Bulgaria also took part in the division of the conquered land . Kosovo and parts of Macedonia were united with Albania, already under the rule of fascist Italy, which was officially recognized by Germany in September 1943 as an independent state within the borders established by Mussolini . The majority of the Albanian population in Kosovo and Macedonia profited from the occupation and the associated granting of self-government rights and, in view of the prospect of a post-war Albania defined according to ethnic boundaries, largely showed solidarity with the occupiers. On the other hand, after decades of oppression of the Albanian population, the Serbian population was in turn exposed to particularly severe strains. Hundreds of thousands of Serbs came under the fascist Ustasha regime to death, the radical Serbs hostile antijugoslawisch, anti-Semitic and anti-Communist was aligned and with unconditional hardness against the Serb population and the Orthodox Church was going on.
The Axis powers cleverly used the hostility between the Balkan peoples to stabilize their rule in south-eastern Europe. The Serbian Chetniks , whose leadership was striving for an ethnically pure Greater Serbia , which was to include Kosovo and parts of Albania and what is now North Macedonia, acted like the Croatian Ustaše with extreme brutality against their enemies. The national differences between Serbs, on the one hand, and Croats and Muslims, on the other, were significantly exacerbated. Most of the victims had to mourn the Serbs, who were exposed to the revenge of their Albanian, Croatian and Bulgarian neighbors. After Italy left the war in the summer of 1943, the Germans occupied Kosovo. The National Socialists modified their racial ideology elastically by declaring the Albanians a superior race compared to the Slavs. In this way they won a large part of the Albanians for the fight against the Yugoslav partisans .
The communist- dominated partisans, on the other hand, pursued the all-Yugoslavian goal of a multinational post-war Yugoslavia on a federal basis on the basis of the AVNOJ meeting in Jajce on November 29, 1943 , took consistent action against the occupying powers and, in contrast to the Chetniks, excluded any collaboration . Communist-dominated partisan groups only became active in Kosovo in late 1942 and early 1943. The majority of the Albanian population remained very skeptical of the partisans in Kosovo as well as in Macedonia and northern Albania, viewed them as Slavic dominated and doubted that the partisans would grant them comparable political rights as the occupiers. The attacks by the partisans on the German troops and the Albanian police were repeatedly compensated by the murder of Serb civilians. People suspected of supporting the partisans were also deported to the Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia . In 1944 the Kosovar Albanian SS division "Skanderbeg" was set up. Their location was Prizren , their main operational area Kosovo. In its brutal approach it did not differ from the German associations: In April 1944, it deported 300 Jews.
Under the given conditions, the willingness to resist was particularly strong among the Serbs and was in grave contradiction to that of the Albanians in Kosovo and the Albanians in Macedonia . The Albanians perceived the occupation primarily as a liberation from a hated regime, which contributed to the fact that many Albanians collaborated with the Wehrmacht. In order to increase the motivation of the Albanian population of Yugoslavia to participate in the military partisan resistance, the so-called resolution of Bujan was passed at a local Communist Party meeting at the turn of the year 1943/1944, which promised the Kosovar Albanians the right to unite with Albania. The communist party leadership of Yugoslavia immediately criticized this decision and the General Secretary of the CPJ , Josip Broz Tito , immediately expressed his rejection of the resolution in a letter.
In addition to Tito's partisans, there were also Albanian partisan associations operating in Kosovo, which were under the authority of the Albanian Labor Party of Enver Hoxha . A dispute broke out between the communist parties in both countries because there was no agreement on who Kosovo should go to after the war. Faced with the choice of leaving Kosovo to Yugoslavia alone or of annexing it to the Yugoslav state together with Albania, the Communist Party of Albania waived any claims in Kosovo in the spring of 1944. Tito and Hoxha agreed that the pre-war borders between Albania and Yugoslavia should be restored.
In October 1944, the German troops withdrew from Kosovo, whereupon fierce fighting broke out between the Chetniks and Albanian nationalists against the units of the Communist-dominated Partisan National Liberation Army advancing from Sandžak . The communist partisan organizations took power in a slow process that met stiff resistance. In some regions the population reacted with violent revolts, which lasted until May 1945 and were bloodily suppressed. There is very different information about the number of victims. A recent study by Serbian historians assumes 12,000 Albanian and 10,000 Serbian deaths between 1941 and 1945 for Kosovo.
Kosovo in the SFR Yugoslavia
1945–1966
After the Second World War, Kosovo was integrated into the federally organized Yugoslavia Josip Broz Titos .
In July 1945, at a meeting of national representatives of Kosovo and Metohija in Prizren, it was decided to annex Kosovo to Serbia. In August 1945, the third AVNOJ session established the status of Kosovo metochia as an autonomous area within Serbia.
In 1945 there were unorganized uprisings of various Albanian groups against the renewed Slavic dominance in Kosovo. They could be knocked down by the Yugoslav army and police units without difficulty. The communist dictatorship of Albania completely stayed out of these internal disputes with its ally at the time.
In the first post-war phase, Albania and Yugoslavia developed close and diverse cooperation in the social and political fields. Yugoslavia's immigration policy, which was carried out in opposition to Serbs and Albanians, also contributed to this. The Yugoslav Interior Ministry forbade the displaced Serbs and Montenegrins to return to Kosovo. At the same time, the joint opening of the border with Albania made it possible for around 25,000 Albanians, mainly from the northern Albanian mountains, to immigrate to their relatives in Kosovo. The Albanians were also granted concessions in the educational, economic and administrative areas as part of their autonomy rights. On the other hand, there were a number of compulsory orders that put a lasting strain on the relationship of the Albanian population to the new Yugoslav leadership. Thousands of Albanians were killed in the so-called "pacification measures" of the CPY against actual or supposed collaborators of the occupying powers.
Tito's break with Josef Stalin in 1948, which led to the exclusion of Yugoslavia from the Cominform , also ended the phase of cooperation with Albania, whose leader Enver Hoxha expressly acknowledged Stalin and became a bitter opponent of the Yugoslav model. Thus, at the end of the 1940s, the Yugoslav and Serbian governments completely returned to the interwar traditions of Kosovo policy. From now on, the Kosovar Albanians were once again regarded as “dangerous foreign bodies” within Yugoslavia. The borders with Albania were closed in 1948 and control of the region was left to the secret police under the Yugoslav Vice President and Head of the Yugoslav Secret Service , Aleksandar Ranković . The secret police used harsh and arbitrary methods of persecution against large segments of the population. For the time being, there were no minority rights for the Albanians in the socialist state of the southern Slavs. In 1950, this was only granted to the small Turkish minority. More than 30,000 Muslim Albanians therefore declared themselves Turkish in the 1951 census, as this was linked to the possibility of emigrating to Turkey . Albania refused to take in refugees from Kosovo, and what little was known in Kosovo about Enver Hoxha's reign of terror in Albania hardly offered any incentive to emigrate there. Between 1950 and 1966, more than 200,000 Albanians emigrated to Turkey, which further changed the demographic structure in Kosovo.
As before the war, Serbian new settlers in Kosovo received state support. The decisive factor for moving to Kosovo, however, was that it was easy to get relatively well-paid positions in the state administration, most of which were filled by Serbs until the 1960s. Most of the Albanians lacked the necessary qualifications and could only acquire them with difficulty because they lacked knowledge of the state language Serbo-Croatian . This only changed in the 1950s and 1960s when a generation of Albanians grew up who had graduated from Serbian schools. Military service in other parts of Yugoslavia also contributed to the spread of Serbo-Croatian among the Albanians.
In contrast to the interwar period, the Yugoslav government made much more intensive efforts to promote Kosovo's economic development after 1945. There has been much in infrastructure, in the mining industry and the heavy industry invested. This was paid for with transfer payments that flowed into the federal coffers from the northern republics. At no time, however, was the communist economic policy in Kosovo able to create a self-sustaining economy and enough jobs for the rapidly growing population. Many Yugoslavs got the impression that their money was being wasted in the Albanian province, while many Albanians felt that the central government was not doing enough for Kosovo.
1966-1974
A turning point in Yugoslav politics in Kosovo came about through power-political disputes in the Politburo of the Union of Communists . While Tito wanted to introduce general reforms that should strengthen the federal elements in the political structures of Yugoslavia, Interior Minister Aleksandar Ranković opposed any such change. As the commander of the UDBA political police, he was largely responsible for state violence against the Albanian population. Ranković was removed from the Politburo in 1966 on charges of having expanded the UDBA into a state within a state and had to give up his ministerial post.
Tito gradually improved the situation of the Albanians and granted them more autonomy . In the new Yugoslav Federal Constitution of 1974, Kosovo (like Vojvodina) was established as an autonomous province and federal subject. The autonomous provinces were largely given equal status to the six Yugoslav republics in terms of their competences, their organizational structure and their decision-making procedures. Kosovo thus had its own constitutional, legislative and budgetary authority. The only difference between the autonomous provinces and the republics was that they had no right of secession and therefore theoretically did not have the option of becoming independent from the state.
From then on, the Albanians dominated the government and the provincial party apparatus. Albanian became the second official and teaching language, Albanian culture was promoted, and the University of Pristina was established . A large number of Albanian academics emerged from it in the following 15 years.
Constitutional status 1974
Regarding the autonomy regulation, which was established in 1974, reference should be made to the precise definition of a "nationality". According to Soviet-Communist legal doctrine was (bosn./kroat./serb. A nation narod ) potentially state-building unit, at least the working class could represent them. Nations therefore retained an ultimate right to secession when they formed a republic within a federation. A nationality (Bosn./kroat./serb. Narodnost ), on the other hand, was a displaced part of a nation, the greater part of which was located in a different area: nationalities could not be declared a constitutive nation within a federation, nor could they be declared a separate federal unit receive.
The problem of the non-Slavic population within a Yugoslav ("South Slav") state was already discussed at the 1943 meeting of the communist leadership in Jajce ( Bosnia ). In particular, the status of the most populous minorities, the Kosovar Albanians and the Magyars (Hungarians) was initially unclear. It was established under Soviet doctrine that republics should represent entities of nations as opposed to “nationalities”.
According to this, those Yugoslav “peoples” who had no nation-state outside Yugoslavia received their “sovereignty” in the form of republics - this was the case for the Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians, Serbs and Macedonians. Those “peoples”, on the other hand, who had their own nation-state outside of Yugoslavia, could only claim the status of “nationality” in Yugoslavia, which was defined as insufficient for the constitution of a republic - this was the case for the Kosovar Albanians who were "Nation" of the Albanians already had their own state of Albania , the same applied to the Magyars (Hungarians) in Vojvodina , who lived as a "nation" in Hungary .
The Autonomous Province of Kosovo, as well as the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, were therefore not regarded as “socialist republics” in the Yugoslav constitution of 1974, although these units have since then largely corresponded to federal units according to constitutional criteria (they had their own parliaments, each with a seat in the federal Presidential council with veto power, etc.). With this trick, Tito succeeded in creating two more votes in the Presidency Council and thus consolidating his influence.
1974-1989
Albanization from 1967/1974
The Albanians use the constitutional revaluation of 1967 and 1974 to progressively Albanize public life at all levels. They established themselves by filling important positions in administration, the judiciary and in business. A renewed rapprochement between the leaderships of Yugoslavia and Albania led to the employment of teachers and the use of school books from Albania. In 1969 the bilingual University of Pristina was founded.
The previous discrimination against Albanians in Kosovo had turned into - albeit less pronounced - discrimination against Serbs. The Serbs and Montenegrins living in Kosovo were therefore exposed to increasing marginalization .
Tito's death, economic and constitutional crisis from 1980
Mismanagement, unemployment and corruption characterized the situation at the beginning of the 1980s.
With the death of Tito, the federal constitution of 1974 fell into a crisis. At the beginning of the 1980s, two political Yugoslav units, which were also intertwined, found themselves in a difficult position: the Republic of Serbia and the Autonomous Province of Kosovo.
The people of Kosovo, which had been kept dependent in the 1960s, now suffered similar difficulties as those in many former colonial areas . The self-employment under largely Kosovar Albanian leadership had not led to the hoped-for prosperity. On the contrary, the economic distance to the more prosperous republics had grown. On the part of the Kosovar Albanian population, the former Serbian rule was blamed for the desolate economic and political situation after independence. The emotional dissatisfaction could easily be directed towards the, even if only nominal, affiliation with Serbia, which was perceived as a contradiction to the ideal of "independence".
With the argument that they are the third largest nation in Yugoslavia after the Serbs and Croats, some Albanians demanded the status of a state people and the separation of Kosovo from Serbia. The province was to become an equal republic within the Yugoslav federation. The other republics and the Yugoslav federal government refused to do so and Serbia deposed the Kosovar provincial government.
This outbreak of the Kosovar-Albanian disappointment and the, at least in part, shifting of responsibility to Serbia not only led to a backlash there, but also exacerbated the already growing feeling of dissatisfaction and threat on this side. Coexistence between Serbs and Albanians deteriorated noticeably. This jeopardized the laboriously established peace between the ethnic groups. Social unrest among the Albanians in the 1980s therefore often had a national, anti-Serbian characteristic. This made the Kosovar Serbs feel threatened by the majority.
After Tito's death in 1980 at the latest, the Serbs began to express their displeasure in Kosovo and elsewhere. At the same time, a large number of Serbs emigrated from Kosovo (approx. 50,000 by 1981). One reason for this may have been the feeling that one now felt a stranger in one's own country, to which nationalist propaganda on both sides contributed. An important cause - as Serbian demographers found out in 1991 - was the poor economic situation. In addition, the Serbs had lost their privileges from before 1966 and now had to compete with the Albanians for jobs in the administrative apparatus. As a result, the economic situation of the Serbian population, which was now only a minority, deteriorated significantly in a short time.
Although the economic-social crisis was accompanied by national contradictions, inter-national (or inter-ethnic) relations in Yugoslavia were no more strained than in other multiethnic states until the 1980s. The ethnic gap was less pronounced than in some economically more developed countries and much smaller than, for example, in the USA . Only between (Kosovar) Albanians on the one hand and Serbs, Macedonians and Montenegrins on the other were there massive and sometimes racist prejudices on both the Albanian and the South Slavic side. Until 1990, however, according to the survey results, the majority of the Yugoslav population enjoyed belonging to Yugoslavia and even Europe rather than belonging to the respective republic or region ( less pronounced among Albanians, Slovenes and Croats than among the rest of the population). In this context, ethnic tensions can be viewed more as a consequence than a cause of the crisis and disintegration of Yugoslavia.
Against the background of economic and political legitimation problems, two opposing political currents emerged in the course of the 1980s. On the one hand, a group of politicians, especially in Slovenia, stood for the liberalization of the economy and politics, on the other hand, a group led by politicians in Serbia for recentralization and strengthening of the state. At the center of the controversy was the Yugoslav constitution of 1974, which concluded the process of federalization of socialist Yugoslavia. The weakening of the federal organs anchored in this as well as the establishment of a collective head of state committed to the principle of consensus had made political decision-making at the federal level more difficult and left extensive responsibilities to the six federal states and two autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina within the framework of the Republic of Serbia.
Special feature of the constitutional constitution of the Republic of Serbia
The Republic of Serbia felt particularly disadvantaged by the upgrading of its two autonomous provinces to constitutive parts of the federation ("trisection of Serbia"). The inconsistent territorial power of the Republic of Serbia had a catastrophic effect at the moment of the social crisis. For Serbia only, the Yugoslav state had planned the construction that although the republic nominally formed a unit, the two autonomous provinces actually formed independent units, in whose decisions the Serb republic government had no direct say. At the same time, however, central Serbia (Serbia in the narrower sense, i.e. without the two autonomous provinces) had no political representation of its own, but only that at republic level, for whose legislation the two provinces had a veto right . In terms of constitutional law, the Republic of Serbia had practically no influence in Vojvodina and Kosovo, but vice versa in central Serbia. Conversely, however, the very large Serbian (and other) minorities in other republics of Yugoslavia could not claim any autonomy rights for themselves, which for many Serbs was evidence that the status of the autonomous provinces was primarily aimed at giving Serbia within the Yugoslav federation weaknesses. The constitutional construction of the Republic of Serbia had a dangerous effect because the severe social crisis turned into an existential one in which the extreme economic decline, the increasing disintegration of the political system, the ideological uncertainty and the growing contradictions and distribution struggles more and more people in it Threatened existence.
Relationship between religion and nationalism
The crisis of legitimation of the state order of communist Yugoslavia gradually expressed itself since the beginning of the 1980s in a turn to religion, which was not limited to traditional religions, but also included new religious groups and esoteric ideas. The reaction to this was different in the various republics. In Serbia, the relatively weak Orthodox Church was hardly regulated by the state when it was politically active, which could include nationalist statements. In Bosnia, however, the authorities cracked down on Muslim nationalists. The gradually advancing Islamic return was viewed with suspicion by the state. The turn to religion was often nationalistic or was assessed as such by the authorities from the start. The fear of a Catholic-Protestant Europe associated with admission to the EC was not yet a central topic in the Serbian public in the 1980s, although some clergy distanced themselves from this Europe at the beginning of the decade. This attitude only gained importance when the West increasingly sided with the Serbian "opponents". This promoted the old image of Serbia, left to its own devices, to which “Catholicism” is hostile. When, at the end of 1990, the probability that the Yugoslav federation would break up increased and the CIA predicted this for the next 18 months, many saw the old border between West and East Rivers as the future fault line.
Kosovar-Albanian riots from 1981
In March 1981, the police broke up an Albanian student protest in Pristina for the improvement of the cafeteria, but there was no escalation between protesters and representatives of the state. In April, however, there were violent demonstrations, again by Albanian students in Pristina, but also in other cities. The motivation for the protests was strongly economic and social. The trigger was the poor conditions at the University of Pristina, which was completely overburdened with over 20,000 students, and whose accommodations, lecture halls and cafeteria were no longer able to cope with the requirements. In addition to the poor living conditions, the students protested against the lack of prospects, since many expected unemployment after graduation. Because in order to hide the unemployment rate, which rose from 18.6 to 27.5 percent between 1971 and 1981 , young people were encouraged to undertake an academic education, so that Kosovo had the highest student rate in Yugoslavia, but without a corresponding need to academics. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that a large proportion of the students were enrolled in the humanities faculty, where the communication of “national ideas” played a noticeable role. Some of the unrest had a nationalistic character and called for the status of a republic for Kosovo or called for the detachment from Yugoslavia and unification with Albania. The crackdown on the protests by the police resulted in numerous deaths and arrests. A state of emergency was imposed on the province of Kosovo for several months . Schools and factories have been closed, a curfew has been imposed and the entire province has been cordoned off. Around 30,000 soldiers took control of the neuralgic public places, and public life came to a complete standstill for a time.
Researchers have counted at least five underground groups that were active in 1981: the Movement for the National Liberation of Kosovo, the Marxist-Leninist Group of Kosovo, and the Red Front campaigned for the unification of Kosovo with the People's Socialist Republic of Albania . The Communist Party of Marxist-Leninists of Yugoslavia and the Movement for an Albanian Republic in Yugoslavia ( Lëvizja e Republikës Shqiptare në Jugosllavi ) demanded republic status for the province. The Serbian government accused Tirana of supporting separatism in Kosovo, but there were few demonstrators who were primarily supporters of Enver Hoxha's regime. When it looked as if the Kosovar government could not master the uprising, a state of emergency was declared and police officers from central Serbia advanced into Pristina and brutally suppressed the uprising. The leadership of Kosovo was changed on the orders of Belgrade. Since then, tensions between Albanians and Serbs have grown steadily, and federal and provincial government bodies have been unable to do anything about it. Rather, they fueled the nationality conflict by assigning blame on each other. A total of 584,373 Albanians were arrested, interrogated or expelled over the next eight years.
After the unrest in Kosovo, a “Committee of Serbs and Montenegrins” was formed, which tried with petitions and protest assemblies to draw attention to the poor situation of their ethnic group in Kosovo. In addition to resident Serbs, its members included retired military personnel, dismissed police officers and intelligence officers from the Ranković era, as well as criminals. It only collected 76 signatures for its first petition, but after four years the number of supporters had grown to 50,000.
Kosovar Serb demonstrations from 1983
Since the first nationalist mass rally by Serbs in Kosovo on the occasion of the death of Aleksandar Ranković in 1983, numerous actions had taken place that drew attention to the difficult situation in the province and called for a restriction of the autonomous rights, which were greatly expanded with the 1974 constitutional amendment. Until 1987, however, Serbian politicians had been quite reluctant to make nationalist statements, even if little action was taken against them in public.
Starting position in Kosovo in 1986
In May 1986 Slobodan Milošević became President of the Union of Communists of Serbia . Milošević had remained politically inconspicuous for a long time as a member of the Central Committee of the BdKJ and as director of the Belgrade Bank and was seen as a western- oriented reformer who would assert himself against the representatives of bureaucratically frozen institutions. As a former director of the Belgrade Bank, he had good international relations, especially in the USA . Many believed that he had the competence to reform the ailing economic system of the discredited representatives of the economic and political nomenclature .
Even before the 13th Yugoslav Party Congress in mid-July 1986, the establishment of mixed commissions from the Province, the Republic of Serbia and the Yugoslav Confederation was decided as the first extraordinary federal measure in Kosovo. The commissions were supposed to review the judiciary and the education system, especially the property sales since 1980, and were plausibly related to the situation in the region. Even on Serbian state television and radio, there was increasing and more intensive coverage of Kosovo until the mid-1980s, without taking a nationalistic or mythical direction.
Milošević's rise to power in 1987
In April 1987 a group of Serbian and Montenegrin activists arrived in Belgrade to invite the President and Communist Party Chairman of Serbia Ivan Stambolić to assess the situation on the ground because of the increasing problems in the Kosovo province. Stambolić, who himself did not want to be confronted with nationalist issues, sent Milošević for the delicate task.
On April 24, 1987, Milošević visited the House of Culture in Kosovo Polje in this context , after he was said to have agreed with the leaders of this committee four days earlier and had ensured nationwide television broadcasting. During his speech, members of the committee staged a brawl with the mostly Albanian police in front of the cultural center. In front of the cameras, Serbs complained to Milošević that they were being beaten by the Albanian police.
After initial hesitation, Milošević said in front of the assembled crowd and into the running camera the words: “Nobody is allowed to hit you!”, Which could be seen as a break with the communist line of suppression of nationalist attitudes that had been adhered to until then and was repeated quickly and repeatedly spread through the country's media, boosting his reputation as a nationalist and becoming the leader of the Serbs.
Within the League of Communists of Serbia, Milošević's faction of bureaucratic hardliners , who were striving for a centralistic and increasingly nationalistic course , prevailed after a dispute with moderate forces in September 1987 . After September 1987 the media loyal to the regime massively backed the demand to restrict the autonomy of the Serbian provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina.
Serbian takeover of power in Kosovo in 1988/1989
Since mid-1988 mass demonstrations (“Meetings of Truth” or “Meetings” for short) have been organized in Vojvodina, Serbia and Montenegro, at which the nationalist mood rose. By September, they often attracted 100,000 to 300,000 participants each, and on November 19 in Belgrade, finally, an estimated 350,000 to 1.3 million participants. Public pressure became a core part of politics in 1988 and 1989.
In October 1988 there were first successes in restricting the previous autonomy status, when after mass demonstrations by Serbs and Montenegrins with 15,000 participants in Kosovo leading politicians in Kosovo were excluded from the party. These were former Vice President Fadil Hoxha and six other high-ranking party officials of Albanian and Serbian nationality, including leading Albanian politicians Azem Vllasi and Kaqusha Jashari . Azem Vllasi was replaced by Rahman Morina , who was also Kosovar Albanian but was unpopular with Kosovar Albanians and who had been responsible for the violent crackdown on the unrest in 1981. The removal of leading politicians in Kosovo was followed by strikes in Trepča in November 1988 .
In other parts of Yugoslavia, the political leadership was overthrown by mass protests by the population. On October 5, 1988, the party leadership in the Serbian province of Vojvodina gave in to pressure from 100,000 demonstrators in the capital Novi Sad and that of the party headquarters and resigned. In Montenegro , too , the entire leadership (state and party presidium, parliamentary president, leadership of the Socialist League and members of the all-Yugoslav state and party leadership) resigned on January 11, 1989, when 80,000 to 150,000 people in Titograd (today again: "Podgorica") demonstrated against the poor economic situation and mismanagement. State bankruptcy had only been prevented in the previous period with money from the Yugoslav federal treasury, while more than a sixth of the population lived below the poverty line , according to official information .
An attempt by the Serbian communists to take over the Yugoslav party leadership and overthrow the BdKJ chairman Stipe Šuvar , however, failed at the end of January 1989.
In February 1989, the reduction of the autonomy rights achieved through additional provisions was followed by hunger strikes by the miners in Trepča and finally a general strike and solidarity rallies with the striking miners from Trepča. A major Albanian rally on February 26, 1989 attracted 300,000 participants. The Slovenian party leader Milan Kučan opposed the demand, represented by Milošević, to arrest the people behind the strike and on the evening of February 27, 1989, gave a speech, also broadcast live on Yugoslav television , in which he spoke about the miners' strike in Kosovo as a defense of Yugoslavia and its republics. The head of Serbian television, Dušan Mitević, commented on Kučan's speech for Serbian television viewers as a defense of separatism in Kosovo and Slovenia. After this TV broadcast caused the people in Belgrade to demonstrate the following night, the “ Meeting of the meetings ” took place on February 28 in Belgrade with around one million participants , calling for rigorous action in Kosovo. Even before the official decision on how to proceed in Kosovo was to be made on that day, thousands of workers who had been released from work for the day had made their way to the city from the suburbs. The President of Yugoslavia, Raif Dizdarević , was hooted by the crowd during a speech and allowed the party presidency to give in and authorize the operation of the Yugoslav People's Army in Kosovo. On March 1, 1989, a state of emergency was declared in Kosovo and troops were sent to the province.
In March 1989, additional legal provisions for the Serbian constitution were enacted, which de facto eliminated the autonomy: On March 23, the parliament of Kosovo, with the strong presence of the military and special police, voted for the new Serbian constitution, but without the usually necessary two-thirds majority. The delegates of the Vojvodina province had already voted in this regard. On March 28, the constitutional amendment was unanimously adopted by the Serbian parliament in Belgrade. With this, the Serbian leadership decided in future in its autonomous provinces not only in questions of the legal system, economic planning and internal and external security , but also in cultural matters. In May 1989, another amendment to the Serbian constitution stipulated that future constitutional changes no longer require the approval of the two autonomous provinces.
The expansion of Serbian control resulted in the worst unrest since the end of the war on March 27 and 28, which were of a civil war-like character. According to Amnesty International , 140 people were killed in the crackdown on the violent uprisings and demonstrations.
The revival of national ideas contributed significantly to the strengthening of the Serbian Orthodox Church . From autumn 1988 to winter 1989 the mortal remains of Prince Lazar were brought by the church to numerous “ holy ” places in Serbian-populated regions. Many people expressed their religious- national veneration upon the arrival of the relics . The highlight of the celebrations, chaired by the Serbian Orthodox Church, was the 600th anniversary of the Battle of the Blackbird Field on June 28, 1989, which was carried out with great effort and with the active participation of the population. The 15-minute so-called Blackbird Field Speech that Slobodan Milošević gave to probably over a million people on the occasion of the celebration in Kosovo on June 28, 1989, is often portrayed as a harbinger of the war in the former Yugoslavia. It was particularly polarized by the Western media, reported with incorrect information about the content of the speech and emphasized that Milošević had announced possible fights in the speech. The connection, however, is more complicated and does not stand out from the metaphors of war that have been used since 1987 , as they were used by the Slovenian party leader Milan Kučan , for example, before the Amselfeld speech , at the 8th plenary session of the Central Committee of the Serbian BdK in 1987 had warned: " Kosovo may soon become a Lebanon in the Balkans ".
The disintegration of Yugoslavia
In the summer of 1989 the economic situation improved significantly in terms of industrial production, exports and debt repayment, but inflation , which directly affects the population, could not be dampened and strikes broke out. In September 1989 the economically better off Yugoslav Republic of Slovenia enshrined in its new constitution the right to leave the Yugoslav state association. The reasons discussed in the press were that Slovenia on the one hand wanted to protect itself from constitutional changes like those made in Kosovo and on the other hand had no interest in financing Serbian politics in Kosovo, but not having a say in it. As a result, the tensions between Slovenia and Serbia escalated after the Yugoslav military was also directed against Slovenia's aspirations for independence, from December 1989 onwards into an economic war within the Yugoslav Confederation.
In 1989 the idea of a socialist society had already given way to a nationalist policy of the various leaderships of the republic. From autumn 1989, starting in Slovenia, the BdKJ gradually dissolved in the other republics as well, until it finally gave up its claim to leadership in state and society in early 1990. More and more independent, initially mostly social democratic organizations and parties were founded, but these were only gradually recognized. The dissolution of the party, which had largely been the basis of the Yugoslav state federation, deprived the state of its foundation, especially since with the exception of the new party of Prime Minister Ante Marković , who had been in office since March 1989, there was no longer any significant body that would have acted as a pan-Yugoslav force. The first free elections at the Yugoslav federal level, scheduled for April 1990, did not take place.
The economic conflicts between the Yugoslav republics and the dissolution of the former unifying socialist organization were increasingly countered by religious and national trends in the individual parts of Yugoslavia. In 1988 the relics of Lazar from the Ravanica monastery were brought to Kosovo and were solemnly received by the Serbian population everywhere. In June 1989 the 600th anniversary of the mythically inflated battle on the Amselfeld was celebrated, which is regarded as a nationalistic festival. In October 1989, tens of thousands of people took part in the celebration of the return of the remains of the Montenegrin King Nikola I to Montenegro, including emissaries of the European nobility and, for the first time, officially members of the Serbian dynasty Karađorđević . During the exhumation of the dead from the Second World War in 1990, especially in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the suffering of the relatives of the victims of crime, which was shown publicly for the first time, was intensively linked nationwide and intensively via the media to the current situation in Yugoslavia. The associated rehabilitation and even veneration of nationalist leaders and people from this time signaled the endeavor to build on this tradition, especially since the rehabilitation was not preceded by a coming to terms with the Second World War.
Leading Slovenian and Croatian politicians became increasingly hostile to Serbian politics in Kosovo. The Slovenian Prime Minister Dušan Šinigoj did not rule out giving Kosovo the status of its own republic. On the Croatian side, after his election victory , Franjo Tuđman even openly advocated giving the Kosovar Albanians territorial autonomy and the status of a “nation”. Tuđman referred in the nationalistically very charged situation expressly to Ante Starčević, the ideologist of a Greater Croatia , and came out with the statement that he saw in the “Independent Croatian State” of the fascist Ustaša an expression of the “old and never fulfilled longing of the Croatian people an independent state ”. He questions the current borders in Yugoslavia in favor of Croatia.
Slovenia moved purposefully out of the Yugoslav Federation in mid-1990. At the end of June 1990 the Slovenian State Presidium approved the preparation of a new constitution. Milan Kučan underlined that Slovenia would at best still be a member of a confederation. On July 2, the Slovenian parliament claimed control of the Yugoslav military on its territory and announced that it would set up its own counter-espionage, have the border crossings monitored by its own police and, within one year, establish an independent legal system and its own foreign and economic system - and to operate information policy. It declared those parts of the Yugoslav Federal Constitution that did not conform to the Slovenian Constitution to be invalid in future. The Slovenian government responded to the accusation by the Yugoslav state presidency and the Yugoslav federal parliament of breaking the Yugoslav constitution by declaring that the Yugoslav constitution had already been broken by Serbia's actions in Kosovo. The repeal of the provisions that had proclaimed priority over Yugoslav federal laws for Slovenian laws by the Yugoslav People's Court on January 11, 1991 had no effect, as this federal institution was also only recognized to a limited extent.
The army reacted to this disintegration as early as the spring of 1990 by attempting to lock the weapons of the territorial defense of the individual republics under lock and key. Only in Slovenia was there any resistance. On June 13, 1990, the largest anti-communist and anti-Milosevic demonstration to date took place in Belgrade with 30,000 to 50,000 participants. The Serbian media were put under limited pressure or harassed, which made an open public exchange about the country's problems even more difficult and promoted the dissemination of the government's view among the population. These attacks were also later authoritarian , but not totalitarian , since they always left room for opposition opinions.
During the divergent development in Yugoslavia, which since mid-1990 also increasingly included Croatia, Ante Markovic's federal government remained very cautious and limited itself almost exclusively to economic policy, the scope of which was narrowed by the increasingly aggressive economic war. In Croatia, on Palm Sunday 1990 , the HDZ celebrated the nationalist Franjo Tuđman with Catholic-Christian pathos as the new leader of the Croats and, after the election victory, appeared emphatically nationalist in the government, while the Serbian Croats on the Croatian change of power and the public return to the fascist Croat State responded with protest actions. On Vidovdan 1990, on the one hand, the request of the mayor of Knin, Milan Babić , for a communal administrative unit of the predominantly Serbian-populated Croatian areas was declared a resolution by local SDS leaders, while on the other hand, the HDZ published a draft for a new Croatian constitution that would detach it Croatia's communism and the downgrade of the Serbs from a state people to a minority. Triggered by an order from the Croatian government to rename the militia with the name Redarstvo used in the fascist Ustasha regime and to replace the star badge on the police hats with the checkerboard coat of arms ( Šahovnica ), which many Serbs consider to be the National Socialist swastika , refused Police officers on the territory of the southern Croatian Krajina (later Republic of Serbian Krajina ) showed their loyalty to the newly elected government, whereupon the so-called tree trunk revolution began in mid-August 1990 , during which the Croatian Serbs used the slogan “Ovo je Srbija” (“This (this area) is Serbia “) Used.
The elections in November and December 1990 confirmed the ruling nationalist forces in Montenegro and Serbia. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, nationalist forces also came to power, albeit divided into three separate parties for the Bosnian Muslims, the Serbs and the Croats. Only in Macedonia did the communists, who had not taken a nationalist course there, hold their own. The voters had thus largely confirmed the parties that pursued a further intensification of the differences and made the breakup of the state more and more likely. Another step towards the division of Yugoslavia was the vote of the voters in Slovenia, who on December 23, 1990 voted in favor of Slovenia's independence, while the state presidency, the federal government and the federal parliament condemned this.
In Croatia, the new Croatian constitution was also passed in December, removing the status of the “second nation” from the Serbs and giving them the status of “minority”. At the same time, the necessary two-thirds majority for nationality-political decisions of the Croatian parliament was abolished. In an atmosphere characterized by fears and aggression, the later offer by the Croatian government to grant the Serbs cultural autonomy and local self-government went unanswered. Rather, the Serbian population renounced Croatia as the “Autonomous Region of Krajina” in order to be able to remain in a confederation with the “mother republic” of Serbia. Rumors were circulating about the creation of a Greater Serbian solution. While Slovenia and Croatia were preparing at the federal level to leave the joint Yugoslav state, the Serbian leaders in both Croatia and Bosnia were now claiming the right for regions actually or supposedly predominantly Serbian to leave the emerging states. Both basic withdrawal movements mutually strengthened each other. At the end of January 1991, the situation worsened when the HDZ called on citizens to be ready to fight and Yugoslav television showed recordings of the Croatian Defense Minister Martin Špegelj and Interior Minister Josip Boljkovac during a conversation with members of a special unit, as they were from the “Physical liquidation” of people who were on a “black list” and, as the Croatian defense minister announced, to make “minced meat” from the town of Knin , which at that time was still predominantly Serbian . The following demand by President Borisav Jović to initiate an investigation against Špegelj was rejected by the Croatian government. The living situation for Serbs in Croatia deteriorated increasingly and there were dismissals for no reason.
From the turn of the year 1990/1991 there was no longer any functioning institution of the Yugoslav Confederation. The State Presidium met in what is known as the “extended framework”, that is, in the presence of the presidents of the republics. From around March they met independently of the state presidency, especially since the latter was increasingly manipulated by its chairman, the Serbian representative Jovic, with whom the Serbian Republic had taken over the presidency of the Yugoslav state presidency for one year in accordance with the constitutional rotation principle in May 1990 . The State Presidium was the highest commander in command of the army and, in this function, supported the Serbs in Knin in an advisory capacity in their resistance to the Croatian aspirations for independence.
The political instability worsened the economic situation further. The IMF refused to grant further urgently needed loans as long as the Yugoslav federal government could not provide evidence that it had an effective mechanism to enforce its economic policy. On June 19, 1991, the approval of a federal budget failed due to objections from Slovenia and Croatia. Both republics refused to continue providing funds for the federal administration and the army. Without the international loans, however, according to official information, over 1,500 companies with a total of over 700,000 employees were facing bankruptcy.
On March 25, 1991, Tuđman and Milošević met on the Karađorđevo agreement, where they are said to have agreed on their territorial interests. But already at the end of April / beginning of May civil war-like clashes between Croatian militias and the Yugoslav Federal Army began after Croatia decided by referendum on May 19 to break away from Yugoslavia and to seek an amicable dissolution of the federal state in favor of the establishment of sovereign individual states. At the same time, the Serbian government replaced the representative of Kosovo, who had still been appointed by the old provincial leadership, with the appropriate Sajda Bajramović and thus finally secured half of the votes in the state presidium, making any decision it did not approve of.
The warnings of US Secretary of State James Baker on June 21, 1991 that the US would not recognize independence under any circumstances had no effect in Croatia and Slovenia. On June 25, both republics declared their independence, but remained within the framework of monetary and security policy. The brief Slovenian War began on June 26, with clashes between the Yugoslav People's Army and the Slovenian armed forces. The Croatian War and the multi-year Bosnian War followed , during which hundreds of thousands of people of different ethnicities were displaced and numerous war crimes were committed on all sides.
In the end, the EC , the CSCE / OSCE and the UN did not resolve how to deal with the parties involved in the conflict or the armed conflicts and did not establish themselves as peace-building bodies in the region.
A turning point came when the USA intervened in the conflict of the Bosnian War and with it NATO , which had got into an orientation and legitimation crisis after the end of the Cold War and was trying to give itself a new field of security policy. In contrast to the EC, the USA clearly committed to the Serbian side when it came to assigning blame. The high level of stringency in its threats and execution of military force against the Bosnian Serbs gave the USA a stronger reputation as an intervention power with assertiveness.
The components of threat of violence, quick and decisive action, unequivocal determination of a culprit in the conflict and American dominance became a paradigm of Western intervention in the Yugoslav crisis. With the beginning of the escalation in the Kosovo conflict in 1997, the West quickly resorted to this intervention paradigm to allegedly solve the crisis. However, the conditions of the conflict in Kosovo were very different in many areas from those in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was particularly important that NATO acted in Kosovo as a self-appointed and unauthorized intervention force without a mandate from the UN Security Council . Since there was no legitimation under international law, a new doctrine of “ humanitarian intervention ” was created. Accordingly, NATO justified its war in breach of international law by referring to a moral obligation to avert an allegedly threatening " humanitarian catastrophe ".
Kosovo during the Milošević era (1989–1999)
Restriction of autonomy
After the Kosovar parliament approved the amendment of the Serbian constitution on March 23, 1989, the autonomy of the Serbian autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina was in fact lifted. A state of emergency was imposed on Kosovo, including arbitrary arrests without legal basis or assistance. Over 200 Albanians were placed in solitary confinement and some were mistreated there.
In Serbia, however, there was also criticism of the state's Kosovo policy. The Serbian sociologist and opposition politician Zoran Đinđić wrote in 1988:
“ It would be wrong to believe that Serbia's constitutional problem (will) be solved by returning Kosovo to its (Serbia's) state political custody. Then ... Kosovo (will) be a permanent source of repression in any future Serbian state. Serbia can only constitute itself as a political community if its borders are determined by the will of its (actual and potential) residents. "
Measures for Serbization and Centralization 1990
As in other parts of the country in the run-up to the wars in Yugoslavia, the situation worsened in Kosovo in 1990. Anti-Albanian demonstrations followed by Kosovar Albanian demonstrations with up to 40,000 participants, which began on January 24 and were violently encountered by Yugoslav security forces in southern Yugoslavia at the end of January 1990. In February, tanks, fighter jets and on February 21, the Federal Army were used for the first time. When the deaths came again, federal authorities finally agreed to investigate police operations. The Serbian Interior Minister Radmilo Bogdanović accused Slovenia of tolerating the transport of arms from Italy and Hungary to the insurgents. After symptoms of poisoning among Kosovar Albanian schoolchildren in Podujevo and Kosovska Mitrovica in the spring of 1990, which had led to mutual accusations from the Serbian and Kosovar Albanian sides, the Serbian government took over the police in Kosovo, dismissed 200 Albanian police officers and replaced over 2500 Serbians . The Albanian police chief, the prime minister of Kosovo and six of his ministers resigned. After the Serbian government announced on April 17 that it had completely taken over police power in Kosovo, the state of emergency that had existed since February 1989 was lifted and over a hundred Albanian political prisoners were released.
In the spring of 1990, the Serbian parliament passed two programs that laid down the guidelines for the Serbization of Kosovo: the program for peace, freedom, equality, democracy and welfare (March 22, 1990) and the development program to end emigration and the return of Serbs and Montenegrins . Internal security in Kosovo was assigned to the Serbian Ministry of the Interior, which decided to set up a special police force, as had existed under Ranković. In addition to the special police, there were also nationalist militant groups, such as the paramilitaries of Željko Ražnatović , known as "Arkan" , or the "White Eagles" of Vojislav Šešelj , who are said to have extorted money and valuables from the population with house searches.
The situation in Kosovo worsened in the early summer of 1990 after the authorities began enacting a series of new Serbian decrees on June 26, based on the Law on the Activities of Bodies of the Republic in Extraordinary Circumstances . The Albanian authorities in Kosovo were largely suspended and replaced by Serbian ones, the Academy of Arts and Sciences of Kosovo was closed and thousands of state employees were laid off. The radio and television stations as well as the Albanian-language press were taken over by Serbian broadcasters and their Albanian employees were dismissed. In addition, a new Serbian constitution was passed in the early summer of 1990, which deprived Kosovo of its legislative power.
On July 2, 1990, 114 of the 123 Kosovar Albanian members of the Kosovar Parliament (the parliament had 180 seats in total) declared the area to be an equal and independent unit within the Yugoslav Federation. On September 7th they later unanimously adopted a new constitution defining Kosovo as the seventh republic of Yugoslavia. The Serbian parliament, on the other hand, annulled the decision of July 2 on July 5 and dissolved the parliament and government of Kosovo, but kept the representative of the province, which it needed for its policy at federal level, in the state presidium. Tens of thousands of Kosovar Albanians went on strike, against which the Serbian security forces cracked down on. On July 10, the representative of Kosovo left the Yugoslav state presidency.
On July 26, 1990, the Law Regulating Labor Under Special Conditions was passed, which further encouraged the employment of non-Albanian workers and provided harsh penalties for strikers. About 70 percent of Albanians employed in administration and the public economy are said to have lost their jobs because they refused to recognize this law in writing. Both unprofitable and profitable farms were shut down. Kosovar Albanians have been removed from the management of profitable holdings. A new law stipulated that a Serb or Montenegrin was to be employed in the company for every Albanian. The union of Kosovar companies with Serbian ones resulted in an economic collapse. The most striking example is the bankruptcy of the Bank of Kosovo , in which 66,000 foreign currency savings balances estimated at around 100 million US dollars were confiscated from the state Jugobanka without redeeming the obligations to the savers. If Kosovar Albanian workers and employees refused to consent to Serbian politics in writing, they were also dismissed, which affected around 45 percent of them within a year. A few years later it should have been 90 percent.
At the end of 1990 the situation in Kosovo worsened. The new Serbian curriculum was adopted in schools. Albanian language, history and literature were therefore reduced to a minimum, and entrance exams in Serbian language and literature had to be taken in future to enroll in high school. In December 1990, Albanian teachers and students were only allowed into their school if they agreed to this new curriculum, after which they began to build private schools. At the beginning of the summer half year, access to primary schools was reopened because the Yugoslav constitution required primary school attendance, but lessons for Kosovar Serb and Kosovar Albanian children took place in separate rooms. In 1990 the Serbian government introduced the Serbian curriculum at the University of Pristina, which, together with the Serbization of school lessons, led to renewed protests, as a result of which many Kosovar Albanians were arrested.
Nonviolent resistance and shadow state of the Albanians
After the de facto abolition of the autonomy of Kosovo as a result of the constitutional amendment, legislation and jurisdiction in Kosovo were transferred to the Serbian authorities by means of various legal provisions, the police were subordinate to the Serbian Ministry of the Interior and the Serbian authorities had direct intervention in the administration with the help of a further exceptional law in June 1990 of Kosovo has been allowed. The Kosovar-Albanian MPs in the Kosovar parliament initially reacted by proclaiming the province of Kosovo as the seventh republic in the Yugoslav state association, whereupon Serbia dissolved parliament on July 5, 1990 and then practically all Albanian executives were dismissed.
In September 1990 the Kosovar parliament proclaimed the “Republic of Kosova” with the “ Kaçanik Constitution”, in which generous minority rights were granted, and elected Ibrahim Rugova as its first “President”. In September 1991 over 90% of Kosovar Albanians voted in a referendum for the independence of their province, but this was only recognized with restrictions by Albania . Presidential and parliamentary elections were held in May 1992, from which Rugova and the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) emerged victorious.
In the following period, under the leadership of Rugovas LDK, to which most of the Albanian former BdKJ members had now joined, the establishment of a parallel state ( polycracy ) began. Because Serbian institutions were boycotted, the shadow state organized Albanian schools, medical care, local public transport and help for the needy. It was financed, among other things, by levies from the Kosovar Albanian diaspora . The approximately 500,000 Kosovar Albanian labor migrants in Western and Central Europe paid at least 3% of their income to the LDK. In 1997, 28 million German marks were officially recorded as revenue.
The Serbian policy towards Kosovo, which has led to Albanian parallel structures, has been sometimes misleadingly referred to as the " apartheid system ". However, it was not, as the term suggests, a system of ethnic separation imposed by the Serbian government , but a system that the Kosovar Albanians set up themselves in view of the abolition of their political and cultural autonomy and their economic disadvantage. The Albanian side had also shown no interest in a compromise that would have led to a common solution.
Slovenian politicians in particular , such as the incumbent Yugoslav head of state Janez Drnovšek in 1989 , saw the Serbian Kosovo policy as an increasing obstacle to the integration of Yugoslavia into European organizations that they wanted. This accelerated the breakup of Yugoslavia .
The Serbian police harassed individual Albanians, but otherwise the Serbian authorities tolerated the shadow state, and the widespread corruption among the police also weakened the state organs. Although the Serbian opposition largely agreed with government policy on the Kosovo issue, the possibility of cooperation was never explored by Rugova and the LDK. Kosovar Albanian critics of the LDK such as Veton Surroi and Adem Demaçi increasingly accused Rugova of a passive, rigid and unsuccessful policy.
From the Dayton Treaty to the Kosovo conflict
At the Hague Conference on Yugoslavia no representatives of Kosovo were involved. After the Serbian and Croatian conquests in Bosnia were effectively recognized with the Dayton Treaty , the Albanians grew dissatisfied with Rugova's nonviolent policies. First, there were student demonstrations in Pristina in the winter of 1996 and 1997, which took place without Rugova's consent. The students demanded the return of the university buildings. In 1996 a splinter group, the Lëvizja Kombëtare për Çlirimin e Kosovës (LKÇK), carried out several bomb attacks on camps for Serb refugees from Bosnia. The UÇK also went public for the first time with letters confessing to bomb attacks. The origins of the militant groups are obscure; they probably go back to Albanian resistance cells of the early 1980s, which were ideologically oriented towards Enver Hoxha's Albanian Marxism-Leninism and formed in the early 1990s. With the collapse of state authority in Albania in 1997 (“ lottery uprising ”), they were given the chance to arm themselves and set up training camps and retreat areas in northern Albania, on the border with Kosovo. The armed clashes between the Serbian state organs and the initially poorly organized and armed Albanian guerrillas increased.
Kosovo conflict and Kosovo war from 1997
From around November 1997 the conflict in the Serbian Autonomous Province of Kosovo turned into an armed internal conflict, in which the Albanian rebel organization UÇK oriented itself according to the tactical principles of a civil war , and in which NATO from March 24, 1999 with a military Intervention should intervene. Neither the Yugoslav leadership nor other governments, however, treated the violent final phase of the Kosovo conflict from late 1997 as a civil war. The UÇK was initially viewed by both the Yugoslav government and the Western side as a terrorist organization, but was later treated and promoted as an equal negotiating partner, particularly at the instigation of the USA.
Domestic armed conflict
On November 28, 1997, the Albanian national holiday, the KLA appeared in public for the first time at the funeral of an Albanian teacher who died in police custody. On January 4, 1998, the KLA announced that it was the Albanian armed force that would fight until the unification of Kosovo with Albania .
In February 1998, the Serbian special police MUP attacked several villages in the Drenica region with the aim of killing Adem Jashari , a KLA leader. In the attacks on the villages of Donji Prekaz and Qirez , 87 Albanians, including 29 women, children and the elderly, were killed. After this so-called "Drenica Massacre", international organizations intervened in the conflict.
The Balkan Contact Group and the OSCE condemned the use of violence and called on both sides to engage in dialogue. The Serbian political spectrum was fundamentally hostile towards the Albanians at the time (except for the small party of the civil alliance ). A typical example of public opinion making was a comment on the Kosovo debate by Aleksa Djilas (who was even described as a liberal intellectual in the West). His comment in the April issue of the nationalist Belgrade magazine Argument was titled:
" Whatever Israel can do to the Palestinians, the Serbs may do to the Albanians "
A referendum held in April 1998 on the question of whether foreign representatives should be allowed to mediate in the Kosovo conflict was, as was already to be expected, against the majority. The talks that took place the following month between Rugova and Milošević in Belgrade were soon broken off.
The fighting in Kosovo continued; according to UNHCR and ICRC data, there were 160,000 internally displaced persons by the end of August . In September 1998 the UN Security Council called for the withdrawal of the Serbian units (Resolution 1199), while NATO threatened Serbia with air strikes for the first time (ACTWARN decree). In October, the “ Holbrooke- Milošević Agreement” was signed, in which the deployment of an OSCE observer mission was agreed. The situation initially eased, and the majority of internally displaced persons subsequently returned. The KLA took advantage of the cease-fire and, in open provocation against the Serbs, reestablished control over many positions that had been vacated by the Serbian troops relocated as part of the agreement.
"Račak Massacre" 1999
When at least 40 bodies with gunshot wounds were found near the village of Račak on January 16, 1999 , the head of the OSCE mission, the US American William G. Walker , accused the Serbian security forces during the first inspection of the site in the presence of the world press to have committed a massacre of 45 civilians in a crime against humanity . Doubts about the thesis of a massacre arose in particular because the dead were not shot at close range as suggested by Walker. A forensic medical examination carried out after the end of the war confirmed the doubts that a “massacre” had taken place, but the interim results presented at the press conference on March 17, 1999 were confirmed in an OSCE press release published on March 17 as confirmation of the killing of at least 40 unarmed civilians presented, largely perceived by the public as a confirmation of a massacre and often served to legitimize a tougher action, especially by the USA and some NATO countries, against the Serbian-Yugoslav side. The US government called for immediate military intervention, and the EU and Balkan Contact Group still spoke out in favor of an upstream conference.
Rambouillet Treaty 1999
The pressure on the conflicting parties increased, on February 6, 1999 the Rambouillet conference was called and presented as the last chance for a peaceful solution. The peace agreement presented there on February 23rd provided for extensive self-government for Kosovo while remaining in the Serbian-Yugoslav state association. After three years, an international conference should finally decide on its status. As in the Dayton Treaty , compliance with the agreement should be monitored by NATO troops. The Kosovar-Albanian delegation signed the agreement on March 18, 1999, although their demand for a referendum on the future of Kosovo's state was not granted. The Serbian delegation agreed to all demands concerning the Albanian side, such as a ceasefire, an end to the common attacks against the Kosovar Albanians and peaceful coexistence. But the Serbs refused to sign the contract with reference to the public until negotiations end withheld Annex B of the Treaty on because in their view, the fact of NATO granted right of "free and unrestricted traffic and unimpeded access throughout the Yugoslav federation" a would have meant unacceptable occupation of the country by NATO troops. On March 24th the NATO air raids on Serbia began.
NATO military intervention 1999
The NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia finally forced Slobodan Milošević to give in. Since not only Serbian military targets were attacked in the NATO air strikes, but also Serbian power plants, factories, bridges, office buildings as well as houses and refugee convoys through incorrect drop-offs, around 500 Serbs and Albanians were killed as a result of an investigation by the war crimes tribunal in The Hague .
The withdrawal of the Yugoslav army ended the bloody conflict in Kosovo for the time being. On June 10, 1999, the UN Security Council resolved in its resolution 1244 to set up a civil interim administration ( UNMIK ) and to deploy a peacekeeping force ( KFOR ), whose tasks are to ensure the return of refugees, disarm the parties to the conflict and to build institutions belonged to the self-government of Kosovo. Kosovo thus temporarily became a kind of protectorate of the United Nations . On June 12, there was a Russian advance into Pristina and the invasion of NATO troops.
According to information from the UNHCR refugee agency , around 250,000 people were displaced from Kosovo after the withdrawal of the Yugoslav troops, whereas the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry estimates a figure of around 350,000. The majority of the displaced consisted of Serbs as well as Roma, Jews, Turks and other minority groups. In February 2009, five Serbian high-ranking officials were sentenced to long terms by the International Court of Justice in The Hague for mass murders and rape by Serbian troops and the systematic displacement of Kosovar Albanians .
Estimates of the number of those killed during the 1998/1999 conflict vary between 9,000 and up to 15,000. The war crimes tribunal in The Hague is currently dealing with the events.
Kosovo between war and declaration of independence
Situation of the minorities after the NATO war until mid-March 2004
Human and civil rights situation of the minorities
After the end of the war, tens of thousands of Serbs rushed to flee Kosovo with the withdrawing Yugoslav troops before their former Kosovar-Albanian neighbors returned. The subsequent excesses of violence, particularly against the Serbian minorities, but also against other minorities in the region, confirmed their fears in retrospect. On August 3, 1999, the human rights organization Human Rights Watch complained that KFOR was not providing adequate protection for Serbs and Roma in Kosovo, who had been subjected to attacks, mostly by the KLA. In 2008, long-time chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal (ICTY), Carla Del Ponte , made serious accusations against the judiciary and politicians in Kosovo, alleging that the KLA had committed organ harvesting and trafficking in Kosovo , the victims of which were mainly Kosovar Serbs and Roma, not to have pursued. In 2010, the allegations were reinforced by a two-year investigation for the Council of Europe .
On August 20, 1999, the UN refugee commissioner Sadako Ogata reported that 170,000 of the 200,000 Serbs had fled the province. According to the Serbian Orthodox Church , over 40 churches had been looted or destroyed. In Kosovar Albanian public opinion, Serbs were generally assumed to be war criminals who had no right to live in Kosovo. While almost all Kosovar Albanians are said to have returned within weeks of the end of the fighting, this should not have been the case for most of the refugee Serbs, despite the efforts of UNMIK after more than four years.
The situation of the Serbs and Roma remaining in Kosovo, 90 percent of whom, according to Amnesty Internationals estimates, were unemployed, was - as Polónyi puts it - “pathetic”. In June 1999, Serbs were also excluded from all jobs in administration and in state-owned companies. At the risk of attacks by extremist Kosovar Albanians, members of minorities often did not venture out of their settlements. According to Cedda Prlincević , the head of the Jewish community in Pristina who was married to a Serb and who fled in the summer of 1999, the UÇK treats everyone indiscriminately as collaborators who do not support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia. The entire non-Albanian population was affected by the displacement. When Veton Surroi , editor of the Kosovar Albanian daily Koha Ditore , described violent displacement as “organized and systematic intimidation of all Serbs” and condemned it as unjustified and “fascist”, radical forces indirectly called for his murder. UNMIK statistics on ethnically motivated violence from mid-October 1999 showed a “shocking” number of murders, kidnappings, looting and arson for the four preceding months alone, despite the high number of unreported cases. A UNHCR report of November 3, 1999 summarized the situation of the minorities in Kosovo: “ There is a climate of violence and lawlessness as well as widespread discrimination, harassment and intimidation of the non-Albanian population. The combination of a lack of security, restricted freedom of movement and inadequate access to public facilities (especially in education, health care and the payment of pensions) is currently the determining factor, especially for Serbs, but also for other non-Albanian groups, to leave Kosovo " .
The dangerousness of the situation was further enhanced by the behavior of many non-governmental organizations , of which a large number had established themselves in Kosovo after the end of the NATO war. As a rule, they refused to cooperate with Serbs, so there was little effort to set up patrols and improve the protection of civilians. Under the conditions of anti-Serbian sentiment among Western organizations, which were intensified by the war, and the close cooperation of many aid organizations with the media in the service of promoting donations, the humanitarian aid was not impartial.
The majority of the Serbian population of Kosovo concentrated after the war in the northern part of the city of Kosovska Mitrovica (alban .: Mitrovica), in the surrounding villages and in enclaves around Kosovo Polje (Fushë Kosovë), Peć (Peja), Gračanica (Graçanica) , Gnjilane (Gjilan), Orahovac (Rahovec) and Obilić (Obiliq), but in the further course and especially with the March pogroms of 2004 they were pushed out of some of these places such as Kosovo Polje or Obilić. Compared to the statistically very young Kosovar Albanian population, the aging of the Kosovar Serb population is also striking. Even in the event of a significant improvement in the security situation of the Kosovar Serbs and in the event of progress with regard to the return of the refugees, the demographic differences compared to the Kosovar Albanians will result in an increasing marginalization of the Kosovar Serbs in the coming decades in terms of their proportion of the population Expect Kosovo.
The Roma and their related Ashkali and Kosovo-Egyptians, who had been subjected to “aggressive Serbization” since the de facto abolition of the autonomy of the province of Kosovo in 1990 and were occasionally victims of Serb attacks, have been the victims of Serbian attacks since the end of the NATO war and the Beginning of the occupation of Kosovo by KFOR, downright persecuted by the Kosovar Albanians and treated in a devastating manner as collaborators of the Serbs and traitors to the Kosovar Albanians. Most of them had not refused military service in the Yugoslav army and were therefore also involved in military actions against Kosovar Albanians. Roma had participated in some looting and had often joined the Communist League of Yugoslavia, which had increased their job opportunities. In addition, the Serbian government involved them in its delegation in Rambouillet to challenge the Albanians' "hegemonic claims". In November 1999, on behalf of the Society for Threatened Peoples , reports were made of the burning of Roma houses, as well as kidnappings and murders of them. The international aid organizations have done little to change the catastrophic living situation of the Roma, as their staff consists mainly of Albanians who try to prevent the distribution to Roma. The Roma families remaining in Pristina had not dared to leave their homes for over half a year due to continued attacks.
According to the IWPR , 120,000 Roma have left Kosovo since mid-June 1999. Of the estimated 150,000 Roma before the start of the conflict, only 10,000 are said to have remained at the end of July 1999. At the end of 2002, it is estimated that only 15,000 members of smaller minorities remained in Kosovo, almost all of whom were unemployed and now lived in their settlements like ghettos , from which they hardly dared to leave. In these conditions there were significantly fewer violent attacks. Of the 19,000 houses they owned, 14,000 are said to have still been destroyed, while the habitable houses were often occupied by Kosovar Albanians. The Albanian courts generally did not support the rights of non-Albanian owners.
In addition to many individual acts of violence, there were blood crimes with many deaths, such as the shooting of 14 people between the ages of 15 and 60 during harvest work in Staro Gračko on July 23, 1999 (so-called “ harvest massacre ”) or the so-called “Niš Express bomb attack” ”(Also“ Niš Express Massacre ”) of February 16, 2001. When solving serious crimes (including particularly serious crimes such as the“ Harvest Massacre ”, the“ Niš Express Massacre ”, the“ River Massacre of Goraždevac “of August 13, 2003 or like the murder of the Stolić family in Obilić in June 2003), according to UNMIK press spokeswoman Susan Manuel and UNMIK police spokesperson Derek Chappell, no great successes were achieved due to the lack of popular support. In 2012, for example, the only suspect for the “Niš Express massacre”, the youngest of the twelve victims of which was two years old, was acquitted for lack of evidence.
In the spring of 2003 Amnesty International published an annual report according to which the Serbian population in the Protectorate of Kosovo, administered with extensive special powers by UNMIK, had been exposed to violent attacks and also denied the other non-Albanian inhabitants of Kosovo “basic human rights” and the exercise of “civil, political rights , social, economic and cultural rights "was withheld, while for offenders" continued impunity "prevailed. In the summer of 2003, a series of attacks on residents of the Serbian enclaves in Kosovo began. Amnesty International ruled out a return of the refugee minorities as "impossible" under the given conditions. According to Ursula Rütten, ethnically motivated acts of violence were still “the order of the day” in 2003 and only defied Serbs in terms of victims to the extent that the Serbs entrenched themselves in their enclaves guarded by KFOR checkpoints or refrained from exercising their rights Return to their homes to see their Albanian neighbors.
A report by the Society for Threatened Peoples from November 2004 summarized: “ In the period from 1999 to the pogroms in March 2004, there were virtually no arrests of perpetrators who were responsible for a number of indiscriminate murders of minority members in Kosovo. According to estimates by the head of the STP team in Kosovo, the minorities of Serbs, Roma, Ashkali and others have suffered over 1,000 deaths since 1999. (According to the UNHCR, twelve Serbs were murdered from January to November 2003, five in the previous year.) "
Condition, treatment and endangerment of cultural assets
The acts of violence on the Kosovar Albanian side were and are not only directed against the Kosovar Serb population. Since the withdrawal of the Serbian troops, there have been numerous attacks against Serbian cultural monuments in Kosovo, in particular against Orthodox churches and monasteries. Irreplaceable art treasures such as the Patriarchal Monastery of Peć , the Monastery of Visoki Dečani or the Monastery of Gračanica require the uninterrupted protection of KFOR units in order to counter targeted "vandalism" by the Kosovar Albanian side. In 1999 and 2000 there were various missions of the International Committee of the Blue Shield (Association of the National Committees of the Blue Shield, ANCBS) in Kosovo with regard to the protection of cultural property (museums, archives, libraries, etc.).
In January 2003 the Serbian side reported a balance sheet of the acts of violence against Serbian art treasures and historical buildings, according to the 372 cultural objects listed according to international criteria, 49 of which date from the Middle Ages, 21 cultural monuments of the first and second category and 31 of the third Category had been destroyed without the KFOR troops having prevented or prevented this.
A report prepared on the basis of the joint work of Yugoslav and Italian experts ( architects , historians , conservators , ethnologists, etc.) attempted in 2003 to draw the local and international public's attention to the “alarming state” of the cultural property in Kosovo and to take measures for protection and preservation and to offer the revitalization of destroyed, damaged and endangered cultural assets in accordance with international conventions and standards. Of the categorized, protected and recognized cultural monuments of Christian Orthodox and Islamic sacred and country-specific architecture recorded in the report, 40 objects were destroyed or devastated. 13 of these destroyed monuments belong to the “first category” (ie of outstanding importance) cultural property. They are churches from the 13th century or from the period between the 14th and 16th centuries. All of the devastated monuments of Christian origin were damaged or, more often, destroyed after civil and military forces from the United Nations arrived in Kosovo province in June 1999. The report states that in Metohija are numerous cultural monuments of the highest value for the European and national heritage for which no protection is provided in most cases. The extent of the destruction of cultural goods is unprecedented in European history and "vandalism" continues - with the exception of a few sacred objects protected by KFOR.
Among the destroyed cultural assets of outstanding importance in the Dečani municipality is the Brvnara Danilovića house ( Danilović's log cabin ) in Loćane, in the Đakovica municipality the Church of St. Nicholas ( Crkva Svetog Nikole ) in akurakovac, in the Istok der Stambena municipality Kula Tomića ( Tomić's Residential Tower ) in Koš, in the municipality of Klina the Church of Crkva Sv. Nikole ( The Church of St. Nicholas ) in Čabići, the Monastery of Manastir Svetog Petra i Pavla ( The Monastery of St. Peter and Paul ) in Dobra Voda, the Monastery of Manastir Vavedenja Bogorodice ( The Monastery of the Presentation of the Holy Virgin in the Temple ) in Dolac and the church of Crkva Svete Petke ( The Church of St. Paraskeve ) in Drsnik , in the municipality of Mališevo the church of Crkva Svetog Nikole ( The Church of St. Nicholas ) in Kijevo, and the church of Crkva Svetog Nikole ( The Church of St. Nicholas ) in Mlečane, in the municipality of Suva Reka the church Crkva Svete Bogorodice Odigitrije ( The Church of the Virgin Hodegetria ) as well as the monastery Manastir Svete Trojice ( Monastery of the Holy Trinity ) in Mušutište and the church Crkva Svetog Đorđa ( The Church of St. George ) in Rečane, as well as the Church of Manastir Svetih Arhanžđela ( The Monastery of Holy Archangels ) in Gornje Nerodimlje in the municipality of Uroševac .
March 2004 riots
From March 17-19, 2004, this initial situation in Kosovo saw a renewed outbreak of ethnic violence with pogrom-like proportions.
In several places between March 17 and 19, 2004 (depending on the source) at least 19 deaths, including 11 Kosovar Albanians and 8 Serbs, and around 1,000 injured. Over 4,000 people (mostly Serbs) had to flee their homes or were expelled. In addition to Kosovar Serbs, Roma and Ashkali were also affected. Around 600 to 800 mostly Serbian houses and more from Ashkali and Roma as well as ten administrative buildings were set on fire or destroyed - often in the presence of KFOR. At least 22 Orthodox churches were burned down or burned down, and 11 churches and monasteries were partially badly damaged. Over 50,000 people participated in this violence.
From March 16, i.e. immediately before and during the pogroms, which were mainly directed against the Kosovar Serbs, the Albanian media had irresponsibly fueled the mood with emotionally overloaded, one-sided, and nationalist sensational reports by stating the deaths of two or three drowned Albanian children on March 16 and 17 in the light of an ethnically motivated crime by Kosovar Serbs. To make these allegations, the Albanian media did not wait for the results of a police investigation, which rejected the allegations against the Serbs as baseless.
Apparently, both the UNMIK police and the German KFOR unit, at least in Prizren, took a very long time to appear at the scene of the riot, although the German KFOR unit had been informed by the Albanian human rights activist Bashkim Hisari . A study published by the Serbian Ministry of Culture in collaboration with the (expelled) Museum of Pristina in 2004 found that the riots had all the characteristics of a pogrom . Thousands of Albanians, who were led by armed extremist groups and members of the Kosovo Protection Corps , carried out a "systematic ethnic cleansing" of the remaining Serbs throughout the region, accompanied by the destruction of houses, property, cultural monuments and Christian Orthodox -religious sites. The civil and military international forces were “amazed” and “surprised”, although the Serbian Orthodox Church, especially the Orthodox diocese of Raška and Prizren , tried to draw attention to the situation in advance.
During these events, the apparent hatred of Kosovar Albanians was for the first time clearly directed against UNMIK, against whom “Unmik armik!” (“Unmik, our enemy!”) Is said to have been chanted in Prizren. More than a hundred members of the UN Police (KPS) are said to have been injured and UN personnel to have been evacuated in Kosovska Mitrovica.
The report of the Society for Threatened Peoples by Paul Polanskys from November 2004 came to the conclusion that the "forms of ethnic cleansing [...] had increased sharply with and since March 2004". It is “becoming increasingly clear that extremist Albanians want an» ethnically cleansed «Kosovo by the day of independence.” With the exception of a few Serbs, “who have drew new hope (in the form of UN support) after the unlawful acts in March ”,“ Actually none of the minorities see their future in Kosovo ”. KFOR protection troops and UNMIK police are "either unable or unwilling [...] to take action against the violence of the Kosovar Albanians." Particularly for the "demonstrations and riots in March" it became clear that "the international institutions are helplessly overwhelmed the situation in Kosovo. In many cases they failed and did not come to the aid of the victims even though their bases were in the same place. [...]. The soldiers of the German Bundeswehr also failed in Prizren. They were not even allowed to use tear gas against Albanian attackers. "
In the Prizren district in particular , which is monitored by German KFOR troops , invaluable cultural assets, some of which date back to the 14th century, were irrevocably destroyed. Six of the 19 devastated cultural monuments are classified in the “First Category” of protection, ie objects of outstanding importance: the Crkva Svetog Spasa (Church of St. Savior) in Prizren, the Bogorodica Ljeviška in Prizren, the Crkva Sv. Nikole "Tutićeva" (Church of St. Nicholas "Tutić Church") in Prizren, the Tvrđava Kaljaja (Fortress of Kaljaja) in Prizren, the Archangel Monastery in Prizren and the Manastir Devič (Monastery of Devič) in the municipality of Srbica . They are churches from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. In addition to the 19 objects in categories 1 to 3, 16 other religious objects of no value as cultural heritage were devastated, i.e. a total of 35 cultural objects and churches.
The March riots caused severe "damage to the image of the Albanian leadership and the entire Albanian ethnic group in Kosovo". The political leadership of the Kosovar Albanians, who tried to gain international support for the independence policy and “could be sure of the sympathy and support of the West for the Belgrade rulers for many years”, suddenly saw themselves internationally accused of “ethnic cleansing” ", Even if some officials of NATO and UN did not see the acts of violence as" ethnic cleansing ".
Second parliamentary elections 2004
The second parliamentary elections in Kosovo on October 23, 2004 again won the LDK under President Rugova. With a turnout of only 53%, it had a voting share of over 45%. All Albanian parties that had entered parliament spoke out in favor of Kosovo's independence soon. The majority of Serbs boycotted the elections.
In December 2004 the parliament elected the former UÇK leader Ramush Haradinaj from the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo ( Albanian Aleanca për Ardhmërinë e Kosovës , also AAK for short ) as Prime Minister. In March 2005 he was forced to resign after the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) brought charges against him. Before and during the war in Kosovo, Haradinaj is said to have committed serious crimes, mainly against Serbian, but also against Albanian civilians. He was acquitted in 2008 because all but one of the named witnesses were killed by external agents and the only surviving witness withdrew his testimony. Bajram Kosumi (also AAK) was elected as his successor . Its coalition government included two new ministers, all from the old Haradinaj cabinet.
With the death of the Kosovar Albanian President Ibrahim Rugova on January 21, 2006, shortly before the start of negotiations on the future international legal status of Kosovo, the only globally known and recognized Kosovo politician died.
On February 10, 2006, the politician Fatmir Sejdiu , a long-term confidante of the deceased predecessor, was elected by the LDK as the new president . Sejdiu was a law professor at the University of Pristina. He headed the Rugovas LDK party since the early 1990s.
On March 1, 2006, Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi announced his resignation. Kosumi's resignation is explained by local observers that he came under pressure in his party AAK. In his place, the former head of the Kosovo Protection Corps (TMK) Agim Çeku was elected Prime Minister on March 10 . The TMK was created as a rescue organization for the UÇK . Çeku had been chief of staff of the so-called UÇK Liberation Army since 1999. The AAK is considered to be one of the party foundations of former UÇK activists.
Situation of the minorities after March 2004
According to the November 2004 report by the Society for Threatened Peoples, "the so-called" drive-by-shootings "in which Serbs, Roma or other minorities were shot from from the car" went unpunished. In the case of minor offenses, there would usually be no complaint, "because the victims are afraid of reprisals". The "almost complete impunity for crimes against minorities" intimidated the victims so much that they had no "confidence in the international protection institutions". "Since the start of preparations for Kosovo's independence", "the pressure on the Roma, Ashkali and" Egyptians "to leave the country has increased. The Kosovo Police (KPS) are only "officially a multi-ethnic police force", but actually consist mainly of Albanians and harass members of the minorities, whose assignment to an ethnic group has been made easier for them since the UNMIK administration issued the "ID cards" has been. Serbs and Roma would usually confiscate vehicles and papers until the victim goes to a court to get them back. The Kosovo police are also accused by the minorities of having at least partly actively participated in the pillage and other acts of violence in March 2004. Reports from the Roma girls are not uncommon, "who are picked up by the Albanian police and abused and mistreated in a prison cell overnight or even for several days."
The Italian TV documentary La Guerra Infinita by Riccardo Iacona from 2008 paints in its first part Kosovo Nove Anni Dopo (“Kosovo - Nine Years Later”) a gloomy picture of the situation in which Serbs and other minorities nine years after the end of the war in Kosovo. Thousands of Serbian families are said to have found refuge in the Serbian exclave Gračanica , the only Serbian settlement near Pristina , after being evicted from their homes . The Serbian houses in several places were completely destroyed, so that with a few exceptions most Serbs had left these places like in Obilić or Belo Polje, where of 1,800 Serbs before the arrival of the Italian forces only 27 were under Italian protection and without a school, Health facility or public telephone. In Prizren, the second largest city in Kosovo, an entire district was set on fire to drive out the 4,000 Serbs living in the city. In Pristina, however, where a neighborhood inhabited by Serbs was attacked by 500 Kosovar Albanians, only 40 of 40,000 Serbs remained.
In total, around 110 churches and sacred sites have been destroyed since NATO took control of Kosovo. The intensive protection of some objects within the jurisdiction of Italian soldiers is attributed to have remained largely intact despite repeated attacks, such as the Visoki Dečani that because of the difficult current security situation in Kosovo on the UNESCO -run Red List of World Heritage in Danger and has been a the arrival of KFOR in Kosovo was targeted four times by mortar attacks (six shells in February 2000, nine in June 2000, seven on March 17, 2004 and one more on March 30, 2007).
Status negotiations
Kai Eide's report
British and US diplomats made it clear that the status negotiations should lead to Kosovo's independence. Even Albert Rohan admitted in an interview that the international community is showing a tendency towards a sovereign Kosovo. According to Anton Bebler , the creation of new national borders in Central and Eastern Europe had a positive effect on the general security situation in Europe. The same could be expected in Kosovo as soon as relations with Serbia normalized. During a visit by the German KFOR soldiers to the Prizren field camp on July 15, 2005, the CDU party leader Angela Merkel clearly rejected the separation of Kosovo from Serbia: the interests of Belgrade must be taken into account in any case during the status negotiations.
Until October 2005 UNMIK pursued a policy of “standards before status”. This should ensure certain minimum requirements in politics, administration and in particular in dealing with ethnic issues before a decision is made on the future status of Kosovo.
At the end of September 2005, the Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide completed a report on the development of the Protectorate on behalf of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan . The decisive criterion for the negotiations on the future status of the province, particularly demanded by the Albanian majority, are the standards on human rights, security, law and democracy in Kosovo defined by UNMIK and the provisional self-governing bodies and adopted by the UN Security Council at the end of 2003.
Despite considerable shortcomings, Kai Eide recommended in his report "to take the next step in the political development of Kosovo". On October 24, 2005, the UN Security Council decided that negotiations on the status question of Kosovo could begin.
The Kosovo Troika
On February 20, 2006, the status negotiations began in Vienna with the mediation of the so-called Kosovo Troika from the EU , Russia and the United States of America . The chief negotiator on the part of the Kosovar Albanians was the President of Kosovo, Fatmir Sejdiu. The second negotiator for the Albanian people was Hashim Thaçi , opposition leader and former UÇK leader. Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari led the negotiations. While the Kosovar Albanians demanded full state independence of the province, Belgrade refused and only wanted to grant extensive autonomy.
No agreement was reached in the talks about decentralization and the establishment of new communities in which the non-Albanian population should be given autonomous status. Belgrade wanted to form 17 new municipalities with a Serb majority, the Albanians wanted to recognize a maximum of five. The Kosovar Albanians also proposed the formation of an ethnically neutral local government. The Serbs, on the other hand, demanded that they manage their communities independently and maintain special relationships with Belgrade. They also called for security guarantees, freedom of movement and a right of return for Serbian refugees. Another point of contention remained the future of the divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica . The Serbs wanted to seal the partition, the Albanians refused.
The Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica emphasized that Serbia would never give up Kosovo; in an interview he said:
“ Serbia would not do this even because of a faster route to the European Union . No state was given the waiver of part of its national territory as a condition for EU membership. This could not be the case with Serbia either. "
Furthermore, he again offered the breakaway province extensive autonomy . The Albanian side rejects this and demands complete independence .
The Ahtisaari Plan
On February 2, 2007 Martti Ahtisaari presented the proposals in Pristina and Belgrade. According to these, Kosovo should be allowed to use its own national symbols and also to become an independent member of international organizations. It should be an internationally monitored independence, although the term independence was not used explicitly in the proposal. While the US and the majority of EU countries agreed to the Ahtisaari Plan, some states expressed reservations - including Russia, China , Spain , Greece , Italy , Slovakia , Cyprus , Romania and Austria . In April 2007, US Secretary of State Nicholas Burns said in the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs that the US would recognize Kosovo's independence in any case, even if the UN Security Council did not come to a corresponding resolution.
While the Kosovar government gave its approval to the plan, there were protests from both the Serbian and the Kosovar Albanian side, each with opposing goals. On February 9, Serbs who were against any kind of independence of Kosovo demonstrated in Mitrovica against the proposals of Martti Ahtisaari. One day later, on February 10th, around 3,000 Albanians gathered in the capital for a demonstration organized by the political organization Vetëvendosje! ("Self-determination!", Also called VV for short ). This was partly violent. The clashes with the police resulted in two dead demonstrators of the VV and over 70 injured. The Vetëvendosje -Leader Albin Kurti was arrested even during the protests. Two Romanian KFOR police officers who fired hard rubber bullets at the crowd were not charged. In response to these clashes, Interior Minister Fatmir Rexhepi announced his resignation on February 13.
In the parliamentary elections boycotted by the Serbs on November 17, 2007, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) led by opposition leader Hashim Thaçi became the strongest party. A week later, the last round of negotiations between Serbs and Kosovar Albanians began in Baden . This ended on November 28, 2007 without an agreement, whereupon President Sejdiu ruled out a continuation of the negotiations with Serbia and instead announced that Kosovo would soon declare independence.
After the runoff election in the Serbian presidential election at the beginning of February 2008, in which the nationalist Nikolić was defeated by incumbent Tadić , the date for Kosovo's declaration of independence was getting closer.
Kosovo since the declaration of independence
Declaration of Independence
On February 17, 2008, the Kosovar parliament decided to proclaim the Republic of Kosovo an independent state . The European Union had previously approved the start of the EULEX mission , in which 1,800 police officers and lawyers are to take over the tasks of the previous UN administration in Kosovo . Serbia immediately declared with reference to the current UN Security Council Resolution 1244 that it would not accept independence. With this resolution from 1999, the UN administration of the area was established, but at the same time the affiliation of Kosovo to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was confirmed. A possible new resolution as the international legal basis for independence has so far failed due to the announcement of a veto by Russia.
One day after the declaration of independence, Great Britain , France, the USA, Turkey , Albania, Afghanistan and Costa Rica were the first to recognize the independence of Kosovo. Germany followed on February 20, Switzerland and Austria on February 27. By the end of November 2012, 96 of the 193 UN member states had recognized the declaration of independence. Other EU states such as Spain and Romania , but also major powers such as Russia and China, have declared against this that they do not want to recognize Kosovo's independence. For some states, the consideration that the recognition of Kosovo could set a precedent for further secession efforts plays an important role . The international recognition of Kosovo shows so far a deep division of the UN states on this issue.
On June 28, 2008, the parliament of the Community of Municipalities of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija was established by the political representatives of the Serbian citizens resident in Serbia, elected on May 11, 2008 in the local elections of Serbia .
On October 8, 2008, the UN General Assembly accepted the Serbian request to have the legality of Kosovo's declaration of independence examined by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). On July 22nd, 2010, he came to the conclusion in a legally non-binding report that the declaration of independence did not violate international law , but at the same time distanced himself from judging the legality of independence.
Integration efforts
By May 2012, 90 of the 193 member states of the United Nations recognized the Republic of Kosovo. In efforts to obtain further recognition, not only the government of the country itself but also that of neighboring Albania play an important role. The Prime Minister Sali Berisha , the Head of State Bamir Topi , the Speaker of Parliament Jozefina Topalli and also the opposition leader Edi Rama are lobbying states and organizations around the world to help Kosovo gain more recognition in the world.
In the summer of 2011, a customs conflict broke out between Kosovo and Serbia , which was only resolved in 2012. Serbia agreed that its former province could in future appear independently in international organizations, but without the controversial term “republic” among Serbs. Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi described this step as “Serbia's recognition of Kosovo”.
Situation of the minorities
According to a statement by Amnesty International in May 2010 on a hearing in the German Bundestag, discrimination is a major problem in Kosovo, which also affects ethnic minorities. It has a particularly strong impact on Roma. The problems would also include the de facto exclusion from the social security systems, the health system, the labor market (estimated 90–100% unemployment among the Roma), educational institutions and regulated housing. The houses of the Roma were usually destroyed during the war or have been inhabited by others since then. The Roma communities offering protection have often ceased to exist since the displacement. Although the number of inter-ethnic violence has decreased since previous years, a considerable feeling of insecurity persists among the ethnic minorities. Both the expulsions and kidnappings of ethnic minorities by members of the Albanian UÇK in 1999 and the inter-ethnic wave of violence in March 2004, in which more than 4,000 Serbs, Roma and Ashkali were expelled, remained largely unpunished. Many observers have suggested that assaults against Roma continue to take place, but that in most cases they do not get to the public. On January 16, 2018, Oliver Ivanović , a politician from the Serb minority in Kosovo, was shot dead by unknown persons in front of his party's headquarters in Mitrovica .
literature
- Bernhard Chiari, Agilolf Keßelring (ed.): Guide to the history of Kosovo. 3rd revised and expanded edition, Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2008, PDF download, 9 MB
- Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler, Karl Kaser: Kosovo / Kosova. Myths, dates, facts. Klagenfurt / Celovec 1999, ISBN 3-85129-304-5 (with an illustration of the negotiations in Rambouillet)
- Jens Reuter / Konrad Clewing (eds.): The Kosovo conflict - causes, course, perspectives. Bavarian State Center for Political Education . Klagenfurt 2000, ISBN 3-85129-329-0
- Jens Reuter: The Albanians in Yugoslavia. Oldenbourg, Munich 1982. ISBN 3-486-51281-1
- Noel Malcolm: Kosovo. A short history. London 1998 ISBN 0-333-66612-7
- Tim Judah: Kosovo. War and Revenge. New Heaven / London 2000 ISBN 0-300-08313-0
- Miranda Vickers: Between Serb and Albanian. A History of Kosovo. London 1998 ISBN 1-85065-278-3
- John Julius Norwich: Byzantium. Volume 1 to 3 Bechtermünz-Verlag 2000. ISBN 3-8289-0374-6
- Steven W. Sowards: Modern History of the Balkans. The Balkans in the Age of Nationalism , BoD 2004, ISBN 3-8334-0977-0
- Bartl, Peter: Albania. From the Middle Ages to the present. Regensburg 1995 ISBN 3-7917-1451-1
- Hösch, Edgar : History of the Balkan Countries. From the early days to the present. (4th extended edition Munich 2002) ISBN 3-406-49019-0
- Stadtmüller, Georg : Research on Albanian early history. (= Albanian Research. 2) Wiesbaden 1966 (2nd edition)
- Michael Weithmann (Ed.): The restless Balkans. Munich 1993, 2nd edition 1994 ISBN 3-423-04612-0
- Tucović, Dimitrij: Srbija i Arbanija. Jedan prilog kritiće zavojevacke politike srpske burzoazije. Beograd 1914. (German: Serbia and Albania. A critical contribution to the policy of oppression of the Serbian bourgeoisie. Vienna 1999 ISBN 3-901831-11-8 ). A somewhat bumpy translation on the net can be found here .
- Gjon Bisaku, Shtjefën Kurti u. Luigj Gashi: La Situation de la minorité albanaise en Yougoslavie. (Albanian Memorandum to the League of Nations, Geneva 1930) engl. Translation, web archive ( memo of June 20, 2006 in the Internet Archive ).
- Dusan T. Batakovic: The Kosovo Chronicles. Plato, Belgrade 1992. ISBN 86-447-0006-5
- Alex N. Dragnich, Slavko Todorovich: The Saga of Kosovo. Columbia University Press, New York 1984. ISBN 0-88033-062-7
- Howard Clark: Civil Resistance in Kosovo Pluto Press 2000 ISBN 0-7453-1569-0 Publication of the Albert Einstein Institute on civil resistance in Kosovo in the 1990s, should also be available in German
- Rafael Biermann : years of apprenticeship in Kosovo. The failure of international prevention before the outbreak of war. (With a detailed description of the history of the conflict). Paderborn 2006. ISBN 3-506-71356-6
- Helmut Kramer, Vedran Džihić: The Kosovo balance sheet. Is the international community failing? LIT, Vienna 2006 (2nd updated edition). ISBN 3-8258-8646-8
- Oliver Jens Schmitt: Kosovo. Brief history of a central Balkan landscape. Böhlau-Verlag (UTB). Vienna-Cologne-Weimar 2008. ISBN 978-3-205-77836-3 (structural and socio-historical representation of the region from the earlier Middle Ages to the declaration of independence)
Web links
- Vedran Dzihic, Helmut Kramer: Independent Kosovo in autumn 2009: can the EULEX mission fulfill its tasks? Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Internat. Policy analysis, October 2009 (PDF; 340 kB)
- Heinz Ohme: Kosovo and the Serbian Orthodox Church (Theological Faculty of the Humboldt University Berlin, Department of Church History) (PDF; 69 kB)
- The German Debate on the Kosovo War, study by the Heinrich Böll Foundation (with a good excursus on the history of the conflict) (PDF file)
- Vasa Cubrilovic: The Expulsion of the Albanians. (German translation)
- Michael Holzrichter, Sven Pohle: The history of Kosovo and current developments in crisis management
- Dušan T. Bataković: Kosovo-Metohija: The Serbo-Albanian Conflict (in English)
- Dušan T. Bataković: Le Passe des Territoires: Kosovo-Metohija (XVIIIe-XXe Siècle) (in French)
- Kosovo conflict in the 1980s. Collection of articles in English
- BBC report on mass graves in Kosovo
- OSCE Report on Human Rights in Kosovo, Part I (October 1998-June 1999)
- OSCE Report on Human Rights in Kosovo, Part II (June 1999 – October 1999)
- Currently valid UN Resolution 1244 on the status of Kosovo (PDF; 24 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Harald Haarmann : The riddle of the Danube civilization. The discovery of the oldest high culture in Europe . CH Beck , Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62210-6 , pp. 42, 198 ff., Fig. 74 (after Merlini 2004) .
- ↑ Harald Haarmann: Introduction to the Danube script . Buske , Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-87548-555-4 , p. 10, 73 .
- ↑ Middle Ages in Noel Malcolm's “Kosovo. A short history and real facts. Rastko.rs, accessed on January 18, 2013 (English).
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica : Niš. Retrieved January 18, 2013 .
- ↑ Newly created and modified from a map by Shkumbin Brestovci (place names are taken from the source unchanged). Locations (geographic coordinates) are made after a rough plausibility check on the basis of the graphic information on the source map and can contain errors. Source map from: Wolfgang Petritsch, Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova: Myths, Data, Facts , 2nd edition, Wieser, Klagenfurt 1999, ISBN 3-85129-304-5 , pp. 23-25.
- ↑ a b Wolfgang Petritsch , Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova: Myths, data, facts . 2nd Edition. Wieser , Klagenfurt 1999, ISBN 3-85129-304-5 , p. 23-25 .
- ↑ Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace . Wieser , Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 23, 125 .
- ↑ a b c d e Skënder Gashi: Albanian-Saxon contacts in Kosova and some of their onomastic and lexical relics . In: Dardania. Journal for history, culture and information (= 4 ). March 1995, p. 90-92 . Quoted from: Wolfgang Petritsch , Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova: Myths, dates, facts . 2nd Edition. Wieser , Klagenfurt 1999, ISBN 3-85129-304-5 , p. 23-25 .
- ↑ Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace . Wieser , Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 23 .
- ↑ Wolfgang Petritsch , Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova: Myths, data, facts . 2nd Edition. Wieser , Klagenfurt 1999, ISBN 3-85129-304-5 , p. 65 .
- ^ Noel Malcolm: Kosovo. A short history. 1998 (Introduction xlix).
- ↑ a b c Oliver Jens Schmitt: Kosovo. Brief history of a central Balkan landscape . Böhlau , Vienna 2008, p. 146–147 ( online version [accessed January 18, 2013]).
- ^ Noel Malcolm: Kosovo. A short history . 1998, p. 356 .
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 78 f.
- ↑ Björn Sacrifice: In the Shadow of War. Occupation or Anschluss - Liberation or Oppression? A comparative study of the Bulgarian rule in Vardar Macedonia 1915–1918 and 1941–1944 . In: Studies on the history, culture and society of Southeast Europe . tape 3 . Münster 2004, p. 153 ff . ( Online version [accessed January 18, 2013]).
- ↑ a b Wolfgang Petritsch, Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova: Myths, Daten, Facts , 2nd edition, Wieser, Klagenfurt 1999, ISBN 3-85129-304-5 , p. 128.
- ^ A b Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace . Wieser , Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 34 ff .
- ↑ Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace . Wieser , Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 34-36 .
- ^ A b Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace . Wieser , Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 36 ff .
- ^ A b Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace . Wieser , Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 37 f .
- ↑ a b c Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace . Wieser , Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 38 ff .
- ↑ a b c d Noel Malcolm: Kosovo. A short history . 1998, p. 327-328 .
- ^ A b Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace . Wieser , Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 40 ff .
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 107.
- ^ A b c Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 141.
- ↑ a b c Holm Sundhaussen, The Disintegration of Yugoslavia and Its Consequences , From Politics and Contemporary History, Supplement to the weekly newspaper Das Parlament, 32/2008, August 4, 2008, pp. 9-18, archived from the original ( Memento from February 19, 2013 on WebCite ) on February 19, 2013. Alternative internet source of July 24, 2008 ( memento of February 19, 2013 on WebCite ), archived from the original ( memento of the original of August 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 19, 2013. (with page numbering as in the print version), archived from www.bpb.de/system/files/pdf/BW6O3P.pdf on February 19, 2013.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 147 f.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 148.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 145.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 146 f.
- ^ A b c Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 110 ff.
- ↑ a b c d e Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace , Wieser, Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 41 f.
- ↑ a b Wolfgang Petritsch, Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova: Myths, Daten, Facts , 2nd edition, Wieser, Klagenfurt 1999, ISBN 3-85129-304-5 , pp. 144-147.
- ↑ Alexander Neu: The future of Kosovo. An international and constitutional view. Berlin Information-center for Transatlantic Security, September 2005, accessed on January 18, 2013 .
- ↑ a b Wolfgang Petritsch, Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova: Myths, Daten, Facts , 2nd edition, Wieser, Klagenfurt 1999, ISBN 3-85129-304-5 , pp. 155-149.
- ↑ Julie Mertus: Kosovo: How Myths and Truths Started a War , p. 34 ( online in the Google book search)
- ^ A b c d e Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 186 f.
- ↑ a b c d Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace , Wieser, Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , pp. 52–54, 56 f.
- ↑ a b Wolfgang Petritsch, Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova: Myths, data, facts . 2nd edition, Wieser, Klagenfurt 1999, ISBN 3-85129-304-5 , p. 173 f.
- ↑ a b Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace , Wieser, Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , pp. 52–54.
- ^ A b Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 117.
- ↑ a b Wolfgang Petritsch, Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova: Myths, Daten, Facts , 2nd edition, Wieser, Klagenfurt 1999, ISBN 3-85129-304-5 , pp. 173–177.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace , Wieser, Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 58 f.
- ^ A b c d e Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 118.
- ↑ a b c d Fratricidal War - The Struggle for Tito's Legacy , ORF / BBC, documentation in 6 parts, production: 1995–1996, German first broadcast of the first part: November 16, 1995 (ZDF), here part 1 .: The explosive device , by Norma Percy, Michael Simkin, Angus Macqueen, Walter Erdelitsch, Production: Brian Lapping Associates for BBC, ORF, The US-Discovery Channel, 1995.
- ↑ a b c d Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 118 f.
- ↑ Svein Mönnesland, Land of No Return , Klagenfurt 1997, p 498th
- ↑ J. Furkes, K.-H. Schlarp (both eds.), Yugoslavia: One state disintegrates , Reinbek 1991, p. 203 f.
- ↑ Ten Years of the Kosovo War - It had to be ( memento from January 27, 2013 on WebCite ) , taz, March 23, 2009, by Erich Rathfelder, archived from the original on January 26, 2013.
- ↑ a b Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace , Wieser, Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 55 f.
- ^ Wolfgang Petritsch, Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova: Myths, Daten, Facts , 2nd edition, Wieser, Klagenfurt 1999, ISBN 3-85129-304-5 , p. 178.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 485 ff.
- ^ Matthias Rüb, Kosovo - Causes and Consequences of a War in Europe , DTV, Munich, November 1999, ISBN 3-423-36175-1 , p. 185.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 116.
- ^ A Lebanon in the Balkans ( Memento from January 25, 2013 on WebCite ) . Der Spiegel, 48/1987, November 23, 1987, archived from the original on January 25, 2013.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 120.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 121.
- ^ A b Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 121 f.
- ^ A b Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 124.
- ^ A b c Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 126.
- ^ A b c Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 127 f.
- ^ A b c Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 134 f.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , pp. 128-130.
- ↑ a b Fratricidal War - The Struggle for Tito's Legacy , ORF / BBC, documentation in 6 parts, production: 1995–1996, here part 2 .: The fuse is burning , by Angus Macqueen, Paul Mitchell, Walter Erdelitsch, Tihomir Loza, production: Brian Lapping Associates for BBC, ORF, The US Discovery Channel, 1995.
- ^ A b Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 136.
- ^ A b Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 136 f.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 139.
- ^ A b Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 140.
- ↑ a b c Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace , Wieser, Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 9 f.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 123.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 126 f.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , pp. 118–128.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 266.
- ↑ Heinz Loquai, The Kosovo Conflict - Ways to an Avoidable War: the period from the end of November 1997 to March 1999 , Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 2000, ISBN 3-7890-6681-8 , pp. 11f, 21.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 275.
- ↑ Heinz Loquai, The Kosovo Conflict - Ways to an Avoidable War: the period from the end of November 1997 to March 1999 , Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 2000, ISBN 3-7890-6681-8 , p. 21.
- ↑ Wolfgang Petritsch, Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova: Myths, data, facts. 2nd Edition. Wieser, Klagenfurt 1999, ISBN 3-85129-304-5 , p. 224.
- ↑ Heinz Loquai: The Kosovo Conflict - Ways to an Avoidable War: the period from the end of November 1997 to March 1999. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 2000, ISBN 3-7890-6681-8 , p. 27 f .; Note: Loquai gives June 14, 1998 as the date of Holbrookes' meeting with armed KLA fighters.
- ↑ John R. Fulton, NATO and the KLA: How the West Encouraged Terrorism ( Memento February 3, 2013 on WebCite ) , Global Security Studies, 1 , (3), 2010, pp. 130-141, archived from the Internet version on globalsecuritystudies.com (PDF; 169 kB) on February 3, 2013.
- ↑ Heinz Loquai: The Kosovo conflict - ways into an avoidable war: the period from the end of November 1997 to March 1999. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 2000, ISBN 3-7890-6681-8 , pp. 45, 170.
- ^ Noel Malcolm: Kosovo. A short history . 1998 (Preface xxxi).
- ^ The Independent International Commission on Kosovo: The Kosovo Report - Conflict - International Response - Lessons Learned . Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-19-924309-3 , pp. 372 .
- ↑ Klaus Naumann, Ralph Gladitz, Arndt Wittenberg: Balkans - violence without end - Part 1: The way to war . Ed .: BR . October 25, 1999 (broadcast on ARD ).
- ↑ OSCE Chairman-in-Office comments on EU Forensic Expert Team report on Racak ( Memento of 19 January 2013 Webcite ) (English). OSCE, Press release, [? 22/99], March 17, 1999 (Oslo), archived from the original on January 19, 2013: “Despite these limitations, Dr. Ranta has concluded that at least 40 unarmed civilians were killed at approximately the same time in Racak, on or around 15 January 1999. "
- ↑ OSCE Chairman-in-Office Comments on the Report by Head of EU Forensic Expert Team on the Racak Atrocity ( Memento of 19 January 2013 Webcite ) (English). Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, No. 22/99 - Press Release, March 17, 1999, archived from the original on January 19, 2013.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 333, footnote 260
- ↑ Wolfgang Petritsch, Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova: Myths, data, facts. 2nd Edition. Wieser, Klagenfurt 1999, ISBN 3-85129-304-5 , p. 263.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 350.
- ↑ When human rights learned to shoot ( memento from January 13, 2013 on WebCite ) , Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 19, 2009, by Franziska Augstein , archived from the original on January 13, 2013.
- ^ Abuses against Serbs and Roma in Kosovo. Human Rights Watch Report, August 1999, accessed January 18, 2013 .
- ^ Former Serb president acquitted in The Hague. Focus Online, February 26, 2009, accessed January 18, 2013 .
- ^ A b Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace. Wieser, Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 285.
- ^ A b Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 431.
- ↑ Russia ups pressure on ex-war crimes prosecutor Del Ponte ( Memento from January 13, 2013 on WebCite ) (English). RIA Novosti, April 14, 2008, archived from the original on January 13, 2013.
- ↑ Council of Europe: Parliamentary Assembly, Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo ( Memento from May 2, 2013 on WebCite ) (English). Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Doc. 12462, January 7, 2011, by Dick Marty, archived from the original on May 2, 2013.
- ^ A b c Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 432.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 433.
- ↑ Un cahier spécial sur le Kosovo - Overview of the Situation of Ethnic Minorities in Kosovo ( Memento of February 13, 2013 on WebCite ), Le Monde diplomatique, November 3, 1999, archived from the original on February 13, 1999.
- ↑ Kosovo today: Anarchy rules - A journey to the land of hate ( Memento from February 28, 2013 on WebCite ) , Hamburger Abendblatt, No. 300, page 5, December 23, 1999, by Franz-Josef Hutsch (text ) and Klaus Bodig (photos), archived from the original ( Memento of the original from February 28, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 28, 2013.
- ↑ Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace. Wieser, Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , pp. 285 f., With reference to: http://www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/opendoc.pdf?tbl = SUBSITES & id = 3c6bd08d4 (may refer to: UNHCR-OSCE Ad Hoc Task Force on Minorities, Overview of the Situation of Minorities , November 3, 1999).
- ↑ Human Rights Watch (coordination: Fred Abrahams = Frederick Cronig Abrahams), Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo. 2001, ISBN 1-56432-264-5 . (English, PDF, also available in Serbian and Albanian; 5.8 MB) , here pp. 453–473, Chapter 17: Abuses After June 12, 1999 .
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 433 f.
- ^ The Independent International Commission on Kosovo: The Kosovo Report - Conflict - International Response - Lessons Learned. Oxford University Press 2000, ISBN 0-19-924309-3 , pp. 106, 211.
- ^ A b Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace. Wieser, Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 287.
- ↑ a b c d e f La Guerra Infinita - Kosovo Nove Anni Dopo (Italian, TV documentary). Rai Tre , by Riccardo Iacona , in collaboration with Francesca Barzini, broadcast on Rai Tre on September 19, 2008. Available on popular video portals (also with English and Serbian subtitles, last accessed on February 9, 2013).
- ^ A b c Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 434 f.
- ↑ Staro Gracko murders commemorated ( memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) , B92, July 23, 2009, archived from the original ( memento of the original from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ^ OSCE / OMIK: Human Rights in Kosovo: As Seen, As Told. Volume II, June 14 - October 31, 1999 (English, PDF). With an introduction by Daan Everts. 5 November 1999, here p. 70 f. Also as a Serbian version ( PDF ).
- ↑ 2001: Serbs killed in Kosovo pilgrimage ( memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) , in: BBC.CO.UK, On this day - 1950–2005 - February 16 , archived from the original on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ British troops' error led to bus bomb , The Sunday Times, July 29, 2001, by Bob Graham.
- ↑ a b 11 years since Kosovo attack that killed 12 ( Memento from February 22, 2013 on WebCite ) , B92, February 16, 2012, archived from the original ( Memento from the original from December 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 22, 2013.
- ↑ Two villages in Kosovo ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , TV documentary, ARTE France, 2005, by Alan Adelson, broadcast on November 7, 2006, last accessed on March 10, 2013.
- ↑ Peter Bouckaert, Failure to Protect: Anti-minority Violence in Kosovo, March 2004 , Human Rights Watch, Vol. 16, No. 6 (D), 2004, p. 8. Alternative Internet source ( Memento of March 10, 2013 on WebCite ), archived from the original on March 10, 2013.
- ↑ Kosovo and Metohija, 1998–2003 (English). TV documentary, by Ninoslav Randjelovic, 17 minutes, production: Ronin production group, coproduction: Coordination Center for Kosovo and Metohia, January 2004. Available on video portals, e. B. YouTube , parts 1/2 and 2/2 , uploaded by user serbia4kosovo on January 10, 2008, last accessed on February 22, 2013.
- ↑ Who is lying: Charles Brayshaw or Derek Chappell? , ERP KIM Info-service (Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raska-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohija), Gračanica, March 16, 2004, last accessed on February 23, 2013.
- ↑ Unmutation in Unmikistan ( Memento from February 7, 2013 on WebCite ) , Jungle World, No. 14, Dossier, March 24, 2004, by Markus Bickel, archived from the original on January 7, 2013.
- ↑ Ursula Rütten, Dossier Kosovo. The problem after the war is the winner , radio feature, production: DLF / WDR, broadcast on October 7, 2003 in the DLF, typescript of the DLF version, p. 17. Quoted from: Carl Polónyi: Heil und Destruction: Nationale Mythen und Krieg using the example of Yugoslavia 1980–2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 436.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Results of a research from January 1 to October 31, 2004 - KOSOVO: Roma and Ashkali without a future? ( Memento of February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) , Society for Threatened Peoples , Report, November 17, 2004, Paul Polansky (preliminary remark by Tilman Zülch ), archived from the original ( Memento of the original of September 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013., archived from the original ( Memento of the original from December 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ cf. z. B. Marie-Therese Varlamoff “The Blue Shield Initiative. Joining Efforts to Preserve our Cultural Heritage in Danger ”in Liber Quarterly 2002/12, pp. 275–282.
- ↑ Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace. Wieser, Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 287, with reference to NIN, January 9, 2003, Specijalni Dodatak (special supplement), Kosovo - Brisanje Memorije (“The Erasure of Memory”), Belgrade 2003 .
- ↑ a b Brisanje memorije ( Memento from February 13, 2013 on WebCite ), NIN (НИН), January 9, 2003, archived from the original on February 13, 2013.
- ↑ Branko V. Jokić (Ed.), Final Report - Project Urgent Protection of Natural and Cultural Heritage in Metohija - July 2001 - June 2002 ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English and Serbian, PDF; 103 MB). Mnemosyne Center (Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija), Belgrad 2003, ISBN 86-84431-00-6 (last accessed February 9, 2013), pp. 7-16.
- ↑ Koš - Kulla ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento from the original from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Dobra Voda - Monastery of SS Peter and Paul ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento of the original from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Dolac - The Monastery of the Presentation of the Holy Virgin in the Temple ( Memento of February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento of the original of February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Drsnik - The Church of St Paraskeve ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento from the original from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was used automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Kijevo - Church of St Nicholas ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento of the original from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Mlečane - The Church of St Nicholas ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento of the original from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was used automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Church of the Virgin Hodegetria ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento of the original from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link became automatic used and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Monastery of the Holy Trinity ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento of the original from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link became automatic used and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Rečane - Church of St George ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento from the original from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Gornje Nerodimlje - Monastery of Holy Archangels ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento from the original from August 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: Der Archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Branko V. Jokić (Ed.), Final Report - Project Urgent Protection of Natural and Cultural Heritage in Metohija - July 2001 - June 2002 ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English and Serbian, PDF; 103 MB). Mnemosyne Center (Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija), Belgrad 2003, ISBN 86-84431-00-6 (last accessed February 9, 2013), pp. 287–368.
- ↑ a b c d e f Dragan Kojadinović (Ed.), March Pogrom in Kosovo and Metohija - March 17-19, 2004 - with a survey of destroyed and endangered Christian cultural heritage ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English and Serbian, PDF; 103 MB). Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, Museum in Priština (displaced), Belgrad 2004, ISBN 86-85235-00-6 (last accessed on February 9, 2013), p. 8.
- ^ A b c d e f g h i j Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 436 f.
- ↑ a b c Internal conflicts: Kosovo ( Memento from February 7, 2013 on WebCite ) , Federal Agency for Civic Education, Dossier, October 24, 2011, by Julia Nietsch, archived from the original on February 7, 2013.
- ↑ a b c d e Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace , Wieser, Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 16.
- ↑ a b Kosovo rioters burn Serb churches ( Memento from February 7, 2013 on WebCite ) (English). BBC News, March 18, 2004, archived from the original on February 7, 2013.
- ↑ a b Six years since March violence in Kosovo ( Memento from February 14, 2013 on WebCite ) , B92, March 17, 2010, archived from the original ( Memento from the original from June 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link became automatic used and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 14, 2013.
- ↑ a b Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace , Wieser, Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 333.
- ↑ a b Hronologija događaja (16 - 22 March 2004) ( Memento from February 14, 2013 on WebCite ) (Serbian), B92 Specijal: Nasilje na Kosovu , B92, archived from the original on February 14, 2013.
- ↑ Kosovo: The criminal justice system leaves the victims in the lurch on hrw.org , May 30, 2006, accessed on January 20, 2013
- ↑ a b The Role of the Media in the March 2004 Events in Kosovo (English, PDF). OSCE, Report by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Miklós Haraszti , Vienna 2004, archived by [1] ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 7, 2013.
- ↑ Lack of evidence stalls probe into drowning of three Kosovo children, UN mission says ( Memento of 16 February 2013 Webcite ) (English). Reliefweb, UN News Service report, April 28, 2004, archived from the original on February 16, 2013.
- ↑ UN Investigation Clears Serbs of Kosovo Drownings ( Memento from February 16, 2013 on WebCite ) (English). Southeast European Times , April 29, 2004, archived from the original on February 16, 2013.
- ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War Using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 438.
- ↑ Markus Bickel: Unmutation in UNMIKistan ( Memento from February 7, 2013 on WebCite ). In: Neues Deutschland , March 24, 2004, archived from the Internet version on ag-friedensforschung.de on February 7, 2013.
- ↑ Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace , Wieser, Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 333 f.
- ↑ Church of St Savior ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento from the original from March 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link became automatic used and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Dragan Kojadinović (ed.), March Pogrom in Kosovo and Metohija - March 17-19, 2004 - with a survey of destroyed and endangered Christian cultural heritage ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically broken marked. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English and Serbian, PDF; 103 MB). Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, Museum in Priština (displaced), Belgrad 2004, ISBN 86-85235-00-6 (last accessed on February 9, 2013), p. 33.
- ↑ Holy Virgin of Ljeviška ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento from the original from March 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link became automatic used and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Dragan Kojadinović (ed.), March Pogrom in Kosovo and Metohija - March 17-19, 2004 - with a survey of destroyed and endangered Christian cultural heritage ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English and Serbian, PDF; 103 MB). Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, Museum in Priština (displaced), Belgrad 2004, ISBN 86-85235-00-6 (last accessed on February 9, 2013), p. 34 f.
- ↑ Church of St Nicholas - “Tutić's” ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento of the original from March 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Dragan Kojadinović (ed.), March Pogrom in Kosovo and Metohija - March 17-19, 2004 - with a survey of destroyed and endangered Christian cultural heritage ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English and Serbian, PDF; 103 MB). Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, Museum in Priština (displaced), Belgrad 2004, ISBN 86-85235-00-6 (last accessed on February 9, 2013), p. 36.
- ↑ Complex of Potkaljaja, Pantelija and Potok mahal ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento from the original from March 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Dragan Kojadinović (ed.), March Pogrom in Kosovo and Metohija - March 17-19, 2004 - with a survey of destroyed and endangered Christian cultural heritage ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English and Serbian, PDF; 103 MB). Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, Museum in Priština (displaced), Belgrad 2004, ISBN 86-85235-00-6 (last accessed on February 9, 2013), p. 37.
- ↑ Monastery of Holy Archangels ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento of the original from March 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link became automatic used and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Dragan Kojadinović (ed.), March Pogrom in Kosovo and Metohija - March 17-19, 2004 - with a survey of destroyed and endangered Christian cultural heritage ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English and Serbian, PDF; 103 MB). Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, Museum in Priština (displaced), Belgrad 2004, ISBN 86-85235-00-6 (last accessed on February 9, 2013), pp. 37-39.
- ↑ Srbica - Monastery of Devič ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ), Center for Protection of Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija - MNEMOSYNE, archived from the original ( Memento from the original from December 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Dragan Kojadinović (ed.), March Pogrom in Kosovo and Metohija - March 17-19, 2004 - with a survey of destroyed and endangered Christian cultural heritage ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English and Serbian, PDF; 103 MB). Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, Museum in Priština (displaced), Belgrad 2004, ISBN 86-85235-00-6 (last accessed on February 9, 2013), p. 45 f.
- ↑ a b Dragan Kojadinović (ed.), March Pogrom in Kosovo and Metohija - March 17-19, 2004 - with a survey of destroyed and endangered Christian cultural heritage ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: Der Archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English and Serbian, PDF; 103 MB). Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, Museum in Priština (displaced), Belgrad 2004, ISBN 86-85235-00-6 (last accessed on February 9, 2013), p. 19.
- ↑ Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler, Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace , Wieser, Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , p. 335.
- ↑ La Guerra Infinita - Kosovo Nove Anni Dopo (Italian, TV documentary). Rai Tre , by Riccardo Iacona , with the collaboration of Francesca Barzini, broadcast on Rai Tre on September 19, 2008, from 00 ° 06'50 ''. Available on well-known video portals (also with English and Serbian subtitles, last accessed on February 9, 2013).
- ↑ World Heritage Committee puts Medieval Monuments in Kosovo on Danger List and extends site in Andorra, ending this year's inscriptions ( memento of February 6, 2013 on WebCite ) , UNESCO, communication, July 13, 2006, archived from the original on June 6, 2013 .
- ↑ Kosovo Albanians Attack Decani Monastery ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) , De-Construct.net, March 30, 2007, archived from the original ( Memento from the original from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ UNESCO world heritage site targeted by extremists again - Decani Monastery area hit by a mortar-grenade, no injuries or damage ( Memento from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) , KIM Info-service, KiM Info Newsletter, March 30, 2007, archived from the original ( Memento of the original from December 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on February 10, 2013.
- ↑ Kosovo monastery Visoki Decani blocked ( Memento of the original from February 10, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Tanjug, February 8, 2013, last accessed on February 10, 2013.
- ^ Anton Bebler, "The Western Balkans and the International Community" ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Arthisaari proposals on the future status of Kosovo (English) ( Memento of the original from January 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ USA will recognize independence of Kosovo on www.tirol.com from April 18, 2007 ( Memento from September 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Kurier : No Compromise at Kosovo Conference ( Memento of November 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) of November 28, 2007
- ↑ Der Tagesspiegel : Kosovo negotiations failed on November 28, 2007
- ↑ Die Welt : EU police officers protect Serb minority from February 16, 2008.
- ↑ USA recognizes Kosovo - most EU states before consent , Reuters Germany, February 18, 2008
- ↑ a b Countries that have recognized the Republic of Kosova (English). Republic of Kosovo, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pristina, last accessed on February 11, 2013.
- ↑ Independence of Kosovo is legal , Süddeutsche Zeitung of July 22, 2010.
- ↑ Opinion of the International Court of Justice ( Memento of the original dated July 23, 2010 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 3.6 MB)
- ↑ Amnesty International on the situation of the Roma in Kosovo and the deportations of Roma to Kosovo ( Memento from February 11, 2013 on WebCite ) (PDF). Central Council of German Sinti and Roma / OSCE ODIHR: Hearing in the German Bundestag / Paul-Löbe House on the situation of Roma, Ashkali and Kosovar-Egyptians in Kosovo: Current challenges and future possible solutions. Statement by Imke Dierßen, advisor for Europe and Central Asia at Amnesty International, Berlin, May 6, 2010, archived from the original ( memento of the original from September 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 45 kB) on February 11, 2013.
- ↑ Important Serbian politician shot dead in Kosovo. Die Welt from January 16, 2018
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