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Kosovo - History

For most Serbs Kosovo is an important part of their cultural and religious heritage. The Serbian Orthodox Patriarchate was established in Kosovo during the 13th Century and the territory was also the site of the 1389 defeat of the Serbs by the Ottomans, a battle that has taken on mythical importance for the Serbs.

Kosovo has been inhabited since the Neolithic Era. During the medieval period, Kosovo was the center of the Serbian empire and saw the construction of many important Serb religious sites, including many architecturally significant Serbian Orthodox monasteries. It was the site of a 14th-century battle in which invading Ottoman Turks defeated an army led by Serbian Prince Lazar.

For most of the subsequent 500 years both Kosovo and Serbia were parts of the Ottoman Empire, although in different administrative regions: the Christian Orthodox vilayet of Serbia in the north and the Muslim and majority ethnic-Albanian vilayet of Kosovo in the south. During the 19th Century, Serbia became progressively independent of the Empire while Kosovo remained firmly within it.

The Ottomans ruled Kosovo for more than 4 centuries, until Serbia reacquired the territory during the First Balkan War in 1912-13. First partitioned in 1913 between Serbia and Montenegro, Kosovo was then incorporated into the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later named Yugoslavia) after World War I. During World War II, parts of Kosovo were absorbed into Italian-occupied Albania. After the Italian capitulation, Nazi Germany assumed control over Kosovo until Tito's Yugoslav Partisans entered at the end of the war.

After World War II, Kosovo became an autonomous province of Serbia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (S.F.R.Y.). The 1974 Yugoslav Constitution gave Kosovo (along with Vojvodina) the status of a Socialist Autonomous Province within Serbia. As such, it possessed rights nearly equal to the six constituent Socialist Republics of the S.F.R.Y. In 1981, riots broke out and were violently suppressed after Kosovo Albanians demonstrated to demand that Kosovo be granted full Republic status.

In the late 1980s, Slobodan Milosevic propelled himself to power in Belgrade by exploiting Serbian nationalism and the question of Kosovo. In 1989, he eliminated Kosovo's autonomy and imposed direct rule from Belgrade. Belgrade ordered the firing of most ethnic Albanian state employees, whose jobs were then assumed by Serbs.

In response, Kosovo Albanian leaders began a peaceful resistance movement in the early 1990s, led by Ibrahim Rugova. They established a parallel government funded mainly by the Albanian diaspora. When this movement failed to yield results, an armed resistance emerged in 1997 in the form of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The KLA's main goal was to secure the independence of Kosovo.

In late 1998, Milosevic unleashed a brutal police and military campaign against the KLA, which included widespread atrocities against civilians. As Milosevic's ethnic cleansing campaign progressed, over 800,000 ethnic Albanians were forced from their homes in Kosovo. Intense international mediation efforts led to the Rambouillet Accords, which called for Kosovo autonomy and the involvement of NATO troops to preserve the peace. Milosevic's failure to agree to the Rambouillet Accords triggered a NATO military campaign to halt the violence in Kosovo. This campaign consisted primarily of aerial bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (F.R.Y.), including Belgrade, and continued from March through June 1999. After 78 days, Milosevic capitulated. Shortly thereafter, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1244 (1999), which suspended Belgrade's governance over Kosovo, established the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), and authorized a NATO peacekeeping force. Resolution 1244 also envisioned a political process designed to determine Kosovo's future status.

As ethnic Albanians returned to their homes, elements of the KLA conducted reprisal killings and abductions of ethnic Serbs, Roma, and, to a limited extent, other minorities in Kosovo. Thousands of ethnic Serbs, Roma, and other minorities fled from their homes during the latter half of 1999, and many remain displaced.

The UN established the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), under the control of a Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG). In 2001, UNMIK promulgated a constitutional framework that provided for the establishment of Provisional Institutions of Self-Government (PISG).

Under UNMIK's guidance, Kosovo established new institutions (both at the municipal and central levels), held free elections, and established a multi-ethnic Kosovo Police Service (KPS). The KLA was demobilized, with many of its members incorporated into the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), a civilian emergency services organization. UNMIK gradually turned over more governing competencies to local authorities.

After 6 years of international administration, Kosovo Albanian authorities continued to press the international community to begin a process to define Kosovo's future status. In 2005, a UN envoy, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, was appointed to review progress in Kosovo. Eide reported that there was no advantage to be gained by further delaying a future status process.

In November 2005, the Contact Group (France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) produced a set of "Guiding Principles" for the resolution of Kosovo's future status. Key principles agreed by the Contact Group included: no return to the situation prior to 1999, no changes in Kosovo's borders, and no partition or union of Kosovo with a neighboring state. The Contact Group later said that Kosovo's future status had to be acceptable to the people of Kosovo.

In November 2005, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed Martti Ahtisaari, former president of Finland, to lead a future status process. Special Envoy Ahtisaari's diplomatic efforts addressed a broad range of issues important to Kosovo's future, including decentralizing local government, protecting cultural and religious heritage in Kosovo, economic issues, and safeguarding the rights of minorities. Over the course of 2006 and early 2007, Ahtisaari brought together officials from Belgrade and Pristina to discuss these practical issues and the question of status itself.

Ahtisaari subsequently developed a comprehensive proposal for Kosovo's future status, which set forth a series of recommendations on Kosovo's democratic governance and substantial protections for minorities. Ahtisaari also recommended that Kosovo become independent, subject to a period of international supervision. He proposed that a new International Civilian Office (ICO) be established to supervise Kosovo's implementation of its obligations under the Ahtisaari Plan. A European Union (EU)-led rule of law mission (subsequently named EULEX) would also be deployed to focus on the police and justice sector, while a NATO-led stabilization force would continue to provide for a safe and secure environment. Pristina accepted the Ahtisaari recommendations, but Belgrade rejected them.

On April 3, 2007, Ahtisaari presented his plan to the UN Security Council. Due to Russian opposition, the Security Council could not reach agreement on a new Security Council resolution that would pave the way for the implementation of the Ahtisaari recommendations.

After several months of inconclusive discussions in the Security Council, the Contact Group agreed to support a new period of intensive engagement to try to find an agreement between Belgrade and Pristina on Kosovo's status. A "Troika" of representatives from the European Union, the Russian Federation, and the United States began this effort in August 2007. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon asked them to report on their efforts no later than December 10, 2007. The German ambassador to the United Kingdom, Wolfgang Ischinger, represented the EU; Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko represented the Russian Federation; and Ambassador Frank Wisner represented the United States.

After an intense series of Troika-led negotiations, including a high-level conference in Baden, Austria, the Troika's mandate ended in December 2007 without an agreement between the parties. In its final report, the Troika stated that it had explored with the parties every realistic option for an agreement, but that it was not possible to find a mutually acceptable outcome.

Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008. In its declaration of independence, Kosovo committed to fulfilling its obligations under the Ahtisaari Plan and embraced multi-ethnicity as a fundamental principle of good governance, welcoming a period of international supervision.

The United States formally recognized Kosovo as a sovereign and independent state on February 18, 2008. As of October 2011, over 80 countries had recognized Kosovo's independence, including 22 of 27 EU member states, all of its neighbors (except Serbia), and other states from the Americas, Africa, and Asia.

Shortly after independence, a number of states established an International Steering Group (ISG) for Kosovo that appointed Dutch diplomat Pieter Feith as International Civilian Representative (ICR) and head of the International Civilian Office (ICO), charged with ensuring Kosovo’s implementation of the Ahtisaari Plan and supporting Kosovo’s European integration.

As part of its commitment to the Ahtisaari Plan, the Kosovo Government rapidly enacted after independence laws on minority protection, decentralization, special protection zones for Serb cultural and religious sites, local self-government, and municipal boundaries.

The Kosovo Assembly approved a constitution in April 2008, which entered into force on June 15, 2008. ICR Feith certified that the constitution was in accordance with the Ahtisaari Plan. At the time of certification, ICR Feith also congratulated Kosovo on a modern constitution that "provides comprehensive rights for members of communities as well as effective guarantees for the protection of the national, linguistic and religious identity of all communities."

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) are Kosovo institutions, created by Kosovo law and staffed with international judges, prosecutors, and officers, to investigate and prosecute crimes against humanity, war crimes, or other serious crimes committed between 1998 and 2000. The SPO and its predecessor, the EU Special Investigative Task Force, were established following the 2011 release of the Council of Europe report, Inhuman Treatment of People and Illicit Trafficking in Human Organs in Kosovo, which alleged that individual Kosovo Liberation Army leaders had committed acts that could constitute war crimes in Kosovo between 1999 and 2000.

In November 2020 the Kosovo Specialist Chambers publicly confirmed an indictment filed by the SPO charging then President Hashim Thaci, former Assembly Speaker Kadri Veseli, and two others with crimes against humanity and war crimes. In April the indictment was amended to add new war crimes charges at three additional sites. In September 2022 the SPO withdrew one charge of war crimes (related to one site) from the indictment. Thaci resigned and is set to face the International Criminal Court in The Hague, after an indictment charging him with crimes against humanity and war crimes was confirmed in court. “As I promised I will not go before the court as President of Kosovo,” Thaci said 05 November 2020 during a Thursday press conference in Kosovo’s capital, Pristina. The leader explained his pre-trial resignation, saying he wishes to avoid harming “the integrity of the Kosovo presidency, the state of Kosovo and the people of Kosovo.”

While a KLA commander, the future president was allegedly involved in assassinating Kosovar politicians and military officers, for which Pristina’s District court sentenced him in absentia to 10 years in prison in 1997. Prosecutors accused Thaci of being responsible for almost 100 murders. Prosecutors of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers Court charged Thaci, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi, and former KLA spokesman Jakup Krasniqi with murder, torture, forced disappearances, persecution and cruel treatment of ethnic Albanians, Roma and Serbs, for the purpose of gaining control over the entire province. “Why did they do it? The evidence will show that it was to gain power,” said prosecutor Alex Whiting, adding that the KLA had a “clear and explicit policy to target collaborators and perceived traitors, including political opponents.”

In 2010, a Council of Europe investigation linked Thaci to organized crime, including the trade of human organs forcibly harvested from KLA captives. When the UN tribunal’s case against other KLA leaders fell apart due to witness intimidation and murder, the Specialist Chambers was set up in 2015.

Separately, in December 2022 the Kosovo Specialist Chambers found former Kosovo Liberation Army Commander Salih Mustafa guilty of war crimes, including arbitrary detention, torture, and murder, that occurred in April 1999. The Specialist Chambers sentenced Mustafa to 26 years’ imprisonment. The court’s first war crimes verdict was passed on 16 December 2022, with Mustafa being found guilty of murdering one prisoner and torturing several others at a KLA compound in Zllash, Kosovo, in April 1999. The former militant commander was acquitted of another charge of mistreating detainees. Mustafa, who was arrested in 2020 in Kosovo, had pleaded not guilty on all counts.

Presiding judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia described the verdict as a “milestone for the specialist chambers,” expressing hope that it could lead to “further reconciliation among communities in Kosovo” in the future. Up until this time, the majority of politicians and military commanders prosecuted over war crimes during the Kosovo war and preceding conflicts in former Yugoslavia have predominantly been ethnic Serbs.

The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) in Kosovo noted that resolution for conflict-related crimes committed in Kosovo between 1998 and 2000 remained a challenge, citing inadequate resources and lack of regional cooperation.