Kosovo's Ethnic Albanian Leaders Demand Independence from Yugoslavia

Strategic Insights -

The province's ethnic Albanian leaders are pushing for complete independence from Yugoslavia, while the Serbian minority continues to dwindle. Ibrahim Rugova, the head of the Democratic League of Kosovo, has stated that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has forfeited all sovereign rights to the province due to the campaign of repression and ethnic cleansing. This demand comes as the United Nations and NATO have committed to promoting "the highest degree of autonomy" for Kosovo within Yugoslavia.

Key Takeaways:

  • Ibrahim Rugova, the head of the Democratic League of Kosovo, has stated that Yugoslavia has forfeited all sovereign rights to Kosovo due to the campaign of repression and ethnic cleansing.
  • The United Nations and NATO have committed to promoting "the highest degree of autonomy" for Kosovo within Yugoslavia, but leading Kosovo politicians want more.
  • The Serbs' violent campaign in Kosovo has cost them much of their right to govern, with the United Nations moving to establish a civilian administration and a NATO-dominated security force keeping the peace.
  • The independence talk complicates efforts by chief U.N. administrator Bernard Kouchner to set up a transitional executive council of Kosovo's most prominent political figures.
  • The power vacuum that developed before the United Nations moved in and the unexpected flight of some four-fifths of Kosovo's prewar Serbian population has complicated the timetable for organizing provincewide elections.
  • The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that the Serbian population of Pristina, the province's capital, has gone from 40,000 to just a couple thousand today.
  • Virtually the only Serbs left in the city are those who can't leave - the sick, the elderly, and the disabled.
  • U.N. officials in Kosovo are making the protection of Kosovo's remaining Serbs a top priority, stating that they are "not willing to accept" the mass flight of Serbs from Kosovo.
  • The international administrative force has established functional control of the province, but an independent Kosovo dominated by ethnic Albanians could be doubly destabilizing to the region.

Statistics:

  • 150,000: The prewar Serbian population of Kosovo.
  • 40,000: The number of Serbs who lived in Pristina, the province's capital, when the NATO bombing ended.
  • 2,000: The number of Serbs remaining in Pristina today.
  • 700,000: The number of refugees taken in by Serbia in the past eight years as a result of ethnic conflicts.

Sources:

  • Der Spiegel
  • United States Department of State
  • United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
  • New York Times
  • Associated Press (no specific article cited, but referenced as a "wire service report")