April 27, 1999
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April 27, 1999 |
The Western Balkans and Kosovo
Understanding the current situation in Kosovo requires an understanding of the historical context of the Balkan peninsula. The Balkans have long been an area of difficulty, so much so that the term ÒbalkanizationÓ is used to describe the process of splintering into contentious factions. In order to make sound judgments about what action to take the underlying tensions and history of the region must be appreciated. Acting solely on current information often creates solutions that will not hold over time. If a solution is to be found, it must take into account and reduce the underlying tensions that produced it.
This paper provides a brief historical review of the Balkan region, especially the former Yugoslavia. Locating the current situation in its broader context allows better decisions to be made about how to craft an international solution to the problem of Kosovo. The first section provides a general overview of the region, and includes some analysis as to why this area is particularly contentious. Next, the Serbian and Albanian interpretations of their history in Kosovo are presented. The last section details the recent events leading to the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the current crisis in Kosovo.
History of the Balkans
The Balkan Peninsula is the area between the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea in the Southeastern part of Europe. It is situated at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East and the Russian Steppes. This placement, as we will see below, is one of the reasons used to explain the areaÕs turbulent history. Much of the Balkan Peninsula is mountainous, especially the western area where Yugoslavia and Kosovo are located.
The written history of the Western Balkans goes back at least to the fifth century BC. Greek historians referred to inhabitants of this area as Illyrians and Thracians. During this time period it appears as if the Illyrians were the dominant group in the region. While the identification of the ÒfirstÓ inhabitants of a region might seem somewhat unimportant today, we will see that it is vitally important to the claims that the Serbians and the Albanians make over Kosovo.
The Western Balkans were heavily influenced by the Roman empire, and were eventually annexed in 9 BC. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans actively encouraged the spread of Latin culture and the incorporation of new areas into that culture. Eventually, five native Illyrians rose to become emperorÕs of Rome. The barbarian invasions that eventually toppled the Roman Empire, also disrupted the society of the Western Balkans. The two most important ramifications of the collapse of the Roman empire on the Western Balkans were the migration of new groups into the region, and the split of the Christian Church into the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The most important new group that migrated to Illyria was the Slavs, who occupied the whole of Illyria by 650 AD. The Slav migration was comprised of three groups, the Slovenes in the North, and the Croats and Serbs in the South. The Croats and Slovenes were incorporated into the Roman Catholic religion, while the Serbs followed the Eastern Orthodox religion. While both the Serbs and the Croats speak the same language, Serbo-Croatian, they do not use the same alphabet. Following Rome, the Croats used the Latin alphabet, where the Serbs used the Cyrillic alphabet. Thus, from a shared Slavic culture two different cultures emerged with different linguistic and cultural traditions.
The divisions between the Serbs and the Croats, and between these two groups and the Northern Slavic peoples, have tended to increase over time. Tensions between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox church increased the tensions between the Croats and the Serbs. The Balkans have repeatedly found themselves in the middle of broader historical movements and these broader social forces have generally increased and exacerbated the existing tensions between groups. For example, many of the Crusades in the eleventh and twelfth century went through the Balkans, further destabilizing the local situation.
The next great influence on the region was the rise of the Ottoman Turks in the fourteenth and fifteenth century. The Ottoman Turks were an aggressive Muslim force that expanded into predominantly Christian Europe. During the fourteenth century they expanded into the Byzantine Empire, the seat of the Eastern Orthodox religion, and eventually, in 1453, they captured Constantinople. The fall of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire eliminated the buffer zone between the Roman Catholic nations of Europe and the growing Muslim world. The center of the Eastern Orthodox religion moved North to Moscow beginning a close relationship between Serbia and Russia. These events introduced a third great religion into the already divided region.
The Western Balkans are divided into three religions, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Muslim. In addition, there are numerous ethnic differences between Croats and Serbs, Slavic and non-Slavic, and other groups. The confluence of three major religions in the limited geographic area of the Balkan peninsula, combined with existing ethnic differences, is the most dominant explanation for the regions troubles.
In the Balkans, three great religions come face to face and it is here that the tensions between them have been played out. In addition, the political tensions between these three great power centers were often played out in the Balkans. When the tensions between Roman Catholic Europe and the Ottoman Empire became too great, it was the Balkans that served as a release valve. The Balkans had the unfortunate place as the frontier between three great power centers, and the influence of these political considerations still appears today.
Serbian and Albanian Perspectives on Kosovo
Kosovo is a mountainous region in the southern part of the Former Yugoslavia. It borders Albania on the West and Macedonia on the South. The current population of Kosovo is approximately 2.1 million people, of whom approximately 90% are ethnic Albanians and the remaining 10% are mostly Serbians.
The more specific history of the Kosovo region is disputed by the Serbians and Albanians. Even the spelling of the region is disputed, with the Serbians spelling it Kosovo and the Albanians Spelling it Kosova (Kosovo is more widely used in the press, and is therefore the spelling used here). What is common to both view points is the importance of Kosovo to their identity as a people. We in America, with our relatively short history and predominantly immigrant background, are somewhat unaccustomed to the deep sense of nationalism and identity connected to territory that exists in Europe.
For many European groups their national identity is intricately linked to the history and places where their people have been. It is similar to our connection to the houses we have grown up in. Many of us have a house that we feel connected to in a very personal way, a house that is, in a sense, part of who we are. For Serbians, Albanians, Croats and many other groups their sense of who they are is intimately tied to the regions in which they live, and have lived, for centuries. Their ties to their houses, their land, their families, their history, and their country are all located in the same place, so these feelings are very powerful.
The Serbians view the Kosovo region as the center of Serbian identity. The Serbian web site (www.Serbia-info.com) compares the importance of Kosovo to the Serbs as similar to the importance of the Wailing Wall for the Jews. The importance of Kosovo for the Serbs is due to their historical roots to this area. In the 13th century the Serbs were the dominant ethnic group in the Kosovo region. During this time the Ottoman Turks were moving North and this resulted in a unification of the Serbs around Prince Lazar, who fought a major battle against the Turks at Kosovo Polje (The Field of Blackbirds). This event awakened the sense that all Serbian people should be united together in a single country.
The defeat of the Prince Lazar in Kosovo and the resulting domination of the Muslim Turks changed the population in Kosovo. Serbian people began to emigrate North over the next few centuries to Bosnia, Hungary and Austria to avoid being under Ottoman rule. Serbians resisted this process in a series of uprisings, such as the one in 1689, but the Turkish control over the region was unshakable. This repression at the hands of the Turks only hastened the emigration out of the region. From the Serbian perspective, their traditional homeland of Kosovo was taken from them by the Turks, and the idea of Òfreeing KosovoÓ has long been one of the rallying cries for Serbian nationalism.
During the rule of the Ottoman Empire, from the fourteenth to the twentieth century, many Albanian Muslims moved into the region, eventually comprising a majority of the population. By 1878 Serbia had become an independent country, though the Kosovo region was still under Turkish rule. In 1912, Serbia and Other independent States joined together to force the crumbling Ottoman Empire out of Europe, including Kosovo. The Balkans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were very turbulent, with the great powers of Europe using the small states of the Balkans for political ends. This eventually boiled over into World War One (remember that the spark that ignited World War One was the assignation of Archduke Ferdinand by a Serbian terrorist). Over the next 6 years, with World War One as a backdrop, there was a great deal of fighting in Kosovo between Serbs and Albanians.
During this time the Serbs saw themselves as the legitimate leaders of the Southern Slavic people, and there was a growing movement to unify these people. Serbia expanded their influence and their territory with the hopes of uniting Serbia and ultimately all the Southern Slavic people. When Yugoslavia (literally Òsouthern SlavsÓ) was created after World War One, the Serbians tended to dominate the country. They see themselves as the natural leaders of the Southern Slavic people and they see Kosovo as the heart of their national identity.
The Albanians have a different perspective on the situation. The Serbians argue that they were in the region before the Albanians, and hence they have a right to control it. The Albanians contest the notion that the Serbs were there first. While the Serbs may have been the dominant group in the region in the thirteenth century they were not a native group. As discussed above, the Slavic people migrated into the region around the sixth century BC. During this time they displaced and/or ruled over the indigenous Illyrians. The Albanians claim, with archeological evidence, that they are the direct descendants of the Illyrians. They claim that the Serbians continued moving into the region up until the twelfth century, displacing the indigenous Illyrian-Albanian population.
A Writer in 1332 stated that Òthese people, both Latin and Albanian are under the unbearable and very grave yolk of the prince of the Slaves. . . All of them together and individually, thought that they would sanctify their hands if they stained them with the blood of the above mentioned SlavsÓ (quoted in Ducellier). This quote expresses much the same sentiment that dominates the region today. From the Albanian perspective it is the Slavic Serbians who displaced them from ÒKosova,Ó and hence their movement into the region in the fourteenth through nineteenth centuries was only a movement back into their own historic lands. Hence, the fighting surrounding World War One was a fight by the Albanians to unify greater Albania, and to avoid repeating the historical domination by the Serbs.
Each of the two groups claim that this region is integral to their history and their identity. Each group has historical evidence to support their claims. Obviously the region is important to both groups and each group has a desire to have the region under their control, the Serbians want the region to be part of Ògreater SerbiaÓ while the Albanians want the region to be part of Ògreater Albania.Ó
The Current Crisis in Kosovo
Yugoslavia was created at the end of World War One, ÒunifyingÓ the disparate groups of the Western Balkans into one country. While there was generally support for the unification of the Southern Slavs at the end of World War One this consensus was not to last. Very quickly the new country was plagued by separatist sentiments, with various charges of favoritism to the Serbs or to other groups. The government was unsteady and occasionally degraded into authoritarian repression to keep the country together.
The internally divided Yugoslavia was quickly overrun in the Second World War, and carved up between the Axis powers. During the occupation of Yugoslavia, a Croat named Josip Broz a.k.a. Tito, became a famed resistance leader. After the war, he and his communist ÒpeopleÕs frontÓ easily won election to the first parliament. Marshal Tito was a strong and independent leader. He declared his independence from Soviet control and worked hard to develop the Yugoslavian economy and suppress the ethnic cleavages that split the country.
One of the solutions to the regional tensions within Yugoslavia was to grant ethnic regions autonomy from the central government. Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, and Macedonia, were all granted certain freedoms from the Serbian dominated central government. Kosovo, on the other hand tended to be tightly controlled by the Serbians, and therefore, a center of more unrest. Finally, in 1974 Kosovo was granted almost the full autonomy that the other provinces enjoyed. After autonomy, Serbians in Kosovo started to complain of harassment by Albanians. Also during this time, many Albanians in Kosovo were demanding greater political freedom, with some pushing for full independence from Yugoslavia.
TitoÕs death in 1980 allowed the underlying ethnic tensions to once more dominate Yugoslavia. Serbian nationalism was used by Slobadan Milosevic, the head of the Serbian Communist Party, to gain power in 1987. Milosevic promised that he would reclaim Kosovo if he were elected. In 1989, the Serbian National Assemble stripped Kosovo of their autonomy precipitating rioting in the streets in which more than 20 people were killed. In July of 1990, Serbia dissolved the local government in Kosovo after Albanian deputies declared their independence from Serbia. Albanians in Kosovo then set up their own parallel government and refused to cooperate with the Serbian government through Òpeaceful resistance,Ó such as refusal to serve in the armed forces. Serbian efforts to regain Kosovo had major impacts on the rest of the provinces ultimately leading to the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
The death of Marshal Tito unleashed nationalist forces throughout the country. After Kosovo was stripped of its autonomy, the other ethnic regions began to worry about their own autonomy and Serbian domination. In June of 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence from Yugoslavia. Later in October of 1991, Bosnia-Hercegovina also declared their independence, touching off a fierce civil war.
The regions of Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina include significant Serbian minorities, and ethnic Serbians feared exactly the kind of dominance that they had exercised over the other provinces. The long-standing animosity, spurred on by nationalist sentiment, led to a bloody civil war in which hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed or displaced in Òethnic cleansingÓ (an effort to make a particular region ethnically homogeneous, i.e. entirely Serbian, entirely Croat, or entirely Bosnian by forcing people of other ethnicities to leave). Each side, fearing for their people at the hands of the other ethnic groups, committed abuses on other ethnic groups. Most of the war was fought in Bosnia-Hercegovina, with interference by Croatia and Serbia among others. The Yugoslavian army (which was now almost entirely Serbian) was accused of helping and organizing the Bosnian Serbs ethnic cleansing efforts in Bosnia.
This conflict dragged on for almost three years, killing almost 250,000 people, mostly civilians. It finally came to an end with the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995. Under United Nations direction, France, England and the United States sent in 20,000 troops to secure the peace in Bosnia-Hercegovina. So far, the peace mission is working and the fighting has stopped in Bosnia-Hercegovina. The underlying tensions between the ethnic groups remain with many calling for bloody revenge against other ethnic groups. The situation in Kosovo was relatively stable during the fighting in Bosnia-Hercegovina. After the fighting in Bosnia stopped both separatist and Serbian activities picked up.
The Western Baltic region has been plagued by conflict throughout its history. Being at the border of three religious groups is one primary region for conflict. Croats and Slovenians are primarily Roman Catholic like many Western Europeans, Serbia is Eastern Orthodox, like many Eastern European countries including Russia, and Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania are Muslim like most people in the Middle East. The divisions between the religious groups overlap political divisions in the world, the division between the East and West in the Cold War, and the difficulty that is the Middle East. The Balkans have often been the battleground for these larger conflicts, and these have contributed greatly to the difficulties there.