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The conflict between Kosovo and Serbia
History
Kosovo is the disputed borderland between Serbia and Albania. About 90 per cent of its
two million inhabitants are Kosovo Albanians (Kosovars). Albanians are supposedly descended
from the ancient Dardanians (Illyrians) who allegedly inhabited the western Balkans long before
Slavs arrived in the sixth to eighth centuries AD. The Serbs, however, refer to Kosovo as the
‘cradle of the Serb nation’.
Conflict between Kosovo and Serbia
From early 1998 to 1999, the war was between the army and police of FR Yugoslavia,
and the Kosovo Liberation Army. From March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999, NATO attacked
Yugoslavia, and ethnic Albanian militants continued battles with Yugoslav forces, amidst a
massive displacement of population in Kosovo estimated to be close to 1 million people. The war
in Kosovo was believed to be the first humanitarian war . It was the center of news headlines for
months, and gained a massive amount of coverage and attention from the international
community and media. Kosovo and the bombing of Yugoslavia was also a very controversial
war and still remains a controversial issue.
Kosovo in Serbia
Located in the southern part of Yugoslavia, Kosovo was one part of that country that
could never really be considered completely on board with the central idea of Yugoslavia, in that
it was a homeland for all southern Slavs. This was simple because the Kosovars, as the
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predominant ethnic group of people living in Kosovo are called, weren’t Slavic. In reality, they
were Albanians, but the differences ran deeper.
Technically part of the Federal Republic of Serbia, a division of Yugoslavia, the region was
majority Muslim, whereas Serbia is overwhelmingly Orthodox. While seeming paradoxical, the
reason was one of convenience. Serbia considered Kosovo to be part of its historical homeland,
and viewed the region’s Albanian-Muslim population as a mere remnant of the Ottoman Empire’s
occupation centuries earlier.
However, as nearly 95% of the population of Kosovo was Albanian-Muslim, those people had by
now also become culturally tied to the land. As such, Kosovo soon received special treatment
within the Yugoslav government, being treated instead as an autonomous province, but still a
