The Kosovo Crisis (Part Three), The Civil War

At the end of World War Two, Serbs constituted more than fifty-percent of the population of Kosovo. Due to high birth rates and large amounts of immigration, Muslim Albanians quickly became the majority group. In 1961 Albanians comprised sixty-seven percent of the population, by 1971 that number climbed to seventy-four percent, and by 1991 that number was as high as eighty-two percent. The Serbs, fearful of losing Kosovo to this new majority, enacted harsh measures to keep the Albanian population in line. The Serbs closed schools that taught classes in the Albanian language, Albanians faced unequal treatment under the law, and Albanians faced systematic discrimination by the Serbs. Yet these measures did not appease the brutal Serbs, so they turned a policy of genocide under Milošević. The Serbs would have in fact succeeded in ethnically cleansing Kosovo of all Albanians had it not been for the humanitarian NATO campaign.

That is how the story is commonly told; I would like to present a different view. The post World War Two Yugoslav government was not dominated by the Serbs; rather it was hostile toward them. After the war the government prevented new Serbs from entering Kosovo and formerly displaced Serbs from returning. The Yugoslav government watched idly and did nothing while Serbs were beaten and assaulted by their Albanian neighbors. It was the Serbs who were discriminated at the workplace and market because they could not speak Albanian. It was their homes and fields that were burned and their children who were discriminated at school. This systematic oppression of the Serbs by the Albanians is what allowed the Albanians to gain a majority in the region.

Gangs of Albanian youths harassed the young and old alike. When a Serb was unjustly injured, there was no recourse. Many Serbs feared to tell of the true nature of an injury even to a doctor or nurse. The police refused to investigate crimes against Serbs. Murders went unsolved. One could drive down the road and tell what property was Serbian or Albanian owned by looking at the vandalism; it was rare to see a Serbian home, business, or field untouched. This daily terrorism was organized and intentional. The goal was of this terrorism was to drive the Serbs from Kosovo, to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of all Serbs. And it worked; Serbs fled the region in overwhelming numbers.

In an interview, a Serbian man explained why he left Kosovo in the mid 1990’s. He knew of a man whose wife, while minding her own business, was knocked unconscious from a rock thrown by a gang Albanian youths. He knew a number of Serbs who had lost jobs because they were unable to learn Albanian and claimed it was common for brutal acts of rape and assault to go unpunished if they were committed by Albanians against Serbs.

One day he was in a no fault accident that caused the tragic death of a young Albanian boy. An enraged Albanian mob surrounded his house and threatened to kill his whole family if he did not immediately leave. Believing their threat he left. He said, “Down there in Kosovo you cannot live under the threat of blood vengeance . . . not being able to send your child to school or to the store. Such life is worthless. With things like that nobody can help you, no law, no police, nobody.”

In the midst of this chaos Milošević came to power. His main goals were to stop the ethnic cleansing in the region, restore justice for the Serbs of Kosovo, and return the area to order. He was successful in that after he came to power rape, robbery, and killing could no longer be done openly.

But Milošević’s reforms were met with violent opposition from the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The KLA, the modern-day successor to the Albanian fascist party, is a radical terrorist organization with ties to Osama Bin Laden. This group was determined to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of all Serbs and create a greater Albanian. They led the resistance against Serbian control of the region. Serbia, like any sovereign nation, did not want to cede territory to a separatist group, so they fought (like the United States once did) to preserve their state.

A civil war ensued between the Serbian army and the KLA. There was no genocide of the Albanians, indeed how can one increase in population at radical rates in the midst of genocide? On the contrary, the genocide that occurred was against the Serbs by the Albanians. And this genocide came on the heels of decades of harsh treatment and abuse of the Serbs. The systematic oppression and genocide of the Serbs created the Albanian majority in the region that now legitimates the sovereignty of the new Kosovo state.

In this war the Albanians needed the support of the West to win. The KLA knew they could not defeat the Serbian army by military means, so they turned to propaganda. The KLA buried their fallen comrades in mass graves to fabricate a story of genocide, claiming these men were executed and buried in mass graves by the Serbs. The myth of genocide in the region that legitimated Western involvement originated in this propaganda campaign.

This propaganda campaign worked. At the height of the conflict it was believed that four hundred thousand innocent Albanians had died at the hands of the Serbs. However, these facts soon proved to be false. By the time of the Milošević trial, the number of Albanian causalities was reduced to about four thousand. This was nothing more than a civil war with casualties on both sides and a relatively minor war at that. Nonetheless, the West intervened.

In the spring of 1999 NATO dropped twenty-three thousand bombs on Serbia. This bombing began as a military campaign, but it quickly turned into an organized campaign of terror bent on breaking the Serb’s morale and standard of living. Bridges, hospitals, and other parts of the infostructure were destroyed as well as trains and churches (the latter two on accident) that killed hundreds of civilians. With the help of NATO the Albanians drove out two-hundred thousand Serbs and one-hundred thousand Roma out of Kosovo by means of brutal attacks and intimidation. When all was said and done in this so called genocide, more Serbs had died than Albanians.

The Albanians could never have taken Kosovo by their own strength. The former government of Yugoslavia allowed them to oppress the Serbs, which helped them gain a majority. Albania and other Islamic groups supported the KLA with arms and money. NATO bombed Serbia, preventing it from maintaining control over part of its land. And now by the support of the US and the EU, Kosovo has declared complete independence from Serbia. Before discussing this final break of independence, why it happened, and the effects it will have, we will take a moment to consider the consequences of intervention by the international community in a domestic conflict of a sovereign nation-state.