Serbia: Declaration of independence by Kosovo - full text
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In an address to the Assembly of Kosovo (the legislature of the Serbian province of Kosovo) on the afternoon of Feb. 17, Hashim Thaci, the prime minister of Kosovo, declared Kosovo an independent state. "From this moment on", Thaci told the Assembly, "Kosovo is proud, independent and free."
In reaction, Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said: "Today, a phony state of Kosovo has been declared in the part of Serbia’s territory that is under military control of NATO. This unprecedented lawlessness came as a result of destructive, cruel and immoral policy of force implemented by the US".
Tension in Kosovo remained high during March, with frequent protests by Serbs and violent clashes with the authorities in Mitrovica, some 40 km north of Pristina (the capital of Kosovo).
Immediate context
In August 2007 a renewed diplomatic effort was launched to negotiate a solution between ethnic Albanian separatists, who formed the majority of the population of Kosovo and the Serbian government, which fiercely opposed the separatists and sought to defend the rights of the minority Serbian population in the region. A UN-brokered plan for negotiations was agreed in October 2007, but without any explicit mention of full Kosovan independence, to the dismay of the Kosovan delegation.
In November 2007, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), led by former ethnic Albanian militant separatist Hashim Thaci, narrowly won legislative elections. Thaci had pledged that if elected he would declare full independence immediately. International mediators admitted in December that they had failed to broker a compromise between Serbia and the separatists, while an adviser to Serbian Prime Minister Kostunica indicated that his country was prepared to use force to retain Kosovo.
Reaction and outlook
Recognition of Kosovan independence was granted on Feb. 18 by the USA and several EU member countries, including the UK, after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels. Spain, Cyprus, and Slovenia had refused to recognise Kosovo, according to the Guardian Unlimited on Feb. 18. Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected the declaration of independence, calling it "illegal".
In response to the rapid US recognition of an independent Kosovo, pro-Serbian demonstrators stormed the US embassy in Belgrade (the capital of Serbia) and set part of it ablaze on Feb. 21.
Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica March 8 announced his resignation and called for new elections, scheduled for May, after members of his cabinet decided to adopt a softer line on Kosovo’s declaration of independence in order to pursue EU membership for Serbia. "The government of Serbia no longer has a united policy on an important issue related to the future of the country: Kosovo as a part of Serbia," Kostunica told reporters in Belgrade. "Such a government could not function any more ... [W]e should return the mandate to the people," he said. The Financial Times reported on Feb. 25 that Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, while visiting Belgrade, had offered Russian support to the Serbian government in opposing Kosovo’s "illegal" declaration of independence.
In contrast, Serbian President Boris Tadic said that it was more important for his country to continue along the path to full membership of the EU. Since being re-elected in February, Tadic has opposed an independent Kosovo, but said that Serbian integration with the EU must proceed regardless of the status of Kosovo.
Serbia recalled ambassadors from each of the countries that recognised Kosovo, according to the Feb. 18 Kiyev Post, and Serbian Prime Minister Kostunica called on the USA to "annul" its recognition of Kosovo, something the US State Department refused to do, the news agency Reuters reported on Feb. 25.
Historical context
Serbs migrated to the territories of modern Kosovo in the 7th century, but did not fully incorporate them into the Serbian realm until the early 13th century. The Serbs were defeated by the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, and the Ottomans continued to rule the area for five centuries.
By the end of the 19th century, Albanians had replaced the Serbs as the dominant ethnic group in the Turkish province of Kosovo, which covered a larger area than that of modern Kosovo. Serbs had been forced out between 1876 and 1912 by the Turks and their Albanian allies, especially during the Greek-Ottoman War in 1897. After the collapse of the occupying Ottoman Turkish dynasty in 1912-13, Serbia reclaimed the core of the Turkish province of Kosovo (the remainder going to Montenegro and Albania). Its incorporation into Serbia in 1913 was seen as a symbolic and cultural reversal of the defeat of 1389.
During World War II, Kosovo was administered as an Italian protectorate, effectively a part of Albania, while the Serbian population suffered brutal attacks from several quarters.
After World War II, the government of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, led by Marshal Josip Broz Tito, imposed a single Yugoslav identity. Under the 1946 constitution, Kosovo (then known as Kosovo-Metohija, or Kosmet) acquired certain powers of self-government, and these powers were extended in the constitutions of 1963 (in which it became the autonomous province of Kosmet, later Kosovo). However, the Kosovo Albanians lobbied for greater autonomy and Kosovo was granted the status of an autonomous province in 1974.
Following an uprising in 1981, the independence movement became increasingly militant and conflict between the ethnic Albanian and ethnic Serbian populations intensified. In 1989, Kosovo’s autonomous status within Serbia was repealed and some 30 ethnic Albanians were killed in subsequent riots.
Subsequently, President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia began to strip away Kosovo’s autonomy. Ethnic Albanian delegates to the Kosovo Assembly declared Kosovo independent in July 1990, prompting the Serbian authorities to dissolve the Assembly permanently.
During the collapse of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, as each republic declared independence, Serbs living in enclaves feared that their rights would be compromised and resistance to any further break-up of the remainder of Yugoslavia increased. In contrast, by early 1998, a guerrilla insurgency by the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK, or KLA) had gathered pace. In February 1998 UCK fighters shot dead four Serb police officers in Likosane and Serb forces launched a violent crackdown in response to the deaths. Serbian military units began a campaign of ethnic cleansing that involved mass shootings, razing of villages and the expulsion of Albanians from the environs of Mitrovica and the Drini Valley. After the UCK seized land in Kosovo, the war intensified and the Yugoslav (effectively Serbian) army was accused of an indiscriminate and brutal crackdown, particularly after a massacre of ethnic Albanian civilians was uncovered in Racak in January 1999 . To stop the Serb forces, NATO began a 78-day bombing campaign against military, infrastructure, and civilian sites in Serbia, which precipitated a Serb withdrawal from the province. President Milosevic was subsequently indicted on war crimes charges by the UN International Criminal Tribunal.
From July 1999, Kosovo was administered by the transitional UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and KFOR, a NATO-led peacekeeping force, but attacks on the Serb minority continued.
In 2001, UNMIK promulgated a Constitutional Framework for Kosovo that established the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government, including an elected Kosovo Assembly, presidency, and office of prime minister. Kosovo held its first free, Kosovo-wide elections in late 2001 (municipal elections had been held the previous year).
In March 2004, Kosovo experienced its worst inter-ethnic violence since the Kosovo war of 1999. The unrest in 2004 followed a series of minor events but soon cascaded into large-scale riots.
The UN attempted to establish a dialogue but the situation remained tense. In July 2005, the launch of a UN review of Kosovo's stability and readiness to enter a formal negotiation process coincided with bomb attacks on UNMIK offices. However, UN-sponsored "future status" talks began in October 2005. Neither side was willing to compromise, and a new Serbian constitution adopted in October 2006 following the secession of Montenegro affirmed Serbian unwillingness to grant independence to Kosovo. A renewed diplomatic effort to broker a solution was launched by the UN in 2007.
