THE SERBIAN MINISTRY

FOR KOSOVO AND METOHIA

KOSOVO
THE CROWN OF SERBIAN HISTORY
Some nations have their founding father gure,
others are based on a mix of cultures or an image
of grandeur, but the Serbs identify themselves with
a small piece of land a sacred land symbolizing
their spirituality and sacrice.
The southern province of Kosovo and Metohija
(Land of churches) represents the birthplace of
the Serbian nation, the roots of the royal family
tree, the site of many glorious battles and timeless
shrines, the matrix of values the Serbs cherish and
live by, their Jerusalem and Alamo rolled into one.

Crowns can fall, riches may vanish and most

borders are subject to change, but no hearth can be
deemed lost as long as the re is kept alive. Serbia
has nally restored its statehood after eighty years
of ideological confusion and now stands prouder
than ever of its unique heritage.
The new democratic leaders have shown laudable
restraint and cooperation with the international
community in the face of the tragic situation in
postwar Kosovo and are now ready to propose an
all-round compromise solution for the future status
of the troubled province, in full compliance with
international law and balancing the interests of
all the parties involved to the fairest.

RISE AND GLORY

OF THE SERBIAN MEDIEVAL STATE
At the time the Serbs populated Kosovo,
around the 10th century, the territory was
largely deserted. The fertile plain surrounded
by protective mountains became the center of
the prosperous Serbian Kingdom that stretched
over most of the Balkans.
Over the next four centuries, the Serbs aristocracy formed a great number of castled cities
all over Kosovo, which served as centers of important political and diplomatic decision-making. Czar Duan (1331-1355) moved the royal
residence to the city of Prizren and the Serbian
Orthodox Church established its Patriarchate
in Pe (1331).
Marriages to European royal families members, support to Christian crusades, an important trade balance, a developed mining industry and impressive wine-making capabilities,
including 20 km long vinoduct from Velika
Hoa to Prizren, put the Serbian society of the
middle ages on the line of social, economic and
cultural developments in western Europe.

Many of them are part of world heritage, such

as the Patriarchate of Pe (1331), the Monastery of Graanica (1320) or the Holy Virgin
of Ljevi (1307) and the Monastery of Deani
(1334), both included on UNESCOs list.

Its rulers were also keen on artistic and religious endowments. Over 1,500 monuments
of Serbian culture identied in Kosovo are the
living legacy of the Serbian historical presence
in the region.

These temples, inspired by Byzantine architecture and built by the best western architects,
feature frescoes of impressive beauty, showing
scenes from the Gospel as well as portraits of
Serbian rulers.
They have been sheltering for eight centuries
now the relics of canonized monarchs and leaders of the national church and have provided
spiritual support to the nation in times of both
prosperity and occupation.
Together with many other monasteries and
a dense network of small parish churches scattered all over Kosovo, these shrines represent
the basis on which the Serbs formed and consolidated their national consciousness and built
up their national and cultural identity.

THE MEANING OF KOSOVO

FOR THE SERBS
After the fall of the Serbian medieval kingdom
(12th-15th centuries) in which it held a central
part, Kosovo remained a citadel of spirituality
and a symbol of Serbian national identity and
resistance during the long periods of foreign occupation.
It is enshrined in Serbian collective memory as
a quasi-mythological place, whose popular history set the bases of Serbian national character
archetypes in the middle ages and perpetuated
them into modern times through epic poetry
and the charts of the rulers.

Turbulent historical events only exacerbated

this devotion, especially in the 19th and 20th
century.
In the dramatic 1804 and 1812 uprisings,
Serbian masses called upon the spirit of Kosovo,
which their leaders, founding members of the
current royal dynasty, included in their coat of
arms.
In the rst half of the 19th century, Kosovo
became a favorite theme for Serbias romantic
poets, playwrights and painters inspired by the
wars of liberation and the nations cultural revival.
During World War I, Serbia became the darling of both English and French public, which
interpreted its determination to ght and secure
freedom as an expression of the Kosovo spirit.
In communist Yugoslavia, celebrations related
to Kosovo were forbidden, but strongman Tito
skillfully usurped the matrix of the Kosovo legacy in order to hype up some of the World War
II battles he himself participated in.
In modern times, Slobodan Miloevi came
to power in the late 1980s by pledging to help
the suering of the Kosovo Serbs. At that time
and then only he had the support of the
entire population.
In 1999, Serbia was bombed as it unanimously refused to accept an agreement it considered
as paving the way for the secession of Kosovo.

The major themes that shaped the cult of

Kosovo were loyalty to the family and to the
nation, the necessity of struggle against tyranny,
the ideal of heroic self-sacrice, the futility of
betrayal and the assuredness of resurrection.

Even today, the Serbs categorically refuse to

renounce on Kosovo, both as a territory and as
a set of values. This is a rare common stand of
the Government, the National Assembly, the
royalty, the Church and the general public.

FIVE CENTURIES
OF TURKISH OCCUPATION
The demographic balance of Kosovo started to
change after the landmark 1389, the Battle of
Kosovo Polje. A few decades later, Kosovo and
the rest of Serbia fell under Ottoman (Turkish)
rule.
This oppressive feudal system brought a dark
age of destruction of Serbian society, architecture and cultural achievements, which led Serbia to lag far behind the rest of Europe during
its Renaissance and Enlightenment periods.
Serbian resistance and solidarity with Christian Europe was punished by severe reprisals,
which triggered waves of northward migrations,
most notably in 1690 and 1739, following major defeats of Austro-Hungarians, with whom
the Serbs had sided up against the Turks.
As the Ottomans settled in Serbian towns
of Kosovo and the Serbs were forced to move,
Albanians from todays northern Albania began
to settle in the region and to accept Islam in
exchange of social favors.
This trend continued in the 18th and the 19th
centuries, bringing out signicant numbers of
ethnic Albanians on Kosovos demographic
map for the rst time in history and antagonizing Serbs-Albanians relations on both social
and religious levels, with very little room for
compromise.

Serbia nally regained its independence at the

1878 Berlin Congress. It liberated Kosovo from
Turkish yoke in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13
and reintegrated it into the Kingdom of Serbia
through the 1913 Bucharest Treaty, which was
unanimously supported by the ambassadors
and royal representatives of Russia, France,
Germany, Austro-Hungary, Italy and the UK at
the ensuing London Conference.
As part of Serbia, Kosovo was ocially incorporated, in 1919, in the Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenians later called Yugoslavia.

LIBERATION FROM THE TURKS AND

MODERN ALBANIAN UPRISINGS
However, the return under Serbian control
after ve centuries of Ottoman occupation has
been interpreted by Albanian and Albanophile
historians as the beginning of the Serbian occupation of Kosovo, thus legitimizing their
non-cooperation and uprisings against the
Serbs throughout the 20th century.
Regardless of who ruled over Kosovo -- Turks,
Yugoslavs, Italians, Germans, Communists,
Miloevi or the UN and whatever their relations to the ruler were, Kosovo Albanians have
always fought for secession from Serbia and annexation to neighboring Albania. This is therefore not a new phenomenon, as commonly
perceived today.
Albanians have sided up ocially, but not
wholeheartedly, with the fascism of Mussolini,
with the Stalinism of Tirana, with the internationalism of Tito, with the human rights
rhetoric of the UN, always hoping that the big
powers they are playing up to will grant them
independence. More than often, they were prepared to resort to extreme violence in order to
fulll these goals.
In World War I, they joined the Austro-Germans and Bulgarians. In World War II, they
supported fascistic Italy and later formed special SS units. Both wars triggered new waves of
Serbs migrations out of Kosovo.

In Titos Yugoslavia, the communist regime

only reinforced this trend. In trying to minimize the strength of the Republic of Serbia,
the biggest in the Yugoslav Federation, Serbian
refugees were prohibited to return in the province while Kosovo Albanians were given extraordinary prerogatives after the constitutional
changes of 1974, which granted high autonomy and rights of veto to the Kosovo Provincial
Government.
Billions of dollars were invested in the province, which accounted for up to 45% of the
total internal aid. Major social and urbanistic
developments were achieved: the province became fully bilingual and there were TV and radio stations, newspapers, schools and university
studies available in Albanian language.
The Obili power plant was constructed in
1962, the police turned multiethnic in 1966,
the Institute of Albanology and the Albanian
Academy of Sciences were formed in the 1970s
and Kosovo Albanians were granted the highest
state positions.
This, however, didnt stop Albanian aspirations for secession, as manifested by general
lack of their integration in the Yugoslav system
and a series of violent demonstrations calling
for a Republic status for Kosovo, with a perspective of secession.
After Titos death, radical Albanian requests
of seceding from Serbia mounted, encouraged
by their demographic growth and supported by
their auent and solidary diaspora and their
notorious organized crime network.
Numerous incidents from that period, such
as the widespread Albanian demonstrations of
1981 and desperate protests of Kosovo Serbs attracted much international media attention.

INTERETHNIC RADICALIZATION
AND FOREIGN INTERVENTION
Kosovo became a synonym for trouble even
before the breakup of Yugoslavia, and many
analysts predicted that the problematic Serbian
province would be the catalyst of the disintegration of the entire country.

Belgrade reacted with an eective police

crackdown, rst praised as war on terror by the
White House - while it was still listing KLA as a
terrorist organization - and later condemned as
overwhelming use of force, when the separatistic guerillas were suddenly renamed partners
of US interests.
The clashes between KLA and Serb security
forces led to substantial collateral damage and
initial displacement of thousands of Kosovo Albanian civilians from the areas of conict.

Compromise was once again o the agenda.

Faced with an open campaign for secession of
Kosovo in the 1980s, the Serbian Government
headed by Slobodan Milosevic sharply abolished
the autonomy of the province in 1989, involuntarily triggering the creation of the Kosovo
Albanian parallel system, which was based on
the boycott of cooperation and dialogue with
the Serbs and on the establishment of parallel,
pro-Albanian underground institutions.
The absence of dialogue inevitably led to the
radicalization of the situation. On July 2nd
1990, the Albanians-dominated Assembly of
Kosovo proclaimed the Republic of Kosovo,
which led to the introduction of the state of
emergency, widespread harassment and institutional discrimination of dissident ethnic Albanians.
The second part of the 1990s was marked by
the appearance of the armed Albanian guerilla
group calling itself KLA (Kosovo Liberation
Army), which staged numerous attacks on security forces and civilian targets in 1996-1998,
aimed at inciting a foreign intervention.

At the Rambouillet negotiations, NATO accused Milosevic of ethnic cleansing and threatened to stage a military intervention against
Serbia. Belgrade strongly disputed this interpretation, claiming it was only ghting separatists
on Serbian territory.
A few weeks later, despite the lack of approval
of the UN Security Council, NATO launched
a massive 78-day bombing campaign against
Serbia, which resulted in all-out war on the
ground, exodus of hundreds of thousands of
ethnic Albanians, signicant material damage
and loss of life.
On 10 June 1999, a peace-deal was signed,
ensuring the retreat of Yugoslav army and Serbian police forces and the establishment of a
temporary UN-NATO protectorate in Kosovo.

THE FAILURE OF UN PEACEKEEPING

Eight years later, the consequences of that intervention are rather controversial.
While they have achieved a certain success in
institution-building and restoring normal living
conditions for the ethnic Albanian community,
UN administrators and NATO KFOR troops
have blatantly failed to challenge the other side
of the problem a wide-spread campaign of
violence against the Kosovo Serbs and other
non-Albanians.
Albanian revenge attacks, as they were apologetically called in the rst weeks of the postwar period, became the syndrome of systematic
eradication of Serbian presence and culture in
Kosovo.
Faced with deadly violence, discrimination
and lack of freedom of movement, Kosovo
Serbs and other non-Albanians either ed the
province or relocated to isolated enclaves and
ghettos, living in the worst conditions in the
whole of 21st century Europe.
In the seven years of UN administration, in
times of internationally guaranteed peace and
despite the presence of dozens of thousands
of NATO troops, over 2000 Serbs and other
non-Albanians have been killed or remain unaccounted for and 226,000 of them have been
forced out of Kosovo.
Thousands of homes have been destroyed;
over 80 graveyards and 156 Christian Orthodox churches, many of them the jewels of medieval architecture, were desecrated, mined or
burned to the ground.
All symbols and monuments of Serbian culture have been removed, while many government-sponsored materials grossly falsifying the
history of Kosovo appeared, trying to wipe out
all traces of Serbian presence in the province.

The remaining 120,000 Kosovo Serbs live

conned in rural enclaves and ghettos with
restricted freedom of movement, facing daily
intimidation and harassment, limited access to
health care, lack of employment opportunities
and a blockade of Serbs media outlets.
They survive thanks to the help coming from
Belgrade and to the security provided by NATO
soldiers, who maintain checkpoints around the
most vulnerable enclaves and provide military
escort to school children, priests and bus passengers.
But even this proved not to be enough: beating, stoning, shooting, bomb, landmine and
rocket attacks - cynically described as isolated
incidents- continue on a daily basis. The proclaimed goal of multiethnic coexistence seems
very far away.
All this is to be added to the problems that
Kosovo faces as a society in general: the extremely dicult economic situation (skyrocketing unemployment, enormous decit, widespread corruption and ever too frequent electric
power cuts), its trademark organized crime
(drugs trade, sex tracking, cigarette smuggling) and notorious paramilitary structures (
violence exporting to Macedonia or southern
Serbia and turning against the UN administration or other local targets, including even late
president Ibrahim Rugova and various Hague
Tribunal witnesses).
A poor and biased privatization process
did not take into account the property rights
owned by the Kosovo Serb workers or by the
state of Serbia, and the expropriation of illegally
occupied property is discouragingly slow.

Public condemnation of the living conditions

of non-Albanians is virtually non-existent and a
culture of impunity reigns: so far only a handful
among thousands of ethnic-motivated crimes
have been processed, thus further endangering
prospects for a multiethnic environment.
In such a situation, it is almost understandable that the return of the displaced Serbs and
non-Albanians to Kosovo has been practically
non-existent: in six years only 5-6% or some
12,000 people returned to their homes, mostly
on individual incentive.
In January 2007, there were less than one hundred (!) Serbs living in the six biggest cities of
Kosovo combined, excluding the north part of
Kosovska Mitrovica.

In the meantime, the situation on the ground

turned from bad to worse. The wide-scale antiSerb violence of 17-20 March 2004 branded ethnic cleansing by the NATO Admiral
Gregory Johnson and orchestrated, planned
violence by international observers was the
worst outbreak of violence since July 1999.
Yet, instead of pursuing with more rmness
than ever the proclaimed policy of establishing
democratic standards, the opposite happened:
the standards were downsized, with the sarcastic argument that there could be no progress
without starting the negotiations on the status
of Kosovo.

On the political plan, the Kosovo Albanian

leadership continually refuses any contact with
Belgrade, despite democratic changes and successful EU-oriented reforms in Serbia.
They were encouraged in this kind of thinking
by the UN administration which on numerous
occasions breached UNSC Resolution 1244 by
transferring more competency than agreed to
the provisional authorities.
This transfer of responsibilities failed to improve the situation, however, as the Albanian
community had only one thing on their agenda
the urgency of talks on the nal status of
Kosovo. Ironically, they keep claiming that
all problems would be solved only posteriori,
when Kosovo becomes independent.
The international community tried to move
things from a standstill in December 2003 when
it came up with the policy of standards before
status, which called for the fullling of a series
of eight key human rights standards before any
talks on the future status could begin.

Ironically, this was exactly what the Kosovo

Albanian politicians wanted and what the Albanian extremists aimed at when launching their
operations.
The standards BEFORE status policy was
buried in the rubble of the March 2004 violence, cynically replaced by the motto standards AND status.
Negotiations on the future status of Kosovo
began in Vienna in February 2006.

THE FAILURE OF STATUS

NEGOTIATIONS
Despite early attempts by some lobby groups
to close down the debate on Kosovo before it
has even begun by suggesting there was only
one possible option (independence), a thorough and well argued debate based on past
conict-management experience has led to the
understanding that negotiations on the status
of Kosovo must meet a certain number of prerequisites in order to be successful.

One-sided solutions, international precedents

and articial deadlines must be excluded, the nal agreement should be based on compromise
and not imposed, and the nal word should
stay with the UNSC, which was the warrant of
the peace-brokering in the rst place.

Tibet, Taiwan, Northern Cyprus, the Basque

Province, Chechnya, Abkhasia, South Ossetia,
Dagestan, Nagorno-Karabagh, Transdniestria,
Northern Ireland, Western Macedonia, Republika Srpska, Quebec, Tamil Eelam, Hawai
Attempts to describe Kosovo as a cancer that
Serbia should amputate, to suggest that Serbia
will go faster into the EU without Kosovo, to
speculate that progressive Serbs do not care
about Kosovo or to estimate that organized
crime and human rights abuses will disappear
as soon as Kosovo becomes independent have
not worked, nor have the emotional spin-arguments implying that Albanians must get
independence simply because they want it very
much, because they have a moral (sic) right to
it or because they would explode in violence if
their desires were not satised urgently.
Still, despite all these blus and notwithstanding Belgrades continuously restrained role and
constructive proposals, the negotiations process
was clearly biased, supercial and unsubstantial,
while a vicious sticks and carrots policy set up
by some lobby circles continued to be applied
against Serbia, not the least through constant
proposals of conditional, delayed or supervised independence as the magic solution for
Kosovo.

Based on these conditions, proclaiming the

independence of Kosovo would indeed be
a risky, unilaterally-imposed and ultimately
wrong solution.

Luckily however, this idea, initially presented

as a fait-accompli and even grossly hailed as
compromise, quickly became downplayed as
only one of the options on the table, and not
the most rational one indeed.

Not only would it endanger international law

by creating a second Albanian state from scratch
and critically hurting democratic Serbia, but it
would also create a dangerous precedent that
could have severe repercussions in dozens of
similar hotspots around the world Kurdistan,
Palestine, Western Sahara, Kashmir, Xinjiang,

The controversial proposal of UN-envoy Martti Ahtisaari calling for supervised independence for Kosovo was not even put to vote at
the UN Security Council, as Russia, China and
several other council members were clearly reluctant about it, rejecting a priori not less than
ve such resolution drafts.

As Washington became desperate to present

Kosovo as one of its rare successful intervention stories and tried by all means to impose its
independence, Moscow was rmly determined
not to allow this imposition to become a breach
of international law, while Brussels, for its part,
spent more time managing its internal cohesion
than creatively thinking about how to get out
of the impasse.
Summer 2007 is therefore the time for a new
beginning in Kosovo. Any continuation on the
basis of the previous assumptions could cause
serious trouble in Kosovo and elsewhere in the
world.

Under the ocial Serbian proposal, Kosovo

Albanians would keep all the power they already have and get even more, only in exchange
of giving up on breaking Kosovo away from
Serbia.

Taking away 15% of a sovereign, democratic,

multi-ethnic European countrys territory with
the intent of satisfying the independence aspirations of one of its minorities sounds dangerous and problematic indeed.

They would enjoy full legislative, executive

and judicial capacity, including even a limited
external representation in particular full access to the international nancial institutions but most importantly, they would benet from
normalized relations with Belgrade.

Bypassing international law, especially now

that the issue has mobilized the attention of
elite world analysts, would deal a deadly blow
to international stability and to the credibility
of the United Nations.
Persisting in nding ways to impose a proAlbanian solution rather than engaging all sides
in a fair, deep, compromise-driven debate is
denitely not an example of serious conict
management.
It is time now to look at realistic alternatives,
the painful ones which imply the recognition of
ones own mistakes and a necessary sacrice of
self-interests.
As opposed to Washington and Pritina, Serbia has gone the furthest on this line, acknowledging its past mistakes and proposing a realistic solution which complies with international
law and takes into best account the interests of
all sides.

Serbia, as the natural leader in the region,

has many positive things to oer to Kosovo,
including a strong push in its macroeconomic
revival, a large job market and common market
of goods, continuous coverage of the provinces
external debt, an integrated energy, electricity
and infrastructure network, access to its health
and education systems, a common ght against
organized crime and a joint contribution to regional stability and European integration.
All these things could only be realized in
a compromising solution of autonomy, and by
no means in case of an imposed independence,
which would never be signed by Serb ocials
and which would certainly result in the closing
of borders, regional destabilization and a permanent threat of renewed conict.

THE NEED FOR A TRUE

COMPROMISE
Considering all this, an internationally supervised, maximum autonomy for Kosovo
inside Serbia appears as the most reasonable,
compromising and long-term solution.
Ignored in the beginning of the negotiations
process, this proposal should now become the
basis for a historical conict resolution between
Serbs and Albanians.
It represents a fair balance between a standard autonomy for the province, unacceptable
for the Albanian aspirations, and the independence of Kosovo, unocially promised to them
by some international players but unacceptable
in any form for international law, for the Serbs
and for the Serbian state.

will obtain regional stability and take fully in

charge its European perspective; the United
States would be able to disengage its troops
without losing its diplomatic leverage in both
Pristina and Belgrade; Russia, China, India and
many other countries in the world would appreciate not having to deal with a dangerous
precedent; the UN will have the basis of international law system respected.
Past mistakes should be acknowledged and reversed, not perpetuated.
Only arguments should be used as arguments.
Articial deadlines, lobbying eorts and under-the-table promises should not preclude lasting solutions.

It responds to the realistic demands of Kosovo

Albanians for self-governing, but it also protects
the interests of non-Albanians, of Serbia and of
the principles of non-violability of borders.

Pressure should be applied on creating those

solutions, rather than imposing one sides interests over another.

More than anything, it is a win-win situation

for everyone: the Kosovo Albanians will nally
get the means to manage their future and so
will the Kosovo Serbs; Serbia will not have its
borders changed and its historical and religious
cradle amputated; Macedonia and Bosnia will
receive guarantees that the changes of borders
in the Balkans are no longer tolerated; the EU

Forcing a result on which neither the sides on

the ground nor the great powers agree has obviously not passed.
It is time now to get back to fair negotiations,
to respect international law, to be constructive,
patient, sound and consistent.
For the rst time in the history of Kosovo, it
is time for a successful compromise.

Printed by The Serbian Ministry

for Kosovo and Metohia