How did Serbia lose Kosovo?

Relations between Serbia and Kosovo have become increasingly strained, the customs struggle is ongoing, Serbia's Prime Minister Anna Brnabyk looks at arms and threatens with war, Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic warns of countries that will attract recognition of Kosovo's independence, continuing negotiations has been questioned, while Kosovo is the main topic of all intelligence. Almost from the main media we cannot know how things have reached this situation, although there is the impression that the current state of relations between Serbia and Kosovo fell from heaven, without knowing the reason.

Like the Kosovo Albanians according to their strange graces and whims at some point decided to secede from Serbia, which accidentally forced their minds, just to stir up anger, and Serbia now seeks to persuade them to return to its bosom. In an atmosphere of systematic oblivion and counterfeiting of history, it may be interesting to recall how things turned out to this situation.

The antidemocratic revolution: The Undertaking of Power

After taking power at the “Assembly of Eight”, Slobodan Milosevic began his “Anti-burcratic Revolution”. Under that name, actually, the collapse of legal procedures and judicial systems, as well as the taking of power across the street, with the help of the people of “spontaneously collected” in mass rallying. Vojvodina initially fell to “the revolution of non-gurt”, and then Milosevic by coup took over Montenegro. In line was the lifting of Kosovo's autonomy, but that Milosevic in this case had to use different tactics, because he could not count on supporting the broad measures of the people in Kosovo, who were on the side of Azem Vlases and Kosovo leadership. And on the side of his autonomy. Milosevic found an ally, Nundman Morina, while Albanians were against him and mass protests broke out in October and November 1988, followed by riots in the streets, which served Milosevic as an excellent pretext to overthrow Azem Vlas and Soousha Yashari, so that his serviles can bring to their countries. The head of the League of Kosovo Communists was dismissed on November 17th 1988, but citizens with the violent overthrow of their legitimate representatives were not easily reconciled. Miners from Trepca revolted on February 20, 1989, 1,500 miners were confined to the dam, demanding that Vlas and Jashar return to their positions.

A tense atmosphere developed throughout the country, was discussed at the highest level on the problem and possible solutions. On this occasion, Milosevic has told Milan Kucan, then leader of Slovenia's League of Communists: “We Serbs have the right to defend our interests. It does not matter whether we will achieve this goal by constitutional or unconstitutional means”. Regarding Serbian interests, of course, it meant as much power as it could seize for himself, in this case, the collection of as many votes in federal institutions as possible. It already had three (Serbia, Vojvodina, Montenegro), lacked another vote (Kosovo) to reach half, and then within the possibility of having power over the entire Yugoslavia. Because Milosevic was interested in nothing but power, and in this respect was his whole secret.

Kucan knew what that meant, that Milosevic is prepared for everything, and on February 27th he organised in “Cankajev Dom” a rally of support for Albanian miners, where he stated: “We think Kosovo miners not only protect their rights, the autonomy rights of Albanians and Kosovo, but also Yugoslavia and Avnoy and the equality of all republics, including Slovenia, as well as the people living there”.

Tanks first moved to Kosovo

In Serbia, messages from Slovenia sparked anger and discontent with massive proportions, with little help from Milosevic media propagandists. Belgraders Masovically took to the streets, began rallying in the student town, providing support to Milosevic, then they moved to the other side, downtown. By morning, several hundred thousand people, according to some estimates of up to one million, gathered “pontanically” in front of the Federal Assembly. The tournament tried to calm Yugoslavia's Chief Justice Raif Dizdarevich: “We will not go on the road to disputes among nations. We're going through the rehabilitation of brotherhood reunification”. After his words, whistles were heard from the crowd. The Way of Brotherhood no longer cared for, and disagreements among nations that would result in wars and blood had become a nationwide political programme. Those present at the rally asked him to address Supreme Leader Slobodan Milosevic, patiently awaiting him from the early dawn until late evening. And finally, they welcomed him. Milosevic came, gave the speech, while the madly cheering move: “Arrest Vlas!”, for which Milosevic replied: “I cannot hear well, but I want to answer for what you're looking for that those who manipulated people for the realisation of political goals against Yugoslavia will be punished and arrested” The next day the tanks moved to Kosovo, because Milosevic forced the RSFJ presidency to declare the state of emergency in Kosovo.

And this is the first time Milosevic used military and heavy weapons to implement his political intentions, long before demonstrations on March 9th 1991, long before sending tanks to Vukovar. During the pressure operation on Kosovo, Milosevic's media have undertaken more terrible anti-Albanian campaigns, the spread of toxic racial hatred, with the help of Serbian academics and the Association of Writers of Serbia. Serbian media at the time have demanded that the miners' strike be interrupted by military intervention, while in the rally demonstrators wanted weapons to form paramilitary troops to go to Kosovo.

Politics of Violence and Terror

Milosevic fulfilled his promise Ézem Vlases was immediately arrested and charged with <x0-revolutionary activities”, as well as several hundred of his supporters and local political officials were arrested. Tanks have held under siege the Kosovo Assembly on March 23rd, so that “aid the” delegates to adopt changes in the Constitution and also to lift Kosovo's autonomy. Five days after that, the Serbian Parliament adopted the amendments, while Kosovo citizens protested the removal of autonomy and the start of the depression. Special police units fired the protesters and killed 24 people. And that this was just the beginning of violence and terror, just an allusion of the evil that would soon follow.

Albanians, gradually, were deprived of all rights and reduced to second-hand citizens. In July 1990 a law on labour relations under extraordinary conditions in Kosovo was passed, on the basis of which hundreds of thousands of Albanians were forced out of work; professors, doctors, journalists, editors, academics ... was banned “Renaissance”, the only daily Albanian-language newspaper and use of Albanian language was banned in schools, culture and science. The publishing of books in Albanian was abolished, as well as the financing of the Kosovo Academy, which was finally closed, as were numerous scientific institutions.

The violent measures were applied at Pristina University, so about a thousand teachers and assistants were left without jobs. The university until October 1991 remained with only fifteen Albanian professors, and they were to legalise in the Serbian language. Most Albanian-language schools were closed during the nineth and Serbian authorities in early 1991 halted the salaries of Albanian high school teachers.

From Surprising to Mass Graves

Police barriers and arrests of the Albanians' case had become a daily phenomenon, as well as beatings in the streets, while all of Kosovo actually turned into a kind of police state that the Milosevic regime held under occupation. Albanians had no choice but to form parallel institutions and keep learning in Albanian at private homes, where they were raided by Serbian police by arresting teachers and students.

Facing an open terror and apartheid, Albanian deputies of the Kosovo Assembly announced the Kosovo Declaration of Independence on July 2nd 1990. The Assembly was disbanded three days later, and MPs on 7 September secretly proclaimed the new Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo and formed a shadow government. In September 1991 an informal referendum on Kosovo's independence was held, the majority of Kosovo Albanians voted for independence, but the results of this referendum, Serbian authorities have not recognised them, Zeri.info conveys.

During the nineth years of military-police oppression in Kosovo was getting even more intense, and eventually escalated into armed conflict, terrible war crimes, plunder on a massive scale, and the expulsion of about 900,000 Albanians under operation “Potkovica”. The war ended with NATO bombings and the withdrawal of Serbian military and police from Kosovo, which Milosevic and his propaganda declared their victory. All that followed later, but primarily Kosovo's declaration of independence in 2008, is only an epilogue of Milosevic's depression and war. In fact, with the introduction of the state of emergency and the delivery of tanks to Kosovo all had ended, in this case every chance that Kosovo ever remained part of Serbia.

The Logical Consequences of Milosevic's Policy

Slobodan Milosevic has done everything in his power to oust Kosovo from Serbia. The policy of depression, violence and crime, the policy of suppressing the fundamental human rights of Albanians, the removal of institutions and language bans, the politics of abuse and humiliation, refrigerator policies and mass graves - inevitably led Kosovo's secession from Serbia. Whoever wants Kosovo to be part of Serbia would lead to such a policy.

Even when invaders invade a country they make at least some concessions to the local population to create pacts with local political groups. Milosevic didn't think that. As Vuk Perisic says in his essay “The demon of nationalism”, Milosevic “has never been addressed to the Albanian population”, and his basic political objective was to govern itself”. Serbia's current political leaders -- Aleksandar Vuciq, Ivica Dacic, Aleksandar Vulin, and many others, mainly collaborators of this Milosevic policy -- are now pretending none of those events have occurred. Instead of saying how things really stand and accept responsibility for what they did, they begin to laugh and boast about the reality that they themselves have created.