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Prewar period (Kosovo)

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Period during 1991-1995

The Prewar period of Kosovo refers to a period in the History of Kosovo which happened during the years of 1991-1995.

It started in 1991, with the Decleration of the self-independent Republic of Kosova and ended with the start of the Insurgency in Kosovo (1995-1998).

Background

Main article: 1981 protests in Kosovo

In March and April 1981, a student protest in Pristina, the capital of the then Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo, led to widespread protests by Kosovo Albanians demanding more autonomy within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Presidency of Yugoslavia declared a state of emergency in Pristina and Kosovska Mitrovica, which led to rioting. The unrest was suppressed by a large police intervention that caused numerous casualties, and a period of political repression followed.

The demonstrations started on 11 March 1981, originally as a spontaneous small-scale protest for better food in the school cafeteria and improved living conditions in the dormitories. Tired of being made to wait in line, for hours, for poor quality food, students began demonstrating under Gani Koci’s command, who later was arrested. Two to four thousand demonstrators were dispersed by police, with around a hundred arrests made.

The student protests resumed two weeks later on 26 March 1981, as several thousand demonstrators chanted increasingly nationalist slogans, and the police used force to disperse them, injuring 32 people. The engagement included a sit-in by Albanian students in a dormitory.

As the police reacted negatively to a perceived increase in nationalism among the protesters, more arrests were made, which in turn fueled more protests. On 30 March, students of the three of the largest university faculties declared a boycott, fearing a return of Rankovićism.

The demands of the Albanian students were both nationalist and egalitarianist, implying a desire for a different kind of socialism than the Yugoslav kind, marked by semi-confederalism and workers' self-management.

On 1 April, demonstrations swept through Kosovo, and 17 policemen were injured in clashes with demonstrators, failing to disperse them. The army moved in to secure state institutions, and Mahmut Bakalli soon called on them to send tanks to the streets.

Within days, the protests over conditions for students turned into discontent over the treatment of the ethnic Albanian population by the Serbian majority, and then to rioting and Albanian nationalist demands. The primary demand was that Kosovo become a republic within Yugoslavia as opposed to its then-current status as a province of Serbia.

The authorities blamed the protests on nationalist radicals – the May 1981 Politika said the goal of the protests was for a Republic of Kosovo to become separate from Yugoslavia, and join Albania. The authorities imposed a ban on foreign reporting, and the local reporting, unlike at the time of the 1968 protests in Kosovo, entirely lacked independence, and instead ran only official statements. Some of the official statements were inherently vague, talking of "internal and external enemies", which provoked a variety of conspiracy theories that stoked nationalist sentiment elsewhere in Yugoslavia. One of the conspiracy theories was promoted by Azem Vllasi, who later publicly discussed the alleged involvement of the Albanian security service Sigurimi in the protests.

The demand that Kosovo become the seventh republic of Yugoslavia was politically unacceptable to Serbia and the Socialist Republic of Macedonia.

A standoff happened near Podujevo, where police reinforcements coming in from Central Serbia were stopped by Albanian demonstrators who had taken local Serbs and Montenegrins as hostages.

Some of the groups of protesters were Marxist-Leninist whose ideology was shaped by the views of the Albanian leader Enver Hoxha. Yugoslav authorities accused Albania of interfering in their internal matters. The level of influence exerted by the Albanian government in the protests is disputed however. Mertus notes that some of the students held up signs saying "We Are Enver Hoxha's Soldiers" but that their numbers were small. Albania used radio, television and sent books to encourage Kosovo Albanians to "unite with the motherland" but little else beyond that, as Mertus argues directly assisting the protesters would have been a violation of Albanian policy.

The leadership of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia saw the protesters' opposition to self-management and their nationalism as a grave threat, and decided to "suppress them by all available means".

On 2 April 1981 the Presidency of Yugoslavia under the chairmanship of Cvijetin Mijatović declared a state of emergency in Pristina and Kosovska Mitrovica, which lasted one week.

Presidency sent in special forces to stop the demonstrations.

The federal government rushed up to 30,000 troops to the province. Riots broke out and the Yugoslav authorities used force against the protesters.

On 3 April, the last demonstrations happened in Vučitrn, Uroševac, Vitina and Kosovska Mitrovica, which were soon suppressed by the additional police deployment.

The rioting involved 20,000 people in six cities.

In late April, New York Times reported that nine people had died and more than fifty were injured during the protests. In July, the outlet reported that more than 250 had been injured by the end of the protests.

Events

Declaration of indpendence of the Republic of Kosova

Main article: Republic of Kosova

Late in June 1990, Albanian members of the provincial assembly proposed a vote on whether to form an independent republic; the ethnic Serb president of the assembly immediately shut it down and promised to reopen the assembly on 2 July, which was later postponed.

On 2 July, the vast majority of Albanian members of the Provincial Assembly returned to the Assembly, but it had been locked; so in the street outside they voted to declare Kosovo a Republic within the Yugoslav federation. The Serbian government responded by dissolving the Assembly and the government of Kosovo, removing any remaining autonomy. The Serb government then passed another law on labour relations which dismissed another 80,000 Albanian workers.

Ethnic Albanian members of the now officially dissolved Kosovo Assembly met in secret in Kaçanik on 7 September and declared the "Republic of Kosova" in which laws from Yugoslavia would only be valid if compatible with the Republic's constitution. The assembly went on to declare the "Republic of Kosova" an independent state on 22 September 1991. This declaration was endorsed by 99% of voters in an unofficial referendum held a few days later. The Republic of Kosova received diplomatic recognition from Albania. Serb authorities rejected the election results, and tried to capture and prosecute those who had voted.

Training of Kosovars in Albania

During the year of 1991, a group of ethnic Kosovars would flee to Albania where they would complete a secret military training course with help from the Albanian army and government. The training was also supported by then Albanian president Ramiz Alia. Among these fighters, 50 would illegally cross the border into Yugoslavia. This group, led by Adem Jashari, Hamëz Jashari and Ilaz Kodra would later become the founding members of the KLA.

Siege of Prekaz

Main article: Siege of Prekaz (1991)

On 29 December, Adem Jashari received a call from a trusted friend warning him of an approaching MUP convoy with armored vehicle's and helicopters. In response, Adem and his brother Hamëz gathered four friends and relatives and sought refuge in the neighboring village of Kodra. Believing it was safe, Adem and Hamëz returned home in the early hours of December 30, but they were met with gunfire from Serbian policemen. During the ensuing shootout, a mob of both armed and unarmed Albanians converged on the Jashari home, effectively breaking the siege and forcing the MUP unit to retreat and subsequently declare Prekaz a "no-go area".

Skenderaj-Drenas attacks

Between the years of 1991-1994, Adem Jashari led multiple attacks on Yugoslav police stations and patrols in the towns of Skenderaj and Drenas. During these attacks his forces would be able to kill dozens of officers.

Glogovac attack

Main article: Glogovac attack

In May 1993, a politically motivated attack took place in Drenas, carried out by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) under the leadership of Hashim Thaçi and his associates. Concealed gunmen ambushed a police vehicle, resulting in the deaths and injuries of several Serbian policemen. The attack led to 5 officers being killed and 2 being injured.

Lješane incident

On 26 May 1992, Serbian Police were planning to arrest Tahir Berisha, an art teacher from the village of Lješane, Peć. When they confronted him, Tahir shot at the officers and killed one of them while injuring the other, however he was shot and killed.

Arrest in Autumn 1994

During Autumn 1994, the Serbian Secret Service arrested Besim Rama, an Albanian from Prekaz who was very close to Adem Jashari. Durimg Rama's court trial, the Court of Pristina charged Albanian fighters Adem Jashari, Ilaz Kodra, Hashim Thaçi, Rexhep Selimi, Fadil Kodra, Zenun Kodra, Nuredin Lushtaku, Sami Lushtaku, Sahit Jashari, ldriz AsIlani, Ali Jonuzi and Jakup Nura in absentia.

Attacks in 1995

A Serbian policeman was murdered in 1995, allegedly by the KLA. Since 1995, the KLA sought to destabilize the region, hoping the United States and NATO would intervene. Serbian patrols were ambushed and policemen were murdered. It was only in the next year that the organization of KLA took responsibility for attacks.

Aftermath

Main article: Insurgency in Kosovo (1995-1998)

The Insurgency in Kosovo began in 1995, following the Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnian War. In 1996, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) began attacking Serbian governmental buildings and police stations. This insurgency would lead to the more intense Kosovo War in February 1998.

The KLA attacked several police stations and wounded many police officers in 1996–1997.

In 1996 the British weekly The European carried an article by a French expert stating that "German civil and military intelligence services have been involved in training and equipping the rebels with the aim of cementing German influence in the Balkan area. (...) The birth of the KLA in 1996 coincided with the appointment of Hansjoerg Geiger as the new head of the BND (German secret Service). (...) The BND men were in charge of selecting recruits for the KLA command structure from the 500,000 Kosovars in Albania." Former senior adviser to the German parliament Matthias Küntzel tried to prove later on that German secret diplomacy had been instrumental in helping the KLA since its creation.

KLA representatives met with American, British, and Swiss intelligence agencies in 1996, and possibly "several years earlier" and according to The Sunday Times, "American intelligence agents have admitted they helped to train the Kosovo Liberation Army before NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia". Intelligence agents denied, however, that they were involved in arming the KLA.

In February 1996 the KLA undertook a series of attacks against police stations and Yugoslav government employees, saying that the Yugoslav authorities had killed Albanian civilians as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign. Serbian authorities denounced the KLA as a terrorist organization and increased the number of security forces in the region. This had the counter-productive effect of boosting the credibility of the embryonic KLA among the Kosovo Albanian population. On 22 April 1996, four attacks on Serbian security personnel were carried out almost simultaneously in several parts of Kosovo.

In January 1997, Serbian security forces assassinated KLA commander Zahir Pajaziti and two other leaders in a highway attack between Pristina and Mitrovica, and arrested more than 100 Albanian militants.

Jashari, as one of the originators and leaders of the KLA, was convicted of terrorism in absentia by a Yugoslav court on 11 July 1997. Human Rights Watch subsequently described the trial, in which fourteen other Kosovo Albanians were also convicted, as " to conform to international standards."

The 1997 civil unrest in Albania enabled the KLA to acquire large amounts of weapons looted from Albanian armories. A 1997 intelligence report stated that the KLA received drug trafficking proceeds, used to purchase arms. The KLA received large funds from Albanian diaspora organizations. There is a possibility that among donators to the KLA were people involved in illegal activities such as drug trafficking, however insufficient evidence exists that the KLA itself was involved in such activities.

On 25 November 1997, the Yugoslav police and army were supposed to conduct a raid on the village of Rezalla but were ambushed by KLA forces led by Adem Jashari which had previously hid in the woods. After retreating, Yugoslav forces reorganized and started crossing the Skenderaj-Klina road whilst helicopter scanned ahead. Adem Jashari gathered 22 KLA insurgents and waited in the narrow pass surrounding the road. When the Yugoslav vehicles came, the KLA insurgents fired at them killing many and damaging Yugoslav artillery and vehicles. Due to this, Yugoslav forces retreated to the village of Llausha where they shot 2 Albanian teachers who worked in the primary school of the village.

On 28 November, after the battle ended, the KLA made their first public appearance at the funeral of one of the teachers killed by Serbian forces, giving a speech surrounded by a crowd consisting of hundreds of ethnic Albanian civilians.

On December 1, 1997, the KLA shot down a Yugoslav air transport near Pristina.

References

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