Free At Last
The history books are gonna have to be rewritten because Kosovo has just claimed its independence from Serbia. “It feels to good to be true. Its almost not real,” says Kosovaire Xhalintine, 17, Albanian American. The Republic of Kosovo, with a 90 percent Albanian majority, declared its independence from Serbia on February 17. Many students are very excited about this compelling event.
“We’ve wanted this for many, many years and I am so glad that I lived to see this come true,” says Kosovaire Xhalintine. In 1918 Kosovo was into a newly established Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia. In 1941, during World War II, German-led Axis forces invaded and dismembered it into six republics: Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Vojvodina and Kosovo were also two autonomous provinces, who had the right to self-government, which were placed in the republic of Serbia. In March 1989, Slobodan Milošević, former president of Serbia, brought an end to Kosovo’s autonomy. Milošević placed Kosovo under de facto military occupation and had the Albanian media suppressed and the Albanian-language education was suspended. Milošević was criticized internationally for the atrocities he committed against Albanian Muslims. In 1990 Serbian authorities abolished Kosovo’s parliament. Over the years Albanians in Kosovo continued to fight for secession from Serbia. Kosovo had resisted the Serbian government ever since the province was stripped of its autonomous status in 1989. Tensions have mounted between the Albanians and Serbs. An ethnic Albanian group called the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was formed in the mid-1990 to seek independence for Kosovo. The KLA attacked Serbian police many times from the late 1997 to early 1998. In 1998 Serbia responded by placing a crackdown on the Albanians. Milošević put Serbian police to the ethnic Albanian separatist. The Serbian police burned whole villages and forced residents to flee. The United Nations estimated that nearly 1 million ethnic Albanians had been forced to leave Kosovo between March 1998 and June 1999 in refuge. Hundreds of people were killed until the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) stepped in and placed a campaign of air strikes against Serbian military targets. Two months of continuous NATO bombing caused a lot of damage to the infrastructure and industrial targets in Serbia. This damage seriously disrupted the Serbian economy and led to a rapid erosion of support for the war. Milošević finally agreed to an international peace plan for Kosovo. NATO suspended its bombing on June 10 and UN Security Council authorized 50,000 international peacekeeping forces to enter the province to help ensure the safe return of Kosovar refugees. In 2007, UN-led negotiations on the status of Kosovo broke off, without a compromise between the Serbia and Kosovo.
On February 17th 2008 the Kosovar Assembly approved a declaration of independence. This means that Kosovo will now have an army, a constitution, a flag, and an anthem. As of March 5th, 2008, 27 states formally recognized the Republic of Kosovo.
Britain, France and Germany are expected recognize the new nation but other countries say they refuse. The Serbian government strongly objected to the proposal and was supported Russia, Spain and 18 other countries.
“Countries like Spain are afraid to recognize Kosovo because they fear that minorities in their country may look for independence,” says Gentrit Dedushi, Albanian American. Dedushi believes that the situation in Kosovo is different. “Kosovo does not belong to Serbia. Kosovo is the heartland for Serbia,” say Dedushi, “Serbia feels like Kosovo will always be theirs, it is like the situation with Israel and Palestine.”
The declaration of independence has caused some strained relations in the United States between Serbians and Albanians, but many students at RKA don’t know much about the issue. American student Armondo Chrichenti said, “I don’t even know where Kosovo is.” American student, Grace Ordonez said, “To be honest I don’t care at all, it won’t change my life.” RKA senior Amanda Romero said, “People in the school probably don’t care about it as much because it doesn’t affect them at all.”
Despite the lack of concern that many people may have on the topic this is a major for the world. “This shows that democracy is still around,” said Dedushi. This may have a major impact on the world and can lead to a possible war between Serbia and Kosovo. This may possibly even spark a wave of other countries declaring their independence. But for now Kosovo is independent and a lot of people are happy. Dedushi said, “I cant wait to see Kosovo on the new map of the world.”
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Please put spaces in between each paragraph-- it makes it easier to read.