Daradania independence
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| This article is part of a series on the politics and government of Kosovo |
The 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence was adopted on 17 February 2008 by the Assembly of Kosovo. In a meeting attended by 109 of the total 120 members,[1] the assembly unanimously declared Kosovo to be independent from Serbia.while all 11 representatives of the Serb minority boycotted the proceedings. It was the second declaration of independence by Kosovo's Albanian-majority political institutions; the first was proclaimed on 7 September 1990.
The legality of the declaration has been disputed. Serbia sought international validation and support for its stance that the declaration was illegal, and in October 2008 requested an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice. The Court determined that the declaration did not violate international law.
Background
The Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija took shape in 1945 as the Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija (1945–1963) within Socialist Yugoslavia, as an autonomous region within People's Republic of Serbia. Initially a ceremonial entity, more power was devolved to Kosovan authorities with each constitutional reform. In 1968 it became the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo and in 1974 new constitution enabled the province to function at every administrative level independently of its host republic within Yugoslavia. Increasing ethnic tension throughout Yugoslavia in the late 1980s amid rising nationalism among its nations eventually led to a decentralised state: this facilitated Serbian President Slobodan Milošević in effectively terminating the privileges awarded to the Kosovar assembly in 1974. The move attracted criticism from the leaderships of the other Yugoslav republics but no higher authority was in place to reverse the measure. In response to the action, the Kosovo Assembly voted on 2 July 1990 to declare Kosovo an independent state, and this received recognition from Albania. A state of emergency and harsh security rules were subsequently imposed against Kosovo's Albanians following mass protests. The Albanians established a "parallel state" to provide education and social services while boycotting or being excluded from Yugoslav institutions.
Kosovo remained largely quiet through the Yugoslav wars. The severity of the Yugoslav government in Kosovo was internationally criticised. In 1996, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) began attacking federal security forces. The conflict escalated until Kosovo was on the verge of all-out war by the end of 1998. In January 1999, NATOwarned that it would intervene militarily against Yugoslavia if it did not agree to the introduction of an international peacekeeping force and the establishment of local government in Kosovo. Subsequent peace talks failed and from 24 March to 11 June 1999, NATO carried out an extensive bombing campaign against FR Yugoslavia including targets in Kosovo itself. The war ended with Milošević agreeing to allow peacekeepers into Kosovo and withdrawing all security forces so as to transfer governance to the United Nations.
Build-up
A NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) entered the province following the Kosovo War, tasked with providing security to the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Before and during the handover of power, an estimated 100,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians, mostly Romani, fled the province for fear of reprisals. In the case of the non-Albanians, the Romani in particular were regarded by many Albanians as having assisted federal forces during the war. Many left along with the withdrawing security forces, expressing fears that they would be targeted by returning Albanian refugees and KLA fighters who blamed them for wartime acts of violence. Thousands more were driven out by intimidation, attacks and a wave of crime after the war.
Large numbers of refugees from Kosovo still live in temporary camps and shelters in Serbia proper. In 2002, Serbia and Montenegro reported hosting 277,000 internally displaced people (the vast majority being Serbs and Roma from Kosovo), which included 201,641 persons displaced from Kosovo into Serbia proper, 29,451 displaced from Kosovo into Montenegro, and about 46,000 displaced within Kosovo itself, including 16,000 returning refugees unable to inhabit their original homes. Some sources put the figure far lower. In 2004 the European Stability Initiative estimated the number of displaced people as being only 65,000, with 130,000 Serbs remaining in Kosovo, though this would leave a significant proportion of the pre-1999 ethnic Serb population unaccounted-for. The largest concentration of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo is in the north of the province above the Ibar river, but an estimated two-thirds (75,000) of the Serbian population in Kosovo continue to live in the Albanian-dominated south of the province.]
On 17 March 2004, serious unrest in Kosovo led to 19 deaths, and the destruction of thirty-five Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries in the province, as Albanians started pogroms against the Serbs. Several thousand more Kosovo Serbs have left their homes to seek refuge in Serbia proper or in the Serb-dominated north of Kosovo.
Since the end of the war, Kosovo has been a major source and destination country in the trafficking of women, women forced into prostitution and sexual slavery. The growth in the sex trade industry was fuelled by NATO forces in Kosovo.
International negotiations began in 2006 to determine the final status of Kosovo, as envisaged under UN Security Council Resolution 1244 which ended the Kosovo conflict of 1999. Serbia's continued sovereignty over Kosovo was recognised internationally. The vast majority of the province's population sought independence.
Declaration of 2008–present
The 2008 declaration was a product of failed negotiations concerning the adoption of the Ahtisaari plan, which broke down in the fall of 2007. The plan, prepared by the UN Special Envoy and former President of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, stipulated a sort of supervised independence for Kosovo, without expressly using the word "independence" among its proposals. Under the plan, Kosovo would gain self-governance under the supervision of the European Union, and become obligated to expressly protect its minorities' rights by means of a constitution and a representative government. Kosovo would be accorded its own national symbols such as a flag and a coat of arms, and be obligated to carry out border demarcation on the Kosovo-Republic of Macedonia border. The Albanian negotiators supported the Ahtisaari plan essentially in whole, and the plan gained the backing of the European Union and of the United States. However, Serbia and Russia rejected it outright, and no progress was possible on the United Nations front.
Faced with no progress on negotiations in sight, the Kosovars decided to unilaterally proclaim the Republic of Kosovo, obligating themselves in the process to follow the Ahtisaari plan's provisions in full. As of mid-April 2008, this has largely been the case, with the new Republic adopting a constitution written by local and international scholars protecting minority rights and providing for a representative government with guaranteed ethnic representation, which law is to take effect on 15 June 2008. It also adopted some of its national symbols already, including the flag and coat of arms, while work continues on defining the anthem. It has also engaged, albeit with a delay, in the border demarcation talks with Macedonia, initially insisting on being recognised first, but dropping this condition later on.
The 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence elicited mixed reaction internationally and a polarised one domestically, the latter along the division of Kosovo Serbs vs. the Kosovo Albanians. Accordingly, effective control in Kosovo has also fractured along these lines.
After 13 years of international oversight, Kosovo's authorities formally obtained full unsupervised control of the region (less only North Kosovo) on 10 September 2012 when Western Powers terminated their oversight. The International Steering Group, in its final meeting with the authorities in Pristina, declared that the Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement, known as the Ahtisaari plan after its Finnish UN creator, had been substantially implemented.[16] Nonetheless, as of November 2015, United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo still functions, albeit at a greatly reduced capacity.
Political background
After the end of the Kosovo War in 1999, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1244 to provide a framework for Kosovo's interim status. It placed Kosovo under transitional UN administration, demanded a withdrawal of Serbian security forces from Kosovo and envisioned an eventual UN-facilitated political process to resolve the status of Kosovo.
Ethnic composition of Kosovo as of 2005
In February 2007, Martti Ahtisaari delivered a draft status settlement proposal to leaders in Belgrade and Pristina, the basis for a draft UN Security Council Resolution which proposed 'supervised independence' for the province. By early July 2007 a draft resolution, backed by the United States and the European Union members of the Security Council, had been rewritten four times to try to accommodate Russian concerns that such a resolution would undermine the principle of state sovereignty. However, it had still not found agreement. Russia, which holds a veto in the Security Council as one of five permanent members, stated that it would not support any resolution which was not acceptable to both Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians. While most observers had, at the beginning of the talks, anticipated independence as the most likely outcome, others suggested that a rapid resolution might not be preferable.
The talks finally broke down, late 2007 with the two sides remaining far apart, with the minimum demands of each side being more than the other was willing to accept.
At the turn of 2008, the media started reporting that the Kosovo Albanians were determined to proclaim independence. This came at the time when the ten-year anniversary of the Kosovo War was looming (with the five-year anniversary being marked by violent unrest); the U.S. President George W. Bush was in his last year in power and not able to seek re-election; and two nations which had previously seceded from Yugoslavia were in important political positions (Slovenia presiding over the EU and Croatia an elected member of the UN Security Council). The proclamation was widely reported to have been postponed until after the Serbian presidential election, 2008, held on 20 January and 3 February, given that Kosovo was an important topic of the election campaign.
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