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Pastimes : WORLD WAR III -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: D. Long who wrote (510)	3/23/1999 7:49:00 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 765

D. Long, Actually the Washing Post print edition had some interesting background that I hadn't known before: washingtonpost.com BACKGROUND The Kosovo Crisis For the second time in the year-old conflict in Kosovo, NATO is poised to launch airstrikes against military targets in Yugoslavia. The alliance wants Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to halt his offensive against ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo and to accept a Western-drafted peace plan that would grant the province considerable autonomy and lead to the deployment of a NATO-led peacekeeping mission to enforce the terms of a settlement. KOSOVO: A province of Serbia, the dominant republic in the Yugoslav federation that emerged from the 1991-1995 Balkan wars. When Tito and the Communists established Yugoslavia in 1945, Kosovo was given self-rule. Under the 1974 constitution, Kosovo attained autonomy, but 15 years later, Slobodan Milosevic, at that time president of Serbia, took it away. Ethnic Albanians: 1.8 million Kosovo's population: 2 million Language: Albanian Religion: Islam Ethnic Origin: Descendants of the Dardanians, an Illyrian tribe that populated the country in ancient times. Albanians became a majority in Kosovo only in the 1950s, due to a high birth rate and departure of Serbs toward the more prosperous north of Yugoslavia. Ethnic Serbs: 200,000 Language: Serbo-Croatian Religion: Orthodox Ethnic origin: Slavic tribes from farther east gained control of the region at the close of the sixth century. After the split of the Church of Rome in 395, the Slavs fell under the influence of the Byzantine Empire and adopted the Orthodox religion. The Ottomans defeated the Serbs in Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389, and the Ottoman Empire ruled Serbia for more than 400 years. Many Serbs, most of whom never give up their Orthodox religion, later migrated north. The parties in the current struggle The Serbs * After the Serbian government in Belgrade stripped Kosovo of its autonomy in 1989, the Albanian culture was suppressed. Occasional bombings occurred as the Albanians chafed under Serbian repression. Yugoslav army and special police units cracked down in February 1998 following attacks by ethnic Albanian guerrillas on Serbian police. Government forces attacked dozens of villages, driving out the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army and sympathetic civilians. More than 1,500 civilians were killed and 250,000 people were made homeless. The Serbs signed a cease-fire in October but failed to live up to the agreement, and by last month the truce was in tatters. The KLA and other ethnic Albanians signed a peace deal on March 18, but the Serbs refused. The Serbs launched a new offensive in central Kosovo following the departure of international monitors. The Kosovo Liberation Army * This Albanian separatist movement emerged in 1996, when it claimed responsibility for a series of bombings. During last summer's government offensive, many young men uprooted from their homes joined the guerrillas, transforming what had been a rag-tag band of no more than a few hundred people. The group now has an estimated 10,000 well-armed fighters. Ethnic Albanian refugees * By October, 275,000 civilians had fled their homes. Some moved to the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro; others crossed the border into Albania or Macedonia, but most stayed in Kosovo. A cease-fire last October allowed most people to return to their villages, but the latest outbreak of fighting has created a new refugee crisis, with about 60,000 people fleeing their homes in the last week, for a total of about 240,000 refugees..