Basic Western misconceptions on the Kosovo issue and their corrections
29. The Kosovo War started in 1998 by ethnic Albanian revolt for the reason that Serbia oppressed KosMet’s Albanian rights as did not recognize elections in 1998
Wrong. The war started at the very beginning of 1998 as a consequence of Albanian-led terrorism actions against Serbia’s state authorities and non-Albanian civilians followed by counter-terrorism operations by Serbia’s security forces being in no connections with the elections which came later. Legitimate Serbia’s central authorities did not recognize the 1998 KosMet’s parliamentary and presidential elections as they were organized by Albanian-led underground provincial quasi-state authorities who boycotted previously organized legal elections by Serbia’s government. The illegally elected Albanian parliament in KosMet was dissolved by Serbia’s police in 1998 when “elected” quasi-President of Kosovo Ibrahim Rugova was sworn in the parliament of neighboring Albania. However, the core of the problem starts, in fact, when the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) broke up but no agreement was achieved in changing of the borders. One-sided separation of some federal unites – republics was allowed to occur and that was the principle that was respected from the beginning till the end of the Yugoslav crisis. Since Kosovo enjoyed in SFRY the status of territorial-national autonomy within Serbia (likewise Vojvodina) the demands for independence have not be supported by the international community. However, encouraged with Slovenian, Croatian, Macedonian and Bosnian independence (internationally recognized) the greatest hard-liners within the Albanian national movement in KosoMet – followers of Redzep Cosja, a member of the Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Art, championed Kosovo’s independence with a final task of joining Kosovo to Albania (the wish publicly confirmed in 1997 by Kosovo’s Albanian leader – Dr. Ibrahim Rugova). Actually, according to the idea and the things this line pleads for in politics, the mother state of Albania would gather together all “Albanian lands” or the territories populated by the Albanian inhabitants who are there in majority.
