For regular updates on events and issues in the former Yugoslavia, see also
Balkan Insight by Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN)
See also Kosova Women's Network
Note: Each article shown below represents the opinion of the author, and not necessarily of anyone else.
Countries that have recognized Kosova as an independent state
Kosovo 2.0
Politics, commentary, culture from present-day Kosovo
Persons unaccounted for in connection with the conflict on the territory of Kosovo
Updated regularly by ICRC Mission in Kosovo
NEW
Kosovo to start trial for Banjska attack by Serb group: Why
it matters Al Jazeera,
October 8, 2024
Kurti Cautious as Serbia Moves to Allow Kosovo Licence Plates
Balkan Insight, December 27,
2023
The Kosovo-Serbia Conundrum Reaches a Breaking Point
By Agon Maliqi, New Lines Institute, September 19, 2023
The West's ‘see no evil' approach to Serbia's Vučić risks destabilizing the
Balkans
By Christian Edwards, CNN, August
14, 2023
Will the United States
Abandon Kosovo? By
Dean B. Pineles, Balkan Insight, June
7, 2023
Serbia’s cunning Kosovo deflection By
René Schlee, head of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung office in Kosovo, June 5,
2023
Only Democracy Can Bring Stability to the Balkans
By Maja Bjelos, Belgrade Center for Security Policy, September 15, 2022
No Resolution in Sight for Kosovo-Serbia Dialogue By
Altin Gjeta, Exit News,
July 23, 2021
What Kosovo will face in the normalization dialogue By
Marc Weller, Koha, May 1, 2021
Kosovo election winner Kurti wants new tack in Serbia talks
AFP, February 15, 2021
The end of an inglorious era
Prishtina Insight / BIRN Kosovo, February 15,
2021
Kosovo can't allow the dialogue to continue in this form
By Aidan Hehir, Prishtina Insight / BIRN Kosovo, December 24, 2020
In the Balkans, if You Neglect History, It Will Backfire
By Amy MacKinnon, FP, April 23, 2020
Pardew: I am appalled at US policy in the Balkans
Prishtina Insight /
BIRN Kosovo, April 10, 2020
US Burns Credibility in Grenell Quest for Foreign Policy Win
By Kurt Bassuener and Bodo Weber, Just Security, April 2, 2020
Could Trump Spark a New Balkan Ethnic War?
By Casey Michel, The New Republic, March 24, 2020
America’s Kosovo Strategy Is Melting Down
By Edward P. Joseph, Foreign
Policy, March 20, 2020
Serbia's President Was Real Loser in Kosovo Election
By Milenko Vasovic, BIRN, October 16, 2019
Kosovo Weighs Balance of ‘20 Years of Freedom’
By Blerta Begisholli, BIRN,
July 1, 2019
Why Borders Are Not the Problem -- or the Solution -- for Serbia and Kosovo
By Eric Gordy, Foreign Affairs, October 10, 2018
Adem Demaci, Principled Warrior for Kosovo Freedom Obituary
Balkan Insight, July 27, 2018
The year the West lost its strategic direction
By Bodo Weber, Koha Ditore, January 5, 2016
Set the Trojan Horse on Fire
By Valerie Hopkins, Foreign Policy, February 4, 2015
The EULEX Legacy in the Kosovo Courts By James Hargreaves,
November 4, 2014
Europe's bravest mayor? The man trying to clean up Kosovo's capital
By Julian Borger, The Guardian, May 21, 2014
Activist suggests addressing issue of missing persons in Kosovo-Serbia talks
Koha Ditore,
reported by BBC, January 10, 2014
Kosovo - an Update By Peter Lippman, Washington Report on
Middle East Affairs, December 2013
VETËVENDOSJE position on
the Serbia/Kosovo agreement. By Albin Kurti, April 21, 2013
What Serbs get
from
the Serbia/Kosovo agreement. By
Daniel Serwer, April 21, 2013
Why Coal-Rich Kosovo
Can Lead on Clean Energy By
Daniel Kammen, March 14, 2012
Kosovar Civil Society Denounces EU for "Politicized" Trial of Nonviolence Leader The Advocacy Project, February 16, 2010
Demonstration against decentralization in Kosovo Vetëvendosje newsletter, October 16, 2009
EULEX campaign against activists Vetëvendosje newsletter, October 2, 2009
EULEX marketing campaign Vetëvendosje newsletter, October 2, 2009
Ten years after Nato's bombing campaign against Serbia, Milosevic's horrors still linger By Ian Williams, The Guardian (UK), March 23, 2009
Serbia/Kosovo: Wounds still open 10 years after start of war over Kosovo Amnesty International (UK), March 19, 2009
UNDP Apologizes to Kosovo Women's Leader The Advocacy Project, January 21, 2009
Anger in Kosovo as UN "Muzzles" Civil Society Leader The Advocacy Project, December 12, 2008
Kosovo Civil Society Protests Increased Serbian Influence The Advocacy Project, November 24, 2008
KOSOVO INDEPENDENCE
UN Resolution "Permits Kosovo’s Independence" Gjeraqina Tuhina, Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, December 17, 2007
Kosovo Countdown: A Blueprint for Transition International Crisis Group, December 6, 2007
The Countdown William Finnegan, The New Yorker, October 15, 2007
Women from the Balkans Demand a UN Meeting and a Say in Kosovo's Future The Advocacy Project, April 25, 2007
Time
To Decide About Kosovo Morton Abramowitz, Newsweek International, March 12, 2007
Women In Black Criticizes Serbian Politicians and Rejects a Nationalist Solution To the Kosovo Crisis The Advocacy Project, February 7, 2007
Kosovo’s Status: Difficult Months Ahead International Crisis Group, December 20, 2006
New Regional Women's Peace Lobby Calls for Speedy Vote in Kosovo The Advocacy Project, August 4, 2006
Winking at a Blind Man Miroslav Filipovic, Helsinki Charter (Belgrade), April-July 2006
Kosovo Before and After the War Barbra Bearden, The Advocacy Project, Spring-Summer 2006
Serbian and Kosovar Women Call for an End to "Religious Ownership of Kosovo's Churches and Mosques The Advocacy Project, June 6, 2006
Kosovo: Countdown to Independence? Tim Judah, Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, February 16, 2006
Comment: Getting Real on Kosovo Nicholas Whyte, IWPR, January 21, 2005 (Republished August 2, 2005)
A Poisoned Chalice Veton Surroi, Koha Ditore, June 24, 2004
Kosovars Must Confront Their Demons Natasa Kandic, IWPR, July 31, 2003 (Republished September 6, 2005)
Open Letter from the Women of Kosova to the Women of Iraq Igo Rogova, Kosova Women's Network, April 2003
Kosovo’s Serb, Albanian Communities Continue to Stagnate Peter Lippman, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2003 (Select item 38.)
Return to uncertainty: Kosovo's internally displaced and the return process International Crisis Group, December 13, 2002
Two Case Studies of the Bombings of Industrial Facilities at Pancevo and Kragujevac During Operation Allied Force, Yugoslavia 1999 Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, November 2002
UNMIK’s Kosovo Albatross: Tackling Division in Mitrovica International Crisis Group, June 3, 2002
Kosovo Work in Progress: Closing the Cycle of Violence Howard Clark, War Resisters International, January 2002
Kosovo's 'Forseeable' Future Decided By Tim Judah, IWPR, May 18, 2001
In a Farewell to Kosovo, U.N. Aide Urges Election By Steven Erlanger, The New York Times, January 14, 2001 (Registration required.)
Kosovo Journal By Peter Lippman, October-November, 2000
Albanians Spurn K-For By Petrit Krasniqi, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, July 18, 2000
UN Failing Kosovars By Llazar Semini, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, June 9, 2000
Torn Mitrovica Reflects West's Trials in Kosovo By Steven Erlanger, The New York Times, February 25, 2000
Balkan Crisis Reports Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Feb. 1999 to present.
Summaries of articles listed above
Kosovo 2.0
Politics, commentary, culture from present-day Kosovo
Persons unaccounted for in connection with the conflict on the territory of
Kosovo As of 2021, the whereabouts of
hundreds
remained unknown, the great majority Albanian. The International Committee of the Red Cross keeps track of cases closed, often through DNA matching of remains with living relatives. Click on the link above for a searchable list of the missing.
Updated regularly by ICRC Mission in Kosovo
NEW
Kosovo to start trial for Banjska attack by Serb group: Why
it matters
The indictment charges 45 suspects with
'terrorism' in their alleged goal of annexing northern Kosovo to Serbia. In all,
45 suspects have been indicted for the attack in September 2023, which Kosovo
Serb businessman and politician Milan Radoicic later said he led and organised
after he was identified in drone footage by Kosovo security officials.
Al Jazeera, October 8, 2024
Kurti Cautious as Serbia Moves to Allow Kosovo Licence Plates
Kosovo's prime minister took a
wait-and-see line after Serbia announced on Monday that drivers with Kosovo
license plates can enter Serbian territory from January 1, 2024 – seemingly
ending a years-long dispute that at times has turned violent. Balkan Insight,
December 27, 2023
The Kosovo-Serbia Conundrum Reaches a Breaking Point
Kosovo’s north emerges as Europe’s most vulnerable spot outside Ukraine. On May
29, 2023, many observers of world affairs seemed surprised by the dramatic
footage coming out of Kosovo. NATO peacekeepers were being brutally attacked by
a mob of violent Serb protesters in the northern Serb-majority town of Zveçan. Fulfilling
their security mandate as a responder of last resort, the peacekeepers found
themselves sandwiched between the violent protesters — many of whom were part of
informal security structures tied to the Serbian government — and Kosovo’s
Special Police Units, consisting of Albanians, which had surrounded the town
hall. By
Agon Maliqi, New Lines Institute, September 19, 2023
The West's ‘see no evil' approach to Serbia's Vučić risks destabilizing the
Balkans When Russia invaded
Ukraine, the United States and European Union accelerated their pivot towards
Serbia. Their policies had two aims. First, to bring Serbia into the Western
fold, away from Russia. Second, to allow their respective administrations to
focus more fully on supporting Ukraine. Rather
than juggling the contradictory demands of pluralistic and fractious Balkan
states, Western capitals focused the bulk of their efforts on a singular target. But,
18 months on, some observers say the current approach has been all carrot and no
stick, and as a result is failing to achieve both of its aims. The
effects of this have been felt most keenly in Kosovo, which achieved
independence from Serbia in 2008, after the bloody Balkan wars of the 1990s. But
Belgrade -- and many ethnic Serbs in Kosovo's north -- still refuse to recognize
its sovereignty, straining relations between the neighbors. CNN
spoke with several experts, as well as locals in Serbia and the north of Kosovo,
who are rankled by US and EU attempts to court Serbia into the Euro-Atlantic
community, and contend that their continued pursuit of the policy risks
alienating democratic allies and increasing security concerns in the region. By
Christian Edwards, CNN, August 14, 2023
Will the United States
Abandon Kosovo? In
laying the blame squarely on Kosovo, the US response to recent violence in
the north marks a major departure from longstanding policy. It’s neither
fair nor wise. By
Dean B. Pineles, Balkan Insight,
June 7, 2023
Serbia’s cunning Kosovo deflection The
key to understanding the violent conflicts in northern Kosovo lies not in
the capital Pristina, but in Belgrade. By
René Schlee, head of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung office in Kosovo, June 5,
2023
Only Democracy Can Bring Stability to the Balkans
Western leaders
should prioritize the democratization of Kosovo and Serbia. Among other things,
this would entail democratizing the E.U.-led dialogue process between the two
countries to make it more transparent, accountable, and inclusive. By
Maja Bjelos, Belgrade Center for Security Policy, September 15, 2022
No Resolution in Sight for Kosovo-Serbia Dialogue A
helpful short overview and appraisal of the situation between Kosovo and
Serbia. By
Altin Gjeta, Exit News,
July 23, 2021
What Kosovo will face in the normalization dialogue
Kosovo
appears to be ready to appoint its negotiating team for the upcoming EU-led
dialogue with Serbia. As the Kosovo Prime Minster sets out to define the
strategy for the team, it will be helpful to consider the overall political
situation, and the relative positions and interests of the respective
players. By Marc Weller, Koha, May 1, 2021
Kosovo election winner Kurti wants new tack in Serbia talks
After a landslide win in Kosovo's parliamentary elections, left-wing
reformist Albin Kurti told AFP Monday he wants to reframe talks with Serbia
to put the two sides on equal footing. AFP, February 15, 2021
The end of an inglorious era
After Sunday’s election, Kosovo is set to have its first ever government not
to feature either PDK or LDK, as Vetevendosje inherits a country eager for
change but short on patience. Prishtina Insight / BIRN Kosovo, February 15,
2021
Kosovo can't allow the dialogue to continue in this form
Overshadowed and lacking an obvious purpose, the Brussels based dialogue
resumed in 2020 in the interest of the EU, Serbia... everyone except Kosovo. By Aidan Hehir, Prishtina Insight / BIRN Kosovo, December 24, 2020
In the Balkans, if You Neglect History, It Will Backfire
The acting prime minister of Kosovo says the United States helped bring down
his government and is acting in the interests of Serbia.
By Amy
MacKinnon, FP, April 23, 2020
Pardew: I am appalled at US policy in the Balkans
US Special Envoy Richard Grenell doesn't have the experience to deal with
these kinds of sophisticated Balkan issues. If you don't know what you are
doing, to think you can walk into a very complicated region and think you
can perform a miracle is foolhardy. BIRN Kosovo, April 10, 2020
US Burns Credibility in Grenell Quest for Foreign Policy Win
With the world distracted by the accelerating coronavirus pandemic, the
United States last week precipitated the fall of a popular and promising
reformist government in perhaps the most pro-American country on earth,
Kosovo.
By Kurt Bassuener and Bodo Weber, Just Security, April 2, 2020
Could Trump Spark a New Balkan Ethnic War?
The emerging Republican consensus seems to be that Kosovo is on its own. Few groups have insinuated themselves as closely with the Trump lobbying
machine over the past two years as Serbia and its allies. And pro-Serb
separatists in Republika Srpska, a majority-Serb ethnic region in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, picked
up a pair of Trump campaign officials to
assist in efforts to crack up the country and glom onto Serbia proper. By
Casey Michel, The New Republic, March 24, 2020
America’s Kosovo Strategy Is Melting Down
As the
coronavirus pandemic raises tensions, the Trump administration’s strategy of
bowing to Serbia’s authoritarian president is coming completely undone.
By Edward P. Joseph, Foreign
Policy, March 20, 2020
Serbia's President Was Real Loser in Kosovo Election
New president Albin Kurti, who was once a prisoner of the Serbian regime, will
not tolerate interference from Belgrade. By Milenko Vasovic, BIRN, October 16,
2019
Kosovo Weighs Balance of ‘20 Years of Freedom’
This spring, Kosovo Albanians, the overwhelming majority
of the population of Kosovo, celebrated the 20th anniversary of the former
province’s liberation from Serbia’s harsh rule. But the long road to independence and international
acceptance has been littered with obstacles, errors, and challenges. By Blerta Begisholli, BIRN,
July 1, 2019
Why Borders Are Not the Problem -- or the Solution -- for Serbia and Kosovo
In the Balkans, redrawing maps serves politicians, not
citizens. By Eric Gordy, Foreign Affairs, October 10, 2018
Adem Demaci, Principled Warrior for Kosovo Freedom
Obituary - A short history of the Kosovo-Albanian struggle as seen over the
lifetime of Demaci. Balkan Insight, July 27, 2018
The year the West lost its strategic direction
The dialogue approach to helping Kosovo gain full sovereignty through full
integration of the Serb minority and removal of Serbian state institutions
from its soil has been burdened by a multitude of challenges that need to be
addressed. By Bodo Weber, Koha Ditore, January 5, 2016
Set the Trojan Horse on Fire
As
Serbian influence creeps back into Kosovo, protests have rocked the young nation
- and may bring its government to a grinding halt.
By Valerie Hopkins, Foreign Policy, February 4, 2015
The EULEX Legacy in the Kosovo Courts
Changing laws in a country is often relatively easy; changing the culture in
regard to the application of those laws is never easy. To date, EULEX has done
nothing to attempt to address this fundamental problem and now it is too late
according to the author, a US judge who spent the last year in the mission. By James Hargreaves, November 4, 2014
Europe's bravest mayor? The man trying to clean up Kosovo's capital
Shpend Ahmeti has been in office less than five months and has spent most of
that time fighting fires - mostly figurative but occasionally literal. He is
attempting to bring rational, clean governance to one of the most corrupt cities
in Europe. By Julian Borger, The Guardian, May 21, 2014
Activist suggests
addressing issue of missing persons in Kosovo-Serbia talks
Natasa
Kandic, head of the Humanitarian Law Fund in Belgrade, said that the talks
between Kosovo and Serbia could yield results in enlightening the fate of over
1,700 missing persons.
She said
that this issue, which was discussed only once in Brussels, should be taken
seriously by both governments, because, according to her, the sides have agreed
in silence not to have the process of talks be followed by heightened tensions. Nevertheless, Kandic is convinced that Serbia used the moment to benefit
politically, showing "humane" towards the issue of the missing persons at the
time when it expected to receive the green light for the launch of EU membership
negotiations. Only one week prior to this decision of the EU, the Serbian state
authorities voiced their readiness to "uncover" a mass grave in Raska, whose
existence they knew four years ago.
Koha Ditore, reported by BBC, January 10, 2014
Kosovo - an Update Kosovo's route toward independence has been a difficult one, but a recent
internationally brokered agreement with Serbia constitutes an important
milestone. By
Peter Lippman, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2013
VETËVENDOSJE position
on
the Serbia/Kosovo agreement. “Friday’s agreement has produced two types of
normalization of relations between Kosova and Serbia. In the first type, between
Thaçi-Dacic, Serbia takes and Kosova gives. In the second, between Serbia and
the European Union, Serbia progresses toward Brussels and the EU pretends it is
unaware that war criminals are in charge of that state. Yesterday’s agreement
did not normalize Kosova -Serbia relations, but definitively abnormalized the
state of Kosova." By Albin Kurti, April 21, 2013
What Serbs get
from the Serbia/Kosovo agreement. This is a moment of strong leverage for
Pristina, as the EU is insisting on a settlement of the north as a condition for
a starting date for Serbia's EU accession negotiations.
By Daniel Serwer, April 21, 2013
Why Coal-Rich Kosovo
Can Lead on Clean Energy
Kosovo suffers hours of power cuts every day, and it
sits on vast reserves of lignite coal. Lignite is a soft, brown fuel that is
considered the lowest rank of coal in terms of energy content. The full costs of
this high-carbon energy option are too high for the people of Kosovo, and the
international community has the resources and opportunity to assist in charting
a different path. Investing in energy efficiency and upgrading the transmission and
distribution system, exploiting wind and biomass
resources, and engaging in regional partnerships
with Albania on excellent hydropower resources
provide more power than the proposed new lignite
coal power plant. These options also produce more
jobs and avoid the health and environmental damages
of decades more coal-fired energy. By Daniel Kammen, March 14, 2012
Kosovar Civil Society Denounces EU for "Politicized" Trial of Nonviolence Leader Civil society leaders in Kosovo have angrily denounced the European Union's mission in Kosovo for moving forward with a "politically motivated" trial against one of Albin Kurti, Kosovo's best-known activists, and called on the international community to stop the trial immediately. The Advocacy Project, February 16, 2010
Demonstration against decentralization in Kosovo Instead of creating the conditions in which all the people of Kosova can live and work together, regardless of ethnicity, decentralization is being drawn, based precisely upon the notion that we are unable to live together and thus need to be separated by new ethnic walls. The process will simply transfer any remaining vestiges of Prishtina’s control and pass it to Belgrade. This is the centralization of Belgrade’s power in Kosova. Vetëvendosje
newsletter, October 16, 2009
EULEX campaign against activists
EULEX (European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo) is continuing its campaign of trying to eliminate our movement by arresting and imprisoning large numbers of activists. Currently 21 activists are being held in detention in prison on remand for a total of 90 days each prior to trial, since the 25th August.
Vetëvendosje
newsletter, October 2, 2009
EULEX marketing campaign
EULEX
has begun a massive marketing campaign in order to divert attention from the three protocols it is negotiating and signing with Serbia, regarding Kosova.
Vetëvendosje
newsletter, October 2, 2009
Ten years after Nato's bombing campaign against Serbia, Milosevic's horrors still linger Clinton pre-emptively discounted any prospect of a ground invasion of Kosovo, which was the only thing Milosevic worried about. The day that Clinton finally succumbed to European pressure to authorise a ground attack, Milosevic did what he would have done months earlier if Clinton had not excluded the ground option. He ran up the white flag and evacuated his troops from Kosovo. By Ian Williams, The Guardian (UK), March 23, 2009
Serbia/Kosovo: Wounds still open 10 years after start of war over Kosovo More than 3,000 ethnic Albanians were 'disappeared' by Serbian police, paramilitary and military forces; other ethnic Albanians were abducted by members of ethnic Albanian armed opposition groups. An estimated 800 Serbs, Roma, and members of other minority groups were also abducted, reportedly by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Amnesty International (UK), March 19, 2009
UNDP Apologizes to Kosovo Women's Leader The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has apologized to the Kosova Women's Network, after UNDP officials censored the speech of the group's leader at a conference in December. The Advocacy Project, January 21, 2009
Anger in Kosovo as UN "Muzzles" Civil Society Leader The largest women's network in Kosovo has suspended cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), after the agency prevented the group's leader from publicly criticizing a controversial UN plan to grant Serbia control of Serb enclaves in Kosovo. The Advocacy Project, December 12, 2008
Kosovo Civil Society Protests Increased Serbian Influence Thousands of Kosovar citizens took to the streets of Prishtina last week to protest a United Nations proposal to increase Serbia's influence in Kosovo. The proposal, put forth by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in consultation with the Serbian government, would give Serbia broad administrative powers over Serb majority areas within the Republic of Kosovo. Civil society groups fear that the proposal would essentially partition Kosovo by putting a third of the country's territory under Serbian control, and pave the way for the equivalent of the Bosnian Serb enclave (Republika Srpska) within Kosovo's borders. The Advocacy Project, November 24, 2008
KOSOVO INDEPENDENCE Coverage of Kosovo independence, declared February 17, 2008.
UN Resolution "Permits Kosovo’s Independence" Legal experts from some EU member states say
Security Council Resolution 1244 not only permits an EU mission in Kosovo, but it opens the path to independence of the disputed territory. Gjeraqina Tuhina, Balkan Investigative Reporting Network
(BIRN), December 17, 2007
Kosovo Countdown: A Blueprint for Transition
Diplomatic efforts to broker a deal between Belgrade and Pristina on Kosovo’s final status will be fully exhausted with the conclusion of the Troika process on 10 December, and the international community must now coordinate a political process to bring about Kosovo’s conditional, or supervised, independence. The longer status uncertainty lasts, the more agitated the region around Kosovo will become and the more a sense of developing security crisis will grow. To avoid instability filling the vacuum, Western capitals need to set out an orderly path for transition as soon as possible. International Crisis Group, December 6, 2007
The Countdown
Eight years after NATO drove out the Serbian forces, Kosovo remains in a quasi-colonial limbo. William Finnegan, The New Yorker, October 15, 2007
Women from the Balkans Demand a UN Meeting and a Say in Kosovo's Future 17 leading members of women’s civil society from six Balkan countries and Kosovo have asked for an urgent meeting with the UN Security Council, and repeated their demand that women must participate directly in talks on the future of Kosovo.
The Advocacy Project, April 25, 2007
Time
To Decide About Kosovo
Abramowitz is from the left end of the leftover Cold War liberal establishment. He's on the board of the International Crisis Group, which criticizes US policy in the Balkans from the left, but from the inside. In this article he promotes goals in harmony with keeping stability in the region, which keeps stability in the expanding EU - the same reasons the West intervened in 1999. The goals also happen to be in the interest of the people of Kosovo. Morton Abramowitz, Newsweek International, March 12, 2007
Women In Black Criticizes Serbian Politicians and Rejects a Nationalist Solution To the Kosovo Crisis The Serbian women’s group has accused Serbian politicians of condemning Serbia to further international isolation and perpetuating the policies of the late Slobodan Milošević by rejecting a UN plan for the independence of Kosovo. The Advocacy Project, February 7, 2007
Kosovo’s Status: Difficult Months Ahead A botched status process that fails to consolidate the prospect of a Kosovo state within its present borders and limits the support the EU and other multilateral bodies can provide would seed new destructive processes. Some officials fear the international community may not be able to focus sufficient energy or will to resolve Kosovo status without a crisis on the ground. International Crisis Group, December 20, 2006
New Regional Women's Peace Lobby Calls for Speedy Vote in Kosovo Thirteen women leaders from six European countries and Kosovo have called on the international community to hold elections in Kosovo and respect the result. The Advocacy Project, August 4, 2006
Winking at a Blind Man Thoughts on the prospective independence of Kosovo. Miroslav Filipovic, Helsinki Charter (Belgrade), April-July 2006
Kosovo Before and After the War The writer, a masters student at American University, is working with the Kosova Women's Network in Pristina. Barbra Bearden, The Advocacy Project, Spring-Summer 2006
Serbian and Kosovar Women Call for an End to "Religious Ownership of Kosovo's Churches and Mosques Kosovo's religious sites are not the property of any one religion or ethnic group and should be managed by independent professionals - otherwise they risk provoking ethnic confrontation and violence, says the Women's Peace Coalition, a new partnership between Serbian and Kosovar women peace activists. The Advocacy Project, June 6, 2006
Kosovo: Countdown to Independence? Signs are that talks on the future of Kosovo will almost certainly lead to some form of independence
. Tim Judah, Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, February 16, 2006
Comment: Getting Real on Kosovo
It's time for the international community to get off the fence on Kosovo. Over the past five years, the final status issue has been delayed and ignored while Kosovo's two million inhabitants continue to exist in an international limbo. Nicholas Whyte, IWPR, January 21, 2005
A Poisoned Chalice
When Kofi Annan offered the post of Special Representative in Kosovo, the job description might just as well have read, "Doomed to failure". You'll have God-like status in Kosovo, but no real power: no army, central bank, prosecutor, no constitution and no friends. You will wake up feeling you must take us towards democracy and final status and go to sleep feeling you accomplished nothing. Veton Surroi, Koha Ditore, June 24, 2004
Kosovars Must Confront Their Demons
Facing up to the past cannot be confined to demanding justice for crimes committed by others. Natasa Kandic, IWPR, July 31, 2003
Open Letter from the Women of Kosova to the Women of Iraq --
We know there are strong, organized, intellectual women in Iraq as there were in Kosova or in any other country in the world. We, Kosovar women, don't support a US military administration in postwar Iraq. But if the UN takes on civic administration in Iraq, it's time they change the principle of their work and concentrate the work in cooperating with local experts, giving space and recognition also to the women's local NGOs. Igo Rogova, Kosova Women's Network, April 2003
Kosovo’s Serb, Albanian Communities Continue to Stagnate Three and a half years after NATO drove Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s regime out of the province, Kosovo’s problems seem as intractable as ever. While the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMiK) has managed, for the most part, to subdue the postwar bedlam that reigned when the U.N. established its de facto protectorate, Kosovo’s Serbs and Albanians remain at loggerheads, with both populations suffering from political and economic stagnation. -- Peter Lippman, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2003 (Select item 38.)
Return to uncertainty: Kosovo's internally displaced and the return process
The right of internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees to return to their homes in Kosovo is indisputable, and has become a top priority of the international community, and the United Nations Interim Administrative Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). -- International Crisis Group, December 13, 2002
Two Case Studies of the Bombings of Industrial Facilities at Pancevo and Kragujevac During Operation Allied Force, Yugoslavia 1999 This study was triggered by concerns over the health and environmental impacts of modern war. Its main goal was to examine whether precision targeting is synonymous with precision damage. Is damage limited to the announced objective of the bombing? And if not, what are the environmental and legal implications from the indiscriminate destruction resulting from successful precision bombing strikes? -- Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, November 2002
UNMIK’s Kosovo Albatross: Tackling Division in Mitrovica Three years after its establishment, the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) has not established a safe and secure environment, the rule of law or a meaningful civil administration in north Mitrovica. The city's continuing de facto partition, with parallel structures run by Belgrade operating north of the river Ibar, is a black mark on the international community's record in Kosovo. It calls into question Serbia and the FRY's commitment to regional stability and undermines UNMIK's credibility with ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. The Serbs of Mitrovica have become pawns in the nationalist game played by Belgrade and hostages to organised crime. Meanwhile the continuing lack of clarity about the international community's objectives allows hard-liners among ethnic Albanians to play on fears that the secret aim is partition, both of Mitrovica and of the entire province. -- International Crisis Group, June 3, 2002
Kosovo Work in Progress: Closing the Cycle of Violence This report is about a situation in which there is much to be forgiven, but little forgiveness, and where reconciliation is only a distant possibility. Forgiveness is rarely easy, and in Kosovo few Serbs acknowledge their own implication in the crimes against Kosovo Albanians or how they benefited from the anti-Albanian discrimination of the 1990s. However, the paper takes UNMIK (the international administration) to task for doing too little to counter the imputation of collective guilt to Serbs. Peaceful coexistence with respect for the human rights of all will be sufficiently difficult to achieve, and will take civil courage from those Kosovo Albanians who believe in human rights for all, and a more concerted and coordinated effort from international bodies to build confidence between the communities in Kosovo.-- Howard Clark, War Resisters International, January 2002.
Kosovo's 'Forseeable' Future Decided
Something incredible just happened in Kosovo and nobody noticed. Well, Kosovars did, but the promulgation of the Constitutional Framework for the Provisional Self-Government of Kosovo and the fixing of an election day, appears to have gone almost unnoticed by the rest of the world. In essence, it means that two years of speculation, pontification and prescription are over. We now know what is going to happen in Kosovo, at least for the foreseeable future. -- Tim Judah, IWPR, May 18, 2001
In a Farewell to Kosovo, U.N. Aide Urges Election The departing U.N. official in charge discusses accomplishments and difficulties in Kosovo. -- Steven Erlanger, The New York Times, January 14, 2001 (Registration required.)
Kosovo Journal Kosovo's first post-war elections. -- Peter Lippman, October-November, 2000
Albanians Spurn K-For When NATO troops entered Kosovo one year ago they were greeted by cheering crowds who hailed them as liberators. A year on, relations have deteriorated to such an extent that a K-For Civil Military Cooperation report recently said the alliance was concerned its forces "had lost substantial credibility" in the eyes of both the international and local communities. -- Petrit Krasniqi, Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), July 18, 2000
UN Failing Kosovars Twelve months after NATO bombing put an end to Belgrade's ethnic cleansing campaign in Kosovo, local Albanians believe the UN's efforts to promote stability in the province are running out of steam. UNMIK has clearly had some successes. Averting a humanitarian disaster last winter and the creation of an administrative structure in the province are arguably its biggest achievements. But there have been many failings too. Ethnic cleansing continues to be a problem and little progress has been made in establishing a multi-ethnic Kosovo. Extremist Serbs and Albanians are the only beneficiaries of UNMIK's shortcomings. -- Llazar Semini, Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), June 9, 2000
Torn Mitrovica Reflects West's Trials in Kosovo Mitrovica has encapsulated many of the West's problems, fully eight months after peacekeepers entered Kosovo. There are not nearly enough international police officers to patrol even this part of Kosovo adequately, while interethnic violence and intimidation continue undiminished all over the province; there is not a functioning judicial system to try those who are arrested, so many killers walk free; NATO soldiers are forced to do more policing, something for which they have not been equipped or trained. -- Steven Erlanger, The New York Times, February 25, 2000
Balkan Crisis Reports IWPR's network of correspondents provides inside analysis of the events and issues driving the crisis in Kosovo and the region. Searchable archive of reports back to February 1, 1999