It all started in 1989: break-up of Yugoslavia and Kosovo’s struggle for nationhood

“Kosovo could be the ridge that will sink Yugoslavia. It is hard to believe that the country can be rearranged in a matter suitable for Serbs, Albanians, Croats, and Slovenes. Serbs are ready to pay any price in order to preserve Kosovo, although there are les then 10% of Serbs living there. Albanians seem equally determined not to remain in any kind of union with Serbia. Slovenes and Croats have no interest in Yugoslavia that condones oppression that Serbia uses to imply its will on Kosovo Albanians” (Shreeve 2006).

CIA's October 1990 analysis proves to be almost entirely accurate apart from the fact that conflict did not start in Kosovo, and that it took less than two years for Yugoslavia to break up. The Bush administration at the time did not ignore this report, that was even leaked to the press causing further tensions between US and Yugoslavia, but basically, it did not like the content and also the Administration had different interests, mainly in Kuwait. An additional problem was that the CIA estimate did not provide any alternatives. For the US administration it was an unsolved dilemma: we might not be for the break-up, but we cannot ensure the unity.

Official US strategy on Yugoslavia, including Serb and Kosovo issues, was created in 1990. Senator Bob Dole, at the time second most important leader of the Republican Party, held separate meetings with Dobrica Cosic, prominent Serb intellectual and two years later, in 1992, the President of Yugoslavia, and Ibrahim Rugova, prominent Kosovo Albanian intellectual and two years later the President of the Republic of Kosovo. (Buxhovi 2009). In the meetings Senator Dole conveyed two messages: if the Serbs continue to behave with the greater-Serbia logic, then Yugoslavia would have ceased to exist; while if the Albanians continue to preserve the peaceful course of demands for equality and democracy, then their aspirations for the future would have been accepted and satisfied.

Conclusions

The process of break-up of Yugoslavia was a result of several factors of different socioeconomic natures, but mainly a product of political elites of the time, their beliefs and actions. Now, three decades since the beginning of the process of dissolution of Yugoslavia, and after a careful study of the reasons and the outcome of the process, several certain observations can be made. What seems irrational and impossible now, like imposing onenation's will on other equal nations in the joint federation, the attempt of Serbs to dominate Yugoslavia, seemed rational and possible to the degree that it became Serbian policy at the time. What seems impossible now, namely, to organize, mobilize and with international support achieve self-government and eventually statehood, the efforts of Kosovo Albanians to break free from Serbia and Yugoslavia, seemed sufficiently attainable at the time. The nations of Yugoslavia chose their own fate rather than preserving the Federation in any shape or form.

However, between aims and results there is a process of action and reaction. In the case of Yugoslavia, because of an aggressive Serbian approach and Yugoslav military siding with policies from Belgrade, a non-violent dissolution was difficult to be achieved, and, in the case of Kosovo, impossible. Also, Yugoslavia is a clear case that one nationalism will always be met with another nationalism, and that it is impossible to achieve anything in the long term with one-sided violence.

Yugoslavia case has proven that even when all the conditions are set, it still takes an irrational ideology to initiate the breakup. In Yugoslavia this was Slobodan Milosevic and his aggressive and erratic approach toward other nations and their demands to rearrange the Federation. Milosevic did not create the rising tide of nationalism in Serbia, but he did decide to ride it, and to convert it into the force capable of sweeping aside the dams of ideology erected by Tito and communists. The foundation of Yugoslav “brotherhood and unity” was thrashed by previously suppressed claims of “blood and soil”.

Kosovo has been the issue used by the main actors and stakeholders in the Yugoslav Federation (Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia) to push forward for their own national agendas. It made possible the use of military (YPA) and police (Federal and State) force to oppress a nation aiming to preserve the Federation. Use of force and expulsion forced Kosovo Albanians to mobilize, organize themselves and seek international partners in the West to promote the idea, that in the case of dissolution of Yugoslavia, then the universal democratic right of self-determination must be respected in the case of Kosovo Albanians.

Because this right was refused initially, what began as a quest for human rights and democracy, quickly turned to demand for self-governance and self-determination.

Process of the break-up of Yugoslavia, although happening at the same time with the change in Eastern and Central Europe and USSR, must be seen as a separate and different case, as a dissolution process driven from within. This process was not aided by international factors (US or USSR), but also it was not prevented by these powers.

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