(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2008 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St. Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3).

By Darrell Rankin

Kosovo is the site of a bloody battle in 1389, important in the history of the Serbian people's struggle for freedom from the Ottoman empire. Kosovo itself was finally wrested from the Ottoman empire in 1912 by the Kingdom of Serbia; many Albanian people lived in the province at that time, but it is clear that Serbian people had lived there continuously since the 14th century or earlier. (See the reference below to the demographics of Kosovo.) Since 1912, Kosovo has been an ethnically diverse but integral part of Serbia's national territory.

     Since 1999, when the NATO military alliance conquered Kosovo (illegally sanctioned later by the United Nations Security Council), much that marked the long history of the Serbian people in Kosovo has been obliterated. Many centuries-old Serbian churches and other monuments have been destroyed. The Ottoman empire was more tolerant of religious differences than today's NATO/Albanian government.

     Recent tensions in Kosovo have their origins in the Second World War, when Italy occupied Kosovo (later Germany controlled the territory). Italy forcibly united Kosovo with fascist Albania. Albanians accompanying the Italian forces (with the support of local Albanians) carried out a campaign of murder and expulsion against the still-numerous Serbian population. This was the first major 20th century displacement and massacre of Serbs in Kosovo.

     The Albanian fascist puppet president and other fascists made statements in support of genocide against the Serbs and other non-Albanian nationalities in Kosovo. Close to 9,000 collaborationist Albanians served in the German army (the Skanderbeg SS Division), which exterminated Serbs, Jews and Romany ("Gypsies").

     The Serbian people had few collaborators during the Second World War; many died fighting the fascists or were annihilated. Estimates range from 700,000 to 1.2 million out of a population of 10 million - perhaps the highest national death rate after to the Jewish people in that war. In recent years, the Serbian people suffered the most from displacement during the break-up of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1990s; most were internally displaced to Serbia and do not have official status as refugees (see notes below).

     During the Second World War, approximately 10,000 to 30,000 Serbs were murdered in Kosovo; about 100,000 were driven out and replaced with immigrants from Albania. Close to 40 per cent of Jewish people living in Kosovo were murdered - over 200 people. Fascist Albanian forces continued fighting the Yugoslav government for six years following the War.

     It is no secret that many Albanian people who settled in Kosovo during the Second World War opposed Yugoslavia's sovereignty over Kosovo; many refused to take part in censuses carried out by the Yugoslav government. In the 1980s, some extremist elements started a campaign of terrorism and murder against the Yugoslav government, resulting the death of thousands of people in Kosovo, especially after 1993. A leading group in this campaign was the "Kosovo Liberation Army" which targeted Serbs, Romany and unwilling Albanians. Even the United States government recognized the KLA as a terrorist organization until 1997, when it became convenient for the U.S. to change the designation. It is now known that both the U.S. and German governments secretly trained and equipped the KLA in the 1990s.

     An enormous lie was used to "justify" NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999: the need to "save" the Kosovo-Albanians from being massacred by Serbian nationalist forces. For example, the U.S. Secretary of Defence declared that 100,000 Kosovars had perished. The reality was quite different. (See the testimony of Canada's ambassador to Yugoslavia, James Bisset, cited below.)

     NATO fabricated its casus belli, using lies to win support for its illegal aggression against Yugoslavia. The real purpose of the war is contained in NATO's Rambouillet document, which the military alliance used as an ultimatum against Yugoslavia. The Rambouillet accord had terms no sovereign country could agree to, such as abandoning socialism and imposing a "free market" economy on all of Yugoslavia, the presence of NATO military forces throughout all Yugoslavia (not just Kosovo), the immunity of NATO forces from legal action, etc.

     The authors of this ultimatum were not very careful to hide their intentions. Of course, appendix "B" of the Rambouillet accord was not well known in 1999; it was buried by the corporate media. The official story emanating from Washington, taken up by the compliant corporate media and repeated in Canada's Parliament, was that the "murderous" Yugoslav government rejected signing a "humanitarian agreement" with NATO in Rambouillet to protect the Albanian people of Kosovo.

     The Serbian parliament did state its willingness, before the NATO bombing, to "examine the character and extent of an international presence in Kosovo immediately after the signing of an autonomy accord acceptable to all national communities in Kosovo, the local Serb minority included."

     That did not stop NATO from carrying out a barbaric, criminal bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, without seeking the sanction of the United Nations Security Council. The country is now covered with cluster bombs, poisoned with depleted uranium. Thousands of people died in the bombing, in the deliberate targeting of objects indispensable for life (a war crime), and the predictable retaliatory and defensive actions by the KLA and Serb government forces. NATO's 25,000 missile strikes and bombing raids wounded thousands and crippled the Serbian economy, causing an estimated $60 to $100 billion (U.S.) damage.

     Following NATO's occupation of Kosovo, the vast majority of the Serbian population (200,000 to 280,000) left; virtually none have returned. With NATO's blessing, the KLA carried out the second major ethnic cleansing of Serbians, Romas and other groups from Kosovo. The remaining 100,000 or so Serbs and non-Albanian people in Kosovo are forced to live in "protected" areas, virtually imprisoned in small Gaza-like territories.

NOTES: The articles cited below are a good source for further study and independent corroboration:

A demographic history of Kosovo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Kosovo

Roots of Kosovo Fascism, by George Thompson, at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/thompson/rootsof.htm

Serbian casualties in the 20th century:  http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/62/315.html

Appendix B of the Rambouillet agreement http://www.swans.com/library/art6/pendixb.html

A study of media coverage leading up to the 1999 NATO aggression: http://www.tenc.net/gilwhite/rambouillet.htm

Why Canada should not recognize Kosovo, by James Bisset (Canada's ambassador to Yugoslavia in 1999)
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8126

See also Ambassador Bisset's testimony before a Parliamentary committee in 2000: http://www.tenc.net/articles/bisset/bisset.htm

A brief survey of the KLA, its terrorist origins, tactics and crimes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_Liberation_Army