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 | The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(December 2014) |
Identity cleansing is defined as "confiscation of personal identification, passports, and other such documents in order to make it difficult or impossible for those driven out to return". [1]
During the Kosovo War in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), expelled Kosovo Albanians were systematically stripped of identity and property documents including passports, land titles, vehicle registration plates, identity cards and other documents. [2] In conjunction with the policy of expelling Kosovo Albanians from the province, Yugoslav Army would confiscate all documents that indicated the identity of those being expelled.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) reports that nearly 60% of respondents to its survey observed the Yugoslav Army removing or destroying personal identification documents. [3] Human Rights Watch (HRW) also documented the common practice of "identity cleansing"; refugees expelled toward Albania were frequently stripped of their identity documents and forced to remove the registration plates from their vehicles. [4] This criminal practice suggesting the government was trying to block their return. [4]
In addition to confiscating the relevant documents from their holders, efforts were also made to destroy any actual birth certificate as well as other archives which were maintained by governmental agencies, so as to make the "cleansing" complete, [5] which sometimes was being referred to as "archival cleansing". [6]
This practice received worldwide condemnation, and evidence of it has been brought at the war crimes trials held at The Hague after the situation in Kosovo was stabilized following the NATO bombing of the Yugoslavia and the subsequent collapse of its nationalist government in October 2000. [7] Despite difficulties due to "identity cleansing", the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) registered 1.3 million voters until the October 2002 municipal elections. [8]
The Kosovo War, was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. It was fought between the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which controlled Kosovo before the war, and the Kosovo Albanian separatist militia known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The conflict ended when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened by beginning air strikes in March 1999 which resulted in Yugoslav forces withdrawing from Kosovo.
The Kosovo Liberation Army was an ethnic Albanian separatist militia that sought the separation of Kosovo, the vast majority of which is inhabited by Albanians, from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and Serbia during the 1990s. Albanian nationalism was a central tenet of the KLA and many in its ranks supported the creation of a Greater Albania, which would encompass all Albanians in the Balkans, stressing Albanian culture, ethnicity and nation.
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia, which began in mid-1991, into six independent countries matching the six entities known as republics that had previously constituted Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia. SFR Yugoslavia's constituent republics declared independence due to unresolved tensions between ethnic minorities in the new countries, which fuelled the wars. While most of the conflicts ended through peace accords that involved full international recognition of new states, they resulted in a massive number of deaths as well as severe economic damage to the region.
Operation Horseshoe was a 1999 alleged plan to ethnically cleanse Albanians in Kosovo. The plan was to be carried out by Serbian police and the Yugoslav army.
The history of Kosovo dates back to pre-historic times when the Starčevo culture, Vinča culture, Bubanj-Hum culture, and Baden culture were active in the region. Since then, many archaeological sites have been discovered due to the abundance of natural resources which gave way to the development of life.
Kosovo during the 20th century history has largely been characterised by wars and major population displacements. The region formed a part of numerous entities, some internationally recognised, others not.
Lapušnik or Llapushnik prison camp was a detention camp that was operated by the Kosovo Liberation Army, an Albanian militant organization, near the city of Glogovac in central Kosovo during the Kosovo War. It was operational in early 1998 and inmates were subject to intimidation, imprisonment, violence and murder. The victims were both Serbs and Albanians.
Anti-Albanian sentiment or Albanophobia is discrimination and prejudice towards Albanians as an ethnic group, described primarily in countries with a large Albanian population as immigrants, seen throughout Europe.
The Drenica massacres were a series of killings of Kosovo Albanian civilians committed by Serbian special police forces in the Drenica region of central Kosovo.
Numerous war crimes were committed by all sides during the Kosovo War, which lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. According to Human Rights Watch, the vast majority of abuses were attributable to the government of Slobodan Milošević, mainly perpetrated by the Serbian police, the Yugoslav army, and Serb paramilitary units. During the war, regime forces killed between 7,000–9,000 Kosovar Albanians, engaged in countless acts of rape, destroyed entire villages, and displaced nearly one million people. The Kosovo Liberation Army has also been implicated in atrocities, such as kidnappings and summary executions of civilians. Moreover, the NATO bombing campaign has been harshly criticized by human rights organizations and the Serbian government for causing roughly 500 civilian casualties.
The colonization of Kosovo was a programme begun by the kingdoms of Montenegro and Serbia in the early twentieth century and later implemented by their successor state Yugoslavia at certain periods of time from the interwar era (1918–1941) until 1999. Over the course of the twentieth century, Kosovo experienced four major colonisation campaigns that aimed at altering the ethnic population balance in the region, to decrease the Albanian population and substitute them with Montenegrins and Serbs. Albanians formed the ethnic majority in the region when it became part of Yugoslavia in early twentieth century.
Serbia was involved in the Yugoslav Wars, which took place between 1991 and 1999—the war in Slovenia, the war in Croatia, the war in Bosnia, and Kosovo. From 1991 to 1997, Slobodan Milošević was the President of Serbia. Serbia was part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has established that Milošević was in control of Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia during the wars which were fought there from 1991 to 1995.
Rankovićism refers to a political ideology prevalent in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia based on the political views of the Serbian communist official and former Yugoslav Partisan leader Aleksandar Ranković.
Albanians in Turkey are ethnic Albanian citizens and denizens of Turkey. They consist of Albanians who arrived during the Ottoman period, Kosovar/Macedonian and Tosk Cham Albanians fleeing from Serbian and Greek persecution after the beginning of the Balkan Wars, alongside some Albanians from Montenegro and Albania proper. A 2008 report from the Turkish National Security Council (MGK) estimated that approximately 1.3 million people of Albanian ancestry live in Turkey, and more than 500,000 recognizing their ancestry, language and culture. There are other estimates however that place the number of people in Turkey with Albanian ancestry and background upward to 5 or 6 million.
On July 18, 1998 a Yugoslav Army (VJ) border patrol ambushed a column of Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) insurgents and foreign mujahideen just west of Dečani, on the frontier between Albania and Yugoslavia. The ambush resulted in the deaths of four KLA fighters and 18 mujahideen, most of whom were citizens of Saudi Arabia. Twelve militants were wounded, and a further six were arrested by the Yugoslav authorities and charged with illegal entry and gunrunning. The VJ reported seizing a significant amount of arms and ammunition that the militants had been smuggling. One Yugoslav border guard was seriously wounded in the clash.
The Expulsion of the Albanians was a lecture presented by the Yugoslav historian Vaso Čubrilović (1897–1990) on 7 March 1937. The text elaborates on the ethnic composition dynamics of Kosovo and other Albanian-populated areas within Yugoslavia from medieval times to the present. While explaining why previous methods put in place by the Yugoslav authorities to overturn the ethnic majority of Albanians in those areas had failed so far, such as slow colonization or agrarian reforms, it suggested in detail a radical solution – the mass expulsion of Albanians. The expulsion was seen by Čubrilović as a geopolitical measure to prevent potential Albanian irredentism.
Kosovo is the birthplace of the Albanian nationalist movement which emerged as a response to the Eastern Crisis of 1878. In the immediate aftermath of the Russo-Ottoman war, the Congress of Berlin proposed partitioning Ottoman Albanian inhabited lands in the Balkans among neighbouring countries. The League of Prizren was formed by Albanians to resist those impositions. For Albanians those events have made Kosovo an important place regarding the emergence of Albanian nationalism. During the remainder of the late Ottoman period various disagreements between Albanian nationalists and the Ottoman Empire over socio-cultural rights culminated in two revolts within Kosovo and adjacent areas. The Balkan Wars (1912–13) ending with Ottoman defeat, Serbian and later Yugoslav sovereignty over the area generated an Albanian nationalism that has become distinct to Kosovo stressing Albanian language, culture, and identity within the context of secession from Serbia. Pan-Albanian sentiments are also present and historically have been achieved only once when part of Kosovo was united by Italian Axis forces to their protectorate of Albania during the Second World War.
The architectural heritage of the Kosovo Albanians during Yugoslav rule was shown institutionalised disregard for decades prior to outright conflict at the end of the 20th century. Numerous Albanian cultural sites in Kosovo were destroyed during the period of Yugoslav rule and especially the Kosovo conflict (1998-1999) which constituted a war crime violating the Hague and Geneva Conventions. In all, 225 out of 600 mosques in Kosovo were damaged, vandalised, or destroyed alongside other Islamic architecture during the conflict. Additionally 500 Albanian owned kulla dwellings and three out of four well-preserved Ottoman period urban centres located in Kosovo cities were badly damaged resulting in great loss of traditional architecture. Kosovo's public libraries, of which 65 out of 183 were completely destroyed, amounted to a loss of 900,588 volumes, while Islamic libraries sustained damage or destruction resulting in the loss of rare books, manuscripts and other collections of literature. Archives belonging to the Islamic Community of Kosovo, records spanning 500 years, were also destroyed. During the war, Islamic architectural heritage posed for Yugoslav Serb paramilitary and military forces as Albanian patrimony with destruction of non-Serbian architectural heritage being a methodical and planned component of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
Freedom of religion in Serbia refers to the extent to which people in Serbia are freely able to practice their religious beliefs, taking into account both government policies and societal attitudes toward religious groups.