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In 1990 Albanian Kosovars proclaimed the Republic of Kosovo, and in unsanctioned elections chose as president a literary scholar and pacifist, Ibrahim Rugova, who created a shadow government that had no actual power. When Bosnia proclaimed its independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in 1991, a bloody war ensued, in which the better-armed Bosnian Serbs carried out a policy of "ethnic cleansing" designed to eliminate the Muslim population of Bosnia. NATO intervened on behalf of the Bosnian Muslims and brokered a settlement. Eventually, Europe and the United States recognized Bosnia—as well as Slovenia and Croatia, whose declarations of independence had preceded Bosnia's—as an independent nation, but not Kosovo, which was to remain a province of FRY, which by 1992 consisted only of Serbia and Montenegro.
In the early nineties, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) grew out of small groups of nationalistic guerrillas making occasional attacks against Serbian authorities in Kosovo. The Serbs reacted by further acts of repression against Albanian citizens, exemplified by the massacre of the Jashari family in March 1998.
Although the U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright declared on March 7, "We are not going to stand by and watch the Serbian authorities do in Kosovo what they can no longer get away with doing in Bosnia," American and European governments did little more than talk and threaten while Serbian atrocities continued. There were counterattacks from the growing KLA resistance, and those were met with more violence from the Serbian police as well as soldiers from Milosevic's FRY army. Attempts to negotiate a settlement with President Milosevic failed repeatedly, and a NATO bombing campaign, hitting targets in both Kosovo and Serbia proper, commenced in March 1999. FRY military and Serb paramilitary troops then began an attempt to clear Kosovo of all its Albanian citizens, who up until then had made up about 90 percent of the population. During this terrible process of so-called ethnic cleansing, many Albanians were massacred and many Albanian women were raped. Homes and farms were routinely looted and then burned to prevent their Albanian owners from ever returning.
In June 1999 NATO reached an agreement with FRY regarding a withdrawal of Serbian troops from Kosovo, and Albanian Kosovars began to return from the refugee camps to which they had fled or been driven. Tragically, there were many acts of revenge committed against the remaining Serb population, causing a northward flight of Serbs from Kosovo to Serbia. President Milosevic was indicted for war crimes in 1999 but was not brought to trial until 2002; he died in prison in 2006 before a verdict was reached.
As part of the June 1999 settlement, a NATO force known as KFOR entered Kosovo to preserve order and provide aid in the devastated country; as of spring 2009 it still maintained a presence in Kosovo. On February 17, 2008, the Assembly of Kosovo's Provisional Institutions of Self-Government declared the Republic of Kosova an independent nation. The Albanian Kosovar double-headed eagle flag was disallowed by the UN, so Kosova's current flag shows a map of the country with six stars—each star representing one of Kosova's major ethnic groups. This is significant, for the new constitution promises to protect the rights of minorities (including Serbs) and provide guaranteed ethnic representation in the government. The Republic of Kosova—or as the UN still calls it, Kosovo—has been recognized by more than forty nations, including the United States, but, at this writing, more than twenty nations, including Serbia and Russia, still refuse recognition.
The Lleshis' story ends in America, but the story of their native land is still being written. We can only hope that those who have survived so much terror and devastation will be able to build a strong and peaceful nation.
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