As I next move into Kosovo I need to give a brief history as most people know very little other than there was a war and Nato intervened.

Kosovo’s history starts in the early middle ages when it was the early base of Serbian history and their monarchy. In 1389 at the Battle of Kosovo the Turks defeated the Serbian King (whose remains are still paraded around) leaving the Balkans open for Turkish advance. This started six centuries of Turkish rule extending into Bosnia, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Albania, parts of Ukraine, and even Hungary for a period of 150 years.

For the Serbs the defeat in 1389 is a dream of what could have been had the nation and the monarchy been allowed to develop on its own. Kosovo was a province of the Turkish empire whose boundries shifted to include both Novi Pazar in Serbia or Skopje in Macedonia at different times. The provincial capital also moved from Prizren to Pristina at different times.

After the end of the Ottoman Empire Kosovo was absorbed into the newly created entity of Yugoslavia which was half Hapsburg lands in the north with Ottoman lands in the south. Kosovo became part of the Yugoslav province of Serbia and had special status of its own autonomy even though it was not a province in its own right.

Demographically Serbs had been leaving Kosovo for decades making Albanians moving north into Kosovo the majority. This was a sore point for nationalists who saw their historical heartland as being overrun even though Serbs were choosing not to live there

During the Milosovic era around the 600 year anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, Milosovic pandered to or fuelled nationalist sentiment by taking away Kosovo’s autonomous status. Carting the dead King's remains around the province he claimed Kosovo will always be the heart of Serbia. This started a decade of hostility thru the 90s with a separatist militia the Kosovo Liberation Army starting a guerilla campaign against rule from Belgrade.

By the end of the 90s and disastrous wars with Croatia and Bosnia creating Serbian refugees flooding into Serbia, the regime at the time decided to repeat their strategies of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Kosovo claiming it was ‘law enforcement’ due to the KLA’s guerilla campaign, while carving out more land for Serbia.

Militias rampaged thru Kosovo, burning houses, executing people, and driving a terrorized population out. The population of almost 2 million flooded into Albania and Macedonia who couldn’t cope, upsetting the ethnic balance with their own ethnic groups.

Fearing a wider Balkan war pulling in Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, and Greece, then President Bill Clinton pushed a reluctant EU to intervene militarily with a bombing campaign against the Serbs. Belgrade Ministries were bombed as well as bridges, railway lines, and other military or supply lines.

Eventually Milosovic surrendered making Kosovo a de facto Nato protectorate as the refugees returned home. Kosovars were excited by their new status free from Belgrade for the first time and wanted to declare independence.

There was still a Serb minority towards the northern border with Serbia and the divided town of Mitrovica. Europe and the US made the Kosovars wait while they tried to work out a compromise with Belgrade. Serbia was proposing a ‘Hong Kong’ model of a state within a state but the Kosovars only wanted full independence

After a couple of years and tired or running the country, Kosovo was allowed to declare independence. However, Serbia and its ally Russia did not recognize this, nor countries such as Spain that have their own separatist provinces. So Kosovo still remains in partial limbo, independent but not quite an equal on the world stage.

To Serbs its still a bitter humiliation to have your country first bombed by Nato then to have a province taken away and declared independent. I guess most Serbs know Kosovo is lost but they don't want to accept it.

Good reading ‘Kosovo A short history’ by Noel Malcolm
http://www.amazon.com/Kosovo-Short-Hist ory-Noel-Malcolm/dp/0060977752