Kosovo: National Liberation Through Foreign Intervention

Abstract

The presently dominant Kosovo Albanian national liberation movement, led by the Kosovo Liberation Army, claims its origins in the aftermath of the Kosovo Albanian riots of 1981 (see Chapter 6). Partly as a result of the suppression of the riots and the continuous purge of the Kosovo Albanian cadres from the province’s communist party, clandestine Kosovo Albanian organisations, committed to Kosovo’s independence, sprouted both in Kosovo and in the Kosovo Albanian diaspora in Western Europe. The official Yugoslav news agency claimed that, in the period of two years after the riots, the Yugoslav police had uncovered 72 such organisations, having more than 1000 members. Most of the clandestine organisations which came to life in the aftermath of the 1981 riots were committed to the cause of Kosovo’s independence; some engaged in terrorist attacks on Yugoslav officials in Western Europe and in smuggling arms to Kosovo, while others restricted themselves to political propaganda and organisation, thus rejecting violence.KeywordsSecurity CouncilNational LiberationArmed StruggleKosovo Liberation ArmyBombing CampaignThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.