Albanian Migrants

The conflict in the Balkans is interesting because for years, reporters and politicians have touted it as being the result of ancient ethnic hatred. The first phase of Yugoslavian disintegration can be attributed to the conditions of the people living in Kosovo, an autonomous province of Yugoslavia. In 1981, the socioeconomic conditions in Kosovo were far worse than those in the other republics of Yugoslavia. Poverty was rampant and unemployment was around twenty percent as compared to about two percent in Slovenia that same year. The standard of living in Kosovo was deplorable and whatever aid was given to the province by the federal government was mismanaged. Another significant problem with this particular province was that while the Serbs claimed the province as the "Cradle of Serbian Empire" because of a legendary battle and defeat that happened at Kosovo in 1389. The Albanians constituted approximately eighty percent of the population of Kosovo. In reality, Kosovo could be claimed more by the Albanian majority than by the Serb minority. Many of the valiant warriors who fought and died at the Battle of Kosovo were in fact Albanian warriors, a fact seldom acknowledged by the Serb leadership. The "Serb Empire" was not as grand and powerful as modern Serbia would contend. Relations between Albanians and Serbs were good in the Middle Ages.

Under independent rule, the region was able to make available an Albanian curriculum and Albanian culture grew in importance. Economically, however, Kosovo was still suffering since whatever gains the economy made were outdone by the gains in population made by the Albanian Muslims. The power in Kosovo was vested in a small group of elite Albanians who did well at advancing national identity and improving education and other public works but who were poor at managing and maintaining a functional economy. Whenever federal funds were given to the province, those elites at the top either wasted the money on grandiose projects and ornate buildings or on their new and privileged lifestyles.

In the late 1980's, Slobodan Milosevic came to power in Serbia. His first actions were directed against Kosovo Albanian dominance in the province. He removed virtually all of the Albanian's rights, their leadership role in government, their party, and their parliament. He further removed their control of their Albanian-language library and the administration of their school system. This was the classic case of human rights violations. Milosevic took away their right to govern themselves and as a result, he gained the attention of the United States Congress. Annual human rights reports submitted to the White House by the Department of State read like a prison record when it came to Serbian abuses of the people of Kosovo. Unfortunately, Congress was not in agreement with how to treat the reports of the abuses in Kosovo. The Bush Sr. administration was more interested in keeping Yugoslavia together and concerned more about the breakup of the Soviet Union and the potential tragedy that such a thing might cause. The problems of Kosovo were not viewed as important or of any interest to the national security or economic prosperity of the United States therefore no action was needed. The State Department catalogued massive human rights violations by the Serbian leadership in Kosovo yet the Bush Sr. Administration did nothing. Little was said about what was going on in the region and the American press because of the instability in the former Soviet Union said even less. The Central Intelligence Agency was the first to predict the breakup of Yugoslavia in September of 1990. This breakup, as examined by experts in the embassy in Belgrade and in Washington, was certainly seen as potentially violent and leading to war.

Milosevic attempted to cripple the economy of Slovenia by boycotting Slovenian goods and services in Serbia, Vojvodina, and Kosovo. What Milosevic managed to do was not to punish Slovenes for their insurrection but instead punish the Serbs who were dependent on Slovene goods and services. The economy of Serbia was in a downward spiral. Hopeful to raise a billion dollars in investments, Milosevic asked Serbs from all over the globe to contribute to his reconstruction and revitalization fund. Out of the billion dollars that he was expecting and counting on, Milosevic managed to get twenty-five million dollars. That is hardly enough to solve the economic woes that inflation, poor quality, and over employment were causing (Bennett, 108). Obviously, Milosevic was killing himself and Serbia with these sanctions and other economic activities. In his zeal for a nationalist movement, Milosevic managed to forget that one needs an economy for a nation to exist and he was systematically destroying his. In Kosovo alone, police operations costs amounted to about half of all of Yugoslavia's military budget and Milosevic's refusal to let anyone outside of Serbia to handle the situation further crippled any hope for a unified Yugoslavia. Serbia's actions in Kosovo were one of the key factors in Slovenia, and shortly thereafter, Croatia's decision to leave Yugoslavia.

On June 27, 1991, Slovenia declared independence. Slovenia's discontent with the rest of the Yugoslav federation can be traced back to the 1970's when during the oil crisis that took the entire world by storm, Slovenians returned home from their then non-existent Western European jobs. Slovenia's per capita income was twice that of the rest of Yugoslavia with zero unemployment making the republic a popular place for migrant Serbs and Albanians from Kosovo. What arose from this stage of the game was the beginnings of an intense nationalism would later propel Slovenia out of the Yugoslav federation and into an independence movement. As a result of this tension between what apparently had become Milosevic (in control of Serbia, Kosovo, Vojvodina, and Montenegro) and Kucan of Slovenia, the Slovene people made their way toward independence.

As it stood, however, the Serbs had seemingly made it clear that no Yugoslavia would exist without a Serb holding the reigns. Therefore, Slovenia and Croatia seceded from the federal government. Slovenia was scheduled to declare independence on June 26, 1991 but late in the afternoon on the previous day, Croatia declared independence from federal Yugoslavia. Croatia had seceded without tackling one, very critical question. What was the status of Serbs living in Croatia? Throughout history, Serbs had been moved into the Krijina region of southern Croatia to defend the Austro-Hungarian Empire against the Ottomans to the south. By the time that Croatia declared it's independence, however, Serbs had lived in those regions for generations and came to think of it as their homeland. The Croats, however, failed to recognize the Serbs and give them citizenship in

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