KOSOVO

Key dates in recent Kosovar history

Friday 15 February 2008

Almost nine years since NATO went to war to save the province's ethnic Albanian majority from a Serb onslaught, Kosovo is set to declare independence. Here is a chronology of contemporary events in Kosovo.

Feb 14 (Reuters) - Kosovo is set to declare independence on Sunday, almost nine years since NATO went to war to save its Albanian majority from Serb ethnic cleansing and the territory became a ward of the United Nations.
 

Here is a chronology of key events since 1989, the 600th
anniversary of the Ottoman Turkish defeat of the Serbs on the
plains of Kosovo, which resonated through Serbian history:

 

June 1989 - Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic uses the
600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo to warn that Serbs
will never yield control of the province. He starts stripping
away its autonomy.
 

July 1990 - Ethnic Albanian legislators declare Kosovo
independent. Belgrade dissolves Kosovo's autonomous assembly.
 

July 1992 - Writer Ibrahim Rugova becomes president of the
self-proclaimed republic in clandestine elections. A Serbian
crackdown ensues as Albanians build a parallel state following
principles of non-violent civil disobedience, which fails.
 

March-Sept 1998 - A guerrilla insurgency of the separatist
Kosovo Liberation Army gathers pace. The KLA seizes swathes of
land and war intensifies, involving the Yugoslav army and police
in what NATO warns is an indiscriminate and brutal crackdown.
 

March 18-19, 1999 - Peace talks in France end in failure.
 

March 24 - NATO begins bombing Yugoslavia in air campaign
that lasts 78 days before Belgrade yields.
 

June 10 - Milosevic agrees to withdraw troops from Kosovo
and NATO ends bombing. About 45,000 NATO troops begin entering
Kosovo a day later as Serb forces pull out. Thousands of Serb
civilians flee a wave of revenge attacks.
 

Nov. 18, 2001 - Kosovo holds first general election. Rugova
becomes president.
 

March 17, 2004 - Following the suspect drowning of three
Albanian boys, Albanian mobs attack Serb enclaves in the worst
violence since 1999. Nineteen people are killed and hundreds of
homes torched as NATO is taken completely by surprise.
 

March 8, 2005 - Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj is charged
with war crimes and resigns to face trial in The Hague.
 

Oct 24 - U.N. Security Council agrees to talks on Kosovo's
future, mediated by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari.
 

Jan 21, 2006 - Rugova dies of lung cancer.
 

April 3, 2007 - With no compromise in sight, Ahtisaari
proposes independence supervised by the European Union.
 

June 7 - At a G8 summit in Germany, Russia makes clear it
would veto a draft U.N. resolution circulated by Western powers.
Three days later in Albania, U.S. President George W. Bush says
"the time is now" to make Kosovo independent.
 

Aug-Dec - To appease Moscow, envoys from the United States,
the EU and Russia mediate a new round of diplomacy and talks,
which again end in deadlock. The West says talks have been
exhausted and will proceed with the Ahtisaari plan.
 

Jan 9, 2008 - Ex-guerrilla commander Hashim Thaci is elected
prime minister, and promises Kosovo will declare independence
"within weeks" in coordination with the West.