Yugoslav colonization of Kosovo

Kosovo was part of the Ottoman Empire and following the Balkan Wars (1912–1913), the western area was included in Montenegro and the rest within Serbia.[32] Beginning from 1912, Montenegro initiated its attempts at colonisation and enacted a law on the process during 1914 that aimed at expropriating 55,000 hectares of Albanian land and transferring it to 5,000 Montenegrin settlers.[7] Some Serb colonisation of Kosovo took place during the Balkan Wars.[8][33] Serbia undertook measures for colonisation by enacting a decree aimed at colonists within "newly liberated areas" that offered 9 hectares of land to families.[7]

In the aftermath of the First World War, Serbia and Montenegro became part of Yugoslavia. Serbian control over Kosovo was restored and the state attempting to counteract Albanian separatism pursued a policy to alter the national and religious demographics of Kosovo and to Serbianise the area through colonisation.[3][4][2] Yugoslavia had signed the Protection for Minorities treaty, yet Albanians were not extended the rights of recognition as a minority or to Albanian language education.[34] Kosovo, along with northern region of Vojvodina were areas where Serbs were not a majority population and the state sought demographic change in those areas through land reform and a colonisation policy.[35] A new decree issued in 1919 and later in 1920 restarted the colonisation process in places where Albanians lived in Kosovo and Vardar Macedonia.[7] Between 1918 and 1945, over 100,000 Albanians left Kosovo[36][37]

Kosovo was strategically important for the state, its elite and security with the Albanian population deemed as "unreliable" and concerns existed over possible future rebellions by locals that did not approve of its governance.[38][39] The stance of Serbian political elite held that Kosovo was an late medieval Serb territory that after the Ottoman conquest had been settled by Albanians.[5] Vasa Šaletić, the head of the governing body for the colonisation process described the process of displacing Albanians and purchasing their property as "a logical sequel to the liberation war", in which four Balkan states defeated the Ottoman Empire.[6] Aiming to achieve a favourable political outcome, the state pursued various measures through violence and administrative avenues such as expulsions and replacing Albanians with another population.[38][4][39] At the time in the Yugoslav census of 1921, Albanians formed the majority population of Kosovo at around 64 percent with some 72 percent belonging to the Muslim faith.[2] Government sponsored colonisation of Kosovo and Vardar Macedonia was initiated in 1920 when on 24 September the Assembly of the Yugoslav Kingdom passed the Decree on the Colonisation of the Southern Provinces of Yugoslavia.[40][2][41]

Both the decrees of 24 September 1920 and 11 July 1931 outlined the types of land that could be colonised and it included state land deemed not in use, communal land that went beyond the requirements of a community, land belonging to outlaws, land classified as abandoned, and large estate properties that could be subdivided through agricultural reform.[42][7] Land that was considered abandoned and land expropriated from Albanians amounted to some 228,000 hectares of mainly farmable land.[7] The decrees were intended as a reward to former soldiers and Chetniks for their service during the Balkan Wars and World War One, with incentives offered to settle in Kosovo that allowed them to claim between 5 and 10 hectares of land.[34][7][11] The military veterans that settled in Kosovo were known as dobrovoljac (volunteers) and were a politically reliable group for the state.[11] The colonisation process also entailed the arrival of Serbian bureaucrats to Kosovo along with their families.[11] During 1919–1928 some 13,000 to 15,914 Serbian families came to live in Kosovo as stipulated in the conditions of the decrees.[43] The process involved the construction of 106 colonies and 245 new settlements in Kosovo and due to serbianisation efforts some were named Lazarevo, Obilić, Miloševo after heroes from Serbian epic poetry.[34][44] Other places such as Ferizović (Alb: Ferizaj) had their name changed to Uroševac.[34][44]

After 1918, all Albanian schools in Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo were closed and around 400,000 ethnic Albanians were denationalised.[45] According to Vladan Jovanovic, Yugoslav authorities opened Turkish schools and not Albanian. Around 60% of Albanians were left without an income as a consequence of Yugoslav policy. Public services were closed to them and religious offices were politicised.[46] Yugoslav authorities also intended to replace Albanians in the region with Chetniks, war veterans and police men, as well as border police, refugees and party activists. In 1930, there existed no Albanian schools in Kosovo.[47]

Parts of the Albanian population that resisted Serbian rule in Kosovo began military maneuvers and formed the Kachak movement. Under the political leadership of Hasan Prishtina and Bajram Curri, the movement based itself in Shkodër and was led by the Committee for the National Defence of Kosovo organization.[48] Among their demands were the re-opening of Albanian language schools, recognition of Albanian as a co-official language and autonomy,[48] with the goal of uniting Kosovo with Albania.[49] The Kachaks engaged in uprisings, targeting Serbian army and administrative formations but forbade its members from targeting unarmed Serbs and churches.[48][50] The Serbian authorities regarded them as mere bandits and in response to their rebellion, retaliated by conducting operations against them as well as the civilian population.[48] In 1919, a large-scale revolt in Drenica involving 10,000 people instigated by Azem Galica was quelled by the Yugoslav army.[50] By 1924, military confrontations between Albanians and Serbs ended as the Kachak movement was effectively suppressed.[48]

As the Yugoslav forces pushed through the Albanian inhabited villages there were series of expulsions and massacres being carried out. According to Albanian sources, between 1913 and 1939, flying detachment of Serbian forces acted and punished the civil population. Between 1918 and 1921, Serbian forces killed 12,346 civilians, burned 320 villages, looted 50,000 houses, imprisoned 22,16 and burned roughly 6000 houses.[51] Between 1913 and 1920, Serb colonists were given special privileges by the authorities to settle in areas, previously inhabited by Albanians, who had been vanished or killed numbering 60 000.[52]

In June 1919, the Serbian Chetniks led by Colonel Katanic, Babic and Stanko assaulted the village of Llapusha, allegedly in pursuit of Kachaks who were residing in the mountains of Gurabardhi. The inhabitants were massacred. The Serbian detachment had just arrived after the massacre in Zatriq where 27 Albanians were bayonetted and one of the village elders was beaten to death and another had his eyes gouged out.[54]

In 1924, Yugoslav forces entered the village of the Albanian Konjuhi family and massacred the entire family.[55]

In 1924 two villages were destroyed and 300 families killed.[56] Between 1919 and 1921, around 1,330 Albanians were killed in Mitrovica.[57]

According to an Albanian newspaper, in the province of Pristina, the Serbian troops had killed 4,600 people between 1918 and 1921, imprisoned 3,659 people, beat 353 people, destroyed 1,346 houses and looted 2,190 houses.[58]

Under the orders of commander Petrovic and Prefect Likic, the village of Dubnica was surrounded and burned on 10 February 1924. The Yugoslav authorities massacred 25 people: ten women, eight children under eight-years, and six men.[59]

In 1919, Yugoslav forces committed many atrocities in Rugova. From 25 December 1918 to early March 1919 around 842 Albanians were killed including women, elderly, children, and infants.[60][61]

In January 1921, atrocities were reported against Albanian civilians in Keqekollë and Prapashticë.[62][63]

In 1921, there was a massacre carried out by Serbo-Montenegrin military and paramilitary Chetniks against the Albanian population in the village of Jabllanica in the region of Dushkajë. The perpetrators were Kosta Pećanac, Milić Krstić, Spire Dobrosavlević, Arseni Qirković, Gal Milenko, Nikodim Grujici and Novë Gilici. 63 civilians were killed during the day.[64]

In Peja 1,563 Albanians were massacred and 714 homes were destroyed from 1919 and 1921.[57] There were roughly 4,600 killed in Prizren along with 2,194 homes torched between 1919 and 1921.[57] From 1919 to 1921, around 1,694 people were massacred in Ferizaj.[57]

On December 25, 1919, the Montenegrin commander Savo Pjetri arrived at Hoti in the region of Kushë in Gjytetzë with his army. 72 Albanians were arrested and sent to Prekaliaj, kept all night and then executed the following morning, and thrown in a mass grave, hoping to hide the crime.[65][66] On December 7, 2019, a memorial was held for the victims by relatives of the Hoti in the USA.[67][68]

On March 25, 1919, the Kosovo Committee sent a report in French to the British Forign office reporting that between February 17–23, 1919, Serbo-Montenegrin troops massacred the population of Plav and Gusinje.[69] The Yugoslav authorities massacred 333 women, children, and elderly men by March of 1919.[70]

In the month of February in 1917, Serbo-Montenegrin troops massacred 700 Albanians in Rožaje and 800 in the region of Gjakova, and used artillery to destroy 15 villages in Rugova.[70]

On December 15, 1919, a Montenegrin detachment of Chetniks tried to disarm an Albanian tradesmen in the village of Podgur, which resulted in 138 houses being burned down and 400 being pillaged. Additionally, women, children, and elderly men were massacred.[60][71]

The Swiss paper La Jeune République published an article on September 25, 1921, by Louis Rochard, mentioning the Yugoslav atrocities on the Albanian population.[72] In June 1919, the Italian Commander Piacentini sent a telegram reporting that the Serbian troops “burned villages and massacred women and children".[73]

According to the Albanian newspaper "Dajti" from November 7, 1924, and data retrieved from the Archives of the National Defense Committee of Kosovo, between 1918 and 1921, multiple massacres have occurred against the Albanian population.[74][75][76]

The United States Department of State reported widespread massacres in Montenegro in May of 1919. Information was obtained by Albanian refugees in Shkodër, collected by Lieutenant Colonel Sherman Miles. The massacred had ended and Montenegro was "entirely cleared" of Albanians two months prior to his visit to the province. According to Albanian refugees, around 30,000 Albanians were killed in Montenegro by May 1919. The British Mission in Shkodër, however, placed this figure at 18,000–25,000.[70]

On 18 April 1919, U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing wrote to British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Lord Balfour that "Gusinje, Plav, Peja, Gjakova, Podjur and Roshji, have been scenes of terrorism and murder by Serbian troops and Serbian agents, whose policy appears to be extermination of the Albanian inhabitants of the region".[77]

In July 1919 the French consul in Skopje reported 9 massacres with 30,000–40,000 victims and that the Albanian primary schools had been closed down again and replaced by Serbian schools.[78]

Around 35,000 Albanians fled to Shkodër as a result of the atrocities.[79] According to Sabrina P. Ramet, approximately 12,000 Albanians were killed in Kosovo between 1918 and 1921, which coincides with the Albanian claim that 12,346 people were killed.[80][81][82] More than 6,000 Albanians were killed by Yugoslav forces in January and February in 1919.[83] Around 2,000 'Albanian patriots' were killed in Kosovo between 1919 and 1924. This number rose to 3,000 between 1924 and 1927.[84]

According to Kosovo Albanian politician Haki Demolli, 80,000 Albanians were "exterminated" in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by 1940.[85]

Kosovo in 1941

During World War II, a large area of Kosovo was attached to Italian controlled Albania.[19][107] The Italians were viewed as liberators by Kosovo Albanians whom sought to redress the past policies of colonisation and slavisation and power relations between Albanians and Serbs were overturned in the new administration.[19][107][108] It resulted in local Serbs and other Serbs that had arrived previously as part of the colonisation plan to be targeted by groups of armed Albanians.[107][108] Campaigns aimed toward Serbs followed and included the destruction of property, killings, murders and deportations.[19][89][107] The majority of Montenegrin and Serb settlers consisting of bureaucrats and dobrovoljac fled from Kosovo to Axis occupied Serbia and Montenegro.[19][20] One estimate places the number of Serbs that were forced to leave at 70,000-100,000.[89] Serbian historiography estimates that some 100,000 Serbs left Kosovo during 1941–1945.[20]

Serbian historiography and Serb elites have expressed similar sentiments that colonisation was a failure due to state mismanagement and use of ineffective Western methods in Kosovo and that different solutions were needed toward addressing "this problem".[109] According to some Serbian historiography, the colonisation was an attempt to correct "the historical injustice", given the belief that the ethnic structure of Kosovo was constantly being changed in favor of Albanians, since the end of the seventeenth century.[110] The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts commented that "in the ethnic plan only partially was the structure corrected" and that disruptions of the process disadvantaged Serbs.[103]

In Yugoslavia, the Albanian intelligentsia of the communist period stated that a policy for the recolonisation of Kosovo and its repopulation with Montenegrins and Serbs was undertaken by the "Greater Serbian bourgeoisie".[98] They described that it included the removal of Albanians through various measures such as deportation, land confiscations, "permanent terror" and an agrarian policy that was exploitative.[98] Examples they highlighted included the 1938 Yugoslav-Turkish convention and the memorandum by Vaso Čubrilović.[98]

In the 1980s Albanian scholars participated in historical debates on Kosovo and its identity.[111] A book Knjiga o Kosovu by historian Dimitrije Bogdanović was a response to those debates and it became widely used among the Serbian intelligentsia as a source and reference on the Kosovo question.[111] As one of a number of revisionist publications at the time, the historical study aimed to depict the Serbs as the only victims of past persecution and to counter Albanian narratives of victimisation regarding the Yugoslav interwar period of Serb rule.[112] According to Bogdanović, the demographics of Kosovo were altered from a homogeneous Serb territory through violent "colonisation" by Muslim Albanians starting in the eighteenth century and continuing throughout the late Ottoman period.[111] For Bogdanović, the Serb colonisation of Kosovo and resettlement of Albanians to Turkey was justified as a way "to redress the ethnic and national balance in this area and to improve the situation of the Serbian people, which had been marked by chronic violence".[113]

Marco Dogo, an Italian historian stated that during the interwar era, Kosovo had a small population and contained a large supply of unclaimed land, with the areas taken from Albanians being a minimal amount of land within the whole region.[98] Jasna Dragović-Soso wrote that Albanians experienced "real discrimination", yet taking into account the perspective of Dogo, the claim by Bogdanović that Albanian scholarship had considerably overstated the negative conditions of the interwar era "seems reasonable".[98] Bogdanović stated that official government policy through agrarian reform aimed at abolishing feudal relations and not toward deliberately discriminating against the Albanian population.[44][113] The colonisation of Kosovo and alteration of its population structure did not encompass the removal of Albanians through economic and other measures meant to make life difficult.[44] In his study, Bogdanović did not focus on the debates around emigration and gave a number of 45,000 emigrants that included "not only Albanians, but also ethnic Turks and Gypsies".[113] He stated that Serbs too emigrated during the interwar period.[113] Bogdanović made only a small reference to a debate in 1938 proposing the migration of Albanians to Turkey at the Serb Cultural Club without mentioning Čubrilović.[113]

Bogdanović described that local officials were responsible for violations, abuses and expropriation of Albanian land as they deviated from government policy.[44][113] The intent of land confiscations from Albanian inhabitants for the construction of Serb settlements was to be substituted for other land, yet local authorities failed to inform Albanians about their rights and it resulted in expulsions from properties without previous notice.[44] Dragović-Soso wrote that Bogdanović "correctly concluded" that Serb colonisation and Albanian emigration were not large enough events to change the demographic situation in Kosovo.[113] According to Bogdanović, the "twenty years of 'Greater Serbian Hegemony' and the 200 years of Albanian terror against the Serbian people" were not on the same level of responsibility.[113] Dragović-Soso stated that this conclusion "effectively undermined the Albanians' historical memory of past repression" about the discussions held at the time relating to the interwar period and the Albanian "problem" in Kosovo by the intelligentsia and its inhabitants.[113]

In the twenty-first century, Arben Qirezi writes that data from the interwar period regarding the region shows a different situation to the one presented by Bogdanović.[44] Qirezi describes that state policy aimed at creating equality, in addition to altering the demographic structure, was sidelined by the government as the constitution was suspended and Kosovo administered under military control in 1912.[44] The region was dealt with differently as a special territory where the state applied particular measures in Kosovo.[44] Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pašić became a very large landowner in the country due to expropriation of Albanian land in Kosovo and other areas.[44] Qirezi states that this demonstrates abuse by the state as opposed to abuse by local authorities.[44] He describes that the main goal of colonisation did not only entail creating equality between locals and settlers, yet included demographic changes whereby authorities in complaints stated that the colonisation by Serbs was a failure and that success could be achieved through the expulsion of Albanians.[44] Information on the decision making and implementation processes regarding population expulsions by the state is still limited.[39]

Based in Ankara, the data gathered for 1919–1940 by the Yugoslav Legation shows 215,412 Albanians migrated to Turkey, whereas data collected by the Yugoslav army shows that until 1939, 4,046 Albanian families went to live in Albania.[39] For 1918 to 1921, Sabrina Ramet cites the estimate that the expulsions of Albanians reduced their numbers from around 800,000 – 1,000,000 within Kosovo down to some 439,500.[89] Between 1923 and 1939, some 115,000 Yugoslav citizens migrated to Turkey and both Yugoslavian and Turkish sources state that Albanians composed most of that population group.[114] Albanian scholars from Albania and Kosovo place the number of Albanian refugees from 300,000 upward into the hundreds of thousands and state that they left Yugoslavia due to duress.[96][88][90] Other estimates given by scholars outside the Balkans for Kosovan Albanians who emigrated during 1918–1941 are between 90,000 and 150,000 or 200,000–300,000.[13][90] To date, access is unavailable to the Turkish Foreign Ministry archive regarding this issue and as such the total numbers of Albanians arriving to Turkey during the interwar period are difficult to determine.[96]

In 1945, the decree temporarily banning the return of the colonists was published in the government periodical Službeni list

Following the Second World War and establishment of communist rule in Yugoslavia, the colonisation programme was discontinued, as President Tito wanted to avoid sectarian and ethnic conflicts.[115] Tito enacted a temporary decree in March 1945 that banned the return of colonists, which included some Chetniks and the rest that left during the war seeking refuge.[14][116] Serbian nationalists protested the decision as Serb settlers were forbidden to return to Kosovo.[115] Two weeks later Tito issued another decree and followed it with a law in August 1945 that permitted a conditional return for a minority of the colonists.[14][116] In total, cases of return numbered 11,168, with 4,829 cases confirmed, 5,744 cases partially confirmed alongside 595 cases being denied.[14] A small proportion of the previous colonist population came back to Kosovo and repossessed land, with a greater part of their number (4,000 families) later leaving for other areas of Yugoslavia.[14] Taken from 1912 onward, confiscated land, numbering 16,000 out of a total of 200,000 hectares was returned to local former owners.[14]

After the Second World War and the Yugoslavia-Albania split, Yugoslav authorities attempted to downplay links between Albanians of Albania and Kosovo and to implement a policy of "Turkification" that encouraged Turkish language education and emigration to Turkey among Albanians.[22][23] In 1953, an agreement which revived the 1938 convention was reached between Tito and Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, the foreign minister of Turkey that promoted the emigration of Albanians to Anatolia.[22][23] Forced migration to Turkey increased and numbers cited by Klejda Mulaj for 1953–1957 are 195,000 Albanians leaving Yugoslavia and for 1966, some 230,000 people.[22] Historian Noel Malcolm placed the number of Albanians leaving for Turkey at 100,000 between 1953 and 1966.[23]

Factors involved in the upsurge of migration were intimidation and pressure toward the Albanian population to leave through a campaign headed by Yugoslav police chief Aleksandar Ranković that officially was stated as aimed at curbing Albanian nationalism.[22][23] Kosovo under the control of Ranković was viewed by Turkey as the individual that would implement "the Gentleman's Agreement".[23] At the same time, a new phase of colonisation occurred in the region as Montenegrin and Serb families were installed in Kosovo.[22] The situation ended in 1966 with the removal of Ranković from his position.[22] During the late communist period of Yugoslavia, the colonisation and demographic change attempts and other measures undertaken in times of Serb control was highlighted by Albanians.[117]

In the 1980s the Kosovo question was a topic among some Serb writers.[118] Figures included academic Dimitrije Bogdanović who defended and upheld interwar Yugoslavia's policy of Albanian migration to Turkey and the attempted Serbian colonisation "to redress the ethnic and national balance" toward making local conditions favourable for Serbs.[118] Vojislav Šešelj, a Serb nationalist made calls for 360,000 Albanians to be deported from Kosovo.[118] Writer Vuk Drašković was in agreement with Šešelj's sentiments and added that "a special fund" was needed "to finance the repopulation of Kosovo by Serbs".[118] The autonomy of Kosovo was scaled down in 1989 and in 1990, Serbia gained control of the local police and abolished the province's parliament and government.[119] A new constitution in Serbia rescinded the autonomous status of Kosovo and Vojvodina that had been granted under the 1974 federal Yugoslav constitution.[119] In 1990 President Slobodan Milošević had a plan to colonise Kosovo with 100,000 Serbs, though the plan did not get fulfilled.[120][121] Milošević thought that the re-colonisation of Kosovo would start Serbia's economic growth.[122]

By 1992, the situation in Kosovo deteriorated and politicians from both sides were at an impasse toward solutions for the future of the region.[24] Concerns increased among Serbs and an organisation was created called the Serb Block for Colonizing Kosovo in Pristina that aimed to get state officials based in Belgrade to raise the Serb population within Kosovo.[24] As such, the state made available loans for building apartments and homes along with employment opportunities for Montenegrins and Serbs that chose to relocate to the region.[24] In March 1992, nearly 3,000 people from the Serb minority in Albania had emigrated to Kosovo after accepting the government offer.[24] At the time, the government under Milošević pursued colonisation amidst a situation of financial difficulties and limited resources.[24] Following 1989, the government according to some estimates used over 6 billion dollars to keep Kosovo in a state of peace.[24]

Laws were passed by the parliament of Serbia that sought to change the power balance in Kosovo relating to the economy, demography and politics.[123] The Serbs replaced Albanians in government jobs and the police, whereas Serbian was made the only official language in the region.[124] Serb policies and their implementation aimed at altering the population structure of Kosovo were cited by the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights in a 1993 report called From Autonomy to Colonization: Human Rights Violations in Kosovo 1989–1993.[125] At the time, for Serb nationalists the process of Serbianisation entailed the resettlement of Serbs to Kosovo and limiting the favorable demographic position Albanians held.[25] The Serbian media and education system perspective of history held that Kosovo was for the Serbs and the region did not belong to the Albanians.[126]

The interwar period works of nationalist writer Vaso Čubrilović became popular in Serbia during the 1990s and their content called for the dislocation of Albanians through mass resettlement.[25] In 1995, Vojislav Šešelj wrote in the publication Velika Srbija (Greater Serbia) a memorandum that outlined the Serbianisation of Kosovo.[127] Šešelj called for violence and expulsion against Albanians and their leadership with aims toward discrediting them within Western public opinion.[127] The Serbian Association of Professors and Scientists held a conference in Pristina (1995) that discussed concerns about the high Kosovo Albanian birthrate.[128] As a solution, they proposed that 400,000 Serbian refugees in Yugoslavia be resettled in Kosovo and that the government introduce a "family planning law".[128] Serb academic Veselin Đuretić opposed family planning measures and suggested the deportation of Albanians to Albania and the resettlement of empty houses in Kosovo with Serbs.[129] During this period, varied definitions of terms such as "ethnic cleaning" and "genocide" were employed in the country to condone removing Kosovo Albanians through force and supplanting them with a Serbian population.[129]

Following similar themes the parliament of Serbia on 11 January 1995 passed the Decree for Colonisation of Kosovo of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.[25] It outlined government benefits for Serbs who desired to go and live in Kosovo with loans to build homes or purchase other dwellings and offered free plots of land.[25][123] Few Serbs took up the offer due to the worsening situation in Kosovo at the time.[25]

Colonisation was attempted by settling Serbs in Kosovo that involved some Serbian refugees originating from Croatia and Bosnia.[124] Around 10,000 Serb refugees from Krajina in Croatia and over 2000 from Bosnia were resettled in Kosovo, due to the Yugoslav Wars.[130][131] In 1995, the government attempted to alter the ethnic balance of the region through the planned resettlement of 100,000, later reduced to 20,000 Serbian refugees from Krajina to Kosovo.[130][26] Many countries reacted negatively to this plan and urged the Serbian government to cease the forced resettlement of Krajina Serbs to Kosovo.[130] Some of the Serb refugees opposed going to Kosovo.[26] In Babaloc and Junik, the government established shelter facilities for some 1,500 Serb refugees originating from Bosnia and Croatia.[132]

In 1996, official government statistics placed the number of refugees in Kosovo at 19,000.[26][131] After the outbreak of conflict in early 1997, an estimated 9,000 Serb refugees and 20,000 local Serbs left Kosovo.[131] Most of the Serb refugees left thereafter and a few remained that increased tensions in the area.[25] There were tense relations and instances of violent incidents between the Serb refugee population and local Albanians.[133] As the conflict intensified Serb refugees from Krajina competed with Kosovo Albanian internally displaced persons for limited resources and living space in Pristina.[134] In early 1997, the number of resettled Serb refugees in Kosovo was 4,000[26] and 6,000 in early 1999.[135] Local Albanians opposed their presence.[26]

Serbs selling property to Albanians was made illegal by the government and fines existed for Albanians that did not undertake their military service in Bosnia and Croatia.[25] The government also made it difficult for Albanians living overseas to return and penalties existed for Albanian families that had more than a child, whereas Kosovo Serbs were rewarded for having multiple children.[25] Serbianisation of the Kosovo economy also occurred with areas inhabited by Serbs receiving investment, new infrastructure and employment opportunities.[136] Albanians overall were either excluded or had limited economic participation.[136]

As the sociopolitical situation deteriorated, Kosovo Albanians numbering some 300,000 fled during this period for Western Europe.[137] By 1997–1998, the failure of Kosovo Albanian political resistance and negotiations for a solution between both sides gave way to an armed conflict between the Kosovo Liberation Army and Serb forces.[138] As the Kosovo conflict escalated, in 1999 the international community intervened to end hostilities through negotiations and later war.[138] In January 1999, the Serb police and army initiated a planned offensive against Kosovo Albanians that involved the violent liquidation of assets aimed at their displacement and Serbianisation of the region.[139] During the Kosovo war (March–June 1999), Serb forces expelled between 800,000 and 1,000,000 Albanians from Kosovo employing tactics such as confiscating personal documents to make it difficult or prevent any future return.[138] Kosovo Albanians later returned following NATO intervention and the end of the war. Post-war, less than one hundred of the Serb refugees from Croatia remained in Kosovo, as they along with over half of the Serb and other non-Albanian population were expelled from the region.[135]