Kosovo independence has been in the works since, at the urging of President Clinton, NATO acted and forced the Serbs out of Kosovo. Under Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbs implemented a planned ethnic cleansing of the Albanian people and used state institutions, police, and paramilitary structure to implement this policy.

The following map, courtesy of the BBC website, shows the distribution of Albanians in Kosovo.

According to an article in from the Christian Science Monitor, one underlying issue supporting independence has roots in the breakup of Yugoslavia, and Kosovo’s former status in it. Kosovo was not a republic, but it had special status. It had veto rights, a president in Yugoslavia’s rotating presidency and representation in all aspects of federal Yugoslavia – parliament, courts, civil administration. Today, each of the other five republics of Yugoslavia now exists as a separate state and Kosovo, as part of Serbia, is being treated as a lesser partner. Serbia has not offered Kosovo what Yugoslavia offered it.

After the purges and 10 years of talking about independence, it looks like it will happen. One concern is for the Serb population that remains in Kosovo. (from BBC website)

What we wish for, besides a peaceful independence, is for Albania to expend as much energy working on its own political problems as it does lobbying for Kosovo independence. Of course it is easier to rally around the independence issue as everyone in Albania is for it, but we really need to focus on solving the problems here in Albania. We hope that Kosovo, which has not had the handicap of 50 years of isolation, will be able to model the implementation of institutional integrity that is so needed here.