1968 — 2026
On 27 November 1968 Albanian demonstrators, mostly students, protested in Prishtina and other Kosovo towns, demanding among other things republic status and a university in the Albanian language.
The fourth SFRY Constitution gave Serbia's two autonomous provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina, broad autonomy: their own constitutions, constitutional courts and representation in the federal Presidency and chambers.
Protests that began on 11 March 1981 in the University of Prishtina canteen grew in late March and early April into demonstrations across Kosovo demanding a republic. A state of emergency was declared and federal police and the army were deployed.
On 17 January 1982, in Untergruppenbach, Germany, two unidentified gunmen shot the exile activists Jusuf Gërvalla, his brother Bardhosh and Kadri Zeka. All three died.
In September 1986 the unfinished draft of a memorandum by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts leaked prematurely; it became a key text of Serbian nationalism of the time.
On 17 November 1988 Trepça miners marched towards Prishtina against the forced resignation of leaders Kaqusha Jashari and Azem Vllasi and against the planned constitutional changes. This began several days of mass peaceful protest.
From 20 to 28 February 1989 about 1,300 Albanian miners (sources give 1,200–1,350) barricaded themselves underground in the Stari Trg mine and went on hunger strike against the constitutional amendments and the leaders installed by Belgrade.
On 23 March 1989, with the building surrounded by police and military vehicles, the Kosovo Assembly approved amendments curbing autonomy; on 28 March the Serbian Assembly adopted them. Protests and deadly clashes followed.
On 23 December 1989 a group of Albanian writers and intellectuals founded the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and elected Ibrahim Rugova as its chairman.
After 1990, tens of thousands of Albanians were dismissed from jobs in administration, education, health care, the media and state enterprises under “special circumstances” measures.
From 2 February 1990 students and intellectuals led by the folklorist Anton Çetta ran a mass campaign to reconcile families in blood feuds. The largest gathering was held on 1 May 1990 at Verrat e Llukës.
Barred from the Assembly building, Albanian delegates gathered outside and adopted a “Constitutional Declaration” proclaiming Kosovo an equal unit within Yugoslavia and rejecting the 1989 amendments.
On 5 July 1990 the Serbian Assembly passed a law terminating the work of the Kosovo provincial Assembly. The same day Radio Television Prishtina was taken over and Albanian-language broadcasting stopped.
On 7 September 1990 Albanian delegates of the suspended Assembly met secretly in Kaçanik and adopted a Constitution of the Republic of Kosova; a clandestine legislature and government followed.
From the early 1990s, after Albanian pupils and teachers were shut out of school and university buildings, Albanian-language teaching continued for years in private houses and improvised premises, funded largely by local and diaspora contributions.
From 26 to 30 September 1991 Kosovo Albanians held an unofficial referendum on Kosovo as a sovereign, independent state, often voting in private homes to avoid the police. Belgrade did not recognise it; only Albania did.
On 24 May 1992 Kosovo Albanians held unofficial parliamentary and presidential elections for the parallel institutions. The LDK won a majority and Ibrahim Rugova was elected “President of the Republic of Kosova”.
The Dayton Agreement, initialled in November 1995, ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina but did not address Kosovo — a major disappointment for the peaceful-resistance strategy.
On 1 September 1996 Slobodan Milošević and Ibrahim Rugova signed an agreement, mediated by the Community of Sant'Egidio, to return Albanian pupils, students and teachers to school buildings. It was largely not implemented.
Students of the parallel University of Prishtina protested peacefully for implementation of the education agreement and a return to university buildings. Serbian police dispersed the protest by force.
On 28 November 1997, at the funeral of the teacher Halit Geci in Llaushë (Skenderaj), three masked, uniformed UÇK fighters appeared before the mourners and addressed them. HRW calls this the group's first public appearance.
According to ICTY judgments, detainees were held and mistreated at the UÇK headquarters in Jabllanicë (Gjakova) in 1998. Lahi Brahimaj was finally convicted of cruel treatment and torture of two of them.
US Special Representative Robert Gelbard publicly called the UÇK a terrorist group, first at a press conference in Prishtina on 22 February 1998 and again in Belgrade on 23 February.
On 28 February – 1 March 1998 Serbian special police forces, using a helicopter, armoured personnel carriers and mortars, attacked the Drenica villages of Likoshan and Qirez after a shooting incident. HRW documented 25–26 Albanians killed and evidence of the summary execution of at least 14 people.
On 5–7 March 1998 Serbian police launched a large-scale attack on the Jashari family compound in Lower Prekaz. Adem Jashari was killed along with most of his extended family; an eleven-year-old girl survived.
On 31 March 1998 the Security Council, acting under Chapter VII, condemned excessive force by Serbian police against civilians and peaceful demonstrators as well as acts of terrorism by the KLA or any other group, and imposed an arms embargo on the FRY.
According to the final ICTY judgment, from May to late July 1998 the UÇK ran a prison camp in a farm compound in Llapushnik holding mainly civilian Albanian and Serb prisoners, with appalling conditions, beatings and torture.
On 24 June 1998 US Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke, touring western Kosovo, met and was photographed with uniformed UÇK members — in Junik, according to BIRN.
From July to September 1998 Serbian and Yugoslav forces conducted broad offensives in areas where the UÇK operated. UN Resolution 1199 cited the Secretary-General's estimate of over 230,000 people displaced from their homes.
On 17–19 July 1998 the UÇK launched its first major attack on a town, trying to capture Rahovec. Serbian police retook the town about two days later, along with Malisheva.
On 23 September 1998 the Security Council demanded a ceasefire by all parties, the withdrawal of security units used for civilian repression, and access for international monitors.
On 26 September 1998, during the government offensive in Drenica, special police forces killed 21 members of the Deliaj family, all civilians; 14 of them, including six women and five children, were killed in a forest where they were sheltering from shelling.
On 13 October 1998 the North Atlantic Council authorised activation orders for NATO air strikes. Holbrooke and Milošević agreed a framework for complying with Resolution 1199, with an OSCE verification mission and NATO air surveillance.
On 24 October 1998 the Security Council endorsed the agreements of 15 and 16 October 1998 between the FRY and NATO and the OSCE on verifying compliance with Resolution 1199.
By Decision No. 263 of 25 October 1998, the OSCE Permanent Council authorised deployment of the Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM), with up to 2,000 unarmed verifiers. William Walker was appointed head of mission; the Prishtina headquarters opened on 11 November 1998.
On 15 January 1999, during a Serbian police operation backed by Yugoslav Army armour against UÇK positions around Reçak, 45 Albanians were killed according to the OSCE verification mission; many were men detained in the village and shot on a hill outside it.
From 6 to 23 February 1999 the Contact Group brought the Albanian and Yugoslav/Serbian delegations together at the Château de Rambouillet. The conference ended with a draft “Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo”.
In the second round, in Paris on 15–19 March 1999, the Kosovo Albanian delegation signed the Rambouillet draft on 18 March; the FRY/Serbian delegation submitted its own version without the implementation chapters. On 19 March the co-chairmen suspended the talks.
On the orders of OSCE Chairman-in-Office Knut Vollebæk, the Verification Mission withdrew from Kosovo to Macedonia on 20 March 1999. HRW and the OSCE record that attacks on Albanian villages intensified from that day.
NATO began air strikes against the FRY on 24 March 1999, without explicit Security Council authorisation, and suspended them on 10 June after 78 days.
On the night of 24–25 March 1999, the first night of NATO bombing, uniformed men entered the Prishtina home of human rights lawyer Bajram Kelmendi and took him and his sons Kastriot and Kushtrim away. Their bodies were found on 26 March.
From late March to early June 1999 hundreds of thousands of Albanians were expelled or forced to flee Kosovo to Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro, through crossings such as Morinë and Blace.
On 25 March 1999 VJ and MUP forces attacked Bellacërkë; villagers fleeing along the stream were stopped at the railway bridge, women and children were separated, and a large group of men were robbed and shot in the streambed. The ICTY found that 59 people were killed there that day.
After shelling and a joint VJ and MUP attack on 25 March 1999, on 26 March MUP members separated the men from the women and children, forced them into a building in the Batusha compound, shot them and set the building on fire.
Krushë e Madhe was surrounded and attacked on 25 March 1999 together with Krushë e Vogël; houses were burned and looted. Witnesses cited by HRW and the OSCE describe groups of men being shot over the following days.
On 26 March 1999, during a police action in Suharekë, members of the extended Berisha family were shot near their homes and inside a pizzeria where they had sheltered, including with grenades. Many of the bodies were later moved to the Batajnica mass grave.
On 28 March 1999, after thousands of displaced people had gathered in a field at Izbicë, men were separated from women and children, divided into groups and shot; several elderly people were also killed in the field. Villagers buried and filmed the dead.
On 28 March 1999 members of the “Scorpions” unit, deployed with the SAJ in Podujevë, shot 19 Albanian women and children in the courtyard of Halim Gashi's house; 14 were killed and five children survived with serious wounds. Two elderly men were killed nearby the same morning.
According to the final judgment of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, in April 1999 detainees were arbitrarily held and tortured at the KLA BIA unit's compound in Zllash, and one detainee was murdered.
On the night of 1–2 April 1999, during a police operation in Gjakova's Qerim neighbourhood, 20 people, mostly women and children, were shot or died when Lulzim Vejsa's house was set on fire; other residents were killed the same night.
In the joint VJ and MUP operation in the Carragoj valley on 27–28 April 1999, villagers were expelled towards Albania and men were separated from refugee columns at checkpoints near Meja and Korenica and killed.
The sociologist and LDK co-founder Fehmi Agani tried to leave Kosovo by train on 6 May 1999; the train was turned back and police ordered passengers off near Fushë Kosovë. He was later found dead.
On 14 May 1999 an armed Serbian force surrounded Qyshk, burned houses, robbed villagers and separated the men from the women and children; groups of men were shot inside three houses, which were then set on fire. Pavlan and Zahaq were attacked the same day.
According to the final judgment of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, about 40 people were held by the KLA at the Kukës Metal Factory, Albania, from about 17 May to 5 June 1999 in inhumane conditions; one detainee died.
NATO bombed Dubrava prison on 19 and 21 May 1999, killing prisoners and a prison official. On 22 May prisoners lined up in the yard were fired on with automatic weapons and grenades; on 23 May those in hiding were attacked. The death toll and attribution remain disputed.
On 24 May 1999 ICTY Judge David Hunt confirmed an indictment against Slobodan Milošević, Milan Milutinović, Nikola Šainović, Dragoljub Ojdanić and Vlajko Stojiljković for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war in Kosovo; it was made public on 27 May.
On 9 June 1999 NATO/KFOR and the governments of the FRY and Serbia signed the Military Technical Agreement, setting out the phased, verifiable withdrawal of all FRY forces from Kosovo within 11 days.
On 10 June 1999 NATO's Secretary General ordered the suspension of air operations after verifying that the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces had begun. The same day the Security Council adopted Resolution 1244, establishing UNMIK and authorising KFOR.
On 12 June 1999 the first elements of the NATO-led Kosovo Force entered Kosovo, while the Yugoslav Army and Serbian security forces withdrew on the schedule set by the Military Technical Agreement.
By 20 June 1999 the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army and Serbian security forces from Kosovo was complete.
After June 1999 — the postwar period
The UÇK signed its unilateral undertaking of demilitarisation and transformation on 21 June 1999 (the text is dated 20 June). On 20 September 1999 UNMIK established the Kosovo Protection Corps, and on 21 September NATO welcomed KFOR's confirmation that the KLA had fulfilled its commitment.
On 23 July 1999, after the war had ended, 14 Kosovo Serb farmers were shot dead while harvesting near the village of Staro Gracko. UNMIK and NATO condemned the killings; no one has been convicted.
On 25 May 2001 a Serbian Interior Ministry working group disclosed that bodies of Kosovo Albanians had been secretly transported to Serbia in 1999 and buried. Exhumations at the SAJ centre in Batajnica began on 2 June 2001 and continued until December 2002.
On 17–18 March 2004 riots spread across Kosovo, with attacks on Serb, Roma and Ashkali communities, Orthodox religious sites and UNMIK and KFOR property. According to the UN, 19 people died and 954 were injured.
On 17 February 2008, at an extraordinary meeting in Prishtina, Kosovo's elected leaders declared Kosovo “an independent and sovereign state”. On 22 July 2010 the International Court of Justice gave its opinion that the declaration did not violate international law.
On 3 August 2015 the Assembly of Kosovo adopted a constitutional amendment and Law No. 05/L-053 on the Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor's Office, Kosovo judicial institutions with international staff seated in The Hague.
On 16 September 2026 Trial Panel II of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers found Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi guilty of war crimes and not guilty of crimes against humanity. The judgment is not final.
