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fought alongside Serbs during the battle, most ethnic

Albanians in the area converted to Islam in the 15th and

16th centuries and participated in the Ottoman administra-

tion of Kosovo.

As the Ottoman Empire declined in the 18th and 19th

centuries, Kosovo became the focus of competing Serbian

and Albanian independence movements.  In 1878, the League

of Prizren, which sought to create an independent Albanian

state, was founded in Kosovo.  But when the Ottoman Empire

finally buckled under the weight of the First Balkan War

in 1912, Kosovo became part of Serbia once again.  By that

time, Serbs comprised only about 20 to 25 percent of

Kosovo's population.2

Kosovo after World War I

At the end of World War I, Serbia joined with Croatia

and Slovenia to form the new state of Yugoslavia, with

Kosovo remaining a constituent part of Serbia.  During the

1920s, Serbian authorities attempted to repopulate Kosovo

with Serbs.  By 1928, the Serb population was increased to

about 38 percent, mainly because of state-organized immi-

gration from Serbia.3   But during World War II, after

Yugoslavia was defeated by the Axis Powers in April 1941,

the population trend lines in Kosovo were reversed.  Italy

ceded the province to neighboring Albania, which had been

under Axis occupation since 1939, and Kosovo was ruled as

part of Italian-occupied Albania for the remainder of the

war.  Between 1941 and 1945, more than 70,000 Serbs fled

Kosovo while 75,000 Albanians migrated there.4

After World War II, Kosovo was returned to Serbia.

Wanting to forge a Balkan communist federation with

Albania and Bulgaria, the new Yugoslav government under

Josip Broz Tito hoped that the prospect of reacquiring

Kosovo would draw Albania into the pact.  Tito, therefore,

wanted Kosovo to remain predominantly Albanian.  On March

6, 1945, he issued a decree forbidding Serbs displaced by

the war from returning to their homes in Kosovo.5   The fol-

lowing year, Kosovo was made an "autonomous region" within

Serbia.  Tito's plan to create a Balkan communist federa-

tion, however, collapsed in 1948 when Yugoslavia broke

with the Soviet-led Cominform.

Nevertheless, the ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo

continued to grow and to push for greater autonomy.  In

1963, Kosovo was made an "autonomous province," and under

Yugoslavia's 1974 constitution, it was granted separate

federal representation and was only formally linked with