system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Kosovo and Serbia? What is it all about and who is right?
gpt
The story starts a way long time ago. Kosovo was part of the Serbian Kingdom for a long time. Then it was taken over by the Muslim Ottoman Empire for a long time. In 1913, the Serbian empire got it back. They sort of recognized it as independent though, calling Kosovo an "autonomous province" within Serbia. After WWII, Serbia (and thus also Kosovo) became part of Yugoslavia, a communist federation of countries. That lasted until the late 80s/early 90s.

Probably since they were tired of being traded around like goddam baseball players, the ethnic Albanian people in Kosovo wanted to make Kosovo its own country. Some of the Serbian people in Kosovo didn't.

Meanwhile, Yugoslavia was having other problems- it was basically disintegrating. Turns out the communism thing hadn't worked out well, and now all the little countries wanted to leave. The Yugoslavian government didn't like that, and so while most of the other little countries escaped around 1991, Yugoslavia kept Serbia (including Kosovo) and Montenegro. When Kosovo said it wanted to leave too, Yugoslavia/Serbia was like, "No fucking way, we've already lost too much, you're staying!"

Everything got really tense. The ethnic Albanians began the Kosovo Liberation Army, which was either a group of freedom fighters or a group of terrorists, depending on your point of view. Starting in the mid 90s, the KLA harassed and killed Yugoslavian/Serbian police/army forces. Those guys lashed out at the KLA and a lot of civilians in return. 

The official war started in 1998. The Serbs/Yugoslavs did a lot of bombing, raping and killing of the Albanian/Kosovo people, attempting to stop the KLA uprising (and stomp on the Kosovoans in general). Thousands upon thousands of regular folks became refugees and were dying because of sickness, lack of shelter, etc.

The international community got involved. They wanted everyone to quit fighting, and they demanded that the Serbs/Yugoslavians stop killing the Albanians, and they wanted the KLA to stop asking for Kosovoan independence. Of course neither side would agree, so NATO dropped some bombs on Yugoslavia. (Bill Clinton was USA Prez at the time, and needed the media to look away from the Monica scandal anyway, so it was convenient for him to start some shit anyway.) The bombs kept coming from March to June of 1999. Eventually Yugoslavia was like, "FIIIIINE," and they mostly left the area.

Things settled down, but no one was happy yet. Everyone got busy being politically mean to each other. "YOU GUYS committed more war crimes!" "No, YOU GUYS did!" At this point, there were still some Serbs in Kosovo, and so the Albanians said, "Fine, if you like Serbia so much, go live THERE" and kicked many of them out of their homes and businesses. There was (and is) a lot of discrimination.

By 2008 Kosovo had kind of gotten its shit together and declared themselves a new country, The Republic of Kosovo. "It's for real this time everybody!" 

Serbia was like, "Aw nah you didn't!" and refused to recognize the new country. They wouldn't trade with them or negotiate anything either. The international community was like, "Guys, we are not going through this shit again. Work it out."

Right now, things are still tense, but no one has started any real hostilities, and Kosovo and Serbia are sort of talking. They still harass and arrest each others' people, but it's probably not anymore violent than an average day in New Jersey.

By the way, Serbs are mostly Serbian Orthodox (Christian).
Many of the Albanian people in Kosovo are Muslims.
So obviously, the religion thing creates tension as well.

No one is right, because they are all fucking crazy.