The key factor behind the frustration is that Kosova was left out of the Dayton Agreement, and instead was offered reassurances that it had not been forgotten and would be the next priority after Bosnia. Factories shut down, workers unemployed in their masses, families depending on members going into exile to send them the means to live, school buildings closed, poverty, malnutrition, contagious diseases, rising infant mortality, and the perpetual intimidation and frequent brutality of the Serbian police force. And the LDK resembles nothing as much as one of the old ruling Communist Parties, bureaucratic and gerontocratic, treating its youth as if they are fit to be a volunteer auxiliary doing charity work rather than as if they have a right to shape the future. In September 1996, Rugova signed an Education Agreement with Slobodan Milosevic to re-open the schools. This, said an LDK statement at the time, was one of the first rewards for the policy of peaceful resistance.
Education is a central issue.
Over half the 2 million Albanians in Kosova are under the age 24. This included trying to impose a Serbian education curriculum. When defiant teachers insisted on teaching the Albanian curriculum, their pay was stopped. For nine months they carried on without pay, until they were physically barred from the schools. Now Albanian education takes place in a parallel system.