Identity cleansing

Identity cleansing is a term used to denote a strategy allegedly employed by the government of Serbia during the Kosovo crisis of the late 1990s.

In conjunction with the policy of expelling ethnic Albanians from the province — "ethnic cleansing," as it came to be known — the Serbian forces would confiscate all documents that indicated the date and/or place of birth of those being expelled. Apparently the idea behind this was the fact that most of the ethnic Albanians spoke only Albanian as opposed to Serbo-Croatian, and if they attempted to return to Kosovo in the future the Serbian authorities could claim that those doing so were actually Albanian nationals and not Kosovars, with the latter status conferring citizenship in what was then still known as the Republic of Yugoslavia, and thus a right of abode therein.

In addition to confiscating the relevant documents from their holders, efforts were also made to destroy any actual birth (and other) records which were maintained by governmental agencies, so as to make the "cleansing" complete (this latter tactic sometimes being referred to as archival cleansing).

This practice received worldwide condemnation, and evidence of it has been brought at the war crimes trials held at The Hague after the situation in Kosovo was stabilized following the NATO bombing of Serbia and the subsequent collapse of its nationalist government.