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The term '''Kosovo War''' or '''Kosovo Conflict''' is often used to describe two sequential and at times parallel armed conflicts in the [[Serbian]] province of [[Kosovo]]:
The term '''Kosovo War''' or '''Kosovo Conflict''' is often used to describe two sequential and at times parallel armed conflicts in the [[Serbian]] province of [[Kosovo]]:


# '''1996–1999''': Conflict between [[Serbs|Serbian]] and [[Yugoslavia|Yugoslav]] security forces and the [[Kosovo Liberation Army]] (KLA), an ethnic [[Albanians|Albanian]] guerilla group, supported by [[NATO]] and the Islamic [[mujahideen]] seeking secession from the former Yugoslavia.
# '''1996–1999''': Conflict between [[Serbs|Serbian]] and [[Yugoslavia|Yugoslav]] security forces and the [[Kosovo Liberation Army]] (KLA), an ethnic [[Albanians|Albanian]] guerilla group.
# '''1999''': [[1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|War between Yugoslavia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization]] between [[March 24]] and [[June 10]] [[1999]],<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.nato.int/kosovo/all-frce.htm|title=Operation Allied Force|publisher=[[NATO]]}}</ref> during which NATO attacked Yugoslav targets, Albanian guerrillas continued battles with Yugoslav forces, amidst a massive displacement of population in Kosovo.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.unhcr.org/partners/PARTNERS/3bb051c54.pdf|title=NATO and Humanitarian Action in the Kosovo Crisis|author=Larry Minear, Ted van Baarda, Marc Sommers|year=2000|publisher=[[Brown University]]}}</ref>
# '''1999''': [[1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|War between Yugoslavia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization]] between [[March 24]] and [[June 10]] [[1999]],<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.nato.int/kosovo/all-frce.htm|title=Operation Allied Force|publisher=[[NATO]]}}</ref><ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.unhcr.org/partners/PARTNERS/3bb051c54.pdf|title=NATO and Humanitarian Action in the Kosovo Crisis|author=Larry Minear, Ted van Baarda, Marc Sommers|year=2000|publisher=[[Brown University]]}}</ref>


==Background==
==Background==
===Kosovo in Tito's Yugoslavia (1945–1986)===

Tensions between the two communities had been simmering throughout the 20th century and had occasionally erupted into major violence, particularly during the [[First Balkan War]], [[World War I]] and [[World War II]]. The [[Communist]] government of [[Josip Broz Tito]] systematically repressed nationalist manifestations throughout Yugoslavia, seeking to ensure that no Yugoslav republic or nationality gained dominance over the others. In particular, the power of Serbia—the largest and most populous republic—was diluted by the establishment of autonomous governments in the province of [[Vojvodina]] in the north of Serbia and [[Kosovo]] in the south. Kosovo's borders did not precisely match the areas of ethnic Albanian settlement in Yugoslavia (significant numbers of Albanians were left in the [[Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia|Republic of Macedonia]], [[Albanians in Montenegro|Montenegro]], and [[Albanians in the Republic of Serbia|Serbia]], while the far north of Kosovo remained largely ethnic Serbian). Nonetheless, the majority of its inhabitants since at least the 1921 census were Albanian.

Kosovo's formal autonomy, established under the 1945 Yugoslav constitution, initially meant relatively little in practice. Tito's [[UDBA|secret police]] cracked down hard on nationalists. In 1956, a number of [[Albanians]] were put on trial in Kosovo on charges of espionage and subversion. The threat of separatism was in fact minimal, as the few underground groups aiming for union with [[Albania]] were politically insignificant. Their long-term impact was substantial, though, as some—particularly the Revolutionary Movement for Albanian Unity, founded by [[Adem Demaci]]—were much later to form the political core of the [[Kosovo Liberation Army]]. Demaci himself was imprisoned in 1964 along with many of his followers.

Yugoslavia underwent a period of economic and political crisis in 1968, as a massive government program of economic reform widened the gap between the rich north and poor south of the country. Student demonstrations and riots in [[Belgrade]] in June 1968 spread to Kosovo in November the same year, but were put down by the Yugoslav security forces. However, some of the students' demands—particularly for real representative powers for Albanians on both Serbian and Yugoslav state bodies, and better recognition of the [[Albanian language]]—were conceded by Tito. [[University of Priština]] was established as an independent institution in 1970, ending a long period when the institution had been run as an outpost of [[Belgrade University]]. The Albanianisation of education in Kosovo was hampered by the lack of Albanian-language educational materials in Yugoslavia, so an agreement was struck with Albania itself to supply textbooks.

In 1974, Kosovo's political status was improved still further when a new Yugoslav constitution granted an expanded set of political rights. Along with Vojvodina, it was declared a province and gained many of the powers of a fully-fledged republic: a seat on the federal presidency and its own assembly, police force and national bank. Power was still exercised by the Communist Party, but it was now devolved mainly to ethnic Albanian communists.

Tito's death on [[May 4]], [[1980]] ushered in a long period of political instability, worsened by growing economic crisis and nationalist unrest. The first major outbreak occurred in Kosovo's main city, [[Pristina]], in March 1981 when Albanian students rioted over long queues in their university canteen. This seemingly trivial dispute rapidly spread throughout Kosovo and took on the character of a national revolt, with massive popular demonstrations in many Kosovo towns. The protesters demanded that Kosovo should become the seventh republic of Yugoslavia. However, this was politically unacceptable to Serbia and the [[Republic of Macedonia]]. Some Serbs (and possibly some Albanian nationalists as well) saw the demands as being a prelude to a "[[Greater Albania]]" which could encompass parts of [[Montenegro]], the [[Republic of Macedonia]] and Kosovo itself. The Communist Yugoslav presidency quelled the disturbances by sending in riot police and the army and proclaiming a state of emergency, although it did not repeal the province's autonomy as some Serbian Communists demanded. The Yugoslav press reported that about 11 people had been killed (although others claimed a death toll as high as 1,000) and another 4,200 were imprisoned.

Kosovo's Communist Party also suffered purges, with several key figures (including its president) expelled. Hardliners instituted a fierce crackdown on nationalism of all kinds, Albanian and Serbian alike. Kosovo endured a heavy secret police presence throughout most of the 1980s that ruthlessly suppressed any unauthorised nationalist manifestations, both Albanian and Serbian. According to a report quoted by [[Mark Thompson]], as many as 580,000 inhabitants of Kosovo were arrested, interrogated, interned or reprimanded. Thousands of these lost their jobs or were expelled from their educational establishments.

During this time, tension between the Albanian and Serbian communities continued to escalate. In 1969, the Serbian [[Orthodox Church]] had ordered its clergy to compile data on the ongoing problems of Serbs in Kosovo, seeking to pressure the government in Belgrade to do more to protect the Serbian faithful. In February 1982, a group of priests from Serbia proper petitioned their bishops to ask "why the Serbian Church is silent" and why it did not campaign against "the destruction, arson and sacrilege of the holy shrines of Kosovo". Such concerns did attract interest in Belgrade. Stories appeared from time to time in the Belgrade media claiming that Serbs and Montenegrins were being persecuted. There was a genuine perception among Serbian nationalists in particular that Serbs were being driven out of Kosovo. A significant fact contributing to fear and instability was large-scale drug trafficking by mafias of Kosovar Albanians.

An additional factor was the worsening state of Kosovo's economy, which made the province a poor choice for Serbs seeking work. Albanians, as well as Serbs tended to favour their compatriots when employing new recruits, but the number of jobs was in any case too few for the population. To that end, it is believed that a large number of those declaring Albanian ethnicity are in fact from the Roma community who happen to be of Islamic faith. Kosovo was the poorest part of Yugoslavia: in 1979 the average [[per capita income]] was $795, compared with the national average of $2,635 (and $5,315 in Slovenia).

===Kosovo and the rise of '''Slobodan''' Milošević (1986–1990)===
{{History of Kosovo}}
{{History of Kosovo}}
Tito's death on [[May 4]], [[1980]] ushered in a long period of political instability, worsened by growing economic crisis and nationalist unrest. In Kosovo growing Albanian nationalism and separatism in response to persecution led to growing ethnic tensions between Serbs and Albanians{{fact}}.
In Kosovo growing Albanian nationalism and separatism in response to persecution led to growing ethnic tensions between Serbs and Albanians. An increasingly poisonous atmosphere led to wild rumours being traded and otherwise trivial incidents being blown out of proportion.


In March 1989, [[Milošević]] announced an "[[anti-bureaucratic revolution]]" in Kosovo and Vojvodina, curtailing their autonomy. Milošević and his government claimed{{fact}} that the constitutional changes were necessary to protect Kosovo's remaining Serbs against harassment from the Albanian majority.
It was against this tense background that the [[Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts]] (''SANU'', from its Serbian initials, '''САНУ''') conducted a survey under Serbs who had left Kosovo in 1985/1986.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.snd-us.com/history/Petrovic-Blagojevic/index.htm|title=The Migration of Serbs and Montenegrins from Kosovo and Metohija|year=2000|published=Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts|author=Ruza Petrovic, Marina Blagojevic}}</ref> The report concluded that a considerable part of those who had left had been under pressure by Albanians to do so.


With Kosovo's Communist Party effectively broken up by Milošević's crackdown{{fact}}, the dominant Albanian political party position passed to the [[Democratic League of Kosovo]], led by the writer [[Ibrahim Rugova]]. In September 1991, the shadow Kosovo Assembly organized a [[referendum]] on independence for Kosovo. The referendum achieved a 98% vote in favour of the creation of an independent "Republic of Kosovo"{{fact}}. In May 1992, a second referendum elected Rugova as President of Kosovo. The Serbian government declared that both referendums were illegal and their results null and void.
Sixteen prominent members of the SANU began work in June 1985 on a draft document that was leaked to the public in September 1986. The [[SANU Memorandum]], as it has become known, was hugely controversial. It focused on the political difficulties facing Serbs in Yugoslavia, pointing to Tito's deliberate hobbling of Serbia's power and the difficulties faced by Serbs outside Serbia proper.


==The slide to war (1996–1998)==
The Memorandum paid special attention to Kosovo, arguing that the province's Serbs were being subjected to "physical, political, legal and cultural genocide" in an "open and total war" that had been ongoing since the spring of 1981. It claimed that Kosovo's status in 1986 was a worse historical defeat for the Serbs than any event since liberation from the Ottomans in 1804, thus ranking it above such catastrophes as the Nazi occupation or the First World War occupation of Serbia by the [[Austria-Hungary|Austro-Hungarians]]. The Memorandum's authors claimed that 200,000 Serbs had moved out of the province over the previous twenty years and warned that there would soon be none left "unless things change radically." The remedy, according to the Memorandum, was for "genuine security and unambiguous equality for all peoples living in Kosovo and Metohija [to be] established" and "objective and permanent conditions for the return of the expelled [Serbian] nation [to be] created." It concluded that "Serbia must not be passive and wait and see what the others will say, as it has done so often in the past."


On [[April 22]] [[1996]], four attacks on Serbian civilians and security personnel were carried out virtually simultaneously in several parts of Kosovo. A hitherto unknown organization calling itself the "[[Kosovo Liberation Army]]" (KLA) subsequently claimed responsibility.
The SANU Memorandum met with many different reactions. The Albanians saw it as a call for Serbian supremacism at a local level. They claimed that all Serb emigrants had left Kosovo for economic reasons. Other Yugoslav nationalities—notably the Slovenes and Croats—saw a threat in the call for a more assertive Serbia. Serbs themselves were divided: many welcomed it, while the Communist old guard strongly attacked its message. One of those who denounced it was a Serbian Communist Party official named [[Slobodan Milošević]].


The U.S. held an "outer wall of sanctions" on Yugoslavia which had been tied to a series of issues, Kosovo being one of them. These were maintained despite the [[Dayton Agreement]] to end all sanctions. The Clinton administration claimed that Dayton bound Yugoslavia to hold discussions with Rugova over Kosovo{{fact}}.
In November 1988, Kosovo's head of the provincial committee was arrested. In March 1989, Milošević announced an "[[anti-bureaucratic revolution]]" in Kosovo and Vojvodina, curtailing their autonomy and imposing a curfew and a state of emergency in Kosovo due to violent demonstrations, resulting in 24 deaths (including two policemen). Milošević and his government claimed that the constitutional changes were necessary to protect Kosovo's remaining Serbs against harassment from the Albanian majority.


In early April, Serbia arranged for a referendum on the issue of foreign interference in Kosovo. Serbian voters decisively rejected foreign interference in this internal affair. The KLA had claimed much of the area in and around [[Decani]] and ran a territory based in the village of Glodjane, encompassing its surroundings. So, on [[May 31]], [[1998]], the Yugoslav army and the Serb Ministry of the Interior police began an operation to clear the border of the KLA. NATO's responsed to this offensive with Operation Determined Falcon{{fact}}.
===Kosovo under direct Serbian rule (1990–1996)===
Slobodan Milošević took the process of retrenchment a stage further in 1990 when he revoked the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina and replaced locally chosen leaders with his sympathizers. Crucially, as both provinces had a vote in the eight member Yugoslav Presidency, this gave Milosevic an automatic four votes when combined with Serbia and Montenegro (which was closely allied to Serbia). [[Slovenia]], [[Croatia]], [[Bosnia and Herzegovina|Bosnia]] and [[Republic of Macedonia|Macedonia]] thus had to maintain an uneasy alliance to prevent Milošević from driving through constitutional changes. Serbia's political changes were ratified in a [[5 July]], [[1990]] [[referendum]] across the entire republic of Serbia, including Kosovo. Most Albanians boycotted it and the result was a foregone conclusion given the much greater population of Serbia proper.


All through June and into mid July, the KLA maintained its advance. In mid-July the KLA captured Orahovac. On the 17th of July 1998 in the two close by villages to Orahovac, Retimlije and Opteruša, all the Serb males were kidnapped and later found dead{{fact}}.
The impact on Kosovo was drastic. The reduction of its autonomy was accompanied by the abolition of its political institutions (including the [[League of Communists of Kosovo]]), with its assembly and government being formally disbanded. As most of Kosovo's industry was state-owned, the changes brought a wholesale change of corporate cadres. Technically, few were sacked outright: their companies required them to sign loyalty pledges, which most Albanians would not sign, although a few did and remained employed in Serbian state companies right up to 1999.


A new set of KLA attacks in mid-August triggered Yugoslavian operations in south-central Kosovo-Metohija south of the Pristina-Pec road. This wound down with the capture of Klecka on 23 August and the discovery of a KLA-run crematorium in which some of their victims were found.{{fact}}
Albanian cultural autonomy was also drastically reduced. The only Albanian-language newspaper, ''Rilindja'', was banned and TV and radio broadcasts in Albanian ceased. Albanian was no longer an official language of the province. [[University of Prishtina]], seen as a hotbed of Albanian nationalism, was purged: 800 lecturers at Pristina University were sacked and 22,500 of the 23,000 students expelled. Some 40,000 Yugoslav troops and police replaced the original Albanian-run security forces. A punitive regime was imposed that was harshly condemned as a "[[police state]]". Poverty and unemployment reached catastrophic levels, with about 80% of Kosovo's population becoming unemployed. As many as a third of adult male Albanians chose to go abroad (particularly to [[Germany]] and [[Switzerland]]) to find work.


The 1st of September featured a KLA offensive around [[Prizren]], causing Yugoslavian military activity there. In Metohija, around [[Pec]], another offensive caused condemnation as international officials expressed fear that a large column of displaced people would be attacked. This followed the fall of [[Donji Ratis]] where the KLA kept a mass grave; about 60 bodies were found there of recently "disappeared" Serbs and other Kosovo citizens.{{fact}}
With Kosovo's Communist Party effectively broken up by Milošević's crackdown, the dominant Albanian political party position passed to the [[Democratic League of Kosovo]], led by the writer [[Ibrahim Rugova]]. It responded to the abolition of Kosovo's autonomy by pursuing a policy of peaceful resistance. Rugova took the very practical line that armed resistance would be futile given Serbia's military strength and would lead only to a bloodbath in the province. He called on the Albanian populace to boycott the Yugoslav and Serbian states by not participating in any elections, by ignoring the [[military draft]] (compulsory in Yugoslavia) and most important by not paying any taxes or duties to the State. He also called for the creation of parallel Albanian schools, clinics and hospitals. In September 1991, the shadow Kosovo Assembly organized a [[referendum]] on independence for Kosovo. Despite widespread harassment and violence by Serbian security forces, the referendum achieved a reported 90% turnout among the province's Albanians, and a 98% vote—nearly a million votes in all—which approved the creation of an independent "Republic of Kosovo". In May 1992, a second referendum elected Rugova as President of Kosovo. The Serbian government declared that both referendums were illegal and their results null and void.


In early mid-September, for the first time, some KLA activity was reported in northern Kosovo around Podujevo. Finally, in late September, a determined effort was made to clear the KLA out of the northern and central parts of Kosovo and out of the Drenica valley itself. During this time many threats were made by Western capitals but these were tempered somewhat by the elections in Bosnia. The other major issue for those who saw no option but to resort to the use of force was the estimated 300,000 displaced Albanians{{fact}}, 30,000 of whom were out in the woods, without warm clothing or shelter, with winter approaching{{fact}}.
===The slide to war (1996–1998)===
{{Kosovo War}}
Rugova's policy of passive resistance succeeded in keeping Kosovo quiet during the war with [[Slovenia]], and the wars in [[Croatia]] and [[Bosnia and Herzegovina|Bosnia]] during the early 1990s. However, this came at the cost of increasing frustration among the Albanian population of Kosovo{{Fact|date=May 2007}}. In the mid-1990s, Rugova pleaded for a [[United Nations]] peacekeeping force for Kosovo. In 1997, Milošević was promoted to the presidency of the [[Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]] (comprising Serbia and Montenegro since its inception in April 1992).


Meanwhile, the U.S. Ambassador to the [[Republic of Macedonia]], [[Christopher_R._Hill|Christopher Hill]], was leading shuttle diplomacy between an Albanian delegation, led by Rugova, and the Yugoslav and Serbian authorities. It was these meetings which were shaping what was to be the peace plan to be discussed during a period of planned NATO occupation of Kosovo.
Continuing Serbian repression had radicalised many Albanians, some of whom decided that only armed resistance would effect a change in the situation. On [[April 22]] [[1996]], four attacks on Serbian civilians and security personnel were carried out virtually simultaneously in several parts of Kosovo. A hitherto unknown organization calling itself the "[[Kosovo Liberation Army]]" (KLA) subsequently claimed responsibility. The nature of the KLA was at first highly mysterious. In fact, it was initially a small, mainly clan-based but not very well organised group of radicalised Albanians, many of whom came from the Drenica region of western Kosovo. The KLA at this stage consisted mainly of local farmers and displaced and unemployed workers.


During a period of two weeks, threats intensified, culminating in NATO's Activation Order being given{{fact}}. Richard Holbrooke went to Belgrade with General [[Michael Short]] in the hope of reaching an agreeing with Milošević with regards to deploying a NATO presence in Kosovo. Discussions led to the Kosovo Verification Agreement on [[October 12]], [[1998]].
It is widely believed that the KLA received financial and material support from the Kosovo Albanian diaspora in Europe and elsewhere. In early 1997, [[Albania]] collapsed into chaos following the fall of President [[Sali Berisha]]. Military stockpiles were looted with impunity by criminal gangs, with much of the hardware ending up in western Kosovo and so boosting the growing KLA arsenal. The KLA also received financial aid from the Albanian in diaspora.[http://www.kosovo.net/judah2.html] [[Bujar Bukoshi]], shadow Prime Minister in exile (in [[Zürich]], [[Switzerland]]), created a group called [[FARK]] ([[Armed Forces of the Republic of Kosova]]) which was reported to have been disbanded and absorbed by the KLA in 1998.


Officially, the international community demanded an end to fighting{{fact}}. It specifically demanded that the Serbs end its offensives against the KLA{{fact}, whilst attempting to convince the KLA to drop its bid for independence{{fact}}. Moreover, attempts were made to persuade Milošević to permit NATO peacekeeping troops to enter Kosovo{{fact}}.
Most Albanians saw the KLA as legitimate "freedom fighters" whilst the Yugoslav government labelled them as "terrorists" attacking police and civilians. Although the U.S. envoy [[Robert Gelbard]] referred to the KLA as terrorists, he later admitted that they were "never officially classified as a terrorist organisation by the U.S. government."<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/121818.stm|title=The KLA - terrorists or freedom fighters?|date=1998-06-28|publisher=[[BBC]]|author=Nened Sebak}}</ref><ref>{{citeweb|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/674056.stm|title=Behind the Kosovo crisis|author=Allan Little|publisher=[[BBC]]|date=2000-03-12}}</ref><ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1999/fr033199.htm|title=The Kosovo Liberation Army: Does Clinton Policy Support Group with Terror, Drug Ties?|publisher=[[U.S. Senate]]|date=1999-03-31}}</ref> Shortly after making his claims that the KLA were terrorists, Robert Gelbard was removed from his position as special envoy to Kosovo. It should also be noted that neither the United States nor the other influential powers made any serious effort to stop money or weapons being channeled into Kosovo.


A ceasefire was brokered, commencing on [[October 25]], [[1998]]. A large contingent of unarmed [[OSCE]] peace monitors (officially known as verifiers) moved into Kosovo.
Meanwhile, the U.S. held an "outer wall of sanctions" on Yugoslavia which had been tied to a series of issues, Kosovo being one of them. These were maintained despite the agreement at Dayton to end all sanctions. The Clinton administration claimed that Dayton bound Yugoslavia to hold discussions with Rugova over Kosovo.


The ceasefire broke down within a matter of weeks and fighting resumed in December 1998 after the KLA occupied some bunkers overlooking the strategic Priština-Podujevo highway, not long after the Panda Bar Massacre, when the KLA shot up a cafe in Peć.
The crisis escalated in December 1997 at the Peace Implementation Council meeting in Bonn, where the International Community (as defined in the [[Dayton Agreement]]) agreed to give the High Representative in Bosnia sweeping powers, including the right to fire elected leaders. At the same time, Western diplomats insisted that Kosovo be discussed, and that Serbia and Yugoslavia be responsive to Albanian demands there. The delegation from Serbia stormed out of the meetings in protest.

This was followed by the return of the Contact Group that oversaw the last phases of the Bosnian conflict and declarations from European powers demanding that Serbia solve the problem in Kosovo.

KLA attacks had suddenly intensified, centered on the [[Drenica]] valley area, with the compound of one [[Adem Jashari]] being a particular focal point. Days after Robert Gelbard described the KLA as a terrorist group, Serbian police responded to the KLA attacks in the [[Likosane]] area, and pursued some of the KLA to Cirez, resulting in the deaths of 30 Albanian civilians and four Serbian policemen.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/koschron.pdf|title=Kosovo Chronology: From 1997 to the end of the conflict|month=June|year=1999|publisher=[[British Parliament]]}}</ref> The first serious action of the war had begun.

Despite some accusations of summary executions and killings of civilians, condemnations from Western capitals were not as voluble as they would become later. Serb police began to pursue Jashari and his followers in the village of [[Donje Prekaz]]. A massive firefight at the Jashari compound led to the death of a further 60 Albanians, of which eighteen were women and ten were under the age of sixteen.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://hrw.org/campaigns/kosovo98/timeline.shtml|title=Kosovo War Crimes Chronology|publisher=[[Human Rights Watch]]}}</ref> This [[March 5]] event provoked massive condemnation from the western capitals. [[Madeleine Albright]] stated that "this crisis is not an internal affair of the FRY".

On the 24th of March, Serbian forces surrounded the village of Glodjane, in the Dukagjin operational zone, and attacked a rebel compound there.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.iwpr.net/?p=tri&s=f&o=235663&apc_state=henitri2005|title=Ramush Haradinaj|author=Stacy Sullivan|date=2005-03-11|publisher=[[IWPR]]}}</ref> Despite their superior firepower, the Serbian forces failed to destroy the KLA unit which had been their objective. Although there were deaths and severe injuries on the Albanian side, the insurgency in [[Glodjane]] was far from stamped out. It was in fact to become one of the strongest centres of resistance in the upcoming war.

The Serbs also continued their efforts at diplomacy, attempting to arrange talks with Ibrahim Rugova's staff (talks which Rugova and his staff refused to attend). After several failed meetings, Ratko Marković, chairman of the Serbian delegation to the meetings, invited representatives of Kosovo minority groups to attend and maintained his invitation to the Albanians. Serbian President [[Milan Milutinović]] attended one of the meetings, though Rugova did not. He and his staff insisted on talking to Yugoslav officials, not ''Serbian'' ones, and only to discuss the modalities of Kosovo independence.

A new Serbian government was also formed at this time, led by the [[Socialist Party of Serbia]] and the [[Serbian Radical Party]]. Ultra-nationalist Radical Party chairman [[Vojislav Šešelj]] became a deputy prime minister. This increased the dissatisfaction with Serbia's position among Western diplomats and spokespersons.

In early April, Serbia arranged for a referendum on the issue of foreign interference in Kosovo. Serbian voters decisively rejected foreign interference in this internal affair. Meanwhile, the KLA claimed much of the area in and around [[Decani]] and ran a territory based in the village of Glodjane, encompassing its surroundings. So, on [[May 31]], [[1998]], the Yugoslav army and the Serb Ministry of the Interior police began an operation to clear the border of the KLA. This lasted several days and led to bomb threats from the western capitals, including reports which claimed summary executions and killings of civilians. NATO's response to this offensive was mid-June's Operation Determined Falcon, an air show over the Yugoslav borders.

During this time, the Yugoslav President Milošević made an arrangement with Boris Yeltsin of Russia to stop offensive operations and prepare for talks with the Albanians, who, through this whole crisis, refused to talk to the Serbian side, but not the Yugoslav. In fact, the only meeting between Milošević and Ibrahim Rugova took place on 15 May, in Belgrade, two days after [[Richard Holbrooke]] announced that it would take place. One month later, Holbrooke, after a trip to Belgrade where he threatened to Milosevic that if he did not obey "what's left of your country will implode", he visited the border areas affected by the fighting in early June; there he was famously photographed with the KLA. The publication of these images sent a signal to the KLA, its supporters and sympathisers, and to observers in general, that the U.S. was decisively backing the KLA.

The Yeltsin agreement included Milosevic's allowing international representatives to set up a mission in [[Kosovo-Metohija]] to monitor the situation there. This was the [[Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission]] ([[KDOM]]) that began operations in early July. The American government welcomed this part of the agreement, but denounced the initiative's call for a mutual cease fire. Rather, the Americans demanded that the Serbian-Yugoslavian side should cease fire "without linkage...to a cessation in terrorist activities".

All through June and into mid July, the KLA maintained its advance. KLA surrounded [[Peć]], [[Djakovica]], and had set up an interim capital in the town of [[Mališevo]] (to the north of [[Orahovac]]). The KLA troops were infiltrating [[Suva Reka]], and north to the area west of Priština. They threatened the Belacevec coal pits and captured them in late June, threatening energy supplies in the region.

The tide turned in mid-July when the KLA captured Orahovac. On the 17th of July 1998 in the two close by villages to Orahovac, Retimlije and Opteruša, all the Serb males were kidnapped and later found dead. Similar, even if less systematic incidents took place in the town of Orahovac and the larger Serb village Velika hoċa. The Orthodox monastery of Zociste 5 km from Orehovac - famous for the relics of the Saints Kosmas and Damianos and revered also by local Albanians - was robbed, its monks deported to a KLA prison camp, and, while empty, the monastery church and all its buildings were leveled to the ground by mining. This led to a series of Serb and Yugoslav offensives which would continue into the beginning of August.

A new set of KLA attacks in mid-August triggered Yugoslavian operations in south-central Kosovo-Metohija south of the Pristina-Pec road. This wound down with the capture of Klecka on 23 August and the discovery of a KLA-run crematorium in which some of their victims were found. The 1st of September featured a KLA offensive around [[Prizren]], causing Yugoslavian military activity there. In Metohija, around [[Pec]], another offensive caused condemnation as international officials expressed fear that a large column of displaced people would be attacked. This followed the fall of [[Donji Ratis]] where the KLA kept a mass grave; about 60 bodies were found there of recently "disappeared" Serbs and other Kosovo citizens.

In early mid-September, for the first time, some KLA activity was reported in northern Kosovo around Podujevo. Finally, in late September, a determined effort was made to clear the KLA out of the northern and central parts of Kosovo and out of the Drenica valley itself. During this time many threats were made by Western capitals but these were tempered somewhat by the elections in Bosnia, as they didn't want Serbian Democrats and Radicals to win. Following the elections, however, the threats intensified once again but a galvanising event was needed. They got it on [[September 28]], when the mutilated corpses of a family were discovered outside the village of [[Gornje Obrinje]]; the bloody doll from there became the rallying image for the ensuing war.

The other major issue for those who saw no option but to resort to the use of force was the estimated 300,000 displaced Albanians, 30,000 of whom were out in the woods, without warm clothing or shelter, with winter approaching.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Ambassador to the [[Republic of Macedonia]], [[Christopher_R._Hill|Christopher Hill]], was leading shuttle diplomacy between an Albanian delegation, led by Rugova, and the Yugoslav and Serbian authorities. It was these meetings which were shaping what was to be the peace plan to be discussed during a period of planned NATO occupation of Kosovo.

During a period of two weeks, threats intensified, culminating in NATO's Activation Order being given. All was ready for the bombs to fly; Richard Holbrooke went to Belgrade in the hope of reaching an agreeming with Milošević with regards to deploying a NATO presence in Kosovo. With him came General [[Michael Short]], who threatened to destroy Belgrade. Long and painful discussions led to the Kosovo Verification Agreement on [[October 12]], [[1998]].

Officially, the international community demanded an end to fighting. It specifically demanded that the Serbs end its offensives against the KLA, (without mention of an end to KLA-perpetrated attacks), whilst attempting to convince the KLA to drop its bid for independence. Moreover, attempts were made to persuade Milošević to permit NATO peacekeeping troops to enter Kosovo. This, they argued, would allow for the Christopher Hill peace process to proceed and yield a peace agreement. A ceasefire was brokered, commencing on [[October 25]], [[1998]]. A large contingent of unarmed [[OSCE]] peace monitors (officially known as verifiers) moved into Kosovo. Their inadequacy was evident from the start. They were nicknamed the "clockwork oranges" in reference to their brightly coloured vehicles (in English, a "clockwork orange" signifies a useless object.) The ceasefire broke down within a matter of weeks and fighting resumed in December 1998 after the KLA occupied some bunkers overlooking the strategic Priština-Podujevo highway, not long after the Panda Bar Massacre, when the KLA shot up a cafe in Peć.


===Račak incident===
===Račak incident===
Line 134: Line 78:


===The Rambouillet Conference (January–March 1999)===
===The Rambouillet Conference (January–March 1999)===
The [[Rambouillet Agreement|Rambouillet talks]] began on [[February 6]], with [[Secretary General of NATO|NATO Secretary General]] [[Javier Solana]] negotiating with both sides. They were intended to conclude by [[February 19]]. The Serbian delegation was led by then president of Serbia [[Milan Milutinović]], while Milošević himself remained in Belgrade. This was in contrast to the 1995 [[Dayton Agreement|Dayton conference]] that ended war in Bosnia, where Milošević negotiated in person. The absence of Milošević was interpreted as a sign that the real decisions were being made back in Belgrade, a move that aroused criticism in Serbia as well as abroad; Kosovo's Serbian Orthodox bishop [[Artemije]] traveled all the way to Rambouillet to protest that the delegation was wholly unrepresentative.
The [[Rambouillet Agreement|Rambouillet talks]] began on [[February 6]], with [[Secretary General of NATO|NATO Secretary General]] [[Javier Solana]] negotiating with both sides. The Serbian delegation was led by then president of Serbia [[Milan Milutinović]], while Milošević himself remained in Belgrade.


In the end, on [[18 March]], [[1999]], the Albanian, American and British delegation signed what became known as the [[Rambouillet Agreement|Rambouillet Accords]] while the Serbian and Russian delegations refused{{fact}}. The accords called for NATO administration of Kosovo as an autonomous province within Yugoslavia; a force of 30,000 NATO troops to maintain order in Kosovo; an unhindered right of passage for NATO troops on Yugoslav territory, including Kosovo; and immunity for NATO and its agents to Yugoslav law{{fact}}.
The first phase of negotiations was successful as can be seen in the historical evidence. In particular, the statement by the Contact Group co-chairmen on the [[23 February]] [[1999]] that the negotiations ''have led to a '''consensus''' on substantial autonomy for Kosovo, including on mechanisms for free and fair elections to democratic institutions, for the governance of Kosovo, for the protection of human rights and the rights of members of national communities; and for the establishment of a fair judicial system''. They went on to say that ''a political framework is now in place'' leaving the further work of finalizing ''the implementation Chapters of the Agreement, including the modalities of the '''invited international''' civilian and military presence in Kosovo''. During the next month, however, NATO, under the influence of US diplomats Rubin and Albright, sought to impose a forced, as opposed to invited, military presence. The tilting of NATO towards the KLA organisation is chronicled in the BBC Television "Moral Combat: NATO at War" program.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/panorama/transcripts/transcript_12_03_00.txt|title=Moral Combat:NATO at War|author=Allan Little|publisher=[[BBC]]|date=2000-03-12}}</ref> This happened despite the fact, quoting General [[Klaus Naumann]] (Chairman of NATO Military Committee), that ''Ambassador Walker stated in the NAC (North Atlantic Council) that the majority of [ceasefire] violations was caused by the KLA''.


While the accords did not fully satisfy the Albanians, they were much too radical for the Serbs, who responded by substituting a drastically revised text that even the [[Russia]]ns, traditional allies of the Serbs, found unacceptable{{fact}}. Among many other changes in the proposed new version, it eliminated the entire chapter on humanitarian assistance and reconstruction{{fact}}, removed virtually all international oversight{{fact}} and dropped any mention of invoking "the will of the people [of Kosovo]" in determining the final status of the province{{fact}}.
In the end, on [[18 March]], [[1999]], the Albanian, American and British delegation signed what became known as the [[Rambouillet Agreement|Rambouillet Accords]] while the Serbian and Russian delegations refused. The accords called for NATO administration of Kosovo as an autonomous province within Yugoslavia; a force of 30,000 NATO troops to maintain order in Kosovo; an unhindered right of passage for NATO troops on Yugoslav territory, including Kosovo; and immunity for NATO and its agents to Yugoslav law. The American and British delegations must have known that the new version would never be accepted by the Serbs or the Contact Group. These latter provisions were much the same as had been applied to Bosnia for the [[SFOR]] (Stabilisation Force) mission there.

While the accords did not fully satisfy the Albanians, they were much too radical for the Serbs, who responded by substituting a drastically revised text that even the [[Russia]]ns, traditional allies of the Serbs, found unacceptable. It sought to reopen the painstakingly negotiated political status of Kosovo and deleted all of the proposed implementation measures. Among many other changes in the proposed new version, it eliminated the entire chapter on humanitarian assistance and reconstruction, removed virtually all international oversight and dropped any mention of invoking "the will of the people [of Kosovo]" in determining the final status of the province. Even the word "peace" was deleted{{Fact|date=August 2007}}.


[[Image:T-55 osce.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Yugoslav T-55 tank next [[Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe|OSCE]] vehicle.]]
[[Image:T-55 osce.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Yugoslav T-55 tank next [[Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe|OSCE]] vehicle.]]


In the week before the start of NATO bombing, [[Željko Ražnatović]] appeared at the [[Hyatt]] hotel in Belgrade where most of [[Western World|Western]] journalists were staying and ordered all of them to leave Serbia.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,22121,00.html|title=Serbs Unplug CNN|author=Tony Karon|publisher=[[TIME Magazine]]''|date=1999-03-25}}</ref>
Events proceeded rapidly after the failure at Rambouillet.

In the week before the start of NATO bombing, [[Arkan]] appeared at the [[Hyatt]] hotel in Belgrade where most of [[Western World|Western]] journalists were staying and ordered all of them to leave Serbia.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,22121,00.html|title=Serbs Unplug CNN|author=Tony Karon|publisher=[[TIME Magazine]]''|date=1999-03-25}}</ref>


The international monitors from the [[Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe|OSCE]] withdrew on [[March 22]], for fear of the monitors' safety ahead of the anticipated NATO bombing campaign. On [[March 23]], the Serbian assembly accepted the principle of autonomy for Kosovo<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.serbia-info.com/news/1999-03/24/10030.html|title=Conclusions of Serbian parliament|publisher=[[Government of Serbia]]|date=1999-03-24}}</ref> and non-military part of the agreement. But the Serbian side had objections to the military part of the Rambouillet agreement, appendix B in particular,<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/ksvo_rambouillet_text.html|title=Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo|publisher=[[U.S. State Department]]}}</ref> which it characterized as "NATO occupation". The full document was described "fraudulent" because the military part of the agreement was offered only at the very end of the talks without much possibility for negotiation, and because the other side, condemned in harshest terms as a "separatist–terrorist delegation", completely refused to meet delegation of FRY and negotiate directly during the Rambouillet talks at all. The following day, [[March 24]], NATO bombing began.
The international monitors from the [[Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe|OSCE]] withdrew on [[March 22]], for fear of the monitors' safety ahead of the anticipated NATO bombing campaign. On [[March 23]], the Serbian assembly accepted the principle of autonomy for Kosovo<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.serbia-info.com/news/1999-03/24/10030.html|title=Conclusions of Serbian parliament|publisher=[[Government of Serbia]]|date=1999-03-24}}</ref> and non-military part of the agreement. But the Serbian side had objections to the military part of the Rambouillet agreement, appendix B in particular,<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/ksvo_rambouillet_text.html|title=Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo|publisher=[[U.S. State Department]]}}</ref> which it characterized as "NATO occupation". The following day, [[March 24]], NATO bombing began.


==The NATO bombing campaign==
==The NATO bombing campaign==
{{Campaignbox Allied Force}}
{{Campaignbox Allied Force}}
{{main|1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia}}
{{main|1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia}}
NATO's bombing campaign lasted from [[March 24]] to [[June 11]], [[1999]], involving up to 1,000 aircraft operating mainly from bases in [[Italy]] and aircraft carriers stationed in the [[Adriatic]]. [[BGM-109 Tomahawk|Tomahawk]] [[cruise missile]]s were also extensively used, fired from aircraft, ships and submarines. All of the NATO members were involved to some degree—even Greece, despite publicly opposing the war. Over the ten weeks of the conflict, NATO aircraft flew over 38,000 combat missions. For the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) it was the first time it had participated in a conflict since World War II.

The proclaimed goal of the NATO operation was summed up by its spokesman as ''"[[Serbs]] out, peacekeepers in, refugees back".'' That is, Yugoslav troops would have to leave Kosovo and be replaced by international peacekeepers in order to ensure that the Albanian refugees could return to their homes. The campaign was initially designed to destroy Yugoslav air defences and high-value military targets. It did not go very well at first, with bad weather hindering many sorties early on. NATO had seriously underestimated Milošević's will to resist: few in Brussels thought that the campaign would last more than a few days, and although the initial bombardment was more than just a pin-prick, it was nowhere near the concentrated bombardments seen in Baghdad in 1991. On the ground, the ethnic cleansing campaign by the Serbians was stepped up and within a week of the war starting, over 300,000 Kosovo Albanians had fled into neighboring Albania and Macedonia, with many thousands more displaced within Kosovo. By April, the United Nations was reporting that 850,000 people—the vast majority of them Albanians—had fled their homes.

NATO military operations switched increasingly to attacking Yugoslav units on the ground—hitting targets as small as individual tanks and artillery pieces—as well as continuing with the strategic bombardment. This activity was, however, heavily constrained by politics, as each target needed to be approved by all nineteen members states. [[Montenegro]] was bombed on several occasions but NATO eventually desisted in order to prop up the precarious position of its anti-Milošević leader, [[Milo Đukanović|Đukanović]]. So-called "[[dual-use]]" targets, of use to both civilians and the military, were attacked: this included bridges across the [[Danube]], factories, power stations, telecommunications facilities and—particularly controversially—the headquarters of [[Yugoslavian Leftists]], a political party led by Milošević's wife, and the Serbian state television broadcasting tower. Some saw these actions as violations of international law and the [[Geneva Conventions]] in particular. NATO however argued that these facilities were potentially useful to the Yugoslav military and that their bombing was therefore justified.

At the start of May, a NATO aircraft attacked an Albanian refugee convoy, believing it was a Yugoslav military convoy, killing around 50 people. NATO admitted its mistake 5 days later, but the Serbs accused NATO of deliberately attacking the refugees. On [[May 7]], [[NATO Bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade|NATO bombs hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade]], killing three Chinese journalists and outraging Chinese public opinion. NATO claimed they were firing at Yugoslav positions. The United States and NATO later apologized for the bombing, saying that it occurred because of an outdated map provided by the [[CIA]]. This was challenged by a joint report from ''[[The Observer]]'' (UK) and ''[[Politiken]]'' ([[Denmark]]) newspapers<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/Kosovo/Story/0,2763,203214,00.html|title=Nato bombed Chinese deliberately|author=John Sweeney, Jens Holsoe, Ed Vulliamy|publisher=[[The Guardian]]|date=1999-10-17}}</ref> which claimed that NATO intentionally bombed the embassy because it was being used as a relay station for Yugoslav army radio signals. The bombing strained relations between China and NATO countries and provoked angry demonstrations outside Western embassies in [[Beijing]].

In another major incident - [[Dubrava]] prison in Kosovo - the Yugoslav government attributed 85 civilian deaths to NATO bombing. [[Human Rights Watch]] research in Kosovo determined that an estimated 18 prisoners were killed by NATO bombs on [[May 21]] (three prisoners and a guard were killed in an earlier attack on [[May 19]].

By the start of April, the conflict seemed little closer to a resolution and NATO countries began to think seriously about a ground operation—an invasion of Kosovo. This would have to be organised very quickly, as there was little time before winter set in and much work would have to be done to improve the roads from the Greek and Albanian ports to the envisaged invasion routes through Macedonia and northeastern Albania. U.S. President Bill Clinton was however extremely reluctant to commit American forces for a ground offensive. At the same time, Finnish and Russian negotiators continued to try to persuade Milošević to back down. He finally recognised that NATO was serious in its resolve to end the conflict one way or another and that Russia would not intervene to defend Serbia despite Moscow's strong anti-NATO rhetoric. Faced with little alternative, Milošević accepted the conditions offered by a Finnish–Russian mediation team and agreed to a military presence within Kosovo headed by the UN, but incorporating NATO troops.

On [[June 12]], after Milosevic accepted the conditions, [[Kosovo Force|KFOR]] began entering Kosovo. KFOR, a [[NATO]] force, had been preparing to conduct combat operations but in the end its mission was only peacekeeping. It was based upon the [[Headquarters Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps|Allied Rapid Reaction Corps]] headquarters commanded by then Lieutenant General [[Mike Jackson]] of the [[British Army]]. It consisted of British forces (a brigade built from 4th Armoured and 5th Airborne Brigades), a [[French Army]] Brigade, a [[German Army]] brigade, which entered from the west while all the other forces advanced from the south, and [[Italian Army]] and [[United States Army]] brigades. The U.S. contribution, known as the Initial Entry Force, was led by the 1st Armored Division. Subordinate units included TF 1-35 Armor from Baumholder Germany, the 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment from Fort Bragg, N.C; the [[26th Marine Expeditionary Unit]] from [[Camp Lejeune]], [[North Carolina]]; the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment from Schweinfurt Germany, and Echo Troop, 4th Cavalry Regiment, also from Schweinfurt, Germany. Also attached to the U.S. force was the [[Greek Army]]'s 501st Mechanized Infantry Battalion. The initial U.S. forces established their area of operation around the towns of Urosevic, the future [[Camp Bondsteel]], and Gnjilane, at [[Camp Monteith]], and spent four months—the start of a stay which continues to date—establishing order in the south east sector of Kosovo. During the initial incursion the U.S. soldiers were greeted by Albanians cheering and throwing flowers as U.S. soldiers and KFOR rolled through their villages. Although no resistance was met, three U.S. soldiers from the Initial Entry Force lost their lives in accidents.<ref>Sergeant William Wright - B Company 9th Engineers ([[17 July]] [[1999]]); Specialist Sherwood Brim - B Company 9th Engineers([[17 July]] [[1999]]); Private First Class Benjamin McGill - C Company 1st Battalion 26th Infantry ([[9 August]] [[1999]]).</ref>



===Russian peacekeepers===
===Russian peacekeepers===
Following the military campaign, the involvement of Russian peacekeepers proved to be tense and challenging to the NATO Kosovo force. The Russians expected to have an independent sector of Kosovo, only to be unhappily surprised with the prospect of operating under NATO command. Without prior communication or coordination with NATO, Russian forces entered Kosovo from Bosnia and seized the Pristina airport. Eventually a deal was struck whereby Russian forces operated as a unit of K-FOR but not outside the NATO command structure<ref name="bbc-airport">{{Cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/671495.stm|title=Confrontation over Pristina airport|accessdate=2008-02-08|date=2000-03-09|publisher=[[BBC]]}}</ref>.
Following the military campaign the Russians expected to have an independent sector of Kosovo{{fact}, only to be unhappy with the prospect of operating under NATO command{{fact}}. Without prior communication or coordination with NATO{{fact}}, Russian forces entered Kosovo from Bosnia and seized the Pristina airport. Eventually a deal was struck whereby Russian forces operated as a unit of K-FOR but not outside the NATO command structure<ref name="bbc-airport">{{Cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/671495.stm|title=Confrontation over Pristina airport|accessdate=2008-02-08|date=2000-03-09|publisher=[[BBC]]}}</ref>.


==Reaction to the war==
==Reaction to the war==
[[Image:M-84 MBT on Kosovo.jpg|thumb|right|300px|[[M-84]] MBT of Yugoslav Army, Kosovo 1999.]]
[[Image:M-84 MBT on Kosovo.jpg|thumb|right|300px|[[M-84]] MBT of Yugoslav Army, Kosovo 1999.]]
The [[Legitimacy of NATO bombing of Yugoslavia|legitimacy of NATO's bombing campaign]] in Kosovo has been the subject of much debate. NATO did not have the backing of the [[United Nations Security Council]] because the war was opposed by permanent members, China and, in particular Russia, who had threatened to veto any resolution authorising force. NATO argued that their defiance of the Security Council was justified based on the claims of an "international humanitarian emergency". Criticism was also drawn by the fact that the NATO charter specifies that NATO is an organization created for defence of its members, but in this case it was used to attack a non-NATO country which was not directly threatening any NATO member. NATO claimed that instability in the [[Balkans]] was a direct threat to the security interests of NATO members, and military action was therefore justified by the NATO charter; however, the only NATO member country to which the instability was a threat was [[Greece]].
The [[Legitimacy of NATO bombing of Yugoslavia|legitimacy of NATO's bombing campaign]] in Kosovo has been the subject of much debate. NATO did not have the backing of the [[United Nations Security Council]] because the war was opposed by permanent members, China and, in particular Russia, who had threatened to veto any resolution authorising force. NATO argued that their defiance of the Security Council was justified based on the claims of an "international humanitarian emergency".
Criticism was also drawn by the fact that the NATO charter specifies that NATO is an organization created for defence of its members, but in this case it was used to attack a non-NATO country which was not directly threatening any NATO member.
Many on the left of Western politics saw the NATO campaign as U.S. aggression and imperialism, while critics on the right considered it irrelevant to their countries' national security interests. Veteran anti-war campaigners such as [[Noam Chomsky]], [[Edward Said]], [[Justin Raimondo]], and [[Tariq Ali]] were prominent in opposing the campaign. However, in comparison with the anti-war protests against the [[2003 invasion of Iraq]], the campaign against the war in Kosovo aroused much less public support. The television pictures of refugees being driven out of Kosovo made a vivid and simple case for NATO's actions, and the ulterior motives of Western powers as well as alleged atrocities committed by the KLA went relatively unreported. The personalities were also very different—the NATO nations were mostly led by centre-left and moderately liberal leaders, most prominently U.S. President [[Bill Clinton]], British Prime Minister [[Tony Blair]], Canadian Prime Minister [[Jean Chretien]], German Chancellor [[Gerhard Schröder]] and the Italian Prime Minister [[Massimo D'Alema]]. Anti-war protests were generally from the libertarian right, the far-left and Serbian emigrés, with many other left-wingers supporting the campaign on humanitarian grounds. The German participation in the aggression against Belgrade (the third in the course of the 20th century) was one of the reasons for [[Oskar Lafontaine]]'s resignation from the post of Federal Minister of Finance and the chairman of the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|SPD]].


There was, however, criticism from all parts of the political spectrum for the way that NATO conducted the campaign. NATO officials sought to portray it as a "clean war" using precision weapons. The U.S. [[United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] claimed that, up to [[June 2]], 99.6% of the 20,000 bombs and missiles used had hit their targets. However, the use of technologies such as [[depleted uranium ammunition]] and [[cluster bombs]] was highly controversial, as was the bombing of oil refineries and chemical plants, which led to accusations of "environmental warfare". The slow pace of progress during the war was also heavily criticised. Many believed that NATO should have mounted an all-out campaign from the start, rather than starting with a relatively small number of strikes and combat aircraft.
There was, however, criticism from all parts of the political spectrum for the way that NATO conducted the campaign. NATO officials sought to portray it as a "clean war" using precision weapons. The U.S. [[United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] claimed that, up to [[June 2]], 99.6% of the 20,000 bombs and missiles used had hit their targets.


===Targets of the NATO bombing campaign===
===Targets of the NATO bombing campaign===


The choice of targets was highly controversial. The destruction of bridges over the Danube greatly disrupted shipping on the river for months afterwards, causing serious economic damage to countries along the length of the river. Industrial facilities were also attacked, damaging the economies of many towns. In fact, as the Serbian opposition later complained, the Yugoslav military was using civilian factories as weapons plants: the Sloboda vacuum cleaner factory in the town of [[Čačak]] also housed a tank repair facility, while the [[Zastava]] plant in [[Kragujevac]] made both cars and Kalashnikov rifles, although in completely separate buildings and locations.
The destruction of bridges over the Danube greatly disrupted shipping on the river for months afterwards, causing serious economic damage to countries along the length of the river. Industrial facilities were also attacked, damaging the economies of many towns.


Only state owned factories were targeted, leading many to suspect that the bombing campaign was partly designed to prepare the way for a free market-based reconstruction by wealthy foreign powers.<ref>{{citeweb|author=John Pilger|date=2004-12-13|publisher=[[New Statesman]]|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200412130010|title=John Pilger reminds us of Kosovo}}</ref> No private or foreign owned industrial sites were bombed. Perhaps the most controversial deliberate attack of the war was that made against the headquarters of Serbian television on [[April 23]], which killed at least fourteen people. NATO justified the attack on the grounds that the Serbian television headquarters was part of the Milošević regime's "propaganda machine". Opponents of Milošević inside Serbia charged that the managers of the state TV station had been forewarned of the attack but ordered staff to remain inside the building despite an air raid alert.
Only state owned factories were targeted, leading many to suspect that the bombing campaign was partly designed to prepare the way for a free market-based reconstruction by wealthy foreign powers.<ref>{{citeweb|author=John Pilger|date=2004-12-13|publisher=[[New Statesman]]|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200412130010|title=John Pilger reminds us of Kosovo}}</ref>


Perhaps the most controversial deliberate attack of the war was that made against the headquarters of Serbian television on [[April 23]], which killed at least fourteen people. NATO justified the attack on the grounds that the Serbian television headquarters was part of the Milošević regime's "propaganda machine".
Within Yugoslavia, opinion on the war was (unsurprisingly) split between highly critical among Serbs and highly supportive among Albanians—although not all Albanians felt that way; some appear to have blamed NATO for not acting quickly enough. Although Milošević was increasingly unpopular, the NATO campaign created a mood of national unity. Milošević did not leave matters entirely to chance, however. Many opposition supporters feared for their lives, particularly after the murder of the dissident journalist [[Slavko Curuvija]] on [[April 11]], an act widely blamed on Milošević's secret police. In Montenegro, President Milo Đukanović—who opposed both the NATO bombardment and Serbian actions in Kosovo—publicly expressed fear of a "creeping [[coup d'état|coup]]" by Milošević supporters.


Opinion in Yugoslavia's neighbours was much more mixed. [[Republic of Macedonia|Macedonia]] was the only Yugoslav republic apart from Montenegro not to have fought a war with Serbia and had tense relations between the [[Macedonians (ethnic group)|Macedonian]] majority and a large Albanian minority. Its government did not approve of Milošević's actions, but it was also not very sympathetic towards the Albanian refugees. Albania was wholly supportive of NATO's actions, as might be expected given the ethnic ties between Albanians on both sides of the border. Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria granted overflight rights to NATO aircraft. Hungary was a new member of NATO and supported the campaign. Across the [[Adriatic]], Italian public and political opinion was against the war, but the Italian government nonetheless allowed NATO full use of Italian air bases. In Greece, popular opposition to the war reached 96%.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.hri.org/news/greek/mpa/1999/99-04-17.mpa.html|title=Macedonian Press Agency: News in English|date=1999-04-17}}</ref>


==Casualties==
It was claimed at the time by some NATO officials that Milošević might try to spread the war to Bosnia in order to tie up NATO on two fronts. At the beginning of the war, two Yugoslav [[MiG-29]] fighters had flown into eastern Bosnia combating NATO planes, but were shot down by NATO aircraft. In the event, Bosnia was quiet during the Kosovo war.


==Criticism of the case for war==

Some critics have accused the coalition of leading a war in Kosovo under the false pretense of [[genocide]].<ref>{{citeweb|author=Joseph Farah|date=1999-11-29|url=http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=14861|title=The Real War Crimes|publisher=[[WorldNetDaily]]}}</ref> President Clinton of the United States, and his administration, were accused of inflating the number of [[Kosovar|Kosovar Albanians]] killed by Serbians.<ref>{{citeweb|author=Phyllis Schlafly|date=1999-10-19|url=http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a383733326c5a.htm|title=Numbers Game in Kosovo|publisher=[[Washington Times]]}}</ref> Clinton's [[Secretary of Defense]] [[William Cohen]], giving a speech, said, "The appalling accounts of mass killing in Kosovo and the pictures of refugees fleeing Serb oppression for their lives makes it clear that this is a fight for justice over genocide."<ref>{{citeweb|author=William Cohen|date=1999=04-07|url=http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/1999/t04091999_t407nato.html|title=Secretary Cohen's Press Conference at NATO Headquarters|publisher=[[U.S. Department of Defense]]}}</ref> On CBS' ''Face the Nation'' Cohen claimed, "We've now seen about 100,000 military-aged men missing... they may have been murdered."<ref>{{citeweb|author=Tom Doggett|date=1999-05-16|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/balkans/stories/cohen051699.htm|title=Cohen Fears 100,000 Kosovo Men Killed by Serbs|publisher=[[Washington Post]]}}</ref> Clinton, citing the same figure, spoke of "at least 100,000 (Kosovar Albanians) missing".<ref>{{citeweb|author=Bill Clinton|date=1999-05-13|url=http://www.clintonfoundation.org/legacy/051399-speech-by-president-to-veterans-organizations-on-kosovo.htm |title=Speech by President to Veterans Organizations on Kosovo}}</ref> Later, talking about Yugoslav elections, Clinton said, "they're going to have to come to grips with what Mr. Milošević ordered in Kosovo... they're going to have to decide whether they support his leadership or not; whether they think it's OK that all those tens of thousands of people were killed...". Clinton also claimed, in the same press conference, that "NATO stopped deliberate, systematic efforts at ethnic cleansing and genocide."<ref>{{citeweb|author=Bill Clinton|date=1999-06-25|url=http://clinton6.nara.gov/1999/06/1999-06-25-press-conference-by-the-president.html|title=Press Conference by the President}}</ref> Clinton compared the events of Kosovo to the [[Holocaust]]. CNN reported, "Accusing Serbia of 'ethnic cleansing' in Kosovo similar to the genocide of Jews in World War II, an impassioned President Clinton sought Tuesday to rally public support for his decision to send U.S. forces into combat against Yugoslavia, a prospect that seemed increasingly likely with the breakdown of a diplomatic peace effort."<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.cnn.com/US/9903/23/u.s.kosovo.04/|title=Clinton: Serbs must be stopped now|date=1999-03-23|publisher=[[CNN]]}}</ref> Clinton's [[State Department]] also claimed Yugoslav troops had committed genocide. The ''New York Times'' reported, "the Administration said evidence of 'genocide' by Yugoslav forces was growing to include 'abhorrent and criminal action' on a vast scale. The language was the State Department's strongest yet in denouncing Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević."<ref>Clines, Francis X ([[March 30]], [[1999]]). "NATO Hunting for Serb Forces; U.S. Reports Signs of 'Genocide'". ''The New York Times'', p. A1.</ref> The State Department also gave the highest estimate of dead Albanians. ''The New York Times'' reported, "On [[April 19]], the State Department said that up to 500,000 Kosovar Albanians were missing and feared dead."<ref>Erlanger, Steven ([[November 11]], [[1999]]). "Early Count Hints at Fewer Kosovo Deaths". ''The New York Times'', p. A6.</ref>

The United Nations Charter does not allow military interventions in other sovereign countries with few exceptions which in general need to be decided upon by the United Nations Security Council. The issue was brought before the UN Security Council by Russia, in a draft resolution which - inter alia - would affirm "that such unilateral use of force constitutes a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter". China, Namibia and Russia voted for the resolution, the other members against, thus it failed to pass.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/1999/19990326.sc6659.html|date=1999-03-26|publisher=[[United Nations]]|title=Security Council Rejects Demand for Cessation of Use of Force Against Federal Republic of Yugoslavia}}</ref>

On [[April 29]] [[1999]] Yugoslavia filed a complaint at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at [[The Hague]] against ten NATO member countries (Belgium, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Canada, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the USA). The Court did not decide upon the case because Yugoslavia was not a member of the UN during the war.

In Western countries, opposition to NATO's intervention was mainly from the libertarian right, and from most of the [[far left]]. In Britain, the war was opposed by many prominent conservative figures including former [[UK Foreign Secretary]] Sir [[Malcolm Rifkind]], former [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]] [[Norman Lamont]], and journalists [[Peter Hitchens]] and [[Simon Heffer]], whereas opposition on the [[left-wing politics|left]] was confined to ''[[The Morning Star]]'' newspaper and left wing MPs like [[Tony Benn]] and [[Alan Simpson (politician)|Alan Simpson]]. However, the [[Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee)]], a [[Leninism|Leninist]] splinter-group, backed the Kosovo Liberation Army (while opposing NATO's intervention, seeing it as American-led [[imperialism|imperialist]] opportunism) and support the complete secession of Kosovo from Serbia.

When the war ended on [[June 11]] [[1999]], it left Kosovo in chaos and Yugoslavia as a whole facing an unknown future.

The war inflicted many casualties. Already by March 1999, the combination of fighting and the targeting of civilians had left an estimated 1,500-2,000 civilians and combatants dead.<ref name="HRW1">{{citeweb|url=http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/undword-03.htm|title=Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo|publisher=[[Human Rights Watch]]}}</ref> Final estimates of the casualties are still unavailable for either side.

==Casualties==
===Civilians killed by NATO airstrikes ===
===Civilians killed by NATO airstrikes ===
{{main|Targeting of civilian areas during Operation Allied Force}}
{{main|Targeting of civilian areas during Operation Allied Force}}
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=== Civilians killed by Yugoslav ground forces ===
=== Civilians killed by Yugoslav ground forces ===
The exact number of civilians killed is unclear.


In August 2000 the [[International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia]] (ICTY) announced that it had exhumed 2,788 bodies in Kosovo, but declined to say how many were thought to be victims of war crimes.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4052755,00.html|publisher=[[The Guardian]]|title=Serb killings 'exaggerated' by west|author=Jonathan Steele|date=2000-08-18}}</ref> Earlier however, KFOR sources told Agence France Presse that of the 2,150 bodies that had been discovered up until July 1999, about 850 were thought to be victims of war crimes.<ref>Agence France Presse -- English; [[August 03]], [[1999]] 11:05 GMT; Top UN official in Kosovo sparks storm over mass grave body count</ref>
In August 2000 the [[International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia]] (ICTY) announced that it had exhumed 2,788 bodies in Kosovo, but declined to say how many were thought to be victims of war crimes.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4052755,00.html|publisher=[[The Guardian]]|title=Serb killings 'exaggerated' by west|author=Jonathan Steele|date=2000-08-18}}</ref> Earlier however, KFOR sources told Agence France Presse that of the 2,150 bodies that had been discovered up until July 1999, about 850 were thought to be victims of war crimes.<ref>Agence France Presse -- English; [[August 03]], [[1999]] 11:05 GMT; Top UN official in Kosovo sparks storm over mass grave body count</ref>
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Military casualties on the NATO side were light—according to official reports the alliance suffered no fatalities as a result of combat operations. However, in the early hours of [[May 5]], an American military [[AH-64 Apache]] helicopter crashed not far from the border between Serbia and Albania.<ref name="NATOlosses">{{citeweb|url=http://www.aeronautics.ru/official/losthelicopters.htm|title=Officially confirmed/documented NATO helicopter losses}}</ref>
Military casualties on the NATO side were light—according to official reports the alliance suffered no fatalities as a result of combat operations. However, in the early hours of [[May 5]], an American military [[AH-64 Apache]] helicopter crashed not far from the border between Serbia and Albania.<ref name="NATOlosses">{{citeweb|url=http://www.aeronautics.ru/official/losthelicopters.htm|title=Officially confirmed/documented NATO helicopter losses}}</ref>


After the war, the alliance reported the loss of the first U.S. [[stealth plane]] (a [[F-117 Nighthawk|F-117]] stealth fighter) ever shot down by enemy fire.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj02/sum02/lambeth.html |title=Kosovo and the Continuing SEAD Challenge |accessmonthday=October 30 |accessyear=2006 |author=Benjamin S. Lambeth|date=2006-06-03 |work=''Aerospace Power Journal'' |publisher=[[United States Air Force]]|quote="On the fourth night of air operations, an apparent barrage of SA-3s downed an F-117 at approximately 2045 over hilly terrain near Budanovci, about 28 miles northwest of Belgrade- marking the first combat loss ever of a stealth aircraft."}}</ref>
An American AH-64 helicopter crashed about 40 miles (64 km) northeast of [[Tirana]], Albania's capital, very close to the Albanian/Kosovo border.<ref name="Apache">{{citeweb|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/335709.stm|title=Two die in Apache crash|publisher=[[BBC]]|date=1999-05-05}}</ref> According to [[CNN]] the crash happened 45 miles (72 km) northeast of Tirana.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.cnn.com/US/9905/05/apache.crash/|title=U.S. helicopter crew killed in crash in Albania|publisher=[[CNN]]|date=1999-05-05}}</ref> The two American pilots of the helicopter, Army [[Chief Warrant Officer]]s David Gibbs and Kevin L. Reichert, died in that crash. They were the only NATO casualties during the war, according to NATO official statements.

There were other casualties after the war, mostly due to land mines. After the war, the alliance reported the loss of the first U.S. [[stealth plane]] (a [[F-117 Nighthawk|F-117]] stealth fighter) ever shot down by enemy fire.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj02/sum02/lambeth.html |title=Kosovo and the Continuing SEAD Challenge |accessmonthday=October 30 |accessyear=2006 |author=Benjamin S. Lambeth|date=2006-06-03 |work=''Aerospace Power Journal'' |publisher=[[United States Air Force]]|quote="On the fourth night of air operations, an apparent barrage of SA-3s downed an F-117 at approximately 2045 over hilly terrain near Budanovci, about 28 miles northwest of Belgrade- marking the first combat loss ever of a stealth aircraft."}}</ref> Furthermore 32 [[unmanned aerial vehicle]]s (UAVs) from different nations were lost.{{Fact|date=February 2008}} The wreckages of downed UAVs were shown on Serbian television during the war and reported as being downed allied aircraft. Most of these cases could be proved to be Serbian propaganda, because many of the types reportedly shot down were not used in the war at all. A second F-117A was also heavily damaged, and although it made it back to its base, it never flew again.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pogo.org/m/dp/dp-fa22-Riccioni-03082005.pdf|format=PDF|last=Riccioni|first=Everest E., Colonel, USAF, retired|title=Description of our Failing Defense Acquisition System|date=[[2005-03-08]]|work=Project on government oversight}}</ref> The Yugoslav armed forces claimed to have shot down seven helicopters, 30 UAVs, 61 planes and 238 cruise missiles, counting only those they said crashed within the territory of Yugoslavia.{{Fact|date=February 2008}}


===Yugoslavian military ===
===Yugoslavian military ===


NATO did not release any official casualty estimates. The Yugoslav authorities claimed 169 soldiers were killed and 299 wounded.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=18441|title=Spinners, sinners and no winners|author=David Hackworth|publisher=[[WorldNetDaily]]|date=1999-07-02}}</ref> The names of Yugoslav casualties were recorded in a "book of remembrance".
The Yugoslav authorities claimed 169 soldiers were killed and 299 wounded.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=18441|title=Spinners, sinners and no winners|author=David Hackworth|publisher=[[WorldNetDaily]]|date=1999-07-02}}</ref> The names of Yugoslav casualties were recorded in a "book of remembrance".

NATO did not release any official casualty estimates{{fact}}.


[[Image:Gvodzika.jpg|thumb|right|Wreck of Soviet-built 122-mm self-propelled howitzer 2S1 Gvozdika in small village near city of Glogovac.]]
[[Image:Gvodzika.jpg|thumb|right|Wreck of Soviet-built 122-mm self-propelled howitzer 2S1 Gvozdika in small village near city of Glogovac.]]
[[Image:Destroyed-t-55-tank-Kosovo.jpg|thumb|right|Destroyed T-55 main battle tank near Prizren.]]
[[Image:Destroyed-t-55-tank-Kosovo.jpg|thumb|right|Destroyed T-55 main battle tank near Prizren.]]

Of military equipment, NATO destroyed around 50 Yugoslav aircraft, of which many were old and unflyable and were intentionally placed as decoys to draw attention away from valuable targets. Two notable exceptions were the 11 destroyed Mig-29s, and 6 G-4 Super Galebs which were destroyed right in their hardened aircraft shelter when someone forgot to close the shelter doors. NATO officially claimed they destroyed 93 Yugoslav tanks. Yugoslavia admitted a total of 13 destroyed tanks. The latter figure was verified by European inspectors when Yugoslavia rejoined the Dayton accords, by noting the difference between the number of tanks then and at the last inspection in 1995. The army lost 14 tanks, 18 APCs and 20 artillery pieces.<ref>"The Kosovo Cover-Up" by John Barry and Evan Thomas, ''Newsweek'', [[May 15]], [[2000]].</ref> Most of the targets hit in Kosovo were decoys, such as tanks made out of plastic sheets with telegraph poles for gun barrels, or old World War II-era tanks which were not functional. Anti-aircraft defences were preserved by the simple expedient of not turning them on, preventing NATO aircraft from detecting them, but forcing them to keep above a ceiling of 15,000ft (5,000m), making accurate bombing much more difficult. Towards the end of the war, it was claimed that carpet bombing by [[B-52 Stratofortress|B-52]] aircraft had caused huge casualties among Yugoslav troops stationed along the Kosovo–Albania border. Careful searching by NATO investigators found no evidence of any such large-scale casualties.


===Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)===
KLA losses are difficult to analyze, and reports range from less than 1,000 on up.{{Fact|date=October 2007}} Difficulties arise in calculating an accurate figure, as KLA fighters dying in combat would sometimes be carried away by retreating KLA forces, and other times left on the battlefield and buried in mass graves by the Yugoslavs. Things are further complicated by the difficulty of determining who was a KLA member. For example, the Yugoslavs considered any armed Albanian to be a member of the KLA, regardless of whether he was officially a card-carrying member, so someone who is counted as a civilian by the Albanian side might be counted as a KLA combatant by the Serbs.


===Aftermath===
===Aftermath===
[[Image:Intolerance.jpg|thumb|right|A [[Serbian Orthodox]] church destroyed by Albanians after the war]]
[[Image:Intolerance.jpg|thumb|right|A [[Serbian Orthodox]] church destroyed by Albanians after the war]]


Within three weeks, over 500,000 Albanian [[refugees]] had returned home. By November 1999, according to the [[UNHCR|UN High Commissioner for Refugees]], 808,913 out of 848,100 had returned.
Within three weeks, over 500,000 Albanian [[refugees]] had returned home{{fact}}. By November 1999, according to the [[UNHCR|UN High Commissioner for Refugees]], 808,913 out of 848,100 had returned{{fact}}.


However, an estimated 200,000 [[Serbs in Kosovo|Serbs]] fled Kosovo.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/03/18/serbia8129.htm|title=Kosovo/Serbia: Protect Minorities from Ethnic Violence|publisher=[[Human Rights Watch]]}}</ref> [[Romani people|Gypsies]] were also driven out after being harassed by Albanians. Since [[June 12]], [[1999]], as many as 1,000 Serbs and Roma have been murdered or have gone missing as a result of KLA elements and possibly criminal [[gangs]] or vengeful individuals.<ref name=ZAT>{{citeweb|url=http://www.arhiva.serbia.sr.gov.yu/news/2002-07/08/325076.html|title=Victims of the Albanian terrorism in Kosovo-Metohija (Killed, kidnapped, and missing persons, January 1998 - November 2001)|publisher=[[Government of Serbia]]}}</ref><ref name="HRW1" /> The Yugoslav [[Red Cross]] had also registered 247,391 mostly Serbian refugees by November. The new exodus was a severe embarrassment to NATO, which had established a peacekeeping force of 45,000 under the auspices of the United Nations Mission In Kosovo ([[United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo|UNMIK]]).
An estimated 200,000 [[Serbs in Kosovo|Serbs]] fled Kosovo.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/03/18/serbia8129.htm|title=Kosovo/Serbia: Protect Minorities from Ethnic Violence|publisher=[[Human Rights Watch]]}}</ref>
The Yugoslav [[Red Cross]] had also registered 247,391 mostly Serbian refugees by November. The new exodus was a severe embarrassment to NATO, which had established a peacekeeping force of 45,000 under the auspices of the United Nations Mission In Kosovo ([[United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo|UNMIK]]).


[[Romani people|Gypsies]] were also driven out after being harassed by Albanians. Since [[June 12]], [[1999]], as many as 1,000 Serbs and Roma have been murdered or have gone missing as a result of KLA elements and possibly criminal [[gangs]] or vengeful individuals.<ref name=ZAT>{{citeweb|url=http://www.arhiva.serbia.sr.gov.yu/news/2002-07/08/325076.html|title=Victims of the Albanian terrorism in Kosovo-Metohija (Killed, kidnapped, and missing persons, January 1998 - November 2001)|publisher=[[Government of Serbia]]}}</ref><ref name="HRW1" />
Returning IDPs from the [[Republic of Macedonia]] were kept in a lead polluted refugee camp set up by [[KFOR]] / [[UNMIK]] in [[North Mitrovica]]. The charity, ran by [[Paul Polansky]], claims 27 died from lead poisoning, denied by UNMIK who recognise only one death.


According to Amnesty International, the presence of peacekeepers in Kosovo led to an increase in the [[trafficking of women]] for sexual exploitation.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3686173.stm|title=Kosovo UN troops 'fuel sex trade'|publisher=[[BBC]]|date=2004-05-06}}</ref><ref>{{citeweb|url=http://web.amnesty.org/actforwomen/stories-9-eng|title=Kosovo: Trafficked women and girls have human rights|publisher=[[Amnesty International]]}}</ref><ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1211214,00.html|title=NATO force 'feeds Kosovo sex trade'|publisher=[[The Guardian]]|author=Ian Traynor|date=2004-05-07}}</ref>
According to Amnesty International, the presence of peacekeepers in Kosovo led to an increase in the [[trafficking of women]] for sexual exploitation.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3686173.stm|title=Kosovo UN troops 'fuel sex trade'|publisher=[[BBC]]|date=2004-05-06}}</ref><ref>{{citeweb|url=http://web.amnesty.org/actforwomen/stories-9-eng|title=Kosovo: Trafficked women and girls have human rights|publisher=[[Amnesty International]]}}</ref><ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1211214,00.html|title=NATO force 'feeds Kosovo sex trade'|publisher=[[The Guardian]]|author=Ian Traynor|date=2004-05-07}}</ref>


==War crimes==
==War crimes==
Shortly before the end of the bombing, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević, along with [[Milan Milutinović]], [[Nikola Sainović]], [[Dragoljub Ojdanić]] and [[Vlajko Stojiljković]] were charged by the [[International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia]] (ICTY) with crimes against humanity including murder, forcible transfer, deportation and "persecution on political, racial or religious grounds".
Shortly before the end of the bombing, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević, along with [[Milan Milutinović]], [[Nikola Sainović]], [[Dragoljub Ojdanić]] and [[Vlajko Stojiljković]] were charged by the [[International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia]] (ICTY) with crimes against humanity including murder, forcible transfer, deportation and "persecution on political, racial or religious grounds".{{fact}}


Further indictments were leveled in October 2003 against former armed forces chief of staff [[Nebojša Pavković]], former army corps commander [[Vladimir Lazarević]], former police official [[Vlastimir Đorđević]] and the current head of Serbia's public security, [[Sreten Lukić]]. All were indicted for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war.
Further indictments were leveled in October 2003 against former armed forces chief of staff [[Nebojša Pavković]], former army corps commander [[Vladimir Lazarević]], former police official [[Vlastimir Đorđević]] and the current head of Serbia's public security, [[Sreten Lukić]]. All were indicted for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war. {{fact}


The ICTY also leveled indictments against KLA members [[Fatmir Limaj]], [[Haradin Bala]], [[Isak Musliu]] and [[Agim Murtezi]], indicted for crimes against humanity. They were arrested on [[February 17]]–[[February 18|18]], 2003. Charges were soon dropped against Agim Murtezi as a case of mistaken identity, whereas Fatmir Limaj was acquitted of all charges on [[30 November]] [[2005]] and released. The charges were in relation to the prison camp run by the defendants at [[Lapusnik]] between May and July 1998.
The ICTY also leveled indictments against KLA members [[Fatmir Limaj]], [[Haradin Bala]], [[Isak Musliu]] and [[Agim Murtezi]], indicted for crimes against humanity. They were arrested on [[February 17]]–[[February 18|18]], 2003. Charges were soon dropped against Agim Murtezi as a case of mistaken identity, whereas Fatmir Limaj was acquitted of all charges on [[30 November]] [[2005]] and released. The charges were in relation to the prison camp run by the defendants at [[Lapusnik]] between May and July 1998.{{fact}}


On March 2005, a U.N. tribunal indicted Kosovo Prime Minister [[Ramush Haradinaj]] for war crimes against the Serbs, on [[March 8]] he tendered his resignation. Haradinaj, an ethnic Albanian, was a former commander who led units of the Kosovo Liberation Army and was appointed Prime Minister after winning an election of 72 votes to three in the Kosovo's Parliament in December 2004.{{fact}}
War crimes prosecutions have also been carried out in Yugoslavia. Yugoslav soldier [[Ivan Nikolić]] was found guilty in 2002 of war crimes in the deaths of two civilians in Kosovo. A significant number of Yugoslav soldiers were tried by Yugoslav military tribunals during the war.

On March 2005, a U.N. tribunal indicted Kosovo Prime Minister [[Ramush Haradinaj]] for war crimes against the Serbs, on [[March 8]] he tendered his resignation. Haradinaj, an ethnic Albanian, was a former commander who led units of the Kosovo Liberation Army and was appointed Prime Minister after winning an election of 72 votes to three in the Kosovo's Parliament in December 2004.


The Serbian government and a number of international pressure groups claimed that NATO had carried out war crimes during the conflict, particularly regarding the bombing of alleged dual-use facilities such as the Serbian TV headquarters in Belgrade. The ICTY conducted an inquiry into these charges.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/nato061300.htm|title=Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|publisher=[[United Nations]]}}</ref> The tribunal has proclaimed that it has no mandate to press charges against NATO for war crimes against civilian population.
The Serbian government and a number of international pressure groups claimed that NATO had carried out war crimes during the conflict, particularly regarding the bombing of alleged dual-use facilities such as the Serbian TV headquarters in Belgrade. The ICTY conducted an inquiry into these charges.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/nato061300.htm|title=Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|publisher=[[United Nations]]}}</ref> The tribunal has proclaimed that it has no mandate to press charges against NATO for war crimes against civilian population.
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[[Image:T-55 and m1a2.jpg|thumb|right|300px|[[US Army]] [[M1 Abrams]] and Yugoslav army [[T-55]] tanks during YA withdrawal.]]
[[Image:T-55 and m1a2.jpg|thumb|right|300px|[[US Army]] [[M1 Abrams]] and Yugoslav army [[T-55]] tanks during YA withdrawal.]]
{{Main|Kosovo status process|Constitutional status of Kosovo}}
{{Main|Kosovo status process|Constitutional status of Kosovo}}
The Kosovo war had a number of important consequences in terms of the military and political outcome. The status of Kosovo remained unresolved until 2007; international negotiations began in 2006 to determine the final status of Kosovo, as envisaged under [[UN Security Council Resolution 1244]], and the province was administered by the [[United Nations]] until its unilateral declaration of [[2008 Kosovo declaration of its disputed independence|independence]] on February 17, 2008.

The [[UN]]-backed talks, lead by UN Special Envoy [[Martti Ahtisaari]], had begun in February 2006. Whilst progress was made on technical matters, both parties remained diametrically opposed on the question of status itself.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6034567.stm|title=UN frustrated by Kosovo deadlock|publisher=[[BBC]]|date=2006-10-09}}</ref> In February 2007, Ahtisaari delivered a draft status settlement proposal to leaders in Belgrade and Pristina, the basis for a draft UN Security Council Resolution which proposes 'supervised independence' for the province. As of early July 2007 the draft resolution, which is backed by the [[United States]], [[United Kingdom]] and other European members of the [[Security Council]], had been rewritten four times to try to accommodate Russian concerns that such a resolution would undermine the principle of state sovereignty.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/newsbriefs/setimes/newsbriefs/2007/06/29/nb-07|title=Russia reportedly rejects fourth draft resolution on Kosovo status|date=2007-06-29|publisher=[[Southeast European Times]]}}</ref> Russia, which holds a veto in the Security Council as one of five permanent members, has stated that it will not support any resolution which is not acceptable to both Belgrade and Pristina.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/newsbriefs/setimes/newsbriefs/2007/07/10/nb-02|title=UN Security Council remains divided on Kosovo|date=2007-10-07|publisher=[[Southeast European Times]]}}</ref>



Milošević survived the immediate aftermath of the war, but the effective loss of Kosovo was a major factor in provoking the popular revolt which overthrew him in 2000. He was subsequently arrested and taken to [[The Hague]], where he died from natural causes in his cell, awaiting trial for crimes against humanity on [[10 March]] [[2006]].

Despite the successful conclusion of the war, Kosovo exposed gaping weaknesses in NATO. It revealed how dependent the European members had become on the United States military—the vast majority of combat and non-combat operations were dependent on U.S. involvement—and highlighted the lack of precision weapons in European armories. Some right-wing and military critics in the U.S. also blamed the alliance's agreement-by-[[consensus]] arrangements for hobbling and slowing down the campaign.

The campaign exposed significant weaknesses in the U.S. arsenal, which were later addressed for the [[War in Afghanistan (2001–present)|Afghanistan]] and [[2003 invasion of Iraq|Iraq]] campaigns. [[AH-64 Apache|Apache attack helicopters]] and [[AC-130 Spectre]] gunships were brought up to the front lines but were never actually used after two Apaches crashed during training in the Albanian mountains. Stocks of many precision missiles were run down to critically low levels; had the campaign lasted much longer, NATO would have had to revert back to using "dumb" bombs for lack of anything better. Situation was not any better with the combat aircraft; continuous operations meant skipped maintenance schedules and many aircraft were withdrawn from service awaiting spare parts and service.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws002/theobserver04.htm|title=Hundreds of crippled jets put RAF in crisis|author=Antony Barnett|date=2000-01-23}}</ref> Also, many of the precision-guided weapons proved unable to cope with Balkan weather, as the clouds blocked the laser guidance beams. This was resolved by retrofitting bombs with [[Global Positioning System]] satellite guidance devices that are immune to bad weather. Also, although pilotless surveillance aircraft were extensively used, it often proved the case that attack aircraft could not be brought to the scene quickly enough to hit targets of opportunity. This led to the fitting of missiles to Predator drones in Afghanistan, reducing the "sensor to shooter" time to virtually nil.

Kosovo also demonstrated that even a high-tech force such as NATO could be thwarted by quite simple tactics, according to [[Wesley Clark]] and other NATO generals who analyzed these tactics a few years after the conflict.<ref>{{citeweb|url=http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/front/RTGAM/20021120/wless1120/Front/homeBN/breakingnews|title=NATO attack on Yugoslavia gave Iraq good lessons|publisher=[[Globe and Mail]]}}</ref> The Yugoslav army had long expected to need to resist a much stronger enemy; either [[Red Army|Soviet]] or NATO; during the [[Cold War]] and had developed effective tactics of deception and concealment in response. These would have been unlikely to have resisted a full-scale invasion for long, but were probably effective in misleading overflying aircraft and satellites. Among the tactics used were:

* U.S. stealth aircraft were tracked with radars operating on long wavelengths. If stealth jets got wet or started to drop bombs they would become visible on the radar screens. An [[F-117 Nighthawk]] was spotted in this way and downed with a missile.{{Fact|date=February 2008}}

* Precision-guided missiles were often confused and unable to pinpoint radars, because radar beams were reflected off heavy farm machinery like old tractors and plows.{{Fact|date=February 2008}}

* Many low-tech approaches were used to confuse heat-seeking missiles and infrared sensors. Decoys such as small gas furnaces were used to simulate nonexistent positions on mountainsides.

* Dummy targets were used very extensively. Fake bridges, airfields and decoy planes and tanks were used. Tanks were made using old tires, plastic sheeting and logs, and sand cans and fuel set alight to mimic heat emissions. They fooled NATO pilots into bombing hundreds of such decoys, though General Clark's survey found that in Operation: Allied Force, NATO airmen hit just 25 decoys-an insignificant percentage of the 974 validated hits.<ref name="fooled">{{citeweb|url=http://www.afa.org/magazine/june2000/0600kosovo.asp|month=June|year=2000|title=Nine Myths About Kosovo|author=Rebecca Grant}}</ref> However, [[NATO]] sources claim that this was due to operating procedures, which oblige troops, in this case aircraft, to engage any and all targets however unlikely they were real. The targets needed only to look real to be shot at, if detected, of course. NATO claimed that Yugoslav air force had been decimated. "Official data show that the Yugoslav army in Kosovo lost 26 percent of its tanks, 34 percent of its APCs, and 47 percent of the artillery to the air campaign."<ref name="fooled" />

* Old electronic jammers were used to block U.S. bombs equipped with satellite guidance.

* [[Hispano-Suiza]] anti-aircraft cannons from the [[World War II]] era were used effectively against slow-flying drone aircraft.


==Military decorations==
==Military decorations==
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==References==
==References==
{{reflist|2}}
{{reflist|2}}
<!-- No longer referenced: {{note|Pilger}} Pilger, John ([[September 4]], [[2000]]). "[http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4502_129/ai_65377401 US and British officials told us that at least 100,000 were murdered in Kosovo. A year later, fewer than 3,000 bodies have been found...]". ''New Statesman''.-->
<!-- No longer referenced: {{note|BBC}} "[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1402790.stm#kosovo The charges against Milosevic]". ([[July 5]], [[2004]]). BBC.-->
<!-- No longer referenced: {{note|Pearl}} Pearl, Daniel and Block, Robert ([[December 31]], [[1999]]). "War in Kosovo Was Cruel, Bitter, Savage; Genocide It Wasn’t". ''The Wall Street Journal'', p. A1.-->
<!-- No longer referenced: {{note|Pearl2}} ibid-->
<!-- No longer referenced: {{note|BBC2}} "[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1530781.stm Kosovo assault 'was not genocide']". ([[September 7]], [[2001]]). BBC.-->
<!-- No longer referenced: {{note|BBC3}} ibid-->
<!-- No longer referenced: {{note|ICTY}} "[http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/mil-ai010629e.htm Milosevic et al. - Amended Indictment]".-->
<!-- No longer referenced: {{note|Swain}} Swain, Jon ([[October 31]], [[1999]]). "[http://www.agitprop.org.au/stopnato/1999110103.htm Lost in the Kosovo numbers game]". ''The Sunday Times''.-->
<!-- No longer referenced: {{note|NatoPa2000}} NATO Parliamentary Assembly Political Committee, November 2000. "[http://www.nato-pa.int/archivedpub/comrep/2000/at-261-e.asp General Report: Kosovo Aftermath and its Implications for Conflict Prevention and Crisis Management]"-->
<!-- No longer referenced: {{note|pilger}} [http://pilger.carlton.com/print/133403] - Pilger article on post-war situation.-->
<!-- No longer referenced: {{note|legality}} [http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/068/54/IMG/NR006854.pdf] (PDF), [http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/summaries/7_5.htm], [http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/guide/7_5.htm] -- UNO laws, definition of aggression (subsources for some of above sources).-->


==See also==
==See also==

Revision as of 08:20, 24 February 2008

Template:Totally-disputed

Kosovo War
Part of Yugoslav wars

Clockwise from top: Yugoslav Army Generalstab building destroyed, a car covered in rubble, grave of killed KLA militants, A USAF F-15 takes off
Date1996–June 11, 1999
Location
Kosovo then a part of (FR Yugoslavia)
Result Albanian[citation needed] & NATO victory; Yugoslav troops pull out of Kosovo; UN/NATO peacekeepers enter Kosovo, Kosovo breaks away from Serbia on the 17th February 2008 by declaring independence.
Territorial
changes		 to Yugoslav borders according to UNSCR Resolution 1244, Kosovo a de-facto state up to 2007 under UN administration, declared independence on the 17th February 2008, now an sovereign state.
Belligerents
NATO+
File:Uck kla logo.gif Kosovo Liberation Army		 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Serbian police
File:Ocila.gif Serb paramilitary forces, including foreign fighters
Commanders and leaders
Wesley Clark (SACEUR), Javier Solana (Secretary General)
File:Uck kla logo.gif Adem Jashari (1996-1998) Chief Commander
File:Uck kla logo.gif Hashim Thaci (Political Representative)
File:Uck kla logo.gif Suleiman Selimi (Chief of Staff, until May 1999)
File:Uck kla logo.gif Agim Çeku (Chief of Staff, from May 1999)		 Slobodan Milošević (Supreme Commander, Army of Yugoslavia)
Dragoljub Ojdanić (Chief of the General Staff)
Svetozar Marjanović (Deputy Chief of Staff),
Nebojša Pavković (Commander, FRY 3rd Army)
Strength
1,031+ aircraft[1]
File:Uck kla logo.gif 12,000-20,000 men[2]		 Kosovo total: 110,000
(70,000 regulars, 30,000 police, 10,000 irregulars)[1]
Casualties and losses
NATO: 2 non-combat deaths*[3]
KLA: Unavailable		 (March 24 to June 11, 1999)
576 servicemen killed[1]
at least 13,627 Albanian civilians killed by Serb forces**[4]
~600 Serb civilians killed by ethnic Albanian forces[5]
~500 Yugoslav civilians killed by NATO (mainly Serbs)[6]
(*) Military losses according to each side's official figures
(**) As of 2001, 3,525 people were remaining missing from the conflict - the vast majority of them ethnic Albanians (but also a small number of other nationalities including Serbs)
(+)[4]

The term Kosovo War or Kosovo Conflict is often used to describe two sequential and at times parallel armed conflicts in the Serbian province of Kosovo:

  1. 1996–1999: Conflict between Serbian and Yugoslav security forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an ethnic Albanian guerilla group.
  2. 1999: War between Yugoslavia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization between March 24 and June 10 1999,[7][8]

Background

Part of a series on the
History of Kosovo
Kosovo
Prehistory
Antiquity
Roman Kosovo
Medieval Kosovo
Ottoman Kosovo
20th Century
Contemporary
See Also

Tito's death on May 4, 1980 ushered in a long period of political instability, worsened by growing economic crisis and nationalist unrest. In Kosovo growing Albanian nationalism and separatism in response to persecution led to growing ethnic tensions between Serbs and Albanians[citation needed].

In March 1989, Milošević announced an "anti-bureaucratic revolution" in Kosovo and Vojvodina, curtailing their autonomy. Milošević and his government claimed[citation needed] that the constitutional changes were necessary to protect Kosovo's remaining Serbs against harassment from the Albanian majority.

With Kosovo's Communist Party effectively broken up by Milošević's crackdown[citation needed], the dominant Albanian political party position passed to the Democratic League of Kosovo, led by the writer Ibrahim Rugova. In September 1991, the shadow Kosovo Assembly organized a referendum on independence for Kosovo. The referendum achieved a 98% vote in favour of the creation of an independent "Republic of Kosovo"[citation needed]. In May 1992, a second referendum elected Rugova as President of Kosovo. The Serbian government declared that both referendums were illegal and their results null and void.

The slide to war (1996–1998)

On April 22 1996, four attacks on Serbian civilians and security personnel were carried out virtually simultaneously in several parts of Kosovo. A hitherto unknown organization calling itself the "Kosovo Liberation Army" (KLA) subsequently claimed responsibility.

The U.S. held an "outer wall of sanctions" on Yugoslavia which had been tied to a series of issues, Kosovo being one of them. These were maintained despite the Dayton Agreement to end all sanctions. The Clinton administration claimed that Dayton bound Yugoslavia to hold discussions with Rugova over Kosovo[citation needed].

In early April, Serbia arranged for a referendum on the issue of foreign interference in Kosovo. Serbian voters decisively rejected foreign interference in this internal affair. The KLA had claimed much of the area in and around Decani and ran a territory based in the village of Glodjane, encompassing its surroundings. So, on May 31, 1998, the Yugoslav army and the Serb Ministry of the Interior police began an operation to clear the border of the KLA. NATO's responsed to this offensive with Operation Determined Falcon[citation needed].

All through June and into mid July, the KLA maintained its advance. In mid-July the KLA captured Orahovac. On the 17th of July 1998 in the two close by villages to Orahovac, Retimlije and Opteruša, all the Serb males were kidnapped and later found dead[citation needed].

A new set of KLA attacks in mid-August triggered Yugoslavian operations in south-central Kosovo-Metohija south of the Pristina-Pec road. This wound down with the capture of Klecka on 23 August and the discovery of a KLA-run crematorium in which some of their victims were found.[citation needed]

The 1st of September featured a KLA offensive around Prizren, causing Yugoslavian military activity there. In Metohija, around Pec, another offensive caused condemnation as international officials expressed fear that a large column of displaced people would be attacked. This followed the fall of Donji Ratis where the KLA kept a mass grave; about 60 bodies were found there of recently "disappeared" Serbs and other Kosovo citizens.[citation needed]

In early mid-September, for the first time, some KLA activity was reported in northern Kosovo around Podujevo. Finally, in late September, a determined effort was made to clear the KLA out of the northern and central parts of Kosovo and out of the Drenica valley itself. During this time many threats were made by Western capitals but these were tempered somewhat by the elections in Bosnia. The other major issue for those who saw no option but to resort to the use of force was the estimated 300,000 displaced Albanians[citation needed], 30,000 of whom were out in the woods, without warm clothing or shelter, with winter approaching[citation needed].

Meanwhile, the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Macedonia, Christopher Hill, was leading shuttle diplomacy between an Albanian delegation, led by Rugova, and the Yugoslav and Serbian authorities. It was these meetings which were shaping what was to be the peace plan to be discussed during a period of planned NATO occupation of Kosovo.

During a period of two weeks, threats intensified, culminating in NATO's Activation Order being given[citation needed]. Richard Holbrooke went to Belgrade with General Michael Short in the hope of reaching an agreeing with Milošević with regards to deploying a NATO presence in Kosovo. Discussions led to the Kosovo Verification Agreement on October 12, 1998.

Officially, the international community demanded an end to fighting[citation needed]. It specifically demanded that the Serbs end its offensives against the KLA{{fact}, whilst attempting to convince the KLA to drop its bid for independence[citation needed]. Moreover, attempts were made to persuade Milošević to permit NATO peacekeeping troops to enter Kosovo[citation needed].

A ceasefire was brokered, commencing on October 25, 1998. A large contingent of unarmed OSCE peace monitors (officially known as verifiers) moved into Kosovo.

The ceasefire broke down within a matter of weeks and fighting resumed in December 1998 after the KLA occupied some bunkers overlooking the strategic Priština-Podujevo highway, not long after the Panda Bar Massacre, when the KLA shot up a cafe in Peć.

Račak incident

File:T-55 kosovo.jpg
A Yugoslav army T-55 tank during a fight.
File:Uaz kosovo.jpg
Column of Yugoslav army vehicles. In front are two UAZ-469 jeeps, in middle is M53/59 Praga, and on the end is TAM-150 truck.

KLA attacks and Serbian reprisals continued throughout the winter of 1998–1999, culminating on January 15 1999 with the Račak incident. The incident was immediately (before the investigation) condemned as a massacre by the Western countries and the United Nations Security Council, and later became the basis of one of the charges of war crimes leveled against Milošević and his top officials. The details of what happened at Račak are still controversial.

NATO decided that the conflict could only be settled by introducing a military peacekeeping force under the auspices of NATO, to forcibly restrain the two sides. A set of diplomatic initiatives was announced simultaneously on January 30, 1999:

  • NATO issued a statement announcing that it was prepared to launch air strikes against Yugoslav targets "to compel compliance with the demands of the international community and [to achieve] a political settlement".
  • The Contact Group issued a set of "non-negotiable principles" which made up a package known as "Status Quo Plus"—effectively the restoration of Kosovo's pre-1990 autonomy within Serbia, plus the introduction of democracy and supervision by international organisations. It also called for a peace conference to be held in February 1999 at the Château de Rambouillet, outside Paris.

The Rambouillet Conference (January–March 1999)

The Rambouillet talks began on February 6, with NATO Secretary General Javier Solana negotiating with both sides. The Serbian delegation was led by then president of Serbia Milan Milutinović, while Milošević himself remained in Belgrade.

In the end, on 18 March, 1999, the Albanian, American and British delegation signed what became known as the Rambouillet Accords while the Serbian and Russian delegations refused[citation needed]. The accords called for NATO administration of Kosovo as an autonomous province within Yugoslavia; a force of 30,000 NATO troops to maintain order in Kosovo; an unhindered right of passage for NATO troops on Yugoslav territory, including Kosovo; and immunity for NATO and its agents to Yugoslav law[citation needed].

While the accords did not fully satisfy the Albanians, they were much too radical for the Serbs, who responded by substituting a drastically revised text that even the Russians, traditional allies of the Serbs, found unacceptable[citation needed]. Among many other changes in the proposed new version, it eliminated the entire chapter on humanitarian assistance and reconstruction[citation needed], removed virtually all international oversight[citation needed] and dropped any mention of invoking "the will of the people [of Kosovo]" in determining the final status of the province[citation needed].

File:T-55 osce.jpg
Yugoslav T-55 tank next OSCE vehicle.

In the week before the start of NATO bombing, Željko Ražnatović appeared at the Hyatt hotel in Belgrade where most of Western journalists were staying and ordered all of them to leave Serbia.[9]

The international monitors from the OSCE withdrew on March 22, for fear of the monitors' safety ahead of the anticipated NATO bombing campaign. On March 23, the Serbian assembly accepted the principle of autonomy for Kosovo[10] and non-military part of the agreement. But the Serbian side had objections to the military part of the Rambouillet agreement, appendix B in particular,[11] which it characterized as "NATO occupation". The following day, March 24, NATO bombing began.

The NATO bombing campaign

Main article: 1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Russian peacekeepers

Following the military campaign the Russians expected to have an independent sector of Kosovo{{fact}, only to be unhappy with the prospect of operating under NATO command[citation needed]. Without prior communication or coordination with NATO[citation needed], Russian forces entered Kosovo from Bosnia and seized the Pristina airport. Eventually a deal was struck whereby Russian forces operated as a unit of K-FOR but not outside the NATO command structure[12].

Reaction to the war

File:M-84 MBT on Kosovo.jpg
M-84 MBT of Yugoslav Army, Kosovo 1999.

The legitimacy of NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo has been the subject of much debate. NATO did not have the backing of the United Nations Security Council because the war was opposed by permanent members, China and, in particular Russia, who had threatened to veto any resolution authorising force. NATO argued that their defiance of the Security Council was justified based on the claims of an "international humanitarian emergency".

Criticism was also drawn by the fact that the NATO charter specifies that NATO is an organization created for defence of its members, but in this case it was used to attack a non-NATO country which was not directly threatening any NATO member.

There was, however, criticism from all parts of the political spectrum for the way that NATO conducted the campaign. NATO officials sought to portray it as a "clean war" using precision weapons. The U.S. Department of Defense claimed that, up to June 2, 99.6% of the 20,000 bombs and missiles used had hit their targets.

Targets of the NATO bombing campaign

The destruction of bridges over the Danube greatly disrupted shipping on the river for months afterwards, causing serious economic damage to countries along the length of the river. Industrial facilities were also attacked, damaging the economies of many towns.

Only state owned factories were targeted, leading many to suspect that the bombing campaign was partly designed to prepare the way for a free market-based reconstruction by wealthy foreign powers.[13]

Perhaps the most controversial deliberate attack of the war was that made against the headquarters of Serbian television on April 23, which killed at least fourteen people. NATO justified the attack on the grounds that the Serbian television headquarters was part of the Milošević regime's "propaganda machine".


Casualties

Civilians killed by NATO airstrikes

Main article: Targeting of civilian areas during Operation Allied Force

Yugoslavia claimed that NATO attacks caused between 1,200 and 5,700 civilian casualties. NATO acknowledged killing at most 1,500 civilians. Human Rights Watch counted a minimum of 488 civilian deaths (90 to 150 of them killed from cluster bomb use) in 90 separate incidents. Attacks in Kosovo overall were more deadly - a third of the incidents account for more than half of the deaths.[14]

Civilians killed by Yugoslav ground forces

In August 2000 the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) announced that it had exhumed 2,788 bodies in Kosovo, but declined to say how many were thought to be victims of war crimes.[15] Earlier however, KFOR sources told Agence France Presse that of the 2,150 bodies that had been discovered up until July 1999, about 850 were thought to be victims of war crimes.[16]

In June 2000 the Red Cross reported that 3,368 civilians (2,500 Albanians, 400 Serbs, and 100 Roma) were still missing, nearly one year after the conflict. [17] Some of the missing civilians were re-buried in mass graves in Serbia-proper. In July 2001, the Serbian authorities announced the discovery of four mass graves containing nearly 1,000 bodies.[18] The largest grave was found on a Serbian Police training ground in Batajnica just outside of Belgrade.

Although it far exceeds the 4,400 killings reported to human rights groups, statistical experts working on behalf of the ICTY prosecution estimate that the total number of dead is about 10,000.[19] Their higher estimate was based on the controversial assumption that most people wouldn't report the killing or disappearance of a loved one.[20]

The estimate of 10,000 deaths is also used by the U.S. State Department, which cited human rights abuses as its main justification for attacking Yugoslavia.[21]

A study by the Lancet estimated "12,000 deaths in the total population."[22] This number was achieved by surveying 1197 households from February, 1998, through June, 1999. 67 out of the 105 deaths reported in the sample population were attributed to war-related trauma, which extrapolates to be 12,000 deaths if the same war-related mortality rate is applied to Kosovo's total population.

Civilians killed by the KLA

Main article: 1998-present persecution of non-Albanians in Kosovo

According to a Serbian government report, from January 1 1998 to June 10 1999 the KLA killed 988 people and kidnapped 287; in the period from June 10 1999 to November 11 2001, when NATO took control in Kosovo, 847 were reported to have been killed and 1,154 kidnapped. This comprised both civilians and security force personnel: of those killed in the first period, 335 were civilians, 351 soldiers, 230 police and 72 were unidentified; by nationality, 87 of killed civilians were Serbs, 230 Albanians, and 18 of other nationalities.[23]

NATO

Tail and canopy of F-16C shot down on May 2, 1999. Museum of Aviation in Belgrade, Serbia.

Military casualties on the NATO side were light—according to official reports the alliance suffered no fatalities as a result of combat operations. However, in the early hours of May 5, an American military AH-64 Apache helicopter crashed not far from the border between Serbia and Albania.[24]

After the war, the alliance reported the loss of the first U.S. stealth plane (a F-117 stealth fighter) ever shot down by enemy fire.[25]

Yugoslavian military

The Yugoslav authorities claimed 169 soldiers were killed and 299 wounded.[26] The names of Yugoslav casualties were recorded in a "book of remembrance".

NATO did not release any official casualty estimates[citation needed].

Wreck of Soviet-built 122-mm self-propelled howitzer 2S1 Gvozdika in small village near city of Glogovac.
Destroyed T-55 main battle tank near Prizren.

Aftermath

A Serbian Orthodox church destroyed by Albanians after the war

Within three weeks, over 500,000 Albanian refugees had returned home[citation needed]. By November 1999, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 808,913 out of 848,100 had returned[citation needed].

An estimated 200,000 Serbs fled Kosovo.[27] The Yugoslav Red Cross had also registered 247,391 mostly Serbian refugees by November. The new exodus was a severe embarrassment to NATO, which had established a peacekeeping force of 45,000 under the auspices of the United Nations Mission In Kosovo (UNMIK).

Gypsies were also driven out after being harassed by Albanians. Since June 12, 1999, as many as 1,000 Serbs and Roma have been murdered or have gone missing as a result of KLA elements and possibly criminal gangs or vengeful individuals.[28][18]

According to Amnesty International, the presence of peacekeepers in Kosovo led to an increase in the trafficking of women for sexual exploitation.[29][30][31]

War crimes

Shortly before the end of the bombing, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević, along with Milan Milutinović, Nikola Sainović, Dragoljub Ojdanić and Vlajko Stojiljković were charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) with crimes against humanity including murder, forcible transfer, deportation and "persecution on political, racial or religious grounds".[citation needed]

Further indictments were leveled in October 2003 against former armed forces chief of staff Nebojša Pavković, former army corps commander Vladimir Lazarević, former police official Vlastimir Đorđević and the current head of Serbia's public security, Sreten Lukić. All were indicted for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war. {{fact}

The ICTY also leveled indictments against KLA members Fatmir Limaj, Haradin Bala, Isak Musliu and Agim Murtezi, indicted for crimes against humanity. They were arrested on February 17–18, 2003. Charges were soon dropped against Agim Murtezi as a case of mistaken identity, whereas Fatmir Limaj was acquitted of all charges on 30 November 2005 and released. The charges were in relation to the prison camp run by the defendants at Lapusnik between May and July 1998.[citation needed]

On March 2005, a U.N. tribunal indicted Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj for war crimes against the Serbs, on March 8 he tendered his resignation. Haradinaj, an ethnic Albanian, was a former commander who led units of the Kosovo Liberation Army and was appointed Prime Minister after winning an election of 72 votes to three in the Kosovo's Parliament in December 2004.[citation needed]

The Serbian government and a number of international pressure groups claimed that NATO had carried out war crimes during the conflict, particularly regarding the bombing of alleged dual-use facilities such as the Serbian TV headquarters in Belgrade. The ICTY conducted an inquiry into these charges.[32] The tribunal has proclaimed that it has no mandate to press charges against NATO for war crimes against civilian population.

Military and political consequences

File:M-84 povlačenje.jpg
Yugoslav Army M-84 tanks withdrawing from Kosovo.
File:M-84 povlaćenje kosovo.jpg
Yugoslav Army M-84 tanks withdrawing from Kosovo.
File:T-55 and m1a2.jpg
US Army M1 Abrams and Yugoslav army T-55 tanks during YA withdrawal.
Main articles: Kosovo status process and Constitutional status of Kosovo

Military decorations

As a result of the Kosovo War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation created a second NATO medal, the NATO Medal for Kosovo Service, an international military decoration. Shortly thereafter, NATO created the Non-Article 5 Medal for Balkans service to combine both Yugoslavian and Kosovo operations into one service medal.

Due to the involvement of the United States armed forces, a separate U.S. military decoration, known as the Kosovo Campaign Medal, was established by President Bill Clinton in the year 2000.

References

  1. ^ a b War in Europe: Facts & figures
  2. ^ Kosovo Liberation Army
  3. ^ Two die in Apache crash
  4. ^ a b UNDER ORDERS: War Crimes in Kosovo - March-June 1999: An Overview Human Rights Watch 2001
  5. ^ UNDER ORDERS: War Crimes in Kosovo - executive summary Human Rights Watch 2001
  6. ^ THE CRISIS IN KOSOVO Human Rights Watch 2000
  7. ^ "Operation Allied Force". NATO.
  8. ^ Larry Minear, Ted van Baarda, Marc Sommers (2000). "NATO and Humanitarian Action in the Kosovo Crisis" (PDF). Brown University.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. ^ Tony Karon (1999-03-25). "Serbs Unplug CNN". TIME Magazine. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  10. ^ "Conclusions of Serbian parliament". Government of Serbia. 1999-03-24.
  11. ^ "Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo". U.S. State Department.
  12. ^ "Confrontation over Pristina airport". BBC. 2000-03-09. Retrieved 2008-02-08.
  13. ^ John Pilger (2004-12-13). "John Pilger reminds us of Kosovo". New Statesman.
  14. ^ "Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign". Human Rights Watch. 2000. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  15. ^ Jonathan Steele (2000-08-18). "Serb killings 'exaggerated' by west". The Guardian.
  16. ^ Agence France Presse -- English; August 03, 1999 11:05 GMT; Top UN official in Kosovo sparks storm over mass grave body count
  17. ^ "3,000 missing in Kosovo". BBC. 2000-06-07.
  18. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference HRW1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ "Killings and Refugee Flow in Kosovo" (PDF). 2002-01-03.
  20. ^ "Testimony of statistical expert Patrick Ball; Milutinovic Trial Transcript". 2007-02-20.
  21. ^ "Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting". U.S. Department of State.
  22. ^ "Casualties in Kosovo" (PDF). The Lancet. 2000-06-24.
  23. ^ "Victims of the Albanian terrorism in Kosovo-Metohija (Killed, kidnapped, and missing persons, January 1998 - November 2001)". Government of Serbia.
  24. ^ "Officially confirmed/documented NATO helicopter losses".
  25. ^ Benjamin S. Lambeth (2006-06-03). "Kosovo and the Continuing SEAD Challenge". Aerospace Power Journal. United States Air Force. On the fourth night of air operations, an apparent barrage of SA-3s downed an F-117 at approximately 2045 over hilly terrain near Budanovci, about 28 miles northwest of Belgrade- marking the first combat loss ever of a stealth aircraft. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  26. ^ David Hackworth (1999-07-02). "Spinners, sinners and no winners". WorldNetDaily.
  27. ^ "Kosovo/Serbia: Protect Minorities from Ethnic Violence". Human Rights Watch.
  28. ^ "Victims of the Albanian terrorism in Kosovo-Metohija (Killed, kidnapped, and missing persons, January 1998 - November 2001)". Government of Serbia.
  29. ^ "Kosovo UN troops 'fuel sex trade'". BBC. 2004-05-06.
  30. ^ "Kosovo: Trafficked women and girls have human rights". Amnesty International.
  31. ^ Ian Traynor (2004-05-07). "NATO force 'feeds Kosovo sex trade'". The Guardian.
  32. ^ "Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia". United Nations.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kosovo War.

External links

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