Kosovo War

The Kosovo war was a war between Serbian military (officially Yugoslavia, but Montenegro did not participate) on one side and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) on the other. NATO bombed Serbia from March 24 to June 10 of 1999, and this is generally considered the timespan of the war, although civil war between KLA and Serb security forces occurred both before and after this time.

Trouble had been brewing in Kosovo for years. Kosovo had been ruled by an autonomous Albanian government which demanded independence from Yugoslavia, while working ceaselessly to eliminate the last remnants of the Serbian population.. The situation worsened in 1989, when Kosovo's autonomous status was revoked by Slobodan Milosevic, prime minister of Serbia at that time. In the mid-90s, armed uprising in Kosovo began, led by the KLA. By summer 1998, the violence had escalated to full civil war in Kosovo, with hundreds dead and as much as 300000 internal refugees. The international community, spear-headed by NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), decided that something had to be done. A NATO-brokered cease-fire of October 25, 1998 saw a large contigent of OSCE peace monitors to Kosovo.

In December of 1998 the cease-fire between the KLA and Yugoslavia broke down. The following months were marked by military and civilian killings by both sides. On January 15 the Serbian military killed 45 Albanians Racak.

Peace talks between Yugoslavia and Albanians in Chateau Rambouillet outside Paris broke down on March 19. The proposed Rambouillet Agreement called for unrestricted access by NATO troops not only throughout Kosovo (over which it would have control), but the rest of Yugoslavia as well. NATO would also be immune to the laws of Yugoslavia. These terms were not acceptable to the Yugoslavs, although the non-military part of the agreement about the autonomy was accepted by the Serbian assembly. The Albanian delegation could sign the agreement, knowing that it would not be put into effect, but in fact they have been interested only in full independence, which has been essential problem in these negotiations. They have refused to sign the agreement in February, and did so only after a heavy pressure from Madeleine Albright, who assured them that Serbs will not sign the agreement and that their signature is needed in order to justify the bombing by blaming the Serbian side for the failure of the negotiations.

The international monitors from OSCE withdrew on March 22, for fear of the monitors' safety. NATO started its bombing campaign on March 24, without benefit of U.N. resolution, or the support of neighboring countries other than Albania.

The legitimacy of NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo has been the subject of debate. It is generally recognized that NATO did not have the backing of the United Nations to use force in Yugoslavia. The NATO bombing campaign was marketed as a "clean war" seeing the first real use of precision munitions. Spin doctors were employed by the American military, some of them send to work in CNN, in order to justify the bombardment to the western public. "Humanitarian bombardment", as it is also known, has however killed many civilians and every time a proof of possible NATO war crimes was presented at Serbian TV, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea issued appology for "colateral damage". Serbian TV was deliberately bombed. Possible war crimes of the NATO alliance have never been pursued by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which is consequently seen as an instrument of NATO by the victims of the "humanitarian bombardment".

The United States had been funding, arming, and training the KLA since its inception; the KLA acted as NATO forward scouts during the war. This alliance caused an outpouring of anti-Albanian sentiment and atrocities when the bombing started. Kosovars fled inter-ethnic conflict, but also the bombing and infrastructure destruction, in the hundreds of thousands into neighboring Albania and Macedonia (which quickly closed its borders). U.S. General Wesley Clark called this outcome "entirely predictable." At least eight hundred thousand Kosovars fled the province, including 100,000 who left before the war began. Most of these were ethnic Albanians who fled into Albania.

The US and NATO had in fact expected bombing to last only few days, but surprisingly Serbs dropped their oposition to Milosevic and united to defend their country against what they saw as illegitemate NATO aggression. Not prepared for this resistance, NATO has continued bombing, unwilling to commit ground troups and unsure how to proceed. It has put a heavy use of propaganda to justify the bombings as fight for the return of refugees. Tony Blair spoke of 500,000 killed Albanians, genocide perpetrated by the Serbs and necessity of "humanitarian bombardment". These claims proved to be vastly exaggerated as the actual number of Albanian casulties, military and civilian, were put from 5,000 to 10,000 at most in all accounts made after the war, and genocide charge was never made after the war. US Army's 4th Psychological Operations unit was sent to CNN editorial board. Pictures of refugees were used extensively in propaganda war and Serbs were demonized in the Western media. Serbian side responded by showing instances of breaches of Geneva Protocols commited by NATO. In the beginning of April Rade Markovic, chief of Serbian state security, ordered closure of the borders and refugees were sent back to homes, or to Montenegro and Southern Serbia, in order to prevent further demonization of Serbs. West has protested this decision and asked for borders to be reopened, which happened after a few days and flood of refugees continued. Panic was widespread in Albanian population, and mass exodus was generated by fear of Serbian militia, conflict, bombs but was also encouraged by the KLA who understood well the importance of the media war from the very begininng. In some cases KLA issued direct orders to Albanians to flee.

The bombings themselves also exacted a humanitarian toll: bridges were bombed during rush hour, cities known for their opposition to Milosevec were not spared. The bombings have drawn criticism by many experts on international law since international conventions ageed to by NATO countries among others prohibit destroying structures vitally important for human survival, prohibit destroying media organizations, TV and radio towers, journalist studios among other structures. The bombings however violated these agreements by targeting many of these structures including water treatment plants, TV stations and other vitally important sites. Criticism was also drawn by the fact that NATO charter specifies that NATO is an organization created for defence of its members, but in this case it was used to attack a country without any visible threat to any NATO members.

On May 7, NATO bombs dropped on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. The United States and NATO later apologized for the bombing, saying that it occurred because of an outdated map. Reports from the Observer (UK) and Politiken (Netherlands) newspapers (among others) have disputed that assertion, and reported 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.

During the early phase of the war, NATO air power had difficulty attacking Serbian ground forces which were well hidden and dug in. Not desiring to introduce their own ground forces, NATO chose to abrogate the Geneva Protocols and waged war directly against the civilian targets. It bombed Serbian factories and infrastructure, destroying Danube bridges,disrupting power supplies, water treatment plants, and other vital civilian installations in May. Faced with the prospect of total destruction, Slobodan Milosevic accepted the conditions offered by a Finnish-Russian mediation team.

The final proposal that ended the bombing rejected the heavy NATO presence throughout Yugoslavia, but Serbia agreed to have a military presence within Kosovo headed by the UN. In practice NATO had more troops on the ground in its KFOR force than the UN did in its UNMIK force.

The Kosovo War was significant from a military standpoint in that it marked the first effective use of low technology local ground forces in combination with high technology air power provided by the United States. This combination would prove effective in the United States campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.

NATO flew 38,000 combat missions over Kosovo. Yugoslavia claimed these attacks caused between 1200 and 5000 civilian casualties. Human Rights Watch claims a total of only 500 civilian deaths occurred in 90 separate incidents. NATO acknowedged killing at least 150 civilians. NATO lost 5 aircraft, all American including the first stealth plane (a F-117 Fighter Bomber) shot down by enemy fire, but suffered no combat casualties. Yugoslav army was largely intact in Kosovo despite the heavy bombing, and it was a surprise for NATO when they saw the scale of the retreating forces. Around 50 aircraft were lost but only 13 tanks and armored vehicles &mdash; most of the targets hit in Kosovo were decoys, and the anti-aircraft defence was preserved during the conflict (radars were mostly turned off) so NATO missions were flown on 5 km altitude. There was up to 5000 military casualities according to NATO estimates, while the official Serbian figure is around 1000. At least 3000 bodies were dug up from mass graves and the International Red Cross compliled a list of over 3000 missing. Because many of the exhumed bodies could not be identified there is probably a great overlap in the Red Cross list and the number of exhumed.

The aftermath of the Kosovo War has seen ethnic cleansing of 75% of all Serbs from Kosovo by the Albanians thirsty for vengence. Revenge, including the blood feud, is common in the patriarchal Albanian communities. The KFOR force showed little will to help the Serbs, in fact it encouraged them to leave. NATO, who advertised war as a struggle to help return refugees, 90% of whom have left their homes after the begininng of the bombing, now let Serbs and other non-Albanians, including Gypsies, Gorans, and Turks, who totaled 400,000, to leave Kosovo with little oposition to the KLA and Albanian extremists. This is seen as another proof of cynicism by many Serbs. The Albanians went so far as to kill Bulgarian UN soldier only because his language resembled Serbian. Many churches were destroyed, some from XIII and XIV centuries. KFOR has since opposed any return of Serbian refugees to Kosovo, claiming it can not grant them security.

Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic along with Milan Milutinovic, Nikola Sainovic, Dragoljub Ojdanic and Vlajko Stojiljkovic was charged with crimes against humanity including murder, forcible tranfer, deportation and "persecution on political, racial or religious grounds". Yugoslav military and police forces are linked to 12 instances causing the deaths of over 600 civilians in the indictment. This charge was made during the Kosovo war, and is seen by most Serbs as another attempt to justify the NATO bombing, and the trial is seen as highly political by many observers. The fact that tribunal does not examine the war crimes commited by NATO or even KLA during the war is seen as a proof of anti-Serbian bias and lack of justice which Serbs believe should be for all. After the beginning of the Milosevic trial, when proofs of the atrocities commited by KLA were presented to the public, Tribunal promissed to put charges against KLA leaders as well, but that has not happened so far. The resistance of the Albanian population to any charges against KLA makes it dificult to arrest and prosecute KLA leaders responsible for crimes against the Serbs. In the case of NATO, Tribunal claims it has no jurisdiction to prosecute for the war crimes commited against Serbian civilians.

External references

 * Kosovo after the war, destruction of Serbian heritage
 * Indictment of Milosevic
 * Milosevic trial links
 * Human Rights Watch report on Serbian gang-rapes of Kosovar Albanians
 * Human Rights Watch report on civilan casualties caused by NATO bombing
 * Human Rights Watch report on atrocities against the Serb and Roma population of Kosovo after NATO bombing campaign
 * Human Rights Watch report on humanitarian violations by both the KLA and the Serbian army