Kosovo War

The neutrality of this article is in dispute.

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.

History behind the conflict

Kosovo was for many years an autonomous region of Serbia, within Yugoslavia. Both Serbs and Albanians had long regarded Kosovo as an integral and historic part of Serbia and Albania, respectively. For Serbs, it was the place of the mythical Battle of Kosovo. In the 20th century number of Serbs has changed from 40% before the WWI to 60% before the WWII and then it dropped to 15 % by 1990. By the 1980s about 1.5 million of Kosovo's 1.9 million strong population were ethnicaly Albanian, with more than 200,000 being Serbs. Other major minorities were Roma (Gypsies)- more than 70,000, Turks, and Gorans (Slavic muslims, close to Serbs).

Tensions between the two communities had been simmering for decades, but were supressed by Yugoslavia's Communist government. After the death of Josip Broz Tito, in 1981, Kosovo Albanians organized big demonstrations, demanding status of a repuplic separate from Serbia. The demonstrations were silenced with army and police, and Albanian communists have denounced them as conterrevolutionary. The Albanian majority population however wanted greater autonomy for Kosovo and some wanted Kosovo to be unified with neighboring Albania. Instances of inter-ethnic fighting broke out.

In 1987, these tensions were exploited by the then-rising politician Slobodan Milosevic, who had made Serbian nationalism the cornerstone of his bid to become the president of Serbia. He promised to disband Kosovo's Albanian-dominated regional government and assembly, a move popular with Serbs.

Much to the dismay of Kosovo's Albanian population, Kosovo's assembly and government were formally disbanded in July 1990, a move which brought Kosovo to the brink of civil war. The Serbian government declared a state of emergency. "Emergency legislation" was used to rid industry and government of Albanian employees at all levels, according to Kosovo Albanians. Serbs however claim that the boycott from the Albanian side was organised, and parallel institutions were organised in a bid for independence. Tensions between the two communities dramaticaly increased.

In 1991, the Kosovo assembly, though still technically dissolved, organised a referendum on sovereignty which received overwhelming support. Unsanctioned elections were held, which chose Ibrahim Rugova as president and elected a 130-member assembly. Serbia regarded these elections as illegal and refused to recognise the results. Rugova led a peaceful movement of civil disobedience, refusing to cooperate with Serbian goverment on any level and claiming discrimination. However, this movement was seen as inefficient by the Kosovo Albanians, and more violent methods were later used.

In the mid-1990s, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was formed to fight for independence for Kosovo. Most Kosovan Albanians saw the KLA as legitimate "freedom fighters" whilst the Serbian government called them terrorists. For example, Serbian police on February 28, 1998 began to wipe out so-called "terrorist gangs" in Kosovo. Some of the incidents, like the killing of 6 Serbian teenagers in Pec, Kosovo, and killings of Kosovo Albanians loyal to Serbia KLA has not admitted as their acts. In February, 1998, Special American Representative to Yugoslavia Robert Gelbard also called the KLA a terrorist organization.

NATO Involvement

In the late 90s, the KLA began its armed uprising in Kosovo. In summer 1998, the violence had escalated to full civil war in Kosovo, with hundreds dead and as many as 300,000 internal refugees. Kosovo came to the attention of the world's media, and 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 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 in Racak.

Residental areas were cluster bombed
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Peace talks between Yugoslavia and Albanians in Chateau Rambouillet outside Paris broke down on March 19. The proposed Rambouillet Agreement called for NATO administration of Kosovo as an autonomous province within Yugoslavia; unrestricted access by NATO troops to Yugoslavia (Kosovo and all other parts); and immunity for NATO and its agents to Yugoslav law. The Albanian delegation signed the treaty. Some analysts believe they signed the agreement only because they knew that it would not be put into effect and that they truly would not settle for anything other than full independence. Albanians refused to sign agreement in February, and did so after a two weak break and a heavy pressure from United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,The international monitors from 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 Kosovar Albanians, but rejected the Rambouillet agreement, which it characterized as "NATO occupation". NATO started its bombing campaign on March 24, 1999

The legitimacy of NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo has been the subject of debate. It is believed by many that NATO did not have the backing of the United Nations to use force in Yugoslavia. NATO sought to portray the bombing campaign to the western public as a "clean war" seeing the first real use of precision munitions. "Humanitarian bombardment", as it was also known, was however responsible for the deaths of many civilians. Serbian TV was deliberately bombed, some believe that this was due to it broadcasting pictures of damage caused by the NATO bombing, and was an embarrasment to the alliance. Many Serbians, and others believe that war crimes were comited by NATO during the campaign. And also point out that these alledged crimes were never investigated.

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). 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.

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Albanian refugees were hit by NATO

NATO portrayed the bombings as way for the Albanian refugees to be eventually returned home. 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 by western estimates to be from 5,000 to 10,000 at most in all accounts made after the war, and the genocide charge was never made after the war. Pictures of refugees were used extensively in some western media. The Serbian side responded by showing what were aledged to be breaches of Geneva Protocols committed 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. The west had 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 the Serbs alleged that this was also encouraged by the KLA, and that in some cases the KLA issued direct orders to Albanians to flee.

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Passinger bus hit and destroyed
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The bombings themselves also exacted a humanitarian toll: bridges were bombed during rush hour, cities known for their opposition to Milosevic were not spared. Many experts on international law criticised the bombings. They pointed out that international conventions agreed 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 may have violated these agreements by targeting many of these structures including water treatment plants, TV stations and other vitally important sites. The use of depleted uranium and widespread pollution from bombing of oil rafineries and chemical factories were also criticised. Many deformed babies were allegedly born after the war, and BBC has estimated that around 100,000 cancer deaths will result from this pollution. Few NATO soldiers serving in KFOR have already got cancer from the radiation exposure. 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. Although NATO countered this argument by claiming that instabilty in the Balkans was a direct threat to stability across Europe and to NATO members, and was therefore justified by the NATO charter.

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 provided by the CIA. However 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. [1] 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 bombed Serbian factories and infrastructure, destroying Danube bridges, disrupting power supplies, water treatment plants, and other vital civilian installations in May. Some saw these actions as violations of international law and the Geneva Conventions in particular. NATO however argued that these facilities were potentialy useful to the Serbian millitary and that their bombing was therefore justified, NATO also maintained that it tried very hard to avoid civilian casualties during its bombing campaign. Faced with little alternative, 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 1,200 and 5,700 civilian casualties. Human Rights Watch claims a total of only 500 civilian deaths occurred in 90 separate incidents. NATO acknowedged killing at most 1,500 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. The 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 Yoguslavian aircraft were lost but only 13 tanks and armored vehicles — 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 were 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 a reduction of Kosovo's Serbian population by nearly 75%. This was caused largely by the Serbian fear of revenge attacks by returning Albanians. The Serbs also alleged that KFOR force showed little will to help the Serbs. NATO, who advertised war as a struggle to help return refugees, 90% of whom had 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 extreme Albanian nationalists. KFOR has opposed any return of Serbian refugees to Kosovo, claiming it can not grant them security.

War Crimes Trials

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic along with Milan Milutinovic, Nikola Sainovic, Dragoljub Ojdanic and Vlajko Stojiljkovic was charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia with crimes against humanity including murder, forcible tranfer, deportation and "persecution on political, racial or religious grounds". This charge was made in May 1999, during the bombing. Yugoslav military and police forces are linked in the indictment to 12 instances causing the deaths of over 600 civilians.

Fatmir Limaj, Haradin Bala, Isak Musliu and Agim Murtezi of the KLA were indicted by ICTFY for crimes against humanity, including murder, torture and imprisonment, and five counts of violations of the laws or customs of war, including murder and cruel treatment. They were arrested Feb. 17-18, 2003. Charges were soon dropped against Agim Murtezi as a case of mistaken identity. The charges were in relation to Lapusnik prison camp run by the defendants between May and July 1998.

In the case of NATO, the Tribunal claims it has no jurisdiction to prosecute for possible war crimes committed against Serbian civilians.

War crimes prosecutions have also been carried out in Yugoslavia. Ivan Nikolic was found guilty in 2002 of war crimes in the deaths of two civilians in Kosovo.

External references

History behind the conflict

NATO Involvement

War Crimes Trials

See also

External references