title: Sparta

text: According to Byzantine sources, some parts of the Laconian region remained pagan until well into the 10th century. The Tsakonian language still spoken in Tsakonia is the only surviving descendant of the ancient Doric language. In the Middle Ages, the political and cultural center of Laconia shifted to the nearby settlement of Mystras, and Sparta fell further in even local importance. Modern Sparta was re-founded in 1834, by a decree of King Otto of Greece.


title: Sparta

text: Sparta was an oligarchy. The state was ruled by two hereditary kings of the Agiad and Eurypontid families, both supposedly descendants of Heracles and equal in authority, so that one could not act against the power and political enactments of his colleague.


title: Sparta

text: The duties of the kings were primarily religious, judicial, and military. As chief priests of the state, they maintained communication with the Delphian sanctuary, whose pronouncements exercised great authority in Spartan politics. In the time of Herodotus c. 450 BC, their judicial functions had been restricted to cases dealing with heiresses, adoptions and the public roads. Aristotle describes the kingship at Sparta as "a kind of unlimited and perpetual generalship" (Pol. iii. 1285a), while Isocrates refers to the Spartans as "subject to an oligarchy at home, to a kingship on campaign" (iii. 24).


title: Sparta

text: Civil and criminal cases were decided by a group of officials known as the ephors, as well as a council of elders known as the Gerousia. The Gerousia consisted of 28 elders over the age of 60, elected for life and usually part of the royal households, and the two kings. High state decisions were discussed by this council, who could then propose policies to the "damos", the collective body of Spartan citizenry, who would select one of the alternatives by vote.


title: Sparta

text: Royal prerogatives were curtailed over time. From the period of the Persian wars, the king lost the right to declare war and was accompanied in the field by two ephors. He was supplanted by the ephors also in the control of foreign policy. Over time, the kings became mere figureheads except in their capacity as generals. Political power was transferred to the ephors and Gerousia.


title: Sparta

text: An assembly of citizens called the Ekklesia was responsible for electing men to the Gerousia for life.


title: Sparta

text: The Spartan education process known as the "agoge" was essential for full citizenship. However, usually the only boys eligible for the "agoge" were Spartiates, those who could trace their ancestry to the original inhabitants of the city.


title: Sparta

text: There were two exceptions. "trophimoi" or "foster sons" were foreign students invited to study. The Athenian general Xenophon, for example, sent his two sons to Sparta as trophimoi. Also, the son of a helot could be enrolled as a "syntrophos" if a Spartiate formally adopted him and paid his way; if he did exceptionally well in training, he might be sponsored to become a Spartiate. Spartans who could not afford to pay the expenses of the "agoge" could lose their citizenship.


title: Sparta

text: These laws meant that Sparta could not readily replace citizens lost in battle or otherwise, which eventually proved near fatal as citizens became greatly outnumbered by non-citizens, and even more dangerously by helots.


title: Sparta

text: The other classes were the perioikoi, free inhabitants who were non-citizens, and the helots, state-owned serfs. Descendants of non-Spartan citizens were forbidden the "agoge".


title: Sparta

text: The Spartans were a minority of the Lakonian population. The largest class of inhabitants were the helots (in Classical Greek / "Heílôtes").


title: Sparta

text: The helots were originally free Greeks from the areas of Messenia and Lakonia whom the Spartans had defeated in battle and subsequently enslaved. In contrast to populations conquered by other Greek cities (e.g. the Athenian treatment of Melos), the male population was not exterminated and the women and children turned into chattel slaves. Instead, the helots were given a subordinate position in society more comparable to serfs in medieval Europe than chattel slaves in the rest of Greece. The Spartan helots were not only agricultural workers, but were also household servants, both male and female would be assigned domestic duties, such as wool-working. However, the helots were not the private property of individual Spartan citizens, regardless of their household duties, and were instead owned by the state through the "kleros" system.


title: Sparta

text: Helots did not have voting or political rights. The Spartan poet Tyrtaios refers to Helots being allowed to marry and retaining 50% of the fruits of their labor. They also seem to have been allowed to practice religious rites and, according to Thucydides, own a limited amount of personal property.


title: Sparta

text: Initially, helots couldn't be freed but during the middle Hellenistic period, some 6,000 helots accumulated enough wealth to buy their freedom, for example, in 227 BC.


title: Sparta

text: In other Greek city-states, free citizens were part-time soldiers who, when not at war, carried on other trades. Since Spartan men were full-time soldiers, they were not available to carry out manual labour. The helots were used as unskilled serfs, tilling Spartan land. Helot women were often used as wet nurses. Helots also travelled with the Spartan army as non-combatant serfs. At the last stand of the Battle of Thermopylae, the Greek dead included not just the legendary three hundred Spartan soldiers but also several hundred Thespian and Theban troops and a number of helots.


title: Sparta

text: There was at least one helot revolt (c. 465–460 BC) that led to prolonged conflict. By the tenth year of this war the Spartans and Messenians had reached an agreement in which Messenian rebels were allowed to leave the Peloponnese. They were given safe passage under the terms that they would be re-enslaved if they tried to return. This agreement ended the most serious incursion into Spartan territory since their expansion in the seventh and eighth centuries BC. Thucydides remarked that "Spartan policy is always mainly governed by the necessity of taking precautions against the helots." On the other hand, the Spartans trusted their helots enough in 479 BC to take a force of 35,000 with them to Plataea, something they could not have risked if they feared the helots would attack them or run away. Slave revolts occurred elsewhere in the Greek world, and in 413 BC 20,000 Athenian slaves ran away to join the Spartan forces occupying Attica. What made Sparta's relations with her slave population unique was that the helots, precisely because they enjoyed privileges such as family and property, retained their identity as a conquered people (the Messenians) and also had effective kinship groups that could be used to organize rebellion.


title: Sparta

text: As the Spartiate population declined and the helot population continued to grow, the imbalance of power caused increasing tension. According to Myron of Priene of the middle 3rd century BC:


title: Sparta

text: Plutarch also states that Spartans treated the helots "harshly and cruelly": they compelled them to drink pure wine (which was considered dangerous – wine usually being cut with water) "...and to lead them in that condition into their public halls, that the children might see what a sight a drunken man is; they made them to dance low dances, and sing ridiculous songs..." during "syssitia" (obligatory banquets).


title: Sparta

text: Each year when the Ephors took office, they ritually declared war on the helots, allowing Spartans to kill them without risk of ritual pollution. This fight seems to have been carried out by "kryptai" (sing. κρύπτης "kryptēs"), graduates of the "agoge" who took part in the mysterious institution known as the "Krypteia". Thucydides states:


title: Sparta

text: The helots were invited by a proclamation to pick out those of their number who claimed to have most distinguished themselves against the enemy, in order that they might receive their freedom; the object being to test them, as it was thought that the first to claim their freedom would be the most high spirited and the most apt to rebel. As many as two thousand were selected accordingly, who crowned themselves and went round the temples, rejoicing in their new freedom. The Spartans, however, soon afterwards did away with them, and no one ever knew how each of them perished.


title: Sparta

text: The Perioikoi came from similar origins as the helots but occupied a significantly different position in Spartan society. Although they did not enjoy full citizen-rights, they were free and not subjected to the same restrictions as the helots. The exact nature of their subjection to the Spartans is not clear, but they seem to have served partly as a kind of military reserve, partly as skilled craftsmen and partly as agents of foreign trade. Perioikoic hoplites served increasingly with the Spartan army, explicitly at the Battle of Plataea, and although they may also have fulfilled functions such as the manufacture and repair of armour and weapons, they were increasingly integrated into the combat units of the Spartan army as the Spartiate population declined.


title: Sparta

text: Full citizen Spartiates were barred by law from trade or manufacture, which consequently rested in the hands of the Perioikoi. This lucrative monopoly, in a fertile territory with a good harbors, ensured the loyalty of the perioikoi. Despite the prohibition on menial labor or trade, there is evidence of Spartan sculptors, and Spartans were certainly poets, magistrates, ambassadors, and governors as well as soldiers.


title: Sparta

text: Allegedly, Spartans were prohibited from possessing gold and silver coins, and according to legend Spartan currency consisted of iron bars to discourage hoarding. It was not until the 260s or 250s BC that Sparta began to mint its own coins. Though the conspicuous display of wealth appears to have been discouraged, this did not preclude the production of very fine decorated bronze, ivory and wooden works of art as well as exquisite jewellery, attested in archaeology.


title: Sparta

text: Allegedly as part of the Lycurgan Reforms in the mid-8th century BC, a massive land reform had divided property into 9,000 equal portions. Each citizen received one estate, a "kleros", which was expected to provide his living. The land was worked by helots who retained half the yield. From the other half, the Spartiate was expected to pay his mess ("syssitia") fees, and the "agoge" fees for his children. However, nothing is known of matters of wealth such as how land was bought, sold, and inherited, or whether daughters received dowries. However, from early on there were marked differences of wealth within the state, and these became more serious after the law of Epitadeus some time after the Peloponnesian War, which removed the legal prohibition on the gift or bequest of land. By the mid-5th century, land had become concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite, and the notion that all Spartan citizens were equals had become an empty pretence. By Aristotle's day (384–322 BC) citizenship had been reduced from 9,000 to less than 1,000, then further decreased to 700 at the accession of Agis IV in 244 BC. Attempts were made to remedy this by imposing legal penalties upon bachelors, but this could not reverse the trend.


title: Sparta

text: Sparta was above all a militarist state, and emphasis on military fitness began virtually at birth. Shortly after birth, a mother would bathe her child in wine to see whether the child was strong. If the child survived it was brought before the Gerousia by the child's father. The Gerousia then decided whether it was to be reared or not. It is commonly stated that if they considered it "puny and deformed", the baby was thrown into a chasm on Mount Taygetos known euphemistically as the "Apothetae" (Gr., "ἀποθέται", "Deposits"). This was, in effect, a primitive form of eugenics. Sparta is often viewed as being unique in this regard, however, anthropologist Laila Williamson notes that "Infanticide has been practiced on every continent and by people on every level of cultural complexity, from hunter gatherers to high civilizations. Rather than being an exception, then, it has been the rule." There is controversy about the matter in Sparta, since excavations in the chasm only uncovered adult remains, likely belonging to criminals.


title: Sparta

text: Spartan burial customs changed over time. The Archaic Spartan poet Tyrtaeus spoke of the Spartan war-dead as follows:


title: Sparta

text: When Spartans died, marked headstones would only be granted to soldiers who died in combat during a victorious campaign or women who died either in service of a divine office or in childbirth. These headstones likely acted as memorials, rather than as grave markers. Evidence of Spartan burials is provided by the Tomb of the Lacedaimonians in Athens. Excavations at the cemetery of classical Sparta, uncovered ritually pierced kantharoid-like ceramic vessels, the ritual slaughter of horses, and specific burial enclosures alongside individual 'plots'. Some of the graves were reused over time.


title: Sparta

text: In the Hellenistic Period, grander, two-storey monumental tombs are found at Sparta. Ten of these have been found for this period.


title: Sparta

text: When male Spartans began military training at age seven, they would enter the "agoge" system. The "agoge" was designed to encourage discipline and physical toughness and to emphasize the importance of the Spartan state. Boys lived in communal messes and, according to Xenophon, whose sons attended the "agoge", the boys were fed "just the right amount for them never to become sluggish through being too full, while also giving them a taste of what it is not to have enough." In addition, they were trained to survive in times of privation, even if it meant stealing. Besides physical and weapons training, boys studied reading, writing, music and dancing. Special punishments were imposed if boys failed to answer questions sufficiently "laconically" (i.e. briefly and wittily).


title: Sparta

text: Spartan boys were expected to take an older male mentor, usually an unmarried young man. According to some sources, the older man was expected to function as a kind of substitute father and role model to his junior partner; however, others believe it was reasonably certain that they had sexual relations (the exact nature of Spartan pederasty is not entirely clear). Xenophon, an admirer of the Spartan educational system whose sons attended the "agoge", explicitly denies the sexual nature of the relationship.


title: Sparta

text: Some Spartan youth apparently became members of an irregular unit known as the "Krypteia". The immediate objective of this unit was to seek out and kill vulnerable helot Laconians as part of the larger program of terrorising and intimidating the helot population.


title: Sparta

text: Less information is available about the education of Spartan girls, but they seem to have gone through a fairly extensive formal educational cycle, broadly similar to that of the boys but with less emphasis on military training. Spartan girls received an education known as "mousikē". This included music, dancing, singing and poetry. Choral dancing was taught so Spartan girls could participate in ritual activities, including the cults of Helen and Artemis. In this respect, classical Sparta was unique in ancient Greece. In no other city-state did women receive any kind of formal education.


title: Sparta

text: At age 20, the Spartan citizen began his membership in one of the "syssitia" (dining messes or clubs), composed of about fifteen members each, of which every citizen was required to be a member. Here each group learned how to bond and rely on one another. The Spartans were not eligible for election for public office until the age of 30. Only native Spartans were considered full citizens and were obliged to undergo the training as prescribed by law, as well as participate in and contribute financially to one of the "syssitia".


title: Sparta

text: Sparta is thought to be the first city to practice athletic nudity, and some scholars claim that it was also the first to formalize pederasty. According to these sources, the Spartans believed that the love of an older, accomplished aristocrat for an adolescent was essential to his formation as a free citizen. The "agoge", the education of the ruling class, was, they claim, founded on pederastic relationships required of each citizen, with the lover responsible for the boy's training.


title: Sparta

text: However, other scholars question this interpretation. Xenophon explicitly denies it, but not Plutarch.


title: Sparta

text: Spartan men remained in the active reserve until age 60. Men were encouraged to marry at age 20 but could not live with their families until they left their active military service at age 30. They called themselves ""homoioi"" (equals), pointing to their common lifestyle and the discipline of the phalanx, which demanded that no soldier be superior to his comrades. Insofar as hoplite warfare could be perfected, the Spartans did so.


title: Sparta

text: Thucydides reports that when a Spartan man went to war, his wife (or another woman of some significance) would customarily present him with his shield (shield) and say: "With this, or upon this" (Ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς, "Èi tàn èi èpì tàs"), meaning that true Spartans could only return to Sparta either victorious (with their shield in hand) or dead (carried upon it). This is almost certainly propaganda. Spartans buried their battle dead on or near the battle field; corpses were not brought back on their shield. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that it was less of a disgrace for a soldier to lose his helmet, breastplate or greaves than his shield, since the former were designed to protect one man, whereas the shield also protected the man on his left. Thus, the shield was symbolic of the individual soldier's subordination to his unit, his integral part in its success, and his solemn responsibility to his comrades in arms – messmates and friends, often close blood relations.


title: Sparta

text: According to Aristotle, the Spartan military culture was actually short-sighted and ineffective. He observed:


title: Sparta

text: It is the standards of civilized men not of beasts that must be kept in mind, for it is good men not beasts who are capable of real courage. Those like the Spartans who concentrate on the one and ignore the other in their education turn men into machines and in devoting themselves to one single aspect of city's life, end up making them inferior even in that.


title: Sparta

text: One of the most persistent myths about Sparta that has no basis in fact is the notion that Spartan mothers were without feelings toward their off-spring and helped enforce a militaristic lifestyle on their sons and husbands. The myth can be traced back to Plutarch, who includes no less than 17 "sayings" of "Spartan women", all of which paraphrase or elaborate on the theme that Spartan mothers rejected their own offspring if they showed any kind of cowardice. In some of these sayings, mothers revile their sons in insulting language merely for surviving a battle. These sayings purporting to be from Spartan women were far more likely to be of Athenian origin and designed to portray Spartan women as unnatural and so undeserving of pity.


title: Sparta

text: Sparta's agriculture consisted mainly of barley, wine, cheese, grain, and figs. These items were grown locally on each Spartan citizen's kleros and were tended to by helots. Spartan citizens were required to donate a certain amount of what they yielded from their kleros to their syssitia, or mess. These donations to the syssitia were a requirement for every Spartan citizen. All the donated food was then redistributed to feed the Spartan population of that syssitia. The helots who tended to the lands were fed using a portion of what they harvested.


title: Sparta

text: The custom was to capture women for marriage... The so-called 'bridesmaid' took charge of the captured girl. She first shaved her head to the scalp, then dressed her in a man's cloak and sandals, and laid her down alone on a mattress in the dark. The bridegroom – who was not drunk and thus not impotent, but was sober as always – first had dinner in the messes, then would slip in, undo her belt, lift her and carry her to the bed.


title: Sparta

text: The husband continued to visit his wife in secret for some time after the marriage. These customs, unique to the Spartans, have been interpreted in various ways. One of them decidedly supports the need to disguise the bride as a man in order to help the bridegroom consummate the marriage, so unaccustomed were men to women's looks at the time of their first intercourse. The "abduction" may have served to ward off the evil eye, and the cutting of the wife's hair was perhaps part of a rite of passage that signaled her entrance into a new life.


title: Sparta

text: Spartan women, of the citizenry class, enjoyed a status, power, and respect that was unknown in the rest of the classical world. The higher status of females in Spartan society started at birth; unlike Athens, Spartan girls were fed the same food as their brothers. Nor were they confined to their father's house and prevented from exercising or getting fresh air as in Athens, but exercised and even competed in sports. Most important, rather than being married off at the age of 12 or 13, Spartan law forbade the marriage of a girl until she was in her late teens or early 20s. The reasons for delaying marriage were to ensure the birth of healthy children, but the effect was to spare Spartan women the hazards and lasting health damage associated with pregnancy among adolescents. Spartan women, better fed from childhood and fit from exercise, stood a far better chance of reaching old age than their sisters in other Greek cities, where the median age for death was 34.6 years or roughly 10 years below that of men.


title: Sparta

text: Unlike Athenian women who wore heavy, concealing clothes and were rarely seen outside the house, Spartan women wore dresses (peplos) slit up the side to allow freer movement and moved freely about the city, either walking or driving chariots. Girls as well as boys exercised, possibly in the nude, and young women as well as young men may have participated in the Gymnopaedia ("Festival of Nude Youths").


title: Sparta

text: Another practice that was mentioned by many visitors to Sparta was the practice of “wife-sharing”. In accordance with the Spartan belief that breeding should be between the most physically fit parents, many older men allowed younger, more fit men, to impregnate their wives. Other unmarried or childless men might even request another man's wife to bear his children if she had previously been a strong child bearer. For this reason many considered Spartan women polygamous or polyandrous. This practice was encouraged in order that women bear as many strong-bodied children as they could. The Spartan population was hard to maintain due to the constant absence and loss of the men in battle and the intense physical inspection of newborns.


title: Sparta

text: Spartan women were also literate and numerate, a rarity in the ancient world. Furthermore, as a result of their education and the fact that they moved freely in society engaging with their fellow (male) citizens, they were notorious for speaking their minds even in public. Plato, in the middle of the fourth century, described women's curriculum in Sparta as consisting of gymnastics and mousike (music and arts). Plato goes on to praise Spartan women's ability when it came to philosophical discussion.


title: Sparta

text: Most importantly, Spartan women had economic power because they controlled their own properties, and those of their husbands. It is estimated that in later Classical Sparta, when the male population was in serious decline, women were the sole owners of at least 35% of all land and property in Sparta. The laws regarding a divorce were the same for both men and women. Unlike women in Athens, if a Spartan woman became the heiress of her father because she had no living brothers to inherit (an "epikleros"), the woman was not required to divorce her current spouse in order to marry her nearest paternal relative.


title: Sparta

text: Many women played a significant role in the history of Sparta. Queen Gorgo, heiress to the throne and the wife of Leonidas I, was an influential and well-documented figure. Herodotus records that as a small girl she advised her father Cleomenes to resist a bribe. She was later said to be responsible for decoding a warning that the Persian forces were about to invade Greece; after Spartan generals could not decode a wooden tablet covered in wax, she ordered them to clear the wax, revealing the warning. Plutarch's "Moralia" contains a collection of "Sayings of Spartan Women", including a laconic quip attributed to Gorgo: when asked by a woman from Attica why Spartan women were the only women in the world who could rule men, she replied "Because we are the only women who are mothers of men". In 396, Cynisca, sister of the Eurypontid king Agesilaos II, became the first woman in Greece to win an Olympic chariot race. She won again in 392, and dedicated two monuments to commemorate her victory, these being an inscription in Sparta and a set of bronze equestrian statues at the Olympic temple of Zeus.


title: Sparta

text: Laconophilia is love or admiration of Sparta and its culture or constitution. Sparta was subject of considerable admiration in its day, even in rival Athens. In ancient times "Many of the noblest and best of the Athenians always considered the Spartan state nearly as an ideal theory realised in practice." Many Greek philosophers, especially Platonists, would often describe Sparta as an ideal state, strong, brave, and free from the corruptions of commerce and money. The French classicist François Ollier in his 1933 book "Le mirage spartiate" (The Spartan Mirage) warned that a major scholarly problem is that all surviving accounts of Sparta were by non-Spartans who often excessively idealized their subject. No accounts survive by the Spartans themselves, if such were ever written.


title: Sparta

text: With the revival of classical learning in Renaissance Europe, Laconophilia re-appeared, for example in the writings of Machiavelli. The Elizabethan English constitutionalist John Aylmer compared the mixed government of Tudor England to the Spartan republic, stating that "Lacedemonia [was] the noblest and best city governed that ever was". He commended it as a model for England. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau contrasted Sparta favourably with Athens in his "Discourse on the Arts and Sciences", arguing that its austere constitution was preferable to the more sophisticated Athenian life. Sparta was also used as a model of austere purity by Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.


title: Sparta

text: A German racist strain of Laconophilia was initiated by Karl Otfried Müller, who linked Spartan ideals to the supposed racial superiority of the Dorians, the ethnic sub-group of the Greeks to which the Spartans belonged. In the 20th century, this developed into Fascist admiration of Spartan ideals. Adolf Hitler praised the Spartans, recommending in 1928 that Germany should imitate them by limiting "the number allowed to live". He added that "The Spartans were once capable of such a wise measure... The subjugation of 350,000 Helots by 6,000 Spartans was only possible because of the racial superiority of the Spartans." The Spartans had created "the first racialist state". Following the invasion of the USSR, Hitler viewed citizens of the USSR as like the helots under the Spartans: "They [the Spartans] came as conquerors, and they took everything", and so should the Germans. A Nazi officer specified that "the Germans would have to assume the position of the Spartiates, while... the Russians were the Helots."


title: Sparta

text: Certain early Zionists, and particularly the founders of Kibbutz movement in Israel, were influenced by Spartan ideals, particularly in education. Tabenkin, a founding father of the Kibbutz movement and the Palmach strikeforce, prescribed that education for warfare "should begin from the nursery", that children should from kindergarten be taken to "spend nights in the mountains and valleys".


title: Sparta

text: In modern times, the adjective "Spartan" means simple, frugal, avoiding luxury and comfort. The term "laconic phrase" describes the very terse and direct speech characteristic of the Spartans.


title: Sparta

text: Sparta also features prominently in modern popular culture, most famously the Battle of Thermopylae (see Battle of Thermopylae in popular culture).


title: Kosovo War

text: The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started 28 February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro), which controlled Kosovo before the war, and the Kosovo Albanian rebel group known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The conflict ended when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened by beginning air strikes in March 1999 which resulted in Yugoslav forces withdrawing from Kosovo.


title: Kosovo War

text: The KLA formed in the early 1990s to fight against Serbian persecution of Kosovo Albanians. The KLA initiated its first campaign in 1995 when it launched attacks against Serbian law enforcement in Kosovo. In June 1996, the group claimed responsibility for acts of sabotage targeting Kosovo police stations, during the Kosovo Insurgency. In 1997, the organisation acquired a large amount of arms through weapons smuggling from Albania, following a rebellion in which weapons were looted from the country's police and army posts. In early 1998, KLA attacks targeting Yugoslav authorities in Kosovo resulted in an increased presence of Serb paramilitaries and regular forces who subsequently began pursuing a campaign of retribution targeting KLA sympathisers and political opponents; this campaign killed 1,500 to 2,000 civilians and KLA combatants, and had displaced 370,000 Kosovar Albanians by March 1999.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 20 March 1999, Yugoslav forces began a massive campaign of repression and expulsions of Kosovar Albanians following the withdrawal of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) and the failure of the proposed Rambouillet Agreement. In response to this, NATO intervened with an aerial bombing campaign that began on March 24, justifying it as a "humanitarian war". The war ended with the Kumanovo Treaty, signed on 9 June, with Yugoslav and Serb forces agreeing to withdraw from Kosovo to make way for an international presence. NATO forces entered Kosovo on June 12. The NATO bombing campaign has remained controversial. It did not gain the approval of the UN Security Council and it caused at least 488 Yugoslav civilian deaths, including substantial numbers of Kosovar refugees.


title: Kosovo War

text: In 2001 a Supreme Court, based in Kosovo and administered by the United Nations, found that there had been "a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments", but that Yugoslav troops had tried to remove rather than eradicate the Albanian population. After the war, a list was compiled which documented that over 13,500 people were killed or went missing during the two year conflict. The Yugoslav and Serb forces caused the displacement of between 1.2 million to 1.45 million Kosovo Albanians. After the war, around 200,000 Serbs, Romani, and other non-Albanians fled Kosovo and many of the remaining civilians were victims of abuse.


title: Kosovo War

text: The Kosovo Liberation Army disbanded soon after the end of the war, with some of its members going on to fight for the UÇPMB in the Preševo Valley and others joining the National Liberation Army (NLA) and Albanian National Army (ANA) during the armed ethnic conflict in Macedonia, while others went on to form the Kosovo Police.


title: Kosovo War

text: The modern Albanian-Serbian conflict has its roots in the expulsion of Albanians in 1877-1878 from areas that were incorporated into the Principality of Serbia Expelled Albanians settled in Kosovo and between 1876 and 1878 there were attacks on and in 1901 massacres of Kosovan Serbs.


title: Kosovo War

text: Tensions between the Serbian and Albanian communities in Kosovo simmered throughout the 20th century and occasionally erupted into major violence, particularly during the First Balkan War (1912–13), World War I (1914–18), and World War II (1939–45). The Albanian revolt of 1912 in Kosovo resulted in the Ottoman Empire agreeing to the creation of an Albanian quasi-state but Ottoman forces were soon driven out by opportunistic Bulgarian, Serbian and Montenegrin troops. In the ensuing Balkan Wars, Massacres of Albanians occurred.


title: Kosovo War

text: After World War I Kosovo was incorporated into the Serb-dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia despite the Albanian community's demands for union with Albania. Between 1918 and 1939, Yugoslavia expelled hundreds of thousands of Albanians and promoted the settlement of mostly Serb colonists in the region, while Albanian language schools were prohibited. After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, most of Kosovo was assigned to Italian-controlled Albania, with the rest being controlled by Germany and Bulgaria. During the occupation, Albanian collaborators persecuted Serb and Montenegrin settlers, with thousands killed and between 70,000 and 100,000 expelled or transferred to concentration camps in Pristina and Mitrovica.


title: Kosovo War

text: After 1945 the new socialist government under Josip Broz Tito systematically suppressed nationalism among the ethnic groups throughout Yugoslavia, and established six republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina) as constituent parts of the Yugoslav federation. Tito diluted the power of Serbia—the largest and most populous republic—by establishing autonomous governments in the Serbian province of Vojvodina in the north and Kosovo in the south. Until 1963 it was named the Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija and in 1968 renamed to the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo.


title: Kosovo War

text: The period of 1948–1963 in Kosovo was characterized by a brutal crackdown against Albanian nationalists by Aleksandar Ranković and his secret police (the UDBA). In 1955, a state of emergency was declared in order to squelch unrest that had purportedly been instigated by terror groups from Albania. Following Ranković's ouster in 1966, Tito and his League of Communists Party granted more powers to republics and attempted to improve the political, social and economic situation in Kosovo. In November 1968, large-scale demonstrations took place in Kosovo which were quelled by Yugoslav forces, precipitated by Albanian demands for separate republics in Kosovo and Macedonia. Albanian students and intellectuals pushed for an Albanian language University and greater representative powers for Albanians in both the Serbian and Yugoslav state bodies.


title: Kosovo War

text: The University of Pristina 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 lack of Albanian-language educational materials in Yugoslavia hampered Albanian education in Kosovo, so an agreement was struck with Albania itself to supply textbooks.


title: Kosovo War

text: In 1969 the Serbian Orthodox Church 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 interests of Serbs there.


title: Kosovo War

text: In 1974 Kosovo's political status improved further when a new Yugoslav constitution granted an expanded set of political rights. Along with Vojvodina, Kosovo 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. While trying to balance the interests of Albanians and Serbs, this effectively stratified both communities and prompted Serb fears of Kosovo seceding from Yugoslavia. Student demonstrations continued throughout the 1970s, resulting in the imprisonment of many members of the Albanian National Liberation Movement, including Adem Demaçi. The political and administrative changes that began in 1968 resulted in Kosovo Albanians getting complete control over the province's political, social and cultural issues as well as growing ties between Kosovo and Albania. However, by 1980, economic impoverishment would become the catalyst for further unrest.


title: Kosovo War

text: Provincial power was still exercised by the League of Communists of Kosovo, but now devolved mainly to ethnic Albanian communists. Tito's death on 4 May 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, when a protest of University of Pristina students over long queues in their university canteen rapidly escalated and in late March and early April 1981 spread throughout Kosovo, causing mass demonstrations in several towns, the 1981 protests in Kosovo. The disturbances were quelled by the Presidency of Yugoslavia proclaiming a state of emergency, sending in riot police and the army, which resulted in numerous casualties.


title: Kosovo War

text: Communist hard-liners instituted a fierce crackdown on nationalism of all kinds. 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.


title: Kosovo War

text: 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 perception among Serbian nationalists that Serbs were being driven out of Kosovo.


title: Kosovo War

text: In addition to all this, the worsening state of Kosovo's economy made the province a poor choice for Serbs seeking work. Albanians, as well as Serbs, tended to favor their compatriots when hiring new employees, but the number of jobs was too few for the population. Kosovo was the poorest entity of Yugoslavia: the average per capita income was $795, compared with the national average of $2,635.


title: Kosovo War

text: In 1981 it was reported that some 4,000 Serbs moved from Kosovo to central Serbia after the Kosovo Albanian riots in March that resulted in several Serb deaths and the desecration of Serbian Orthodox architecture and graveyards. Serbia reacted with a plan to reduce the power of Albanians in the province and a propaganda campaign that claimed Serbs were being pushed out of the province primarily by the growing Albanian population, rather than the bad state of the economy. 33 nationalist formations were dismantled by Yugoslav police, who sentenced some 280 people (800 fined, 100 under investigation) and seized arms caches and propaganda material.


title: Kosovo War

text: In 1987 David Binder wrote in "The New York Times" about the growing ethnic tension in Yugoslavia and rising nationalism among Albanians in Kosovo and referred to the Paraćin massacre, where an ethnic Albanian soldier in the JNA killed four fellow soldiers. Binder also—writing of Slobodan Milošević's deposing of Dragiša Pavlović as head of Belgrade's party organisation shortly before—wrote that "Mr. Milosevic accused Mr. Pavlovic of being an appeaser who was soft on Albanian radicals", and that "Mr. Milosevic and his supporters appear to be staking their careers on a strategy of confrontation with the Kosovo ethnic Albanians". The article quotes the Federal Secretary for National Defence, Fleet Adm. Branko Mamula, who claimed that "from 1981 to 1987, 216 illegal Albanian organisations with 1,435 members were discovered in the JNA". Mamula had also said that ethnic Albanian subversives had been preparing for "killing officers and soldiers, poisoning food and water, sabotage, breaking into weapons arsenals and stealing arms and ammunition, desertion and causing flagrant nationalist incidents in army units".


title: Kosovo War

text: In Kosovo an increasingly poisonous atmosphere between Serbs and Albanians led to wild rumors being spread and otherwise trivial incidents being blown out of proportion. It was against this tense background that the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) conducted a survey of Serbs who had left Kosovo in 1985 and 1986, which concluded that a considerable number had left under pressure from Albanians.


title: Kosovo War

text: The so-called SANU Memorandum, leaked in September 1986, was a draft document that 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. It paid special attention to Kosovo, arguing that the Kosovo 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 World war occupations. The Memorandum's authors claimed that 200,000 Serbs had moved out of the province over the previous 20 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." The SANU Memorandum provoked split reactions: Albanians saw it as a call for Serbian supremacy at the local level, claiming the Serb emigrants had left Kosovo for economic reasons, while the Slovenes and Croats saw a threat in the call for a more assertive Serbia. Serbs were divided: many welcomed it, while the Communist old guard strongly attacked its message. One of those who denounced it was Serbian Communist Party official Slobodan Milošević.


title: Kosovo War

text: 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 as well as 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.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 17 November 1988 Kaqusha Jashari and Azem Vllasi were forced to resign from the leadership of the League of Communists of Kosovo (LCK). In early 1989 the Serbian Assembly proposed amendments to the Constitution of Serbia that would remove the word "Socialist" from the Serbian Republic's title, establish multi-party elections, remove the independence of institutions of the autonomous provinces such as Kosovo and rename Kosovo as the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija. In February Kosovar Albanians demonstrated in large numbers against the proposal, emboldened by striking miners. Serbs in Belgrade protested against the Kosovo Albanian's separatism. On 3 March 1989 the Presidency of Yugoslavia imposed special measures assigning responsibility for public security to the federal government. On 23 March the Assembly of Kosovo voted to accept the proposed amendments although most Albanian delegates abstained. In early 1990 Kosovar Albanians held mass demonstrations against the special measures, which were lifted on 18 April 1990 and responsibility for public security was again assigned to Serbia.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 8 May 1989 Milošević became President of the Presidency of Serbia, which was confirmed on 6 December. On 22 January 1990 the 14th congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) abolished the party's position as the only legal political party in Yugoslavia. In January 1990 the Yugoslav government announced it would press ahead with the creation of a multi-party system.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 26 June 1990 Serbian authorities closed the Kosovo Assembly, citing special circumstances. On 1 or 2 July 1990 Serbia approved the new amendments to the Constitution of Serbia in a referendum. Also on 2 July, 114 ethnic Albanian delegates of the 180-member Kosovo Assembly declared Kosovo an independent republic within Yugoslavia. On 5 July the Serbian Assembly dissolved the Kosovo Assembly. Serbia also dissolved the provincial executive council and assumed full and direct control of the province. Serbia took over management of Kosovo's principal Albanian-language media, halting Albanian-language broadcasts. On 4 September 1990 Kosovar Albanians observed a 24-hour general strike, virtually shutting down the province.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 16 or 17 July 1990 the League of Communists of Serbia (LCS) combined with the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Serbia to become the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), and Milošević became its first president. On 8 August 1990 several amendments to the federal Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) Constitution were adopted enabling the establishment of a multi-party election system.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 7 September 1990 the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo was promulgated by the disbanded Assembly of Kosovo. Milošević responded by ordering the arrest of the deputies of the disbanded Assembly of Kosovo. The new controversial Serbian Constitution was promulgated on 28 September 1990. Multi-party elections were held in Serbia on 9 and 26 December 1990 after which Milošević became President of Serbia. In September 1991 Kosovar Albanians held an unofficial referendum in which they voted overwhelmingly for independence. On 24 May 1992 Kosovar Albanians held unofficial elections for an assembly and president of the Republic of Kosovo.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 5 August 1991 the Serbian Assembly suspended the Priština daily "Rilindja", following the Law on Public Information of 29 March 1991 and establishment of the "Panorama" publishing house on 6 November which incorporated "Rilindja", which was declared unconstitutional by the federal authorities. United Nations Special Rapporteur Tadeusz Mazowiecki reported on 26 February 1993 that the police had intensified their repression of the Albanian population since 1990, including depriving them of their basic rights, destroying their educations system, and large numbers of political dismissals of civil servants.


title: Kosovo War

text: The arrest and detainment of ethnic Albanians based on their ethnic or political affiliations was commonplace. Hundreds of thousands were fired from government and state-run institutions. By 1990 most Albanian schools were closed and the Serbian government required Albanian teachers to sign loyalty oaths in order to remain employed; by late 1991 all Albanian schoolteachers had been dismissed. 350,000 Albanians emigrated out of the region due to economic and social pressures over the next seven years, and the Milosevic regime encouraged Serb settlement to the region.


title: Kosovo War

text: Kosovar Albanian families were penalized for having more than one child while Kosovo Serbs were rewarded for having large families.


title: Kosovo War

text: According to an Amnesty International report in 1998, due to dismissals from the Yugoslav government it was estimated that by 1998 unemployment rate in the Kosovar Albanian population was higher than 70%. The economic apartheid imposed by Belgrade was aimed at impoverishing an already poor Kosovo Albanian population.


title: Kosovo War

text: In 1996, 16,000 Serb refugees from Bosnia and Croatia were settled in Kosovo by the Milosevic government, sometimes against their will.


title: Kosovo War

text: Ibrahim Rugova, first President of the Republic of Kosovo pursued a policy of passive resistance which succeeded in maintaining peace in Kosovo during the earlier wars in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia during the early 1990s. As evidenced by the emergence of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), this came at the cost of increasing frustration among Kosovo's Albanian population. 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).


title: Kosovo War

text: Continuing repression convinced many Albanians that only armed resistance would change the situation. On 22 April 1996, four attacks on Serbian security personnel were carried out almost simultaneously in different parts of Kosovo. The KLA, a hitherto-unknown organisation, subsequently claimed responsibility. The nature of the KLA was at first mysterious. It initially seemed that their only goals were to stop repression from Yugoslav authorities.


title: Kosovo War

text: As stated by Jakup Krasniqi, who was the spokesman of the group, the KLA was formed by some members from the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), a political party led by Rugova. The KLA and LDK shared the common goal of ending repression from Belgrade and making Kosovo independent, but the KLA was opposed to 'internal rule' of Kosovo by the LDK.


title: Kosovo War

text: KLA goals also included the establishment of a Greater Albania, a state stretching into surrounding FYR Macedonia, Montenegro and southern Serbia. In July 1998, in an interview for Der Spiegel, Jakup Krasniqi publicly announced that the KLA's goal was the unification of all Albanian-inhabited lands. Sulejman Selimi, a General Commander of KLA in 1998–1999, said:


title: Kosovo War

text: While Rugova promised to uphold the minority rights of Serbs in Kosovo, the KLA was much less tolerant. Selimi stated that "Serbs who have blood on their hands would have to leave the Kosovo".


title: Kosovo War

text: It is widely believed that the KLA received financial and material support from the Kosovo Albanian diaspora. In early 1997, Albania collapsed into chaos following the fall of President Sali Berisha. Albanian Armed Forces stockpiles were looted with impunity by criminal gangs, with much of the hardware ending up in western Kosovo and boosting the growing KLA arsenal. 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. The Yugoslav government considered the KLA to be "terrorists" and "insurgents" who indiscriminately attacked police and civilians, while most Albanians saw the KLA as "freedom fighters".


title: Kosovo War

text: In 1998, the US State Department listed the KLA as a terrorist organisation, and in 1999 the US Senate Republican Policy Committee expressed its troubles with the "effective alliance" of the Democratic Clinton administration with the KLA due to "numerous reports from reputable unofficial sources". In 2004, John Pilger claimed that for six years prior to 1998, the KLA had been regarded by the US as a terrorist group. Early in 1998, US envoy Robert Gelbard referred to the KLA as terrorists; responding to criticism, he later clarified to the House Committee on International Relations that "while it has committed 'terrorist acts,' it has 'not been classified legally by the U.S. Government as a terrorist organization.'" In June 1998, he held talks with two men who claimed they were political leaders of the KLA. In 2000, a BBC documentary called "Moral Combat – Nato at War" showed how the United States now sought a relationship with the group. While the US officially described the KLA as terrorists, author Alastair MacKenzie claims the KLA received training by the Americans' closest NATO-ally, the United Kingdom, since 1998 in a training camp in the mountains above the northern Albanian town of Bajram Curri.


title: Kosovo War

text: Meanwhile, the US held an "outer wall of sanctions" on Yugoslavia which had been tied to a series of issues, including Kosovo. These were maintained despite the agreement at Dayton to end all sanctions. The Clinton administration claimed that the agreement bound Yugoslavia to hold discussions with Rugova over Kosovo.


title: Kosovo War

text: 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 and Herzegovina sweeping powers, including the right to dismiss elected leaders. At the same time, Western diplomats insisted that Kosovo be discussed, and that Yugoslavia be responsive to Albanian demands there. The delegation from Yugoslavia 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 Yugoslavia solve the problem in Kosovo.


title: Kosovo War

text: KLA attacks intensified, centering on the Drenica valley area with the compound of Adem Jashari being a focal point. Days after Robert Gelbard described the KLA as a terrorist group, Serbian police responded to the KLA attacks in the Likošane area, and pursued some of the KLA to Čirez, resulting in the deaths of 16 Albanian fighters and four Serbian policemen. The KLA's goal was to merge its Drenica stronghold with their stronghold in Albania proper, and this would shape the first few months of the fighting.


title: Kosovo War

text: 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 Prekaze. On 5 March 1998, a massive firefight at the Jashari compound led to the massacre of 60 Albanians, of which eighteen were women and ten were under the age of sixteen. The event provoked massive condemnation from western capitals. Madeleine Albright said that "this crisis is not an internal affair of the FRY".


title: Kosovo War

text: On 24 March, Yugoslav forces surrounded the village of Glodjane and attacked a rebel compound there. Despite superior firepower, the Yugoslav 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.


title: Kosovo War

text: A new Yugoslav government was 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 the country's position among Western diplomats and spokespersons.


title: Kosovo War

text: In early April, Serbia arranged for a referendum on the issue of foreign interference in Kosovo. Serbian voters decisively rejected foreign interference in the crisis. Meanwhile, the KLA claimed much of the area in and around Deçan and ran a territory based in the village of Glodjane, encompassing its surroundings. On 31 May 1998, the Yugoslav army and the Serb Ministry of the Interior police began an operation to clear the border of the KLA. NATO's response to this offensive was mid-June's Operation Determined Falcon, a NATO show of force over the Yugoslav borders.


title: Kosovo War

text: During this time, Yugoslav President Milošević reached an arrangement with Boris Yeltsin of Russia to stop offensive operations and prepare for talks with the Albanians, who refused to talk to the Serbian side throughout the crisis, but would talk with the Yugoslav government. In fact, the only meeting between Milošević and Ibrahim Rugova happened on 15 May in Belgrade, two days after Richard Holbrooke announced that it would take place. Holbrooke threatened Milošević that if he did not obey, "what's left of your country will implode". A month later, Holbrooke visited the border areas affected by the fighting in early June, where 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 US was decisively backing the KLA and the Albanian population in Kosovo.


title: Kosovo War

text: The Yeltsin agreement required Milošević to allow international representatives to set up a mission in Kosovo to monitor the situation there. The Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission (KDOM) began operations in early July 1998. The US government welcomed this part of the agreement, but denounced the initiative's call for a mutual cease fire. Rather, the US demanded that the Serbian-Yugoslavian side should cease fire "without linkage ... to a cessation in terrorist activities".


title: Kosovo War

text: All through June and into mid-July, the KLA maintained its advance. The KLA surrounded Peć and Đakovica, and set up an interim capital in the town of Mališevo (north of Orahovac). KLA troops infiltrated Suva Reka and the northwest of Pristina. They moved on to capture the Belacevec coal pits in late June, threatening energy supplies in the region. Their tactics as usual focused mainly on guerrilla and mountain warfare, and harassing and ambushing Yugoslav forces and Serb police patrols.


title: Kosovo War

text: The tide turned in mid-July when the KLA captured Orahovac. On 17 July 1998, two nearby villages, Retimlije and Opteruša, were also captured, while less systematic events took place in the larger Serb-populated village of Velika Hoča. The Orthodox monastery of Zočište was looted and torched. This led to a series of Serb and Yugoslav offensives which would continue into the beginning of August.


title: Kosovo War

text: A new set of KLA attacks in mid-August triggered Yugoslavian operations in south-central Kosovo, south of the Pristina-Peć road. The KLA began an offensive on 1 September around Prizren, causing Yugoslavian military activity there. In western Kosovo, around Peć, another offensive caused condemnation as international officials expressed fear that a large column of displaced people would be attacked.


title: Kosovo War

text: In early mid-September, for the first time, 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 from Western capitals but these were tempered somewhat by the elections in Bosnia, as they did not want Serbian Democrats and Radicals to win. Following the elections, the threats intensified once again, but a galvanising event was needed. They got it on 28 September, when the mutilated corpses of a family were discovered by KDOM outside the village of Gornje Obrinje. The bloody image of a child's doll and streams of displaced persons rallied the international community to action.


title: Kosovo War

text: Morale was a serious problem for Serb forces; intelligence surveys found that many soldiers disagreed with their comrades' actions. One tank commander reported, "for the entire time I was in Kosovo, I never saw an enemy soldier and my unit was never once involved in firing at enemy targets. The tanks which cost $2.5 million each were used to slaughter Albanian children... I am ashamed".


title: Kosovo War

text: When retreating from Kosovo after NATO intervention, Yugoslav units appeared combat effective with high morale and displaying large holdings of undamaged equipment. Weeks before the end of hostilities, David Fromkin noted that "it seemed possible that NATO unity might crack before Yugoslav morale did." The announcement by President Clinton that the US would not deploy ground troops gave a tremendous boost to Serbian morale.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 9 June 1998, US President Bill Clinton declared a "national emergency" (state of emergency) due to the "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States" imposed by Yugoslavia and Serbia over the Kosovo War.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 23 September 1998, acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1199. This expressed 'grave concern' at reports reaching the Secretary General that over 230,000 people had been displaced from their homes by 'the excessive and indiscriminate use of force by Serbian security forces and the Yugoslav Army', demanding that all parties in Kosovo and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia cease hostilities and maintain a ceasefire. On 24 September the North Atlantic Council (NAC) of NATO issued an "activation warning" taking NATO to an increased level of military preparedness for both a limited air option and a phased air campaign in Kosovo. The other major issue for those who saw no option but to resort to the use of force was the estimated 250,000 displaced Albanians, 30,000 of whom were out in the woods, without warm clothing or shelter, with winter fast approaching.


title: Kosovo War

text: Meanwhile, the US 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. These meetings were shaping 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. NATO was ready to begin airstrikes, and Richard Holbrooke went to Belgrade in the hope of reaching an agreement with Milošević. Officially, the international community demanded an end to fighting. It specifically demanded that Yugoslavia end its offensives against the KLA whilst attempting to convince the KLA to drop its bid for independence. 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.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 13 October 1998, the North Atlantic Council issued activation orders for the execution of both limited air strikes and a phased air campaign in Yugoslavia which would begin in approximately 96 hours. On 15 October the NATO Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) Agreement for a ceasefire was signed, and the deadline for withdrawal was extended to 27 October. Difficulties implementing the agreement were reported, as clashes continued between government troops and the guerrillas. The Serbian withdrawal commenced on or around 25 October 1998, and Operation Eagle Eye commenced on 30 October.


title: Kosovo War

text: The KVM was a large contingent of unarmed Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) peace monitors (officially known as verifiers) that moved into Kosovo. Their inadequacy was evident from the start. They were nicknamed the "clockwork oranges" in reference to their brightly coloured vehicles. Fighting resumed in December 1998 after both sides broke the ceasefire, and this surge in violence culminated in the killing of Zvonko Bojanić, the Serb mayor of the town of Kosovo Polje. Yugoslav authorities responded by launching a crackdown against KLA militants.


title: Kosovo War

text: The January to March 1999 phase of the war brought increasing insecurity in urban areas, including bombings and murders. Such attacks took place during the Rambouillet talks in February and as the Kosovo Verification Agreement unraveled in March. Killings on the roads continued and increased. There were military confrontations in, among other places, the Vučitrn area in February and the heretofore unaffected Kačanik area in early March.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 15 January 1999 the Račak massacre occurred when 45 Kosovan Albanians were killed. The bodies had been discovered by OSCE monitors, including Head of Mission William Walker, and foreign news correspondents. Yugoslavia denied a massacre took place. The Račak massacre was the culmination of the conflict between the KLA and Yugoslav forces that had continued throughout the winter of 1998–1999. The incident was immediately 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. This massacre was the turning point of the war. 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. Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, had been subjected to heavy firefights and segregation according to OSCE reports.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 30 January 1999 NATO issued a statement announcing that the North Atlantic Council had agreed that "the NATO Secretary General may authorise air strikes against targets on FRY territory" to "[compel] compliance with the demands of the international community and [to achieve] a political settlement". While this was most obviously a threat to the Milošević government, it also included a coded threat to the Albanians: any decision would depend on the "position and actions of the Kosovo Albanian leadership and all Kosovo Albanian armed elements in and around Kosovo."


title: Kosovo War

text: Also on 30 January 1999 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.


title: Kosovo War

text: The Rambouillet talks began on 6 February 1999, with NATO Secretary General Javier Solana negotiating with both sides. They were intended to conclude by 19 February. The FR Yugoslavian delegation was led by then president of Serbia Milan Milutinović, while Milošević himself remained in Belgrade. This was in contrast to the 1995 Dayton conference that ended the 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 Yugoslavia as well as abroad; Kosovo's Serbian Orthodox bishop Artemije traveled all the way to Rambouillet to protest that the delegation was wholly unrepresentative. At this time speculation about an indictment of Milošević for war crimes was rife, so his absence may have been motivated by fear of arrest.


title: Kosovo War

text: The first phase of negotiations was successful. In particular, a statement was issued by the Contact Group co-chairmen on 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 finalising "the implementation Chapters of the Agreement, including the modalities of the "invited international" civilian and military presence in Kosovo". While the Serbs agreed to an autonomous government, free elections, and the release of all political prisoners, the West also insisted on the presence of NATO troops.


title: Kosovo War

text: While the accords did not fully satisfy the Albanians, they were much too radical for the Yugoslavs, who responded by substituting a drastically revised text that even Russia (ally of FR Yugoslavia) 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.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 18 March 1999, the Albanian, US, and British delegations signed what became known as the Rambouillet Accords, while the Yugoslav 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. They would have also permitted a continuing Yugoslav army presence of 1,500 troops for border monitoring, backed by up to 1,000 troops to perform command and support functions, as well as a small number of border police, 2,500 ordinary MUP for public security purposes (although these were expected to draw down and to be transformed), and 3,000 local police.


title: Kosovo War

text: Although the Yugoslav Government cited military provisions of Appendix B of the Rambouillet provisions as the reason for its objections, claiming that it was an unacceptable violation of Yugoslavia's sovereignty, these provisions were essentially the same as had been applied to Bosnia for the SFOR (Stabilisation Force) mission there after the Dayton Agreement in 1995. The two sides did not discuss the issue in detail because of their disagreements on more fundamental problems. In particular, the Serb side rejected the idea of any NATO troop presence in Kosovo to replace their security forces, preferring unarmed UN observers. Milošević himself had refused to discuss the annex after informing NATO that it was unacceptable, even after he was asked to propose amendments to the provisions which would have made them acceptable.


title: Kosovo War

text: After the failure at Rambouillet and the alternative Yugoslav proposal, international monitors from the OSCE withdrew on 22 March, to ensure their safety ahead of the anticipated NATO bombing campaign. On 23 March, the Serbian assembly accepted the principle of autonomy for Kosovo, as well as the non-military aspects of the agreement, but rejected a NATO troop presence.


title: Kosovo War

text: In a 2009 judgement regarding six former Serb leaders charged with war crimes in Kosovo, the ICTY noted that the causes of the breakdown in the negotiations at Rambouillet were complex and stated that "international negotiators did not take an entirely even-handed approach to the respective positions of the parties and tended to favour the Kosovo Albanians." It further recorded that, according to a witness, on 14 April 1999, at a meeting initiated by the White House with representatives of the Serbian-American community, President Bill Clinton had stated that "the provision for allowing a referendum for the Albanians in Kosovo went too far and that, if he were in the shoes of Milošević, he probably would not have signed the draft [Rambouillet] agreement either."


title: Kosovo War

text: On 23 March 1999 at 21:30 UTC, Richard Holbrooke returned to Brussels and announced that peace talks had failed and formally handed the matter to NATO for military action. Hours before the announcement, Yugoslavia announced on national television it had declared a state of emergency, citing an imminent threat of war and began a huge mobilisation of troops and resources.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 23 March 1999 at 22:17 UTC, the Secretary General of NATO, Javier Solana, announced he had directed the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), US Army General Wesley Clark, to "initiate air operations in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia." On 24 March at 19:00 UTC, NATO started its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.


title: Kosovo War

text: The NATO bombing campaign lasted from 24 March to 11 June 1999, involving up to 1,000 aircraft operating mainly from bases in Italy and aircraft carriers stationed in the Adriatic. Tomahawk cruise missiles were also extensively used, fired from aircraft, ships, and submarines. With the exception of Greece, all NATO members were involved to some degree. Over the ten weeks of the conflict, NATO aircraft flew over 38,000 combat missions. For the German Air Force ("Luftwaffe"), it was the second time it had participated in a conflict since World War II, after the Bosnian War.


title: Kosovo War

text: 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 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 not insignificant, it did not match the intensity of the bombing of Baghdad in 1991.


title: Kosovo War

text: 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 heavily constrained by politics, as each target needed to be approved by all nineteen member states. Montenegro was bombed on several occasions, but NATO eventually desisted to prop up the precarious position of its anti-Milošević leader, Milo Đukanović.


title: Kosovo War

text: At the start of May, a NATO aircraft attacked an Albanian refugee convoy, believing it was a Yugoslav military convoy, killing around fifty people. NATO admitted its mistake five days later, and the Yugoslavs accused NATO of deliberately attacking the refugees. A later report conducted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) opined that "civilians were not deliberately attacked in this incident", and that "neither the aircrew nor their commanders displayed the degree of recklessness in failing to take precautionary measures which would sustain criminal charges." On 7 May, NATO bombs hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists and outraging Chinese public opinion. The United States and NATO later apologised for the bombing, saying that it occurred because of an outdated map provided by the CIA, although this was challenged by a joint report from "The Observer" (UK) and "Politiken" (Denmark) newspapers, which claimed that NATO intentionally bombed the embassy because it was being used as a relay station for Yugoslav army radio signals. The report by the newspaper contradicts findings in the same report by the ICTY which stated that the root of the failures in target location "appears to stem from the land navigation techniques employed by an intelligence officer." In another incident at the Dubrava prison in Kosovo in May 1999, the Yugoslav government attributed as many as 95 civilian deaths to NATO bombing of the facility after NATO cited Serbian and Yugoslav military activity in the area; a Human Rights Watch report later concluded that at least nineteen ethnic Albanian prisoners had been killed by the bombing, but that an uncertain number – probably more than 70 – were killed by Serbian Government forces in the days immediately following the bombing.


title: Kosovo War

text: By the start of April, the conflict appeared little closer to a resolution, and NATO countries began to seriously consider conducting ground operations in Kosovo. British Prime Minister Tony Blair was a strong advocate of ground forces and pressured the United States to agree; his strong stance caused some alarm in Washington as US forces would be making the largest contribution to any offensive. US President Bill Clinton was extremely reluctant to commit US forces for a ground offensive. Instead, Clinton authorised a CIA operation to look into methods to destabilise the Yugoslav government without training KLA troops. At the same time, Finnish and Russian diplomatic negotiators continued to try to persuade Milošević to back down. Tony Blair would order 50,000 British soldiers to be made ready for a ground offensive: most of the available British Army.


title: Kosovo War

text: Milošević finally recognised that Russia would not intervene to defend Yugoslavia despite Moscow's strong anti-NATO rhetoric. He thus 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.


title: Kosovo War

text: The Norwegian special forces Hærens Jegerkommando and Forsvarets Spesialkommando cooperated with the KLA in gathering intelligence information. Preparing for an invasion on 12 June, Norwegian special forces worked with the KLA on the Ramno mountain on the border between Macedonia and Kosovo and acted as scouts to monitor events in Kosovo. Together with British special forces, Norwegian special forces were the first to cross over the border into Kosovo. According to Keith Graves with the television network Sky News, the Norwegians were in Kosovo two days prior to the entry of other forces and were among the first into Pristina. The Hærens Jegerkommando's and Forsvarets Spesialkommando's job was to clear the way between the contending parties and to make local deals to implement the peace deal between the Serbians and the Kosovo Albanians.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 3 June 1999, Milošević accepted the terms of an international peace plan to end the fighting, with the national parliament adopting the proposal amid contentious debate with delegates coming close to fistfights at some points. On 10 June, the North Atlantic Council ratified the agreement and suspended air operations.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 12 June, after Milošević accepted the conditions, the NATO-led peacekeeping Kosovo Force (KFOR) of 30,000 soldiers began entering Kosovo. KFOR had been preparing to conduct combat operations, but in the end, its mission was only peacekeeping. The force was based upon the 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 Armored and 5th Airborne Brigades), a French Army Brigade, a German Army brigade, which entered from the west, while other forces advanced from the south, and Italian Army and United States Army brigades.


title: Kosovo War

text: The first NATO troops to enter Pristina on the 12th of June 1999 were Norwegian special forces from Forsvarets Spesialkommando (FSK) and soldiers from the British Special Air Service 22 Regiment, although to NATO's diplomatic embarrassment Russian troops arrived at the airport first. Norwegian soldiers were the first to come into contact with Russian troops at the airport. FSK's mission was to level the negotiating field between the belligerent parties, and to fine-tune the detailed, local deals needed to implement the peace deal between the Serbians and the Kosovo Albanians.


title: Kosovo War

text: The US contribution, known as the Initial Entry Force, was led by the 1st Armored Division, commanded by Brigadier General Peterson, and was spearheaded by a platoon from the 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment attached to the British Forces. Other units included 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) from Stuttgart, Germany and Fort Carson, Colorado, TF 1–6 Infantry (1-6 infantry with C Co 1-35AR) from Baumholder, Germany, the 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 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 US force was the Greek Army's 501st Mechanised Infantry Battalion. The initial US forces established their area of operation around the towns of Uroševac, 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 southeast sector of Kosovo.


title: Kosovo War

text: During the initial incursion, the US soldiers were greeted by Albanians cheering and throwing flowers as US soldiers and KFOR rolled through their villages. Although no resistance was met, three US soldiers from the Initial Entry Force were killed in accidents.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 1 October 1999, approximately 150 paratroopers from Alpha Company, 1/508th Airborne Battalion Combat Team from Vicenza, Italy parachuted into Uroševac as part of Operation Rapid Guardian. The purpose of the mission was primarily to warn Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević of NATO resolve and of its rapid military capability. One US soldier, Army Ranger Sgt. Jason Neil Pringle, was killed during operations after his parachute failed to deploy. The paratroopers of the 1/508th then joined paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne and KFOR in patrolling various areas of Kosovo, without incident, through 3 October 1999.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 15 December 1999, Staff Sergeant Joseph Suponcic of 3rd Battalion/10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) was killed, when the HMMWV in which he was a passenger struck an anti-tank mine planted by Albanians and meant for the Russian contingent with which SSG Suponcic's team was patrolling in Kosovska Kamenica.


title: Kosovo War

text: 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 peacekeeping forces entered Kosovo from Bosnia and Herzegovina and occupied Pristina International Airport ahead of the arrival of NATO forces. This resulted in an incident during which NATO Supreme Commander Wesley Clark's wish to forcibly block the runways with NATO vehicles, to prevent any Russian reinforcement, was refused by KFOR commander General Mike Jackson.


title: Kosovo War

text: In 2010, James Blunt described in an interview how his unit was given the assignment of securing Pristina during the advance of the 30,000-strong peacekeeping force and how the Russian Army had moved in and taken control of the city's airport before his unit's arrival. Blunt shared a part in the difficult task of addressing the potentially violent international incident. According to Blunt's account there was a stand-off with the Russians, and NATO Supreme Commander Clark gave provisional orders to over-power them. Whilst these were questioned by Blunt, they were rejected by General Jackson, with the now famous line, "I'm not having my soldiers responsible for starting World War III."


title: Kosovo War

text: In June 2000, arms trading relations between Russia and Yugoslavia were exposed, which led to retaliation and bombings of Russian checkpoints and area police stations. Outpost Gunner was established on a high point in the Preševo Valley by Echo Battery 1/161 Field Artillery in an attempt to monitor and assist with peacekeeping efforts in the Russian Sector. Operating under the support of ⅔ Field Artillery, 1st Armored Division, the Battery was able to successfully deploy and continuously operate a Firefinder Radar system, which allowed the NATO forces to keep a closer watch on activities in the Sector and the Preševo Valley. Eventually a deal was struck whereby Russian forces operated as a unit of KFOR but not under the NATO command structure.


title: Kosovo War

text: Because of the country's restrictive media laws, the Yugoslav media carried little coverage of events in Kosovo, and the attitude of other countries to the humanitarian disaster that was occurring there. Thus, few members of the Yugoslav public expected NATO intervention, instead thinking that a diplomatic agreement would be reached.


title: Kosovo War

text: Support for the Kosovan War and, in particular, the legitimacy of NATO's bombing campaign came from a variety of sources. In a 2009 article, David Clark claimed "Every member of NATO, every EU country, and most of Yugoslavia's neighbours, supported military action." Statements from the leaders of United States, Czech Republic and United Kingdom, respectively, described the war as one "upholding our values, protecting our interests, and advancing the cause of peace", "the first war for values" and one "to avert what would otherwise be a humanitarian disaster in Kosovo." Others included the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who was reported by some sources as acknowledging that the NATO action was legitimate who emphasised that there were times when the use of force was legitimate in the pursuit of peace though Annan stressed that the "[UN Security] Council should have been involved in any decision to use force." The distinction between the legality and legitimacy of the intervention was further highlighted in two separate reports. One was conducted by the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, entitled "The Kosovo Report", which found that:


title: Kosovo War

text: It concluded that "the NATO military intervention was illegal but legitimate", The second report was published by the NATO Office of Information and Press which reported that, "the human rights violations committed on a large scale in Kosovo provide an incontestable ground with reference to the humanitarian aspect of NATO's intervention." Some critics note that NATO did not have the backing of the United Nations Security Council meant that its intervention had no legal basis, but according to some legal scholars, "there are nonetheless certain bases for that action that are not legal, but justified."


title: Kosovo War

text: Aside from politicians and diplomats, commentators and intellectuals also supported the war. Michael Ignatieff called NATOs intervention a "morally justifiable response to ethnic cleansing and the resulting flood of refugees, and not the cause of the flood of refugees" while Christopher Hitchens said NATO intervened only, "when Serbian forces had resorted to mass deportation and full-dress ethnic 'cleansing. Writing in "The Nation", Richard A. Falk wrote that, "the NATO campaign achieved the removal of Yugoslav military forces from Kosovo and, even more significant, the departure of the dreaded Serbian paramilitary units and police" while an article in "The Guardian" wrote that for Mary Kaldor, Kosovo represented a laboratory on her thinking for human security, humanitarian intervention and international peacekeeping, the latter two which she defined as, "a genuine belief in the equality of all human beings; and this entails a readiness to risk lives of peacekeeping troops to save the lives of others where this is necessary." Reports stated there had been no peace between Albanians and Serbs, citing the deaths of 1,500 Albanians and displacement of 270,000 prior to NATO intervention.


title: Kosovo War

text: The NATO intervention has been seen as a political diversionary tactic, coming as it did on the heels of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, pointing to the fact that coverage of the bombing directly replaced coverage of the scandal in US news cycles. Herbert Foerstel points out that before the bombing, rather than there being an unusually bloody conflict, the KLA was not engaged in a widespread war against Yugoslav forces and the death toll among all concerned (including ethnic Albanians) skyrocketed following NATO intervention. In a post-war report released by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the organization also noted "the pattern of the expulsions and the vast increase in lootings, killings, rape, kidnappings and pillage once the NATO air war began on March 24".


title: Kosovo War

text: US President Clinton, his administration and NATO governments were accused of inflating the number of Kosovo Albanians killed by state forces. During the NATO bombing campaign, the then Secretary of Defense, William Cohen claimed that 100,000 Kosovo Albanian men of military age were missing, possibly murdered. The conservative media watchdog group Accuracy in Media charged the alliance with distorting the situation in Kosovo and lying about the number of civilian deaths in order to justify U.S. involvement in the conflict.


title: Kosovo War

text: After the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Chinese President Jiang Zemin said that the US was using its economic and military superiority to aggressively expand its influence and interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. Chinese leaders called the NATO campaign a dangerous precedent of naked aggression, a new form of colonialism, and an aggressive war groundless in morality or law. It was seen as part of a plot by the US to destroy Yugoslavia, expand eastward and control all of Europe.


title: Kosovo War

text: 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; this legal enjoinment has proved controversial with many legal scholars who argue that though the Kosovo War was illegal, it was still legitimate. 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.


title: Kosovo War

text: The war inflicted many casualties. Already by March 1999, an estimated 1,500–2,000 civilians and combatants were dead. However, estimates showed that prior to the bombing campaign on 24 March 1999, approximately 1,800 civilians had been killed in the Kosovo war, mostly Albanians but also Serbs and that there had been no evidence of genocide or ethnic cleansing. By November 1999, 2,108 victims had been exhumed from the province with a total approaching 3,000 expected, but it was unclear how many were civilians and combatants, while the number was also far from the 10,000 minimum civilian death figure cited by Western officials. Final estimates of the casualties are still unavailable for either side.


title: Kosovo War

text: Perhaps the most controversial deliberate attack of the war was that made against the headquarters of RTS, Serbian public radio and television, on 23 April 1999, which killed at least fourteen people.


title: Kosovo War

text: Privately, NATO European members were divided about the aims and necessity of the war. Most European allies did not trust the motives of Kosovan Albanians and according to NATO General Wesley Clark, "There was a sense among some that NATO was fighting on the wrong side" in a war between Christians and Muslims.


title: Kosovo War

text: The Democratic League of Kosovo (DLK) led by Ibrahim Rugova had been the leading political entity in Kosovo since its creation in 1989. Its parallel government in exile was led by Bujar Bukoshi, and its Minister of Defence until 1998 was the former Yugoslav colonel Ahmet Krasniqi. DLK politicians opposed the armed conflict and were not ready to accept KLA as a political factor in the region and tried to persuade the population not to support it. At one point Rugova even claimed that it was set up by Serbian intelligence as an excuse to invade, or to discredit DLK itself. Nevertheless, the support for KLA even within DLK membership and specifically in the diaspora grew, together with the dissatisfaction with and antagonism toward DLK. KLA initial personnel were members or former members of the DLK. With the changes of the international stance towards KLA and its recognition as a factor in the conflict, DLK's position also shifted. The Armed Forces of the Republic of Kosovo, known as FARK, were established in order to place DLK as a military factor in addition to a political one. A parallel paramilitary structure such as FARK was not received well by the KLA.


title: Kosovo War

text: On 21 September 1998 Ahmet Krasniqi was shot in Tirana. Those responsible were not found, although several theories emerged. The Democratic Party of Albania and its leader Sali Berisha, strong supporters of DLK and FARK, accused SHIK and the Albanian government, which was supporting the KLA, as the responsible parties. FARK was never a determining factor in the war and was not involved in any battles. It did not number more than few hundred men, and it did not show any commitment to fighting the Serbs, accepting a broader autonomy as a solution rather than independence. Some of the FARK officers were incorporated later under the KLA umbrella. Besides FARK, DLK would also politically and diplomatically oppose KLA and their methods. In a meeting with US President Clinton on 29 May 1999, Rugova, accompanied by Fehmi Agani, Bukoshi, and Veton Surroi, accused KLA of being a left-wing ideology bearer, and some of its leaders as being "nostalgic to known communist figures, such as Enver Hoxha", referring to the People's Movement of Kosovo (LPK) nucleus of KLA, an old underground rival with strong left-wing orientation.


title: Kosovo War

text: Rugova was present at the negotiations held in Rambouillet and supported the Rambouillet Agreement since the first round, but without any influence. Following the ethnic cleansing of the Albanian population, there was close to a total Albanian support for the NATO campaign, including the DLK side. Surprisingly, Ibrahim Rugova showed up in Belgrade as a guest of Milosevic. At a joint TV appearance on 1 April, ending in a Rugova-Milosevic handshake, Rugova asked for a peaceful solution and the bombings to stop. In the same conference, Millosevic presented his proposal for Kosovo as part of a three-unit federal Yugoslavian state. Rugova's presence in Belgrade scattered another set of accusations from KLA and its supporters. Besides being 'passive' and 'too peaceful', Rugova and DLK were accused as 'traitors'. Following Rugova's passage to Italy on 5 May, Rugova claimed that he had been under duress and any "agreement" with Milosovic had no meaning. The general opinion expected the DLK structures and its leader to vanish from the political scene of Kosovo after the Yugoslav withdrawal. Rugova himself stayed out of Kosovo for several weeks, while the prime-minister Bukoshi and other leading membership returned. With only a fraction of Kosovo Albanians participating actively in the war, the support for DLK increased again as a way of opposing the arrogance of many KLA leaders who openly engaged in controlling the economical and political life within the vacuum created right before the deployment of UNMIK. In the October 2000 local elections, DLK was confirmed as the leading political party.


title: Kosovo War

text: The feud between KLA and DLK continued in the post-war Kosovo. Many political activists of DLK were assassinated and the perpetrators not found, including Xhemajl Mustafa, Rugova's most trusted aide.


title: Kosovo War

text: In June 2000, the Red Cross reported that 3,368 civilians (mainly Kosovar Albanians, but with several hundred Serbs, and Roma) were still missing, nearly one year after the conflict, most of whom it concluded had to be 'presumed dead'.


title: Kosovo War

text: A study by researchers from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia published in 2000 in medical journal the Lancet estimated that "12,000 deaths in the total population" could be attributed to war. This number was achieved by surveying 1,197 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. The highest mortality rates were in men between 15 and 49 (5,421 victims of war) as well as for men over 50 (5,176 victims). For persons younger than 15, the estimates were 160 victims for males and 200 for females. For women between 15 and 49 the estimate is that there were 510 victims; older than 50 years the estimate is 541 victims. The authors stated that it was not "possible to differentiate completely between civilian and military casualties".