Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Charter the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1199. This expressed 'grave concern' at r eports reaching the Secretary General that over 230,000 persons had been displac ed from their homes by 'the excessive and indiscriminate use of force by Serbian security forces and the Yugoslav Army',[105] demanding that all parties in Koso vo and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) cease hostilit ies and maintain a ceasefire. On 24 September the North Atlantic Council (NAC) o f NATO issued an "activation warning" (ACTWARN) taking NATO to an increased leve l of military preparedness for both a limited air option and a phased air campai gn in Kosovo.[106] The other major issue for those who saw no option but to resort to the use of fo rce was the estimated 250,000 displaced Albanians, 30,000 of whom were out in th e woods, without warm clothing or shelter, with winter fast approaching. Meanwhile, the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Macedonia, Christopher Hill, w as leading shuttle diplomacy between an Albanian delegation, led by Rugova, and the Yugoslav and Serbian authorities. It was these meetings which were shaping w hat was to be the peace plan to be discussed during a period of planned NATO occ upation of Kosovo. During a period of two weeks, threats intensified, culminating in NATO's Activat ion Order being given. NATO was ready to begin airstrikes, and Richard Holbrooke went to Belgrade in the hope of reaching an agreement with Milo evic. Officially, the international community demanded an end to fighting. It specific ally demanded that the Yugoslavia end its offensives against the KLA whilst atte mpting to convince the KLA to drop its bid for independence. Moreover, attempts were made to persuade Milo evic to permit NATO peacekeeping troops to enter Kosovo . This, they argued, would allow for the Christopher Hill peace process to proce ed and yield a peace agreement. On 13 October 1998, the North Atlantic Council issued issue activation orders (A CTORDs) for the execution of both limited air strikes and a phased air campaign in Yugoslavia which would begin in approximately 96 hours.[107] On 15 October th e NATO Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) Agreement for a ceasefire was signed, a nd the deadline for withdrawal was extended to 27 October.[108][109] The Serbian withdrawal commenced on or around 25 October 1998, and Operation Eagle Eye comm enced on 30 October.[108][109] The KVM was a large contingent of unarmed Organization for Security and Co-opera tion in Europe (OSCE) peace monitors (officially known as verifiers) that moved into Kosovo. Their inadequacy was evident from the start. They were nicknamed th e "clockwork oranges" in reference to their brightly coloured vehicles. Fighting resumed in December 1998 after both sides broke the ceasefire,[110] and this su rge in violence culminated in the killing of Zvonko Bojanic, the Serb mayor of t he town of Kosovo Polje. Yugoslav authorities responded by launching a crackdown against KLA militants.[111] The January to March 1999 phase of the war brought increasing insecurity in urba n areas, including bombings and murders. Such attacks took place during the Ramb ouillet talks in February and as the Kosovo Verification Agreement unraveled in March. Killings on the roads continued and increased. There were military confro ntations in, among other places, the Vucitrn area in February and the heretofore unaffected Kacanik area in early March. On 15 January 1999 the Racak massacre occurred when "45 Kosovan Albanian farmers were rounded up, led up a hill and massacred".[112] The bodies had been discove red by OSCE monitors, including Head of Mission William Walker, and foreign news correspondents.[113][114] Yugoslavia denied a massacre took place.[114] The Rac ak massacre was the culmination of the KLA attacks and Yugoslav reprisals that h ad continued throughout the winter of 1998 1999. The incident was immediately cond emned as a massacre by the Western countries and the United Nations Security Cou ncil, and later became the basis of one of the charges of war crimes leveled aga inst Milo evic and his top officials. This massacre was the turning point of the w ar. NATO decided that the conflict could only be settled by introducing a milita ry peacekeeping force under the auspices of NATO, to forcibly restrain the two s
ides. Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, had been subjected to heavy firefights and segr egation according to OSCE reports.[115] The Rambouillet Conference (January March 1999) On 30 January 1999 NATO issued a statement announcing that the North Atlantic Co uncil had agreed that "the NATO Secretary General may authorise air strikes agai nst targets on FRY territory" to "[compel] compliance with the demands of the in ternational community and [to achieve] a political settlement".[116] While this was most obviously a threat to the Milo evic 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."[citation needed] Also on 30 January 1999 the Contact Group issued a set of "non-negotiable princi ples" which made up a package known as "Status Quo Plus" effectively the restorati on of Kosovo's pre-1990 autonomy within Serbia, plus the introduction of democra cy and supervision by international organisations. It also called for a peace co nference to be held in February 1999 at the Chteau de Rambouillet, outside Paris. The Rambouillet talks began on 6 February 1999, with NATO Secretary General Javi er Solana negotiating with both sides. They were intended to conclude by 19 Febr uary. The FR Yugoslavian delegation was led by then president of Serbia Milan Mi lutinovic, while Milo evic himself remained in Belgrade. This was in contrast to t he 1995 Dayton conference that ended the war in Bosnia, where Milo evic negotiated in person. The absence of Milo evic was interpreted as a sign that the real decis ions were being made back in Belgrade, a move that aroused criticism in Yugoslav ia 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 Milo evic for war crimes was rife, so his absence may have been motivated by fear of arrest. Equipment of 72nd Special Brigade Yugoslav Army in the 1999 Kosovo War. The first phase of negotiations was successful. In particular, a statement was i ssued 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 mecha nisms 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 nati onal communities; and for the establishment of a fair judicial system". They wen t on to say that "a political framework is now in place", leaving the further wo rk of finalizing "the implementation Chapters of the Agreement, including the mo dalities of the invited international civilian and military presence in Kosovo". While the accords did not fully satisfy the Albanians, they were much too radica l for the Yugoslavs, who responded by substituting a drastically revised text th at even Russia (ally of FR Yugoslavia) found unacceptable. It sought to reopen t he painstakingly negotiated political status of Kosovo and deleted all of the pr oposed implementation measures. Among many other changes in the proposed new ver sion, it eliminated the entire chapter on humanitarian assistance and reconstruc tion, removed virtually all international oversight and dropped any mention of i nvoking "the will of the people [of Kosovo]" in determining the final status of the province. On 18 March 1999, the Albanian, American, and British delegations signed what be came 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 K osovo; an unhindered right of passage for NATO troops on Yugoslav territory, inc luding Kosovo; and immunity for NATO and its agents to Yugoslav law. They also w ould 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 pu blic security purposes (although these were expected to draw down and to be tran sformed), and 3,000 local police.[117]
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 essen tially the same as had been applied to Bosnia for the SFOR (Stabilization 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 .[118] In particular, the Serb side rejected the idea of any NATO troop presence in Kosovo to replace their security forces, preferring unarmed U.N. observers. Milo evic himself had refused to discuss the annex after informing NATO that it wa s unacceptable, even after he was asked to propose amendments to the provisions which would have made them acceptable.[119] Events proceeded rapidly after the failure at Rambouillet and the alternative Yu goslav proposal.[120] The international monitors from the OSCE withdrew on 22 Ma rch, for fear of the monitors' safety ahead of the anticipated NATO bombing camp aign.[120] On 23 March, the Serbian assembly accepted the principle of autonomy for Kosovo and non-military part of the agreement, while rejecting a NATO troop presence.[1 20][121] NATO bombing timeline Main article: 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia A Tomahawk cruise missile launches from the aft missile deck of the USS Gonzalez on March 31, 1999 A U.S. F-117 Nighthawk taxis to the runway before taking off from Aviano Air Bas e, Italy, on March 24, 1999 On 23 March 1999 at 21:30 UTC Richard Holbrooke returned to Brussels and announc ed that peace talks had failed and formally handed the matter to NATO for milita ry action.[122][123] Hours before the announcement, Yugoslavia announced on nati onal television it had declared a state of emergency citing an imminent threat o f war and began a huge mobilisation of troops and resources.[122][124]