NATO On Brink of War in Balkans Ten Years Ago
Conflict Continued in Kosovo After Clinton Ultimatum Met by Serbs
Nov 6, 2008
NATO governments led by Bill Clinton in the United States (US) and Tony Blair in the United in the autumn of 1998. These warnings were acted upon five months later, as NATO launched planes and missiles at the Serbs. There were many times when it looked like war might be avoided, but in the end diplomacy broke down, and force was used.
A History of Conflict in the Balkans During the 1990s
Although NATO's military campaign in Kosovo started in 1999, its origins can be traced back to the earlier wars in the Balkans during 1991-95.
The Serbo-Croat War (1991-2) and Bosnian War (1992-95) were initially framed in most Western countries as conflicts between equally aggrieved ethnic groups, but as the Serbs used their superior armoury to gain ascendancy, and were involved in major humanitarian abuses, such as the Srebrenica massacre, they were blamed more for the continuing violence by the Western media.
The status of Kosovo was left out of the Dayton peace deal that ended those wars, and internal unrest developed through the 1990s, after the Serbian government led by Slobodan Milosevic took autonomy away from Kosovo, whose population was predominately Muslim ethnic-Albanians.
War broke out in 1998 between the Serb forces and the ethnic-Albanians.
Key Events that Helped Bring Kosovo to War, and Nato to Kosovo
In February 1998, Robert Geldard, the US special envoy to the Balkans, praised Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic's adherence to the Dayton accords that ended the previous Balkans wars, and denounced the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) as "without any question a terrorist organisation." Within days, the Serbs attacked two suspected KLA villages, Cirez and Likosane, killing twenty-six villagers.
Two days later, Serb police killed fifty-eight ethnic-Albanian members of one family, theJasharis; some of whom were suspected of being KLA members. When the British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, visited Milosevic in an attempt to broker a cease-fire, Milosevic upset Cook by not keeping their appointment, and then denied his forces had over-reacted in response to the KLA attacks.
These events can be seen as the beginning of the cycle of violence and failed diplomacy that culminated in the start of the Nato air campaign.
The Growth of the KLA, an Escalation of the Conflict, and Diplomatic Brinkmanship
The KLA ranks grew as a result of the Serb crackdown, and this led to an escalation in the conflict, with the Serbs increasing their military activity over the summer of 1998. In September, NATO leaders threatened the Serbs with military action unless they stopped their offensive against the KLA.
Milosevic agreed to the Nato demands in October, and pulled his forces back to avert the threat of military action by NATO. This lowered interest of the conflict in the West, but the KLA used the Serb withdrawal to advance into areas it had not previously reached, and the Serbs soon returned for further confrontation.
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