Chapter 3: The Period of the Conflict

3.1. As NATO air strikes began, many in the international community hoped that, as in the past, Milosevic would give way once he had been shown that the international community was serious, and determined to achieve its objectives. But we were prepared both politically and militarily in case he did not.

3.2. The UK was clear that the military action taken was justified in international law as an exceptional measure and was the minimum necessary to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. All NATO Allies agreed that there was a legal base for action.

3.3. NATO acted in support of the demands made repeatedly by the international community to Milosevic, the most important of which was the need to bring an end to the repression in Kosovo. As the situation in Kosovo rapidly deteriorated as Milosevic’s forces wreaked havoc, these objectives evolved, including a requirement that the refugees ethnically cleansed from the province should have a right to return. But the essential goals of the Alliance’s campaign did not change. NATO’s action had limited military objectives: to disrupt the violent attacks of Milosevic’s forces and to weaken their ability to continue these activities.

3.4. In late March, when Milosevic showed no sign of responding to NATO’s air operations, the range of attacks was widened to cover carefully selected targets of high military value across Yugoslavia. It appeared that Milosevic had decided to ride out the storm in the hope that the unity of the Alliance would crumble. This turned out to be another fundamental error of judgement on the part of the Belgrade regime. As the campaign continued, so Allied determination to succeed strengthened.

3.5. Attacks on mobile targets in Kosovo had always been part of the military planning, but as the horrific campaign of ethnic cleansing unfolded in Kosovo (by the end of the conflict, well over a million civilians had been forced out of Kosovo or were displaced within the province), this aspect of the operation took on additional importance. Attacks against dispersed and concealed targets are always difficult, and so it proved in this operation. Further details on the conduct of military operations during the conflict are addressed in chapters 7 to 9.

3.6. There was widespread support throughout the international community for the action taken by NATO. A draft Security Council resolution condemning NATO’s action and calling for it to be halted was defeated on 26 March.

3.7. The solidarity of the Alliance was reinforced when Alliance Foreign Ministers met in Brussels on 12 April. At this meeting, NATO’s political objectives were confirmed, demanding that Milosevic:

* ensure a verifiable stop to all military action and the immediate ending of violence and repression;
* ensure the withdrawal from Kosovo of the military, police and paramilitary forces;
* agree to the stationing in Kosovo of an international military presence;
* agree to the unconditional and safe return of all refugees and displaced persons and unhindered access to them by humanitarian aid organisations;
* provide credible assurance of his willingness to work on the basis of the Rambouillet Accords in the establishment of a political framework agreement for Kosovo in conformity with international law and the Charter of the United Nations.

3.8. These objectives were reiterated by Alliance leaders at the NATO Summit on 23/24 April in Washington. The breadth of the political and practical support from the countries of the region was perhaps best seen at this Summit where there was wholehearted support from NATO’s Partnership for Peace partners for NATO’s actions (Russia and Belarus had stayed away). NATO came through the Summit strengthened and was determined to continue the air campaign for as long as it took to achieve its objectives – this determination was shown by the agreement at the Summit that the air campaign should be further intensified.

3.9. NATO’s demands mirrored very closely those made by the UN Secretary General on 9 April. They were also the basis for the principles later adopted by the Foreign Ministers of the Group of Eight (G8) countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US) on 6 May 1999, which called for:

* an immediate and verifiable end of violence and repression in Kosovo;
* withdrawal from Kosovo of military, police and paramilitary forces;
* deployment in Kosovo of effective international civil and security presences, endorsed and adopted by the United Nations, capable of guaranteeing the achievement of the common objectives;
* establishment of an interim administration for Kosovo to be decided by the Security Council of the United Nations to ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants in Kosovo;
* the safe and free return of all refugees and displaced persons and unimpeded access to Kosovo by humanitarian aid organisations;
* a political process towards the establishment of an interim political framework agreement providing for a substantial self-government for Kosovo, taking full account of the Rambouillet accords and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the other countries of the region, and the demilitarisation of the KLA;
* a comprehensive approach to the economic development and stabilisation of the crisis region.

3.10. The principles agreed by G8 Ministers set the framework for the proposals for an end to the conflict presented to Milosevic by the EU and Russian envoys, Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari and former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, in early June.

3.11. In agreeing to the G8 principles, Milosevic accepted a settlement whose provisions were significantly more stringent than those which had been on offer at Rambouillet. Unlike the outcome provided for under the Rambouillet Accords, the Yugoslav and Serbian authorities no longer had any say in the running of the province. While the demilitarisation of the KLA was still a condition of the settlement, a full withdrawal of Yugoslav/Serbian forces from Kosovo was also required. Under the provisions of the Rambouillet texts, some of these forces could have remained.

3.12. Converting Milosevic’s acceptance of the G8’s demands into reality on the ground fell to the KFOR commander, Lieutenant General Sir Mike Jackson. On 9 June, after four days of tough negotiations, he and representatives of the Yugoslav Army and the Serbian Interior Ministry Police signed a Military Technical Agreement. On 10 June, Yugoslav/Serbian forces began to withdraw from Kosovo. Their replacement by KFOR was carefully co-ordinated to avoid misunderstandings and the risk of clashes. As soon as Yugoslav/Serbian forces started to withdraw, the NATO Secretary General announced that NATO air strikes had been suspended. The UN Security Council then adopted Resolution 1244 which endorsed the agreements, provided a mandate for KFOR and established the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). NATO forces entered Kosovo on 12 June. There were no clashes with Yugoslav/Serbian forces. This well organised and executed withdrawal suggested strongly that these were disciplined troops acting on orders from above, and that Milosevic could have halted the appalling violence any time he had chosen.

3.13. On 11 June, a number of Russian troops left their SFOR duties in Bosnia and drove through Serbia to Pristina airport. After consultation, the NATO commanders agreed that no action need be taken. While the Russians had acted without prior consultation with either NATO or KFOR, the deployment of this contingent did not create any practical impediment to KFOR’s work. Effective working relations were quickly established with the Russian forces, which were integrated into KFOR a week later, and which continue to play an important role in the force.

3.14. The air campaign was formally terminated by the NATO Secretary General on 20 June, following the completion, on time, of the Serb withdrawal from Kosovo. The following day, Lieutenant General Sir Mike Jackson accepted on behalf of NATO the undertaking by the KLA to demilitarise within 90 days, an undertaking met on 21 September.

The Humanitarian Crisis

3.15. The barbarity of the campaign of ethnic cleansing by Milosevic’s forces hardened the determination of the international community that he should not succeed in this aim. But it also confronted the international community with an immediate and substantial challenge – the need to care for the mass of refugees forced out of the province.

3.16. In a huge international effort, the various aid agencies and humanitarian organisations in the region responded quickly to the massive flows of refugees. These refugees joined many others who had left in the months before the most recent intensification of Yugoslav/Serbian security force operations, and before the NATO campaign which had responded to it. NATO forces pre-positioned in the region in readiness for the planned peace implementation mission inside Kosovo helped the Macedonian authorities, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and others to cope with the crisis.

3.17. In close co-operation with the Department for International Development, UK military personnel erected 2,660 tents, distributed 129,000 meals, moved 120,000 pallets of aid, and provided medical treatment to 7,000 individuals. The situation was serious in Macedonia, where the majority of NATO forces were based, but even greater numbers of refugees were arriving in Albania. NATO responded by establishing a force in Albania (the Albania Force or AFOR), under the command of a British General, Lieutenant General John Reith, to help cope with the influx of refugees.

Crimes against Humanity

3.18. The UK, with our international partners in NATO and the Contact Group, as well as in the UN Security Council, consistently condemned the callous and brutal actions of the Yugoslav/Serbian security forces in the period leading up to and including the crisis, which later became all-out ethnic cleansing. The UK Government was always even-handed, and violence perpetrated by both sides (including by the KLA) was condemned. But the scale and scope of the actions by Yugoslav/Serbian security forces against Kosovo Albanian civilians during the conflict was in an entirely different league.

3.19. The atrocities committed by Yugoslav/Serbian forces have also been documented by independent observers, notably the OSCE and Human Rights Watch, whose reports (published in December 1999 and February 2000 respectively) can be found on the internet at the addresses listed in Annex E. These reports contain descriptions of appalling acts of violence and repression:

* "Arbitrary killing of civilians was both a tactic in the campaign to expel Kosovo Albanians, and a tactic in itself."
* "Albanian civilians experienced an onslaught over many days or weeks combining arbitrary violence and abuse with an overall approach that appeared highly organised and systematic. Everywhere, the attacks on communities appeared to have been dictated by strategy, not by breakdown in command and control."
* "Rape and other forms of sexual violence were applied sometimes as a weapon of war"
* "There is chilling evidence of the murderous targeting of children with the aim of punishing adults and terrorising communities."
* "The violence meted out to people, as recounted vividly, particularly in the statements of refugees, was extreme and appalling. The accounts of refugees also give compelling examples of the organised and systematic nature of what was being perpetrated by Yugoslav and Serbian forces, and their tolerance for and collusion in acts of extreme lawlessness by paramilitaries and armed civilians."

(All quotes above from "Kosovo/Kosova As Seen, As Told", Part I, Executive Summary)

* "Another factor in assessing the higher level of civilian deaths in Kosovo is the possible Yugoslav use of civilians for "human shields". There is some evidence that Yugoslav forces used internally displaced civilians as human shields in the village of Korisa on May 13, and may thus share the blame for the eighty-seven deaths there."

(Human Rights Watch: Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign – Summary Section, Principal Findings, paragraph 7)

* "In one major incident – Dubrava prison in Kosovo – the Yugoslav government attributed ninety-five civilian deaths to NATO bombing. Human Rights Watch research in Kosovo determined that an estimated nineteen prisoners were killed by NATO bombs on May 21 (three prisoners and a guard were killed in an earlier attack on May 19), but at least seventy-six prisoners were summarily executed by prison guards and security forces subsequent to the NATO attack."

(Human Rights Watch: Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign – Summary Section, International Humanitarian Law and Accountability, paragraph 4)

(Human Rights Watch estimates of numbers of Yugoslav civilians killed are included in chapter 7.)

3.20. The UK estimates that at least 10,000 Kosovo Albanian civilians were killed in Kosovo between June 1998 and June 1999. This figure is based on a variety of sources including debriefing of refugees, eye witness accounts, reports from Non-Governmental Organisations and media reporting. International Organisations such as the UN High Commission for Human Rights have used the same figure in their reports on the atrocities.

3.21. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which is an independent tribunal, is responsible for investigating alleged crimes against humanity in Kosovo. The ICTY Prosecutor, announcing preliminary figures on 10 November 1999, said that work was complete on 195 of 529 known grave sites and, of the 4,256 bodies reported buried at those sites, 2,108 had been exhumed.

3.22. This does not, of course, represent the complete picture. Cold weather conditions caused the ground to freeze in the winter, and further examinations were therefore postponed until after the winter, with exhumations resuming with the Spring thaw. Forensic work will continue throughout this year.

3.23. Besides known grave sites, we expect other sites to come to light as work progresses. A high proportion of bodies may never be recovered given the degree to which Yugoslav/Serbian forces, fearing criminal charges, attempted to destroy them by dumping them in rivers or by burning them. Many victims were left where they fell, to be buried in individual graves by their families. A large proportion of victims were not buried in mass graves so it would be a mistake to equate the number of bodies in mass graves to the total number of dead.

3.24. On 27 May 1999, ICTY announced the indictment of Milosevic and four other senior Yugoslav/Serbian figures (Milutinovic (President of Serbia), Sainovic (Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister), Ojdanic (Chief of the Yugoslav General Staff) and Stojiljkovic (Serbian Minister of Internal Affairs)) for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war in Kosovo.

Why did Milosevic concede?

3.25. What forced Milosevic to concede? We will probably never know exactly, but it is clear that the effective application of military pressure was fundamental to the achievement of our objectives. The following factors are likely to have been those most influential:

* the continuing solidarity of the Alliance, and Milosevic’s inability to divide the Allies, despite repeated attempts;
* the determination of the international community, including the states of the region and, crucially, Russia, to force him to accept a negotiated solution;
* the continued increase in tempo of the air operations, and the damage and disruption they had caused, and were likely to continue to cause if operations continued, to the command and control and operations of his security forces;
* his indictment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the indictment of four other key members of his regime, which would have added to the pressure on him and those around him;
* and the build-up of ground forces in the region, the confirmation at the NATO Summit that all options remained under review, and the suggestions from the UK and other Allies that an opposed ground entry operation could not be ruled out.