Cooperative Analysis of Aspects of the Kosova/Kosovo Conflict
Political and Historical Context
With the death in 1980 of longtime Yugoslav leader Josep Broz Tito, the relationship between Kosovar Albanians and the Yugoslav government began to deteriorate noticeably. Throughout the 1980s, tensions between ethnic Kosovar Albanians and the Yugoslav government rose. These tensions peaked in 1989 when Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic officially revoked Kosova/Kosovo’s autonomous status within the Republic of Serbia. This action exacerbated the already volatile situation, further setting Serbia and Kosova/Kosovo on a course toward conflict.
Reacting to their increasing political marginalization by the Yugoslav government, Kosovar Albanians declared Kosova/Kosovo an independent republic within the Yugoslav state in 1990. Two years later, the self-declared republic elected its own parliament and named Ibrahim Rugova as president. Until the mid-1990s, the Kosovar Albanians adhered to a policy of peaceful resistance embraced by Rugova. However, by 1996, Rugova and his policy of non-violent opposition were increasingly discredited due to their inability to raise international support for the Kosovar Albanians’ cause. Internal opposition forces began to take a more assertive approach and support for civil disobedience grew. It was at this time that the Kosova/Kosovo Liberation Army (UÇK in its Albanian acronym) emerged as an armed opposition force.
With the rise of the UÇK, incidents of human rights abuses against Albanians increased, including arbitrary arrest and extrajudicial killing. Serbian police behavior was directed at members of the UÇK and at Kosovar Albanian politicians, activists, and other civilians. In February 1998, the international “Contact Group” on Kosova/Kosovo3 reacted to this situation, declaring “their view that the FRY needs to address this question urgently, and that making progress to resolve the serious political and human rights issues in Kosovo is critical for Belgrade to improve its international position and relations with the international community. The Contact Group expressed its readiness to facilitate the dialogue.”4 However, these calls for restraint and dialogue went unheeded by the Yugoslav government.
On February 27, 1998, Serbian forces,5 including armored units and helicopter gunships, attacked several villages in the Drenica/Drenica region, a known base of UÇK activity. A Human Rights Watch report concluded that a wide array of civilians, including dozens of women and children, died in the attack.6 In the face of the international community’s condemnation of the attack, the Yugoslav government characterized the situation as an internal matter that was under control.7
In the aftermath of the events in Drenica/Drenica, both the UÇK and Serbian forces increased the depth and scope of their activities. Serbian forces continued to commit abuses against civilians in their attempt to crush the Albanian insurgency. Similarly the UÇK were reported to have kidnapped and executed a number of Serbian civilians.8 The frequency and extent of the use of violence by both sides elevated the situation to an internal armed conflict. In light of the growing violence in the region, representatives of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Alliance began to openly discuss NATO military intervention.9
Under the threat of NATO action, Milosevic ordered a “military stand-down” at the beginning of October 1998. After a period of intense negotiations, Milosevic and U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke (representing the Contact Group) reached an agreement. While the agreement was never published, its major points addressed the reduction in forces and deployment of human rights monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).10 Despite this initial progress, the situation deteriorated again in December. According to OSCE analysis, several things became clear: 1) The October-November reduction in fighting had been a lull, not a trend; 2) OSCE monitors were not in a position to address needed peacekeeping issues; and 3) violence targeting civilians continued.11
The turning point in international reactions to the conflict came in the middle of January 1999 when Serbian forces committed violations of international humanitarian law, which were documented almost immediately by a team of OSCE observers. From January 12-15, 1999, Serbian forces brought heavy military equipment into the municipality of Shtime/Stimlje, establishing permanent positions.12 On January 15, 1999, Serbian forces assaulted the village of Recak/Racak within the municipality. In the process, Serbian forces executed forty-five ethnic Albanians. On January 16, 1999, OSCE monitors investigated the site of the massacre. The team found “evidence of arbitrary detentions, extra-judicial killings, and mutilation of unarmed civilians.”13 Despite the international documentation of these events, Yugoslav authorities denied that any civilians had been killed, stating that it was simply an action against the UÇK.14
In February 1999, the Contact Group called peace talks in Rambouillet, France, but this effort quickly dissolved, marking the start of a new offensive by Serbian forces. The renewed violence resulted in the withdrawal of the OSCE monitors on March 20. As stated by OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Knut Vollebaek, “[ ] I have no choice in the present situation than to withdraw the OSCE personnel.”15 The departure of the OSCE monitors led to a surge in violence against the Kosovar Albanians.16 On March 23, 1999, the NATO Secretary-General, in a letter to the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, outlined the rapid deterioration of the situation in Kosova/Kosovo. According to the NATO Secretary-General, Serbian forces were “using excessive and wholly disproportionate force, thereby creating a humanitarian catastrophe.”17 With this determination, it was clear that NATO had arrived at the point of armed intervention.
The beginning of the NATO-led air campaign against Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999, brought with it a significant increase in the scope and pace of human rights violations in Kosova/Kosovo. Summary and arbitrary killings became widespread during this period. While there are limited reports of Serbs having been summarily executed by the UÇK during this time,18 the overwhelming number of killings were reported to have been carried out by Serbian forces against Kosovar Albanians.
During the 79-day period of the air strikes, virtually all on-ground monitoring of human rights violations in Kosova/Kosovo by international governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) ceased. As a result, most of the information gleaned about human rights violations during the NATO campaign was acquired through interviews with refugees conducted outside of Kosova/Kosovo at the time, or with returnees after the conclusion of the bombing on June 10, 1999.19
Due to these data collection challenges, it has been difficult to make a precise estimate of the number of ethnic Albanians killed during the internal and international armed conflict in Kosova/Kosovo. Carla Del Ponte, Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) reported to the UN Security Council that the ICTY had received reports of 11,000 people killed, with exhumations of 2,108 bodies as of November 1999.20 The U.S. Department of State has estimated that 6,000 people were killed and buried in mass graves, and it puts the total number killed at approximately 10,000.21 The main international organizations in-country, the OSCE and UN, have declined to estimate a figure altogether.
Given the international community’s inability to reach consensus as to an accurate estimate and in light of contradictory information emanating from the Yugoslav government, it was imperative that a study such as this be undertaken. In contrast to many modern conflicts, the conflict in Kosova/Kosovo received substantial and sustained international attention, and human rights organizations arrived in force and began collecting valuable information from thousands of refugees. This report is based upon these individual accounts from those who survived the tragic episode. Thus, while this report may present a general picture of the conflict without personal narratives, it should always be read with an understanding of the personal tragedies upon which it is based.
3 The Contact Group, formed in 1994 in response to the conflict in Bosnia, currently consists of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, Germany, and Italy.
4 Contact Group Statement on Kosovo, Moscow, February 25, 1998, http://www.ohr.int/docu/d980225a.htm.
6 Human Rights Watch, Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo 1-74 (1998).
7 AP Wire, Donji Prekaz, Serbs Declare Kosovo Crackdown Over; Ethnic Albanians Allege that the Lull in Fighting is Designed to Deceive the West, Only Timed to Coincide with a Meeting of World Powers in London on Peace in the Balkans, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Mar. 9, 1998, at 4A.
8 See, Humanitarian Law Center, Spotlight Report No. 27, Kosovo—Disappearances in Times of Armed Conflict (1998).
9 Elizabeth Neuffer, NATO Weighs Raids to Slow Serbs in Kosovo; Aides Gather in Brussels Today to Consider Options, The Boston Globe, June 11, 1998 at A2.
10 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Kosovo/Kosova As Seen As Told: An Analysis of the Human Rights Findings of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission October 1998 to June 1999 6 (1999).
15 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Press Release No. 24/99.
17 Letter Dated 25 March 1999 From the Secretary-General Addressed to the President of the Security Council, U.N. Doc. S/1999/338 (1999).
18 See US Department of State, Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting 15 (1999).
19 These interviews were conducted by a wide range of organizations, including the Kosovo Verification Mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE-KVM), the War Crimes Documentation Project of the American Bar Association Central and East European Law Initiative, Physicians for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Médecins sans Frontières, and The Center for Peace Through Justice, a coalition of Albanian NGOs.
20 ICTY Prosecutor Report to the Security Council, November 10, 1999. See also US Department of State, Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting (1999).
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