Yugoslavia, 20 Years On

[Azalfia]

From March 24th to June 10th of 1999, NATO, alongside allies, began a national bombing throughout Yugoslavia. The 78 day campaign throughout the territory, lead by current president Bill Clinton, is a hot subject among those online. Without the permission of the UN, NATO began the bombing campaign, claiming it was a humanitarian intervention in the region. The UN pointed out that the UN Charter prohibits the use of force except in the case of a decision by the Security Council under Chapter VII, or self-defence against an armed attack – neither of which were present in this case. The ensuing bombing campaign killed anywhere from 1200 to 5700 civilians according to the Yugoslav Estimate.

The bombing campaign targeted hospitals, bridges, Avala Tower (a famous site in Belegrade), and schools. However; the bombing campaign is also widely regarded as one of the major reasons a peace deal was able to brokered, and how US intervention did prevent the ongoing genocide of Albanian and Bosnian Muslims throughout the region, who were being targeted. The Bosnian Genocide was the deadliest genocide in Europe since the second world war.

Now, NS. Was this campaign justified?

[Immortan Khan]

Now, NS. Was this campaign justified?

No. It was simply a war to humiliate Serbia.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Now, NS. Was this campaign justified?

No. It was simply a war to humiliate Serbia.

Serbia shouldn't have been killing random Bosnians, Croats and basically anyone else who wasn't a serb.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

All I know is that the Yugoslav war turned my uncle's neighborhood into a huge shooting range from 1991 to 2000. This is in the United States.

[Immortan Khan]

No. It was simply a war to humiliate Serbia.

Serbia shouldn't have been killing random Bosnians, Croats and basically anyone else who wasn't a serb.

Well for starters we are talking about the campaign in Kosovo. Secondly among the most grotesque things that occurs in Western portrayals of the Yugoslav Wars is the gross oversimplification of "Serbs bad" and imaging that it was only Serb forces that committed atrocities or initiated conflict, which is far, far from the truth. I mean in Kosovo it's primarily the fault of local Kosovar-Albanians and the Albanian community that led to the war and people often forget that the KLA, among its many crimes, was an ultranationalist terrorist group that wanted to ethnically cleanse not just Kosovo but southern Serbia and parts of Montenegro and Macedonia.

[Major-Tom]

I think NATO often fucks up, to the point where I'm often skeptical of NATO-led interventions. But, really, I think the consensus that this was a humanitarian crisis that warranted swift action is the correct one. The cost-benefit analysis of the intervention was probably a net positive, even if some of the ramifications of it were downright ugly.

Two, the UN Charter is violated repeatedly, and sometimes for good reason. Take another humanitarian crisis, Rwanda in the 90s. The UN's hands were tied and couldn't escalate on the ground, and the international arena didn't intervene. We know the end result. By '99, there was enough hindsight by international actors to know that if the UN wouldn't step in, they would have to potentially do so. So they did.

[Greater Cosmicium]

Now, NS. Was this campaign justified?

The reactions of the Serbian people to this criminal carpet bombing (and flagrant breaches of international law) should tell you all about how justified it was.

Also, NATO bombed the Chinese embassy, can you think of any other country that has bombed an embassy since World War II?

[Picairn]

Legally? No. The war was initiated without the consent of the UN Security Council, and the US administration completely circumvented the process of seeking the UN's approval, in violation of international law.

I. The Rambouillet Agreement

Before the bombings, NATO approached the Serbians and the Albanians from Kosovo, and presented them a peace agreement later known as the Rambouillet Agreement.¹ It was not a negotiation, it was an ultimatum and most likely an excuse for NATO intervention. The accord demanded "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."

Here's a snippet of the terms for you (KFOR - Kosovo Force, the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, spoilered for length):

Article VIII: Operations and Authority of the KFOR

1. Consistent with the general obligations of Article I, the Parties understand and agree that the KFOR will deploy and operate without hindrance and with the authority to take all necessary action to help ensure compliance with this Chapter.

[...]

5. KFOR operations shall be governed by the following provisions:

a. KFOR and its personnel shall have the legal status, rights, and obligations specified in Appendix B to this Chapter;

b. The KFOR shall have the right to use all necessary means to ensure its full ability to communicate and shall have the right to the unrestricted use of the entire electromagnetic spectrum. In implementing this right, the KFOR shall make reasonable efforts to coordinate with the appropriate authorities of the Parties;

c. The KFOR shall have the right to control and regulate surface traffic throughout Kosovo including the movement of the Forces of the Parties. All military training activities and movements in Kosovo must be authorized in advance by COMKFOR;

d. The KFOR shall have complete and unimpeded freedom of movement by ground, air, and water into and throughout Kosovo. It shall in Kosovo have the right to bivouac, maneuver, billet, and utilize any areas or facilities to carry out its responsibilities as required for its support, training, and operations, with such advance notice as may be practicable. Neither the KFOR nor any of its personnel shall be liable for any damages to public or private property that they may cause in the course of duties related to the implementation of this Chapter. Roadblocks, checkpoints, or other impediments to KFOR freedom of movement shall constitute a breach of this Chapter and the violating Party shall be subject to military action by the KFOR, including the use of necessary force to ensure compliance with this Chapter.

6. The Parties understand and agree that COMKFOR shall have the authority, without interference or permission of any Party, to do all that he judges necessary and proper, including the use of military force, to protect the KFOR and the IM, and to carry out the responsibilities listed in this Chapter. The Parties shall comply in all respects with KFOR instructions and requirements.

7. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Chapter, the Parties understand and agree that COMKFOR has the right and is authorized to compel the removal, withdrawal, or relocation of specific Forces and weapons, and to order the cessation of any activities whenever the COMKFOR determines such Forces, weapons, or activities to constitute a threat or potential threat to either the KFOR or its mission, or to another Party. Forces failing to redeploy, withdraw, relocate, or to cease threatening or potentially threatening activities following such a demand by the KFOR shall be subject to military action by the KFOR, including the use of necessary force, to ensure compliance, consistent with the terms set forth in Article I, paragraph 3.

The most outrageous part is Appendix B (spoilered for length):

3. The Parties recognize the need for expeditious departure and entry procedures for NATO personnel. Such personnel shall be exempt from passport and visa regulations and the registration requirements applicable to aliens. At all entry and exit points to/from the FRY, NATO personnel shall be permitted to enter/exit the FRY on production of a national identification (ID) card. NATO personnel shall carry identification which they may be requested to produce for the authorities in the FRY, but operations, training, and movement shall not be allowed to be impeded or delayed by such requests.

[...]

6. a. NATO shall be immune from all legal process, whether civil, administrative, or criminal.

b. NATO personnel, under all circumstances and at all times, shall be immune from the Parties' jurisdiction in respect of any civil, administrative, criminal, or disciplinary offenses which may be committed by them in the FRY. The Parties shall assist States participating in the Operation in the exercise of their jurisdiction over their own nationals.

c. Notwithstanding the above, and with the NATO Commander's express agreement in each case, the authorities in the FRY may exceptionally exercise jurisdiction in such matters, but only in respect of Contractor personnel who are not subject to the jurisdiction of their nation of citizenship.

7. NATO personnel shall be immune from any form of arrest, investigation, or detention by the authorities in the FRY. NATO personnel erroneously arrested or detained shall immediately be turned over to NATO authorities.

8. NATO personnel shall enjoy, together with their vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY including associated airspace and territorial waters. This shall include, but not be limited to, the right of bivouac, maneuver, billet, and utilization of any areas or facilities as required for support, training, and operations.

9. NATO shall be exempt from duties, taxes, and other charges and inspections and custom regulations including providing inventories or other routine customs documentation, for personnel, vehicles, vessels, aircraft, equipment, supplies, and provisions entering, exiting, or transiting the territory of the FRY in support of the Operation.

10. The authorities in the FRY shall facilitate, on a priority basis and with all appropriate means, all movement of personnel, vehicles, vessels, aircraft, equipment, or supplies, through or in the airspace, ports, airports, or roads used. No charges may be assessed against NATO for air navigation, landing, or takeoff of aircraft, whether government-owned or chartered. Similarly, no duties, dues, tolls or charges may be assessed against NATO ships, whether government-owned or chartered, for the mere entry and exit of ports. Vehicles, vessels, and aircraft used in support of the Operation shall not be subject to licensing or registration requirements, nor commercial insurance.

11. NATO is granted the use of airports, roads, rails, and ports without payment of fees, duties, dues, tolls, or charges occasioned by mere use. NATO shall not, however, claim exemption from reasonable charges for specific services requested and received, but operations/movement and access shall not be allowed to be impeded pending payment for such services.

12. NATO personnel shall be exempt from taxation by the Parties on the salaries and emoluments received from NATO and on any income received from outside the FRY.

13. NATO personnel and their tangible moveable property imported into, acquired in, or exported from the FRY shall be exempt from all duties, taxes, and other charges and inspections and custom regulations.

14. NATO shall be allowed to import and to export, free of duty, taxes and other charges, such equipment, provisions, and supplies as NATO shall require for the Operation, provided such goods are for the official use of NATO or for sale to NATO personnel. Goods sold shall be solely for the use of NATO personnel and not transferable to unauthorized persons.

15. The Parties recognize that the use of communications channels is necessary for the Operation. NATO shall be allowed to operate its own internal mail services. The Parties shall, upon simple request, grant all telecommunications services, including broadcast services, needed for the Operation, as determined by NATO. This shall include the right to utilize such means and services as required to assure full ability to communicate, and the right to use all of the electro-magnetic spectrum for this purpose, free of cost. In implementing this right, NATO shall make every reasonable effort to coordinate with and take into account the needs and requirements of appropriate authorities in the FRY.

16. The Parties shall provide, free of cost, such public facilities as NATO shall require to prepare for and execute the Operation. The Parties shall assist NATO in obtaining, at the lowest rate, the necessary utilities, such as electricity, water, gas and other resources, as NATO shall require for the Operation.

17. NATO and NATO personnel shall be immune from claims of any sort which arise out of activities in pursuance of the Operation; however, NATO will entertain claims on an ex gratia basis.

18. NATO shall be allowed to contract directly for the acquisition of goods, services, and construction from any source within and outside the FRY. Such contracts, goods, services, and construction shall not be subject to the payment of duties, taxes, or other charges. NATO may also carry out construction works with their own personnel.

19. Commercial undertakings operating in the FRY only in the service of NATO shall be exempt from local laws and regulations with respect to the terms and conditions of their employment and licensing and registration of employees, businesses, and corporations.

20. NATO may hire local personnel who on an individual basis shall remain subject to local laws and regulations with the exception of labor/employment laws. However, local personnel hired by NATO shall:

a. be immune from legal process in respect of words
spoken or written and all acts performed by them in
their official capacity;
b. be immune from national services and/or national
military service obligations;
c. be subject only to employment terms and
conditions established by NATO; and
d. be exempt from taxation on the salaries and
emoluments paid to them by NATO.
21. In carrying out its authorities under this Chapter, NATO is authorized to detain individuals and, as quickly as possible, turn them over to appropriate officials.

22. NATO may, in the conduct of the Operation, have need to make improvements or modifications to certain infrastructure in the FRY, such as roads, bridges, tunnels, buildings, and utility systems. Any such improvements or modifications of a non-temporary nature shall become part of and in the same ownership as that infrastructure. Temporary improvements or modifications may be removed at the discretion of the NATO Commander, and the infrastructure returned to as near its original condition as possible, fair wear and tear excepted.

Even Henry Kissinger decried it as a NATO provocation for war:

The Rambouillet text, which called on Serbia to admit NATO troops throughout Yugoslavia, was a provocation, an excuse to start bombing. Rambouillet is not a document that an angelic Serb could have accepted. It was a terrible diplomatic document that should never have been presented in that form.²

A senior State Department official at the time agreed with his assessment:

Could it be the same with Yugoslavia? An unimpeachable press source who regularly travels with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told this reviewer that, swearing reporters to deep-background confidentiality at the Rambouillet talks, a senior State Department official had bragged that the United States “deliberately set the bar higher than the Serbs could accept.” The Serbs needed, according to the official, a little bombing to see reason. Many critics already assumed the United States was creating a pretext for bombing–it seemed abundantly evident from the sham Rambouillet plan, which in its military appendix B demanded what would have been an unconditional surrender of Yugoslavia–but it is still astonishing to find out that a senior official would crow about a premeditated US plan to justify attack. Does the Gulf of Tonkin ring a bell?³

The historian Christopher Clark commented that the 1914 Austria-Hungary's ultimatum to Serbia was milder than the Rambouillet Agreement itself:

The Austrian note was a great deal milder, for example, than the ultimatum presented by NATO to Serbia-Yugoslavia in the form of the Rambouillet Agreement drawn up in February and March 1999 to force the Serbs into complying with NATO policy in Kosovo.⁴

The Serbian delegate obviously rejected the Agreement because of Appendix B, and later NATO would start the bombings.

II. The civilian casualties of the bombings

The Human Rights Watch in February 2000 published its report on civilian casualties caused by NATO bombing campaigns in the area. In total, they concluded there were around 500 confirmed civilian deaths, with several thousand more wounded. The use of cluster bombs in densely populated urban areas played a decisive role. NATO aircrafts also bombed civilian communication centers, heating plants, and bridges.

With respect to NATO violations of international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch was concerned about a
number of cases in which NATO forces:
< conducted air attacks using cluster bombs near populated areas;
< attacked targets of questionable military legitimacy, including Serb Radio and Television, heating plants, and
bridges;
< did not take adequate precautions in warning civilians of attacks;
< took insufficient precautions identifying the presence of civilians when attacking convoys and mobile targets; and
< caused excessive civilian casualties by not taking sufficient measures to verify that military targets did not have
concentrations of civilians (such as at Korisa).⁵

Even a hospital was bombed, according to the Washington Post:

BRUSSELS, May 20 – NATO warplanes returned to Belgrade today for the first time since the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy two weeks ago, carrying out a predawn attack that Yugoslav officials said killed four people in a hospital and damaged the residences of the Swedish, Spanish and Norwegian ambassadors and the Libyan Embassy. Another attack late tonight reportedly damaged the Swiss ambassador's home.⁶

These incidents are merely a part of the civilian casualties in Kosovo. More details can be found on Wikipedia.⁷

What's disturbing is the US and NATO's indifference to civilian casualties and resistance to document them extensively. From the same HRW report:

One disturbing aspect of the matter of civilian deaths is how starkly the number of incidents and deaths contrasts with official U.S. and Yugoslav statements. U.S. officials, including Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre, and Gen. Wesley Clark, have testified before Congress and stated publicly that there were only twenty to thirty incidents of "collateral damage" in the entire war. The number of incidents Human Rights Watch has been able to authenticate is three to four times this number. The seemingly cavalier U.S. statements regarding the civilian toll suggest a resistance to acknowledging the actual civilian effects and an indifference to evaluating their causes.

General Wesley K. Clark, the top NATO commander in the 1999 bombing, acted like this in front of his fellow NATO officers and European diplomats:

His aggressiveness bothered some people around him. "Can't you act less American?" one European diplomat demanded, believing Clark's firm, military bearing scared the Europeans.

Forceful in public, in private Clark's feelings bubbled to the surface at times when his voice would deepen and boom, and he would rise out of his seat and slap the table. "I've got to get the maximum violence out of this campaign -- now!" he said during one such conversation in late May.⁸

III. Aftermath

So what did NATO achieve in NATO? Four things: Refugee crises, rise of the KLA (a terrorist Albanian separatist militia), destruction of Serbian infrastructure, and NATO's reputation.⁹ Such was the fatal miscalculations of the US/NATO when they went to war.

References:
1. Rambouillet Agreement, March 18, 1999, US Department of State Archive, https://1997-2001.state.gov/www/regions ... _text.html

2. Bancroft, I. (2009, March 24). Serbia’s anniversary is a timely reminder. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... bia-kosovo

Henwood, D. (1999, June 28). Kissinger on humanitarian war. The Lbo-Talk Archives. http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/1999/1999-June/011789.html

3. Kenny, G. (1999, May 27). Rolling Thunder: the Rerun. The Nation. https://www.thenation.com/article/archi ... der-rerun/

4. Clark, C. (2012). The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. HarperCollins. Online archive available at https://is.cuni.cz/studium/predmety/ind ... kod=JMB030, quote at page 315.

5. Human Rights Watch. (2000, February). Civilian deaths in the NATO air campaign (Volume 12, Number 1 (D)). https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/nato/

6. Pearlstein, S. (1999, May 21). NATO Bomb Said to Hit Belgrade Hospital. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/i ... 052199.htm

7. Wikipedia contributors. ( 2021, April 8 ). Civilian casualties during Operation Allied Force. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1016755465

8. Priest, D. (1999, September 21). Tension Grew With Divide Over Strategy. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... c79266418/

9. Mccgwire, M. (2000). Why did we bomb Belgrade? International Affairs, 76(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2346.00116
Full PDF available at: https://sci-hub.do/10.2307/2626193

Further reading:
Cohn, M. (2002). NATO Bombing of Kosovo: Humanitarian Intervention or Crime against Humanity? International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 15(1), 79–106. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1015043810758
Full PDF available at: https://sci-hub.do/10.1023/A:1015043810758

Comment: I'm not certain whether the central thesis of this article (US and NATO went to war to gain access to Caspian Sea oil and maintain hegemony over Europe) is correct since I haven't researched this topic in-depth, but it provided extensive evidence of NATO atrocities in the 1999 bombing and US motives behind it, and I admit it's very compelling.

Mandelbaum, M. (1999). A Perfect Failure: NATO’s War against Yugoslavia. Foreign Affairs, 78(5), 2–8. https://doi.org/10.2307/20049444
Full PDF available at: https://sci-hub.do/10.2307/20049444

Comment: This article is a nice summary of the effects the 1999 intervention had on US/NATO prestige worldwide.

Edit: I did some deeper digging and found a forum archive of the original Telegraph interview of Kissinger on June 28, 1999, which the Guardian's article cited his quote from. Added to the list.

[Risottia]

US intervention did prevent the ongoing genocide of Albanian and Bosnian Muslims throughout the region

Exactly what has the war against Yugoslavia got to do with Bosnia?

Ffs.

[Risottia]

No. It was simply a war to humiliate Serbia.

Serbia shouldn't have been killing random Bosnians, Croats and basically anyone else who wasn't a Serb.

I don't recall Croatia being bombed for killing random Bosnians, Serbs and basically anyone who wasn't a Croat.
So, the ethnical cleansing of Krajna was a-ok because "Serbs bad" I guess?

[Samudera Darussalam]

US intervention did prevent the ongoing genocide of Albanian and Bosnian Muslims throughout the region

Exactly what has the war against Yugoslavia got to do with Bosnia?

Ffs.

I suppose when the terms "war" and "Yugoslavia" being mentioned in one sentence, people seem to be more likely to think about the Bosnian war. The whole Yugoslav Wars thing is a mess.

And to the OP, no. Like what others have mentioned, it goes against the UN Security Council and I would like to not justify bombings on population centres.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Serbia shouldn't have been killing random Bosnians, Croats and basically anyone else who wasn't a Serb.

I don't recall Croatia being bombed for killing random Bosnians, Serbs and basically anyone who wasn't a Croat.
So, the ethnical cleansing of Krajna was a-ok because "Serbs bad" I guess?

I'm not saying the US was a force for liberty and justice because as a person who lives here, I have to see it up close. But the Serbian army weren't exactly "victims." I do feel bad for the civilians killed on all sides though. Obviously even the Serbian civilians had a right to live, which NATO didn't seem to acknowledge.

[Salus Maior]

Legally? No. The war was initiated without the consent of the UN Security Council, and the US administration completely circumvented the process of seeking the UN's approval, in violation of international law.

Yeah, the U.S has a habit of doing that.

[Immortan Khan]

I don't recall Croatia being bombed for killing random Bosnians, Serbs and basically anyone who wasn't a Croat.
So, the ethnical cleansing of Krajna was a-ok because "Serbs bad" I guess?

I'm not saying the US was a force for liberty and justice because as a person who lives here, I have to see it up close. But the Serbian army weren't exactly "victims." I do feel bad for the civilians killed on all sides though. Obviously even the Serbian civilians had a right to live, which NATO didn't seem to acknowledge.

No one is saying that the Serb forces are victims, it's this painting that they were the only ones to commit crimes that is the issue or that they were the only rabid nationalists. Croat, Bosniak, and Albanian forces are also guilty of the same crimes that Serb forces are guilty of and often have gotten away with it far more than the Serbs have. Hell, the rise of Serbian nationalism is often painted as this isolated event that solely caused the dissolution of Yugoslavia when the rise of Serbian nationalism was in many ways a response to the rise in Croatian nationalism beginning in the early 70's and Kosovar Albanian nationalism in the early 80's, the latter of which sparked ethnic riots where Serbs were the victims.