178-816: [REDACTED] Kosovo Liberation Army [REDACTED] 15,000–20,000 insurgents [REDACTED] 8,676 to 9,269 Kosovar Albanian civilians killed or missing [REDACTED] 90% of Kosovar Albanians displaced during the war (848,000–863,000 expelled from Kosovo [REDACTED] 590,000 Kosovar Albanians displaced within Kosovo) [REDACTED] 1,641 non-Albanian civilians killed or missing, including 1,196 ethnic Serbs, and 445 Romani and others [REDACTED] / [REDACTED] Civilian deaths caused by NATO bombing: 489–528 (per Human Rights Watch ) or 454 (per HLC), also includes [REDACTED] 3 Chinese journalists killed Wartime events Aftermath Aspects The Kosovo War ( Albanian : Lufta e Kosovës ; Serbian : Косовски рат , Kosovski rat )
356-577: A Greater Albania , a state stretching into surrounding Macedonia , Montenegro and southern Serbia . In July 1998, in an interview for Der Spiegel , KLA spokesman Jakup Krasniqi publicly announced that the KLA's goal was the unification of all Albanian-inhabited lands. Sulejman Selimi , a General Commander of KLA in 1998–1999, said: There is de facto Albanian nation. The tragedy is that European powers after World War I decided to divide that nation between several Balkan states. We are now fighting to unify
534-678: A mass shooting in JNA barracks, with only one of them being an ethnic Serb. Serbian media blamed Albanian nationalism for the event and in response, Yugoslavia sent 400 federal police officers to Kosovo. It was against this tense background that the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) conducted a survey of Serbs who had left Kosovo in 1985 and 1986, which concluded that a considerable number had left under pressure from Albanians. The so-called SANU Memorandum , leaked in September 1986,
712-457: A 2001 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW): The KLA was responsible for serious abuses... including abductions and murders of Serbs and ethnic Albanians considered collaborators with the state. Elements of the KLA are also responsible for post-conflict attacks on Serbs, Roma, and other non-Albanians, as well as ethnic Albanian political rivals... widespread and systematic burning and looting of homes belonging to Serbs, Roma, and other minorities and
890-655: A 5-kilometre-wide Ground Safety Zone (GSZ) was created. It served as a buffer zone between the Yugoslav Army and the Kosovo Force (KFOR). In June 1999, a new Albanian militant insurgent group was formed under the Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac (UÇPMB), which started training in the GSZ. The group began attacking Serbian civilians and police, which escalated into an insurgency . With
1068-649: A call for Serbian supremacy at the local level, claiming the Serb emigrants had left Kosovo for economic reasons, while the Slovenes and Croats saw a threat in the call for a more assertive Serbia. Serbs were divided: many welcomed it, while the Communist old guard strongly attacked its message. One of those who denounced it was Serbian Communist Party official Slobodan Milošević . In April 1987, Serbian President Ivan Stambolić and Slobodan Milošević visited Kosovo with
1246-494: A campaign of retribution targeting KLA sympathisers and political opponents; this campaign killed 1,500 to 2,000 civilians and KLA combatants, and had displaced 370,000 Kosovar Albanians by March 1999. On 20 March 1999, Yugoslav forces began a massive campaign of repression and expulsions of Kosovar Albanians following the withdrawal of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) and the failure of
1424-509: A crackdown in the region which resulted in population displacements. The bloodshed, ethnic cleansing of thousands of Albanians driving them into neighbouring countries and the potential of it to destabilize the region provoked intervention by international organizations, such as the United Nations , NATO and INGOs . NATO conducted a bombing campaign against Yugoslav forces and provided air support to KLA. In September 1999, with
1602-613: A curfew and a state of emergency in Kosovo due to violent demonstrations, resulting in 24 deaths (including two policemen). Milošević and his government claimed that the constitutional changes were necessary to protect Kosovo's remaining Serbs against harassment from the Albanian majority. On 17 November 1988 Kaqusha Jashari and Azem Vllasi were forced to resign from the leadership of the League of Communists of Kosovo (LCK). In early 1989
1780-460: A form of genocide. Pioneers of research into settler colonialism such as Patrick Wolfe spelled out the genocidal logic of settler projects, prompting a rethinking of colonialism. Many genocide scholars are concerned both with objective study of the topic, and obtaining insights that will help prevent future genocides. The definition of genocide generates controversy whenever a new case arises and debate erupts as to whether or not it qualifies as
1958-537: A genocide. Sociologist Martin Shaw writes, “Few ideas are as important in public debate, but in few cases are the meaning and scope of a key idea less clearly agreed.” Some scholars and activists use the Genocide Convention definition. Others prefer narrower definitions that indicate genocide is rare in human history, reducing genocide to mass killing or distinguishing it from other types of violence by
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#17327661086602136-449: A group can be targeted before triggering the Genocide Convention. The two main approaches to intent are the purposive approach, where the perpetrator expressly wants to destroy the group, and the knowledge-based approach, where the perpetrator understands that destruction of the protected group will result from his actions. Intent is the most difficult aspect for prosecutors to prove; the perpetrators often claim that they merely sought
2314-409: A group's language, culture, or way of life —was part of Raphael Lemkin 's original concept, and its proponents in the 1940s argued that it, along with physical genocide, were two mechanisms aiming at the same goal: destruction of the targeted group. Because cultural genocide clearly applied to some colonial and assimilationist policies, several states with overseas colonies threatened to refuse to ratify
2492-607: A lesser or greater extent from the convention. The convention's definition of genocide was adopted verbatim by the ad hoc international criminal tribunals and by the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). The crime of genocide also exists in customary international law and is therefore prohibited for non-signatories. During the Cold War , genocide remained at
2670-553: A mission in Kosovo to monitor the situation there. The Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission (KDOM) began operations in early July 1998. The US government welcomed this part of the agreement, but denounced the initiative's call for a mutual cease fire. Rather, the US demanded that the Serbian-Yugoslavian side should cease fire "without linkage ... to a cessation in terrorist activities". All through June and into mid-July,
2848-605: A number of former KLA members, including the former president of Kosovo Hashim Thaçi . A key precursor to the Kosovo Liberation Army was the People's Movement of Kosovo (LPK). This group, who argued Kosovo's freedom could be won only through armed struggle, traces back to 1982, and played a crucial role in the creation of the KLA in 1993. Fund-raising began in the 1980s in Switzerland by Albanian exiles of
3026-623: A policy of passive resistance which succeeded in maintaining peace in Kosovo during the earlier wars in Slovenia , Croatia and Bosnia during the early 1990s. As evidenced by the emergence of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), this came at the cost of increasing frustration among Kosovo's Albanian population. In the mid-1990s, Rugova pleaded for a United Nations peacekeeping force for Kosovo. Continuing repression convinced many Albanians that only armed resistance would change
3204-507: A political or military enemy, thus excluding them from consideration. Most civilian killings in the twentieth century were not from genocide, which only applies to select cases. Alternative terms have been coined to describe processes left outside narrower definitions of genocide. Ethnic cleansing —the forced expulsion of a population from a given territory—has achieved widespread currency, although many scholars recognize that it frequently overlaps with genocide, even where Lemkin's definition
3382-496: A protest of University of Pristina students over long queues in their university canteen rapidly escalated and in late March and early April 1981 spread throughout Kosovo, causing mass demonstrations in several towns, the 1981 protests in Kosovo . The disturbances were quelled by the Presidency of Yugoslavia proclaiming a state of emergency , sending in riot police and the army, which resulted in numerous casualties. In 1981 it
3560-476: A similar fate as they inflict on their victims. Despite perpetrators' utilitarian goals, ideological factors are necessary to explain why genocide seems to be a desirable solution to the identified security problem. Noncombatants are harmed because of the collective guilt ascribed to an entire people—defined according to race but targeted because of its supposed security threat. Other motives for genocide have included theft, land grabbing , and revenge. War
3738-521: A single person being killed. Forced displacement is a common feature of many genocides, with the victims often transported to another location where their destruction is easier for the perpetrators. In some cases, victims are transported to sites where they are killed or deprived of the necessities of life. People are often killed by the displacement itself, as was the case for many Armenian genocide victims. Cultural destruction, such as that practised at Canadian boarding schools for indigenous children ,
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#17327661086603916-529: A speech in support of American equipping the KLA with weaponry, comparing it to French support of America in the Revolutionary War . There have been reports of war crimes committed by the KLA both during and after the conflict. These have been directed against Serbs, other ethnic minorities (primarily the Roma ) and against ethnic Albanians accused of collaborating with Serb authorities. According to
4094-508: A trivial characteristic. He saw genocide as an inherently colonial process, and in his later writings analyzed what he described as the colonial genocides occurring within European overseas territories as well as the Soviet and Nazi empires. Furthermore, his definition of genocidal acts, which was to replace the national pattern of the victim with that of the perpetrator, was much broader than
4272-413: A value judgement as it is widely considered to be the epitome of human evil . In the past, violence that could be labeled genocide was sometimes celebrated —although it always had its critics. The idea that genocide sits on top of a hierarchy of atrocity crimes —that it is worse than crimes against humanity or war crimes —is controversial among scholars and it suggests that the protection of groups
4450-574: Is a doctrine that emerged around 2000, in the aftermath of several genocides around the world, that seeks to balance state sovereignty with the need for international intervention to prevent genocide. However, disagreements in the United Nations Security Council and lack of political will have hampered the implementation of this doctrine. Although military intervention to halt genocide has been credited with reducing violence in some cases, it remains deeply controversial and
4628-471: Is considered likely to occur, the accuracy of these predictions are not known and there is no scholarly consensus over evidence-based genocide prevention strategies. Intervention to prevent genocide has often been considered a failure because most countries prioritize business, trade, and diplomatic relationships: as a consequence, "the usual powerful actors continue to use violence against vulnerable populations with impunity". Responsibility to protect
4806-401: Is dependent on their position early in the demographic transition . Because genocide is often perceived as the "crime of crimes", it grabs attention more effectively than other violations of international law. Consequently, victims of atrocities often label their suffering genocide as an attempt to gain attention to their plight and attract foreign intervention. Although remembering genocide
4984-477: Is estimated that those funds amounted from $ 75 million to $ 100 million and mainly came from the Albanian diaspora in Switzerland, United States and Germany. The KLA received the majority of its funds through the Homeland Calls Fund, but significant funds were also transferred directly to the war zones. Apart from the financial contributions, the KLA also received contributions in kind, especially from
5162-463: Is heavily influenced by the Holocaust as its archetype and is conceived as innocent victims targeted because of racism rather than for any political reason. Genocide is not an end of itself, but a means to another end—often chosen by perpetrators after other options failed. Most are ultimately caused by its perpetrators perceiving an existential threat to their own existence, although this belief
5340-460: Is inherently connected to the modern state—thus to the rise of the West in the early modern era and its expansion outside Europe—and earlier conflicts cannot be described as genocide. Although all empires rely on violence, often extreme violence, to perpetuate their own existence, they also seek to preserve and rule the conquered rather than eradicate them. Although the desire to exploit populations
5518-505: Is more important than of individuals. We have been reproached for making no distinction between the innocent Armenians and the guilty : but that was utterly impossible in view of the fact that those who are innocent today might be guilty tomorrow. The concern for the safety of Turkey simply had to silence all other concerns. — Talaat Pasha in Berliner Tageblatt , 4 May 1916 The colloquial understanding of genocide
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5696-504: Is not effective in inducing people to commit genocide and that for some perpetrators, the dehumanization of victims, and adoption of nationalist or other ideologies that justify the violence occurs after they begin to perpetrate atrocities often coinciding with escalation. Although genocide perpetrators have often been assumed to be male, the role of women in perpetrating genocide—although they were historically excluded from leadership—has also been explored. People's behavior changes under
5874-424: Is not used. Other terms ending in -cide have proliferated for the destruction of particular types of groupings: democide (people by a government), eliticide (the elite of a targeted group), ethnocide (ethnic groups), gendercide (gendered groupings), politicide (political groups), classicide (social classes), and urbicide (the destruction of a particular locality). The word genocide inherently carries
6052-729: Is often dependent on controlling the victims at a specific location. Destruction of cultural objects, such as religious buildings, is common even when the primary method of genocide is not cultural. Cultural genocide, such as residential schools , is particularly common during settler-colonial consolidation. Men, particularly young adults, are disproportionately targeted for killing before other victims in order to stem resistance. Although diverse forms of sexual violence—ranging from rape, forced pregnancy, forced marriage, sexual slavery, mutilation, forced sterilization—can affect either males or females, women are more likely to face it. The combination of killing of men and sexual violence against women
6230-401: Is often described as the single most important enabler of genocide providing the weaponry, ideological justification, polarization between allies and enemies, and cover for carrying out extreme violence. A large proportion of genocides occurred under the course of imperial expansion and power consolidation. Although genocide is typically organized around pre-existing identity boundaries, it has
6408-460: Is often intended to disrupt reproduction of the targeted group. Almost all genocides are brought to an end either by the military defeat of the perpetrators or the accomplishment of their aims. According to rational choice theory , it should be possible to intervene to prevent genocide by raising the costs of engaging in such violence relative to alternatives. Although there are a number of organizations that compile lists of states where genocide
6586-472: Is particularly likely in situations of imperial expansion and power consolidation. Therefore, it is usually associated with colonial empires and settler colonies , as well as with both world wars and repressive governments in the twentieth century. The colloquial understanding of genocide is heavily influenced by the Holocaust as its archetype and is conceived as innocent victims targeted for their ethnic identity rather than for any political reason. Genocide
6764-433: Is poorly understood. The foot soldiers of genocide (as opposed to its organizers) are not demographically or psychologically aberrant. People who commit crimes during genocide are rarely true believers in the ideology behind genocide, although they are affected by it to some extent alongside other factors such as obedience, diffusion of responsibility , and conformity. Other evidence suggests that ideological propaganda
6942-534: Is usually exaggerated and can be entirely imagined. Particular threats to existing elites that have been correlated to genocide include both successful and attempted regime change via assassination, coups, revolutions, and civil wars . Most genocides were not planned long in advance, but emerged through a process of gradual radicalization , often escalating to genocide following resistance by those targeted. Genocide perpetrators often fear—usually irrationally—that if they do not commit atrocities, they will suffer
7120-427: Is usually illegal. Researcher Gregory H. Stanton found that calling crimes genocide rather than something else, such as ethnic cleansing, increased the chance of effective intervention. Perhaps for this reason, states are often reluctant to recognize crimes as genocide while they are taking place. Lemkin applied the concept of genocide to a wide variety of events throughout human history . He and other scholars date
7298-421: Is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin , who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by means such as "the disintegration of [its] political and social institutions, of [its] culture , language , national feelings, religion , and [its] economic existence". During
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7476-511: Is widely considered to be the epitome of human evil and often referred to as the "crime of crimes"; consequently, events are often denounced as genocide . Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide between 1941 and 1943. Lemkin's coinage combined the Greek word γένος ( genos , "race, people") with the Latin suffix -caedo ("act of killing"). He submitted
7654-673: The Albanian rebellion of 1997 . During 1997–98, the Kosovo Liberation Army moved ahead of Rugova's LDK, a fact starkly illustrated by the KLA's Hashim Thaçi leading the Kosovar Albanians at the Rambouillet negotiations of spring 1999, with Rugova as his deputy. In February 1996, the KLA undertook a series of attacks against police stations and Yugoslav government officers, saying that they had killed Albanian civilians as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign. Later that year,
7832-532: The Interpol General Secretariat claimed that half of the funding that had reached the KLA, which he estimated to have been 900 million DM in total, may have come from drug trafficking. Mother Jones obtained a congressional briefing paper for the U.S. Congress, which stated: "We would be remiss to dismiss allegations that between 30 and 50 percent of the KLA's money comes from drugs." Furthermore, journalist Peter Klebnikov added that after
8010-635: The Kosovo Protection Corps , which worked alongside NATO forces patrolling the province. In 2000 there was unrest in Mitrovica , with a Yugoslav police officer and physician killed, and three officers and a physician wounded, in February. In March, the FRY complained about the escalation of violence in the region, claiming this showed that the KLA was still active. Between April and September
8188-487: The OSCE 's Kosovo Verification Mission : Upon my arrival the war increasingly evolved into a mid intensity conflict as ambushes, the encroachment of critical lines of communication and the [KLA] kidnapping of security forces resulted in a significant increase in government casualties which in turn led to major Yugoslavian reprisal security operations... By the beginning of March these terror and counter-terror operations led to
8366-666: The Serbian Assembly proposed amendments to the Constitution of Serbia that would remove the word "Socialist" from the Serbian Republic's title, establish multi-party elections, remove the independence of institutions of the autonomous provinces such as Kosovo and rename Kosovo as the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija . In February Kosovar Albanians demonstrated in large numbers against
8544-575: The attacks on Likoshane and Çirez . and four Serbian policemen. The KLA's goal was to merge its Drenica stronghold with their stronghold in Albania proper, and this would shape the first few months of the fighting. Serb police then began to pursue Adem Jashari and his followers in the village of Donje Prekaze. On 5 March 1998, a massive firefight at the Jashari compound led to the massacre of 60 Albanians, of which eighteen were women and ten were under
8722-513: The expulsion of Albanians in 1877–1878 from areas that were incorporated into the Principality of Serbia . Muslim Albanians residing in the Sanjak of Niš were quickly expelled after Ottomans had lost control of the region. Modern estimates put the number of expelled Albanians to 50,000–130,000 Albanian refugees. As a result, some Albanian refugees who settled in Kosovo retaliated by attacking
8900-699: The federal presidency and its own assembly, police force and national bank. While trying to balance the interests of Albanians and Serbs, this effectively stratified both communities and prompted Serb fears of Kosovo seceding from Yugoslavia. Student demonstrations continued throughout the 1970s, resulting in the imprisonment of many members of the Albanian National Liberation Movement, including Adem Demaçi . The political and administrative changes that began in 1968 resulted in Kosovo Albanians securing complete control over
9078-549: The legal instrument used to prosecute defeated German leaders at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, atrocity crimes were only prosecutable by international justice if they were committed as part of an illegal war of aggression . The powers prosecuting the trial were unwilling to restrict a government's actions against its own citizens. In order to criminalize peacetime genocide, Lemkin brought his proposal to criminalize genocide to
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#17327661086609256-547: The violence of 1981 and subsequent émigrés. Slobodan Milošević revoked Kosovan autonomy in 1989, returning the region to its 1945 status, ejecting ethnic Albanians from the Kosovan bureaucracy and violently putting down protests. In response, Kosovar Albanians established the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK). Headed by Ibrahim Rugova , its goal was independence from Serbia, but via peaceful means. To this end,
9434-771: The 1970s and 1980s, as social science began to consider the phenomenon of genocide. Due to the occurrence of the Bosnian genocide , Rwandan genocide , and the Kosovo crisis , genocide studies exploded in the 1990s. In contrast to earlier researchers who took for granted the idea that liberal and democratic societies were less likely to commit genocide, revisionists associated with the International Network of Genocide Scholars emphasized how Western ideas led to genocide. The genocides of indigenous peoples as part of European colonialism were initially not recognized as
9612-535: The 20th century and occasionally erupted into major violence, particularly during the First Balkan War (1912–1913), World War I (1914–1918), and World War II (1939–1945). The Albanian revolt of 1912 in Kosovo resulted in the Ottoman Empire agreeing to the creation of an Albanian quasi-state but Ottoman forces were soon driven out by opportunistic Bulgarian, Serbian and Montenegrin troops. In
9790-423: The Albanian diaspora. According to some sources, the KLA may have received funds from individuals involved in drug trade. However insufficient evidence exists that the KLA itself was involved in such activities. For example, Swiss citizens believe that elements of the Albanian community in Switzerland control narcotics trade in Switzerland. Some of the money earned through these illegal activities may have gone to
9968-593: The Albanian side, the insurgency in Glodjane was far from stamped out. The village was in fact to become one of the strongest centres of resistance in the upcoming war. A new Yugoslav government was formed at this time, led by the Socialist Party of Serbia and the Serbian Radical Party . Ultra-nationalist Radical Party chairman Vojislav Šešelj became a deputy prime minister. This increased
10146-678: The Albanians, who refused to talk to the Serbian side throughout the crisis, but would talk with the Yugoslav government. In fact, the only meeting between Milošević and Ibrahim Rugova happened on 15 May in Belgrade, two days after the special presidential envoy Richard Holbrooke announced that it would take place. Holbrooke threatened Milošević that if he did not obey, "what's left of your country will implode". A month later, Holbrooke visited
10324-610: The British weekly The European carried an article by a French expert stating that "German civil and military intelligence services have been involved in training and equipping the rebels with the aim of cementing German influence in the Balkan area. (...) The birth of the KLA in 1996 coincided with the appointment of Hansjoerg Geiger as the new head of the BND (German secret Service). (...) The BND men were in charge of selecting recruits for
10502-620: The FRY issued several documents to the UN Security Council about violence against Serbs and other non-Albanians. Some people from non-Albanian communities such as the Serbs and Romani fled Kosovo, some fearing revenge attacks by armed people and returning refugees and others were pressured by the KLA and armed gangs to leave. The Yugoslav Red Cross had estimated a total of 30,000 refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Kosovo, most of whom were Serb. The UNHCR estimated
10680-454: The Genocide Convention. Despite the promise of never again and the international effort to outlaw genocide, it has continued to occur repeatedly into the twenty-first century. In the aftermath of genocide, common occurrences are the attempt to prosecute perpetrators through the legal system and obtain recognition and reparations for survivors, as well as reflection of the events in scholarship and culture, such as genocide museums . Except in
10858-459: The Holocaust, involved such large-scale logistics that it reinforced the impression that genocide was the result of civilization drifting off course and required both the "weapons and infrastructure of the modern state and the radical ambitions of the modern man". Scientific racism and nationalism were common ideological drivers of many twentieth century genocides. After the horrors of World War II , world leaders attempted to proscribe genocide via
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#173276610866011036-571: The KLA and their numbers ranged from several dozen into the thousands. Following the war some Albanians from Macedonia have felt that their military participation and assistance to fellow Kosovan Albanians during the conflict has not been properly recognised in Kosovo. Former KLA spokesman Jakup Krasniqi said that volunteers came from "Sweden, Belgium, the UK, Germany and the U.S.". The KLA included many foreign volunteers from West Europe, mostly from Germany and Switzerland, and also ethnic Albanians from
11214-580: The KLA are clearly responsible for many of these crimes". A Serbian court sentenced 9 former KLA members for murdering 32 non-Albanian civilians. In the same case, another 35 civilians are missing while 153 were tortured and released. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 20 November 1989, entered into force on 2 September 1990 and was valid throughout
11392-743: The KLA as " freedom fighters ". On 23 February 1998, the United States Special Envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, stated in Pristina that "the KLA was without any question a terrorist group." He later told the House Committee on International Relations that "while the KLA had committed 'terrorist acts,' it had 'not been classified legally by the U.S. Government as a terrorist organization.'" However, his 23 February statements have been seen as an unwitting "green light" to
11570-417: The KLA as a terrorist organisation of militant Islam. The CIA advised the KLA to avoid involvement with Muslim extremists. The KLA rejected offers of assistance from Muslim fundamentalists. There was an understanding within the ranks of the KLA that foreign assistance from Muslim fundamentalists would limit support toward the cause of Kosovo Albanians in the West. After the war, the KLA was transformed into
11748-406: The KLA began in the late 1980s with armed resistance to Yugoslav police trying to take Albanian activists in custody. By the early 1990s there were attacks on police forces and secret-service officials who abused Albanian civilians. By mid-1998 the KLA was involved in frontal battle though it was outnumbered and outgunned. Conflict escalated from 1997 onward due to the Yugoslav army retaliating with
11926-401: The KLA command structure from the 500,000 Kosovars in Albania." Matthias Küntzel tried to prove later on that German secret diplomacy had been instrumental in helping the KLA since its creation. Serbian authorities denounced the KLA as a terrorist organisation and increased the number of security forces in the region. This had the effect of boosting the credibility of the embryonic KLA among
12104-582: The KLA consisted of only a few hundred fighters. Within the context of the armed struggle, in 1996-1997 a report by the CIA noted that the KLA could mobilize tens of thousands of supporters in Kosovo within a two to three year time frame. By the end of 1998, the KLA had 17,000 men. Religion did not play a role within the KLA and some of its most committed fund raisers and fighters came from the Catholic community. Albanian recruits from neighbouring Macedonia joined
12282-448: The KLA continuing violent struggles in southern Serbia (1999–2001) and northwestern Macedonia (2001), which resulted in peace talks and greater Albanian rights. Former KLA leaders also entered politics, some of them reaching high-ranking offices. The KLA received large funds from Albanian diaspora organizations. There have been allegations that it used narcoterrorism to finance its operations. Abuses and war crimes were committed by
12460-631: The KLA during and after the conflict, such as massacres of civilians, prison camps and destruction of cultural heritage sites. In April 2014, the Assembly of Kosovo considered and approved the establishment of a special court to try cases involving crimes and other serious abuses allegedly committed in 1999–2000 by members of the KLA. In June 2020 the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor's Office filed indictments for crimes against humanity and war crimes against
12638-804: The KLA maintained its advance. The KLA surrounded Peja and Gjakova , and set up an interim capital in the town of Malisheva (north of Rahovec ). KLA troops infiltrated Suva Reka and the northwest of Pristina. They moved on to capture the Belaćevac coal pits in late June, threatening energy supplies in the region. In July, KLA activity was reported south of Prizren . Their tactics as usual focused mainly on guerrilla and mountain warfare , and harassing and ambushing Yugoslav forces and Serb police patrols. Kosovo Liberation Army Wartime events Aftermath Aspects The Kosovo Liberation Army ( KLA ; Albanian : Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës [uʃˈtɾija t͡ʃliɾimˈtaɾɛ ɛ ˈkɔsɔvəs] , UÇK )
12816-533: The KLA reverted to guerilla warfare and employed new tactics including the appointment of new commanders, central authorities, expanded training camps and military prisons. Some sources say that the KLA never won a battle, while others say it won relatively few battles. The KLA received large funds from the Albanian diaspora in Europe and the United States, but also from Albanian businessmen in Kosovo. It
12994-545: The KLA through contributions to the Homeland Calls Fund or through the usual funding channels in which individuals and businessmen engaged in legitimate economic activities donated. This however is insufficient evidence to claim that the KLA itself got involved in narcotics trade or other criminal activities. In a hearing before the United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security , Ralf Mutschke from
13172-483: The KLA, argues that "[a]ll available evidence refutes the proposition aggressively advanced by the Milosevic regime that the KLA was mainly financed by drug and prostitution money." The original core of KLA in the early 1990s was a closely knitted group of commanders consisting of commissioned and non commissioned officers belonging to reserve, regular and territorial defense units of the Yugoslav army (JNA). In 1996,
13350-467: The Kosovar Albanian population. Not long before NATO's military action commenced, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants reported that "Kosovo Liberation Army ... attacks aimed at trying to 'cleanse' Kosovo of its ethnic Serb population." One of the goals mentioned by the KLA commanders was the formation of Greater Albania , irredentist concept of lands that are considered to form
13528-652: The Kosovo Liberation Army before NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia". James Bissett , Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania, wrote in 2001 on the Toronto Star that media reports indicate that "as early as 1998, the Central Intelligence Agency assisted by the British Special Air Service were arming and training Kosovo Liberation Army members in Albania to foment armed rebellion in Kosovo. (...) The hope
13706-530: The Kosovo War, the KLA changed their tactics from hit and run operations to conventional warfare. In July 1998, the KLA captured the cities of Rahovec and Malisheva and expanded their occupation of territory to 40% of Kosovo. However, without enough manpower and heavy weaponry to defend their gains, both cities quickly fell to Yugoslav forces. Their occupation of Rahovec was marred by acts of atrocities committed against Serbian civilians. On 24 August 1998,
13884-481: The LDK set up and developed a "parallel state" with a particular focus on education and healthcare. Albanian nationalism was a central tenet of the KLA and many in its ranks supported the creation of a Greater Albania , which would encompass all Albanians in the Balkans, stressing Albanian culture , ethnicity and nation. It was considered a terrorist group until the breakup of Yugoslavia . The KLA itself disavowed
14062-584: The Members of Parliament criticised the report, citing lack of evidence, and Marty responded that a witness protection program was needed in Kosovo before he could provide more details on witnesses because their lives were in danger. In 2011, France 24 obtained a classified document which dated back to 2003 and revealed that the UN knew about the organ trafficking before it was mentioned by Carla del Ponte in 2008. In July 2014, American attorney Clint Williamson ,
14240-491: The Memorandum, was for "genuine security and unambiguous equality for all peoples living in Kosovo and Metohija [to be] established" and "objective and permanent conditions for the return of the expelled [Serbian] nation [to be] created." It concluded that "Serbia must not be passive and wait and see what the others will say, as it has done so often in the past." The SANU Memorandum provoked split reactions: Albanians saw it as
14418-496: The NATO bombing, KLA-linked heroin traffickers began using Kosovo again as a major supply route. Citing German Federal Police , he said that in 2000, an estimated 80% of Europe's heroin supply was controlled by Kosovar Albanians. According to scholars Gary Dempsey and Roger Fontaine, by 1999, Western intelligence agencies estimated that over $ 250m of narcotics money had found its way into KLA coffers. Scholar Henry Perritt , who studied
14596-564: The Republic of Kosovo and elected Ibrahim Rugova as president. During this time, the Republic of Kosova started to establish parallel institutions, which were not recognized by Serbia. The presence of Serbian security structures in Kosovo increased considerably and Kosovo was put into constant curfews. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians were fired from government and state-run institutions. By 1990 most Albanian schools were closed and
14774-533: The Serbian Assembly dissolved the Kosovo Assembly. Serbia also dissolved the provincial executive council and assumed full and direct control of the province. Serbia took over management of Kosovo's principal Albanian-language media, halting Albanian-language broadcasts. On 4 September 1990 Kosovar Albanians observed a 24-hour general strike, virtually shutting down the province. On 5 August 1991,
14952-766: The Serbian Assembly suspended the main Albanian-language daily newspaper, Rilindja , declaring its journalism unconstitutional. On 7 September 1990 the Constitution of Kosovo was promulgated by Albanian members of the disbanded Assembly of Kosovo. Milošević responded by ordering the arrest of the deputies that participated in the meeting. The new controversial Serbian Constitution was promulgated on 28 September 1990. In September 1991, Kosovar Albanians held an unofficial referendum in which they voted overwhelmingly for independence. On 24 May 1992 Kosovar Albanians held unofficial elections for an assembly and president of
15130-549: The Serbian Church is silent" and why it did not campaign against "the destruction, arson and sacrilege of the holy shrines of Kosovo". In 1985, two Albanian farmers were falsely accused for the Đorđe Martinović incident , which turned into a cause célèbre in Serbian politics and fueled hatred towards Albanians. In 1987, Aziz Kelmendi, an ethnic-Albanian recruit in the Yugoslav Army (JNA) killed four fellow soldiers in
15308-526: The Serbian crackdown that followed less than a week later. KLA attacks intensified, centering on the Drenica valley area with the compound of Adem Jashari being a focal point. Days after Robert Gelbard described the KLA as a terrorist group, Serbian police responded to the KLA attacks in the Likošane area, and pursued some of the KLA to Čirez, resulting in the deaths of 16 Albanian fighters and 26 civilians in
15486-480: The Serbian government required Albanian teachers to sign loyalty oaths in order to remain employed, effectively asking them to recognize Serbia, and not Republic of Kosova as their country, which the vast majority refused to sign. By 1991 all Albanian schoolteachers and academic staff had been dismissed and a parallel education system was established by the government of the Republic of Kosova , using donated private homes as classrooms. 350,000 Albanians emigrated out of
15664-410: The Serbian government, while Aleksandar Vučić has stated that there is no evidence that the murder was committed by Albanians, as previously believed. The Serbian Organised Crime Prosecutor's Office launched a new investigation in 2016 and reached the conclusion that the massacre was not perpetrated by Albanians. Many years after the incident, the Serbian government has officially acknowledged that it
15842-504: The Soviet Union) secured changes in an attempt to make the convention unenforceable and applicable to their geopolitical rivals ' actions but not their own. Few formerly colonized countries were represented and "most states had no interest in empowering their victims– past, present, and future". The result severely diluted Lemkin's original concept; he privately considered it a failure. Lemkin's anti-colonial conception of genocide
16020-724: The U.S. According to the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, by September 1998 there were foreign mercenaries from Albania, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina ( Muslims ) and Chechnya in the KLA ranks. Citing a 2003 report by the Serbian government, academics Lyubov Mincheva and Ted Gurr claim that the Abu Bekir Sidik mujahideen unit of 115 members operated in Drenica in May–June 1998, and dozen of its members were Saudis and Egyptians, reportedly funded by Islamist organizations. They further claim that
16198-454: The United States and Switzerland. These included weapons, but also military fatigues, boots and other supporting equipment. The KLA received its funding in multiple, decentralized ways. Apart from the Homeland Calls Fund, which mostly went to KLA operations in the Drenica region, the KLA also received donations through personal contacts of commanders with Albanians in the diaspora. Members of
16376-722: The War Criminals (2008) that there were instances of organ trafficking in 1999 after the end of the Kosovo War . The allegations have been rejected by Kosovar authorities as fabrications while the ICTY has said "no reliable evidence had been obtained to substantiate the allegations". In early 2011 the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs viewed a report by Dick Marty on the alleged criminal activities and alleged organ harvesting controversy; however,
16554-519: The Yugoslav army and the Serb Ministry of the Interior police began an operation to clear the border of the KLA. NATO's response to this offensive was mid-June's Operation Determined Falcon, a NATO show of force over the Yugoslav borders. During this time, Yugoslav President Milošević reached an arrangement with Boris Yeltsin of Russia to stop offensive operations and prepare for talks with
16732-528: The abolishment of the Academy of Sciences in Kosovo, Albanian street names were changed to Serbian ones, Serbs were allowed to enter the University of Pristina and therefore received preferential treatment, and Albanians were fired from their posts or lost their homes to Serbs (130,000 between 1990-1995). According to an Amnesty International report in 1998, due to dismissals from the Yugoslav government it
16910-432: The age of sixteen. The event provoked massive condemnation from western capitals. Madeleine Albright said that "this crisis is not an internal affair of the FRY". On 24 March, Yugoslav forces surrounded the village of Glodjane and attacked a rebel compound there . Despite superior firepower, the Yugoslav forces failed to destroy the KLA unit, which had been their objective. Although there were deaths and severe injuries on
17088-532: The approval of the UN Security Council and it caused at least 488 Yugoslav civilian deaths, including substantial deaths of Kosovar refugees . In 2001, a UN administered Supreme Court based in Kosovo found that there had been a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments against the Albanian population, and that Yugoslav troops had tried to force them out of Kosovo, but not to eradicate them and therefore it
17266-496: The bad state of the economy. 33 nationalist formations were dismantled by Yugoslav police , who sentenced some 280 people (800 fined, 100 under investigation) and seized arms caches and propaganda material. Albanian leaders of Kosovo maintained that Serbs were leaving mainly because of the poor economy. The worsening state of Kosovo's economy made the province a poor choice for Serbs seeking work. Albanians, as well as Serbs, tended to favor their compatriots when hiring new employees, but
17444-399: The border areas affected by the fighting in early June, where he was famously photographed with the KLA. The publication of these images sent a signal to the KLA, its supporters and sympathisers, and to observers in general, that the US was decisively backing the KLA and the Albanian population in Kosovo. The Yeltsin agreement required Milošević to allow international representatives to set up
17622-647: The building and addressed the protesters, telling them "No one will beat you again". He further called upon the crowd to resist the Albanian pressure to leave Kosovo. This speech marked the beginning of Milošević's use of nationalism to gain power, and he was appointed President of the Presidency of Serbia in May 1989. In November 1988 Kosovo's head of the provincial committee was arrested. In March 1989 Milošević announced an " anti-bureaucratic revolution " in Kosovo and Vojvodina, curtailing their autonomy as well as imposing
17800-487: The case of the Holocaust , few genocide victims receive any reparations despite the trend of requiring such reparations in international and municipal law. The perpetrators and their supporters often deny the genocide and reject responsibility for the harms suffered by victims. Efforts to achieve justice and reconciliation are common in postgenocide situations, but are necessarily incomplete and inadequate. The effects of genocide on societies are under-researched. Much of
17978-470: The conflict. Article 38 of this Convention state the age of 15 as the minimum for recruitment or participation in armed conflict. Article 38 requires state parties to prevent anyone under the age of 15 from taking direct part in hostilities and to refrain from recruiting anyone under the age of 15 years. The participation of persons under the age of 18 in the KLA was confirmed in October 2000 when details of
18156-520: The convention unless it was excluded. Most genocide scholars believe that both cultural genocide and structural violence should be included in the definition of genocide, if committed with intent to destroy the targeted group. Although included in Lemkin's original concept and by some scholars, political groups were also excluded from the Genocide Convention. The result of this exclusion was that perpetrators of genocide could redefine their targets as being
18334-459: The course of events, and someone might choose to kill one genocide victim while saving another. Anthropologist Richard Rechtman writes that in circumstances where atrocities such as genocides are perpetrated, many people refuse to become perpetrators, which often entails great sacrifices such as risking their lives and fleeing their country. It is a common misconception that genocide necessarily involves mass killing; indeed, it may occur without
18512-470: The creation of a 'Greater Albania'. The KLA made their name known publicly for the first time in 1995, and a first public appearance followed in 1997, at which time its membership was still only around 200. Critical of the progress made by Rugova, the KLA received boosts from the 1995 Dayton Accords — these granted Kosovo nothing, and so generated a more widespread rejection of the LDK's peaceful methods — and from looted weaponry that spilled into Kosovo after
18690-488: The destruction of Orthodox churches and monasteries... combined with harassment and intimidation designed to force people from their homes and communities... elements of the KLA are clearly responsible for many of these crimes. The KLA engaged in tit-for-tat attacks against Serbs in Kosovo, reprisals against ethnic Albanians who "collaborated" with the Serbian government, and bombed police stations and cafes known to be frequented by Serb officials, killing innocent civilians in
18868-462: The diaspora usually stressed the difficulties through which KLA's soldiers were going through to fight an uneven battle. They often used stories of KLA members or civilian survivors of massacres to convince others to donate. After collection, the money was then transferred to its destination in different ways. The secrecy of the Swiss banking system allowed some of the funding to be transferred directly to
19046-429: The dissatisfaction with the country's position among Western diplomats and spokespersons. In early April, Serbia arranged for a referendum on the issue of foreign interference in Kosovo. Serbian voters decisively rejected foreign interference in the crisis. Meanwhile, the KLA claimed much of the area in and around Deçan and ran a territory based in the village of Glodjane, encompassing its surroundings. On 31 May 1998,
19224-804: The end of the war, with some of its members going on to fight for the UÇPMB in the Preševo Valley and others joining the National Liberation Army (NLA) and Albanian National Army (ANA) during the armed ethnic conflict in Macedonia , while others went on to form the Kosovo Police . The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted six Serb/Yugoslav officials and one Albanian commander for war crimes. The modern Albanian-Serbian conflict has its roots in
19402-414: The enslavement or forced assimilation of women and children—often limited to a particular town or city rather than applied to a larger group—is a common feature of ancient warfare as described in written sources. The events that some scholars consider genocide in ancient and medieval times had more pragmatic than ideological motivations. As a result, some scholars such as Mark Levene argue that genocide
19580-501: The ensuing Balkan Wars , at least 50,000 Albanians were massacred in the present-day territory of Kosovo by the Serbian regular army and irregular Komitadjis with the intention of manipulating population statistics before the borders of Albania were recognized during the London Conference of 1912–1913 , after the latter proposed the drawing of the borders of Albania based on ethnic statistics. After World War I Kosovo
19758-467: The erection of monuments and commemorative events. The exploits of Adem Jashari have been celebrated and turned into legend by former KLA members and by Kosovar Albanian society. Several songs, literature works, monuments, memorials have been dedicated to him, and some streets and buildings bear his name across Kosovo. After the end of the Kosovo War in 1999 with the signing of the Kumanovo agreement ,
19936-420: The ethnic groups throughout Yugoslavia, and established six republics ( Slovenia , Croatia , Serbia , Montenegro , Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina ) as constituent parts of the Yugoslav federation. Tito diluted the power of Serbia – the largest and most populous republic – by establishing autonomous governments in the Serbian province of Vojvodina in the north and Kosovo in
20114-535: The fighting over and an international force in place within Kosovo, the KLA was officially disbanded and thousands of its members entered the Kosovo Protection Corps , a civilian emergency protection body that replaced the KLA and Kosovo Police Force, as foreseen in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 . The ending of the Kosovo war resulted in the emergence of offshoot guerilla groups and political organisations from
20292-443: The figure at 55,000 refugees who had fled to Montenegro and Central Serbia , most of whom were Kosovo Serbs: "Over 90 mixed villages in Kosovo have now been emptied of Serb inhabitants and other Serbs continue leaving, either to be displaced in other parts of Kosovo or fleeing into central Serbia." In post war Kosovo, KLA fighters have been venerated by Kosovar Albanian society with the publishing of literature such as biographies,
20470-494: The first genocides to prehistoric times . Prior to the advent of civilizations consisting of sedentary farmers , humans lived in tribal societies, with intertribal warfare often ending with the obliteration of the defeated tribe, killing of adult males and integration of women and children into the victorious tribe. Genocide is mentioned in various ancient sources including the Hebrew Bible . The massacre of men and
20648-542: The first period, 335 were civilians, 351 soldiers, 230 police and 72 were unidentified. By nationality, 87 of the killed civilians were Serbs, 230 Albanians, and 18 of other nationalities. Following the withdrawal of Serbian and Yugoslav security forces from Kosovo in June 1999, all casualties were civilians, the vast majority being Serbs. According to Human Rights Watch, as "many as one thousand Serbs and Roma have been murdered or have gone missing since 12 June 1999... elements of
20826-503: The five types enumerated in the Genocide Convention. Lemkin considered genocide to have occurred since the beginning of human history and dated the efforts to criminalize it to the Spanish critics of colonial excesses Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolomé de Las Casas . The 1946 judgement against Arthur Greiser issued by a Polish court was the first legal verdict that mentioned the term, using Lemkin's original definition. According to
21004-412: The following acts committed with intent to destroy , in whole or in part, a national , ethnical , racial or religious group, as such: A specific " intent to destroy " is the mens rea requirement of genocide. The issue of what it means to destroy a group "as such" and how to prove the required intent has been difficult for courts to resolve. The legal system has also struggled with how much of
21182-468: The former United States Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues , announced that he and his team had found "compelling indications" that approximately 10 prisoners had been killed so their organs could be harvested. "The fact that it occurred on a limited scale does not diminish the savagery of such a crime," Williamson said, but added that the level of evidence was insufficient to file charges against any particular individual. Genocide Genocide
21360-427: The group was later disbanded, and no permanent Jihadist presence was established.The failure of Islamists groups to gain a foothold with the ranks of the separatist movement is related to the secular foundation of Albanian nationalism and the heavily secular attitudes of Kosovo Albanians which did not leave room for the development of Islamist ideologies. During the Kosovo conflict Milošević and his supporters portrayed
21538-415: The group. The objectives of genocide "would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups". These were not separate crimes but different aspects of the same genocidal process. Lemkin's definition of nation was sufficiently broad to apply to nearly any type of human collectivity, even one based on
21716-512: The hardware ending up in western Kosovo and boosting the growing KLA arsenal. Bujar Bukoshi , shadow prime minister in exile (in Zürich , Switzerland), created a group called FARK ( Armed Forces of the Republic of Kosova ). FARK and the KLA were initially rivals, but later FARK merged into the KLA. The Yugoslav government considered the KLA to be "terrorists" and " insurgents " who indiscriminately attacked police and civilians, while most Albanians saw
21894-413: The inhabitants of numerous villages fleeing, or being dispersed to either other villages, cities or the hills to seek refuge... The situation was clearly that KLA provocations, as personally witnessed in ambushes of security patrols which inflicted fatal and other casualties, were clear violations of the previous October's agreement [and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1199 ]. At one point during
22072-426: The innocence, helplessness, or defencelessness of its victims. Most genocides occur during wartime, and distinguishing genocide or genocidal war from non-genocidal warfare can be difficult. Likewise, genocide is distinguished from violent and coercive forms of rule that aim to change behavior rather than destroy groups. Some definitions include political or social groups as potential victims of genocide. Many of
22250-472: The intention of reducing tensions in the region. A Serb nationalist crowd had gathered near the hall where Milošević was supposed to deliver his speech in Kosovo Polje . The crowd tried to break through the police cordon that was providing security for the gathering, and after clashing with the police, they chanted that Albanian policemen were beating them. Informed of the situation, Milošević walked out of
22428-603: The international agenda. In June 1996, the group claimed responsibility for acts of sabotage targeting Kosovo police stations, during the Kosovo Insurgency . In 1997, the organization acquired a large quantity of arms through weapons smuggling from Albania , following a rebellion in which weapons were looted from the country's police and army posts. In early 1998, KLA attacks targeting Yugoslav authorities in Kosovo resulted in an increased presence of Serb paramilitaries and regular forces who subsequently began pursuing
22606-594: The international community (as defined in the Dayton Agreement ) agreed to give the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina sweeping powers, including the right to dismiss elected leaders. At the same time, Western diplomats insisted that Kosovo be discussed and that Yugoslavia be responsive to Albanian demands there. The delegation from Yugoslavia stormed out of the meetings in protest. This
22784-490: The leading agents when the genocide takes places in remote frontier areas. A common strategy is for state-sponsored atrocities to be carried out in secrecy by paramilitary groups, offering the benefit of plausible deniability while widening complicity in the atrocities. The leaders who organize genocide usually believe that their actions were justified and regret nothing. How ordinary people can become involved in extraordinary violence under circumstances of acute conflict
22962-577: The level of rhetoric because both superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) felt vulnerable to accusations of genocide, and were therefore unwilling to press charges against the other party. Despite political pressure to charge "Soviet genocide", the United States government refused to ratify the convention fearing countercharges . Authorities have been reluctant to prosecute the perpetrators of many genocides, although non-judicial commissions of inquiry have also been created by some states. The first conviction for genocide in an international court
23140-604: The local Serb population. From 1830 to 1876, there had also been a forced migration of up to 150,000 Albanians from the Principality. The conflict became more intense at the end of the 19th century, and in 1901 there were massacres of Serbs using weapons not handed back to the Ottomans following the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 . Tensions between the Serbian and Albanian communities in Kosovo simmered throughout
23318-539: The locations where military equipment would be purchased. From the United States, most of the money was legally carried by individuals in suitcases, who reported to the FBI and other federal authorities that they were sending money to the KLA. The KLA also received some funding from the Three-Percent Fund, which was set up by the institutions of Republic of Kosova led by Bujar Bukoshi and was also collected from
23496-467: The manuscript for his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe to the publisher in early 1942, and it was published in 1944 as the Holocaust was coming to light outside Europe. Lemkin's proposal was more ambitious than simply outlawing this type of mass slaughter. He also thought that the law against genocide could promote more tolerant and pluralistic societies. His response to Nazi criminality
23674-401: The more sociologically oriented definitions of genocide overlap that of the crime against humanity of extermination , which refers to large-scale killing or induced death as part of a systematic attack on a civilian population. Isolated or short-lived phenomena that resemble genocide can be termed genocidal violence . Cultural genocide or ethnocide—actions targeted at the reproduction of
23852-574: The murder of nine prisoners from the camp who were marched to the Berisha Mountains on 25 or 26 July 1998 and killed. Bala appealed the sentence and the appeal is still pending. The United States (and NATO) directly supported the KLA. The CIA funded, trained and supplied the KLA (as they had earlier the Bosnian Army ). As disclosed to The Sunday Times by CIA sources, "American intelligence agents have admitted they helped to train
24030-634: The nation, to liberate all Albanians, including those in Macedonia, Montenegro, and other parts of Serbia. We are not just a liberation army for Kosovo. While Rugova promised to uphold the minority rights of Serbs in Kosovo, the KLA was much less tolerant. Selimi stated that "Serbs who have blood on their hands would have to leave Kosovo". The crisis escalated in December 1997 at the Peace Implementation Council meeting in Bonn , where
24208-598: The national homeland by many Albanians, encompassing Kosovo, Albania, and the ethnic Albanian minority of neighbouring Macedonia and Montenegro . Between 5 and 7 March 1998, the Yugoslav Army launched an operation on Prekaz . The operation followed an earlier firefight (28 February) in which four policemen were killed and several more were wounded; Adem Jashari , a KLA leader, escaped. In Prekaz, 28 militants were killed, along with 30 civilians, most belonging to Jashari's family. Amnesty International claimed that it
24386-424: The newly established United Nations in 1946. Opposition to the convention was greater than Lemkin expected due to states' concerns that it would lead their own policies - including treatment of indigenous peoples , European colonialism , racial segregation in the United States , and Soviet nationalities policy - to be labeled genocide. Before the convention was passed, powerful countries (both Western powers and
24564-451: The number of jobs was too few for the population. Kosovo was the poorest entity of Yugoslavia: the average per capita income was $ 795, compared with the national average of $ 2,635. Due to its comparative poverty it received substantial amounts of Yugoslav development money, leading to quarrels amongst the republics regarding its quantity and utilization. In February 1982 a group of priests from Serbia proper petitioned their bishops to ask "why
24742-400: The ongoing problems of Serbs in Kosovo , seeking to pressure the government in Belgrade to do more to protect the interests of Serbs there. In 1974 Kosovo's political status improved further when a new Yugoslav constitution granted an expanded set of political rights. Along with Vojvodina , Kosovo was declared a province and gained many of the powers of a fully-fledged republic: a seat on
24920-409: The outcome of strengthening them. Although many scholars have emphasized the role of ideology in genocide, there is little agreement in how ideology contributes to violent outcomes; others have cited rational explanations for atrocities. Genocides are usually driven by states and their agents, such as elites, political parties, bureaucracies, armed forces, and paramilitaries. Civilians are often
25098-445: The political, social and economic situation in Kosovo. In November 1968, large-scale demonstrations took place in Kosovo which were quelled by Yugoslav forces, precipitated by Albanian demands for separate republics in Kosovo and Macedonia. Albanian students and intellectuals pushed for an Albanian-language university and greater representative powers for Albanians in both the Serbian and Yugoslav state bodies. The University of Pristina
25276-499: The process. Most of its activities were funded by drug running, though its ties to community groups and Albanian exiles gave it local popularity. The Panda Bar incident , a massacre of Serb teenagers in a café, led to an immediate crackdown on the Albanian-populated southern quarters of Peć during which Serbian police killed two Albanians. This has been alleged by the Serbian newspaper Kurir to have been organized by
25454-563: The proposal, emboldened by striking miners. Serbs in Belgrade protested against the Kosovo Albanian's separatism. On 3 March 1989 the Presidency of Yugoslavia imposed special measures assigning responsibility for public security to the federal government. On 23 March the Assembly of Kosovo voted to accept the proposed amendments although most Albanian delegates abstained. In early 1990 Kosovar Albanians held mass demonstrations against
25632-520: The proposed Rambouillet Agreement . In response to this, NATO intervened with an aerial bombing campaign that began on March 24, justifying it as a "humanitarian war". The war ended with the Kumanovo Agreement , signed on 9 June 1999, with Yugoslav and Serb forces agreeing to withdraw from Kosovo to make way for an international presence. NATO forces entered Kosovo on June 12. The NATO bombing campaign has remained controversial. It did not gain
25810-539: The province's political, social and cultural issues as well as growing ties between Kosovo and Albania. However, by 1980, economic impoverishment would become the catalyst for further unrest. Provincial power was still exercised by the League of Communists of Kosovo , but now devolved mainly to ethnic Albanian communists. Tito's death on 4 May 1980 ushered in a long period of political instability, worsened by growing economic crisis and nationalist unrest. The first major outbreak occurred in Kosovo's main city, Pristina , when
25988-476: The province. The return of the expelled colonists was made next to impossible by a decree from Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito , followed by a new law in August 1945, which disallowed the return of colonists who had taken land from Albanian peasants. The end of World War II saw Kosovo returning to Yugoslav control. The new socialist government under Josip Broz Tito systematically suppressed nationalism among
26166-562: The qualitative research on genocide has focused on the testimonies of victims, survivors, and other eyewitnesses. Studies of genocide survivors have examined rates of depression, anxiety, schizophrenia , suicide, post-traumatic stress disorder , and post-traumatic growth . While some have found negative results, others find no association with genocide survival. There are no consistent findings that children of genocide survivors have worse health than comparable individuals. Most societies are able to recover demographically from genocide, but this
26344-490: The region due to economic and social pressures over the next seven years, and the Milosevic regime encouraged Serb settlement to the region. United Nations Special Rapporteur Tadeusz Mazowiecki reported on 26 February 1993 that the police had intensified their repression of the Albanian population since 1990, including depriving them of their basic rights, destroying their education system, and conducting large numbers of political dismissals of civil servants. Milosevic ordered
26522-515: The registration of 16,024 KLA soldiers by the International Organization for Migration in Kosovo became known. Ten percent of this number were under the age of 18. The majority of them were 16 and 17 years old. Around 2% were below the age of 16. These were mainly girls recruited to cook for the soldiers rather than to actually fight. Carla Del Ponte , a long-time ICTY chief prosecutor, claimed in her book The Hunt: Me and
26700-556: The removal of the group from a given territory, instead of destruction as such, or that the genocidal actions were collateral damage of military activity. Attempted genocide , conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement to genocide , and complicity in genocide are criminalized. The convention does not allow the retroactive prosecution of events that took place prior to 1951. Signatories are also required to prevent genocide and prosecute its perpetrators. Many countries have incorporated genocide into their municipal law , varying to
26878-541: The settlement of mostly Serb colonists in the region, while Albanian language schools were prohibited. After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, most of Kosovo was assigned to Italian-controlled Albania, with the rest being controlled by Germany and Bulgaria. During the occupation, Albanian collaborators persecuted Serb and Montenegrin settlers, with thousands killed and between 70,000 and 100,000 expelled from Kosovo or sent to concentration camps in order to Albanianize
27056-407: The settlers want to acquire land from indigenous people making genocide more likely than with classical colonialism. While the lack of law enforcement on the frontier ensured impunity for settler violence, the advance of state authority enabled settlers to consolidate their gains using the legal system. Genocide was committed on a large scale during both world wars . The prototypical genocide,
27234-718: The signing of the Končulj Agreement in May 2001, the former KLA and UÇPMB fighters next moved to western Macedonia where the National Liberation Army (NLA) was established, which fought against the Macedonian government in 2001. Ali Ahmeti organized the NLA from former KLA and UÇPMB fighters from Kosovo, Albanian insurgents from the Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac in Serbia, young Albanian radicals, nationalists from Macedonia, and foreign mercenaries. The acronym
27412-408: The situation. On 22 April 1996, four attacks on Serbian security personnel were carried out almost simultaneously in different parts of Kosovo. The KLA, a hitherto-unknown organisation, subsequently claimed responsibility. The nature of the KLA was at first mysterious. It initially seemed that their only goals were to stop repression from Yugoslav authorities. KLA goals also included the establishment of
27590-805: The south. Until 1963, the region was named the Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija and in 1968 it was renamed to the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo . The period of 1948–1963 in Kosovo was characterized by a brutal crackdown against Albanian nationalists by Aleksandar Ranković and his secret police (the UDBA). In 1955, a state of emergency was declared in order to quell unrest that had purportedly been instigated by terror groups from Albania. Following Ranković's ouster in 1966, Tito and his League of Communists Party granted more powers to republics and attempted to improve
27768-502: The special measures, which were lifted on 18 April 1990 and responsibility for public security was again assigned to Serbia. On 26 June 1990 Serbian authorities barred access to the building of the Kosovo Assembly, citing special circumstances. On 2 July 1990, 114 ethnic Albanian delegates of the 180-member Kosovo Assembly gathered in front of the closed building and declared Kosovo an independent republic within Yugoslavia . On 5 July
27946-499: The spring of 1981. It claimed that Kosovo's status in 1986 was a worse historical defeat for the Serbs than any event since liberation from the Ottomans in 1804, thus ranking it above such catastrophes as the World war occupations. The Memorandum's authors claimed that 200,000 Serbs had moved out of the province over the previous 20 years and warned that there would soon be none left "unless things changed radically." The remedy, according to
28124-474: The struggle to ratify the Genocide Convention , powerful countries restricted Lemkin's definition to exclude their own actions from being classified as genocide, ultimately limiting it to any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy , in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". Genocide has occurred throughout human history , even during prehistoric times , but
28302-741: Was the forced migration of populations —which had been carried out by the Soviet Union and its satellites, condoned by the Western Allies, against millions of Germans from central and Eastern Europe . Two years after passing a resolution affirming the criminalization of genocide , the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Genocide Convention on 9 December 1948. It came into effect on 12 January 1951 after 20 countries ratified it without reservations . The convention defines genocide as: ... any of
28480-433: Was a disincentive to extermination, imperial rule could lead to genocide when resistance emerged. Ancient and medieval genocides were often committed by empires. Unlike traditional empires, settler colonialism —particularly associated with the settlement of Europeans outside of Europe—is characterized by militarized populations of settlers in remote areas beyond effective state control. Rather than labor or economic surplus,
28658-467: Was a draft document that focused on the political difficulties facing Serbs in Yugoslavia, pointing to Tito's deliberate hobbling of Serbia's power and the difficulties faced by Serbs outside Serbia proper . It paid special attention to Kosovo, arguing that the Kosovo Serbs were being subjected to "physical, political, legal and cultural genocide" in an "open and total war" that had been ongoing since
28836-470: Was a military operation focused primarily on the elimination of Jashari and his family. On 23 April 1998, the Yugoslav Army (VJ) ambushed the KLA near the Albanian-Yugoslav border . The KLA had tried to smuggle arms and supplies into Kosovo. The Yugoslav Army, although greatly outnumbered, had no casualties, while 19 militants were killed. According to Roland Keith, a field office director of
29014-532: Was an ethnic Albanian separatist militia that sought the separation of Kosovo , the vast majority of which is inhabited by Albanians, from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and Serbia during the 1990s. Albanian nationalism was a central tenet of the KLA and many in its ranks supported the creation of a Greater Albania , which would encompass all Albanians in the Balkans, stressing Albanian culture , ethnicity and nation. Military precursors to
29192-719: Was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. It was fought between the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro), which controlled Kosovo before the war, and the Kosovo Albanian separatist militia known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The conflict ended when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened by beginning air strikes in March 1999 which resulted in Yugoslav forces withdrawing from Kosovo. The KLA
29370-480: Was established as an independent institution in 1970, ending a long period when the institution had been run as an outpost of University of Belgrade . The lack of Albanian-language educational materials in Yugoslavia hampered Albanian education in Kosovo, so an agreement was struck with Albania itself to supply textbooks. In 1969 the Serbian Orthodox Church ordered its clergy to compile data on
29548-424: Was estimated that by 1998 unemployment rate in the Kosovar Albanian population was higher than 70%. The economic apartheid imposed by Belgrade was aimed at impoverishing an already poor Kosovo Albanian population. In 1996, 16,000 Serb refugees from Bosnia and Croatia were settled in Kosovo by the Milosevic government, sometimes against their will. Ibrahim Rugova , first President of the Republic of Kosovo pursued
29726-584: Was followed by the return of the Contact Group that oversaw the last phases of the Bosnian conflict and declarations from European powers demanding that Yugoslavia solve the problem in Kosovo. The KLA received financial and material support from the Kosovo Albanian diaspora. In early 1997, Albania collapsed into chaos following the fall of President Sali Berisha . Albanian Armed Forces stockpiles were looted with impunity by criminal gangs, with much of
29904-533: Was formed in the early 1990s to fight against the discrimination of ethnic Albanians and the repression of political dissent by the Serbian authorities, which started after the suppression of Kosovo's autonomy and other discriminatory policies against Albanians by Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević in 1989. The KLA initiated its first campaign in 1995, after Kosovo's case was left out of the Dayton Agreement and it had become clear that President Rugova's strategy of peaceful resistance had failed to bring Kosovo onto
30082-422: Was honored by the Albanian American Civic League at a New Jersey located fundraising event on 23 July 2001. President of the League, Joseph J. DioGuardi , praised Rohrabacher for his support to the KLA, saying "He was the first member of Congress to insist that the United States arm the Kosovo Liberation Army, and one of the few members who to this day publicly supports the independence of Kosovo." Rohrabacher gave
30260-402: Was in 1998 for a perpetrator of the Rwandan genocide . The first head of state to be convicted of genocide was in 2018 for the Cambodian genocide . Although it is widely recognized that punishment of the perpetrators cannot be of an order with their crimes, the trials often serve other purposes such as attempting to shape public perception of the past. The field of genocide studies emerged in
30438-514: Was incorporated into the Serb-dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia despite the Albanian community's demands for union with Albania. Albanian rebels started the Drenica-Dukagjin Uprisings , which ended with the rebellion being crushed after the fall of the government of Fan Noli in Albania in December 1924 and the subsequent withdrawal of support for the Committee for the National Defence of Kosovo by President Zog . Between 1918 and 1939, Yugoslavia expelled hundreds of thousands of Albanians and promoted
30616-454: Was not genocide . After the war, a list was compiled which documented that over 13,500 people were killed or went missing during the two year conflict. The Yugoslav and Serb forces caused the displacement of between 1.2 million and 1.45 million Kosovo Albanians. After the war, around 200,000 Serbs, Romani, and other non-Albanians fled Kosovo and many of the remaining civilians were victims of abuse. The Kosovo Liberation Army disbanded soon after
30794-564: Was perpetrated by agents of the Serbian Secret Service. The exact number of victims of the KLA is not known. According to a Serbian government report, the KLA had killed and kidnapped 3,276 people of various ethnic descriptions including some Albanians. From 1 January 1998 to 10 June 1999 the KLA killed 988 people and kidnapped 287; in the period from 10 June 1999 to 11 November 2001, when NATO took control in Kosovo, 847 were reported to have been killed and 1,154 kidnapped. This comprised both civilians and security force personnel. Of those killed in
30972-434: Was reported that some 4,000 Serbs moved from Kosovo to central Serbia after the Kosovo Albanian riots in March that resulted in several Serb deaths and the desecration of Serbian Orthodox architecture and graveyards. Serbia reacted with a plan to reduce the power of Albanians in the province and a propaganda campaign that claimed Serbs were being pushed out of the province primarily by the growing Albanian population, rather than
31150-416: Was sharply different from that of another international law scholar, Hersch Lauterpacht , who argued that it was essential to protect individuals from atrocities, whether or not they were targeted as members of a group. According to Lemkin, the central definition of genocide was "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" in which its members were not targeted as individuals, but rather as members of
31328-417: Was that with Kosovo in flames NATO could intervene ...". According to Tim Judah , KLA representatives had already met with American, British, and Swiss intelligence agencies in 1996, and possibly "several years earlier". American Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher , while opposed to American ground troops in Kosovo, advocated for America providing support to the KLA to help them gain their freedom. He
31506-437: Was the same as the KLA's in Albanian. A number of KLA figures now play a major role in Kosovar politics. Hajredin Bala, an ex-KLA prison guard, was sentenced on 30 November 2005 to 13 years' imprisonment for the mistreatment of three prisoners at the Llapushnik prison camp , his personal role in the "maintenance and enforcement of the inhumane conditions" of the camp, aiding the torture of one prisoner, and of participating in
31684-401: Was transformed into one that favored colonial powers. Among the violence freed from the stigma of genocide included the destruction of political groups, which the Soviet Union is particularly blamed for blocking. Although Lemkin credited women's NGOs with securing the passage of the convention, the gendered violence of forced pregnancy, marriage, and divorce was left out. Additionally omitted
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