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KOSOVO
Creation of the KLA and its initial actions/the effects of the collapse of Albania/ the killing of Adem Jashari p.177-78
The KLA or the UCK emerged in a difficult period of the bloody events in Bosnia and the breakdown of law and order in Yugoslavia. It was founded in the early 1990s and it was a disorganized of disaffected Kosovar.
Some members of the KLA began actively to engage in coordinated attacks targeting Serbian individuals, police stations and in public places where the Serbs were gathered.
In 1996, 3 Serbs were killed in a café in Pristina and attacks against Serbs escalated over the next two years .Adem Demaci (a Kosovar Albanian writer, intellectual and activist) was striving for Kosovar independence. He was imprisoned for 28 years in a communist jail. In 1993 he went on hunger strike, protesting against the closure of Albanian language press in Kosovo.
The KLA wanted to force the hands of Rugova, Serbia and even the international community to deal with the situation in Kosovo.
In the summer of 1997, Albanian descended into chaos, the government of President Berisha lost control and weapon became easily available. There were clashes between students and the authorities. The US state department had listed the KLA as a terrorist group in 1998.
In June, the US government initiated talks with members of the KLA. In March, the Serbian police had tried to arrest Adem Jashari in Prekaz. He was killed in this attempt, along with 50 of his followers and members of his family.
Increasing violence of Serbian forces and KLA in Kosovo/actions of US special envoys/ actions of UN and NATO p.178-182
Violations of human rights and massacres became more frequent. The Kosovar Albanians urged Rugova to demand full independence. Violence continued to escalate as Serbian forces attempted to regain control of Kosovo and destroy the KLA.
The KLA was directing its own form of diplomacy using the limited weapons it had. Ethnic cleansing was taking place, and not just the Serbs-against ethnic Albanians.Serbs and non-Albanians were driven out and some Serb churches were attacked and looted.
In June 1998, Richard Holbrooke was sent to Belgrade for talks with Milosevic and representatives of the KLA. With neither side willing to back down, the KLA demanding independence and the Serbian authorities retaliating against attacks on their people.
Media messages of the massacre prompted the UN Security Council to adopt Resolution 1199 in the same month. The UN had passed four resolution in 1998 concerning Kosovo. Resolution 1160 - a comprehensive arms embargo was to be imposed to include Yugoslavia and Kosovo. In September the second Resolution 1199 was made.
Resolution 1199, called for international monitors to be placed in Kosovo to help facilitate the return of refugees and to allow humanitarian aid to reach those who needed it. In October 1998, an agreement was reached between President Milosevic and Richard Holbrooke.
Two further resolutions were adopted in 1998 and they condemned the Yugoslav government for failing to hand into custody individuals wanted by the ICTY. NATO threatened air strikes against Serbia. In October, the KVM agreement for a ceasefire was established. The KVM achieved little and violence intensify. In mid-January 1999, international observers reported that Serbian security forces had killed a number of Albanians civilians in Racak.
The significance of the Racak massacre, january 1999 - p.183-86
45 Kosovar Albanians were killed in a small village in central Kosovo. A week earlier, four Serbian policemen were killed. The Serbs prepared an offensive against KLA members and occupied the village, herding a number of civilians to its outskirts, where they were shot by Serbian security forces.
The Serbs were pursuing the rebel KLA fighters and they put on civilian clothes after they had been in a firefight. The US diploma William Walker, head of the KVM, was taken to the village. William was angry and he accused the Serbians of perpetrating a massacre. His statements helped to incite international opinion in favor of the Kosovar Albanians.
That lead to the NATO bombing campaign and the defeat of Serbia and the withdrawal of Serbian forces from the province of Kosovo.
Walker called for an independent enquiry by the international community to investigate what had happened at Racak. Two days later, the Serbs shelled Racak and took away the bodies. They corpses were taken to Pristina where they performed autopsies.
The chief prosecutor for the ICTY, Louise Arbour, was refused entry into Kosovo by Milosevic's government. The Yugoslav authorities conducted the autopsies together with a Belarusian team and 2 weeks later, a Finnish team of forensic pathologists conducted a second post-mortem and the bodies were released in February.
Only one man faced charges for crimes committed in Racak. In 2001, a Serb police officer called Zoran Stojanovic was sentenced to 15 years for attempted murder by a joint UN-Kosovo panel of judges. The testimony of the witnesses whose account were inconsistent and altered.