POLITICS-YUGOSLAVIA: Two Years After NATO Air Raids

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Mar 27 2001 (IPS) - Two years after the NATO air raids against Serbia, the country’s new leaders are preaching the necessity of good relations with the international community.

In one of their popular anti-war slogans, the Serb leaders are emphasising the doctrine of ‘no more violence, no more wars’.

Families all over Serbia will spend this week commemorating loved ones who lost their lives in 11 weeks of war. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) rockets did not only hit the proclaimed military targets, but also dozens of apartment blocks, hospitals, moving trains, and columns of refugees.

Official statistics put the number of civilians killed at 1,500, while the direct material damage to the country’s infrastructure is more than 20 billion US dollars. More than 22,000 tonnes of bombs of all sorts, including depleted uranium shells, hit Serbia.

“The times of evil should never happen here again”, Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica said in his address to the nation, marking the two years of NATO bombing.

“The evil that was brought upon us and the evil that we imposed against others will be prevented from repeating itself only if we remember… Our future is co-operation with the world. All the efforts of our young democracy will be aimed at keeping the Balkans a peaceful place without further disasters and wars”, he said.

NATO waged air war against Yugoslavia from March 24 to June 12, 1999, to halt the repression against two million Albanians in the southern province of Kosovo by the security forces of former President Slobodan Milosevic.

Milosevic’s repression, which culminated in 1998, was an answer to the armed rebellion by ethnic Albanians demanding independence from Serbia.

But the 11 weeks of air raids only enraged Belgrade.

Serb security forces systematically expelled more than 800,000 Albanians from Kosovo into neighbouring countries, causing a humanitarian catastrophe. Hundreds of Albanians were killed during that military campaign.

As a result, Milosevic is facing an indictment by the UN War Criminal Tribunal.

Serbs’ dissatisfaction with the 10 years of impoverishment and wars led to Milosevic’s loss of elections last September. He ceded power only after a popular uprising in October.

Unanimously, Serbs of all walks of life agree that the 11 weeks of NATO air raids were the most traumatic experience of their lives.

“It’s enough to look at the statistics some of us kept”, says Zoran Miljkovic, a Belgrade engineer. “Wailing of sirens was heard 148 times in 11 weeks and we were forced to spend 774 hours in shelters. The only thought was not to get killed”.

The air raids ended on June 12, 1999, under an agreement between NATO and Milosevic. All Serb security forces withdrew from Kosovo. Ethnic Albanian refugees returned home, but more than 200,000 Serbs fled Kosovo, fearing revenge.

NATO took the responsibility of security, while the UN established an administration to run the province.

In Kosovo, too, everything looks different, two years after the NATO air raids.

Political analysts in Serbia, stress that NATO air raids were an illegal action, a dangerous precedent in the history of the international law.

“That was a dangerous precedent in the area of international law, an aggression”, says prominent law professor Vojin Dimitrijevic. “It creates circumstances for armed intervention whenever someone finds it necessary to claim to protect someone, like NATO said it was acting in the name of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo”.

“None of the goals of NATO was accomplished”, says Zivadin Jovanovic, former foreign minister and a close aide of Milosevic. “On the contrary, the situation in Kosovo and in the Balkans is even worse”.

“More than 1,500 Serbs were killed in Kosovo since NATO intervened, at least a hundred Serb churches were destroyed, more than 50,000 Serb houses were burned to the ground”, Jovanovic says. “Instead of making Kosovo a safe place, NATO allowed terrorists to arm again and spread the wars of fire all around”.

Ethnic Albanian rebellion has spilled over from Kosovo into the southern Serbia in the past 12 months. Armed groups, trained and inspired by Kosovo Albanians, want the area united with Kosovo, as some 70,000 ethnic Albanians living around the towns of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac.

NATO and Serbs are now co-operating in the region. NATO ceded a part of the security zone in the region to Serb army and police two weeks ago. The aim of the co-operation is to maintain control over the porous border and prevent the spread of the rebellion.

Another armed group, calling itself “National Liberation Army” (NLA) operates in northern Macedonia. For two weeks now it is waging a small-scale war around the town of Tetovo, demanding greater autonomy for Albanians in the country. As their final objective, they have proclaimed joining “Independent Kosovo”.

“It is obvious that the mission of the international community in and around Kosovo has failed”, says Zoran Lutovac from Belgrade Institute of Social Sciences. “Its only success so far is bringing back home ethnic Albanian refugees. Nothing else can be described as success”.

According to Lutovac, Kosovo is now ethnically monolithic society with no place for Serbs. Only ethnic Albanians and foreigners can move freely in Kosovo. Kosovo Liberation Army, that had waged a guerrilla war against Milosevic forces since 1996, was not disarmed. Parts of it were transformed into Kosovo Protection Force, a nucleus of future Kosovo police. Parts of it trained, and are now leading armed rebels in southern Serbia and in Macedonia.

“Routes of crime have not been cut, trade in drugs and people is flourishing. Armed rebels freely cross borders into Serbia or Macedonia, under the very eyes of NATO and the United Nations. The question is, in whose name was the UN Charter violated with the air raids and why?” Lutovac asks.

“Ethnic Albanian insurgences now are the biggest threat to stability in the region”, he says.