25 Years Ago NATO bombed Yugoslavia with depleted Uranium

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25 Yeats Ago NATO bombed Yugoslavia

On March 24, 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commenced air strikes against Yugoslavia depleted Uranium

The Kosovo region lay at the heart of the Serbian empire in the late Middle Ages but was lost to the Ottoman Turks in 1389 following Serbia’s defeat in the Battle of Kosovo. By the time Serbia regained control of Kosovo from Turkey in 1913, there were few Serbs left in a region that had come to be dominated by ethnic Albanians. In 1918, Kosovo formally became a province of Serbia, and it continued as such after communist leader Josip Broz Tito established the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia in 1945, comprising the Balkan states of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Slovenia and Macedonia. However, Tito eventually gave in to Kosovar demands for greater autonomy, and after 1974 Kosovo existed as independent state in all but name.

Serbs came to resent Kosovo’s autonomy, which allowed it to act against Serbian interests, and in 1987 Slobodan Milosevic was elected leader of Serbia’s Communist Party with a promise of restoring Serbian rule to Kosovo. In 1989, Milosevic became president of Serbia and moved quickly to suppress Kosovo, stripping its autonomy and in 1990 sending troops to disband its government. Meanwhile, Serbian nationalism led to the dissolution of the Yugoslav federation in 1991, and in 1992 the Balkan crisis deteriorated into civil war. A new Yugoslav state, consisting only of Serbia and the small state of Montenegro, was created, and Kosovo began four years of nonviolent resistance to Serbian rule.

The militant Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) emerged in 1996 and began attacking Serbian police in Kosovo. With arms obtained in Albania, the KLA stepped up its attacks in 1997, prompting a major offensive by Serbian troops against the rebel-held Drenica region in February-March 1998. Dozens of civilians were killed, and enlistment in the KLA increased dramatically. In July, the KLA launched an offensive across Kosovo, seizing control of nearly half the province before being routed in a Serbian counteroffensive later that summer. The Serbian troops drove thousands of ethnic Albanians from their homes and were accused of massacring Kosovo civilians.

n October, NATO threatened Serbia with air strikes, and Milosevic agreed to allow the return of tens of thousands of refugees. Fighting soon resumed, however, and talks between Kosovar Albanians and Serbs in Rambouillet, France, in February 1999 ended in failure. On March 18, further peace talks in Paris collapsed after the Serbian delegation refused to sign a deal calling for Kosovo autonomy and the deployment of NATO troops to enforce the agreement. Two days later, the Serbian army launched a new offensive in Kosovo. On March 24, NATO air strikes began.

In addition to Serbian military positions, the NATO air campaign targeted Serbian government buildings and the country’s infrastructure in an effort to destabilize the Milosevic regime. The bombing and continued Serbian offensives drove hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians into neighboring Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro. Many of these refugees were airlifted to safety in the United States and other NATO nations. On June 10, the NATO bombardment ended when Serbia agreed to a peace agreement calling for the withdrawal of Serb forces from Kosovo and their replacement by NATO peacekeeping troops.

With the exception of two U.S. pilots killed in a training mission in Albania, no NATO personnel lost their lives in the 78-day operation. There were some mishaps, however, such as miscalculated bombings that led to the deaths of Kosovar Albanian refugees, KLA members, and Serbian civilians. The most controversial incident was the May 7 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, which killed three Chinese journalists and caused a diplomatic crisis in U.S.-Chinese relations.

On June 12, NATO forces moved into Kosovo from Macedonia. The same day, Russian troops arrived in the Kosovo capital of Pristina and forced NATO into agreeing to a joint occupation. Despite the presence of peacekeeping troops, the returning Kosovar Albanians retaliated against Kosovo’s Serbian minority, forcing them to flee into Serbia. Under the NATO occupation, Kosovar autonomy was restored, but the province remained officially part of Serbia.

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Since the bombing a great many of the people died or became severely injured due to depleted Uranium contaminating air (depleted Uranium dust got everywhere), soil and water

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NATO went to war with Yugoslavia

Twenty-five years ago, on March 24, 1999 NATO launched 11 weeks of air strikes on Yugoslavia to force it to end its bloody crackdown on separatists in Kosovo

It was the first time NATO had attacked a sovereign state in its 50-year history and remains a source of deep resentment both in Serbia, home of the former Yugoslav capital Belgrade, as well as in fellow Slavic ally Russia.

Here’s what you need to know about the US-led campaign:

Why did NATO bomb Serbia?

Europe was still reeling from the brutal conflicts that had engulfed the former Yugoslav republics of Bosnia and Croatia from 1991 to 1995 when Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic sent troops into Kosovo, a Serbian province with an ethnic Albanian majority, to crush pro-independence guerrillas, in early 1998.

Milosevic portrayed the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as a terrorist organisation bent on driving ethnic Serbs out of a province cherished by Serbs as a cradle of their Orthodox Christian faith.

His campaign against them left some 13,000 people dead, mostly ethnic Albanians, and drove hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, leading NATO to accuse him of ethnic cleansing.

After failed peace talks, NATO Secretary General Javier Solana announced on March 23, 1999 that the alliance had “no alternative… but to take military action”.

How did the world react? –

Serbia’s allies Russia and China, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, strongly rejected the military intervention, which went ahead without the UN’s authorisation.

“Morally, we are on higher ground right now than America,” Russian President Boris Yeltsin said of the airstrikes.

In Serbia and fellow Yugoslav republic Montenegro, which was also targeted by the airstrikes, even those who were opposed to Milosevic saw NATO as the chief aggressor.

Across Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East critics of European imperialism and American interventionism took a similar view, leading to mass anti-NATO demonstrations.

“Is NATO’s work to prevent war or to fuel one?” asked India’s prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

What did NATO target? –

The strikes on the Serbian capital Belgrade, Kosovo’s capital Pristina and other cities and towns began on the evening of March 24.

Over the 11-week “Allied Force” campaign, NATO carried out 38,000 sorties and 10,000 bombardments.

After running out of military and regime targets, NATO’s focus shifted to infrastructure such as petroleum and power plants, roads and railways.

One of its most controversial strikes targeted Serbian state-run broadcaster RTS.

Sixteen employees were killed in that bombing, which NATO justified on the grounds that the broadcaster was part of Milosevic’s propaganda machine.

How did Milosevic react? –

NATO was hoping that a few days of strikes would bring Milosevic back to the negotiating table.

Instead, he stepped up his brutal campaign against Kosovo’s Albanians, exacerbating the refugee crisis.

NATO blunders such as the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade due to a CIA mapping error that left three dead, and an attack on an Albanian refugee convoy that left scores dead, increased global opposition to the campaign.

How did the war end? –

After 78 days of airstrikes, Milosevic suddenly capitulated.

On June 10, 1999, he ordered his forces to withdraw from Kosovo, which was effectively taken over by the international community.

The toll of the bombing campaign is disputed to this day. Serbian authorities say 2,500 civilians were killed. A report by Human Rights Watch in 2000 put the figure at around 500.

After the war, many Kosovo Serbs were pressured to either flee or sequester themselves in enclaves.

Milosevic was ousted in an uprising in 2000 and later sent to the Hague where he was put on trial for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Balkans wars. He died in his cell in 2006, aged 64.

Kosovo declared independence in 2008, a move Serbia, China and Russia still refuse to recognise.

Montenegro, which became independent in 2006, joined NATO in 2017. Most Serbians remain bitterly opposed to the alliance.

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