NATO: Kosovo operations a success

But there's room to improve, a year after bombing campaign

March 21, 2000
Web posted at: 5:11 p.m. EST (2211 GMT)

In this story: Kosovar cooperation needed Clark concurs Rape and refugees RELATED STORIES, SITES

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- NATO's top officials gave the alliance's efforts in Kosovo a favorable review on Tuesday while acknowledging that much more work was needed before the troubled Yugoslav province could be considered stable.

Just a year after heavy NATO airstrikes forced Yugoslavia's Serb authorities to back off their campaign against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, Secretary-General George Robertson praised NATO's Kosovo campaign as "just and necessary."

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Rebuilding Kosovo

"A year ago, NATO launched its air power to end the repression in Kosovo, and succeeded," Robertson's "Kosovo One Year On" report said. "In the blizzard of words that has followed, it is easy to overlook that simple fact. Serb forces are out, KFOR is in, and the refugees are home."

Robertson's report was released just three days before the March 24 anniversary of the start of the war against Yugoslavia, which has come under increasing criticism for the campaign's toll on civilians as well as its effectiveness.

Robertson disputed claims that the air war took a heavy toll on civilians, noting the independent group Human Rights Watch estimated that between 488 and 527 civilians died in the bombing.

That means that "less than 1 percent of the 10,484 NATO strikes led to civilian deaths," he said.

Though the military effort was a success, Robertson said, "it is of course much too early to claim complete success." Calling for a strong commitment from Western nations to ensure that the province turns the corner, the former British defense secretary added that NATO needs the cooperation of Kosovar Albanians if its efforts are to truly succeed.

"The international community is only one part of the equation," Robertson said at a news conference. Ethnic Albanians in the province "must now demonstrate that they too are committed to a democratic and multi-ethnic Kosovo."

The Serb campaign, which intensified when NATO launched its air war against Yugoslavia, forced hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians to flee their homes. As refugees returned to their homes at the close of NATO's war, some launched retaliatory attacks of their own against Serbs.

Now, Robertson said, the Albanians risk the support of other countries as long as violence against Serbs persists.

"Ethnic hatred must be set aside if the future is to be truly different," he said, urging "all Kosovars to use this anniversary to stand back from the passions of the moment and to set about building that tolerant, multi-ethnic society."

NATO's top military commander, Gen. Wesley Clark, echoed Robertson's comments, saying that "the level of violence has come down remarkably" and condemning any suggestion that Kosovo is worse off now than it was before the war.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," he said. "More than one million refugees have returned to their homes ... We're trying to work through the United Nations to reconstruct the economy and trying to establish democratic and western values."

Violence in the province has been reduced significantly. In fact, the general said, the crime rate in ethnically divided Kosovska Mitrovica is "lower than the rate in Moscow."

Mitrovica, about 20 miles north of Kosovo's capital of Pristina, has been the scene of intense clashes in recent months as ethnic Albanians have tried to return to their homes in a majority Serb section of town. As a result of the clashes -- which have killed up to a dozen people -- the Ibo River has become the town's dividing line, and bridges across it have become battlegrounds.

On Tuesday, NATO announced that it intended to enforce "a confidence zone" on both sides of the river, banning gatherings of any type there, as well as vehicle parking.

"Within a couple of days the limits of the confidence area will be marked with posters so people will know when they are entering it," said NATO spokesman Colonel Patrick Chanliau.

In another report issued Tuesday, Human Rights Watch said that it had compiled evidence that Serb forces -- paramilitaries, police and regular troops -- committed rapes against Albanian women.

The group has documented 96 "credible" cases of rape and sexual assault, and added that it believes "that the cases documented ... represent only a fraction of the incidents of sexual violence which occurred."

Under international humanitarian law, sexual violence committed during wartime is a war crime. Human Rights Watch has asked officials in Kosovo to pursue the cases they've documented.

The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague is already dealing with cases of rape in the Bosnian War. An unprecedented trial got under way on Monday -- three Serbs are accused of running a network of "rape camps" in which Muslim women and girls were beaten, raped and forced to bear Serb babies during the war.

Human Rights Watch found no evidence of such camps in Kosovo.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata noted another major difference between the Bosnian and Kosovar campaigns -- nearly a million Bosnian refugees have yet to return to their homes, she said, while nearly all the Kosovar Albanians have done so.

"The refugee outflow (from Kosovo) was very sudden and was caused in part by military action," Ogata said. "It was really a very politically-led outflow, and the return was also politically led."

Bosnia, on the other hand, "is a protracted conflict of three dimensions or maybe more for at least four years," she said. "Naturally, the displacement is more complicated, and the ethnic relationship is more complicated.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Human Rights Watch
United Nations
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees

Yugoslavia:
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia official site
Kesovo and Metohija facts
Serbia Ministry of Information

Kosovo:
Kosova Foundation For Economic Reconstruction And Development
Kosova Crisis Center
Kosovo - from Albanian.com

Military:
NATO official site
BosniaLINK - U.S. Dept. of Defense
U.S. Navy images from Operation Allied Force
U.K. Ministry of Defense - Kosovo news
French Ministry of Defense
Jane's Defense - Kosovo Crisis

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