Word: yugoslavia
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Since the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia began almost a month ago, members of the Harvard community have expressed concern about the plight of Kosovar refugees in peace vigils, panels and class discussions on Kosovo...
...April 9, Annan announced a peace proposal which would stop the bombing once Yugoslavia withdrew its military forces from Kosovo and allowed the return of refugees. It also would have required an international peacekeeping force in Kosovo after Yugoslavia's withdrawal. Annan's proposal is sound; it makes clear that the aim of the NATO intervention is not to punish Yugoslavian civilians but to protect the civilians violently uprooted in Kosovo. Without the return of refugees and the removal of Yugoslav Army units, those who wish to see an Albanian-free Kosovo will have triumphed...
However, the U.N. proposal was officially turned down on April 16. Yugoslav diplomats said that the nation would not withdraw its troops until the bombing had ceased, in essence asking NATO to make the first move. In addition, Yugoslavia would allow only civilian observers, not military forces, into Kosovo. These conditions are unacceptable. The expulsion of the Albanians demonstrates that Milosevic cannot be relied on to obey international human rights conventions, so his compliance with international agreements may be unsteady. If the bombing stopped first, Yugoslavia could easily delay the withdrawal of troops long enough to continue its ethnic cleansing...
...achieve its ends of protecting the Albanian population, NATO must be able to weaken Yugoslavia's will faster than the Yugoslav Army can expel civilians. Those far outside of the military cannot possibly estimate the true effectiveness of the bombing or by how much the expulsions have been slowed. However, if bombardment from the air can no longer work faster than the ethnic-cleansers on the ground, the strategy needs reexamination...
...course, military briefings can never tell the full story of a war. But the conditions on the ground are even worse. Milosevic's expulsion of almost all foreign reporters from Yugoslavia and his crackdown on independent local journalists--have left Western viewers with little more than Serbian television images of towns smoldering from stray NATO bombs. The West calls it propaganda: U.S. intelligence officials say they have evidence that buildings in Kosovo that the government claims NATO destroyed were actually blown up by Yugoslav agents themselves. Sadly, the truth will likely remain buried in the rubble...