themselves for over 400,000 ethnic compatriots.
Daily the sight of struggling men, women and
children, fear and exhaustion etched on their faces
horrified viewers as they watched the scenes on
television. Hundreds of thousands more were dis-
placed within Kosovo, no one knew how they
kept alive.
Bombing Serbs in Kosovo was not achieving
the expected quick results. The German and
Italian NATO allies were reluctant participants,
the Czechs were opposed, the Russians, Serbia’s
traditional protectors, had been against the war
all along. For Britain’s prime minister Tony Blair
on the other hand it was a moral imperative to
act and not to permit a repeat of Nazi horrors of
half a century earlier. Blair and the French presi-
dent Chirac strongly supported the US which
supplied most of the war effort in the air.
As time went by Blair agonised. The war
intended to rescue and help the Kosovars was hav-
ing the opposite effect in human terms. Blair
chaffed at the US military mission of striking at
the Serbs from a height of 15,000 feet alone and
urged plans to be made for a ground invasion. The
Serbs should not be left with the certainty that
NATO troops assembled in Macedonia would not
under any circumstances invade and engage the
Serbs. Clinton, however, ruled out a land war so
incurring the risk of American battle casualties.
The war would be won from the air alone. The air
strikes were widened to strategic targets in Serbia’s
capital, Belgrade. Power stations, oil installations,
bridges, police headquarters, Milosˇevic ́’s own pri-
vate residence, the TV station, were all targeted.
Serbia was brought to its knees but not without
‘collateral’ damage, warspeak for the unintended
civilian casualties. Bombing the Chinese embassy
by mistake was one of them, causing a rift in rela-
tions with China. In Europe public opinion
became even more critical of the tactics used. But
Serbia’s morale at the front in Kosovo began to
crumble. Five thousand Serb conscripts lost their
life many more were wounded. Some soldiers
mutinied, just went home, their parents too began
to demonstrate and Belgrade was without electric-
ity. The final blow to Milosˇevic ́ was the ‘desertion’
of Russia. But the Russians, in tough negotiations
with NATO, had succeeded in softening the terms
to be presented jointly to Milosˇevic ́. Their support
was essential if the war was to be brought to a halt.
The Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari and
the Russian mediator sent by Yeltsin, Victor
Chernomyrdin took the terms to Belgrade. They
were not negotiable. The biggest concession
was that Yugoslavia would retain sovereignty
over Kosovo, the referendum three years hence
demanded at Rambouillet to determine the
future was abandoned. Instead, Kosovars were
promised a vague political autonomy, nor would
NATO troops enter what was left of Yugosla-
via. NATO troops would move into Kosovo
under a UN mandate and the Russians would
participate. For the Serbs, the bitter pill to
swallow was that they had to pull out of Kosovo
completely. Meanwhile, the Kosovar Liberation
Army would be demilitarised. Milosˇevic ́ was
handed the terms on 2 June 1999. After a brief
deliberation and the tame vote of Serbia’s parlia-
ment Milosˇevic ́ gave in. The war came to an end
78 days after it began. The Serb army withdrew
in good order and NATO and Russian troops fol-
lowed on their heels. They began to establish
some law and order over a country devastated by
the Serbs and the war, helping to restore the sem-
blance of normality. Five years later they are still
there. Kosovo is too fragile to be left to organise
itself. The refugees returned, many to find their
homes devastated, some mourning relatives found
in mass graves. As for Milosˇevic ́, he did not
remain in power for long.
In October 2000 the opposition leader Vojislav
Kostunica, who led a democratic uprising replaced
Milosˇevic ́ as president of rump Yugoslavia and
Zoran Djindic was elected Serbia’s prime minister.
Nationalism is not dead. After all, Serbia’s aggres-
sions were not the work of one man but enjoyed
popular support. The UN demanded the handing
over of all those indicted for war crimes, mainly
Croatians and Serbs, including Milosˇevic ́, the
West was refusing all aid to Serbia otherwise.
In February 2002 Djindic reluctantly complied.
By 2003 The Hague War Crimes Tribunal had
put more than a hundred accused on trial,
Milosˇevic ́ the most prominent among them, but
twenty-three Serbs and Croats including General
Ratko Mladic, responsible for the butchery at
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THE WARS OF YUGOSLAVIA 925
