User:Gzim Avdiu

Kosovo war
Kosovo War was a conflict in Kosovo that started in 28 February 1998 and finally finished in 11 June 1999. Albanians seeing that without a proper war against Yugoslavia the war will not end formed the Kosovo Liberation Army. In the beginning, the KLA, which had only 150 active members, did not have an overall commander or a coherent strategy. Its numbers grew when village militia suddenly emerged and took the KLA name, even though they often acted because of local politics and clan motivation rather than directives from KLA's leadership. The first attacks were made against Serbian stations and police officers. Consequently, Belgrade denounced the Kosovo Liberation as a terrorist group and immediately raised its forces in Kosovo region. The commandant of this army became Adem Jashari who later died in the 3rd siege made by the Serbian army and died with almost whole of his family in that siege. The Kosovo war soon was familiar to most of the modern world. Later the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) legally found that Serbia "use[d] violence and terror to force a significant number of Kosovo Albanians from their homes and across the borders, in order for the state authorities to maintain control over Kosovo... This campaign was conducted by army and Interior Ministry police forces (MUP) under the control of FRY and Serbian authorities, who were responsible for mass expulsions of Kosovo Albanian civilians from their homes, as well as incidents of killings, sexual assault, and the intentional destruction of mosques . army  Yugoslavia controlled Kosovo prior to the start of war when she was forced to fight with the Kosovo Liberation Army with the help of  NATO. However, after the bombings of the NATO coalition the Yugoslavian forces attacked the civilian population thus, causing many civilian casualties amidst the Kosovo people. The Serbian forces committed many massacres in the territory of Kosovo. The most acquainted one were, The massacre of Racak,Likosan and the massacre of Rugova.



Foreign support
As soon as the war in Kosovo became known to the world many volunteers joined the Kosovo Liberation army. The British weekly The European said that German intelligence had been training KLA recruits aiming in more German influence in that area. According to Tim Judah, KLA representatives had already met with American, British, and Swiss intelligence agencies in 1996, and possibly "several years earlier and according to The Sunday Times, "American intelligence agents have admitted they helped to train the Kosovo Liberation Army before NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia

The massacre of Racak
In the early times in the morning of the date 15th of January the village of Racak was surrounded by the Serbian police special forces. From 06.30 they first started attacking the village with heavy artillery from a place called "Pishat". After this the paramilitary forces started raiding the village houses and beating up the villagers with heavy objects. After beating them they took every man in the village and put them into a colon. Then they sent them to the place as it is known "Gropa e Bebushit" and executed them without mercy. The only people who survived this massacre were 5 men who were in the back of the colon and therefore they escaped. They were,Ramë Shabani, Bilall Bilalli, Nesret Shabani, Ali Qazimi dhe Imer Imeri. After this massacre happened on the next day the village of Racak was visited from William Walker ex-chief of OSCE mission. His words will never be forgoten ""''Here's what I saw. It was obviously a crime against humanity." I called it a massacre, and I said, "My opinion is that those responsible are in the security services''"

After the War
After the war, the KLA was transformed into the Kosovo Protection Corps, which worked alongside NATO forces patrolling the province. The KLA's former military head, Agim Çeku, after the war became Prime Minister of Kosovo. The move caused some controversy in Serbia, as Belgrade regarded him as a war criminal, though he was never indicted by the Hague tribunal. Hajredin Bala, an ex-KLA prison guard, was sentenced on 30 November 2005 to 13 years’ imprisonment for the mistreatment of three prisoners at the Llapushnik prison camp, his personal role in the "maintenance and enforcement of the inhumane conditions" of the camp, aiding the torture of one prisoner, and of participating in the murder of nine prisoners from the camp who were marched to the Berisha Mountains on 25 or 26 July 1998 and killed. Bala appealed the sentence and the appeal is still pending Fatmir Limaj, one of the senior commanders of the KLA, was also tried at The Hague, and was acquitted of all charges in November 2005

Serbian War Crimes
Before the end of the bombing, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević, along with Milan Milutinović, Nikola Šainović, Dragoljub Ojdanić and Vlajko Stojiljković were charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) with crimes against humanity including murder, forcible transfer, deportation, and "persecution on political, racial or religious grounds". Further indictments were leveled in October 2003 against former armed forces chief of staff Nebojša Pavković, former army corps commander Vladimir Lazarević, former police official Vlastimir Đorđević, and Sreten Lukić. All were indicted for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war.



Yugoslav military losses
Of military equipment, NATO destroyed around 50 Yugoslav aircraft including 6 MiG-29s destroyed in air-to-air combat. A number of G-4 Super Galebs were destroyed in their hardened aircraft shelter by bunker-busting bombs which started a fire which spread quickly because the shelter doors were not closed. At the end of war, NATO officially claimed that they had destroyed 93 Yugoslav tanks. Yugoslavia admitted a total of 3 destroyed tanks. The latter figure was verified by European inspectors when Yugoslavia rejoined the Dayton accords, by noting the difference between the number of tanks then and at the last inspection in 1995. NATO claimed that the Yugoslav army lost 93 tanks (M-84's and T-55's), 132 APCs, and 52 artillery pieces.