KOSOVO: Kosovars mark the tenth anniversary of the NATO bombing of Belgrade

Record ID: 356289

  • Title: KOSOVO: Kosovars mark the tenth anniversary of the NATO bombing of Belgrade
  • Date: 25th March 2009
  • Summary: NEWSPAPER HEADLINE IN DAILY "LAJM" READING "ALLIANCE OF HOPE"
  • Embargoed: 9th April 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVADV9BSLUEI16WAYHOUZ39XBUXB
  • Story Text: Ten years after the NATO bombing of Belgrade Kosovars are still grateful to the Alliance for their intervention.
    Ten years after NATO bombed the former Yugoslavia Kosovars look back.
    Albanians officially demanded independence from Serbia after holding renegade elections in 1992 and pacifist leader Ibrahim Rugova was elected president of the self-declared republic.
    Kosovo's attempted cessation was ignored amid the wider Balkan wars and in the late 1990s ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas launched an armed rebellion. Serb forces retaliated and in 1998 100,000 Albanians were forced to flee.
    Peace talks in France failed and in March 1999 NATO started bombing Serbia to force it to withdraw its forces from Kosovo.
    Some 800,000 Albanians fled or were expelled to Macedonia and Albania before the campaign led by former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was stopped.

    "I wasn't in Kosovo when it happened, but my family was, when the first strike happened I felt that freedom will come very fast. However, I realised that big massacres were about to happen and this was the painful part, as they did happen," said economist Bekim Xhafa.

    "We would all be finished if it hadn't happened, but thank god they did happen and they came and rescued us," Kosovan pensioner, Hafije Muqolli added.

    "I think that the NATO intervention stopped the genocide and blocked the humanitarian crises that would definitely have spread not only in Kosovo but in the region too," journalist Ridvan Berisha said.
    Kosovo declared independence on February 17, 2008 and is recognised by the U.S. and most of the European Union member states. Serbia and its ally Russia reject Kosovo's secession.
    The NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo is still present with some 14,000 troops patrolling the streets and of Kosovo.
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