Humanitarian Intervention: The 1999 Kosovan War

The Bosnian, Srebrenica, and Herzegovina land was involved in an ethical war where ethnic cleansing was seen as a way to solidify the breaks in that region (“Bosnian Genocide”). The trigger of this ethnic war was the break-up of Yugoslavia from one country to three (Bosnia, Srebrenica, and Herzegovina) in 1990 (“Bosnian Genocide”). This rupture of Yugoslavia resulted in the massive dispute between Muslims, Serbs, and Croatians (Bennett). Not long after the war began, the Serbs began executing the Bosnian Muslims through ethnic cleansing, in order to fill the fissure that was created in 1990. The mass execution lasted three years and nine months, and did not end until the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened in 1995 (Bennett); by that time, an unforgettable 70,000 Bosnian citizens were executed by the Serbs (Perl 71). If NATO had intervened sooner, perhaps thousands of lives could have been saved and this haunting genocide may have had less of an impact on the world.

After Josip Broz Tito, the communist president of Yugoslavia, died in 1980, citizens of Yugoslavia took advantage of attempting to declare their independence (History of Bosnian Genocide). A man by the name of Slobodan Milosevic soon came into power and further fueled the tension within Yugoslavia. In 1992, Bosnia, following the footsteps of Croatia and Slovenia for independence, was home for different ethnic Muslim groups; with in the same year, Serbia declared war on Bosnia in hopes to claim the land as their own (History of Bosnian Genocide). By using military force and concentration camps, Serbia was attempting to eradicate this ethnic group using genocide. Just like the Holocausts, individual rights were being violated and they were being dehumanized. As a result and stated in our class text, the International Criminal Court (1998) was formed to holding state leaders accountable for human rights violations. Humanitarian intervention would have been permissible in this instance because, again, it would save people’s lives. “The violent dismemberment of Yugoslavia has added the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ to the global vocabulary (Denich).‘” Serbia was trying to completely erase the Bosnian ethnic

The Los Angeles Times starts by explaining that a Bosnian Serb army colonel named Vidoje Blagojevic was charged with crimes against humanity and genocide. The Los Angeles Times stated that “the charges against Blagojevic relate to alleged Bosnian Serb atrocities around Srebrenica. More than 7,000 Muslim men and boys were executed after being caught fleeing a Serbian conquest of the town in July 1995” (Times Wire Services). This information supports the case of Blagojevic’s arrest but it also connects to bias by making the Bosnian Serbs (such as Blagojevic) more guilty of commiting war crimes. As the article goes on, the Los Angeles Times address that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) got involved on whether his arrest is justified.

This New York Times article covers the reasoning behind the U.N.’s failure to put an end to the Bosnian genocide. Up until 1995, the U.S. refused to intervene in the genocide taking place in Bosnia. The American government refused sending in their own troops and also vetoed Security Council draft resolutions to increase the number of UN peacekeepers. The American foreign policy toward Bosnia changed in 1995 due to new evidence of the atrocities being committed in Bosnia. This evidence was becoming common knowledge to the public and the United States’ lack of action was becoming an embarrassment. Because their inaction would make America look bad, this gave them no choice but to interfere in

nonmilitary costs of helping Kosovo recover from war and build stability". The U.S. could have struck against Milosevic quicker had it not had to be in

The topic of the United Nations’ (UN) interventions has been a source of heated dispute by scholars since their intervention in the Korea War in 1951. However there are interventions that garner more controversy than others. The tragedies of the Rwandan Genocide and the Bosnian Genocide have been hailed as some of the greatest failures in the United Nations peacekeeping and intervention missions. The Rwandan and Bosnian genocides brought around a deep, introspective critique within the UN on its role in the prevention of genocides and the protection of citizens at risk that has ultimately proved inconsequential in effectively addressing more contemporary cases of genocide. After these genocidal incidents, the United Nations published reports

The debate of humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect have been discussed in international relations discourse more seriously within the last 60 years. The major historical developments which have led to an increase in the intensity of these debates have had beneficial and detrimental effects on Earth within the last 20 years. Several factors have contributed to this including; globalization, the rise in international accountability, an increase humanitarian consciousness to prevent major atrocities from occurring, the expansion of territorial to global responsibility of the western world, and the realization of the western world that regional sovereignty no longer accounts for national security. To develop an opinion

According to international committee of the red cross, a war crime is defined as: “1)making the civilian population or individual civilians, not taking a direct part in hostilities, the object of attack;(2)launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;(3)making non-defended localities and demilitarized zones the object of attack.” However, it is challenging to interpret every state of affairs within only a single definition. The first war crimes tribunal since the end of World War II was in Yugoslavia. International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) states, “Between 1991 and 1995, the Yugoslav Army and Serbian paramilitaries occupied sections of Croatia. In mid-1995, the Croatian army reclaimed this territory, pushing out the Yugoslav Army and expelling many of the ethnic Serbs who had been living there for generations......generated a huge number of civilian casualties, human rights violations, and war crimes. To assess these crimes and determine culpability, even as the wars continued to rage, the United Nations established the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 1993.” Serbian and Croatian leaders sacrificed civilians in order to fulfill their egoistic ambition to get a territory of Bosnia. It fact, war crime always abide by war and it can’t be helped. Though it is possible to identify each crime cases and rectify it subsequently. ICTY was established in order to achieve this goal. In the article the Truth About No Gun Ri, the author complicates matters further by stating, “That anxiety has been heightened by the ex-Yugoslavia war-crimes tribunal, which was created in 1993. Late in 1999, the

No one was informed of the documents or that the framework was provided by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. No Findings were found as to Serbia responsibility for the war crimes or whether the court whether it was legally responsible for Srebrenica. The former ICTY president Antonio Cassese called the judgment unrealistic. The judgment was of a great significance because it was the first time that states can be legally found to be responsible for genocide. A local president of a nongovernmental organization said it best when he stated “ let Bosnias blood and ashes rest on the hands of all those who made such a judgment” To this day scholars are still wondering whether the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina and beyond could be characterized as genocide.

Finnemore’s thesis relies on the notion that international norms can explain why and how states justify interventions in humanitarian crises with or without an overriding geopolitical or economic incentives. Unlike other analytical perspectives, state’s justification for action rather than motivation is incredibly important to Finnemore’s thesis because justifications “speak directly to normative context” because “it is literally an attempt to connect one’s actions to standard of justice or, perhaps more generically, to standards of appropriate and acceptable behavior” (Finnemore). In the 19th century, only violence perpetrated against Christians, most commonly by the Ottoman empire, qualified as a humanitarian problem. The war for Greek independence

The Marty report is not a judicial document, but still it has been a headline around the world and a major advantage for Serbia to blame Albanian criminals for what happened in Kosovo. However, no one can guarantee that among many war crimes that have been committed during 1999, this cannot be one of

In 1992 Bosnia and Herzegovina had one the biggest genocide to come after WWII, in turn killing over 800,000 civilians. The war consisted of two factions, the Croats and Serbs, both wanting territory in Bosnia. Soon Radovan Karadžić, former Bosnian Serb president, created a special army to support the Serbs, soon the Serbs started the new policy for “ethnic cleansing” many areas of non-Serb. For it was later that it was to be decided that is was complete and utter genocide towards the innocent.

The land of Kosovo has been plagued with tension for hundreds of years being claimed by several surrounding countries. The two biggest contenders, Albanians in Kosovo and Serbia have been fighting for the land, which culminated in a full war from 1998-1999. The war brought international attention to the war crimes committed by both sides, and proved that the two countries had years to go before coming to a solution. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) led by Kosovo Albanians, and the Serbian militia led by President Slobodan Milošević committed heinous crimes against their enemies. Crimes range from ethnic cleansing to rape and destruction of whole villages. The violence created a serious refugee problem that is still relevant today.

Much recent discourse surrounding humanitarian intervention has focused on the responsibility to protect (R2P). Prevention is a key component for good international relations and few would say it is not important, but as evidence to date would show prevention is very ineffective, the legality of military intervention still needs to be debated, as to date there is no consensus. For any intervention to be legitimate, whether unilateral or multilateral, it must comply with international law. So as not to cause any confusion, any situation in which an “intervention” is done with the permission or by request of the state being intervened, should be considered humanitarian assistance as state sovereignty is not breached. This paper will

The Bosnian War was a brutal and inhumane conflict that featured genocide and the advent of ethnic cleansing and mass rape as instruments of modern warfare. The case study “War in Bosnia” recounts the tragic events of that war. Specifically, the article emphasizes the numerous and systematic atrocities perpetrated by the Serb forces upon the Bosnian Muslim and Croat civilian populations throughout the country during the course of the conflict, specifically emphasizing the genocide the Serbs committed against the Muslim population. The article points out the international outcry that ensued against the Serbs and their genocidal tactics was what spurred the United States to intervene militarily in Bosnia against the Serbs under President Bill Clinton. The article notes that the atrocities and violence did not subside until the NATO bombing campaign weakened the Serbian position in the conflict and forced the Serbian leader Milosevic to enter peace talks.