Kosovo Report - Conflict, International Response, Lessons Learned

 The origins of the crisis have to be understood in terms of a new wave of nationalism that led to the rise of Milo- sevic and the official adoption of an extreme Serbian nationalist agenda. The revocation of Kosovo’s autonomy in 1989 was fol- lowed by a Belgrade policy aimed at changing the ethnic compo- sition of Kosovo and creating an apartheid-like society.

From the early 1990s onwards, governments and international institutions were aware of the impending conflict in Kosovo.There were plenty of warnings, and moreover, the Kosovo conflict was part of the unfolding tragedy of the break-up of Yugoslavia. Yet prior to 1998, the international community failed to take suffi- cient preventative action. There were some diplomatic initiatives especially in 1992–3, but they were confused and not backed by sufficient high-level pressure. More importantly, insufficient sup- port was provided to the non-violent resistance movement, which created its own parallel institutions and which managed to prevent large-scale violence in Kosovo up to 1997.