War crimes in the Kosovo War

The War crimes in the Kosovo War were a series of war crimes committed during the Kosovo War (early 1998 – 11 June 1999). Yugoslav security forces killed many Albanian civilians during the war; there were also attacks on Yugoslav security forces, non-Albanian civilians and moderate Serb-friendly Albanians by the Kosovo Liberation Army (UÇK). According to Human Rights Watch, the vast majority of the violations from January 1998 to April 1999 were attributable to Serbian Police or the Yugoslav Army. Violations also include abuses committed by Albanian militants, such as kidnappings and summary executions of other minority races.

By the 1980s, the Kosovo Albanians constituted a majority in Kosovo. During the 1970s and 1980s, thousands of Serbs and Montenegrins left Kosovo, largely due to the economic situation and repression by the Kosovo Albanian government and population. "57,000 Serbs have left Kosovo in the last decade" – wrote the New York Times in 1982.Slobodan Milošević gained political power by pledging to discontinue this repression.

Milošević abolished Kosovo's autonomy in 1989. With his rise to power, the Albanians started boycotting state institutions and ignoring the laws of the Republic of Serbia, culminating in the creation of the Republic of Kosova which received recognition from neighbouring Albania. Serbia (now in union with Montenegro as FR Yugoslavia) tried to maintain its political control over the province. With the formation of the Kosovo Liberation Army, a large number of the Kosovo Albanians became radicalized. The Serbian police and Yugoslav army response was brutal. In 1997, international sanctions were applied to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia because of persecution of Kosovo's Albanians by Yugoslav security forces.

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