yugoslavias implosion

246
ChApter 3
Albanians because it created a political vacuum. Agani, a key figure
on the Kosovo political scene, had been involved in the formulation
of strategy and decision-making. He initiated the demand for
republic status for Kosovo and mediated between power-wielding
structures within the Albanian movement on one side and informal
groups and power centers on the other.
The human rights situation in Kosovo had led to the nato intervention,
which was defined as a “collective” response to threats to
international peace and security. Nato intervention was traumatic
for both the Balkans and the Western countries because it was the
first military intervention by nato defined as a humanitarian intervention.
Many questions were raised, especially by the European and
American left. Several Western commentators criticized the nato
action, challenging why Kosovo was chosen for intervention among
the thirty-seven wars raging around the globe at that time.
In justifying the intervention in a speech to the American
Nation, u.s. president Bill Clinton said:
We should remember that the violence we responded to in Kosovo was
the culmination of a ten-year campaign by Slobodan Milošević, the
leader of Serbia, to exploit ethnic and religious differences in order to
impose his will on the lands of the former Yugoslavia. That’s what he
tried to do in Croatia and Bosnia, and now in Kosovo. When our diplomatic
efforts to avert this horror were rebuffed, and the violence
mounted, we and our allies chose to act. Nineteen democracies came
together and stayed together through the stiffest military challenge in
nato’s fifty – year history. Finally, we have averted the wider war
this conflict may well have sparked. 435
Nato Secretary General Javier Solana justified the decision
on the grounds that we “must stop an authoritarian regime from
435 Ştatement of the President to the Nation, White House, Office of Press Secretary, 24 March 1999