yugoslavias implosion

intervention. It took almost a year to organize and unite the Serbian
opposition, civic society, media, and students before any serious
strategy for toppling Milošević could be developed. However,
the icty indictment against Milošević issued in May 1999 did play a
part in persuading Milošević’s own circles to eventually remove him
because he had become an impediment to building ties between the
fry and the European Union and the United States. 445
THE IDEA OF PARTITION PERSISTS
The intervention consolidated the regime, if only briefly,
because the opposition could not capitalize on the political vacuum
created after the signing of the Kumanovo agreement and Resolution
1244. The opposition was unable to dissociate itself from the military
and police offensive in Kosovo. On the contrary, the opposition
viewed the offensive as a prelude to the ultimate partition of Kosovo.
Nato intervention and the entry of nato troops (kfor) into Kosovo
put the Serbian partition plan into jeopardy; Resolution 1244 put an
end to Serbian jurisdiction over Kosovo.
In the new circumstances, the strategy of the Belgrade regime—
of not only Milošević but of also his successor, Koštunica—proceeded
along two tracks: negating and undermining the international mission
and preparing to partition Kosovo. The purpose of the campaign,
first against Bernard Kouchner, special representative of the
secretary-general and the head of unmik, and then against his successors
(Hans Haekkerup, Søren Jessen-Petersen, and Joachim
Ricker), was to discredit the proposed legal framework for Kosovo
(in spite of the fact that it envisaged maximum rights for Serbs and
other minorities) on the grounds that it did not take Serbian rights
into sufficient account and to prove that partition would be the best
solution. The Serbian campaign benefited from the behavior of some
445 Milošević and four other top officials were indicted on 340 counts of murder,
stemming from seven separate massacres, and 740,000 forced deportations
from the embattled Serbian province since the beginning of 1999 .
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