Abstract
Kosovo is mostly known as a region in the former Yugoslavia where, in 1998 and 1999, there was growing violence between the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which sought independence from Serbia, and the Serbian army and police, which were randomly attacking the province of the indigenous Albanian population as a reprisal for KLA activities. In an effort to prevent further violence, in 1998, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) issued several ultimatums to Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslavian President, demanding that the Serbs stop violence towards the Kosovar Albanian population and withdrew military forces from the province. As the Serbs refused to give in, NATO intervened in Kosovo without asking the permission to the United Nation Security Council and launched an air campaign against Yugoslavia in March 1999: the Operation Allied Force (OAF). In apparent retaliation for the NATO intervention, the Serbian army began to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of its population of Albanians and the flood of Albanian refugees reached crisis proportions.
