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1974 - A revised Yugoslav constitution grants autonomy to Kosovo, a Serbian province largely occupied by ethnic Albanians. The Albanians, most of whom are Muslim, institute Albanian-language schools and observe Islamic holidays

1989 - Escalating tensions between Serbs and ethnic Albanians and fear of secession prompt Milosevic to strip the province -- now 90 percent Albanian -- of its autonomy. The army and police are sent in battle strength to keep order.

1992 - Kosovo's Albanian majority votes to secede from Serbia and Yugoslavia, and indicates a desire to merge with Albania.

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1997 - The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a small militant group, begins killing Serb policemen and others who collaborate with the Serbs. They also establish areas from which the Serbs are driven entirely.

1998: February -- Milosevic sends troops into the areas controlled by the KLA, destroying property and killing 80 Kosovars, at least 30 of them women, children and elderly men. The killing provokes riots in Pristina, the Kosovar capital, turns the conflict into a guerrilla war and raises again the specter of ethnic cleansing by the Serbs.

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1998 July through 1999 March: •violence escalates on both sides, death count rises•intermittent attempts at diplomacy fail

1999 March 23 -- Serb parliament solidly rejects NATO demands to send peacekeeping troops into Kosovo. Holbrooke ends his mission, saying Milosevic has refused to agree to a plan for autonomy for Kosovo, secured by NATO troops. The failure of diplomacy opens the way for NATO airstrikes.

1999 March 24 -- NATO launches airstrikes.

∞∞ K O S O V O ∞∞1999 May 31 -- Belgrade say it agrees to the principles

of the G-8's plan for peace in Kosovo. The Western allies remain skeptical.

1999 June 3 -- The Serbian parliament approves the G-8's peace plan. Milosevic reportedly also votes in favor of the plan.

1999 June 9 -- Yugoslav and NATO generals sign an agreement on the withdrawal of Serb troops from Kosovo, following a marathon session of intense talks near the Yugoslav-Macedonian border. Once it is verified that the pullout has begun, NATO airstrikes will be suspended.

June 10 -- Yugoslavia begins the process of withdrawing its security forces from Kosovo. NATO announces that it has suspended the bombing campaign, and the U.N. Security Council formally ratifies the negotiated peace proposal.

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∞∞ K O S O V O ∞∞Withdrawal Plan for Serb Troops

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Thedistributionof NATOpeacekeepingtroops

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Hundreds of license plates lying by the side of the road in Kosovo just across the border from Albania. Serb border police had stripped them from the vehicles of fleeing refugees as part of a systematic effort to destroy proof of Yugoslav citizenship.© Joanne Mariner/Human Rights Watch

These twenty people were killed and their bodies burned in the Vejsa house at 163 Milos Gilic street in Djakovica.© Fred Abrahams/ Human Rights Watch

A memorial service held in Cuska on July 18, 1999, for the forty-one ethnic Albanian men killed in the village on May 14 by Serbian security forces. Villagers are carrying photographs of the deceased.© Fred Abrahams/ Human Rights Watch

Funeral in Velika Krusa where more than ninety men were killed.© Photo by Alban Bujari

Serb children leaving Prizren with their families on June 14, 1999. Most of the Serbian population in the municipalities of Prizren, Pristine, Pec, Urosevac, and Istok fled their homes after the war due to revenge attacks.© Joanne Mariner/ Human Rights Watch

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Obviously, there were various viewpoints on

NATO’s activities.

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"Quite honestly, she's been unimpressive on the details," said one European Union source involved in setting up Ms Albright's whirlwind weekend inspection of proceedings at Rambouillet and her meetings with EU and Contact Group ministers. "It's clear that she hasn't grasped the full deal under discussion, but having said that, she has massive clout - she's the one who can say to the Serbs, 'sign this, or we'll bomb the hell out of you'."[...]

"Air strikes against Serbia would constitute a total breach of international law, of the Charter of the United Nations and of Article 1 of the NATO Treaty, which commits NATO to upholding the U.N."

We are threatening to bomb the Serbs not because they have invaded a foreign country but because they refuse to accept an agreement, which we have crafted, to resolve a domestic conflict inside Yugoslavia and to permit the entrance of NATO troops to enforce it.

What or who gives us the authority to do such a thing?   Some say the United Nations. But the United Nations and the League of Nations before it were created specifically to prevent a nation, or combination of nations, from infringing on an independent country's sovereignty. We are arrogating to ourselves the power to judge a country for seeking to put down terrorism within its borders as well as to protect its borders with foreign countries.

More serious in the long run will be the precedent we would be creating. Our proposed actions would provide the arguments to justify a power or a combination of powers to invade some country in search of justice for a minority or minorities. This could be some Arab states, perhaps in agreement with Russia, or it could be China seeking to take over Taiwan. And what if the Hispanics in Texas or California should desire to detach a part of those states, appealing for foreign intervention to come to their assistance?

In any one of the hypothetical situations, power would be decisive. We will have provided the legal justification. Do we really want to do that?

Dr. Alex Dragnich, professor emeritus of Vanderbilt University

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The Final Numbers: Strike Wrap

After an exhausting 11-week-long air campaign against Yugoslavia, allied leaders on both sides of the Atlantic were muted in their proclamations of victory in NATO's first war. Indeed, it was a high-tech conflict that took a toll not only on the Serbs and Kosovars, but also at times on the alliance itself.

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Yugoslav Targets Destroyed

* 11 railroad bridges * 34 highway bridges * 29% of all ammunition storage * 57% of all petroleum reserves * All Yugoslav oil refineries * 14 command posts * 268 other military vehicles * 120 tanks * 203 armored personnel carriers * 314 artillery pieces * 100+ aircraft * 10 Military airfields

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Death Toll

* 10,000 Serb soldiers killed or injured * 2 U.S. soldiers killed in helicopter accident * 1,500 civilians killed * 5,000 civilians wounded* * 3 Chinese killed in accidental NATO bombing Refugees

855,000+ people, mostly ethnic Albanians, left Kosovo when NATO airstrikes began. Many of the 1.8 million Kosovar Albanians in the province fled prior to airstrikes. Many are returning.

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"Laws are like spider webs. If some poor weak creature comes up against them-it is caught. But the bigger one can break through and get away."

Solon (a Greek philosopher- c.630-c.555 B.C.)

Will this be true for Milosevic?

We'll never know. Milosevic died on March 12, 2006, during his trial.

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• The 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence was an act of the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government Assembly of Kosovo, adopted on 17 February 2008, which declared Kosovo to be independent from Serbia.

• It was the second declaration of independence by Kosovo's Albanian-dominated political institutions, the first having been proclaimed on 7 September 1990.

As of May 1st, 2008

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