The requirement that NATO disarm the KLA seems increasingly farfetched. Providing Kosovars with some protection and autonomy is now the best NATO can hope for. The Clinton administrations overriding objective is to stop the exodus of refugees and have them return to Kosovo in safety. This does not figure in any of the original statements on the war. and for a simple reason. There was no refugee exodus until the bombings began. NATO angrily denies the connection. but the facts are clear. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that there were 45.000 Kosovars in Albania and Macedonia the week before the bombing. Today they number about 640.000. As the Serbian sweep through Kosovo began and tens of thousands of refugees poured into Albania and Macedoma. Secretary of Defense William Cohen asserted. "We are not surprised." making one wonder why NATO was so utterly unprepared for something it had expected. In fact. a highranking administration official admits frankly. "Anyone who says that we expected the kinds of refugee flows that we saw is smoking something. What Milosevic planned was a campaign called Operation Horseshoe. It was to be a larger version of a brutal offensive in 1998 that attacked and destroyed KLA strongholds and killed. terrorized and expelled civilians in areas that supported the group. Most Western observersincluding the CIA and the United Nationsestimated that this ugly action would result in an outflow of a maximum of 100.000 refugees abroad. The decision to wage an air war against Milosevic involved a fateful preliminary move. The 1.375 international observers posted in Kosovo had to abandon the province. as did all Western journalists and diplomats.
Keywords matched
refugees Refugees refugee