1999-03-24 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- The United States and its NATO allies yesterday ordered warships and strike aircraft to go ahead with bombing of Yugoslav military targets -- as early as today -- after President Slobodan Milosevic spurned a final demand to halt his offensive against ethnic separatists in Kosovo.
The hour of the intended attack was not disclosed. But sources at NATO said it was likely to come tonight, with repeated volleys of satellite-guided Tomahawk cruise missiles. They would be launched from U.S. warships and B-52s and aimed at radar stations, ground-to-air missile batteries and other air defenses in Yugoslavia.
Alliance forces across Europe, and some from farther afield, began moving toward their launch points for a synchronized attack immediately after NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana transmitted the order "to initiate the air operations in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia," which he announced at 2:17 p.m. PST.
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"We must halt the violence and bring an end to the humanitarian catastrophe now unfolding in Kosovo," Solana said. "We must stop an authoritarian regime from repressing its people in Europe at the end of the 20th century."
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Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said in an interview last night: "Diplomacy has failed. Now it has become a military operation."
Special U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke, accompanied by Lieutenant General Edward Anderson of the Pentagon's Joint Staff, delivered NATO's most explicit warning to Milosevic on Monday in a fruitless attempt to prod him toward acceptance of an agreement signed last week by Albanian separatists in Kosovo, which is a province of Serbia, the dominant republic in Yugoslavia.
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"We told them that if there is bombing, the VJ (Yugoslav Army) will be destroyed," Anderson said afterward, saying armed forces throughout Serbia would come under sustained attack.
Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who was halfway across the Atlantic for a scheduled visit to Washington when he got word of the imminent attack from Vice President Al Gore, ordered a midair change of course and returned to Moscow to dramatize his government's displeasure. Russia and Serbia share common Slavic and Orthodox Christian roots.
As they neared and then passed what they said was the point of no return for military force, the Clinton administration and NATO left room for an 11th-hour bid by Milosevic to call it off.
Mindful of the Serbian leader's proclivity for brinkmanship, Holbrooke and State Department spokesman James Rubin in Washington appeared to invite Milosevic to reopen negotiations on the accord signed by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian rebels in Paris last week. In describing their minimum demands on Milosevic, they stopped well short of insisting he sign the accords precisely as written.
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Holbrooke said there were only two core demands: that Milosevic halt his current offensive in Kosovo and that he agree "to bring in a NATO peacekeeping force as envisioned in" last week's Paris agreement. Rubin put it more softly, saying the offensive must stop and Milosevic must agree to "serious and substantive work" on the Kosovo accord, which calls for Kosovo to regain self-government but remain a Serbian province.
Even after the bombing begins, administration officials said, Milosevic could stop it without unconditional acceptance of the peace plan. "It would have been a breakthrough," one U.S. official said, if Milosevic had accepted the idea of armed peacekeepers in Kosovo while rejecting some of the details. "The wiggle room has always been on atmospherics."
But Milosevic did not take the bait, opting instead in the words of one official to issue "a steady stream of vilification, a long litany of injustices committed against the Serbs and accusations of some international cabal against Serbia."
By early afternoon Washington time, Holbrooke had flown back to Brussels.
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Acting on orders from Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Deputy Secretary Strobe Talbott telephoned the American charge d'affaires in Belgrade, Richard Miles, to order the evacuation of the last U.S. diplomats in Yugoslavia. State Department officials declined to say exactly how or when they would leave, in an effort to prevent their detention by Yugoslav authorities.
Senior officials said the skeleton diplomatic crew worked through the night to destroy sensitive files and cryptographic equipment before its planned departure.
Following the collapse of the talks with Holbrooke, Yugoslav Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic went on national television to declare a "state of immediate threat of war." It effectively gives the government authority to significantly curb civil liberties.
War panic swept Belgrade following the announcement. Shoppers crowded into stores to buy food, water and other essential items, and cars lined up for blocks to buy scarce gasoline.
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To further bolster its military forces in Kosovo, the Yugoslav government has been summoning thousands of reservists to military duty but without making any public announcement. Some residents of the capital say scores of men are in hiding, seeking to avoid military police dispatched to enforce the draft.
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE KOSOVO CRISIS
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Associated Press
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KOSOVO'S THREE-DECADE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM
The majority of people in Kosovo are ethnic Albanians seeking secession from the remains of the former Yugoslavia. Tensions between Belgrade and the tiny province have been building for three decades. Bloodshed and violence have killed thousands and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes. NATO wants Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to halt his offensive against ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo and to accept a Western-drafted peace plan that would grant the province considerable autonomy and lead to the deployment of a NATO-led mission to enforce the settlement. Here's a chronology of selected modern dates and events in this conflict:
CONFLICT BEGINS
1968
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First pro-independence demonstrations by ethnic Albanians in Kosovo
1974
New Yugoslav constitution declares Kosovo autonomous province within Serbia
1981
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Dozens of ethnic Albanians injured in demonstrations demanding Kosovo be declared a republic
1989
Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic strips Kosovo's autonomy
Feb. 1990
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Yugoslavia sends troops to impose control as violence continues
July 1990
Serbia dissolves Kosovo's government and ethnic Albanian political institutions
1991
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Following a secret referendum, separatists proclaim the Republic of Kosovo, which is recognized by neighboring Albania
1992
Ibrahim Rugova, who advocates a peaceful path to indepen-dence, elected president of the so-called republic
1993
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Police arrest 30 ethnic Albanians on suspicion of preparing an armed uprising
July 1995
Serbs imprison 68 ethnic Albanians for allegedly setting up a parallel police force
1996
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Ethnic Albanians' pro-independence Kosovo Liberation Army emerges, claims responsibility for bomb attacks in a campaign against Serbian authorities
April 12,1997
Top U.S. envoys call for restoration of human rights in Kosovo
VIOLENCE ESCALATES IN 1998
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Feb. 20
Militant Kosovo Albanians kill two Serbian policemen, which results in widespread reprisals.
March
U.N. Security Council imposes new arms embargo on Yugoslavia.
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April
-- Serbs reject international mediation to settle the Kosovo conflict.
-- Contact Group for Former Yugoslavia imposes new international sanctions against Yugoslavia.
May 15
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-- Yugoslav President Milosevic and Rugova hold talks.
-- Albanian side boycotts further meeting as Kosovo violence escalates.
July-August
KLA forces control 40 percent of Kosovo before being routed in huge scorched-earth campaign by Yugoslav army and Serbian police.
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September
-- Serb forces target
the Drenica region.
-- Massacres near Gornje Obrinje trigger international calls for action against the Serbs.
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-- U.N. Security Council adopts Resolution 1199, calling for a cease-fire and political dialogue.
October
Milosevic agrees to withdraw troops and allows 2,000 unarmed international verifiers into Kosovo.
Oct.-Dec.
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U.S. attempts to broker any political settlement fail. Daily violence undermines fragile truce.
December
-- Yugoslav border guards kill 36 KLA rebels trying to smuggle arms in from Albania.
-- Six young Serbs killed in a Pec cafe.
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1999
Jan. 8-12
KLA frees eight Yugoslav hostages after Belgrade agrees to release nine KLA prisoners.
Jan. 15
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45 ethnic Albanians massacred outside Racak. International officials demand a war crimes investigation.
Jan. 29
Serbian police kill 24 Kosovo Albanians in a raid on a suspected rebel hideout. Western allies demand warring sides attend Kosovo peace conference or face NATO air strikes.
Feb. 6-17
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First, inconclusive round of talks between Kosovo Albanians and Serbs in Rambouillet, France.
March 18
Kosovo Albanians sign peace deal calling for interim broad autonomy and for 28,000 NATO troops. Serbian delegation refuses to sign accord.
March 22
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Last-minute negotiations between U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke and Milosevic fail.
March 23
NATO chief Javier Solano authorizes air attacks. Yugoslavia declares state of emergency.
Chronicle Graphic
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Source: Associated Press