#23 Caveat Chaos in Kosovo:

Divided Allies & Fettered Forces in NATO’s KFOR Operation

during the 2004 “Kosovo Riots”

 

– Dr Regeena Kingsley

 

In blog “#17 The Complexity of Diverse National ROE within Multinational Security Operations”, I examined the reasons for, and impact of, diverse sets of Rules of Engagement (ROE) between force contributing nations to a Multinational Operation (MNO), especially with regard to national caveat constraints.  I also presented the fallacy of the “caveat myth” – still believed and asserted by many power-holders and policy-makers today – that national caveat prohibition and limitation rules are “positive” ROE mechanisms that serve to “protect” national military forces deployed to operate in conflict zones.

In the preceding blogs, I have presented a number of detailed case-studies which examine the negative, real-life, on-the-ground, tangible effects and consequences of these strict and often non-sensical national caveat constraints, that were imposed by national governments on national military contingents contributed to UN operations in Angola, Rwanda and Bosnia during the 1990s (see blogs “18 Caveats Endanger & Caveats Kill: National Caveats in UN Operations in Angola, Rwanda & Bosnia-Herzegovina”, “19 Hindering Escape during an Emergency: National Caveats & the UNAVEM II Operation in Angola”, “20 Betrayal & Barbarism in Bosnia: The UNPROFOR Operation, National Caveats & Genocide in the Srebrenica UN “Protected Area””, and “21 Srebrenica Aftermath: Serb Guilt & Dutch Liability for the Genocide in the UNPROFOR ‘Safe Area’ in Bosnia”).

In order to further illustrate the significant and often extremely negative impact of diverse ROE on a multinational security campaign, this blog will present a further case-study on a multinational security operation conducted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Specifically, this blog is an in-depth account of the way in which contrasting sets of ROE, including national caveat limitations and prohibitions, impacted upon the NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) operation during the security emergency that occurred there in 2004, known as the “Kosovo Riots”. 

First of all, the problems presented by the numerous KFOR contingent restraints on NATO Command & Control (C²) within the KFOR ground operation, as well as the NATO Operational Commander as the security emergency progressed, will first be explored.  

Subsequently, the harmful and dangerous impediments posed by ROE restrictions to tactical security operations will be examined, with regard to the ability of KFOR forces to respond adequately and effectively to the riots taking place within each of the four KFOR sectors across the Kosovo Province.

Finally, the ramifications of NATO’s failure to meets its own primary security mission objective of ‘establishing and maintaining a secure environment in Kosovo, including public safety and order’ by checking the violent and destructive rampage, will be addressed with regard to the KFOR mission, the NATO collective security organisation, and participating force contributing nations.

 

Historical Background

In 1992 the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a multi-ethnic entity located in the Balkans of south-eastern Europe, suddenly and dramatically broke apart.  The State, comprised of six constituent republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia) and two autonomous regions (Kosovo and Vojvodina), had hitherto been held together since the end of the Second World War by a combination of a Communist political regime and the iron grip and tyrannical political cunning of Socialist Yugoslav leader, Marshall Josip Broz Tito.[1]  However, Tito’s death in 1980 and the subsequent collapse of Communism throughout Europe from 1989-1991 sounded the death knell for the Yugoslavian State.  Together these two events became the catalyst for a series of violent and bloody inter-ethnic clashes among Yugoslavia’s various ethnic groups, which lasted over a decade.

 The Dissolution of Yugoslavia

By the end of 1992, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had dissolved with four republics – Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia – declaring independence from Serbia and central rule from the Serbian capital, Belgrade.  In reaction, Serbia joined with Montenegro to create a new Yugoslavian Republic – the so-called ‘Greater Serbia’ – which at that time also included the province of Kosovo (the latter stripped of its autonomy). 

The political dissolution and reconfiguration of Yugoslavian territory and sovereignty also divided the Yugoslavian people groups within the population.  In particular, a stringent divide appeared between two communities scattered throughout the Former Republic of Yugoslavia, namely between Christian Serbs and Muslims of various ethnicities – Croat, Bosnian and Albanian.  Generally-speaking, the former wished to become part of ‘Greater Serbia’, while the latter desired independence.  The result was catastrophic: whereas Slovenia and Macedonia, with a small minority of Serbs (less than 10 per cent) were able to secede from the Federation with minimal fighting, violence erupted all over the territories of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina where the Serb population, though still the minority, comprised a higher 12 – 31 per cent respectively of the total population.[2] 

In Croatia, brutal fighting between Croats and Serbs led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Muslim Croat refugees.  These Croats would later regain most of their territory in 1995 through military raids and the revenge expulsion of 200,000 Serbs.[3]  In Bosnia by contrast, where the Serb population was greater, the campaign for a Greater Serbia was supported politically from Belgrade and militarily through the deployment of the large Serbian Yugoslavian Army.[4]  Consequently, Muslim Bosnians were concertedly driven out and even massacred through planned military operations – the phenomenon now well-known around the world as ‘ethnic cleansing’ (discussed in blogs #20 and #21).[5]  Over the next two years, thousands of Muslim Bosnians were killed and more than a million displaced by the fighting.[6]

An international intervention in the form of a NATO air bombing campaign – the first military campaign ever conducted by the organisation – eventually drove the Serbians to the negotiating table however.  The result was the 1995 Dayton Accord, which ended the wars and divided the fraught Bosnian territory into two ethnically-dominated administrative regions, each with their own government, parliament and army – the Bosnian Muslim ‘Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina’ and the Serbian Bosnian ‘Republic of Srpska’.[7]  Approximately 60,000 heavily-armed Intervention Force (IFOR) troops were deployed to Bosnia to enforce the diplomatic treaty, an international contingent drawn from 30 NATO and non-NATO nations, including Russia.[8]

The Dissolution of Yugoslavia: Maps of Yugoslavia prior to and following its fragmentation.[9]

Conflict in Kosovo

NATO’s intervention in Kosovo occurred four years later in 1999, when Serbian forces within Greater Serbia again began to carry out ethnic cleansing operations.  This time the violence was directed against Muslim Albanians within Kosovo, a province which was widely considered to belong to Serbia but in which Serbs formed the minority population.  In its attempt to create a stable Yugoslavian settlement, the Dayton Accord had failed to return to Kosovo its historical right of autonomy, which by 1995 had been abolished for a period of nine years.  The lack of redress prompted Albanian militants to react by founding a paramilitary entity called the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).  

Beginning with small-scale attacks on Serb policemen in 1995, the KLA soon attracted so much support from the majority Albanian population of Kosovo (at that time comprising approximately 90 per cent of the total population) that within a few years in 1998, the KLA was embarking on open rebellion on the streets of Kosovo and calling for full independence from Serbia.[10] President Milosevic, then President of Serbia, reacted by sending in the Serbian Army to quell the uprising. 

This was an order which resulted not only in widespread and continuous military engagements between the Yugoslav Army and the KLA, but also, once again, in widespread ethnic cleaning against the civilian population.  As with Croatia and Bosnia, the ‘indiscriminate use of force’ by the Yugoslav Army and Serbian security forces resulted in massacres, atrocities, the displacement of 300,000 people from their homes (50,000 of which fled to the forests and mountains), and the exodus of nearly one million Albanian refugees from Kosovo. [11] 

The influx of Kosovar refugees seeking refuge from the Serbian rampage in turn destabilised the neighbouring countries of Albania and Macedonia and raised concerns that the inter-ethnic conflict might spread even further within the Balkan region or even reignite tensions in Bosnia.[12]  So dire was the situation that the British Prime Minister at that time, Tony Blair, described these events as ‘a throwback to the worst memories of the twentieth century.’[13]

Nearly a year after the violence had begun in Kosovo, and with winter approaching, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1199 warning of an ‘impending humanitarian catastrophe’ representing ‘a threat to peace and security in the region’, and demanding an immediate end to hostilities.[14]  The Security Council could not, however, reach agreement concerning a military intervention, making diplomacy their only means of resolving the crisis. 

Six months of intense negotiations with Yugoslavia and Kosovo followed, undertaken by the Organisation for Security & Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Balkans Contact Group and by NATO.  However, all of these endeavours ended in failure as the Serbian government repeatedly broke its agreements, refusing to adhere with UNSC resolutions demanding a cease-fire and an end to hostilities – even despite multiple extensions of deadlines (indeed it became clear that even while diplomatic negotiations were taking place at Rambouillêt in France, Serbian forces in Kosovo had received orders from Belgrade to prepare for a large offensive against both the KLA and the Kosovar Albanian community).[15] 

NATO’s Military Intervention

On 24 March 1999, NATO officially recognised the failure of diplomacy to resolve the crisis and launched Operation Allied Force against Serbian forces in Kosovo.[16] The operation was only the second military campaign in NATO’s entire history and the first explicitly conducted to protect NATO’s founding values – rather than the territory of its members – in order to both prevent the unfolding of a humanitarian disaster and delegitimise the act of ethnic cleansing, even when occurring outside NATO’s own borders.[17] 

The intervention consisted of a 78-day air bombardment campaign against Serbian military and infrastructural targets both in Kosovo and Yugoslavia itself, namely Serbia and Montenegro.[18]  The air campaign involved over 38,000 sorties and, though criticised, achieved all of its assigned goals, without taking a single casualty.[19]  On the seventy-eighth day, 9 June 1999, Serbian forces finally capitulated, its military authorities signing an agreement with NATO to withdraw Yugoslav security forces from Kosovo on the condition that no NATO forces enter Serbia proper.  As a result of the agreement, NATO suspended all air strikes the following day and authorised Operation Joint Guardian – the creation and deployment of the Kosovo Force.

 

Kosovo Force (KFOR):  A NATO Ground Operation in Kosovo 

KFOR was a NATO-led multinational ground force tasked to establish and maintain security in Kosovo.  It was from the outset a peace-enforcement operation under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, executed ‘to halt and reverse the humanitarian catastrophe’ occurring in Kosovo.[20]  On 12 June 1999, a NATO contingent of some 42,500 KFOR ground troops entered Kosovo, with a further 7,500 in rear support roles.[21]  All Serbian forces correspondingly withdrew from Kosovar territory and by 20 June had completely withdrawn from the province.[22]  Ethnic cleansing halted and was reversed as one million Kosovar refugees began to return to their homes.[23]

The KFOR mandate drew its authority from UNSC Resolution 1244 in addition to the Military Technical Agreement (MTA) signed between NATO and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia.  Following the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces, KFOR’s mission was threefold: 

1. First and foremost, to establish and maintain a secure environment in Kosovo, including public safety and order;
2. Secondly, to monitor, verify and when necessary, enforce compliance with the agreements that ended the conflict; and
3. Lastly, to provide assistance to the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), which performed core civil functions.[24]

The central objective, the maintenance of a secure environment in Kosovo, was to be achieved through:

• The deterrence of renewed hostility and threats against Kosovo by Yugoslav and Serb forces;
• The establishment of a security environment to ensure public safety and order; and
• The demilitarization of the KLA.[25]

Map of the Province of Kosovo.[26]

The 50,000-strong KFOR contingent was drawn from over thirty different NATO and non-NATO countries.  It was organised into four Multinational Brigades (MNBs) deployed to four sectors within the Kosovo area of operations (MNB Northeast, MNB Southwest, MNB Centre, MNB East), and one additional Multinational Specialized Unit (MNSU) based in Pristina, consisting of Military Police (MPs) specially trained for tackling terrorism and organised crime.[27]  Officially, all five units acted under unified NATO/KFOR Command and Control (C²), by taking orders from one overall Operational Commander, the Commander of KFOR (COM-KFOR) based at KFOR Headquarters in the Kosovo capital of Pristina, who held tactical control of the entire operation.[28]

Within each of the four sectors, one Lead Nation was appointed by NATO to oversee operations within each Area of Responsibility (AOR). Consequently, France became the Lead Nation of MNB Northeast with Headquarters at Kosovska Mitrovica (Sector Northeast). Italy became the Lead Nation of MNB Southwest with Headquarters at Pec (Sector Southwest).  The United Kingdom, then subsequently Sweden, became the Lead Nation of MNB Center with Headquarters at Pristina, where the KFOR Headquarters was also situated (Sector Centre).  Finally, the United States became the Lead Nation of MNB East with Headquarters at Camp Bondsteel (Sector East).  Each of these Lead Nations assumed regional command over a range of smaller supporting Troop Contributing Nation (TCN) contingents from a variety of different countries, which each had their own national base within the sector they operated in.

KFOR Command Design: Map of the Four Kosovo Force Sectors in 2002.[29] 

Working in parallel with KFOR, the UNMIK operation acted as an interim civilian administration in Kosovo and sought to promote Kosovar autonomy and self-government through the founding of accountable civilian institutions.[30]  During this interim period, UNMIK was also tasked to perform a law enforcement role against the criminal elements within Kosovo, in addition to establishing and training Kosovo’s own police force – the Kosovo Police Service (KPS). 

In order to support UNMIK in these functions, UNMIK was provided with a UN headquarters from which to work, based in Pristina in MNB Center near KFOR Headquarters, in addition to regional UN buildings in each of the other KFOR operational sectors.[31]  Moreover, to assist UNMIK perform its policing role, it was provided with its own UN civilian police force (CIVPOL) drawn from international contributions – chiefly the Italian Carabinieri, but also including units from India, Argentina and Poland.[32]

 

Disparate Rules of Engagement & the 2004 Kosovo Riots

At the end of 2003, nearly five years since the onset of these NATO and UN Multinational Operations (MNOs) within Kosovo, UNMIK had 2,422 CIVPOL under its command, in addition to 975 policemen from Special Police Units and 355 Border Police – a total police force of 3,752.[33]  By early 2004, UNMIK also held command of an additional 5,700 local KPS officers, deployed to police stations throughout Kosovo, who were working in coordination with the UNMIK’s international CIVPOL.[34] 

In contrast, however, whereas UNMIK’s police force had gained in strength and numbers during the first five years of the mission, KFOR had correspondingly declined substantially during the same period as a result of a series of NATO military troop draw-downs. As security had improved in Kosovo, KFOR numbers in Kosovo had been reduced from 42,500 armed forces in 1999, to 39,000 in 2002, then 26,000 in mid-2003, finally reaching a low of 17,500 by the end of that year.[35]

This reduction in numbers produced two effects.  Firstly, KFOR’s overall combat capability had shrunk substantially: only one-third of the total number of KFOR troops (approximately 6,000 personnel) were permitted by their governments to be deployed in ‘direct combat-related functions’ in Kosovo, the remaining two-thirds of the total force being constrained to non-combat logistical support roles.[36]  Secondly, as a result of this, ROE caveat restrictions within KFOR became more visible between the various national contingents than ever before in the course of the mission (for more information on what national caveats are and where they may be found within national ROE, see blogs “#2 What are “National Caveats”?” and “#10 Rules of Engagement & National Caveats: “Self-Defence” & “Mission Accomplishment” Instructions”). 

This being the case, it is perhaps no surprise that divergent ROE between the participating national forces would soon become a contentious issue within the MNO.  

Indeed, detrimental differences between diverse sets of national ROE within the KFOR mission came starkly under the international spotlight in 2004 as a result of a sudden new outbreak of violence within Kosovo.  At the time of the crisis, later to become known as the “Kosovo Riots”, KFOR had consisted of only 18,500 military personnel.[37]  Due to the national caveat restrictions within this force, only one third of this number had full operational flexibility and freedom of action to respond effectively to events as they occurred. 

Consequently, despite the fact that the express first priority of the NATO KFOR mission was ‘to establish and maintain a secure environment in Kosovo, including public safety and order’, chiefly through the deterrence of renewed hostility, KFOR was in reality ill-prepared to meet security crises that might occur within the province.  Disparate ROE between KFOR’s main contributors – their effect heightened by low troop levels – subsequently led not only to an under-whelming security response to the Kosovo Riots, but also to its failure to repress the worst outbreak of violence since 1999.  As Rachel Denber, acting executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), concluded on the matter:

‘This was the biggest security test for NATO and the United Nations in Kosovo since 1999, when minorities were forced from their homes as the international community looked on. But they failed the test. In too many cases, NATO peacekeepers locked the gates to their bases, and watched as Serb homes burned.’[38]

The following will provide an account of the 2004 security crisis in Kosovo, and then present analysis on the practical on-the-ground effects of disparate ROE among KFOR’s Lead Nation national military contingents, with lead security responsibilities in the four KFOR MNB sectors in Kosovo, in response to the security emergency in Kosovo.

 

The Kosovo Riots

The Kosovo Riots took place over a period of three days between the 17-19 March 2004, nearly five years after the deployment of KFOR to Kosovo.  The riots were predominantly an organised uprising of parts of the ethnic Albanian population against both the Serb population and the United Nations (UN) organisation itself.  The rioters consisted of ex-KLA insurgent fighters, war veterans, criminals and disenchanted youths, who sought an opportunity to redress the ethnic balance of Kosovo. 

At the time of the uprising, the question of Kosovar independence had not been addressed by the international community. Kosovar Serbs, who represented ten percent of Kosovo’s two million inhabitants and formed the Kosovar minority, wished Kosovo to remain a province under Serbian rule.[39] The majority population of ethnic Albanians, by contrast, many of whom had suffered tremendous persecution and human atrocities at the hands of Serbian security forces between 1997-1999, demanded full independence. 

In the days leading up to the riots, inter-ethnic tension within the province had already  reached a peak due to a number of events: (1) the killing of a Serb teenager in Caglavica, south of Pristina, by an unknown Albanian; (2) a resultant Serb road block established on the main Pristina-Skopje road by local villagers in protest of the killing; and (3) a large organised demonstration by groups of veterans and ex-KLA guerrillas to protest the arrest and extradition of many Albanian war criminals to the Hague, including the former Albanian Prime Minister and leaders of the KLA.[40]  The inaccurate, sensationalised and inflammatory report that three Muslim Albanian boys were drowned after being chased into the Ibar River by Christian Serbs, a story circulated on local Albanian-speaking television channels, became the fourth event and catalyst for the subsequent violence.[41]

 Day 1 – Violence in Kosovo

On the morning of 17 March fighting broke out in the partitioned city of Mitrovica in KFOR’s northern sector, MNB North.  An angry mob of thousands, supposedly protesting the three boys’ deaths, clashed with both UNMIK riot police and NATO KFOR “peace-keepers” on the bridge dividing the northern Serb-populated part of the city from the Albanian-populated south. 

Unable to overwhelm UN and KFOR forces, the Albanian crowd turned violently on the only Serb ghetto in South Mitrovica, where seven Serbs were killed and a further 200 injured in the subsequent fighting.[42]  Elsewhere, Albanian snipers took up position in apartments above the bridge and began firing at NATO soldiers, wounding 17, as well as homes in the Serb north of Mitrovica.[43] 

The start of the Kosovo Riots: Angry Albanian “protestors” gather on Metrovica Bridge, 17 March 2004.[44]

As the news of this attack spread, other Albanian riots broke out in cities and villages across Kosovo – in the MNB capitals of Pristina and Pec, as well as the towns of Gnjilane and Kosovo Polje and the villages of Slatina, Bjelo Polje and Binjare. [45]  In each place, the criminal mobs targeted areas in which minority Serbs lived or maintained a presence.[46] 

Within hours, ordinary Albanian civilians had spontaneously joined the pogrom, motivated as much by frustration over the issue of Kosovar independence as a lust for revenge for the violence and ethnic cleansing conducted by Serbs in the earlier war.[47]  Together, as HRW stated in their report:

‘Ethnic Albanian crowds acted with ferocious efficiency to rid many areas in Kosovo of all remaining vestiges of a Serb presence, and also targeted other minority communities, including Roma and Ashkali.’[48] 

In addition to the Serb population, the violent mobs also targeted the UN.  In the city of Pec in MNB West, for instance, an Albanian mob surrounded the UN regional headquarters and forced its officials to leave the premises.[49]  Meanwhile in the village of Bjelo Polje, the site of a UN pilot programme enabling the resettlement of Serb refugees, Serb homes were attacked and one set ablaze.[50]  By the end of the day, the UN had lost control of a number of Kosovar cities and the provincial capital itself, Pristina, was under siege with Albanian men attacking Serb areas throughout the night.[51]

Violence in Kosovo: Maps showing the Serb minority enclaves within the Province of Kosovo and the corresponding areas of attacks during the Kosovo Riots.[52]

Day 2 – Ethnic Cleansing & Destruction

The next day, 18 March 2004, dawned to renewed violence throughout Kosovo.  Hundreds of houses were set ablaze and scores killed as the Albanian mobs turned their attention on Serb villages and began to carry out “reverse ethnic cleansing”.  KFOR troops stationed near these incidents often failed to protect the villages from such attack, many opting to simply evacuate the inhabitants and allow the villages themselves to be destroyed.[53] 

Family homes in Serbian towns and villages set on fire or destroyed by the Albanian rioters during the Kosovo Riots of 17-19 March 2004.[54]

Ancient Serbian Orthodox churches founded by medieval Byzantine kings between the 12-14th centuries – as sacred to Serbs as the Vatican to Catholics and prized symbols of Serbian national identity throughout Yugoslavia – were also concertedly attacked throughout the second day of the riots (see endnote for more details).[55]  Indeed, by the end of the day 35 Serbian churches had been looted, damaged or destroyed by fire, including nine ancient medieval churches containing invaluable ancient artwork, scriptures, records, literature, icons and other irreplaceable items of religious heritage (bringing the total number of Serbian churches destroyed since the first KFOR deployment to Kosovo in 1999 to a staggering total of 147).[56] 

Two of these churches – the Church of St. George in Prizren and St. Sava’s in Mitrovica – had been attacked and burned to the ground while KFOR troops that had been tasked to guard the cultural sites stood by (Germans in Prizren and Moroccans in Mitrovica respectively).[57]  As one outraged reverend stated to a journalist at that time: ‘There is a pattern emerging. The U.N. evacuates Serbs, and immediately afterwards Albanians come in and burn.’[58]

Serbian leaders throughout Kosovo began to express outrage at the inability of KFOR and UNMIK security forces to protect the Serb minority of the province from attack. [59]  While, in response, NATO rushed to deploy an additional 1,000 troops to KFOR, security forces across Kosovo reportedly ‘appeared at a loss as to how to reassert control over the predominantly Albanian province as crowds attacked Serbian neighbourhoods for a second night’.[60]  In fact the most effective force of all in countering the violent mobs were ordinary Albanian leaders and businessmen who, in daring acts of courage, stood up to the mobs and were able in some instances to alter their destructive rampage. 

While KFOR national contingents grappled to adjust their ROE – that is, to gain permission from their national capitals to lift (even temporarily) national caveat prohibitions and limitation ROE – to better counter the unexpected security crisis, UNMIK police rushed to evacuate Serbs from targeted towns and guard the UN headquarters in the capital. [61]  The CIVPOL were ultimately successful at protecting the UN building, though this came at the cost of a number of UN vehicles as well as a Serbian church and several other Serb buildings that, located in the vicinity, became the alternate target of Albanian anger and were set on fire.[62] 

 Day 3 – Counting the Cost

Finally, on 19^th March, the Albanian rampage of violence and destruction in Kosovo petered out.  While NATO force contributing nations pledged to send hundreds more troops back to KFOR, and KFOR commanders made explanatory statements about the ‘orchestrated’ and ‘well-planned’ nature of the rampage, Serbian families in ethnically-mixed towns began loading their belongings and migrating to larger Serb-concentrated habitations.[63]  Small groups of Albanian youths, meanwhile, continued to sporadically set Serbian houses alight.[64]  UN police and KFOR peacekeepers tried to take stock of the damage done and initiated a clean-up, towing away the charred remains of their vehicles.[65] 

Scenes of Destruction: A map indicating where major attacks and destruction took place during the 3-day riots.[66]

In total, 33 separate riots had broken out across Kosovo, involving an estimated 51,000 rioters.[67] 

The cost to life was significant:

• 31 people, mostly Serb, had been killed;
• 900 injured, including 17 KFOR peacekeepers; and
• 4,100 minorities displaced (2,000 of which were still displaced months afterwards and living in cramped, unhygienic places such as overcrowded apartments, schools, tents and metal trucking containers).[68]

In many villages every single Serb, Roma or Ashkali home had been destroyed by the rioters.[69] 

Indeed, the cost to property was immense:

• Between 550-700 Serb, Roma and Ashkali homes had been destroyed;
• 37 Orthodox churches and monasteries destroyed or damaged;
• 10 public buildings damaged beyond repair; and 72 UN vehicles had been burnt to a cinder.[70]

KFOR had failed miserably in its primary mission to establish and maintain a secure environment in Kosovo, including public safety and order.

St. Elijah in Podujevo, one of 35 Serbian churches burnt down, damaged or destroyed in Kosovo by violent Albanian mobs during the riots.[71]

 

Three Command & Control (C²) Problems

 These events in Kosovo raise a very important question.  Regardless of the underlying political and social factors motivating the riots, why did KFOR security forces fail so dismally in maintaining security in Kosovo – the very purpose for which thousands of NATO soldiers had been trained and deployed to KFOR? The answer chiefly concerns KFOR’s C² structure and three specific problems within it.

1.   Lack of a Centralised Command Structure

One problem was the lack of a centralised command structure to coordinate the responses of all of Kosovo’s security institutions – KFOR, UNMIK police, the KPS and even Kosovo’s infant army ‘the Kosovo Protection Corps’ (KPC).  In fact, relations between these security institutions had been fraught with inter-rivalry and distrust for quite some time.  This is perhaps best illustrated during the riots by the French KFOR contingent’s refusal to work with the KPS in southern Mitrovica, its barring of passage of members of the KPS, and its reported intention of burning down the local KPS police station in its sector.[72]  As the HRW report stated on the situation prior to the riots:

‘The overlapping security organizations in Kosovo – namely the NATO-led KFOR, the UNMIK international police, the locally-recruited KPS, and the controversial KPC – enjoy an uneasy co-existence and frequently fail to adequately coordinate their activities.’[73]

This was especially true in regard to the KPC during the crisis.  Though comprised chiefly of demobilised KLA insurgent fighters with much experience in the use of force, the KPC was for the most part confined to barracks for the duration of the riots, despite multiple offers of assistance and help by the KPC to KFOR security units.[74] For instance, repeated offers were made by the KPC in Sector Centre, led by Sweden, to assist in defending Caglavica. However, they were ‘steadfastly refused’ by the Scandinavian KFOR contingents.[75]

This disparity between the willingness of the KPC to assist KFOR forces and their actual confinement to barracks during the Kosovo Riots occurred largely due to unwillingness by many KFOR contributing nations to ‘cede any security responsibilities to the KPC’, despite the fact that the KPC had been specifically authorised by the international community to be ‘a civilian emergency organization which carries out rapid disaster response tasks for public safety in times of emergency and humanitarian assistance’ – the very scenario presented by the Kosovo Riots.[76]  Only in the American-controlled Sector East were members of the KPC allowed to be of some assistance, the U.S. tasking them to calm crowds and mount joint patrols.[77]

 2.   Diverse National Mandates between KFOR Contingents

A subsequent problem, specifically related to C² within KFOR and of greatest import in this study, concerned the disunity of response to the riots by KFOR contingents of various nationalities due to diverse national mandates. 

These national mandates represented a ‘rival’ or ‘shadow’ chain of command to the official KFOR structure among all national contingents operating within KFOR.  This was because the allegiance of National Commanders and their subordinates to their own national governments, and the inherent duty of national armed forces to obey all government-issued instructions, was far greater than that owed to NATO’s KFOR Command. 

The practical result of this scenario was that orders eschewed from national governments to corresponding KFOR contingents through their own national military chains of command, always superseded and took precedence over commands given by COM-KFOR at KFOR Headquarters by means of the KFOR chain of command.  It was this juxtaposition that was largely responsible for the wide-ranging reactions among KFOR ground troops.

3.   National Caveat Constraints

National mandates presented, in themselves, an additional problem within the KFOR C² structure – and one of utmost, even critical, importance.  Not only did these mandates determine troop numbers and the level of riot training and equipment granted to national contingents (such as riot shields, protective clothing, tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons and batons), but they imposed ROE limitations and prohibitions – in other words, national caveats – on national armed forces. 

It was these restrictions within the national mandates that were principally to blame for KFOR’s incongruent response throughout Kosovo as the riots swept violently through the province. 

For although, in the aftermath of the riots, National Commanders publicly blamed their various contingent’s poor responses to the violence on insufficient numbers and inadequate riot training and equipment, in fact these matters were peripheral and used to mask the real cause of KFOR’s failure during the riots: inappropriate and restrictive ROE between KFOR national contingents. 

Indeed, even given the low force strength of KFOR at the time of the riots – comprising approximately 18,500, of which only 6,000 were designated to perform combat roles – this number should have been sufficient to quell the civil violence, if the combat troops had been allowed to react properly and robustly to the rioters. 

However, a network of government-imposed restrictions and bans had been imposed on many of the existing KFOR combat forces.  As the HRW report found:

‘KFOR’s ability to respond effectively to the violence was…severely hampered by the rules of engagement – often referred to as “caveats” – that various nations put on the deployment of their troops. Almost every nation which deploys troops in Kosovo places specific caveats on their deployment – such as limiting their use of deadly force, limiting their deployment to a certain sector of Kosovo, or requiring their troops to seek approval from national authorities rather than the KFOR command structure for certain activities.’[78]

These national caveats reflected each force contingent’s national mandate, which in turn was indicative of the mindset of each national government towards the KFOR operation, and more importantly, the role the national contingent was expected to play within the operation. 

It was the existence and prevalence of these national caveats among multinational combat troops within the various sectors that in fact proved to be the real ‘spanner in the works’ in KFOR’s failure to respond quickly and effectively to the violence.

 

Assessing the Impact of Diverse ROE in Kosovo during the Riots: A Critical Study

In order to exemplify the critical and detrimental role of diverse ROE restrictions in KFOR’s failure to respond adequately to the 2004 security crisis, these national caveats will be examined in more detail. 

The following analysis will identify and assess the problems caused by KFOR caveats during the security crisis by, firstly, examining the reactions of the Lead Nation contingents, holding lead security command of the four KFOR sectors, in contrast with other subordinate national contingents within each AOR in Kosovo. 

Secondly, the practical impact of these divergent ROE will be measured by investigating the effect of this diversity on both the Multinational Commander, COM-KFOR, and the effective execution of tactical security operations within each sector – Northeast, Southwest, Centre, and East. 

Finally, the ramifications for the KFOR operation itself as a consequence, in addition to NATO and the individual nations involved, will also be identified.

 

Caveats: Limitations on the Multinational Commander (COM-KFOR)

It is well known in military circles that diverse national mandates among MNO participants handicap a Multinational Commander’s C² abilities.  The KFOR operation well exemplifies this point.  Diverse national mandates and correlating ROE among the KFOR participants impacted severely on the Multinational Commander of KFOR, limiting not only his manoeuvrable resources, but also his operational freedom of action in both managing his forces and making important strategic and tactical decisions.  The Kosovo Riots provide ample evidence of this hamstringing of the acting COM-KFOR at that time, then Lieutenant General (LTGEN) Holger O.L. Kammerhoff of the German Army.

LTGEN Holger Kammerhoff, the NATO Commander of KFOR during the 2004 Kosovo Riots.[79]

1.   Manoeuvrable Resources

Firstly, in terms of manoeuvrable resources, the imposition of caveats on the forces at COM-KFOR’s disposal meant that he was constrained at the strategic level in what resources he could appropriate to meet the crisis.  The forces under his command consisted of a melange of units each with fixed rules as to where they could be deployed, what tasks they could perform, and whether they could be deployed at all – even in an emergency situation.  At the macro-level, these restrictions impinged not only on the flexibility of the KFOR force itself, but more importantly here, that of the COM-KFOR’s decision-making and ability to bring about a rapid and effective KFOR response to the crisis, since coordinating national contingents or reconfiguring the force was rendered extremely difficult, if not impossible.  The result was that, as Brophy & Fisera summarise:

‘National caveats prevented the KFOR commander from deploying a large part of his NATO forces to confront the ethnic riots, which ended up causing many casualties’.[80]

2.   Operational Freedom of Action

In terms of operational freedom of action, secondly, heavy national caveat imposition meant that most of the national contingents operating under the COM-KFOR could not be deployed without first seeking and gaining government consent form the national capital or each national KFOR contingent by means of a slow and laborious permission process.  During the security crisis, the necessity of seeking and receiving national approval for each planned manoeuvre wasted so much of the COM-KFOR’s time and effort, that it actually deterred him from planning troop manoeuvres and taking proactive action at all. 

Indeed, according to New Zealand Army Major (MAJ) Steve Challies, a New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) Liaison Officer stationed at UNMIK Headquarters at the time of the 2004 security crisis, this ROE-instigated permission process ‘wasted hours if not days’ during the crisis.[81]  A year after the riots in 2005, NATO also acknowledged this caveat-generated reality during a Parliamentary session, stating:

‘Caveats placed restrictions on the use of national contingents for crowd control without approval from the national capital, and were a significant burden on KFOR commanders who could ill-afford the hours of waiting that it took to get approval from national capitals…KFOR commanders had to request and wait for additional troops to be supplied, wasting precious hours or even days.’[82]

This process, together with the many refusals which actually resulted from his emergency requests, limited COM-KFOR’s ability to either react quickly or shift troops between KFOR sectors to the areas that were most under threat.  His freedom of action in the management of his forces was curtailed.  As with all core principles for effective command, the correct amount of freedom of action for each commander on operations is relative and a question of degree.  However, in this case, it is clear that the KFOR Operational Commander had far too little to respond effectively to the crisis.

3.   Decision-Making & Enforcement Capabilities

Thirdly, national caveats worked to impinge on the COM-KFOR’s decision-making and enforcement capabilities, through creating a significant gap between critical links in the KFOR chain of command, namely, the COM-KFOR at KFOR Headquarters in Pristina and his four subordinate Regional Commanders quartered within the sectors.  This gap not only impinged on the KFOR chain of command, but also unity of command itself since the caveats’ very existence served to negate the COM-KFOR’s overarching authority and control over the operation (see endnote).[83]

This was because, representative of State sovereignty within a multinational context as they are, and acting as guarantors for the national mandate itself, these national caveats rendered multinational interoperability difficult.  This difficulty meant that Lead Nations in each sector held a much greater degree of independence than would normally be the case – independence from each other and from the overall COM-KFOR. The unenviable result was that COM-KFOR could give ‘guidance’ to these Lead Nation MNB Commanders in the four KFOR sectors during the crisis, but not ‘orders’.[84]  Indeed, as one senior UNMIK official reported following the riots:

‘KFOR lacks command and control structures. Lt-Gen. Kammerhoff is the commander in theory, but this is ceremonial. Practically speaking, daily decisions are made by the national contingents that take instructions from their capitals, and Kammerhoff’s instructions are secondary.’[85]

Or as the HRW similarly concluded in their report on the crisis:

‘The Multinational Brigade Commanders…enjoy a high degree of autonomy over their area of control, limiting the ability of overall KFOR commander (COM-KFOR) to ensure a consistent Kosovo-wide response during times of crises…Within KFOR, coordination between the various multinational brigades and COM-KFOR is not unified.’[86]

In fact, one could easily see and argue from this that, in reality, there existed not one but multiple equally authoritative chains of command within the KFOR operation: the official NATO KFOR chain of command, and then a host of others – all extending from the individual national military contingents within KFOR, via the senior National Commander, back to their own governments in their home Capitals (in fact, in practice national command chains and orders always supersedes and takes precedence over the overarching operational command chain and orders).  Effective coordination between the contingents was hence virtually impossible, making the situation within KFOR rather dismal militarily-speaking.  In short, KFOR had not one, but many ‘Masters’ – with competing sets of instructions.

Sum Total: The Combined Effect during the Kosovo Crisis

The sum total of these negative constraints on the COM-KFOR, stemming from the imposition of ROE restrictions, was a slow, uncoordinated, disunified, and widely varying response on the part of KFOR armed forces to the Kosovo Crisis. 

What is worse, because these caveats thwarted every speedy, proactive course of action the COM-KFOR could reasonably take, they forced the COM-KFOR to try and accommodate the national prohibitions, which led to further poor decisions with disastrous consequences.  Namely, while the riots were ongoing, the COM-KFOR ordered that the number one priority for KFOR forces be force-protection, thereby diverting what precious resources there were in the Kosovo AOR to defending KFOR military bases, rather than the very civilians and townships they were tasked to protect and where their deployment might have made a real difference. [87]  As the COM-KFOR himself reportedly responded, when queried specifically about the effect of the caveats: ‘My hands are tied’.[88]  This meant that:

‘In community after community, Serbs and other minorities – a disproportionate number of them elderly and infirm – were left for hours at the mercy of hostile ethnic Albanian rioters, waiting for KFOR and UNMIK to rescue them…the international community failed Kosovo’s minorities in its time of greatest need.’[89] 

One can see by this just how destructive national caveats can be in impeding the Multinational Commander’s ability to action effective security operations: handicapping the Multinational Commander’s C² capabilities; corrupting key principles of command; wasting time and energy; leading to the uncoordinated use of resources; and resulting in disturbing levels of civilian collateral damage. 

The practical fall-out of national caveats acting on command within a multinational operation had never before been illustrated so starkly in the history of multinational security campaigns.

 

ROE: Impediments to Tactical Security Operations 

Similarly chaotic and ruinous events unfolded at the lower tactical level too during the Kosovo Riots, as a direct result of various sets of ROE restrictions within the MNO.  Not only did these caveats drastically minimise the overall number of combat troops available within the KFOR AOR to deploy to the frontline and directly confront the rioters (only a small percentage of the total number of 6,000 combat troops were sufficiently caveat-free to be riot- and/or combat-capable to be deployed), but in numerous areas throughout Kosovo they prevented the majority Lead Nation force of heavily constricted combat troops from taking any effective action during the riots whatsoever in the majority of the KFOR sectors. 

The most influential caveats, in this respect, concerned prohibitions against involvement in riot control operations.  Often the outward symptom that these caveats were in place was the total lack of both riot training and riot equipment within a national contingent.  Curiously, despite the fact that maintaining public order including through crowd control was a key priority for KFOR, riot control caveats were nevertheless widely in place amongst KFOR national contingents (some national governments opting to believe that riot-control operations throughout Kosovo was solely the domain of very small units of specially-trained UNMIK riot-police).  Throughout Kosovo, these riot operation caveats – among others – stopped high numbers of combat soldiers from performing the very protective tasks they were trained and deployed to perform. 

One need only consider the four MNBs within the four KFOR sectors, and the friction created between coalition forces as a result of the caveats, to find evidence of this. 

 KFOR Sector Northeast: French & Moroccan Responses

In Sector Northeast, KFOR forces were under the regional command of Lead Nation France and were comprised of a range of national contingents from Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Luxembourg and Morocco.  The brigade – MNB Northeast – was responsible for security in the areas around the divided city of Mitrovica, as well as Zvecan and Vucitrn.[90]  However, the Lead Nation’s national mandate explicitly forbade the French contingent from participating in riot control tasks, and specifically, from firing on rioters.[91]  The result of these caveats was that throughout Sector Northeast, French troops were not able to confront the angry mob and so did very little – if nothing.[92]  In practical terms, this meant that in Mitrovica, Albanian crowds were able to sweep aside those that barred their passage across the bridge.[93]  Elsewhere in Vucitrn, an area located between two main French KFOR bases, the mob were free to set on fire 69 homes belonging to the minority Ashakli ethnic group, ‘without any reaction by French KFOR’.[94]

Worse still was the situation in the Serb village of Svinjare, located only 600 yards from a main French KFOR base in the south of Sector Northeast.  An Albanian mob filed past the military base to attack the village, killing 20 and setting on fire all 136 Serb homes there.[95] For although approximately 200 French soldiers were stationed at the base at the time, and the village was within viewing distance of the base, French forces were prohibited by their restrictive ROE from taking any action.  Consequently the French KFOR troops, ‘whose task is to protect the people living there’, were compelled to decline assistance to the 320 Serb residents of the village.[96]  As MAJ Challies stated on the event:

‘The French saw the village burning, but no action was taken – the village was allowed to burn…The French didn’t fire a shot because they were not allowed to fire. So they did nothing.’[97] 

French KFOR soldiers.[98]

At the village of Svinjare itself, meanwhile, a section of Moroccan soldiers under French regional command, tasked with guarding the village, were parked in a truck at the entrance of the village.[99]  As the mob approached and began torching houses, the soldiers were joined by 20 additional Moroccan soldiers and a number of UNMIK police units in UN jeeps, including 50 specially-trained Polish anti-riot police.  Responding to shouts by villagers to ‘stop them from burning the houses’, the UNMIK police fired 7-8 warning shots into the crowd and then proactively formed a roadblock through the village in an attempt to protect the remaining houses.[100] 

The more heavily-armed Moroccan KFOR troops, however, in the words of one Serb survivor, ‘did nothing to stop the mob, but drove parallel to it as the young men threw Molotov cocktails, set more buildings on fire and fired guns’.[101]  They then issued the order, communicated from the French base, to abort all attempts to protect the village and instead evacuate all the residents, beginning with women and children, telling the villagers ‘they could not defend the village’.[102]  The village was thus razed and ethnically cleansed without a shot being fired by KFOR forces.[103] 

According to Colonel (COL) Szezytynski, commander of the Polish UNMIK riot-police unit that had been ordered by Moroccan KFOR troops to leave the village, there had in fact been enough KFOR peacekeepers in the village to defend it.  It was consequently the caveats of the French Lead Nation contingent, amplified by caveats among the Moroccan contingents, that had handicapped the Force. As he stated of the Polish unit: ‘There were only five houses burning when they left. When they passed [by] again all [136 of] the houses were on fire’.[104] 

In the following days the Lead Nation spokesman for Sector Northeast attempted to explain KFOR’s actions in Sector Northeast, explaining that, ‘the [KFOR] decision to evacuate was taken by the French general responsible for Northern Kosovo, General Xavier Michel, because the French forces were needed elsewhere’ – although he did not know where.[105]

 KFOR Sector Southwest: Italian & German Responses

In Sector Southwest meanwhile, under the command of Lead Nation Italy, the security situation was far more grave.  In addition to the Italian contingent, MNB Southwest was comprised of ground troops from Austria, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey, and was responsible for security in the areas around Pec, Djakovica, Prizren, Decani, Orahovac, Malisevo, Suva Reka, Klina and Dragas.[106]  Outbreaks of violence were widespread in Sector Southwest during the riots, with large-scale attacks mounted in Pec, the nearby village of Belo Polje, Djakovica and Prizren. 

Like the French commanding Sector Northeast, the Italian contingent operated under a similarly debilitating mandate and consequently behaved in similar ways during the riots.  In Pec, where the main Italian base was located, Albanians surrounded the UN regional headquarters and forced out the UN officials – without any response from local Italian KFOR forces.[107]  In the village of Belo Polje, situated on the outskirts of Pec and again located adjacent to another main Italian base, Italian KFOR troops not only failed to prevent the rioters from attacking the village, but also ‘refused to approach the besieged Serbs’ needing rescue.[108]  As a result of this abdication of responsibility, the civilian Serb residents were forced ‘to run for several hundred meters through a hostile Albanian crowd, before KFOR evacuated them’, many becoming wounded in the process.[109] 

Following this evacuation all Serb homes within the village itself – rebuilt by ‘the Return Project’ to house displaced Serb refugees after the earlier Yugoslavian wars in cooperation with the European Agency for Reconstruction – were razed to the ground by the ‘rampaging mob’.[110]  Even the village cemetery was desecrated, with Serb tombs opened, graves unearthed and ‘the bones of the deceased scattered around’.[111]  Again, despite the official Lead Nation role of Italian KFOR forces as the chief providers of security within the sector, these attacks proceeded without a single shot being fired by KFOR troops (although one U.S. UNMIK policewoman individually shot and killed one Albanian rioter in order to protect the lives of Serb civilians).[112]

In Djakovica, meanwhile, 24 Italian soldiers had been posted to protect the last remaining Serbian Orthodox church in a town housing five elderly women – the tiniest Serb presence in Kosovo to become targeted by the mob.[113]  However, they too were reportedly ‘overwhelmed by the crowds’ and withdrew, evacuating the women, but allowing the 19th century church to be destroyed.[114]  Four other churches in the area were also destroyed at the same time – St. Lazarus, the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, the Istok Parish,  and the church of St. Elias (the latter also laced with mines), and additional Serb cemeteries desecrated.[115]

The response of the German contingent, one of the largest national force deployments under Italian command and responsible for the area around Prizren, was no better. The German mandate was very restrictive.  It authorised German armed forces:

1. To be used only in Sector Southwest to perform low-risk tasks in low-risk areas away from the frontline;
2. To use force only in defence of themselves or other civilian human life, not civilian property; and
3. To ensure sturdy around-the-clock protection of the German compound in Prizren.[116]

In addition, the German mandate included a specific ROE prohibition or caveat against any participation in riot-control – despite the fact that riot control capabilities were fundamentally necessary to the success of the KFOR mission in ‘maintaining public safety and order’ – and to this end, the contingent had been given neither training in riot prevention, nor any anti-riot equipment.[117] 

With such restrictive ROE as these, German KFOR forces could only perform a ‘stand-aside’ role within the mission, even in the advent of any security crisis. [118]

German KFOR Troops, March 2004.[119]

In view of the German KFOR contingent’s mandate, it seems a particularly unwise decision by Lead Nation Italy to task the German contingent to guard civilian property during the riots (property which German troops were forbidden to protect as noted above), in the form of important Serb religious sites, as the March pogroms will attest.  In fact, according to the HRW report: ‘The response of the German KFOR in Prizren presents one of the most fundamental security failures during the March 2004 riots’.[120]

Indeed in one of the worst incidents during the two days of heavy rioting, a German section of 15 soldiers had been deployed to a narrow bridge, at the single entrance point, with the task of preventing access by the rioters to a 14th century monastery in Prizren, one of the most historic and famous churches in all of Kosovo and consequently on the UNESCO, World Monument Fund and World Heritage list. [121]  When the Albanian rioters approached the German soldiers, some wading through the river on both sides of the bridge, the German KFOR soldiers – bound by their ROE caveat restraints  –  simply allowed them to walk by them and attack the monastery, over which fluttered the German flag.[122]  One monk testified that: ‘The Germans didn’t use their truncheons or tear gas, and didn’t even fire in the air’.[123]  Or as one Serb website documenting the destruction declared on the incident: ‘German soldiers did not move a finger to protect this holy site’.[124]  When the attack was well underway, the Germans ordered the monks into KFOR armoured vehicles and evacuated them, but left the monastery ‘to be burnt down by the ethnic Albanian crowd’.[125]

Billowing plumes of smoke from burning buildings hangs over the city of Prizren during the Kosovo Riots.[126]

Elsewhere too in the area German forces ‘seemed to melt away’ from the conflict areas, despite having one of the largest German KFOR bases on the outskirts of Prizren.[127]  Indeed, it was reported that 400 German soldiers preparing to leave their base in response to the riots ‘never received orders to deploy’.[128]  In fact, according to the HRW report, commanders at the German base steadfastly refused to mobilize and deploy to the town despite repeated requests for assistance made by their German counterparts in the UNMIK police force, as Albanian mobs erased all remnants of a Serb presence in the town.[129] 

German UNMIK police officers, convinced that a stronger response – a show of force, even in the form of a single tank – would have checked the rampage, would later accuse their compatriot German KFOR commanders of cowardice.[130]  Others accused the failure on German ‘commanders who don’t want to make mistakes that could end their careers’.[131] 

The security vacuum created by this inaction by KFOR security forces gave the rioters free reign in and around the area of Prizren, located to the south of Sector Southwest.  In Prizren township itself, German KFOR commanders refused to protect either historic Serb churches or the Serb population itself.  The result of the unchecked rampage was immense: 56 Serb houses burnt down; all Prizren Serb residents displaced; a number killed; six medieval churches and monasteries destroyed – considered the ‘worst damage to cultural heritage’ in all of Kosovo; the infliction of millions of dollars’ worth of damage; and a Serb population traumatized from being ‘abandoned’ to the ‘terror’.[132]

One witness, who saw the Church of St. George being burnt to the ground within 15 minutes, wondered why ‘German troops responsible for the area were nowhere to be seen’ and ‘had made no attempt to stop the group of men who, he said, numbered less than 100’.[133]  The answer of course lies in the anti-riot caveat within the German mandate.  As MAJ Challies states: ‘The Germans had no mandate to prevent rioting – no equipment, training or authority’.[134] 

 KFOR Sector Centre: Swedish, Finnish & Czech-Slovak Responses

In Sector Centre, KFOR’s MNB Centre was under Swedish command and was comprised of national contingents from Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia, Finland and Norway.[135]  The brigade was responsible for security in the areas around the Kosovar provincial capital of Pristina, as well as Podujevo, Obilic, Kosovo Polje, Cracanica, and Lipljan.[136]  However, as in Sectors Northeast and Southwest, again KFOR armed forces failed to meet the challenge posed by the rioters in their AOR.

In the capital city Pristina, for instance, a Serb apartment complex housing former Serb refugees was attacked for hours by the hostile Albanian crowds, who fired on the residents, looted their property and set apartments on fire from both above and below.[137]  Residents barricaded in the burning buildings had to wait six hours before Swedish KFOR and UNMIK police forces came to their rescue.[138] 

Swedish KFOR soldiers, March 2004.[139]

Elsewhere, pleas by fifteen overwhelmed Italian UNMIK police, attempting to prevent a crowd of hundreds from attacking Serb homes, were rebuffed by Finnish KFOR combat troops parked in three armoured personnel carriers nearby.  The Fins later defended their actions, stating that they have ‘had received no orders to back up the police’.[140]

 In reality, however, the Finnish contingent was bound by national caveats prohibiting the use of lethal force to protect property and the use of riot control weapons (in addition to a ban on the use of lethal force to prevent a detained person from escaping), and for this reason had been provided with no riot control weapons (tear gas, water cannons or rubber bullets).[141]  As one Finnish commander, Captain (CAPT) Ari Lehmuslehti, later stated, Finnish ‘troops had no equipment to control the crowds when the violence started’. [142]  Subsequently, as one Italian policeman, Angel Filiciano, stated: ‘We felt there was nothing we could do but sit back and watch the destruction’.[143] 

The magnitude of KFOR’s failure in the Kosovar Capital, under Swedish Lead Nation command, can be measured by one single fact: by the end of the riots, Pristina’s Serb population of 40,000 had been ethnically cleansed from the city.[144]

Nearby in Podujevo, where a 500-strong joint Czech-Slovak battalion was based and in charge of security, Czech and Slovak soldiers guarding a Serb Orthodox church were given orders to retreat as a crowd of 500 Albanians broke though the church’s perimeter wall.[145]  One Czech commander, CAPT Jindrich Plescher, later said this decision was based on the fact that they were ‘too many for us’, despite the wide gap in arms and training between the evenly-matched groups.[146]  Following the KFOR retreat, the mob: ‘smashed everything inside, including our [KFOR] communications center, made a big pile in front and set it on fire.  They then turned their attention to the adjacent Serb cemetery.  They knocked over tombstones, dug up the coffins and scattered the bones in them’.[147] 

Czech and Slovak ROE had succeeded in protecting from injury or death Czech and Slovak soldiers, at the expense of KFOR property and the dignity of the local Serb community.  It is clear that force protection, rather than the successful or effective execution of the battalion’s security responsibilities, was the primary area of concern within this battalion.  This is perhaps highlighted by CAPT Plescher’s request to a Czech journalist immediately after the riots: ‘Please tell everyone back home that all our boys are alive and well’.[148] 

Where there was a weak response in Podujevo, in the large town of Kosovo Polje the situation was even more grim.  That is, no KFOR response was mounted against the violence whatsoever.  According to the HRW report, ‘UNMIK and KFOR were nowhere to be seen as Albanian crowds methodically burned Serb homes,’ amounting to 100 Serb houses, the Serb post office, Serb school, Serb hospital and a Serb orthodox church.[149]  One Serbian civilian was also killed – beaten to death by the frenzied Albanian mob.[150] 

Other areas in Sector Centre, where national contingents with more robust ROE were based, did see stronger responses by KFOR troops however. 

Swedish, Norwegian, British and Irish soldiers, for instance, broke the overriding KFOR pattern by mounting a stronger defence of the Serb civilians and property under their protection.  In the village of Caglavica for example, south of Pristina and the site of the original Serb protest in the days before the riots, Swedish soldiers opened fire on Albanian gunmen attempted to force their way through their barricade.[151]

The Norwegian KFOR contingent too staged a strong response to the rioters and was in fact one of the few national contingents with the mandate, training, equipment and ‘open ROE’ for riot-control tasks.[152]  For this reason, COM-KFOR had selected the Norwegian contingent as his mobile reserve unit able to be deployed in response to crisis situations throughout Kosovo.[153] 

Norwegian KFOR soldiers stand guard during the Kosovo Riots.[154]

Norwegian soldiers from the Panser and Second battalions attempted to mount a strong defence of the village of Caglavica against rioters that were in their view ‘willing to use all means available to get into the village’.[155]  When Norwegian KFOR forces received word, from overwhelmed Lead Nation Swedish troops, that Albanian rioters were attempting to set Caglavica on fire, they deployed from their base in Lebane and drove to Caglavica in a convoy of Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs), forcing their way through a violent, attacking mob of 3-500 rioters blocking off the main transit road to arrive in Caglavica and render assistance.[156] 

As the rioters were attacking KFOR forces with stones, Molotov cocktails, iron rods and guns (injuring 20 Norwegian personnel) with the reported intent of carrying out lynching of Serbs in Caglavica, Norwegian soldiers also subsequently fired upon the legs of the rioters (injuring four and killing two) thereby waylaying the crowd on their rampage and saving many Serb lives in the process.[157]

Norwegian KFOR troops confront the angry Albanian rioters during the violent Kosovo Riots.[158]

One Norwegian KFOR soldier who was there later recounted the scene, stating:

‘The Albanians shot with AK-47s, and the Swedes lay flat along the ground and were terrified. We saw a lot of people who came walking toward us, a couple thousand people. We gathered the guys quickly and set up a line, blocked the main road with shields, and we were a human castle against the Albanian mob that came…Had the Norwegians not arrived, Čaglavica would have burned. The Swedes had simply given up. It is the worst I’ve seen, that they were so behind as they were. They were not at all trained and not ready for what happened there. The Irish Battalion came to help us, and they did well, and Ukrainian special police also did well. Those who failed completely were the Indian Special Riot Police. There was no point in that they even came… they came with bamboo shields and bamboo stuff for Indian country. They were not at all equipped to cope. The Norwegians were the best, Irish battering was also very good, and the same was the Ukrainian special police. Unfortunately, the Swedes were not much to cheer for. They had resigned long before we arrived.’ [159]

Indeed, another Norwegian veteran, NATO/KFOR officer Kristian Kahrs, has likewise summarised the conduct of the Norwegians in comparison with KFOR troops from other nations, stating:

‘On many levels, KFOR and the international community failed these days. They did not have sufficient intelligence, and many nations in KFOR acted cowardly facing the Albanian mob violence…We failed in 1999-2000 and 2004, [but] it gives me great comfort to know that there were Norwegian heroes during this ethnic cleansing of Serbs those dramatic days in 2004… KFOR in general failed miserably these days, but I am very pleased that my countrymen did a fantastic job, and the Norwegian soldiers received well-deserved medals.’ [160]

It was as a direct result of their national mandate – and lack of caveat prohibition and limitation rules in their national ROE – that the Norwegian contingent were much more active and effective than other KFOR military contingents in fulfilling their KFOR mandate and mission by stemming back the violence, and in fact, ‘bore the brunt of much frontline work with rioting’.[161]

British and Irish troops, similarly endowed with robust mandates in view of security tasking, also had the authority and ability to deal with rioters and were subsequently – along with the Norwegians – actively involved in fighting on the frontline and rescuing Serbs for the duration of the riots.[162]

Although this village of Caglavica under Norwegian, British and Irish protection was ultimately attacked and ethnically cleansed, this exchange between KFOR troops and the Albanian mob was one of ‘the fiercest clashes in the area between crowds and the security forces trying to protect Serbian homes’.[163]

 Sector East: American Response

Finally, in Sector East, MNB East was under the command of the United States and supplemented with national contingents from Armenia, Greece, Lithuania, Poland and the Ukraine.[164]  The Brigade was responsible for the areas around Kamenica, Gnjilane, Pasjane, Urosevac, Strpce, and Kacanik.[165]  Of the four KFOR sectors, Sector East experienced the least violence during the Kosovo Riots. 

It was also the only sector within the mission to have a Lead Nation unfettered by national caveat constraints in their ROE. 

Consequently, throughout Sector East U.S. troops ‘performed admirably’ during the riots, unfettered as they were by national caveats, also becoming one of the few KFOR units to work in tandem with the nascent – and mostly side-lined –  Kosovo Protection Corps.[166]

Problems that did arise in Sector East during the riots stemmed not from restrictive national mandates and the imposition of caveats per se, but rather the disunified KFOR command structure.  For instance, when rioters in Gnjilane burnt down the regional UN headquarters and were poised to attack the nearby UN logistical base, U.S. troops – despite being caveat-free – did not take any action to prevent the rioters, despite having a base adjacent to the targeted building.[167]  The U.S. spokesman later stated the U.S. contingent feared being too overwhelmed by the number of the rioters there. 

In truth, however, this poor American response can be accredited to KFOR structures with regard to authority, whereby the contingent needed explicit KFOR authority to protect a UN building under the control of UNMIK.[168]  The U.S contingent had no such authority and therefore was prevented from taking any action.

Ultimately it was not KFOR but a lone Albanian man, a local civilian restaurant owner, who saved the building – by wielding a single pistol at the rioters.[169]

After the Riots.[170]

 

Ramifications for KFOR, NATO & Participating Nations

 The generally poor performance by KFOR security forces to the security crisis presented by the March Kosovo Riots, as described above, had severe ramifications, not only for the MNO itself, but also for the international organisation supplying the forces – NATO, as well as individual nations whose caveated troops were held responsible for some of KFOR’s worst security failures during the riots. These ramifications will be discussed below.

 The KFOR Mission

In terms of the mission, first of all, the riots had exposed the weakness of KFOR’s Operation Joint Guardian: the reality that a large majority of KFOR security forces could not be deployed on robust security operations. 

In addition, the riots had vividly demonstrated that KFOR forces were in fact unable to meet its own mission objective ‘to establish and maintain a secure environment in Kosovo, including public safety and order’, including the deterrence of renewed hostility. 

Worse still, perhaps, was the wave of civilian disillusionment among the Kosovo population that swept through the province – a loss of faith in KFOR, the UN, and the wider international community which put the entire legitimacy of the NATO operation at risk.  As one Serb, forced to flee Svanjare with his family, exclaimed to a reporter at the time: ‘We really believed KFOR would come to protect us, but you see how it turned out’.[171]  HRW aptly summarised the situation in the aftermath of the riots:

‘The international community has lost tremendous ground in Kosovo as a result of the March violence: ethnic Albanian extremists now know that they can effectively challenge the international security structures, having demolished the notion of KFOR and UNMIK invincibility; and ethnic minorities have lost almost all of the remaining trust they had left in the international community.’[172] 

NATO

As for the NATO organisation itself, with lead command and responsibility for the KFOR mission, the alliance came under ‘some of the severest criticism’ in the aftermath of the riots (along with the UN organisation in command of UNMIK).[173] 

NATO’s reputation was irreversibly harmed, with the organisation becoming the subject of much negative news coverage broadcast around the world.  According to MAJ Challies, NATO was overwhelmingly made to look ‘stupid and ineffective’ – their coalition security forces having failed to provide security in Kosovo at a time of crisis.[174]  As a Europe Report prepared by the International Crisis Group similarly declared:

‘KFOR and NATO have lost their aura of invulnerability and invincibility. The perception of international weakness and lack of resolve will not be lost on extremists in Kosovo and elsewhere in the Balkans.’[175]

NATO’s response to the downpour of international criticism over the events was to clamp down, its military personnel refusing to comment on or discuss the matter publicly, and to deploy the reserve KFOR force of 1,000 American, British and Italian soldiers to Kosovo.[176]  However, the damage had already been done and the stigma could not be erased. 

It was afterwards clearly apparent that both NATO and its MNO had been rendered powerless by the national mandates of its key coalition allies.

Once again the unity and effectiveness of the international coalition was contingent on, and subservient to, traditional State sovereignty, and victim to the risk-aversion and over-protectiveness of national governments towards their deployed forces at the expense of both the collective objectives of the KFOR mission, and the local population, whom those forces had been deployed to protect, and to whom they were mandated by the international community to bring peace.

 Participating Nations

Force contributing nations to the mission were not free from criticism or embarrassment either.  In many of the Lead Nation countries, interrogative questions were raised in many national parliaments, and the scandal of national troops’ poor performance publicised nationwide.[177]  Such negative reviews in turn led to a decline in public support and political will within these countries for national participation in the KFOR operation at all. 

Internationally too, like the French and Belgians after the Rwandan massacre at the UN school compound, or the Dutch after the Bosnian Srebrenica genocide in the UN “safe-zone”, many nations could not shrug off the stigma of their failures in such a volatile area, now the focus of so much international attention (for more information on these tragic caveat-generated security failures see blogs “#18 Caveats Endanger & Caveats Kill: National Caveats in UN Operations in Angola, Rwanda & Bosnia-Herzegovina”, “#20 Betrayal & Barbarism in Bosnia: The UNPROFOR Operation, National Caveats & Genocide in the Srebrenica UN “Protected Area””, and “#22 Recommended Viewing: The UN, National Caveats & Human Carnage in Rwanda”).

The French and German governments’ reaction was to signal their recommitment to the operation by dispatching more troops to the region – amounting to 400 and 600 additional soldiers respectively.[178] 

Likewise the Czech government, that had prior to the riots planned a substantial drawdown of its forces in Kosovo, reversed its stance and postponed the downsizing.  As the Czech Prime Minister at the time, Vladimir Spidia, told reporters of the change in government policy:

‘The performance of the Czech soldiers in quelling the riots has made the government change its mind about downsizing the force in the province’.[179]

 

Inadequate Investigation into the KFOR Failure in Kosovo

 Within the wider international community, meanwhile, numerous international bodies and officials called for independent reviews to determine how KFOR had lost control of the province so quickly, and to explain the undisputed failure – even ‘collapse’ – of Kosovo’s security institutions during the riots.[180] 

However, while a number of reviews took place on the riots by NATO, the UNMIK police, the UN Secretary General and even the German government, each of which raised many concerns, the reviews were either too narrowly-focused or resulted in no major changes.[181] 

Indeed, according to HRW, all of the reviews failed to give a critical analysis of KFOR’s performance, causing the watchdog entity to proclaim that ‘the international community appears to be in absolute denial about its own failures in Kosovo’.[182] As it stated explicitly on the matter in its subsequent report:

‘Both UNMIK and KFOR officials with whom Human Rights Watch met painted an inaccurately rosy picture of their response to the March 2004 violence, or blamed each other for the failures. Although international officials have been outspoken in their criticism of the Kosovar leadership for its failings during the crisis, they have not shown a similarly critical attitude in evaluating the failures of their own organizations and institutions.’[183]

Indeed, rather the opposite was the prevailing norm: the British Prime Minister stating that ‘KFOR has saved the peace in Kosovo’; NATO’s Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop-Scheffer, similarly announcing to KFOR in the weeks afterwards that ‘KFOR has done a magnificent job’ and ‘performed very well in March’; the KFOR chief spokesman, U.S. Lt Col James Moran, asserting ‘our response was exactly as it should have been’; and the UN spokeswoman in Kosovo, Jing Hua, proclaiming that the troops ‘had restored order quickly’.[184] 

Even the COM-KFOR himself, LTGEN Holger Kammerhoff, praised the performance of KFOR forces, stating in the KFOR Chronicle: ‘We have proved our capability to provide a safe and secure environment by proportional force.  The power of KFOR was seen by the rioters…Let’s continue to make KFOR a successful NATO-peacekeeping mission’.[185]

To the contrary, however, the cessation of the rioting was in all probability not due to KFOR’s magnificent performance at all, but rather the dwindling number of targets for the Albanian mob after two days and nights of burning, looting, beating, lynching and widespread ethnic cleansing.

Furthermore, in addition to distorting the truth, these comments did nothing to address the core problematic issues underlying KFOR’s failures during the riots: the web of ROE restrictions that had forbidden multiple KFOR units from taking action to protect the Serb populace or their property. 

Indeed, despite the omission of public references to the critical role of national caveats in the March disaster, private diplomatic cables reveal, to the contrary, that this fact was acknowledged within NATO itself.  As one Wikileaks cable written in December 2004 discloses:

‘Allied commanders had been very disappointed in the way some nations’ troops had performed in March, and this had led to a focus on national caveats’.[186]

As a consequence of these inadequate investigations into the NATO’s failure in Kosovo, HRW staged its own comprehensive report on the Kosovo Riots in late 2004, thereby offering an independent critique of KFOR’s failure to effectively check the Albanian rampage.  As HRW had expressed: ‘Such uncritical, self-congratulatory rhetoric ignores the reality of UNMIK and KFOR’s failures, and the urgency with which these shortcomings need to be addressed in order to prevent a repeat of the March 2004 events.[187]  ‘Time is running out for both the international community and minorities in Kosovo,’ it continued, ‘and now is the time for resolute and transparent action to rectify the all-too obvious shortcomings of the international community’s security structures in Kosovo’. [188]

Their investigation produced several conclusions:

• That the violence in Kosovo had taken Kosovo’s international security institutions by surprise;
• That KFOR, along with UNMIK, had insufficient capacity, caused by low troop levels, to respond effectively to the widespread attacks;
• That KFOR and UNMIK troops lacked capacity by being inadequately trained and equipped to deal with riot situations; and
• That the lack of a coordinated response from KFOR, UNMIK and the KPS stemmed from a disunified command and control structure which discouraged close coordination between the multinational brigades – hampered further by the prevalence of national contingents taking instructions from their own capitals rather than the Multinational Commander.[189]

In essence, however, as shown above, at least two – if not three – of these conclusions stem back to one single sticking point: diverse and restrictive national mandates (including disparate ROE), which were indicative not only of ‘widely disparate national doctrines’, but also diverse national interests and agendas among the nations contributing forces to the mission in Kosovo.[190] 

Within these mandates, moreover, it was the diverse sets of ROE – and especially ROE national caveat restrictions – that were most instrumental in preventing proactive responses to the riots by most KFOR national contingents.

From a broader perspective, these caveats were suggestive of something even more dire: a general apathy and lack of political will and commitment to the KFOR operation by its contributing members, shown not only in the premature termination of donations and delay in determining Kosovo’s status at the political level, but also in the general push for downsizing national troop levels and the ill-preparedness of these troops for riot-control at the military level.[191]  As one senior UNMIK official lamented to HRW during the investigation:

‘KFOR is in Kosovo to protect against civil violence, disturbances, and ethnic violence. They don’t need tanks but riot gear and shield, and soldiers trained in dealing with public disorder.  If KFOR was not prepared for such civil disorder, then why the heck not? What did they think they were in Kosovo for?’[192]

While scant public acknowledgement has been made of the instrumentality of national caveats in KFOR’s inability to fulfil its mandated security tasks, the evidence of their centrality may be seen in the fact that by 2005 most ROE prohibitions had been removed from the national mandates of KFOR participating nations – the result of behind-the-scenes pleas by the NATO Secretary General.[193]  A 2005 NATO report on the ongoing KFOR role in Balkan security recorded this development, stating: ‘The issue of national caveats – restrictions placed on the use of forces by national governments – mostly appears to have been resolved…The removal of most caveats since then has helped to make KFOR a more flexible force capable of immediate response’.[194] 

The broader implications and destructive potential of caveats within MNOs, however, have gone largely unheeded. 

They consequently remain a critical problem hampering coalition operations to the present day, delineating certain forces to bear the brunt of the ‘heavy lifting’ and fighting on the frontlines, while others remain in relative peace and safety, often located to the rear of the heavy action where the worst threats lie.  As MAJ Challies well expresses: ‘You can hide behind a national caveat’.[195] 

 

Caveat-Generated Chaos in KFOR – The Catalyst for Change?

 In light of this overview, one might well ask whether the March 2004 security emergency in Kosovo and KFOR’s poor conduct as a result of diverse ROE, particularly the imposition of national caveats, resulted in changes in international thinking and the design of multinational operations C² structures?

Certainly, after the Kosovo Riots, repeated calls were made for ‘genuine reform of the international security structures’ within multinational security operations and ‘uniformity of response to security incidents…free of restriction by national contingents on their rules of engagement’.[196]  However, such reforms largely failed to materialise, an occurrence which has not boded well for future MNOs, led by NATO or any other international organisation. 

In such international security campaigns, therefore, as demonstrated within the KFOR mission, national restrictions continue to severely hamper overall operational effectiveness, especially in interfering with troop manoeuvres and the freedom of troops to seize opportunities and robustly engage Enemy fighters.

It is this unhappy reality that is being experienced more and more within coalition operations around the world.[197]  As Brophy & Fisera state:

‘The commanders of these multinational missions, such as those in the Balkans, Kosovo and most famously, in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) fighting under NATO auspices in Afghanistan, are learning that many of these caveats, or restrictions, actually prohibit many national forces from engaging in combat operations, or from even deploying to hostile zones.’[198] 

The ISAF operation in Afghanistan in particular – NATO’s third ground operation in its history since Bosnia in 1995, and the first NATO endeavour after the 1999 Kosovo mission – famously became embroiled in the trappings of national caveats, after having inherited many of the endemic problems of caveat restraints first seen in KFOR.

As a consequence, NATO Multinational Commanders in Afghanistan had once again to learn, as they did in Kosovo, that it is the force contributing nations themselves who ultimately control the pace and effectiveness of a peace-support operation – not the organisation that holds command: the former wield the power, the latter only the semblance of it. 

It seems that until dramatic changes are implemented on the structural C² design of multinational security operations, and due attention given to the problem of diverse ROE between coalition partners within such operations, history is doomed to repeat itself with serious and dangerous implications for all involved.

 

* This blog is a revised excerpt taken from Dr Regeena Kingsley’s original doctoral research in Defence & Strategic Studies. For more analysis on the issue of “national caveats” and their impact on the effectiveness of multinational military operations conducted in the interest of establishing and maintaining international peace and security, see Dr Regeena Kingsley’s original doctoral research (2014) entitled: “Fighting against Allies: An Examination of “National Caveats” within the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Campaign in Afghanistan & their Impact on ISAF Operational Effectiveness, 2002-2012”. 

Dr Kingsley’s full Thesis and its accompanying volume of Appendices can be viewed and downloaded from Massey University’s official website here: http://mro.massey.ac.nz/xmlui/handle/10179/6984

 

 Endnotes

[1] ‘Timeline: Break-up of Yugoslavia’, BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4997380.stm, (accessed 8 March 2010); ‘Tito’s Yugoslavia’, GlobalSecurity.Org., http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/yugo-hist2.htm., (accessed 8 March 2010).

[2] ‘Timeline: The Former Yugoslavia – From World War I to the Splintering of the Country’, Infoplease.  http://www.infoplease.com/spot/yugotimeline1.html., (accessed 8 March 2010).

[3] ‘Timeline: Break-up of Yugoslavia’, op. cit.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] ‘Timeline: the Former Yugoslavia – From World War I to the Splintering of the Country’, op. cit. 

[7] ‘Timeline: Break-up of Yugoslavia’, op. cit.

[8] ‘Chapter 1: The Globalization of International Relations’, J. S. Goldstein & J. C. Pevehouse, International Relations (4^th ed.), USA: Pearson International Edition, 2008, p. 29.

[9] ‘Timeline: Break-up of Yugoslavia’, op. cit.

[10] ‘Timeline: Break-up of Yugoslavia’, ibid.; ‘Timeline: the Former Yugoslavia – From World War I to the Splintering of the Country’, op. cit.

[11] North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), ‘Operation Joint Guardian’, Allied Forces Southern Europe, Joint Forces Command (JFC) Brunssum, http://www.jfcnaples.nato.int/archives/operations/kfor/kfor2.htm, (accessed1 December 2010); ‘Timeline: Break-up of Yugoslavia’, op. cit.; ‘KFOR’, Information Delight Encyclopedia, http://www.informationdelight.info/encyclopedia/entry/KFor, (accessed 8 March 2010); J. Solana, ‘NATO’s success in Kosovo’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 78, no. 6, (November/December) 1999, p. 116.

[12] Solana, ibid., p. 115.

[13] Ibid., p. 117.

[14] Ibid., p. 116.

[15] NATO, ‘Operation Joint Guardian’, op. cit.; Solana, op. cit., p. 117.

[16] NATO, ‘Operation Joint Guardian’, op. cit.;‘Kosovo Force (KFOR) – How did it evolve?’, NATO Topics: Kosovo Force (KFOR), http://www.nato.int/issues/kfor/evolution.html, (accessed1 December 2010).

[17] ‘Kosovo Force (KFOR) – How did it evolve?’, op. cit.; Solana, op. cit., pp. 114, 117.

[18]‘Kosovo Force (KFOR) – How did it evolve?’, op. cit.; ‘Timeline: Break-up of Yugoslavia’, op. cit.

[19] Solana, ibid., p. 118; ‘NATO in the Balkans’, NATO Briefing, February 2005, p. 8, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-B72AAFB2-5C728BDC/natolive/topics_82466.htm, (1 December 2010).

[20] ‘NATO’s role in Kosovo’, NATO Topic: Kosovo, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_48818.htm, (accessed 1 December 2010); ‘Kosovo Force (KFOR) – How did it evolve?’, op. cit.

[21] NATO, ‘Operation Joint Guardian’, op. cit.; ‘Kosovo Force (KFOR) – How did it evolve?’, op. cit.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Solana, op. cit. p. 118.

[24] ‘KFOR’, Information Delight Encyclopaedia, http://www.informationdelight.info/encyclopedia/entry/KFor, (accessed 8 March 2010); NATO, ‘Operation Joint Guardian’, op. cit.

[25] ‘NATO’s role in Kosovo’, op. cit.

 [26] ‘Kosovo’ [online map], Fact Monster – Atlas, 2015, http://www.factmonster.com/atlas/country/kosovo.html (accessed 30 June 2015).

 [27] Ibid.; ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, March 2004’, Human Rights Watch (HRW), July 2004, Volume 16, no. 6 (D), p. 13.

[28] ‘KFOR’, Information Delight Encyclopaedia, op. cit.; NATO, ‘Operation Joint Guardian’, op. cit.

[29] Own modification (2004 KFOR Command Structure) of a map originally provided by U.S. Department of Defense (U.S. DoD), Defense Visual Information Center, ‘{{PD-USGov}}Category:Kosovo’, http://www.army.mil/cmh/books/AMH-V2/AMH%20V2/map30b.jpg, (accessed 9 March 2010).

[30] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 13.

[31] New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) Major (MAJ) Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, 1 December 2009, Centre for Defence & Security Studies (CDSS), Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.

[32] Ibid.; ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, HRW, op. cit., p. 14.

[33] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, ibid., p. 14.

[34] Ibid.

[35]‘NATO’s role in Kosovo’, op .cit.

[36] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 13.

[37] Ibid., p. 12.

[38] ‘Kosovo: Failure of NATO, U.N. to Protect Minorities’, Human Rights Watch (HRW), 26 July 2004, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2004/07/26/kosovo-failure-nato-un-protect-minorities, (accessed 13 March 2010).

[39] N. Wood, N. and D. Binder, ‘Treasured Churches in a Cycle of Revenge’. The New York Times, 3 April 2004, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/03/arts/treasured-churches-in-a-cycle-of-revenge.htm, (accessed 13 March 2010).

[40] Kosovo: Failure of NATO, U.N. to Protect Minorities’, op. cit.; ‘Collapse in Kosovo – Europe Report No. 155’, International Crisis Group– Working to prevent conflict worldwide, 22 April 2004,http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=2627&1=1, (accessed 1 December 2009); NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.

[41] Kosovo: Failure of NATO, U.N. to Protect Minorities’, op. cit.; N. Wood, ‘Kosovo Torn by Widest Violence Since U.N. Took Control in ‘99’, The New York Times, 18 March 2004, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/world/kosovo-torn-by-widest-violence-since-un-took-control-in-’99.htm, (accessed 13 March 2010).

[42] Wood, ‘Kosovo Torn by Widest Violence Since U.N. Took Control in ‘99’, op. cit.; ‘Riots in Mitrovica, March 17-18’, News from Kosovo: March Pogrom, Website of the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raska and Prizren, http://www.kosovo.net/news_pogrom.html, (accessed 13 March 2010); ‘Burning of St. Sava church in south Mitrovica 17 March’, News from Kosovo: March Pogrom, Website of the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raska and Prizren, http://www.kosovo.net/news_pogrom.html, (accessed 13 March 2010).

[43] ‘Riots in Mitrovica, March 17-18’, News from Kosovo: March Pogrom, op. cit.; Wood, ‘Kosovo Torn by Widest Violence Since U.N. Took Control in ‘99’, op. cit.

[44] Modified image taken from Fatmire Terdevci, ‘Transitions Online: Bridgehead’ [online photo], 31 May 2010, https://www.tol.org/client/article/21498-bridgehead.html, (accessed 17 January 2019).

[45] Kosovo: Failure of NATO, U.N. to Protect Minorities’, op. cit.; Wood. ‘Kosovo Torn by Widest Violence Since U.N. Took Control in ‘99’, op. cit.

[46] Kosovo: Failure of NATO, U.N. to Protect Minorities’, ibid.; Nicholas Wood. ‘Kosovo Torn by Widest Violence Since U.N. Took Control in ‘99’, op. cit.

[47] Wood, ‘Kosovo Torn by Widest Violence Since U.N. Took Control in ‘99’, ibid.

[48] Kosovo: Failure of NATO,U.N. to Protect Minorities’, op. cit.

[49] Wood, ‘Kosovo Torn by Widest Violence Since U.N. Took Control in ‘99’, op. cit.

[50] Ibid.

[51] Ibid.

[52] Illustration taken from: ‘Albanian Muslims burning churches in Kosovo’, Zionecone,18 March 2004, http://www.zioneocon.blogspot.co.nz/2004_03_14_archive.html (accessed 5 May 2015); News from Kosovo: March Pogrom, Website of the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raska and Prizren, http://www.kosovo.net/news_pogrom.html, (accessed 13 March 2010).

[53] Wood, ‘NATO Expanding Kosovo Forces to Combat Violence’, op. cit.

[54] Modified images taken from ‘Kosovo – As it really is 1999-2003’, Post-War Suffering – Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raska and Prizren, 2019, http://www.kosovo.net/report.html, (accessed 17 January 2019); ‘March Pogrom – Kosovo 17-19 March 2004’, News from Kosovo – Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raska and Prizren, http://www.kosovo.net/news_pogrom.html, (17 January 2019); Rupert Colville, ‘Kosovo minorities still  need international protection, says UNHCR’, UNHCR The UN Refugee Agency UK, 24 August 2004, https://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2004/8/412b5f904/kosovo-minorities-still-need-international-protection-says-unhcr.html, (accessed 17 January 2019); and ‘Burning of the Serbian village Svinjare, March 17’, Kosovo.net, 2019, http://www.kosovo.net/pogrom_march/svinjare1/page_01.htm, (accessed 17 January 2019).

[55] Wood, N. and Binder, D., ‘Treasured Churches in a Cycle of Revenge’. The New York Times, 3 April 2004, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/03/arts/treasured-churches-in-a-cycle-of-revenge.htm, (accessed 13 March 2010).

Among them, four medieval buildings in Prizren, the jewel of the Byzantine empire; the 14^th century Church of Bogorodica Ljeviska, the best example of Byzantine architecture and artwork in Kosovo; the monastery of the Holy Archangels which housed the tomb of Byzantine Emperor Dušan; the Church of the Savior with 14^th century frescoes; the Church of St. George; Runovic’s Church; and the 15^th century Devic monastery, carefully repaired and restored over decades since the end of World War II (Wood and Binder, ‘Treasured Churches in a Cycle of Revenge’, op. cit.)

 [56] Ibid.

[57] Ibid.

[58] Rev. Sava Janjic, cited in N. Wood, ‘NATO Expanding Kosovo Forces to Combat Violence’, The New York Times, 19 March 2004, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/19/world/nato-expanding-kosovo-forces-to-combat-violence.htm, (accessed13 March 2010).

[59] Wood, ‘NATO Expanding Kosovo Forces to Combat Violence’, The New York Times, 19 March 2004, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/19/world/nato-expanding-kosovo-forces-to-combat-violence.htm, (accessed 13 March 2010)

[60] Ibid.

[61] Ibid.

[62] Ibid.

[63] N. Wood, ‘NATO to Increase Peacekeepers in Troubled Kosovo’, The New York Times, 20 March 20, 2004,  http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/20/world/nato-to-increase-peacekeepers-in-troubled-kosovo.htm, (accessed 13 March 2010); N. Wood, ‘Kosovars Survey the Damage of Ethnic Violence’, The New York Times, 21 March 2004, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/21/world/kosovars-survey-the-damage-of-ethnic-violence.htm, (accessed13 March 2010).

[64] Wood, ‘NATO to Increase Peacekeepers in Troubled Kosovo’, op. cit. 

[65] Ibid.

[66] Illustration taken from News from Kosovo: March Pogrom, op. cit.

[67] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit.

[68] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, ibid.;‘Collapse in Kosovo – Europe Report No. 155’, International Crisis Group– Working to prevent conflict worldwide, op. cit.; Wood, ‘Kosovo Torn by Widest Violence Since U.N. Took Control in ‘99’, op. cit.

[69] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, op. cit.

[70] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, ibid.; ‘Collapse in Kosovo – Europe Report No. 155’, International Crisis Group– Working to prevent conflict worldwide, op. cit.; N. Wood, ‘Kosovo Smolders After Mob Violence’, The New York Times, 24 March 2004, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/world/kosovo-smolders-after-mob-violence.html,(accessed 13 March 2010).

[71] Modified image taken from ‘Serbian Orthodox church of St. Ellijah in Podujevo destroyed in 2004 unrest by Kosovo Albanians’, Wikipedia, 23 March 2004, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_unrest_in_Kosovo#/media/File:St._Andrew_Church,_destroyed_by_Albanians_during_the_pogrom_of_Serbs_from_Kosovo_in_March_2004.jpg, (17 January 2019).

[72] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 15.

[73] Ibid., p. 11.

[74] Ibid., p. 10 .

[75] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, op. cit., p. 11

[76]  ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, ibid., p. 11;‘Standards for Kosovo, Number VIII, cited in ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, ibid., p. 10.

[77] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, ibid., p. 11.

[78] Ibid., p. 13.

[79] Modified image taken from ‘Commander KFOR, Lieutenant-General Holger KAMMERHOFF, German Army’ [online photo], NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR), 2019, https://www.nato.int/KFOR/structur/whoswho/cv/bio_kammerhoff.htm, (accessed 17 January 2019).

[80] J. Brophy & M. Fisera, ‘“National Caveats” and it’s impact on the Army of the Czech Republic’, Univerzita Obrany, 29 July 2007, http://www.vabo.cz/stranky/fisera/files/National_Caveats_Short_Version_version_V_29%20JULY.pdf. (accessed November 18, 2009).

[81] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.

[82] North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), ‘169 DSCFC 05 E – NATO’s Ongoing Role in Balkan Security’, NATO Parliamentary Assembly, 2005 Annual Session, http://www.nato-pa.int, (accessed 1 December 2009).

 [83] The chain of command implies that each commander is responsible to a senior commander directly above in an unbroken hierarchical command chain, so that there is never any doubt about responsibility.  Unity of command, meanwhile, refers to the fact of there being only one designated overall commander of an operation, not only to avoid confusion but also to prevent uncoordinated action in pursuit of competing aims.

[84] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, op. cit., note 60, p. 25;

[85] Cited in ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, ibid., p. 25.

[86] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, ibid., pp. 13, 25.

[87] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.; ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, ibid., p. 26; Wood, ‘NATO Expanding Kosovo Forces to Combat Violence’, op. cit.

[88] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, ibid.

[89] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 21.

[90] Ibid., p. 12.

[91] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.

[92] Ibid.

[93] Wood, ‘Kosovars Survey the Damage of Ethnic Violence’, op. cit.; ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 21.

[94] Wood, ‘Kosovars Survey the Damage of Ethnic Violence’, op. cit.; ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, ibid., p. 21.

[95] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, ibid., pp. 2, 21; Wood, ‘Kosovo Smolders After Mob Violence’, op. cit.; NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.

[96] Wood, ‘Kosovo Smolders After Mob Violence’, op. cit.

[97] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.

[98] Modified image taken from ‘MNB-NE: Authority changes, mission continues’ [online photo], NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR), 13 March 2007, https://www.nato.int/Kfor/docu/inside/2004/ik_040818a.htm, (accessed 17 January 2019).

[99] Wood, ‘Kosovo Smolders After Mob Violence’, op. cit.

[100] Ibid

[101] Cited in Wood, ‘Kosovo smolders After Mob Violence’, op. cit.

[102] Ibid.

[103] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.

[104] Cited in Wood, ‘Kosovo smolders After Mob Violence’, op. cit.

[105] Ibid.

[106] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., pp. 12-13.

[107] Wood, ‘Kosovo Torn by Widest Violence Since U.N. Took Control in ‘99’, op. cit.

[108] ‘Kosovo: Failure of NATO, U.N. to Protect Minorities’, op. cit.; ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, op. cit., p. 21.

[109] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 2.

[110] Ibid., p. 21; ‘Destruction of the Serb returnee village Belo Polje nr. Pec, 17-18 March’, News from Kosovo: March Pogrom, Website of the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raska and Prizren, http://www.kosovo.net/news_pogrom.html, (accessed 13 March 2010).

[111] ‘Destruction of the Serb returnee village Belo Polje nr. Pec, 17-18 March’, News from Kosovo: March Pogrom, ibid.

[112] Ibid.

[113] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 21.

[114] Ibid., p. 21; ‘Kosovo: Failure of NATO, U.N. to Protect Minorities’, op. cit.,

[115] ‘Destruction of the Serb returnee village Belo Polje nr. Pec, 17-18 March’, News from Kosovo: March Pogrom, op. cit.

[116] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.

[117] Ibid.

[118] Ibid.

[119] Modified image taken from a screenshot from ‘KFOR refuses to comment on claims against German troops’ [online video], AP Archive, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbsoUdoct3k, (accessed 17 January 2019).

[120] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 55.

[121] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.; Wood, N. and Binder, D., ‘Treasured Churches in a Cycle of Revenge’. The New York Times, 3 April 2004, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/03/arts/treasured-churches-in-a-cycle-of-revenge.htm, (accessed 13 March 2010).

[122] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, ibid.; ‘Destruction of the Serb returnee village Belo Polje nr. Pec, 17-18 March’, News from Kosovo: March Pogrom, op. cit.

[123] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, Human Rights Watch, op. cit., p. 57.

[124] ‘Destruction of the Serb returnee village Belo Polje nr. Pec, 17-18 March’, News from Kosovo: March Pogrom, op. cit.

[125] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 57.

[126] Modified image taken from ‘Marian Miszkiel and Doug Foreman, and just some of their U.N. experiences (cont’d)’ [online photo], Veritas – the Newsletter of the RMC Club of Canada, Issue 031/2005, http://archives.everitas.rmcclub.ca.s3.amazonaws.com/www/2005/Issue31/Miszkiel.htm, (accessed 17 January 2019).

[127] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., pp. 54-55.

[128]  Ibid., p. 55.

[129]  Ibid., p. 21; ‘Kosovo: Failure of NATO, U.N. to Protect Minorities’, op. cit.

[130] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., pp. 2, 55.

[131]  Ibid., p. 55.

[132] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.; ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., pp. 21, 55; Wood, N. and Binder, D., ‘Treasured Churches in a Cycle of Revenge’, op. cit.

[133] Wood and Binder, ‘Treasured Churches in a Cycle of Revenge’, op. cit.

[134] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.

[135] Ibid.; ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 12.

[136] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 12.

[137] Ibid., pp. 2, 21.

[138] Ibid., p. 2.

[139] Modified image taken from ‘Caglavica – The Good Example’ [online photo], VSL Systems AB, 2019, https://www.vsl.se/en/project/details/28, (accessed 17 January 2019).

[140] Wood, ‘Kosovars Survey the Damage of Ethnic Violence’, op. cit.

[141] U.S. Embassy Helsinki (released by Wikileaks), Cable 04HELSINKI1025, KFOR: Finland’s Caveats in Kosovo, 6 August 2004, http://wikileaks.org/cable/2004/08/04HELSINKI1025.html, (accessed 13 August 2013).

[142] Wood, ‘Kosovars Survey the Damage of Ethnic Violence’, op. cit.

[143] Ibid.

[144] News from Kosovo: March Pogrom, op. cit.

[145] E. Munk, ‘KFOR soldiers defend Serb enclaves against attacks by Albanians’, The Prague Post, 25 March 2004, http://www.kosovo.net/pogrom_march/podujevo1/page_01.htm, (accessed13 March 2010)

[146] Ibid.

[147] Ibid.

[148] Ibid.

[149] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., pp. 2, 21.

[150] Ibid., p. 21.

[151] Wood, ‘NATO Expanding Kosovo Forces to Combat Violence’, op. cit.

[152] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.

[153] Ibid.

[154] Modified image taken from Kristian Kahrs, ‘Norwegian heores in Čaglavica’ [online photo], 17 March 2015, http://sorryserbia.com/2015/norwegian-heroes-caglavica/, (accessed 17 January 2019).

[155] E. Veum, ‘Norwegian KFOR protecting Serbs in Kosovo 2004’, [Audio-visual news broadcast], Norsk Rikskringkasting AS (NRK)[Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation], 18 February 2007, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mcqXNJ-VuU&index=2&list=WL,(accessed 13 August 2013).

[156] Kahrs, ‘Norwegian heores in Čaglavica’, op. cit.

[157] Veum, ‘Norwegian KFOR protecting Serbs in Kosovo 2004’, op. cit.

[158] Modified image taken from Kahrs, ‘Norwegian heores in Čaglavica’, op. cit.

[159] Cited in Kahrs, ‘Norwegian heores in Čaglavica’, ibid.

[160] Ibid.

[161] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.

[162] Ibid.

[163] Ibid.; Wood, ‘NATO Expanding Kosovo Forces to Combat Violence’, op. cit.

[164] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 12.

[165] Ibid.

[166] M. R. Ricardel, ‘US Kosovo Policy – Developments in Kosovo: Testimony to The House Committee on International Relations’, US Policy & Issues, Foreign Office  in Pristina, Kosovo. http://serbian.pristina/usembassy.gov/policy20050518.html,(accessed 1 December 2009)

[167] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.

[168] Ibid.

[169] Ibid.

[170] ‘Kosovo Serbs Mark Tenth Anniversary of Deadly Riots’, Balkan Transitional Justice, 17 March 2014, http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/kosovo-serbs-remember-march-riots, (17 January 2019).

[171] Wood, ‘Kosovo Smolders After Mob Violence’, op. cit.

[172] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., pp. 3-4.

[173] Wood, ‘Kosovars Survey the Damage of Ethnic Violence’, op. cit.

[174] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.

[175] ‘Collapse in Kosovo – Europe Report No. 155’, International Crisis Group– Working to prevent conflict worldwide, op. cit.

[176] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.; Wood, ‘NATO to Increase Peacekeepers in Troubled Kosovo’, op. cit.

[177] Ibid.

[178] Wood, ‘NATO to Increase Peacekeepers in Troubled Kosovo’, op. cit.

[179] Munk, E., ‘KFOR soldiers defend Serb enclaves against attacks by Albanians’, op. cit.

[180] Wood, ‘NATO Expanding Kosovo Forces to Combat Violence’, op. cit.; ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 22

[181] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, ibid., pp. 23-24.

[182] Ibid., p. 3.

[183] Ibid., pp. 22-23.

[184]  Cited in H.O.L. Kammerhoff (LTGEN), ‘Statement by COMKFOR – 7 May 2004’, KFOR Chronicle, 21 May 2004, http://www.nato.int/kfor/chronicle/2004/chronicle_03/04.htm, ( accessed 26 March 2010); J. de Hoop Scheffer, ‘Press point with NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Mr. Soren Jessen-Petersen, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Kosovo’, NATO online Library, http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2004/s040917a.htm, (accessed 1 December 2009); Wood, N. and Binder, D., ‘Treasured Churches in a Cycle of Revenge’, op. cit.; Wood, ‘Kosovo Smolders After Mob Violence’, op. cit.

[185] H.O.L. Kammerhoff (LTGEN), ‘Statement by COMKFOR – 7 May 2004’, KFOR Chronicle, 21 May 2004, http://www.nato.int/kfor/chronicle/2004/chronicle_03/04.htm, (accessed 26 March 2010).

[186] U.S. Embassy Helsinki (released by Wikileaks), Cable 04HELSINKI1571, NATO Ambassador Burns’ Visit to Helsinki, 16 December 2004, http://wikileaks.org/cable/2004/12/04HELSINKI1571.html, (accessed 13 August 2013).

[187] ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 23.

[188] Ibid., p. 3-4.

[189] Ibid., pp. 24-25.

[190] Ibid., p. 3.

[191] ‘Collapse in Kosovo – Europe Report No. 155’, International Crisis Group– Working to prevent conflict worldwide, op. cit.

[192] Cited in ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 25.

[193] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.; de Hoop Scheffer, ‘Press point with NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Mr. Soren Jessen-Petersen’, op. cit.

[194] North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), ‘169 DSCFC 05 E – NATO’s Ongoing Role in Balkan Security’, NATO Parliamentary Assembly, 2005 Annual Session, http://www.nato-pa.int, (accessed1 December 2009).

[195] NZDF MAJ Steve Challies, Interviewed by Regeena Kingsley, op. cit.

[196] ‘Kosovo: Failure of NATO, U.N. to Protect Minorities’, op. cit.; ‘Failure to Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, op. cit., p. 4.

[197] International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Institute for the Study of War: Military Analysis and Education for Civilian Leaders’, http://www.understandingwar.org, (accessed 30 June 2009).

[198] Brophy & Fisera, ‘“National Caveats” and it’s impact on the Army of the Czech Republic’, op. cit.