Basic Western misconceptions on the Kosovo issue and their corrections
18. It was Slobodan Miloshevic who was to blame for the NATO’s intervention in 1999
Wrong. It was a responsibility of the government of Serbia to protect the interest of the state of Yugoslavia (the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – Serbia and Montenegro), in face of a violent rebellion. The manners these state affairs have been conducted, including all eventual misdeeds committed over civilians is a matter of humanitarian concern and should be cleared up at the Hague Tribunal (or other international tribunals for the war crimes). But it does not justify the bombing of Yugoslavia nor deprivation of a state to conduct its internal affairs. We have to keep in our minds the fact that the ideas of “Humanitarian Intervention” and “Right To Protect” (R2P) do not assume the act of a military intervention, at least not without a formal sanction by the UNSC. KosMet issue is much older than Slobodan Miloshevic and much deeper than disputes over political rights and state borders. The affairs in Macedonia in 2001 (open Albanian rebellion against the central government in Skopje) clearly demonstrate this.
