20 years after NATO troops entered Kosovo to combat ethnic cleansing, former US president Bill Clinton visited the Balkan country's capital of Prishtina today (June 11) to be honored by Kosovar president Hashim Thaci.
NATO launched its 78-day campaign of air strikes against Serbia in 1999 in an attempt to force then-President Slobodan Milosevic to end a military campaign which involved widespread ethnic cleansing and killings of Kosovo Albanian civilians.
“We thank you for the just decision to stop the Serbian genocide during 1999. We are very grateful for the support of the US to Kosovo. The story of Kosovo is a story of joint success. You are our hero,” President Thaci told Clinton, according to media reports.
“I will always be proud of the fact that I happened to be the president of the United States when you needed someone to stand up and say no more ethnic cleansing, no more people running out of their homes, no more killing innocent civilians, there’s got to be another way,” Clinton said, according to media reports.
The NATO bombing campaign did not gain the approval of the UN Security Council, causing at least 488 Yugoslav civilian deaths, including substantial numbers of Kosovar refugees.
