ABSTRACT
Slobodan Milosevic's suppression and curtailing of the self-governing rights previously enjoyed by Kosovo's ninety per cent Albanian population preceded the Bosnian armed conflict 1992-95. The effectiveness of the controls imposed by Serbs determined to maintain the integrity of their sovereign territory served to anaesthetise the problems of Kosovo until after the ink had dried on the Dayton agreement. In October 1998, Holbrooke brokered a deal with Milosevic to defuse the conflict in Serbia's southern province of Kosovo. If Kosovo had truly been about a new world order founded upon universal human rights, then Albright must surely have supported Rugova rather than Thaci. An intelligence report, apparently having come from German sources, revealed a Serbian plan - Operation Horseshoe - allegedly intent upon the systematic ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. The 'right of passage' clause was inserted in order to get US troops from Europe into Kosovo through their staging base in Hungary.
