In May 2000, the Peace Implementation Council - the body made up of countries and international organisations responsible for overseeing the Bosnian peace process - identified three strategic areas to take the peace process forward, namely deepening economic reform, accelerating refugee returns, and fostering functional and democratically accountable common institutions.

SFOR has figured actively in efforts to help refugees and displaced persons return to their homes and to help to reform the Bosnian military - currently divided into three ethnically based, rival armies (Bosnian Muslim, Croat and Serb) - in such a way as to avert any prospect of renewed conflict. On a visit to Bosnia in summer 2000, NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson made clear that the country’s military structures had to be brought under a single command if the country wished to be considered for NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme.

Under the terms of the peace agreement, the local Bosnian authorities are responsible for handing over individuals indicted for war crimes to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Since they have largely failed to do this, SFOR has itself been active in bringing such individuals to justice. As of August 2000, of the 37 indictees in custody, 21 indicted persons have been arrested and transferred to The Hague. Two others were killed by SFOR soldiers in self-defence during operations to apprehend them and SFOR has assisted in the transfer of a further nine indictees to The Hague.


NATO's ROLE IN KOSOVO


From the outset of the conflict that erupted in Kosovo in 1998, following the build-up of tension throughout the decade, intensive international efforts were made to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe, to end the violence and to promote a lasting political settlement.

The disintegration of the former Yugoslavia unleashed power struggles among ethnic and religious groups whose rivalries had been contained for decades, while Yugoslavia had been ruled by President Tito. These conflicts were major factors in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina which NATO helped bring to an end and where NATO forces are helping to lay the basis for lasting peace.

Kosovo is populated mainly by ethnic Albanians. Both Serb and Albanian nationalists claim Kosovo on grounds of history, demography and military conquest. The centre of Serbia’s medieval empire, Kosovo fell under Ottoman rule in the 14th century and remained part of the Ottoman Empire until the Balkan wars early in the 20th century. The predominantly Albanian province was conquered by Serbia and, with the exception of the two world wars, remained part of what became Yugoslavia. A process of Albanian emancipation, which began in the 1960s and culminated in autonomy for Kosovo, was violently reversed in 1989, when Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic altered the status of the region, removing its autonomy and bringing it under the direct control of Belgrade, the Serbian capital.