This Sunday marks 24 years since the withdrawal of Serbian military and paramilitary forces from Kosovo, thus marking the end of the Serbian occupation.
The Kumanovo Agreement, signed on June 9th 1999, came into effect on June 11th 1999.
It was signed by Sir Michael David Jackson, the first commander of KFOR in Kosovo, and former Chief of the Serbian Army Staff, General Nebojša Pavković, who was later indicted by The Hague for war crimes and genocide.
The agreement was reached after NATO’s bombing campaign against Serbian targets, which lasted for 78 consecutive days, and various diplomatic efforts to end the war in Kosovo.
During the war, more than 10,000 people were killed, around 5,000 others went missing, and over 1 million Albanians were displaced. The material destruction was also extensive.
Then NATO Secretary General Javier Solana issued the order to halt the bombing on June 10th 1999, and the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1244, authorizing the deployment of 37,200 KFOR troops from 36 countries.
The mission was divided into five responsibility zones, assigned to the American, British, French, German, and Italian contingents of KFOR.
With NATO’s entry, the temporary United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) was also established to administer the region for a specified period of time.
At the same time, the Kosovo Liberation Army was disbanded and transformed into the Kosovo Security Force.
