The date 23 March 1989 was probably the start of the ten years of troubles which were to mark the autonomous Serbian province of Kosovo.⁽¹⁾ It was on that day that the Serbian Parliament withdrew a certain number of prerogatives which had been granted to the region in Tito’s constitution of 1974, starting with its autonomous status. A few days later clashes broke out between the Yugoslav Army and the ethnic Albanians of the province; these continued until the armed intervention of Western forces in the spring of 1999.

During the 1990s, faced with the growing injustice of which they considered themselves the victims, the Kosovar Albanians⁽²⁾ structured and organized their resistance to the Serbian authorities, notably by creating the Kosovo Liberation Army (the UCK) in 1993. The latter gradually extended its military operations from 1996 onwards (particularly in 1998), which resulted successively in NATO reaction, Operation Allied Force and the creation of Kosovo. The violence of Belgrade’s military and paramilitary forces soon made life intolerable for the civil population.

The end of 1998 marked the aggravation of tensions in Kosovo, and incidents multiplied. At the same time an American diplomatic initiative obtained an agreement for OSCE observers⁽³⁾ to be deployed to the province. Despite this the situation deteriorated further in early 1999, and the Contact Group⁽⁴⁾ summoned the Serbs and the Kosovars to negotiate in Rambouillet on 6 February.