Operation Horseshoe
He presented maps containing the names of towns and villages that showed arrows representing Yugoslav army and police militia units progressively encircling Kosovo in a horseshoe-shaped pincer movement.
Scharping stated, "Operation Horseshoe provided clear evidence that President Milosevic (sic) had long been preparing the expulsions from Kosovo and that he had simply used the time gained by the Rambouillet peace talks to organise army and police units for the campaign".
[22] Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack date Operation Horseshoe's effective beginning to the summer of 1998, when hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians were driven from their homes.
[26] The UK Parliament Select Committee on Foreign Affairs cited an Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe report concluding that before the start of the NATO bombing, the Serbian military campaign did not appear to be oriented towards cantonization (i.e. "aiming to bring together localities according to their ethnic composition") but rather consisted of Jeremy Black and John Norris both state that after the beginning of NATO bombing of Yugoslavia on 24 March 1999, Serbian forces accelerated Operation Horseshoe.
[30] The UK Parliament Select Committee on Foreign Affairs stated that "regardless of whether Operation Horseshoe really existed," after the bombing began, "expulsions took place in practically every municipality.
"[31] According to the verdict of the ICTY, while there is no mention of Operation Horseshoe per se, The most compelling evidence in support of the allegation that there was a common purpose to modify the ethnic balance in Kosovo in order to ensure continued control by the FRY and Serbian authorities over the province is the evidence establishing the widespread campaign of violence that was directed against the Kosovo Albanian population between March and June 1999, and the resulting massive displacement of that population.
This campaign was conducted in an organised manner, utilising significant state resources, and the Chamber heard evidence from numerous witnesses about the fact that they were directed to leave Kosovo for Albania or Macedonia, and that they were forced to relinquish their personal identity documents, either as they began their departure, en route, or at the border.
[39] Moreover, Milošević's propaganda tried to convince the international public that huge columns of refugees fleeing Kosovo were because of NATO's bombing, not Yugoslav Army military operations.
[40] The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia charged Slobodan Milošević and other Yugoslav officials with crimes against humanity including murder, forcible population transfer, deportation and persecution of Kosovo civilians.
[45] Ratomir Tanić, a witness at Milošević's later war crimes trial, said that Horseshoe was a nickname for a "completely different" Yugoslav army plan that should come into effect only if the ethnic Albanian population took the side of the foreign aggressor in case of aggression on Yugoslavia.
[47] Raju G. C. Thomas of Marquette University writes that the pattern of refugee outflow during the war largely began in the west and southwest, increasing in the north-central of Kosovo before moving back to the south/southwest.
This contradicted claims by scholars like Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon in Winning Ugly NATO's War to Save Kosovo which said the attack involved "a broad swath of territory in the shape of a horseshoe, moving from the northeast down to the west and back to the southeast.
