Lieutenant General Mike Jackson, the first commander of NATO's Kosovo Force (KFOR), has died at the age of 80, BGNES reported.
In 1999, the British general known as "Jacko" put his signature to the Kumanovo Agreement, which ended Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic's last war of aggression.
That same year, Jackson refused to follow his American commander's orders to intercept Russian forces as they entered Kosovo without NATO approval.
"I will not start World War III for you," he told General Wesley Clark. Subsequently, "Jacko" heads the KFOR.
The British army stressed that Lieutenant General Mike Jackson "will be greatly missed and his memory will be long cherished", the BBC reported.
Jackson was chief of the British Army General Staff from 2003 to 2006, leading British forces during the Iraq war.
BGNES recalls that in 1999, NATO launched a 78-day campaign, dubbed "Allied Force," against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to force Belgrade to end its brutal repression, mass killings and deportations against Kosovo Albanians and withdraw its military and police forces from Kosovo.
The later-established International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia proved that Serbian forces were responsible for crimes against humanity and human rights violations against the Kosovo population, including while the Alliance operation was ongoing.
This was Milosevic's last war on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. During his time, the aggressions against Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were carried out, killing several hundred thousand people and displacing over 2 million.
The dictator Slobodan Milosevic was ousted from power in October 2000. A year later, he was handed over to the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. He died in custody in March 2006 before being convicted of war crimes and genocide. | BGNES
