United Nations Security Council resolution 1244, adopted on 10 June 1999, after recalling resolutions 1160 (1998), 1199 (1998), 1203 (1998) and 1239 (1999), authorised an international civil and military presence in Kosovo (part of Serbia, the successor of Serbia and Montenegro, then called "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia") and established the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). It followed agreement by President Miloševič of FRY to terms proposed by President Ahtisaari and Chernomyrdin on 8 June, involving withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo (Annex 2 of the Resolution).
Resolution 1244 was adopted by 14 votes to none against. China abstained despite being critical of the NATO offensive, particularly the bombing of its embassy. It argued that the conflict should be settled by the FRY Government and its people and was opposed to external intervention. However, given Serbian (then called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) acceptance of the peace proposal, it would not veto the resolution.
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“And hereby hangs a moral highly applicable to our own trustee-ridden universities, if to nothing else. If we really wanted liberty of speech and thought, we could probably get it—Spain fifty years ago certainly had a longer tradition of despotism than has the United States—but do we want it? In these years we will see.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from security into something malevolent and bottomless.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)
“Daughter to that good Earl, once President
Of England’s Council and her Treasury,
Who lived in both, unstain’d with gold or fee,
And left them both, more in himself content.
Till the sad breaking of that Parliament
Broke him, as that dishonest victory
At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty,
Kill’d with report that old man eloquent;—”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“Some hours seem not to be occasion for any deed, but for resolves to draw breath in. We do not directly go about the execution of the purpose that thrills us, but shut our doors behind us and ramble with prepared mind, as if the half were already done. Our resolution is taking root or hold on the earth then, as seeds first send a shoot downward which is fed by their own albumen, ere they send one upward to the light.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)