Inside the Rambouillet talks The breakdown of negotiations Now that the European Union has its common currency, the key states want to prove that they can have a common foreign policy. Kosovo is their experiment. Catherine Samary Clinton took the lead in the western "solution" of the Bosnian conflict, but the Europeans were determined to play the central role in the Kosovo crisis.
They certainly didn't want to see an independent Kosovo, and they made this clear at the beginning of the Rambouillet negotiations.
Serbia accepted the political proposals of the "Contact Group" (USA, France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Russia), which called for "substantial autonomy" for Kosovo, within Yugoslavia. The Contact Group plan rejected any popular consultation in Kosovo, by referendum, now or at any future point. To make matters perfectly clear, the Contact Group demanded that the Kosovo resistance surrender all their weapons. 4 International Viewpoint #311 May 1999 gov situ with But Alb nati
The western governments were The military option abs worried that independence for Kosovo After the Dayton agreements for was would stimulate similar demands by Bosnia-Herzegovina, some Kosovars Alb Macedonia's Albanian minority (25-35% concluded that the peaceful road led to of the 2m. population) or even by the the perpetuation of apartheid, and a dead ethnic Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina. end. More and more young people concluded that Albanians would only be sper Kosovar determination heard by the international community" con
But they failed to "dominate" the when they took up arms. The marginal "tra Kosovo delegation. The main western UCK grew quickly, wining new recruits spec contact in Kosovo had traditionally been after each wave of repression by Serb inde the writer Ibrahim Rugova, leader of the paramilitary groups. LDK (Kosovo Democratic League). In Until recently, Rugova condemned US March 1998 Rugova was re-elected as the UCK as a tool of Milosevic's Eve manipulation. But it has become a major "President of the Republic of Kosovo" in was an informal, illegal (for Serbia) actor in its own right. pres consultation. Several opposition parties, The origins of the UCK are a very can including the little-known Kosovo small network of former "Marxist- neg Liberation Army (UCK) had Leninists," in Kosovo and among US/ unsuccessfully called for a boycott of Albanian emigrants in Western Europe. these elections. But the organisation has become a Ran
For ten years, Rugova led a massive, much more nebulous group. It has begun NA peaceful resistance to Serbia, through a to fight a classic guerrilla struggle, with but, network of parallel schools, health solid roots in a number of villages sha centres and an underground parliament. (currently under attack from the Serbs). Atla He is still very popular. But he was The UCK has also absorbed a number of imp increasingly criticised for his authorita- recruits from the emigrant communities. Kos rianism, and a strategy that depended too Rugova is still the most popular peo much on the goodwill of the western leader of Kosovo Albanians, but he no tron longer has the unchallenged power to "community."
guarantee the implementation of any settlement he signs without the agreement of the radical opposition.
So an alliance was made: Rugova and the main political parties needed to integrate the UCK and the radical youth into their strategy, and the UCK needed access to Rugova's international contacts. Pressure at Rambouillet...
The Kosovo delegation to the Rambouillet talks included a range of political factions. Since the Serb authorities refused to negotiate with "terrorists" , the Albanian parties had worked hard to ensure that the UCK was present in the delegation, with five representatives. Rugova led a sixmember group from the LDK, and there were six representatives of smaller currents of the Kosovo opposition.
Despite their dislike of the Contact raised a real dilemma for the Kosovars. To avoid the drama of isolation of Kosovo" they would have to accept the western plan. An agreement on paper only
For a period, he seemed to have won the argument. Adem Demaci was "removed" from his position of leadership, and the Kosovo delegation signed an agreement to surrender their arms, on two conditions: the presence of a NATO peacekeeping force, and a referendum on Kosovo's future in 2002.
No-one in Kosovo thought that the Serbs would accept this agreement, So signing was relatively painless.
The real surprise is the naiveté of the western governments, who seriously thought that Milosevic would cede to their pressure. The West is always right
Servile journalists began to "remind" us that Milosevic had ceded to NATO pressure in Bosnia. This is a bizarre version of what the Bosnian Serbs won at the Dayton negotiations: their separatists "Republika srpska" was recognised as a constituent part of a confederal Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Dayton agreement also marginalised Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, leaving Slobodan Milosevic as the undisputed leader of all the Serbs! Rather than retreating, Milosevic emerged from the Dayton negotiations strengthened in Bosnia and in Serbia.