The breakdown of neg
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. weapons. 4 International Viewpoint #311 May 1999
The western governments were worried that independence for Kosovo would stimulate similar demands by Macedonia's Albanian minority (25-35% of the 2m. population) or even by the ethnic Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Kosovar determination
But they failed to "dominate" the Kosovo delegation. The main western contact in Kosovo had traditionally been the writer Ibrahim Rugova, leader of the LDK (Kosovo Democratic League). In March 1998 Rugova was re-elected as "President of the Republic of Kosovo" in an informal, illegal (for Serbia) consultation. Several opposition parties, including the little-known Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) had unsuccessfully called for a boycott of these elections.
For ten years, Rugova led a massive, peaceful resistance to Serbia, through a network of parallel schools, health centres and an underground parliament. He is still very popular. But he was increasingly criticised for his authoritarianism, and a strategy that depended too much on the goodwill of the western "community."
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Rugova is still the most popular peo leader of Kosovo Albanians, but he no tion longer has the unchallenged power to
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 ri with five 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 Group's plan, the Kosovars came to Rambouillet in search of international recognition. But what the West wanted was to force the Kosovars to reduce their demand from independence to some kind of autonomy within Serbia.
It seems, though, that the presence of UCK representatives solidified the Kosovar delegation on a common programme of intransigence. After a first round of negotiations with the Contact Group, the Kosovar delegation refused to sign, and returned to Kosovo "to consult with the population."
This placed the European and US governments in a very embarrassing situation. They had threatened Milosevic with NATO air strikes if he did not sign. But no-one had expected that the Kosovo Albanians would dare resist the "International Community." This was the absolute worst-case scenario. Milosevic was the designated enemy, but the Albanians wouldn't "behave.' ...and afterwards
Kosovo leader Adem Demaci (who spend 20 years in Tito's prisons) did not come to Rambouillet. He called it a "trap"-because the negotiations specifically excluded the possibility of independence.
The Western powers, particularly the US, put huge pressure on the Kosovars. Even the Albanian writer Ismail Kadaré was recruited to condemn the Kosovo press for "launching a real anti-western campaign before and during the negotiations, particularly attacking the USA and NATO."
Kadaré explicitly denounced those Rambouillet delegates "who demanded NATO help to punish Serbian barbarity but, at the same time, in an immoral and shameful way, began to oppose the Atlantic Alliance." For Kadaré, the most important thing was for Albanians in Kosovo to win western respect as a people worthy of "European civilisation" ", as defined and defended by NATO
Leaving the ideology aside, Kadaré 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.