To: Kosovo Talk
From: Diana Johnstone
Subject: Re: Welcome to Kosovo Talk The question is strangely put. Of course NATO had no option but force. It is a military organization. The only language it knows or understands is force. The assumption underlying the question is that Kosovo was NATO's problem, that NATO had to do SOMETHING about Kosovo. This assumption is totally false and far-fetched.
NATO's moral imperative was to stay the hell out. Bringing in NATO has escalated the Kosovo conflict into a full-scale human, moral, and world political catastrophe.
As for various foreign political leaders, notably the Clinton administration, they indeed had plenty of options left. They could have tried negotiations. Yes, negotiations. Because that option was not tried.
The "Rambouillet talks" were a charade built on months and years of lies. For years, various Serbs in and out of government have suggested compromise solutions to the very difficult Kosovo problem. Nobody in the U.S. or the E.U. has shown any interest. For months, Belgrade was ready to negotiate but ethnic Albanian leaders refused on one pretext or another.
The main reason for ethnic Albanian intransigence was the assurances they had, or at least THOUGHT they had (and with good reason), that the United States and NATO would get them what they wanted: an independent Kosovo. All they had to do was mount armed attacks on Serbian police and Kosovo civilians (including ethnic Albanians) as provocations. When the Serbian police reacted, or overreacted, presto, the U.S. would send NATO to be their air force. Victory and huge Western investments would follow.
So there were no negotiations. At Rambouillet, Serbian president Milan Milutinovic and his (multi-ethnic) delegation were presented with an ultimatum: accept Chris Hill's "peace agreement," allowing NATO to take over Kosovo on terms that would be totally unacceptable to any sovereign government, OR ELSE. Kosovo's "self-government" was to be run by a NATO imperial proconsul, with the title of Chief of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe(OSCE)/European Uninon(EU) Implementation Mission, or CIM. The CIM would have authority over virtually everything and everybody. Kosovo would be occupied by a NATO force called "KFOR," headed by a commander, COMKFOR, who could do whatever he wanted to counter any "potential threat," whose forces could be augmented indefinitely (no ceiling), who would have full control of airspace over Kosovo and beyond, who would be above local law, and who would have free access to all of Yugoslavia -- a license to invade the rest of the country.
Serbia, a small country that has braved mighty empires more than once, that rejected a rather milder Habsburg ultimatum in 1914, that defied Hitler in 1941, could not possibly be expected to turn itself over to the likes of CIM and COMKFOR.
The ethnic Albanians did not much like the Hill document either. They probably wanted NATO to get Kosovo for ethnic Albanians, not for itself. They had to be openly coaxed into signing by the promise that only if they signed, would NATO be able to start bombing Serbia.
And this is called a "peace agreement"? It was a war agreement between NATO and the armed Albanians in the KLA.
Incidentally, according to Article 52 of the Vienna Treaties Convention, treaties are not binding if obtained by threat or use of force. The whole Clinton administration "sign or we'll bomb you" performance has been in violation of international law.
The Yugoslavs were ready to make huge political sacrifices, but not to welcome NATO. NATO was the sticking point. A United Nations peacekeeping force might well have been acceptable. However, the Clinton administration insisted on NATO or nothing.
In short, the interests of Kosovo, the interests of world peace, were sacrificed to U.S. ambitions for NATO.
Yugoslavs, and not only Yugoslavs, but probably a majority of people east of NATO, were convinced that the Clinton administration was exploiting the very old and complex conflict between Serbs and Albanians on behalf of NATO.
For NATO had its own problem: to display its capacity for a "new mission" after the collapse of the "Soviet threat." It needed a raison d'être. The new NATO is to be a global intervention force, used to defend the interests of its rich member states anywhere in the world. Of course, these interests will not be explained to the public, oh no. For public consumption, NATO intervention will always be motivated by compelling "humanitarian" reasons. NATO will rush in with cruise missiles and stealth bombers to avert "humanitarian crisis." Meanwhile, Kosovo provides a proving ground, supposed to produce marvelous results just in time for NATO's 50th anniversary celebrations. The results so far don't look so marvelous, but that's NATO's new problem.
I am ready to expand considerably on any of the statements made above.
Next question?
-- Diana Johnstone, Paris, April 3, 1999
