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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stormweaver who wrote (710)	3/30/1999 10:37:00 AM
From: George Papadopoulos	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17770

Here is a news source with intelligent independent analysis. Their site is highly recommended stratfor.com ----------------------------------------- The Geopolitics of the End Game 29 March 1999 - 2355 GMT Tuesday will be dominated by the question of a cease fire. Until this point, NATO has emphasized Serbian acceptance of the Rambouillet Accords as the basis for any cessation of hostilities. However, the NATO air campaign has obviously, to this point, not persuaded the Serbs to capitulate on the subject. As frequently happens when military action is insufficient to compel complete capitulation and some of the combatants become interested in extrication, the terms of a cease fire become the focus, with the fundamental political issues put on hold to be discussed under the cover of the cease fire. Russian and French representatives are going to be discussing the terms of a cease fire. Obviously, there is a problem. A cease fire in place would satisfy neither side. NATO would be afraid, reasonably, that the Serbs would use the cover of a cease fire for further deportations and killings in Kosovo. The Serbs would be afraid that with a cease fire, they would not be able to settle the Kosovo issue once and for all, but would be haunted by the issue for years. Let's examine the Serbian position. The Serbian view is that NATO is attempting to destroy Serbia. Their evidence: when the predominantly Serbian section of Bosnia wanted to secede from Bosnia, NATO attacked Serbia from the air. When the predominantly Albanian section of Kosovo wanted greater autonomy or secession, Serbia was again attacked from the air. The inconsistency of NATO over Bosnia and Kosovo, with the only consistency being air attacks on Serbia, convinces the Serbs that they are the victims of a grand conspiracy. The truth or falsehood of this perception is less important than the fact that it is both the driving reality in Serbia and the glue that binds Milosevic to the Serbian people. The Serbs have developed a demographic solution with substantial historical precedent in other parts of the world. Through a terror campaign, they intend to redefine the demographics of Kosovo by driving a substantial percentage of the Kosovars across the Albanian border. That was clearly their desire before and they are using the NATO air attacks as their justification and cover for intensifying those deportations right now. The Serbs need time for this operation to take place. A cease fire, at this point, is a threat to the completion of their mission. At the same time, they are extremely dependent on the Russians. It was Russian support that ended Serbia's political isolation and Russian material that will allow Serbia to rearm in the future. Serbia cannot afford to lose Russia. Nor can they afford to lose the French. Of all the peace keepers in the region, the French were regularly reported to have been the most cooperative with the Serbs. The French and the Italians are Serbia's window into NATO. With a very senior Russian delegation and a French delegation present, it will be extremely difficult for the Serbs to resist calls for a cease fire. With an IMF loan in their pocket, the Russians will be quite assertive. With the United States in a military and diplomatic bind, the French want very badly to be seen as flexible and reasonable in the face of Anglo-American intransigence. Moreover, the Germans very much want this to be over. The thought of German Panzers rolling into Serbia leaves the Social Democratic-Green coalition chilled. The Germans are more concerned about their relations with the French and the Russians than they are about Kosovo. Thus, the Russians and French have a chance to make points with the Germans. All of this means that diplomacy is doing what the air campaign couldn't do: putting severe time constraints on Serbia's campaign inside of Kosovo. While NATO lacks the wherewithal to rapidly increase the air campaign and an invasion of Kosovo on the ground is inconceivable from a military standpoint without months of preparation, a Franco-Russian ultimatum could shut down the Serbs very quickly, if they meant it. This time they do. The question from the Serb point of view is that nothing in the cease fire should threaten Serbian control and sovereignty over Kosovo. From the NATO point of view, the deportation of Kosovars through terror must stop. The interim solution will be a group of observers (not peace keepers) drawn from countries friendly to both the United States and Serbia. This will mean Greek, Russian, Ukrainian and possibly Italian observers. There will be no armed troops included in this wave. That question will be finessed as something to be discussed after the cease fire. NATO will accept because the air campaign is going nowhere and because they don't want to ramp up to a level that might be effective. The Serbs will accept because they cannot afford to alienate the Russians. The Russians will carry out their mission because the IMF has paid them to do so. But the Serbs will delay for as long as possible so that they can deport or kill as many Albanians as possible. That means that we are now moving into the most intense period of operations inside of Kosovo yet. The Serbs will be working every minute to turn Albanians into refugees, to readjust Kosovo's demographics. NATO will be using its one, weak instrument, to thwart this. Since strafing refugee columns is not an option and blocking roads from the air is difficult, it means intensified attacks on any identifiable concentration of Serbian military forces. The next 24 hours are going to be among the most terrible in Kosovo yet. The anti-Albanian terror and the air campaign combine to create a nightmare of epic proportions. A cease fire is inevitable, but the Serbs (and perhaps their Russian allies) would like to delay the implementation for several days. The earlier the cease fire, the more extreme the Serbian demands.

To: Stormweaver who wrote (710)	3/30/1999 11:35:00 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

I also like to point out that land ownership is 70% Serbian, 30% Kosovo Albanian. Does over-populating a region give an ethnic group the right to take that region ? It gave us the right to take America away from the Native Americans, didn't it??