It's being a rebel wot makes him so interesting - IMO we have entered a period of great instability -served by poor leaders who have disregarded international law:
Subject: sfp-62: What they never told you about Rambouillet
>> Date: Monday, May 10, 1999 8:53 AM
>> ZNet website: zmag.org
>>
>> The "Diplomatic Scene," in brief, as of May 8
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> by Michael Albert prepared from material made available by Noam Chomsky
>>
>> (I): The Rambouillet accords of March were presented to Milosovic as a
>> take-it-or-get bombed ultimatum. This was not a legitimate exercise in
>> diplomacy, of course, at least for those few in the West who join the
>> great majority of people in the world in accepting that constraints on
>the
>> use of violence by the powerful are important. Still, it is part of the
>> "diplomatic scene," such as it is, and so we begin with Rambouillet.
>>
>> Rambouillet called for military occupation of Kosovo by NATO, and
>> effective military occupation of the rest of the Federal Republic of
>> Yugoslavia (FYR), at NATO's will. The terms for the occupation are set
>out
>> in Appendix B: Status of Multi-National Military Implementation Force.
>One
>> crucial paragraph reads:
>>
>> NATO personnel shall enjoy, together with their vehicles, vessels,
>> aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded
>> access throughout the FRY including associated airspace and territorial
>> waters. This shall include, but not be limited to, the right of bivouac,
>> maneuver, billet, and utilization of any areas or facilities as required
>> for support, training, and operations.
>>
>> The remainder of the Appendix spells out the demand that NATO forces and
>> whoever they employ can do as they wish throughout the territory of the
>> FYR, without any obligations or concern for the laws of the country or
>> jurisdiction of its authorities, though the latter are required to follow
>> any NATO orders "on a priority basis and with all appropriate means."
>>
>> The text has apparently not been published in mainstream U.S. media. The
>> wording apparently was designed to guarantee rejection. Would any country
>> even consider such terms, except in the form of unconditional surrender?
>>
>>
>> (II): The Serbian National Assembly responded to the US/NATO ultimatum on
>> March 23 (one day before the bombing). The Assembly's Resolution rejected
>> the demand for military occupation, and called on the Organization for
>> Security and Cooperation in Europe and the U.N. to facilitate a peaceful
>> diplomatic settlement. Specifically, "We also condemn a withdrawal of the
>> OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission. There is not a single reason for this
>> but to put the withdrawal into the service of blackmails and threats to
>> our country." The withdrawal of the international OSCE observers had just
>> been ordered by the U.S., in preparation for the bombing after the
>> (apparently intended) FYR rejection of the Rambouillet ultimatum.
>>
>> The Assembly Resolution further calls for negotiations leading "toward
>the
>> reaching of a political agreement on a wide-ranging autonomy for Kosovo
>> and Metohija [the official name for the province], with the securing of a
>> full equality of all citizens and ethnic communities and with respect for
>> the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Serbia and
>> the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia." Further:
>>
>> The Serbian Parliament does not accept presence of foreign military
>troops
>> in Kosovo and Metohia. The Serbian Parliament is ready to review the size
>> and character of the international presence in Kosmet [Kosovo/Metohija]
>> for carrying out the reached accord, immediately upon signing the
>> political accord on the self-rule agreed and accepted by the
>> representatives of all national communities living in Kosovo and Metohia.
>>
>> The essentials of the March 23 Resolution were reported on major wire
>> services (French, German, UPI, AP) and therefore were certainly known to
>> every newsroom and every journalist who wished to be informed. Several
>> database searchs have found no mention in the mainstream press, however,
>> apart from a few midwestern journals, notably the Detroit Free Press. The
>> absense of major media coverage tells quite a lot about what counts as
>> "news."
>>
>> At a March 24 State Department press briefing, spokesperson James Rubin
>> was asked about the Serbian Assembly resolution, particularly its
>> reference to an "international presence." Mr. Rubin evaded the question,
>> saying only that "I'm not aware that anybody in this building regarded it
>> as a silver lining." He apparently didn't know what "it" was --
>apparently
>> "it" was too insignificant to think about, particularly if the whole
>farce
>> was just an attempt to get the bombers flying.
>>
>> This part of Rubin's press briefing was also apparently not reported. Nor
>> was there any report, to my knowledge, of the FAIR Action Alert of April
>> 14, 1999 (distributed to the major press), reporting the press briefing.
>>
>> In the following weeks, bits and pieces of the Serb Assembly Resolution
>> dribbled out in the press (Erlanger, NYT, April 8 being the first in the
>> mainstream), sometimes inaccurately, typically buried in some other
>> context.
>>
>>
>> (III): On April 22, a highly-publicized meeting took place between
>> Milosevic and Washington's favorite Russian, Viktor Chernomyrdin. It was
>> reported, with headlines like "Russian Ends Peace Visit: Slight Signs of
>> Progress" (NY Times); "US, Britain reject Serb offer for UN Kosovo role"
>> (Globe). Chernomyrdin announced that "Mr. Milosevic had agreed to an
>> 'international presence in Kosovo under United Nations auspices,' to
>> implement any political settlement" (NYT); he "had agreed in principle to
>> 'the possibility of an international presence led by the UN' if NATO
>calls
>> off its five-week air campaign" (Globe). The press reported that "US and
>> NATO officials saw little more in Milosevic's apparently agreement with
>> Chernomyrdin...than the first signs of hope that the Yugoslav president's
>> defiance may be dissolving amid the NATO assault," but that this might be
>> another of his "feigned peace overtures." The U.S. and UK instantly
>> rejected the proposal, stepping up the bombing of civilian targets (TV
>was
>> knocked off that day) and insisting 'on an armed "international security
>> force" with NATO troops as its core, so that Chernomyrdin's "progress" is
>> not sufficient to end the bombing (NYT).
>>
>> At a news conference, Clinton responded by saying that "If there is an
>> offer for a genuine security force that's the first time Mr. Milosevic
>has
>> done that, and that represents, I suppose, some step forward."
>>
>> In other words, on April 22, Milosevic reiterated the proposal of the
>> Serbian National Assembly of March 23, this time in a way that was
>> impossible to suppress: namely, via the Russian envoy who is the West's
>> favorite emissary of Russian communications. Since the earlier March 23
>> proposal with the same content had been efficiently suppressed, however,
>> it was possible to present the reiteration of it as a sign that violence
>> works and Milosevic's "defiance" is crumbling, even though, in fact, it
>> was simply a reiteration of the prior terms.
>>
>> On May 1 the press reported another Chernomyrdin-Milosevic meeting under
>> the headline "After Seeing Milosovic, Russian Hints at Progress" (Steven
>> Erlanger, NYT). The "hint" was again Milosevic's reiteration of the March
>> 23 offer (as Erlanger, reporting from Belgrade, was able to sneak into
>his
>> story, sufficiently deep so that it could pass unobserved -- he evidently
>> knows the facts).
>>
>> The same day the Times also published a UPI interview with Milosevic
>> (April 30) in which he called for a "political process" and said that
>"The
>> U.N. can have a huge mission in Kosovo if it wishes," a "U.N.
>peacekeeping
>> force" with "self-defense weapons," but not "an occupation" of the sort
>> demanded in the "Clinton Administration diktat" at Rambouillet: 28,000
>> troops occupying Kosovo with heavy equipment. Milosevic also called for
>> reduction of the Yugoslav forces to the pre-bombing level of 10-11,000,
>> "return of all refugees, regardless of their ethnic or religious
>> affiliation," "free access for United Nations High Commissioner for
>> Refugees and the International Red Cross," and continuing negotiations
>for
>> "the widest possible autonomy for Kosovo within Serbia."
>>
>> Quoting the last phrase, the NYT report said that he was "borrowing
>> language from the proposed Rambouillet accords." More accurately,
>> Milosevic was "borrowing language" from the March 23 National Assembly
>> Resolution that the Times (and its colleagues) refused to report -- then
>> or since. In fact, the April 30 proposals are within the framework of the
>> (Western-suppressed) March 23 proposals, with some further detail.
>>
>>
>> (IV): The next major phase of the drama/farce is May 7, when the press
>> reported with great enthusiasm the official statement of the Group of
>> Eight (G-7 + Russia). Their May 6 statement again repeated the essentials
>> of the Serb National Assembly March 23 proposal. It called for an end to
>> violence and repression, withdrawal of (unspecified) "military, police
>and
>> paramilitary forces," "Deployment in Kosovo of effective international
>> civil and secuirty presences, endorsed and adopted by the United
>Nations,"
>> "a political process toward the establishment of an interim political
>> framework agreement providing for a substantial self-government for
>> Kosovo, taking full account of the Rambouillet accords and the principles
>> of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of
>> Yugoslavia and other countries of the region," and the demilitarization
>of
>> the U.C.K. [KLA]. The only modification of the March 23 Serb Parliament
>> proposal was the call for "Establishment of an interim administration for
>> Kosovo to be decided by the Security Council of the United Nations...,"
>> which had previously been barred from any role by Washington.
>>
>> At the level of the words offered, Washington's effective acceptance of
>> the March 23 Serb proposals in the G-8 proposal was portrayed as a great
>> victory for the U.S., the UK, and their resort to violence. The lead
>> headline in the Times read: "Russia in Accord on Need for Force to Patrol
>> Kosovo." Two stories followed. One opened by saying that "The Clinton
>> Administration...managed to get the Russians on its side today." The
>> second opened: "The West and Russia agreed for the first time today on
>the
>> need for an international military presence in Kosovo to keep any
>eventual
>> peace." "The accord also intensifies pressure on" Milosevic, who is now
>> isolated, with the Russians having come "on board." In the Boston Globe,
>> veteran correspondent John Yemma (maybe now an editor) reported that the
>> great achievement "was to bring Russia over to the NATO position," though
>> "before the bombing stops, Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic will have
>to
>> accept the G-8 plan, at least in principle" -- that is, the plan that in
>> essence he put forth on March 23 and elaborated since. The news stories
>> also recognized that although the Russians are now "on board," the
>> official G8 statement still "finessed several of their [NATO's] key
>> demands," in particular, the demand that the force be effectively under
>> US/NATO command, with the UN in some meaningless nominal role.
>>
>> So what did happen? More than likely meetings were held whose real point
>> was for the Russians to communicate to the world that they weren't going
>> to escalate their disagreements with the U.S. over Kosovo into a renewed
>> more generalized conflict (they have "come on board"). The G-8 statements
>> that resulted to convey that fact in a way designed to permit Russia to
>> save face, either mean, if taken at face value, virtual agreement with
>the
>> Yugoslav March 23 terms which would suggest possible diplomatic
>settlement
>> or they mean a continuation of Ramboullet (and proposed NATO/U.S.
>> occupation, etc.) and likely continued war. The vagueness permited the
>> Russians to sign and to discuss the terms as if they mean the former
>> (respecting Russian wishes), and it permited people like Albright and
>> others to discuss them and interpret them as if they mean the latter. In
>> other words the official U.S. line is still that the G8 statement, which
>> doesn't even mention NATO, means that Rambouillet is reinstituted. The
>> words seem to imply something else only because everyone at the table was
>> polite enough to leave out the true meaning so as not to embarrass the
>> Russians, and to allow them to come "on board." Milosevic, presumably,
>> listens to not Russia's reading or hopes, of face saving rhetoric, but to
>> Albright's doctrines to know what U.S. policy is.
>>
>>
>> (V): In brief, the differences as far as we can tell from available
>> reports appear to remain about as they were on March 23, except that the
>> U.S. has now accepted the basic outline of the Serb Assembly proposal --
>> on paper that is, in the G-8 statement. In fact, however, in all other
>> pronouncements it rejects the terms of its own official (G-8) statement.
>> (Also conceded is that the KLA rejects the demand that they disarm.)
>>
>> The basic point of U.S. rejection (or if you prefer, interpretation) of
>> its own G-8 proposal was clarified by State Department spokesperson James
>> Rubin (NYT, May 8). He "stressed that there would be no United Nations
>> involvement in the actual military operation": "Nobody in the United
>> States or any of the NATO countries envisages the United Nations
>> Secretariat and the blue-helmet peacekeeping unit to play any role in the
>> peacekeeping force," Mr. Rubin said. "This would be a situation where the
>> United Nations Security Council, acting on behalf of the world, would
>> authorize member states to put together a force." Presumably, as is usual
>> with U.S. policy, if "the world" doesn't like it, then too bad for the
>> world.
>>
>> That seems to be the essence of it, as of May 8, which is to say nothing
>> much has changed after the U.S. chose violence over diplomacy on March
>24,
>> apart from the human consequences which are of course of little concern
>to
>> the masters and easily attributed by their servants to genocidal Serbs,
>> and apart from the slowly growing resistance to the war in many quarters,
>> which is far more consequential to the masters and which, if it grows
>> sufficiently, could compel them to reinterpret once again their own words
>> and to settle essentially in the manner indicated by the Yugoslav
>Assembly
>> on March 23.
>>
>> Pending the growth of such anti-war resistance, we may be in for many
>more
>> ugly days. Britain's campaign is called Operation Agricola. Apart from
>his
>> own estimable feats, Agricola was the father-in-law of Tacitus, famous
>for
>> defining Roman imperialism with the phrase "they make a desert and call
>it
>> peace." And for his astute observation that "crime once exposed had no
>> refuge but in audacity" -- a favorite maxim of John
>> Quincy Adams, for good reason, given his own role in massive slaughter
>> and ethnic cleansing. At least you have to admire the British their
>> classical education.
>>
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