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A Kosovo Protectorate Serbia’s 1989 revocation of Kosovo’s autonomy was the first step in Yugoslavia’s breakdown wars, but international attention turned to finding a Kosovo settlement only in late 1998, when clashes between the Yugoslav army and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had spiraled out of control in the province. Between May and September 1998, roughly 250,000 civilians were displaced in Kosovo, and it looked as if the province was on the verge of a humanitarian crisis. On March 31, 1998, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1160, which condemned violence on all sides, called for a negotiated settlement, and imposed an arms embargo on Yugoslavia. To ratchet up the pressure on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, NATO issued an Activation Warning alerting member countries that they could be asked to contribute forces and support for a military mission against Yugoslavia. Under intense international pressure, Kosovo’s Albanians and the Serbian government met over three weeks in Rambouillet, France, in February 1999. The talks were cosponsored by the British and French foreign ministries, with negotiators from the U.S., Austria and Russia. After two weeks, the international negotiators presented both sides with an interim agreement that provided substantial autonomy and self-government for Kosovo within Yugoslavia, protected by a strong NATO presence on the ground. The Rambouillet Accords proposed a compromise between the Kosovo Albanians’ demand for independence and the Serbian push for forcible integration. Kosovo would have many of the powers that the republics had in federal Yugoslavia. But Yugoslavia would control monetary policy, defense, foreign affairs, customs and federal taxes, and would maintain a common market.
As in the Dayton Peace Agreement for Bosnia & Herzegovina, the Accords promised a sizable international involvement in rebuilding civil institutions. The European Union (EU) would appoint a civilian Implementation Mission to oversee the three years’ interim period. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) would organize elections to the assembly; and the International Court for Justice in The Hague, together with the European Court for Human Rights, would appoint an ombudsman and select the judges to the constitutional court. At the end of three years, an international conference would decide the mechanism for a final settlement for Kosovo, based on the will of the people, the opinion of the governments of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Kosovo, each party’s implementation of the Rambouillet Accords, and the Helsinki Final Act. In other words, though the Accords held out the promise of Kosovo’s reintegration into Yugoslavia, they effectively ended Yugoslav sovereignty over the province for the interim, and made reintegration conditional on a series of factors, including Yugoslavia’s abiding by international human rights’ standards. Unsurprisingly, President Milosevic rejected the Accords. But he also used the Rambouillet negotiations to buy time for a troops’ buildup in and around Kosovo, raising fears of another ethnic cleansing campaign like the one that took place in Bosnia & Herzegovina between 1992-5. NATO began preemptive air strikes against Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999, and Yugoslavia was bombed into accepting a modified version of the Rambouillet Accords on June 3, 1999. One week later, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1244 of June 10, under which a 50,000 strong Kosovo Protection Force (KFOR) would provide security for Kosovo, and establish a buffer zone in the Presevo valley of South Serbia (another haven for Albanian guerillas).
UNSCR 1244 set a “rapid timetable” for the withdrawal of Yugoslav and Serbian forces (eventually they were given eleven days), and restricted the numbers that would be allowed to return to a few hundred (Rambouillet had allowed 2,500). Serbian forces would be allowed to clear minefields, guard Serbian religious sites such as the patriarchate at Pec, and man key border crossings. But the Resolution also reaffirmed Yugoslav and Serbian territorial integrity, while providing for Kosovo’s autonomy. In other words, it held out the promise of reintegration without making it conditional, as the Rambouillet Accords had. KFOR’s powers were much greater than the powers of the international security forces in Bosnia & Herzegovina. It was to deter inter communal attacks and, where necessary, enforce a cease-fire; demilitarize the KLA and other Albanian irregular forces; and provide policing until civil police forces could be mobilized. Unlike in Bosnia, where the Dayton Agreement set up two centers of power, the Bosnian government and the UN-EU High Representative, the Rambouillet Accords and UNSCR 1244 set up a single authority for Kosovo. The province would be governed by an UN-appointed transitional administration for three years, which would organize elections, develop provisional institutions for self-government, and oversee reconstruction of the infrastructure. Building again on the experience of Bosnia, where the UN had had to scramble to set up a civilian police training force, the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) was responsible for setting up a police’ training academy in Kosovo, and for creating a local police force. Significantly, too, UNSCR 1244 emphasized “a comprehensive approach” to establish peace in the Balkans through “a stability pact for South-Eastern Europe with broad international participation in order to further promotion of democracy, economic prosperity, stability and regional cooperation.” (Annex II, Article 9) This emphasis on regional trade and security underlined the need for open borders, perhaps the single most important factor in avoiding the recurrence of partition hostilities. | |
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Text written by Radha Kumar and David Pacheco. Copyright, Radha Kumar, 2007. |
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