June 4, 1999
THE OVERVIEW
Milosevic Yields on NATO's Key Terms; 50,000 Allied Troops to Police Kosovo
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In Friday's Times
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Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari
Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott
State Department Spokesman James Rubin
By STEVEN ERLANGER
ELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- On
the 72d day of NATO's air war
against Yugoslavia, President Slobodan Milosevic accepted an international peace plan Thursday to end the
Kosovo conflict and allow nearly one
million ethnic Albanian refugees to
return to what is left of their homes.
After forcing most of those refugees to flee from Kosovo and enduring thousands of Serbian military
and civilian deaths, Milosevic
and the Serbian Parliament agreed
rapidly to all key NATO demands
after envoys from Russia and other
European nations brought what they
made clear was the best offer he was
going to get from NATO.
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OVERVIEW OF THE G-8 PLAN
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The Kosovo peace plan that Yugoslavia said Thursday it had approved is based on principles agreed last month by foreign ministers of the Group of Eight industrialised countries.
The main demands in that plan were:
an "immediate and verifiable end of violence and repression" in Kosovo;
"withdrawal from Kosovo of military, police and paramilitary forces;"
deployment in Kosovo of "effective international civil and security presences, endorsed and adopted by the United Nations;"
establishment of an "interim administration" for Kosovo to be decided by the UN Security Council to ensure conditions for a "peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants in Kosovo";
the safe and free return of all refugees and displaced persons and an unimpeded access to Kosovo by humanitarian aid organisations;
a political process towards 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
Yugoslavia's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the demilitarisation of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA);
a "comprehensive" approach to the region's "economic development and stabilisation."
The G-8 is comprised of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and Russia.
-- Agence France-Presse
Text of the Peace Plan Approved by the Serb Parliament
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In a swift retreat that may spell
political trouble for him down the
road, Milosevic agreed to withdraw all Yugoslav military and police forces from Kosovo within seven
days and allow 50,000 foreign troops
under a United Nations flag -- many
of them from NATO and under
NATO command -- to police the
province.
That withdrawal could begin as
early as Sunday, said Goran Matic, a
minister in the Yugoslav Government, once military leaders of both
sides agreed on the details. What is
important for Belgrade is that the
rebel Kosovo Liberation Army not be
allowed to fill the vacuum and flood
into Kosovo, he said, and that NATO
keep its commitment to "demilitarize" the rebels.
While NATO has emphasized the
need for a strong force to prevent the
Yugoslav President from reneging
on his commitments, Belgrade officials and some Western diplomats
here believe that its real difficulties
will come from the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has received
NATO support and is unlikely to give
up its ambitions for independence.
Initial public reactions in the West,
which appeared to be taken by surprise by the sudden prospect of victory, were cautious, and it was not
immediately clear when or through
what means the conflict will be
brought to a conclusion. Western
spokesmen said the Serbs must begin a "credible and verifiable withdrawal" from Kosovo before the
bombs would stop, but NATO's
bombing campaign slackened noticeably Thursday.
The peace proposals accepted today were negotiated between NATO
and Russia, which was acting for
Belgrade. Once the Russian envoy,
Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, agreed on
the basics of the deal with the American Deputy Secretary of State,
Strobe Talbott, Milosevic -- who
was indicted for war crimes last
week -- clearly felt that he had no
choice but to accept them or endure
further destruction.
Under the proposals, fewer than
1,000 uniformed Serbs will be allowed to re-enter Kosovo, to guard
key border posts and Serbian holy
sites, as a symbol of Serbian and
Yugoslav sovereignty over the southern province. But there will be little
substance left to Belgrade's assertion of sovereignty. Kosovo will get
"substantial autonomy" within
Yugoslavia but for all intents and
purposes, will have little to do with
the Serbian or Yugoslav state.
An interim international authority
will supervise the running of Kosovo
and the establishment of new democratic institutions and elections, the
return of all refugees and the rebuilding of the province. In the meantime, there will be new negotiations
between Serbian and ethnic Albanian
leaders to work out a long-term political settlement.
But in what Belgrade pointed to as
a victory, the proposals accepted Thursday do not propose a new examination of Kosovo's sovereignty after
three years or any referendum on
that topic, as did the draft proposals
accepted by the Albanian side only in
Rambouillet, France, in March. It
was the Serbian refusal to accept
those accords that led to the opening
of the NATO air war on March 24, the
sharp acceleration in the Serbian effort to push the Albanians out of
Kosovo and the tidal wave of refugees into surrounding countries.
Yugoslav officials also said their
resistance had forced NATO to find a
solution within the United Nations
and with the participation of the Russians. And they emphasized the firm
international guarantees of Serbia's
sovereignty over Kosovo, unlike the
temporary sovereignty proposed at
Rambouillet.
But there was also important nationalist criticism of Milosevic
and this deal. The Radical Party and
its leader, Deputy Prime Minister
Vojislav Seselj of Serbia, voted
against the proposals in Parliament,
and Seselj vowed to quit the
Government the day NATO troops
enter Kosovo.
A former President of Yugoslavia,
the nationalist historian Dobrica Cosic, called the vote "an extorted decision" and the proposals "a post-modernist packaging for the occupation
of Kosovo." In an interview, Cosic, whose views on Kosovo carry
much weight here, called Parliament's acceptance "a matter of survival, and not a matter of freedom
and rights."
But there was no immediate political threat to Milosevic. The weak
democratic opposition parties supported the move, and Vuk Draskovic,
who was fired as Yugoslav Deputy
Prime Minister during the war,
praised the vote and said he would be
willing to rejoin the Government, especially if Seselj quit.
Some confusion remains over who
will lead the international force and
over its exact makeup. The Russians
are still insisting that their forces
going to Kosovo will not be under
NATO command, and have not yet
agreed to send troops. The agreement accepted Thursday by Milosevic says the forces will be under the
auspices of the United Nations, but
European and American officials
say the troops will in fact be commanded by NATO.
Nor was it immediately clear
when a military-to-military text
would be negotiated, or when the
agreement would be codified into a
United Nations Security Council resolution.
But the deal may finally bring
some peace, if not reconciliation, to
Kosovo. A year ago, the province
contained some 2.2 million people,
about 90 percent of them ethnic Albanian.
Today, Kosovo is eerily depopulated, with nearly one million Albanians
now living abroad as refugees and
several hundred thousand more displaced from their homes. As many as
5,000 ethnic Albanians, NATO has
charged, have been killed by the
Serbs. Thousands of Serbian women
and children have also fled the province, and it is likely that many Serbs
will not want to remain in a Kosovo
once their army and police have
withdrawn.
With many thousands of ethnic Albanian shops and homes burned and
looted, and basic services like road
transport, electricity and water supplies destroyed or heavily damaged
by the air war, the job of reconstructing Kosovo will also be enormous.
And it is likely that foreign troops
and aid workers will occupy the
province for many years to come, at
a cost of billions of dollars.
After talks this morning between
Milosevic and the diplomatic
team of Chernomyrdin and President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland,
who represented the European
Union and articulated NATO's views,
the state news agency Tanjug said
simply, "Yugoslavia accepts the document for peace brought by the highest representatives of the European
Union and Russia."
The statement continued, "The
three sides unanimously agreed that
commitment to peace was of vital
importance, not only for Yugoslavia,
but for the whole region and all of
Europe."
Earlier Thursday morning, the Serbian
Parliament accepted the proposals
on which party leaders had been
briefed by Milosevic the night
before. The Parliament voted 136 for
and 74 against. Presumably, the 74
against included most of Seselj's
80 deputies.
Afterward, Seselj was blunt.
"For sure, we will not stay in the
Serbian Government from the moment that troops from aggressor
countries, particularly the U.S.A., enter Kosovo," he said. And he warned
that NATO troops "will not feel safe
in Kosovo."
But Draskovic was ebullient,
calling the vote "a great day for the
Serbian nation and all the citizens of
Yugoslavia." He said, "The Serbian
Parliament today declared peace,
and the beginning of peace must be
the beginning of a new policy of
radical economic and democratic reform."
Serbian state television tonight did
not mention Seselj's opposition
or quote him at all, but it did give
Draskovic time to praise Milosevic.
There was no statement from
Milosevic himself. But the television
anchorman recited a long statement
from Milosevic's Socialist Party
praising the Serbian nation and the
international guarantees of Yugoslavia's "integrity and sovereignty."
"This decision brings us the cessation of the criminal bombing, of the
killing of the people, and it brings us
peace," the statement said. "The
role of the United Nations is being
affirmed in accordance with the U.N.
Charter. Through the unity of the
people and through the heroism of
our army and our police, we have
defended the country from a vastly
superior enemy who committed aggression against our country with the
goal of annulling our integrity and
sovereignty."
There was also a statement from
the Yugoslav United Left party of
Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic.
"We are proud of the heroic resistance of our people," it said, adding
that "in these circumstances we feel
we can accept conditions" laid down
by the world. "We are looking for the
end of the bombing, and the great
renewal," it said.
