Rambouillet conference

thumb|Chateau de Rambouillet, Yvelines, France.

The Rambouillet Conference was an international diplomatic conference held between 6 February and 22 March 1999 at the Château de Rambouillet, France, in an attempt to resolve the Kosovo crisis. The talks resulted in the drafting of a proposed Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo (Rambouillet Agreement), between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia on the one hand and the delegation of political representatives of the ethnic Albanian majority population of Kosovo on the other. Among other things, the proposed agreement called for substantial autonomy for Kosovo; the deployment of up to 30,000 NATO peacekeeping troops in Kosovo; an unhindered right of passage for NATO troops on Yugoslav territory; and immunity for NATO and its agents to Yugoslav law. The Kosovo Albanian side signed the agreement on 18 March 1999, however the refusal of the Yugoslav and Serbian side to sign the accords led to the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia.

Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo

The provisions of the proposed agreement included: Kosovo would be entitled to at least one minister in the federal government, one minister in the government of Serbia, one judge in the federal constitutional court, one in the federal court and three judges in the supreme court of Serbia.

Kosovo

Kosovo would have competency over all matters not reserved to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia.

The institutions of Kosovo would be able to make laws in areas they have competency and would be able to levy taxes, and institute programs for economic, scientific, technological, regional and social development.

Kosovo would be able to conduct foreign relations within its areas of competency including the right to maintain relations with foreign states, establish missions abroad, and join international organisations.

Institutions

The Rambouillet Agreement proposed the establishment of executive, legislative and judicial organs in Kosovo.

Legislative branch

Kosovo was to have an 120 member assembly of which 80 would be directly elected. Of the remaining 40 members, 10 would be elected by communities representing between 0.5 and 5% and 30 would be shared equally between the Albanian and Serb communities. The assembly would be led by a president, two vice-presidents.

the delegation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was initially led by Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Ratko Marković before Serbian President Milan Milutinović took over the leadership when he joined the delegation at the beginning of the second week of negotiations, on 13 February. The delegation included Federal Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Šainović, Federal Deputy Prime Minister Vladan Kutlešić, Serbian Deputy Government Spokesman Vladimir Stambuk, Chairman of the Socialist Party in Kosovo Vojislav Živković, Member of the Kosovo and Methoja Provisional Executive Council Guljbehar Sabović, the representative of the national Muslim community Refik Senadović, the representative of the Turkish national community and the Turkish Democratic Party Zejnelabidin Kurejs, representative of the national community of the Gorans Ibro Vait, President of the Kosovo Democratic Initiative Faik Jasari, President of the Democratic Reform Party of Albanians Sokolj Cuse, the representative of the Roma national community Ljuan Koka, the representative of the Egyptian national community Cerim Abazi.

However, this assessment was at best overly optimistic, and at worst absolutely ignored the divergence of interests between the two major parties. The Albanians were unwilling to accept a solution that would retain Kosovo as part of Serbia, while the Serbs did not want to see the pre-1990 status quo restored, and they were implacably opposed to any international role in the governance of the province, including the offer of a face-saving measure wherein blue-helmeted UN peacekeeping troops would be used instead of NATO troops. To add to the problem, the NATO Contact Group countries were desperate to avoid having to make good on their threat of force—Greece and Italy were opposed to the idea. Consequently, when the talks failed to achieve an agreement by the original deadline of 19 February, they were extended by another month.

Paris

Talks resumed on 15 March 1999 at the Kleber Center in Paris. On 18 March 1999, the Kosovo Albanian, American and British delegation signed the Rambouillet Agreement while the Serbian and Russian delegations refused. The agreement called for self-governance of Kosovo as an autonomous region within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; a NATO-led force of 30,000 troops to maintain order in Kosovo; an unhindered right of passage for NATO troops on Yugoslav territory, including Kosovo; and immunity for NATO and its agents to Yugoslav law. In addition, NATO forces would have the right to use local roads, ports, railways, and airports without payment of duties, dues, tolls or charges, as well as the right to use the electromagnetic spectrum without payment. NATO would also have the right to requisition public facilities for its use free of cost. NATO forces would have the right to hire local personnel who upon employment with NATO would be exempt from local laws in respect to acts performed in their official capacity, national service obligations, local labor laws, and taxes on their salaries. Local infrastructure would be subjected to improvements or modifications to by NATO forces when deemed necessary to facilitate the mission.

Aftermath

Events proceeded rapidly after the failure at Rambouillet. The international monitors from the OSCE were withdrawn on 22 March for fear of the monitors' safety ahead of the anticipated bombing by NATO. On 23 March, the Serbian assembly issued a resolution that condemned the withdrawal of the OSCE monitors, and accepted the principle of "self rule" for Kosovo and non-military part of the agreement. The NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia commenced on 24 March 1999.

NATO leaders had expected that a brief bombing campaign would lead to Serb forces withdrawing from Kosovo, hence ending the humanitarian crisis; but Milošević may have gambled that his government and armed forces could withstand a few days of bombing without serious harm.<!--

Article 2 of the UN Charter states that "[a]ll Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state"; Article 39 stipulates that "[t]he Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security"; and Article 53 states that "no enforcement action shall be taken under regional arrangements or by regional agencies without the authorization of the Security Council".

Use of force

A highly controversial facet of the negotiations at Rambouillet was the threat of force, against the FRY, that girded them.

Proponents and critics of the bombing differ on, for example, whether NATO's threatened and then actual use of force were violations of the territorial integrity and political independence of the FRY, and whether NATO meets the criteria of a regional agency.-->

Reactions

In commentary released to the press, former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger declared that:

The historian Christopher Clark supports this view, asserting that the terms of the 1914 Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia appear lenient compared to the NATO demands.

A former hand on the State Department's Yugoslavia desk, George Kenney, reported in May 1999 that a senior State Department official had briefed journalists off the record that "[we] deliberately set the bar higher than the Serbs could accept".

For the Serbs, signing the Rambouillet agreement would actually have been signing away all Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo. It was not even a "take it or leave it" proposition, as Secretary of State Albright emphasized back in February 1999; rather, it was "sign it or get bombed." There were, in fact, no negotiations at all, and no sovereign, independent state would have signed the Rambouillet agreement.

Historian Noel Malcolm wrote that as the Kosovo Albanian delegation signed the agreement on the 18th, the Yugoslav delegation boycotted the ceremony and declared its opposition to the plan and that military maneuvers were being planned, so that by March 20 there were more than 26,000 Serbian troops inside the province and another 15,000 stationed just beyond its eastern border.

References

Bibliography

External links

Full text of the Rambouillet Agreement
Full text of Rambouillet Agreement
Beginning of discussion (May 14, 1999 to June 8, 1999, specifically) of Appendix B of the Rambouillet Treaty on H-Diplo, the academic diplomatic history forum
Goldstone Report
Minutes of the British inquiry in the Kosovo war
The Rambouillet Accord: A Declaration of War Disguised as a Peace Agreement, By Richard Becker, Western Regional Co- of the International Action Center