View Original - Middle East Technical University

maintained total control over the civilian and military affairs of the province. 29
However, contrary to Dayton negotiations, the negotiators threatened only one side
the Yugoslav government that it will face enforcement unless it signed the accords. 30
Nevertheless, at Rambouillet the Serbs were presented a proposal with
series of demands among two of which were not easily possible to be accepted:
The first was that a referendum should be held in Kosovo after three years
to determine the future of the province. The second, contained in the
military annex of the Contact Group’s plan that NATO should have ‘free
and unrestricted passage’ throughout Yugoslavia; Belgrade had rejected an
analogous demand from Austria-Hungary in 1914 and was unlikely to
accept it now. Similarly, the Albanians rejected the clause requiring the
KLA to disarm within three months. 31
As these negotiations were unfruitful, a second round of negotiations were
held three weeks later in Paris. However, in the meantime Serbian forces in Kosovo
had been increased much beyond the limit put down in the “October 1998
agreement and a further 25,000 Kosovo Albanians had been driven from their
homes.” 32
Following three days of fierce pressure in Paris “Albanians finally
agreed to the terms drawn up by the co-chairmen of the discussions, the British and
French ministers for foreign affairs” while the Serbs were not subservient to
pressure. 33 Thus, on 19 March 1999 the talks were renounced.
Due to the collapse of the talks, and continuing atrocities against civilian
Albanians, NATO started an air bombing against Serbian forces in Kosovo and in
the FRY. The declared goals of the NATO’s bombing operation were to “deter
further attacks on civilians”, to reduce Yugoslav’s military might to engage in war,
and penalize the Yugoslav government for declining to sign the Rambouillet
accord. 34 The Rambouillet accord was a “detailed 83-page document presented to
29 Ibid., p. 193.
30 Ibid., p. 193.
31 Richard Crampton, The Balkans since the Second World War, p. 273.
32 Ibid., p. 273.
33 Ibid., p. 273.
34 ‘The West versus Serbia’, The Economist, 27 March 1999, p. 43. Cited in Aleksandar Pavkovic,
The Fragmentation of Yugoslavia Nationalism and War in the Balkans, p. 194.
247