Tuesday, May 13, 2008
NATO is dictating a peace deal at the U.N. that will virtually guarantee Kosovo's future independence.
Jun 9, 1999 | Diplomacy, as Von Clauswitz meant to say, is the continuation of warfare by other means. Certainly NATO negotiators are as belligerent as the pilots in their assault on Belgrade, and the U.N. resolution agreed upon by the G-8 Tuesday takes few prisoners. Despite what the diplomats may say, the negotiated peace plan would inevitably lead to an independent Kosova.
In the meantime, the bickering over details continues. On Monday, the two sides reached an impasse. The Serbs would not withdraw without a U.N. resolution. NATO would not stop bombing without Serbian withdrawal. And the Chinese and Russians would not allow a U.N. resolution while the bombing continued.
Tuesday, NATO tossed the explosive parcel right into the lap of the Serbs. As they introduced the resolution for discussion at the U.N. Security Council in New York, Western diplomats insisted on their chronology for peace: First, the Serbs begin to withdraw, then the bombing stops. Only then would the draft resolution agreed on Tuesday by the G-8 go to the Security Council.
The bombers were already out over Belgrade and Kosovo as the Security Council began its closed-door discussions, and with the negotiations with the Yugoslav military resuming Tuesday evening in Macedonia, Wednesday would be the earliest time for the resolution to be passed. With Russia signing on, no matter how reluctantly, China is expected to go along, or, at worst abstain.
With the delay, it is left for Slobodan Milosevic to explain to his battered armed forces and demoralized civilians why they are still suffering while he fails to execute the deal that he agreed to a week ago. His previous exit strategies from Croatia and Bosnia have been equally tortuous and costly, but this time it is his own disenchanted electorate that is suffering. NATO fully expects its initial strategy of bombing Milosevic into submission will prevail.
Despite 12 hours of hard negotiations in Cologne, Germany, the resolution offers little of substance to comfort either the Russians or the Serbs. As a symbolic concession to them, the main text does not refer to NATO directly. But almost like hypertext, it is dotted with references to other agreements -- Rambouillet, the G-8's agreed principles and the agreement between Milosevic, Finnish President Marrti Ahtisaari and Viktor Chernomyrdin last week.
Above all, it invokes Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, the crucial clause authorizing the use of force because of a threat to international peace and security. Even more galling, under pressure from Louise Arbour, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, it also enjoins all parties -- including NATO -- to cooperate fully with the tribunal. Interestingly, it calls for the demilitarization, not the disarmament, of the Kosovo Liberation Army and other Albanian forces. The only thing the Serbs get out of it is an end to the bombing.
The United Nations will look after the civil side, which is charged with setting up an autonomous administration and holding democratic elections in Kosovo. It does not say what will happen when the Albanians vote overwhelmingly for parties wanting independence, but that would be a separate issue. However, when the resolution mentions the United Nations role, "pending a final settlement," in developing "substantial autonomy and self government" it refers to the Rambouillet accords. This particular piece of hypertext, although fudged, was sold to the Albanians on the basis of an implied promise of a referendum after three years.
The "security" presence "with substantial NATO participation" will report to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who will in turn report to the Security Council -- thus putting a thin blue veil of United Nations cover over what is otherwise fundamentally a NATO operation.
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