On Fri, 4 Jun 1999, W. Kiernan wrote:
> Hello list!
>
> I was looking at Yahoo's news links, and there I read a page by the
> ever impartial and unbiased BBC News which stated, more or less, that
> Milosevic had agreed to a worse deal than if he had accepted the terms
> of the original Rambouillet agreement; the page is entitled "World:
> Europe Q & A: Did the Serbs lose out?" :
This is the universal Western spin, that we won. It's only to be expected that we'd say that -- we couldn't stop the bombing saying we'd achieved nothing. But as for the agreement being worse, no -- it's changed in exactly the ways that were the sticking points. There will be Russian troops; there will be Security Counsel involvement; and most of all, there is no talk about a referendum happening in three year time about ultimate status. Rather the allies have explicitly stated that they intend to disarm the KLA and not give them independence. Which is precisely the guarantee Rambouillet lacked.
The idea that the agreement is worse for Milosevic seems to rest on the idea that the 23rd agreement would have allowed 2500 police troops in the area, and this allows more like a couple of hundred, to safeguard holy sites. But in the first place, under Rambouillet, those forces were to be disarmed, whereas now I've seen no mention of that. And more importantly, if NATO is explictly taking the responsibility of disarming the KLA, and are guaranteeing that Kosovo is staying part of Yugoslavia, Serbia not only don't need troops, they are better off without them. NATO is pledging to do everything the troops were trying and failing to accomplish.
Michael __________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com