>>On Behalf Of hep ingham
>>
>> Milosevic stated that he would accept a peace keeping force
>> comprised of UN
>> troops and the Russian military. This was rejected outright by NATO (by
>> what right?).
>
>This is repeated endlessly with no proof. In fact, as this letter from
>Gregor Gysi of the German PDS notes from his conversations with Milosevic,
>UN troops were still being rejected after the war started as of April 14,
>1999.
>
That Milosevic rejected a UN force after the bombing tells us nothing of how
he felt prior to the bombing. At that time, he appeared to be interested in
finding a way out of the civil war with the Kosovar Albanians. A diplomatic
solution might have worked. Milosevic did not want Kosovo Verification
Monitors from OSCE to leave Kosovo. This suggests that he did not intend to
engage in wholesale ethnic cleansing.
Here's the relevant excerpt from the Chomsky piece that Doug posted Tuesday:
***The Serb National Assembly Resolution, though reported at once on the
wire services, has remained a virtual secret. There has been little
indication even of its existence, let alone its contents. The
Resolution condemned the withdrawal of the OSCE monitors and called on
the United Nations and OSCE to facilitate a diplomatic settlement
through negotations "toward the reaching of a political agreement on a
wide-ranging autonomy for [Kosovo], with the securing of a full
equality of all citizens and ethnic communities and with respect for
the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Serbia
and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia [FRY]." It raised the
possibility of an "international presence" of a "size and character"
to be determined to carry out the "political accord on the self-rule
agreed and accepted by the representatives of all national communities
living in [Kosovo]." FRY agreement "to discuss the scope and character
of international presence in [Kosovo] to implement the agreement to be
accepted in Rambouillet" had been formally conveyed to the negotiators
on 23 February, and announced by the FRY at a press conference the
same day (4). Whether these proposals had any substance we cannot
know, since they were never considered, and remain unknown.***
Ted