Rambouillet Agreement

The Rambouillet Agreement was a proposed peace agreement between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and a delegation representing the Albanian majority population of Kosovo. It was drafted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and named for Chateau Rambouillet, where it was initially proposed. The significance of the agreement lies in the fact that Yugoslavia refused to accept it, which NATO used as justification to start the Kosovo War. Belgrade's rejection was based on the argument that the agreement contained provisions for Kosovo's autonomy that went further than the Serbian/Yugoslav government saw as reasonable.

Negotiations

The biggest problem for both sides was that the Albanians were unwilling to accept a solution that would retain Kosovo as part of Serbia, whilst 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. The negotiations thus became somewhat a game of musical chairs, each side trying to avoid being blamed for the breakdown of the talks. To add to the farce, 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.

The two paragraphs above, however, are partially contradicted by the historical evidence. In particular, the statement by the co-chairmen on 23 February 1999 that the negotiations have led to a consensus on substantial autonomy for Kosovo, including on mechanisms for free and fair elections to democratic institutions, for the governance of Kosovo, for the protection of human rights and the rights of members of national communities; and for the establishment of a fair judicial system. They went on to say that a political framework is now in place leaving the further work of finalizing the implementation Chapters of the Agreement, including the modalities of the invited international civilian and military presence in Kosovo.

In the end, on 18 March 1999, the Albanian, American and British delegation signed what became known as the 'Rambouillet Accords' while the Serbian and Russian delegations refused. The accords called for NATO administration of Kosovo as an autonomous province within Yugoslavia; a force of 30,000 NATO 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 commentary released to the press, former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger declared that:

The Rambouillet text, which called on Serbia to admit NATO troops throughout Yugoslavia, was a provocation, an excuse to start bombing. Rambouillet is not a document that an angelic Serb could have accepted. It was a terrible diplomatic document that should never have been presented in that form.

— Henry Kissinger, Daily Telegraph, 28 June 1999

Events proceeded rapidly after the failure at Rambouillet. The international monitors from the OSCE withdrew on 22 March, for fear of the monitors' safety ahead of the anticipated bombing by NATO. On 23 March, the Serbian assembly accepted the principle of "autonomy" for Kosovo and non-military part of the agreement. The Serbian side initially had no objections to appendix B of the Agreement – which had been drafted by NATO officers in the expectation that the parties to the agreement would whittle it down – but appendix B was later used as a reason for the failure of talks, characterising it as "NATO occupation".

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.

External links

• Full text of Rambouillet Accords
• 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-Director of the International Action Center

Further reading

Weller, Marc. The Rambouillet Conference on Kosovo. International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944–), Vol. 75, No. 2 (Apr. 1999), pp. 211–251.

See also

• 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia