Was Rambouillet a peaceful agreement or an occupation ultimatum?
“The Clinton administration has repeatedly claimed that bombing is necessary because Milosevic would not agree to negotiations, citing his refusal to accept the Rambouillet text. But did Rambouillet represent real negotiations or an ultimatum? Some have said that the Serbian parliament “voted to be bombed” because it refused NATO troops as outlined in Rambouillet. But The New York Times has reported (April 8) that “just before the bombing, when [the Serbian parliament] rejected NATO troops in Kosovo, it also supported the idea of a United Nations force to monitor a political settlement there.” Did the administration start bombing because it rejected the idea of a UN force and insisted on a NATO one? Has that insistence blocked the recent German peace plan? The Rambouillet text of Feb. 23, a month before NATO began bombing, contains provisions that seem to have provided for NATO to occupy the entire Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, not just Kosovo. Excerpts from Appendix (B): 7. NATO per
