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This War Necessary? |
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WASHINGTON
- While many are claiming the peace agreement shows that Milosevic backed down,
some analysts are suggesting that essentially the same agreement could have been
achieved without bombing. They point to U.S. demands at Rambouillet in February
that are absent from the current agreement. While some elements of the new accords
remain unclear, apparent major differences between the Rambouillet text and the
current agreement include:
WHAT MILOSEVIC GAVE UP
Can keep only a few hundred,
not a few thousand, troops in Kosovo
WHAT NATO GAVE UP
The international force
can be deployed only in Kosovo, not throughout Yugoslavia
International force under
UN -- not NATO -- auspices, with Russian component
UNHCR, not NATO, supervises
return of refugees
No referendum on Kosovo
independence
PHYLLIS BENNIS, pbennis@compuserve.com,
www.zmag.org/zmag/kosovo.htm
Author of "Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today's UN" and a fellow
at the Institute for Policy Studies, Bennis said: "This agreement might have been
achievable months earlier, without the devastation of Yugoslavia and the escalation
of the anti-Albanian 'ethnic cleansing' in Kosovo wrought by NATO's bombing campaign."
MARJORIE COHN, Libertad48@aol.com,
http://chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/article/0,1051,SAV-9905200
163,000.html
Professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Cohn said: "At Rambouillet, NATO
presented Milosevic with an ultimatum impossible for him to accept. NATO has now
diluted its demands but, to justify two months of bombing, claims Milosevic capitulated..."
STEPHEN ZUNES, nanlouise@igc.org
An associate professor of politics and chair of the Peace and Justice Studies
Program at the University of San Francisco, Zunes said: "Most crucially, the insistence
at Rambouillet that NATO troops have 'unimpeded access throughout the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia' has been dropped, limiting their role only to Kosovo..."
SETH ACKERMAN, sackerman@fair.org,
www.fair.org
A media analyst with Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, Ackerman said: "Last week's
Serb agreement was falsely reported as a total NATO victory. Then, when military
talks broke down, it was claimed that the Serbs were reneging. In fact, those
military talks were largely a NATO ploy -- unsuccessful -- to totally bypass the
UN."
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