BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
Under the threat of NATO airstrikes, a delegation of Kosovar
Albanians and Serbian government officials began talks at a U.S.-
crafted "peace conference" February 6. Government officials from
the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Italy and Russia
have set a two-week deadline for the two parties to accept a
pact at the meeting, held in Rambouillet, France.
The deal would pave the way for a NATO occupation force to impose an imperialist protectorate on Kosova. The proposed "peacekeeping" arrangement would have some 30,000 soldiers to enforce the broad authority of the "Kosovo Verification Mission" headed by U.S. government representative William Walker. Clinton administration officials are discussing plans to send up to 5,000 U.S. ground troops to join 8,000 from Britain, 5,000 from France, 3,000 from Germany, and troops from NATO candidates, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic.
A major dilemma facing the imperialist military operation is how to disarm the Kosova Liberation Army (UCK), which has waged a determined struggle for independence. Pentagon officials are nervous over the political consequences of casualties among U.S. GIs intervening in the war Belgrade has launched against the Albanians' struggle for self-determination.
The draft plan would give the Albanians in Kosova limited "self-governance," less than the autonomy stripped away by Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in 1989. It calls for the UCK to be dismantled within three months after an agreement is signed. The Yugoslav army would be reduced to 1,500 troops and 2,500 security police in the province. The UCK has expressed "hostility to a stipulation in the peace plan that its arms be handed over and kept in Nato-guarded stocks," the Financial Times reported February 8.