Did Allies Demand Right to Occupy All of Yugoslavia?

WASHINGTON — New questions are emerging about the actual terms of the Rambouillet accords prior to the initiation of NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia.

When NATO spokesman Jamie Shea appeared at the National Press Club in Washington yesterday, a representative of the Institute for Public Accuracy asked him to clarify provisions in the Rambouillet text that some analysts say allowed for the military occupation of all of Yugoslavia by NATO troops.

Although Shea replied that “there was no intention whatsoever of having any kind of NATO occupation regime in Yugoslavia itself,” Appendix (B) of the Rambouillet accords included the following provisions:

7. NATO personnel shall be immune from any form of arrest, investigation, or detention by the authorities in the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia].

8. NATO personnel shall enjoy… free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY including associated airspace and territorial waters.

11. NATO is granted the use of airports, roads, rails and ports without payment…

15. [NATO shall have] the right to use all of the electromagnetic spectrum…

Robert Hayden, director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, says that a close reading of the Rambouillet accords shows that the text, rejected by Milosevic just before the bombing began, “provided for the independence of Kosovo in all but name and the military occupation by NATO of all of Yugoslavia — not just Kosovo.”

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For more information, contact:

Robert Hayden
University of Pittsburgh

At the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167.