Simplistic attitude of talks organiser hampers progress

It was a small incident, but for a European adviser to the Albanian delegation, it summed up the simplistic and arrogant attitude of the US diplomats who are running the Rambouillet negotiations.

On February 14th, the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, pulled Mr Hashim Thaqi, the de facto president of the Albanian delegation, aside.

The 29-year-old Mr Thaqi is a leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the guerrilla movement that has for the past year fought for the independence of the Serbian province which is 90 per cent ethnic Albanian. "Why don't you give up the armed struggle?" Ms Albright whispered in Mr Thaqi's ear. "You could be the Gerry Adams of Kosovo!"

Ms Albright did not take the comparison to its logical conclusion, Mr Filippo di Robilant, an Italian who is one of four international experts advising the Albanian delegation told The Irish Times. "If the Irish peace process is the reference, then why not discuss a referendum?" Mr di Robilant asked.

"The Albanian request for a referendum is reasonable, but the Americans won't even talk about it. The NATO [peacekeeping force] issue is the only issue - it was just a question of convincing the Russians to convince [the Yugoslav President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic."

The three other experts are former US diplomats, two of whom resigned from the State Department in 1993 in protest at US policy in Bosnia. Mr di Robilant admits that both sides in the Rambouillet conference have blood on their hands. But he supports the Albanians "because they're the victims and this is not acknowledged enough".

With the Saturday noon deadline looming, Mr di Robilant says the Albanians are furious that the chief US negotiator, Mr Christopher Hill, flew to Belgrade to see Mr Milosevic on Tuesday night. "Everything is happening outside Rambouillet," he complained. "Mr Hill broke the ground rules by leaving the castle, and he travelled to Belgrade with a man who may be indicted for war crimes."

Mr di Robilant referred to the Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Nikola Sainovic, who is a member of the Serb delegation. At the end of January, the Washington Post reported that Western intelligence agencies had intercepted telephone conversations between Mr Sainovic and Gen Sreten Lukic, who commands Interior Ministry forces in Kosovo, about how to make the Racak massacre of 45 Albanians look like the result of a battle.

Diplomats claimed the fact that the Serb delegation finally wrote a few remarks on the proposed agreement as a breakthrough.

"They said it justified Mr Hill's journey to Belgrade with a war criminal," Mr di Robilant said. "He came back with Milosevic's three nyets." Mr Milosevic told the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug that he, the Serb people and the Serb parliament all refused to accept NATO troops in Kosovo.

But the French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, said earlier this week that Moscow accepts the idea of a NATO force. The other members of the Contact Group are now relying on the Russians to persuade Mr Milosevic before the Saturday deadline. In exchange for the deployment, Mr Milosevic would demand that NATO disarm what he calls the "terrorist" KLA, and Albanian renunciation of a referendum on independence.

Mr Richard Holbrooke, the US Ambassador-designate to the UN who negotiated the fragile 1995 Dayton Accords and a failed October 1998 agreement on Kosovo, has said the US is leading the Rambouillet conference with an EU and Russian presence because this is an accurate representation of the post Cold War relationship between the US and Europe.

But Mr di Robilant laments what he sees as Washington's refusal to address details or longer-term issues. "They like special effects," he said. "We want peace, but peace that lasts."

A former aide to the EU Commissioner, Mrs Emma Bonino, Mr di Robilant recalled the old Brussels quip about the role of the US and Europe in international crises: "They play, we pay."

This was the case in the Great Lakes region of Africa, in the Israeli-occupied territories and in Bosnia before Kosovo, he said.

The US Secretary of Defence, Mr William Cohen, last night ordered the deployment of additional military aircraft to Europe to prepare for possible NATO strikes.