Demaci’s refusal upset the key U.S. strategy at the Rambouillet talks. A Kosovar “yes” would have shifted the pressure to Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, who was resisting the idea of NATO troops as guarantors of Kosovo’s autonomy. But the best Albright could achieve was a vague rebel pledge to sign by March 15. The true winner was Milosevic, who in the interim has a free hand to terrorize Kosovo’s population and harass Western truce monitors there. Late last week Serb forces massed on the border and shelled the village of Bukosh. “We’re being attacked and we know more is coming,” Enver Orucaj, a KLA commander, told NEWSWEEK. Yet NATO has said it will not strike Milosevic if the Kosovars are resisting the peace pact.
Rambouillet was yet another lesson in how an indecisive superpower can be humiliated by a small, determined foe. Albright, traveling on to China this week, was described as exhausted. She told friends that it was the worst experience she’d ever been through. “She is so stung by what happened,” says a close associate. “She’s angry at everyone–the Serbs, the Albanians and NATO.” Albright found little solace on Capitol Hill, where the reviews of Rambouillet were scathing. McCain, the Arizona Republican and likely presidential candidate, noted acidly that “a deadline with the threat of force to back it up can be a persuasive tool. There’s just one catch. It must be credible.” Administration officials, instead, have extended the deadline for Milosevic and the Kosovars three times. One senior official concedes: “We miscalculated. It’s as simple as that.”
Rambouillet was loosely modeled on the successful Dayton talks, where a closed, pressure-cooker atmosphere yielded a Bosnian accord in 1995. But Rambouillet “violated every rule,” the official says. One example: the real players, Milosevic and Demaci, stayed home, calculating they could gain more by not signing. And no one on the U.S. side had prepared for a Kosovar refusal. Former senator Bob Dole, asked by Albright to call Demaci as well, says the Kosovar’s obstinacy “took Milosevic off the hook completely.”
Albright isn’t giving up. NEWSWEEK has learned she is asking prominent U.S. figures to help win over Demaci and the hard-liners–including Dole, who will go to Kosovo soon, and George Soros, who helps to finance Kosovar news media. President Clinton, meanwhile, warned Milosevic on Friday to show restraint, saying that “NATO is prepared to act.” But Milosevic, this time, may not have been listening.
