No one expected much from the Kosovo peace talks that were held last month in the French town of Rambouillet. Yet even with those diminished expectations, few people are much satisfied with the results. The talks have recessed until March 15, no party signed anything, fighting has already erupted between Serbian forces and Albanian separatists and there is concern that the Serb military has begun a buildup that presages a major offensive. Rarely have the failings of diplomacy been so visible. Even the six-nation Contact Group that organized and moderated the talks concedes that the main obstacles present at the beginning of the negotiations remain unresolved. What went wrong and what can be done to fix it?
Put very simply, the ethnic hatred between Serbs and Kosovars is long-standing and mistrust is deep. Ethnic Albanians -- Muslims who make up 90 percent of the population of the southern Yugoslav province of Kosovo -- want independence, while Yugoslavia considers the province an integral part of the Serb soul and refuses to give it up. Worse, the government in Belgrade seems willing to go to any length -- and commit any atrocity -- to prevent Kosovo from going its own way. Warfare erupted more than a year ago between the Serb forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army. The fighting has claimed more than 2,000 lives and forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
As the conflict intensified, the Contact Group -- made up of the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Russia -- dragged both sides to the negotiating table to forge some kind of peace. Seventeen days of talks concluded Feb. 23 with a tentative agreement that offers less than satisfaction to all parties. Perhaps we are lucky to have any agreement at all: The Contact Group's credibility was undermined when two deadlines for NATO airstrikes passed without the attacks. The Serbs know that the Contact Group does not have the stomach for a real fight. Similarly, the Kosovars recognize that lack of resolve means that it would be dangerous to rely on the West for protection.