Is peace really on the way for Kosovo? A look at the agreement signed last week reveals several large loopholes.

Under the Rambouillet proposal, the Yugoslav army would have had six months to withdraw from Kosovo and Serbian police would have been decommissioned over a 2 year period while a new multi-ethnic police force was trained. Now, under the new agreement, the Yugoslav army has only 7 days in which to withdraw all forces--which could be a near impossibility, given that the bombing has destroyed fuel storage facilities, roads, bridges, and communications infrastructure.

Eve-Ann Prentice, a reporter for The Times of London, who was recently stationed in Kosovo, claims that KLA sniper units control many of the roads in Western Kosovo. KLA snipers often pin down Yugoslav units on the move and could make it more difficult for troops to leave, especially if individual KLA units decide to operate on their own and pursue the retreating army. A number of analysts have described the KLA as disunited, with many groups cut off from the main force operating from bases in Albania.

Under the Rambouillet proposal, the KLA would have been required to disarm within a four-month period. The current peace agreement still requires the KLA to disarm, but sets no deadline. In addition, the new agreement contains no language regarding the political future of Kosovo and makes no mention of autonomy or independence for the province--a shortfall that could doom the entire agreement, since the KLA is unlikely to accept anything short of autonomy.

KLA members have already expressed their dissatisfaction. Ilir Rama, a KLA official in Tirana, said: "We are not prepared to even discuss the future status of our army until the Serb forces have left Kosovo. And we won't be discussing disarmament anyway." NATO is anticipating that it will have to rapidly move coalition troops into Kosovo from Albania to prevent KLA forces from engaging in revenge killings as Yugoslav troops withdraw.

A clue as to whether or not the KLA will engage in revenge killing can be found in the background of their new leader: Agim Ceku, an ethnic Albanian who fought in the Croatian army under the fascist Croat President Franjo Tudjman. Under Tudjman, Ceku was the commander in charge of "Operation Storm," which emptied the Krajina of its Serbian population; an estimated 600 civilians were killed and over 200,000 Serbs fled during this assault. Ceku's not the type to lay down his arms and show restraint.

The KLA has also warned that it is willing to carry the conflict to Macedonia, which has a sizable Albanian minority (about 2,000 of the KLA's fighters are from Macedonia). And while the KLA has resisted allowing Islamic fundamentalists from Afghanistan and the Middle East into its ranks, that could soon change if the West pushes the KLA to disarm and tries to cut off its supply lines. A similar scenario occurred in Bosnia, when the Bosnian army, suffering under the arms embargo, began accepting weapons and mercenaries from Muslim states.

But the worst loophole in the agreement is that NATO is free to continue the bombing campaign until Yugoslavian troops have withdrawn. The agreement contains no details as to how the verification process will function, what constitutes compliance, or if the bombs can continue to fall even if only one soldier remains behind. It has the potential to be an open-ended nightmare, just like the sanctions on Iraq. It can never be proven that Iraq isn't hiding a few weapons and so the sanctions continue. Likewise, NATO can always claim that a handful of Yugoslavian soldiers are hiding out in Kosovo. This leaves NATO and the U.S. (whose planes compose 75% of the NATO force) free to bomb at will for as long as they like, or to resume bombing whenever they please.

Sources: "Q&A: Did the Serbs lose out?," BBC, 6/4/99; "KLA threatens new wave of killing," Electronic Telegraph (U.K.), 6/4/99; "Peace Deal Disappoints Kosovo Separatists," LA Times, 6/4/99; "The KLA's New Model Leader," Drago Hedl, Institute of War & Peace Reporting; and "Refugee camps raising radicals," Christian Science Monitor, 6/3/99.