Kosovo/Kosova As Seen, As Told was that the reduction in fighting between Serb forces and the UCK had been no more than a temporary lull, which ended in December with a new Serbian offensive in the north-east. The UCK had used the lull to rearm and retrain, while a large force of Yugoslav/Serbian troops was being assembled just outside the province in apparent preparation for a spring offensive. The second was that in these circumstances the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (OSCE-KVM) was neither equipped nor mandated to play a peacekeeping role, so a 2,300-strong NATO "extraction force" was put in place just across the border in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to evacuate the monitors if necessary. The third was that atrocities against unarmed civilians had not ceased. In mid-January, 45 people - some of them children - were found murdered in Racak/Recak (Stimlje/Shtime), mostly shot in the head at close range. It was this last development, and its immediate repercussions, which precipitated the next initiative by the six-country Contact Group. Ambassador William Walker, the head of the OSCE-KVM, was ordered out of the country by the Serbian authorities when he publicly accused them of responsibility - rejecting their claim that UCK guerrillas had been killed in a battle at Racak and their bodies then rearranged by their comrades to look like civilian victims of a massacre. Ambassador Walker refused to leave, while NATO threatened military action against the FRY unless the cease-fire was restored. In a bid to break the impasse by diplomatic means, the Contact Group then announced a conference on the future of Kosovo, to be held in Rambouillet near Paris on 6 February. The Rambouillet negotiations At Rambouillet, the Serbian and Albanian leaders (the latter including both LDK and UCK) were presented with the latest version of the Western plan as a basis for a negotiated settlement. The plan stipulated that the UCK must be disarmed within three months (the provision they most strongly opposed) and all Yugoslav/Serbian troops withdrawn from Kosovo apart from 1,400 border guards and 2,500 security forces. A 30,000-member NATO "enabling force" would be deployed in Kosovo (the provision most strongly opposed by the Serbian leadership) to ensure implementation of the agreement. For a three-year interim period, Kosovo would have autonomous institutions once again, as before 1989, including its own elected assembly, president and constitutional court. There would be greater devolution of power, however, to the province's municipalities, in areas such as policing. More contentiously, the different "national communities" of Kosovo would have powers to block legislation if it threatened their national interest, and official posts would be divided up among them on a quota basis. At the end of the three years, there would be a further international meeting "to determine a mechanism for a final settlement" - a formula which did not exclude independence, although the Contact Group was known to be against it. The Kosovo Albanian delegation eventually agreed in principle at the end of February to sign the agreement, and returned to Paris for the signing ceremony on 18 March. The Serbian side, however, did not. As fighting continued in Kosovo, and reports indicated that 30,000 more Yugoslav/Serbian troops were being deployed along with tanks and irregular militia units, the OSCE-KVM was pulled out on 20 http://www.osce.org/kosovo/documents/reports/hr/part1/ch1.htm (7 of 8)12/5/2003 11:48:35 AM