We had a secret agreement with the Americans on Kosovo, and then a telegram came to Rambouillet: Traitor, you have been fired!

Vladan Kutlesic, Professor of Constitutional Law, worked on the document, which had political content, with an American associate in Belgrade at the time, while another document, of a military nature, was prepared under the leadership of Serbian President Milan Milutinovic. Kutlesic himself played an important role during negotiations in Rambouillet, at least until the telegram with the content: “Traitor, you have been replaced” reached the French castle.

Kutlesic, who was practically in charge of conducting secret negotiations on the legal future from the Serbian side Kosova and greater autonomy, on the details of this turbulent period in which the future of Kosovo was broken, spoke for the first time about these events for Nedeljnik.

– A year before Rambouillet, in Belgrade, in absolute secrecy, we are starting talks with the Americans on Kosovo. Only four people know. In a very good and constructive atmosphere, Jim O’Brien, Madeleine Albright’s special advisor and one of her most trusted people, arrived in February 1998. He stayed in Belgrade continuously from February to May 1998, and the two we worked on a text that was supposed to resolve the status of Kosovo. We worked slowly, we had no deadlines. I must say that he is a top notch attorney. During that period, he only went to the United States for a short time, fifteen days, because his daughter was born, after which he returned. Until July 1, we had only the beginning of the agreement and we talked about the contours of the final text. Our work was in the direction of expanding the autonomy of Kosovo. Then the holidays came, Jim returned to America with an agreement to continue in August. However, that never happened, because something happened on the field that I still don’t know, but something that destroyed the good atmosphere of us and the Americans and stopped working. Since then, there has been no cooperation and business stops until Rambouillet, reveals Kutlešić.

At the same time, Milan Milutinovic and Christopher Hill worked in Belgrade, also in secret, on the issue of military-police action in Kosovo.

– And sometimes we arrive earlier and I listen to what they say. I can affirm and sign that Hill approached Milutinovic with great affection, understanding and advice on how to carry out the action in Kosovo, but at the same time imposed on him the restrictions contained in the OSCE rules on internal conflicts. And then I listen to it, I can quote what I heard: Milan, we must not be green in the field, only blue. It meant that we were not the army to be there, but the police. ‘If there isn’t enough blue, paint it green in blue.’ ‘No aviation, no helicopters’, ‘no tanks, no BPR, nothing more than 80mm’. These were the OSCE rules that the Americans demanded to be followed, Kutlesic recounts for “Nedeljnik.”

The Jashari case as a turning point

A turning point in the relationship American people On the issue of Kosovo, he interpreted the case of Adem Jashari and the actions of the Serbian security forces in the village of Donje Prekaze on March 5, 1998.

According to the official police version of events, the Serbian security forces surrounded the home of Jashari’s family and called for their surrender. The police gave them two hours to surrender. Jashari’s group responded using heavy weapons: mortars, machine guns, hand grenades, sniper rifles, killing two and wounding three policemen. After that, the police used heavy artillery to bring down the home of Jashari’s family, along with 56 members of his family, including 18 women and 10 children.

According to Nedeljnik, this event represents a turning point in the Kosovo crisis and marks the beginning of the war. These killings radicalized Kosovar Albanians and en masse the ranks of the KLA, which subsequently began to evolve into an “organized popular resistance movement” against the Belgrade authorities.

The truth about Rambouillet

After the events in Donji Prekaz, therefore, the armed conflicts escalated, and a conference was held in Rambouillet the following year.

Kutlesic, who was a member of the state delegation at these peace talks, says he met his old acquaintance Jim O’Brien there again.

– Then Rambouillet begins. They also put me in the delegation. The state puts up a politically second-class delegation. That was strange to me. And in another example, it was even weirder for me. On the way to the airport, it was Saturday, Gorica Gajević called me at home, although I am not a member of the SPS. I approach her and she crying, with a trembling hand she hands me the envelope and says ‘from a friend to the family’. And she cries, she is clear about it, but I am not clear about it and I realize that it is money. I will get the same from the airport police, with the assurance that they will take care of my children. They don’t ask for anything in return. From that I conclude that the state leadership was afraid of what would happen – says Kutlešić and continues:

– We were locked in the castle. Nothing is done. The conference leaders, Petrich and Majorski, ask that it be written immediately, and we ask that principles be established. And nothing is done for three days. On the third day, I see Jim in the hall. I greet him, he greets me and then at dinner we get closer. Jim says, ‘Vladan, let’s work, nothing is done here.’ I tell him that I have no authority, because now I am just a member of the delegation. He says, ‘Okay, but you know it’s not good.’ After two days, he says, ‘This is definitely not good, let’s go where we left off in July.’ I say – okay. He came to my room around 10:30 p.m. and we both started writing the text of the agreement by hand without military service. The text of the agreement was at a weaker level than the 1974 amendment, but it implied greater autonomy, with parallel institutions and the Belgian model of federalism. This greater autonomy also provided for the division of police affairs according to the American model: federal and provincial police. It was an acceptable model – explains Kutlešić.

Keep telling how things happened in order.

– When we finished, it was about three thirty in the morning, Jim told me: ‘I like this, wake up your delegation, I’ll take mine’. That showed me that it was, in fact, the main one on the entire west side. We woke them all up and then he spoke, I was silent. Only Ratko Markovic supported me, Sainovic and Stambuk were silent. Jim says, “This is a solid basis for conversation, I send it to Washington, you send it to Belgrade, see you tonight.” I went to sleep. That night, around eight thirty, a crypto telegram arrived, signed by Foreign Minister Zika Jovanovic. It said: ‘Traitor, you have been replaced. Milan Milutinović comes to take charge of the negotiations ”. I sent Milosevic an encrypted telegram: ‘Okay, I’m going back to Belgrade’, and he returned the code so that I would be there and no one would touch me. But Milutinovic rejected the text of the agreement. He didn’t ask me anything or speak to me. And then we got the development of the situation that led to the bombing – says Kutlesic.

He believes that what was offered to Serbia in Rambouillet, Serbia will never be able to receive again.

– And there are no evil and corrupt Americans who bombarded us suddenly and under cover of night. It was a process that we did not know how to use – says Kutlešić.

He adds that there is a story in Serbia for 20 years, which, as he says, is spread by Nikola Sainovic and Zivadin Jovanovic, and which says that we rejected the agreement in Rambouillet, because we were supposed to be occupied by him.

– That is Chapter 7 and the transitory provisions that there will be a referendum in three years. Both are lies, because that is not how it is written. And no one has read the text of the Rambouillet agreement, which even exists on the Internet. That alleged occupation is a standard SOFA agreement that became Annex B of Resolution 1244. So that’s the first lie. The second lie is about the referendum, I know that article of the agreement by heart, how many times have I read it. The transitory provision reads as follows: “In three years, an international conference will be organized to review the results of this agreement and take into account the will of the people.” What people, what will they be, based on what “- explains Kutlesic.

Lost opportunity

Kutlesic states that Resolution 1244 mentions Rambouillet in four places, so parts of the agreement text are completely taken. Rambouillet is mentioned twice in the text of the Resolution and twice in the annexes.

He claims that Serbia missed the next opportunity after the establishment of the protectorate in Kosovo. Hans Hackerup, he says, sat down and drafted Kosovo’s interim constitution, which was in effect until 2008.

– If we were smart, we would integrate it into our Constitution and thus we would integrate Kosovo into Serbia. He talks about the rights of Yugoslavia and Serbia. It was valid until 2008. We could make constitutional and legal arrangements on the same state. Since 2008, there is no possibility that we are in the same state. the only thing we can do is recognize and in return obtain rights for Serbs and the church. On the other hand, Kosovo can never become a state as long as Resolution 1244 is valid. And that is the only thing that interests the Albanians – says Kutlesic.

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