B LESSED ARE the peacemakers, we are told, for they shall

be called the sons of God. It is hard to see Mr Robin Cook, Foreign Secretary, in that agreeable light, but undoubtedly he did much to bring about the peace talks at Rambouillet. There, Kosovo Albanians and representatives of the Serbian government are discussing peace proposals, to end the conflict in which at least 2,000 people have died. As Mr Cook remarked, this is a war which neither side can hope to win by military means.
Platitudes, however, can get us only so far. There is a measure of agreement that Kosovo will obtain some degree of autonomy for an interim period. There is less agreement on whether NATO troops will be deployed there. And there is outright disagreement, in-your-face conflict, about the final destiny of Kosovo.
The Albanians want no part of the federation of Serbia and Montenegro. And, within Kosovo, the Albanians constitute over 90 per cent of the population. For their part, the Serbs may make up less than ten per cent of the population of Kosovo, but for them it is still the heart of Serbia, culturally and emotionally.
These discordant views have not deterred the peacemakers from taking sides on this central question. Unfortunately, it is the wrong side, taken for the wrong reasons. As the Serbian politician, Vuk Draskovic, has triumphantly pointed out, every single international body — the Contact Group, the OSCE, the British, the French, NATO has declared itself opposed to independence for Kosovo.
Mr Cook has waxed eloquent on this subject. It would set a bad precedent to other dissident national groups in the region, he says; once the Albanians in Kosovo declare themselves independent, what's to stop the Albanians in Macedonia wanting out of that vulnerable republic, or the Serb Republic in Bosnia uniting with Serbia? Autonomy, which has the merit of being, in theory, mid-way between the conflicting aspirations of the two sides, has a nice consensual ring to it. Besides, the assumption that Slobodan Milosevic is a man to do business with underpins most Western policy. This argument is fine until scrutinised. Kosovo has a claim to statehood based on its membership of the old Yugoslav Federation which was dissolved in 1992. It was an autonomous region in that old Federation, with similar powers to republics like Croatia, and its people can legitimately argue that this gives them a claim to republics like Croatia, and its people can legitimately argue that this gives them a claim to exercise self-determination within those borders. The Serb Republic in Bosnia, which was created by ethnic cleansing, has no such claim to self-determination; neither, for that matter do Macedonian Albanians, even if they wanted it.
THE PEACE PLAN on offer in Rambouillet would give Kosovo a status very much less than it enjoyed in the old Yugoslavia, in which it had its own judiciary and assembly and education system. Instead it would be fragmented into a collection of regions. It would have a figurehead Chairman, but he would not be president of Kosovo, just of the people of Kosovo. There would be an assembly, but it would be subordinate to the interests of national communities. In short, the peace plan would do away with Kosovo as an entity.
There is an alternative. It is to support Albanians' aspiration to independence, with an interim period as an international protectorate, and protection for the Serbs and their the Albanians the same rights as the people of Ulster.
Of course, we won't. Our notion of peace, unlike the peace of Jerusalem, has woefully little to do with justice.