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Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard
Holbrooke Analyzes Kosovo Situation
Aired March 6, 1998 - 6:07 p.m. ET
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: We take you back now
to the crisis in the Yugoslav
province of Kosovo.
During the civil war
in Bosnia, the chief troubleshooter for the United States was
Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke was assistant secretary
of state for European and
Canadian affairs. He was the chief U.S. negotiator
of the Dayton Accord that ended the
war in Bosnia.
Ambassador Holbrooke
joins us now from New York.
Thank you for being with us.
First of all, for those
people, Richard Holbrooke, who don't follow Kosovo, tell us who
the people are on each side.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE, FORMER SPECIAL ENVOY TO BOSNIA:
That would take the
rest of your show, Judy. This is really complicated.
Let me put it
this way. From 1991 on, the greatest fear of all American policymakers
was that Kosovo would explode. If it had exploded
before Dayton, then it would have
metastasized along with Bosnia into a real catastrophe
which could have enveloped the
whole region, spread to the neighboring countries
of Albania, Macedonia and perhaps
even engaged Greece which has very tense border
relations with both countries.
It will not, however,
affect Bosnia right now because Dayton, the Dayton the peace
process, is definitely working. War criminals
are surrendering, ethnic cooperation is
increasing and so on.
However, it nonetheless
remains true that Kosovo has always been our dreaded flash
point. You may recall that President Bush issued
a warning on it in his last month as
president and President Clinton reaffirmed it
in his first month as president. Now we
appear to have reached the most dangerous moment.
Why?
90 percent of
the people in Kosovo are Albanian, but the Serbs consider it most
sacred territory because in 1389 the Serbs lost
the battle there to the Turks. May sound
strange to Americans, but your international
viewers understand it.
Now the issue
is this, the Albanian Muslims of Kosovo are being repressed by a brutal
counterattack by the Serb army. Again, to your
viewers, this has nothing to do with Bosnia
directly, but it comes from the same legacy.
The question is
now is what do we do?
WOODRUFF: So -- well let me -- before I ask you
that, let me get another question in
here.
Is it a case of
rooting out the terrorists, as the Serbs are saying? Or is it ethnic
cleansing as others are saying? As the Albanians
are saying.
HOLBROOKE: The Kosovo Albanian Muslims have been
repressed brutally by the Serbs
who are only 10 percent of the population for
years. There may be some terrorists among
the people fighting for some degree of autonomy
in Kosovo, that's not the issue. The issue
is that the Serbs are using helicopters, gun
ships, they're killing people. And for this reason
the United States, yesterday, quite correctly,
started to reimpose some sanctions or, to put
it another way, to take away some of the carrots
they've recently been giving Milosevic
and the Serbs in Belgrade because Milosevic has
been helping out in Bosnia.
So Washington
was helping Milosevic for the first time because he was helping us in
Bosina. Now, as of yesterday, those carrots are
taken away. So it's a very complicated
equation.
WOODRUFF: So what is to prevent this from becoming
another Bosnia that drags on for
years and costs thousands and thousands of lives?
HOLBROOKE: I talked to Secretary Albright and
her party and to the acting secretary of
state about this, and what I would like to say,
very clearly, is that they have learned the
lesson of 1991-92. In that case the previous
administration left Yugoslavia alone while the
Europeans fiddled around and nothing happened.
This time Madeleine
Albright is flying to London Monday to meet with the British,
French, German, Russian and Italian foreign ministers
and others to deal with it. The U.S.
government is assembling a very strong package
of actions which it will try to push
through with our allies and friends. The Russians
have already objected, but that's
traditional. The Russians will always object
to anything which hurts their fellow Slavs,
Serbs.
The real point
is that we are not going to sit back passively. I believe it's clear that
the
lessons of the early 90s when neglect and ambivalence
at the beginning led to a
horrendous tragedy have been absorbed.
WOODRUFF: Will this require military intervention
from the outside in any way? Or is it just
too early to know something like that?
HOLBROOKE: Well only the president can ever make
a decision like that Judy, but the
president has shown in the past that he's ready
to take decisive action to maintain stability
in this terribly dangerous part of the world.
WOODRUFF: What about by the Europeans?
HOLBROOKE: I would say, number one, we don't have
to discuss that issue yet.
Number two, the president
and his European allies will address that if necessary. But I
think it's a little early to worry about that
one.
WOODRUFF: You do think, it sounds as if you're
saying you do think that this crisis can be
headed off by diplomacy at least at this point.
HOLBROOKE: Well we have to try. But I want to
make a point again about the recent
past. The only way we finally ended the war in
Bosnia was when we were ready to confront
and people ready to confront the need to use
force. And I think the president showed in
Bosnia two years ago, and in Iraq a week ago,
that he is ready to use that if necessary.
And I do not think the Serbs should go around
thinking this is 1991-92 all over again when
the U.S. said we don't have a dog in that hunt.
We have 8,000 troops in Bosnia, 500 in
Macedonia, and we care about stability in that
area.
WOODRUFF: Former U.S. Ambassador, U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State Richard
Holbrooke. Thank you for joining us.
HOLBROOKE: Thanks, Judy.
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Kosova Information Centre - London
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