Taken without permission, for fair use only.
We Must Stop the Kosovo Terror
By Bob Dole
Monday, September 14, 1998; Page A19
A few days ago I returned from a human rights and fact-finding mission to Kosovo with the able assistant secretary of state for human rights, John Shattuck. I was last in Kosovo in 1990, when the repression against the Kosovar Albanians had just begun. At that time, I joined the few voices warning the Bush administration that war would come to Yugoslavia.
As terrible as the war in Bosnia proved to be, the war that the Bush and Clinton administrations claimed to fear most was in Kosovo, where the conflict easily could spread to neighboring countries. As a result, President Bush warned Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic that the United States was prepared to use military force against Serb-instigated attacks in Kosovo. When he took office, President Clinton repeated this warning. Yet, at this moment, only an hour's flight from NATO headquarters, Serbia is engaged in major, systematic attacks on the people and territory of Kosovo.
Before this trip, I had seen TV reports of the suffering in Kosovo. These images, however, were a pale reflection of the devastation of lives, property and society that we witnessed in Suka Reka, Orahovac, Malisevo and other towns. Many homes have been firebombed. Villages have been abandoned. We encountered armed Serbian police every few kilometers. The remaining Albanians -- mostly women, children and the elderly -- are living in fear for their lives.
Ironically, they were the lucky ones, living in their homes by day and fleeing to the hills at night. Tens of thousands of others are afraid to return at all or have lost their homes.
During our visit we also heard chilling testimony from eyewitnesses to abuses and atrocities, including direct artillery attacks on civilians, seizures at gunpoint and -- as in Srebrenica in Bosnia -- the separation of women and children from men.
The war in Kosovo has many of the worst characteristics of the war in Bosnia. The primary victims of Serbian attacks are civilians. Humanitarian workers are denied access and often are harassed and attacked. But it is not just the situation on the ground that is hauntingly familiar; it is also American and European diplomacy.
Once again, the victims are being asked to negotiate with those who are attacking them. In addition, there is an active attempt to impose a moral equivalence between Serbian forces and the small band of Albanians who have taken up arms against them. Once again, Western diplomats are trying to make "deals" that would not lead to a just, permanent or democratic solution. And once again, Milosevic is being courted, cajoled and bribed to end the suffering that he has wrought.
When I met with Milosevic earlier this month, he did not act like a man cowering in fear of NATO action. Instead, he acted like a man who had gotten away with murder and would be rewarded for it. Milosevic denied any offensives were under way or being planned, yet within 24 hours of our departure, a serious offensive was begun in the region of Pec.
With 300,000 displaced persons and winter approaching, Kosovo is already a human-rights catastrophe. However, the problem in Kosovo is not by definition a humanitarian one. It is a political and military crisis, whose most visible symptoms are humanitarian. There are those who claim that the situation in Kosovo is "complicated." That is an excuse for inaction or, at best, ineffective action.
The situation in Kosovo could not be clearer. This is a war against civilians, and we know who is responsible: Slobodan Milosevic.
The time is long overdue for the United States to embrace a policy that will end Milosevic's reign of terror in Kosovo. The failure to address the status of Kosovo at Dayton may be the single greatest failure of the already badly flawed Dayton peace process.
The United States and its NATO allies must press for a cease-fire and withdrawal of Serbian police and military by a date certain. It must back this with an ultimatum to use major force immediately and effectively.
With a cease-fire and withdrawal of all Serbian police and Yugoslav Army forces, people can return to their homes and rebuild their lives with international assistance. Moreover, only if civilians are not under attack can Albanian and Serbian leaders engage in genuine negotiations with the goal of achieving a sustainable peace built on democratic institutions. Such a peace would guarantee that instability would not spread into Macedonia or Albania.
Half-measures and interim deals will not do. The options are not easy, but that cannot be a justification for Band-Aid diplomacy. American officials have pledged not to allow the crimes against humanity that we witnessed in Bosnia to be repeated in Kosovo. From what I have seen, such crimes already are occurring. What is urgently needed now is American leadership and a firm commitment to a genuine and just peace.
The writer, a former senator from Kansas, was the Republican presidential nominee in 1996.
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
senden