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KOSOVO - Official U.S. Government Documents
For more information regarding the latest policy statements and other materials related to the Kosovo crisis, visit http://www.usia.gov/regional/eur/balkans/kosovo/
***********************************************************Text: Wayne Statement to House International Relations Committee Aug. 4
Peaceful and Democratic Europe "Fundamental" to U.S. Interests
Washington - "Bringing the states of Southeast Europe into the Euro-Atlantic community of prosperous, democratic and secure nations is a task, and an opportunity, that must not find us wanting," Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs E. Anthony Wayne told members of the House Committee on International Relations August 4.
Wayne addressed the Committee during its hearing on "The Balkans: What Are U.S. Interests and the Goals of U.S. Engagement?"
"I want to stress the importance of getting Dayton and Kosovo right; they are intensive tests of the international community's willingness to see peace take hold. Indeed, the task today is to win the peace," Wayne said.
He described U.S. policy and actions in the region, and listed three main goals: the stabilization of the region; its transformation into a community of thriving democratic polities and market economies; and the integration of the region into broader European, Trans-Atlantic, and global political and economic structures.
Wayne also outlined the range of bilateral and multilateral programs and organizations with which the U.S. is working to achieve those goals. "We are pursuing our goals using all the tools available to us: military, diplomatic, and economic," he said.
The following terms and acronyms are used in the text:
-- KFOR: the international security force in Kosovo.
-- Royaumont Process: the process of stability and good-neighbourliness in south-east Europe.
Following is the text of Wayne's prepared statement:
(Begin text)
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs E. Anthony Wayne
Mr. Chairman, thank you and the members of the Committee for this opportunity to discuss in detail the basis for and elements of our policy in Southeast Europe, including in the former Yugoslavia. I have with me Amb. James Pardew, Deputy Special Advisor for Bosnia and Kosovo, and Amb. Larry Napper, Coordinator for East European Assistance. Amb. Pardew will detail our policies and programs with respect to the implementation of the Dayton/Paris and Kosovo peace accords as well as support for democracy in Serbia. Amb. Napper will brief you on the programs which he coordinates to implement and support our policies throughout the region.
I would like to provide a political and programmatic overview of our policy, outlining U.S. interests in the region, our objectives, and the bilateral and multilateral approach we have taken to protecting and advancing those interests.
I would like to open my testimony with a brief review of President Clinton's succinct statement, made in San Francisco on April 15, of our policy in Southeast Europe: "Because stability in Europe is important to our own security, we want to build a Europe that is peaceful, undivided and free. We should try to do for Southeastern Europe what we helped to do for Western Europe after World War II and for Central Europe after the Cold War; to help its people build a region of multiethnic democracies, a community that upholds common standards for human rights, a community in which borders are open to people and trade, where nations cooperate to make war unthinkable. ... The best solution for Kosovo, for Serbia, for Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and all the countries of Southeast Europe is ... greater integration into ... Europe...."
As I will discuss later, the past week's Stability Pact Summit in Sarajevo has demonstrated our commitment, and that of the regional leaders and the international community, to see this integration become a reality.
Based on our fundamental interest in a peaceful and democratic Europe, whole and free, these are the three goals which we are pursuing in Southeastern Europe: the stabilization of the region; its transformation into a community of thriving democratic polities and market economies, and the integration of the region into broader European, Trans-Atlantic, and global political and economic structures.
We are pursuing these goals in a range of bilateral and multilateral programs and organizations: The Dayton implementation process, the Kosovo peace process, the Support for East European Democracy (SEED) program, the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI), NATO's, Partnership for Peace and Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), the Royaumont Process, the EC/World Bank donor coordination process, the Southeast Europe Defense Ministers group (SEDM), and others. Finally and most importantly for the medium and long-term prospects for the region, we have established, with our partners, a Stability Pact for Southeast Europe to provide a unifying framework to achieve political and economic reform and greater integration of the region into Europe. We are pursuing our goals using all the tools available to us: military, diplomatic, and economic.
To bring some intellectual order to the complex matrix of our Southeast Europe policy, I would like to present it by first discussing the programs which are most geographically focused and then discussing the broadest and longest-term elements encompassed in our regional policies in the Stability Pact.
First, there are the Kosovo and Bosnia elements, which Amb. Pardew will address in more detail. Kosovo presents an immediate security, political, economic and humanitarian challenge. KFOR's deployment has improved the security environment dramatically, but we need now to sharpen our focus on improving internal security. We must also establish the political mechanisms called for in the peace agreement and make the transition from meeting urgent humanitarian needs to laying the basis for a self-sustaining and productive market economy.
In Bosnia, local governmental and police institutions are beginning to gain the authority and popular legitimacy needed to ensure domestic security. The economy, however, further hindered by the effects of the Kosovo war and Serb economic isolation and collapse, has a long way to go.
I want to stress the importance of getting Dayton and Kosovo right; they are intensive tests of the international community's willingness to see peace take hold. Indeed, the task today is to win the peace.
Second, Serbia continues to pose a serious challenge to regional stability, including the democratic government in Montenegro. The "loss" of Kosovo to KFOR and the UN civil administration has left FRY President Milosevic weakened and discredited domestically. Milosevic is an international pariah and an indicted war criminal. As long as he and his regime remain in power in Belgrade, Serbia and the FRY cannot take their place among the community of democratic nations, a message made clear at the Sarajevo Summit.
President Clinton has clearly stated our policy: as long as the Milosevic regime is in place, the United States will consider providing humanitarian assistance through international organizations, but not reconstruction assistance, to Serbia. Helping to rebuild Serbia's roads and bridges, including the Danube bridges, would funnel money directly into the pockets of Milosevic and his friends, prolong the current regime, and deny Serbia the hope of a brighter future. We are working closely with our European allies to coordinate our activities on Serbia and to forestall any weakening of the existing sanctions regime against the FRY.
A key aspect of our policy on Serbia is to support the forces of democratic change that exist within Serbian society. We want to nurture the struggle for democracy, but at the same time I do not want to overemphasize our ability to effect change within Serbia. Milosevic maintains a firm grip on the main levers of power and the Serbian opposition remains far from united. But regardless of whether Milosevic stays or goes in the short term, our support for democratic forces is an investment in Serbia's future. We look forward to working together with Congress to bring democracy to Serbia and restore real stability to the region.
While neither a threat like Serbia nor requiring the same level of international supervision as Bosnia or Kosovo, Albania, too, is a potential source of regional instability, as its near collapse in March 1998 demonstrated. Although we have been obliged to reduce our presence in Albania for security reasons, we continue working to address security concerns and support political stabilization, economic reform, and development. We are now increasing our presence in the country and programmatic support. We are particularly encouraged by the responsible and restrained approach taken by the Albanian authorities during the Kosovo conflict and the reception accorded to hundreds of thousands of Kosovars.
Albania was instrumental to our success in Kosovo, and we feel strongly that its role should not soon be forgotten. We are restarting several of our bilateral assistance programs in Albania, largely focusing on combating corruption and restoring public order. In addition to the bilateral programs, we participate actively in the "Friends of Albania" organization, which held its most recent plenary July 22. Through the Friends, we have established benchmarks for progress in Albania that we use to maximize the effectiveness of our aid. We support the actions taken by Prime Minister Majko's cabinet to establish effective rule of law. Progress has been slow. Due to the nature of Albania's problems, patience and persistence will be required in order to effect long-term change.
Third, we have for several years sought to address the problems of Southeast Europe on a regional basis and, increasingly since early this year, have focused on a post-conflict strategy for renewal for the entire region.
This strategy has many elements, including our efforts in Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania. The focus of this strategy is on security, economic development, and democracy and human rights.
On the security side, we are working bilaterally with many countries of the region, but concentrating our efforts in the NATO/EAPC framework. At the NATO Summit in April, the Alliance established a 19+7 consultative forum on security that has begun to review regional proposals on crisis management, military-to-military cooperation, infrastructure ideas, and promotion of democratic media. The Summit also agreed that we would develop mechanisms to better coordinate our security assistance to the region. We are working with our allies to implement this decision and best use available resources to make these countries more capable partners. In addition, the EAPC created a Working Group on Regional Cooperation in Southeast Europe that will examine defense planning, crisis management and regional air space management. Finally, we are also supporting regional efforts such as the South East Europe Defense Ministerial process that build upon regional cooperation, consultation and integration to promote peace, security and needed military reforms.
To encourage democratization we have worked for many years through various USG programs, including SEED, and with groups and institutions such as the National Endowment for Democracy in particular countries. Through our support of the OSCE and in cooperation with the EU we have also had a multilateral dimension to our efforts.
Economic reform and development have also received substantial support, with SEED providing funding to support policy and administrative reform as well as for infrastructure development.
An important aspect of our post-World War II reconstruction effort in Europe was our encouragement of regional cooperation. The states of Southeast Europe, with U.S. support, have done so now in a number of forums. Through the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI), the U.S. was the first to pursue a coordinated regional approach to many of the economic troubles that plague the region. Eleven states of the region have come together, with the U.S. and other partners outside the region, to pursue cooperative efforts to tackle, for example, the serious problem of cross-border crime and corruption. The FRY is not a SECI participant, but Montenegro has attended SECI meetings as an observer.
SECI participants have committed to join in measures to encourage trade and commerce and make the region more attractive to private investors. The first two agreements they have reached will harmonize laws governing road transport and provide for sharing of information to combat cross-border crime among law enforcement agencies. The, latter agreements provides for the establishment of a center in Bucharest to combat cross-border crime.
SECI has received a relatively small allocation of SEED funds. It has been largely a self-help program. We expect, however, that SECI will take on greater importance under the Stability Pact.
Recognizing the need to improve multilateral coordination, inside and outside the region, within and between the security, democratization, and economic fields, the United States and Germany, then President of the European Union, developed their parallel ideas for a multilateral group bringing together the countries of the region, the Trans-Atlantic community, and concerned multilateral organizations to address this problem. These ideas eventually developed into the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, launched by the Pact's leaders in Sarajevo on July 30.
The Pact is a mechanism, or if you will a process, to bring together all the many ideas proposed or underway to promote the stabilization, transformation and integration of Southeast Europe into a single forum which will provide political coordination and a degree of comparative analysis of these ideas. We hope that this process will result in more efficient, effective, and coherent international and regional efforts in Southeast Europe.
The Pact's structure includes an overarching Regional Table, set to meet in September under the leadership of the EU and the Pact's Special Coordinator. The Regional Table will establish a basic work plan and then confirm the staffing for three Working Tables on democratization and human rights; economic reconstruction, development and cooperation; and security. In addition, the Regional Table will ensure over the long-term coordination of the activities of and among the Working Tables. The Working Tables are to meet within a month after the first meeting of the Regional Table.
I should emphasize that the Pact does not establish a funding or implementing agency. Any proposals endorsed by the Pact will have to be carried out by other agencies. Thus, no large new bureaucracy will be necessary.
Pact proposals in the economic field requiring funding will be referred to the EC/World Bank-led donor coordination mechanism, originally established this spring to ensure effective use of donor aid in Kosovo but also responsible for coordination of regional aid throughout Southeast Europe. The U.S. is a member of the High Level Steering Group that provides policy direction for this process.
In Sarajevo last week, President Clinton took the opportunity afforded by the Summit of Stability pact leaders to put forward several U.S. initiatives designed to realize the Pact's objectives and our goals in Southeast Europe. These include a $10 million SEED grant to promote democracy in Serbia; a proposed "Investment Compact" which would match regional action to create a predictable and fair business environment with partners' support and the development, with the international financial institutions, of appropriate vehicles to mobilize private finance and mitigate risk; a Trade Expansion Initiative that would involve a grant of unilateral trade preferences to the region. We look forward to further consultation and work with Congress to bring these proposals to fruition.
But Sarajevo wasn't all about what we were offering. The most significant achievement was the clear commitment of all the states of the region to working together as partners and with their partners in the Pact, to address the problems they share. In preparing for the Summit and at the Summit itself there was a welcome spirit of pragmatic cooperation that will be essential to realizing the Pact's goals. As the states of the region said in the Sarajevo Summit Declaration: "those countries of the region who seek integration into Euro-Atlantic structures, ..., strongly believe that the Pact and implementation of its objectives will facilitate that process." We welcome and applaud this spirit of Sarajevo.
That, in a rather large nutshell, wraps up my presentation. In conclusion, I would like to emphasize the complex and interlocking nature of our policy -- a necessity in a region of great political, cultural, economic and strategic complexity. Few could have foreseen ten years ago the depth of our engagement in the region now. But I think few would deny that to engage the region -- to bring the states of Southeast Europe into the Euro-Atlantic community of prosperous, democratic and secure nations -- is a task, and an opportunity, that must not find us wanting.
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