10:09 AM ET 10/29/98
Kosovo Serb leaders blast troop withdrawal pact

            PRISTINA, Serbia, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Leaders of Kosovo's Serb minority on Thursday condemned a mass pullout of Serbian security forces from the province, accusing President Slobodan Milosevic of ceding sovereignty to ethnic Albanians.
            To avert punitive NATO air strikes, Milosevic withdrew thousands of Yugoslav federal army and Serbian military police early this week from positions where they had fought separatist guerrillas of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority.
            Government forces also demolished scores of ethnic Albanian towns and put 250,000 civilians to flight. When evidence that refugees had been massacred surfaced a month ago, NATO demanded Milosevic pull back his troops or get bombed.
            But the main party representing Kosovo Serbs and the province's Serbian Orthodox Church said the wholesale retreat, which has led to guerrillas reoccupying vacated land, could force Serbs to flee Kosovo.
            "(This) takes Kosovo out of the state of Serbia, abolishes state sovereignty and jeopardises the territorial integrity of Serbia in Kosovo because it withholds the right of republican and (Yugoslav) federal bodies to interfere in the work of organs in Kosovo," they said in an appeal to the Serb people.
            It was released through the independent news agency FoNet and signed by Kosovo Orthodox Bishop Artemije and by Momcilo Trajkovic, president of the Serb Resistance Movement.
            Milosevic agreed to pull back troops, allowing ethnic Albanian refugees to return home and opening the way for talks on autonomy for Kosovo, on October 13 after protracted talks with U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke.
            The appeal said Kosovo's Serbs, who are outnumbered nine-to-one by ethnic Albanians, could well suffer the same fate as minority compatriots in Croatia who fled fighting or persecution after it seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991.
            "Serbs in Kosovo are becoming (by virtue of the agreement) second-rate citizens. Defeat is being declared a victory and betrayal is being declared patriotism," it said.
            "Disposing of centuries-old, internationally recognised territory..., of Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo, is being called a wise and successful peacemaking policy.
            "We are going through the same fate as Vukovar, Baranja and Serb Krajina (in Croatia) under the same scenario and the same directors," the appeal said, alluding to Milosevic who let Croatia go after a 1991 war and four more years of intermittent fighting.
            "Milosevic is constitutionally an illegitimate signatory of the Kosovo agreement and the Kosovo Serbs do not recognise his signature but consider it null and void," the statement added.
            It called for the text and accompanying documents to be published immediately in Serbian in the Yugoslav media, "allowing the Serb people to see it."
            The Kosovo Liberation Army began fighting in March after a decade of repressive direct rule from Belgrade. Milosevic revoked Kosovo's autonomy in 1989 after Serbs complained of being persecuted by regional Albanian authorities.

-END-
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29 October 1998
TRANSCRIPT: OCT 27 DOD BACKGROUND BRIEFING ON KOSOVO
(Kosovo) (5130)

The Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia -- The Department of Defense held a special background briefing on Kosovo October 27. The briefers were senior Defense Department officials, one military and one civilian.

Following is an official transcript of the briefing:

(Begin transcript)

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT BACKGROUND BRIEFING
BRIEFERS: SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS
TOPIC: KOSOVO
THE PENTAGON
3:07 P.M. EST
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1998

SPEAKER: I think you're aware that Secretary General Solana has just made an announcement in Brussels. And we, as I mentioned to you earlier, we thought it might be useful to you to bring in a few of the -- a couple of the people in the building here who have been focusing a lot of their time and attention on the subject of Kosovo. We have one senior military official and one senior civilian official who are here. I'm going to ask the senior military official to start by giving kind of a picture as we see things on the ground today in Kosovo. And then we will open it up for your questions by either one of the two officials. Sir.

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: At least he said senior and not old.
     Okay. Well, good afternoon. I've been tracking as a matter of my duties the movement and status of former federated republic of Yugoslavia and Serbian army and police forces as well as the insurgency for the last several months. And I would be pleased to say today that we see substantial and significant movement by the army and the police both from Kosovo to Serbia proper ,where they're required to do so, and back into garrison, especially for the armored and mechanized units of the Pristina corps in Kosovo. Essentially, our attaches and also the Kosovo diplomatic observer mission report significant cooperation by the Serbs today and they've been able to inspect these units as they departed their field deployment areas and move back into garrisons. And as they counted the Yugoslav special police or Serb special police as they departed Kosovo for different portions of Serbia.
     The cease-fire is generally holding. There are reported skirmishes which continue to occur in part because I think the Kosovar insurgents don't have total command and control of all their forces, but it's generally well down from what it was several weeks ago, and in fact, well down from what it was last weekend. We also have indications that the Serbian air defense forces as beginning to come back into their garrisons as required by NATO. That's not complete yet, of course, but there is some significant movement in that direction. And perhaps the most important statistic to look at, and it's hard to really come up with numbers in this regard, but they are reports, most of them in the press, but also by KDOM, of internally displaced people streaming back into their villages upon the departure of Serbian army forces and the special police.
     Specifically just to talk a few numbers, we now believe that upward of 80% of the tanks and the armored personnel carriers of the Pristina corps are either now back in garrison or moving rapidly toward garrison. This is up. There was, about a month ago, probably 60 to 70% of this equipment was deployed into the field and conducting operations. So that's a complete turn around. A portion of what's left in the field will be permitted to remain in the field by NATO. They have a valid border protection mission as well as a valid mission to conduct some protection of their internal lines of communication. But basically, we see the percentage of equipment in garrison now significantly higher than it was even two weeks ago.
     KDOM reports that over 4,000 of the special police which augmented the military police in Kosovo over the course of the summer have now departed for Serbia. This was verified at three or so check points on the border when they came across in their buses, in their equipment, their personnel carriers and things like that. That certainly accounts for a very, very large percentage, probably more than 90% of the special police that we assessed to have deployed into Kosovo during/over the course of the summer. And in fact, some of those special police had departed earlier, so it may be well over 90%. And as I indicated, we have indications now that they are returning SA-6 units and SA-9 units back to garrison where they will be in contonement and not able to provide nearly as much threat to the air verification missions which will be scheduled to occur. Of course, the air verification mission's real protection is in the fact that this agreement has been signed and the operations which have been on-going have been on-going without any problems. It's the air verification and the observers that are providing us the bulk of the information. In fact, on all these moves.
     So that's it in a nutshell. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Q: Can you give us your baseline numbers for the military and for the MUP. You say 4,000 special police have left. That leaves still in Kosovo, what, 7,000, 10,000?

A: It leaves in Kosovo approximately what they had there in February '98, which is around 10,000.

Q: And for the uniformed military?

A: The Pristina corps numbers roughly 11,000...

Q: ...remaining?

AWhat is there now and what's always been there. The augmentation of the army in Kosovo was a relatively small number. An armored battalion and a military police battalion which had augmented, they departed roughly a week and a half ago. So the personnel numbers of the Pristina corps never really rose too much during this conflict.

Q: A thousand.

A: Less than a thousand, probably.

Q: So basically...

A: The real difference in the army was when the tanks and the APCs came out of garrison and became engaged in this conflict, beginning about the middle of July.

Q: And of the 80% of the tanks which have returned, you would say of the remaining 20%, how much of those are now being allowed to stay out versus those that are in violation? Just a tiny percent are in violation?

A: I would say at this - it's up to somebody else besides me to talk about compliance or violations. But they have, over the course of the summer, formed into battle groups of varying sizes. The big battle groups that had large amounts of tanks and APCs in them have returned to garrison for the most part. And we're probably talking on the order of 30 or 35 tanks and a like number, maybe 40 armored personnel carriers that remain in the field at these border augmentation locations and also in the areas where they are permitted to provide lines of communication security. These numbers, you might appreciate, are really difficult to track tank by tank, APC by APC, so I'm giving you ball park figures. I would say 30 to 40 tanks, for example.

Q: But they're in compliance, basically, basically, on the heavy stuff.

A: Once again, it's somebody else's decision about compliance. We have seen a reversal of percentages of stuff deployed in the field. Like I said, probably 60% of the equipment was out in the field in August - September timeframe, and now, probably 80% is back in garrison. Or maybe in holding areas right beside the garrison, but we're not going to split hairs on that at this point. At least I'm not.

Q: What changed between the two deadlines? Milosevic seems to have taken some action before the expiration of the first deadline, which (inaudible) decides or assumed wouldn't be enough to forestall air strikes. And now he's taken much more serious action at the last minute before a deadline that to most people did not look as threatening as the first deadline.

A: Well, the first -- at the first deadline, there was significant movement toward garrison and toward compliance, especially by the military. That was disrupted and, in fact, reversed the weekend before this last weekend when there were a series of UCK initiated attacks and essentially, the Serb army regressed and moved some stuff back out into the field. There were then additional diplomatic negotiations that you've read about, which my colleague could be more appropriate to answer the questions regarding any of those negotiations. But clearly, there were some additional and detailed negotiations and discussions of what was expected that resulted then in these additional moves.

Q: This list of units that Clark gave Milosevic, is that what you're talking about?

A: Presumably, and as well as the police.

Q: Maybe we can ask you what happens now if the UCK goes back on the offensive? Does Milosevic have every right to bring his troops out of garrison and even if that doesn't work, bring more special police back in to put down a rebellion on his own?

A: That's hard. And thank you, David, for asking it. The line has been and remains that UCK is every bit as bound or armed Kosovar units are every bit as bound by this agreement as are the Serbs. But it's important to remember whose fault all this is. So you've got to look at it through that prism. The line remains that if, in fact, the armed Kosovars were to violate the agreement, that makes it more and more difficult for us to stand - us, as in NATO, to stand with them in the pursuit of what we think the Albanians are really after. We have said to them in a variety of ways you must not take advantage or we will find it more and more difficult to stand with you.

Q: What is your estimate of the UCK's ability to refrain from sporadic acts of violence if you, [senior defense official], mentioned their very weak or lack of a command control to control their tactical units in the field?

A: We clearly see at this time, I think, to the degree that we can even identify the central leadership of the UCK. Right now, indications of restraint and directions for restraint to their followers. But it is a cellular organization as are most insurgencies. And, I think, that some of those cells, especially ones that may have undergone some of the more brutal conduct may, you know, could break the cease-fire. And so, I think, self defense is always permitted for any military units. And there needs to be a degree of proportionality in any responses, which is key.

Q: Can I come back on this. Does Milosevic have the right to bring his troops out of garrison if he needs to counter UCK attacks?

A: Explicit in the agreement that he signed is that right.
     QIts proportionality...

A: Let's go back - and it does - yes, in proportion. That does not mean everybody who left now gets to come back in case one very annoyed UCK member takes a pot shot at a withdrawing Serb.
     Let me do a little more on the UCK ability to get its own word out. Not only is it difficult to find the leadership, it's difficult for the leadership to communicate. And where we have seen a lot of good work done lately is with the observers that have been and are now back there that are actually working with the field leaders of the UCK to explain what's up and what they can look for and what they can't look for. We've seen a lot of progress based on that kind of contact.

Q: Will the desperate elements within the UCK, will they comply? And what is your estimate?

A: My estimate is it will be dicey to have all of their elements in compliance.

Q: Say that again?

A: It will be dicey whether all the UCK local commanders will comply with the cease-fire. Especially if there's activity that either is threatening or they perceive to be threatening by the remaining Serb police and military which is in the field.

Q: If the KLA does not conform to the treaty, is there an enforcement plan? Is there a stick like you're holding over the Serbs? And secondly, I would go one step beyond, is the KLA involved in the negotiations with Milosevic? Is that criterion of the four being met?

A: The stick is leave them to their own devices. That is the only stick that NATO has with respect to UCK. NATO is not going to put fighter aircraft in on a guy on a donkey with an AK-47. So that is not even under discussion. The stick is stop supporting.

Q: The stick is not to sic the Serbs on them?

A: Certainly not.

Q: To allow the Serbs to enforce, for NATO?

A: The stick is just what I said, stop supporting. You can't support somebody who is in violation of the agreement you're trying to have in place in order to get to where we really want to get, which is a political settlement. And a political settlement means there's got to be people at the table. And right now, there is difficulty on the Albanian side unifying to figure out who sits on their side of the table. And diplomatically, that's being worked very hard.

Q: So negotiations are not going forward at the present?

A: Negotiations are going forward all the time. There are negotiations within negotiations. There's negotiations in the sense of trying to unify the Albanian side, which as you know, I'm sure, it's a pretty fractious bunch. And then there are negotiations, in a way, it's easier to negotiate with the Serb side because you always know there's one belly button. Right? You go after he who makes all decisions. And that's really how you negotiate there. That's not the case on the other side.

Q: Is Milosevic keeping his word on negotiations?

A: What he has said so far is that he has given, and I'm sure you have the document that lays out a time table for the political negotiation. The first tick mark in that is, I think, the 2nd of November when both sides are supposed to have agreed principals to go forward on this negotiation. That is our most immediate challenge.

Q: Solana said that the activation order remains in place. What does that mean for NATO force in the region? Who stays on what level of alert or are the B-52s, for example, going to remain pre-positioned in England indefinitely? How long does this remain in place?

A: The ACT ORDs remaining in place means just that. The capability remains there. What is now different on the limited air option is that a NAC decision is required before executing that. So in effect, we've gone from a red light to a green light. The capability is there and will remain there until NATO decides to modify it. And remember, it doesn't necessarily take B-52s in England to execute that option.

Q: Does that mean that we'll keep "shooters" in the Adriatic indefinitely?

A: NATO will keep the capability to execute both ACT ORDs. Both of them are still there.

Q: Excuse me. I want to make sure I understand you. Does NAC need to give approval for air strikes at this point?

A: In the phased air campaign. There's two things out there. One is this limited air option that Solana talked about today. That is an event unto itself. That is what was put into suspension, or there's not a good word for what it was put into, a pause, time out, something. That is what the 27th of October applied to, just this limited air option. There's another one out there that today doesn't mean anything to. And that's an air campaign. We are in a phase of that air campaign. Every phase, in accordance with the plan, is separated by a political decision, a NAC decision.

Q: So it would take another political decision from NAC at this point before any air strikes could be launched.

A: That's correct.

Q: Even the limited?

A: That's correct. That's what Solana just announced a little while ago. And the reason for that is because NATO has assessed that there is, I don't know what the word they used, very substantial progress toward compliance sufficient to withhold air strikes at this time.

Q: Of the 10,000 police remaining in Kosovo, are those all MUP?

A: All the police we refer to as MUP. Right. And there's different kinds, a lot of them are traffic cops that man check points, that patrol in cities. But the ones that have been the most damaging and the most concerning are what we call the special police. And they have different kinds of units ranging from SWAT team type organizations to the guys who come in and do real paramilitary operations. And it's those, most of those came from outside of Kosovo. The number was assessed to be on the order of 4,500. And just yesterday, KDOM reported over 4,000 departing and we had assessed that some of the units, for example, numbering up to 300 had departed earlier. So most of these special police that came from outside have departed.

Q: So of the 10,000 police left in Kosovo, would you say that almost none are special police?

A: There are some special police which have always been Kosovo based, Pristina based special police. I don't think I have the breakdown of the numbers, but it's a small percentage of the 10,000 that are remaining.

Q: The other question was it was just mentioned that there were allowable missions for the VJ such as border security. Under the agreement, are there allowable missions for the police?

A: Yes.  There are allowable missions for the police.

Q: (Inaudible) the small number of special police remaining.

A: They would be held in reserve much like SWAT teams and things like that. But they have regular police functions, traffic control, security of villages, enforcement of laws, investigation of crimes. One of the things they are certainly required to do is to reduce the number of check points and to allow freedom of movement for all parties in the country including the Albanians, the Serb population that lives there, the diplomatic observer missions, the non-governmental organizations that provide humanitarian relief. All of those people need to have freedom of movement to conduct their legitimate missions. And so there's an expectation that the MUP check points will be significantly reduced. And they have, I think, spelled out which ones are allowed. And hopefully, won't be replaced by UCK check points and things like that.

Q: Of the 10,000, they have no requirement to be in garrison, they can all be deployed?

A: Most of them have been in garrison. Most of them operate and live in their towns and are not deployed out in the field, conducting paramilitary operations.
     Basic statement is if you're stationed inside, you go to your garrison, which is not quite the right term for the police. You go to your police station or something. And I say less than 1 out of 10 special police.

Q: You mentioned significant numbers of people streaming back. Can you say geographically where there might be occurring? And is there any cross border --

A: We don't have very many -- you know, the number of displaced people in their entirety was roughly a quarter of a million. And we don't have a good number of how many of that quarter of a million have come back. Relatively few, I think, on the order of 20, 25,000 went into Montenegro, maybe 40,000, 15 to 20,000 into Albanian, a thousand or so into Macedonia. But by far, the majority of this quarter of a million were remaining in Kosovo. And most of them living with extended family members, finding public shelter and all that. The ones of real concern were the estimated 50 to 70,000 at one point that were in the forests, in the hills, in the woods without adequate shelter, without adequate food and as winter approached. It's that group that's being specifically tracked and it's that group for the most part in the area west of Pristina spread out in central Kosovo where some of the last fighting occurred. And it's that group in particular that they're trying to monitor the returns. And I see estimates today that down to as many as 20,000 remain out, which is way down from the 50 to 70,000 we had a few weeks ago. The 30,000 that were even estimated two days ago. And I think I even saw the figure used of 10,000 on one of the news reports. But we're conservative saying it's probably 20,000 that remain.

Q: Can you talk a little bit about the air verification operation in terms of extent, how many U-2's, predators? Will J-STARS be deployed?

A: One of the interesting things about this country is, if you look at the scale of miles here, it's 25 miles. If you drive from here to Pristina, it's like going from Fredericksburg to Washington. It's not a huge country. So it's not a huge country. And with the U-2's, we can get good area coverage. Frankly with relatively few missions. And with the predator, we can get spot coverage where it is needed. We're dealing with bad weather, the last two or three days. I think that bad weather has actually hampered our ability to monitor from the air. Certainly, I think it's also hampered the Serbs' ability to move out. I'm almost surprised they were able to move as fast as they did when they decided. So the real key is the connection of the OSCE ground verification teams and the air verification and using each to cross cue the other to look for trouble spots, concentrations, investigate cease-fire violations and things like that.

Q: (Inaudible) the U-2 can directly link down its images in kind of real-time as opposed to hours of processing?

A: There's a number of different kinds of sensor heads that are put in a U-2. Some are all-weather ASARS that can link directly. Some are what they call an optical bar camera, which is film which is processed in the United Kingdom. That's good for wide area baseline, but for the bad weather real-time, the U-2 with the ASARS (inaudible) is the system of choice.

Q: What kind of notification is NATO giving for the U-2 and Predator flights? And on the Predator flights, why give any notification? I mean, there isn't any danger of losing people.

A: There's no reason not to give it. This is a very overt mission. They want to schedule those and have cooperation with the Serbs. We want to cooperate with them. And so there's no reason necessarily to conduct secret flights with the Predator. It's hard enough to find even when you announce it. And even if it's not manned, we still don't have that many of them that we can just give them out.

Q: How much notification are they given for flight?

A: I forget.  Weekly schedule.

Q: Can you give us a feel of what's happening on the border with Albania, specifically with regard to the flow of ammunition and supplies?

A: It is certainly way down from what it was last spring because of the border augmentation and the border operations that were conducted by the Serbs. Certainly, we don't like their tactics, but they did for the most part, choke down the major flow going across the border. The border guard has always been a mission for the Serb army. It's not a police mission, it's an army mission. They have border guard brigades which are stationed on the border, manned observation posts, control border check points. And they are permitted to augment them with additional army personnel including some small number of tanks, APCs. It's usually only four to five at --

Q: Have you seen any evidence of them doing just that, strengthening their presence on the border?

A: They've had it strengthened for a while. For a month or so. And some of that continues to be allowed. And we don't see, there's still stuff that comes across the border.

Q: Can you describe --

A: Winter will help a lot, by the way.

Q: Are we talking pretty much the small arms or are we talking other kinds of equipment coming across?

A: The UCK is a small arms force essentially, machine guns, mortars. The heavy equipment that they have, we always are concerned about if they have SA-7s with stingers and that type of stuff. But we haven't seen that. They have -- they use rocket propelled grenades, RPGs, against tanks and APCs. They have not, although it's high on their wish list, acquired anti tank guided missiles.

Q: Going back to the question of how much housing is needed to replace what cannot be inhabited? How much food, is there going to be enough? What's the weather forecast for this winter?

A: Well, as intelligence guy, I don't want to go into double jeopardy and predict winter as well. It's tough enough just doing intelligence. But the climatalogical tables say that November, December, January, the average low each night goes down below freezing. So we are approaching daily freezing conditions at night, which is why it's critical to get people back. The assessment has always been, this fall, that there is enough housing and shelter available in Kosovo to accommodate, perhaps not comfortably, but to accommodate all of the internally displaced personnel if they can get the security conditions where they feel safe, it's safe enough for them to go to those shelters. It won't always be their own home, unfortunately, but at least they can be in a shelter for the winter. As far as food's concerned, I do have reports that there is adequate -- relief organizations have adequate supplies to handle the displaced population. The challenge has always been getting it to them, the internal transportation difficulties, which will be exacerbated by snow and cold when those conditions arrive.

Q: Where will the rapid reaction force be deployed and what will be its make up?

A: I think it's a NATO call.
     Let's go back to the other one for just a minute. You really ought to check with the relief agencies on it. But what Julia Taft has said publicly is the international structure can feed up to 300,000 through the winter. The problem as the senior military official just said, has been access. And that's why what has happened in the last few days is so important, the ability to actually get what is there to the people who need them, who need this stuff. And that is happening.
     As far as the NATO verification, which question did you ask, the reaction?

Q: The reaction force.

A: We've got to let the NATO planners figure that out. That is in progress.

Q: Will there be U.S. troops in the reaction force or has the United States indicated in the planning process doesn't want the U.S. troops as part of that force.

A: No, we have said that we are willing to participate in it. We are not much interested in combat forces on the ground, we have flat said, we're not willing for U.S. combat forces to be on the ground in Kosovo. And quite frankly, we're not much interested in the neighborhood.

Q: One of the major prerequisites here was a loaded word, irreversible. How irreversible is all this?

A: Not at all. This is a short term solution. Remember what NATO was up to here. NATO was going to stop the violence, get some withdrawals, gain access to those people who needed the relief supplies and to start the process for a political settlement. That's one of the reasons why both ACT ORDs by NATO remain in effect because NATO, you know, it's not time for the celebration. And we probably shouldn't even have a parade here. This is just starting. This is a long term commitment to make sure that back sliding doesn't occur. And I'm talking about both sides. As we stumble down the road to the negotiation that will get us to a political settlement.

Q: There are some reports that when the Serb forces left Kosovo, they're essentially hanging out just over the border. They're not returning to garrison. What's the requirement and is this in fact, what you're seeing?

A: In Kosovo, they are returning to their own garrisons. A couple of units that went out a week and a half ago, one unit specifically, went to another garrison just across the border. I don't know specifically its status today. But we're not talking about much difference in terms of time because their garrison was in Niche, which is not too far from the border itself.

Q: Just a couple of points of clarification. Will the B-52s remain in England for the time being?

A: If the question will the capability --

Q: Do you have any plans to bring the B-52s back.

A: That's going to be basically addressed on operational needs. Operationally, it is easier to conduct a B-52 mission such as envisioned from home station. Whether or not the B-52s redeploy, and there has been no decision to do that, will be done on a operational basis. The capability will remain.

Q: What about the aircraft carrier on station.  Will that remain?

A: The carrier has left two days ago. But that's a normal flow. When the carrier leaves, that doesn't mean that the capability represented by that battle group leaves. Weapons are shifted and...

Q: One last point. The numbers you gave us on the rough estimates on refugees, are those your numbers or are those numbers from the KDOM?

A: Those are numbers that are largely derived from the KDOM and the non-governmental humanitarian organizations which provide estimates.

A: The only person who's said 10,000 is UNHCR. The larger group is a more broad assessment.

Q: This overall pacification effort is a success?

A: In the short term.  A long ways to go.

Q: Thank you.

(End transcript)

The Honorable Madeleine Albright,
Secretary of State,
Department of State,
Washington, D.C. 20520

October 29, 1998

Dear Madam Secretary:

     With the easing of the immediate crisis in Kosovo, the time has come for some clear thinking about the way ahead. We need to learn from the crisis, not simply repeat the same mistakes over and over. This was one of the depressing aspects of the past weeks and months. We could have been reliving the Bosnia tragedy. The same mistakes of one-sided blaming of the Serbs; the same last minute realization that the situation was far more complex than suggested by cheap political rhetoric and lazy herd mentality of the mass media.

     Sadly these mistakes continue. Your own remarks on October 27 about the NATO decision concentrated solely on Serbian compliance. Other senior Administration and NATO spokesmen have taken the same line. The NATO rapid reaction troops in Macedonia and NATO air patrols have been presented exclusively as a means to check on Serb compliance and to react against Serbs infractions of the Belgrade agreements. This approach ignores potential violations by the Kosovo Albanians. To the contrary, it opens the door to a land grab by them, such as is detailed in the article in the October 29 New York Times article “Despite a Truce, Kosovo Albanians Dig New Graves and Vow Revenge.”

     When set alongside the continuation of punishing economic sanctions against the Serbian people, the infringements on Serbian sovereign rights of domestic law enforcement, the denial of the rights of Kosovo Serbs, the denial of self-determination to Serbs alone of the peoples of former Yugoslavia, and the disgraceful neglect of Croatian persecution of minority Serbs in Croatia, this approach seems to many of us in the Serb American community to amount to, if I may use a strong term, anti-Serb discrimination and blackmail. We wonder whether NATO is establishing some kind of precedent in Kosovo whereby it can take far-reaching actions to interfere more radically in Serbia.

     These are serious concerns which we hold as Americans concerned about what these actions imply about our country’s international values and principles. We hope you will consider them equally seriously.

     Looking forward on Kosovo, Security Council Resolution 1203 may provide a satisfactory basis on which progress can be made. Progress will, however, only be possible if all parties are held to their obligations.

      To start with the international community: SCR 1203 expresses concern over continued violations of the prohibitions placed by SCR 1160 on external support for terrorism in Kosovo, specifically the transfer of funds to terrorist movements. I would be grateful to know what steps the United States has taken to comply with these prohibitions.

     SCR 1203 further urges member states to provide "adequate resources for humanitarian assistance in the region." I have noted that USAID is already engaged on the ground. Would you please let me know what steps our government is taking to ensure that humanitarian relief reaches all those in need on an ethnically inclusionary basis, including Serbs in Kosovo.

     SCR 1203 establishes several requirements for the Kosovo Albanians:

? para 4 to comply fully and swiftly with resolutions 1160 and 1199 and to cooperate fully with the OSCE verification mission;
? para 5 to enter into a meaningful dialogue without preconditions;
? para 6 to respect the freedom of movement of the OSCE verification mission;
? para 8 to guarantee the security of OSCE verification mission personnel in Kosovo;
? para 10 to condemn all terrorist actions and to cease all actions immediately and to pursue goals by peaceful means only;
? para 11 to cooperate with international efforts to improve the humanitarian situation;
? para 14 to cooperate with the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

     This is a long and detailed list of requirements. Some have already been placed in question. The Kosovo Albanian leadership has apparently rejected US sponsored ideas for a peaceful settlement and persists in asserting preconditions for entering negotiations. Further, Kosovo Albanian terrorist elements continue to threaten to resort to terrorism. We are receiving well documented evidence from our contacts in Kosovo that KLA members are moving back into areas vacated by the Serb forces. To quote a specific example, Devic monastery, a 14th century Orthodox shrine built in the 14th century, is without power and telephone service. Yet no-one can come to the aid of the nuns living there out of fear of the KLA blockades mounted on the approach roads.

     Madam Secretary, you have just completed exhausting negotiations on the Middle East peace process. I congratulate you on your personal efforts in this regard and on the successful outcome. As you know from that experience, long term success remains extremely fragile. It can founder on the issue of terrorism. The situation in Kosovo has many parallels. There is deep distrust between the two sides, centering primarily on security issues. In the Middle East, our government plays the role of honest broker. It must do the same in Kosovo. If it expects the Serbs to keep their promises, the U.S. must do no less of the Kosovo Albanians.

     This letter contains a number of specific questions on matters of great urgency to Serb Americans and, indeed, to all Americans concerned about their country’s potential involvement in a foreign war. Many of our previous letters have gone unanswered. On this occasion, I would be grateful for the courtesy of a reply.

Sincerely,

Milosh D. Milenkovich
President

5851 Pearl Road, Suite 307,
Cleveland, OH 44130
tel: (440) 842-2770 fax: (440) 842-2740

cc: President Bill Clinton
 Senate foreign Relations Committee
 House International Relations Committee
 Ambassador Richard Holbrooke
 Members of NATO, UN Security Council and OSCE, Pristina

Translated from Spanish
-----------------------------

El Pais (Madrid)  26 October 1998
Interview with Adem Demaci, political representative of the KLA, by Jose Comas

        The Serbian military apparatus must be destroyed

Pristina -- Adem Demaci, a veteran of the political struggle in Kosovo, who spent 29 years in prison during the Tito regime, has taken on the role of political representative of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which is fighting for the independence of the Serbian province with an Albanian majority. Faced with the threat of NATO strikes, Demaci says that the KLA is in favor of the destruction of Serbia's military and police apparatus.  The Kosovo guerrillas' political spokesman warns the West that only an independent Kosovo will ensure the stability of the Balkans. Demaci received El Pais's correspondent in his office in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, where he even issues permits for journalists to visit the zones controlled by the KLA.

[Jose Comas] You are the political representative of the KLA.  Of which KLA?

[Adem Demaci] There is only one KLA.  Those who have sought to form another KLA have failed.  They wanted to fight for money and when it was necessary to fight and die they fled.

[Comas] When you were asked some days ago about the missing journalists belonging to the Serbian Tanjug agency, you said that you could not answer for them if the kidnapping was the work of an individual group.

[Demaci] There are not several KLAs.  But there are small groups which have joined the KLA which may carry out individual actions to avenge crimes committed against their families and similar cases, without consulting the [military] staff.

[Comas] It is clear that the aim of the KLA is the independence of Kosovo, but what is its ideology?

[Demaci] The priority in the KLA is that it is an army without any ideology, without the slightest influence from the parties. It is an army of all citizens, which has as its aim the independence of Kosovo and the security of its citizens.

[Comas] It is written abroad that they are Maoists and also that the Albanian mafia clans are in it.

[Demaci] It is not hard to prove the opposite.  We have between 30,000 and 40,000 fighters.  It is an army born from the people, sustained by the people, and which fights for the people.  If it was a group of mafiosi, of Maoists, or supporters of [the late Albanian communist leader] Enver Hoxha it would not have been able to face up to the many offensives launched by the Serbian and it would have failed, it would have capitulated.

[Comas] The NATO ultimatum expires tomorrow.  Are you in favor of the strikes?

[Demaci] We are in favor of the destruction of the Serbian military and police complex, which is behind all the Serbian hegemony's policy apparatuses. If there is the possibility of dismantling that complex peacefully, without strikes, it will be much better. As long as that complex exists, we believe that Serbia's regime will not renounce its hegemonic ambitions and there will be no peace or order in this part of the Balkans.

[Comas] To achieve that, the strategy would be to provoke repression and strengthen the fight.  Is the KLA practising that strategy now?

[Demaci] Since 8 October the KLA [military] staff has declared unilaterally its abstention from any military actions. It was done because of the demands of the UN Security Council and to contribute to finding a peaceful solution, if it is possible with the help of NATO and the United States.

[Comas] No one in the international community supports the independence of Kosovo.  NATO is not the KLA's air force and the Kosovars are on their own.

[Demaci] The international community is wrong not to accept that the Albanians have the right to be independent.  Only an independent Kosovo can be a factor for stability and peace in this region. There will be no stability as long as the Albanians are denied the right to be independent.

[Comas] The KLA's strategy was to occupy territory...

[Demaci] Not occupy, liberate.

[Comas] OK, liberate, but I think that strategy has failed.  Is the KLA going to replace that strategy with guerrilla warfare?

[Demaci] The KLA faced a dilemma: to keep the liberated territories, which represented over half of Kosovo, and pay for their defense, or to withdraw provisionally in order to protect itself as an army.  The KLA has shown great wisdom and maturity and has opted to withdraw provisionally from its liberated territories. It has thus preserved  its existence and its strength.  That strength will help it, with the assistance of the people, to continue the resistance for many years more. Now the KLA will continue a combination of guerrilla warfare and slightly smaller territories. A symbiosis of those two tactics.

[Comas] Selective terrorism as well?

[Demaci] We do not practise terrorism.  We do not accept that we practise terrorism.  We fight only against the police and its officers.We do not touch the civilian population, innocent people, those who have nothing to do with the crimes that have affected the KLA.

[Comas] You are known abroad as the Balkan Mandela. Do you, like Mandela in South Africa, want to become the first president of the independent republic of Kosovo?

[Demaci] No.  I will remain in political life until the Albanians are free to resolve their political situation, take part in free elections and elect their members of parliament.  Not after that.  I do not have political ambitions.

From: Daniel Tomasevich <danilo@primenet.com>
Subject: Lehrer 1/2
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 21:52:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: kosovo_10-27.html
X-URL: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/july-dec98/kosovo_10-27.html

a NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript
Online NewsHour Online Focus
COMPLIANCE IN KOSOVO?

October 27, 1998
Making the Deadline

In light of Serbia's troop withdrawals from Kosovo, the United States and its NATO allies called off air strikes against Serbian targets. Margaret Warner leads a discussion of the latest news from Kosovo. Elizabeth Farnsworth continues the report with a Newsmaker interview with Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke.

NATO
U.S. Department of State.
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

MARGARET WARNER: For reaction now we're joined by Robert Hunter, U.S. Ambassador to NATO in President Clinton's first term, and now a senior fellow at Rand, a research organization; James Hooper, a retired foreign service officer and now director of the Balkan Action Council, a study and advocacy group that focuses on the former Yugoslavia; and Gary Dempsey, a foreign policy analyst at the CATO Institute. He was last in Kosovo in June.
     Mr. Hooper, you heard the administration saying Milosevic is in substantial compliance. NATO's decided not to launch air strikes for now. Is this a good outcome?

Hooper JAMES HOOPER, Former State Department Official: I think it's a bad day for NATO. What happened here is when NATO threatens force, it has to be prepared to use force, if it's called on that. This is the third time that Mr. Milosevic has called NATO's bluff, beginning with the attack on February 28th of this year. Secondly, in June, he has driven over a half million Kosovar Albanians from their homes, destroyed 490 villages, upwards of 18,000 homes, killed over 1,000 people. What Mr. Milosevic has agreed to is to withdraw a part of his forces in Kosovo. NATO has even - and he's allowed to keep almost 20,000 military police there, even those that he has said he would withdraw he has not withdrawn and NATO has allowed him to get away with this. So I think this is a bad day for NATO's credibility.

MARGARET WARNER: A bad day, Mr. Dempsey?

GARY DEMPSEY, CATO Institute: Well, I think this agreement really buys time for both sides. It buys time for Milosevic, because the presence of 2000 observers on the ground basically protects him against a carrying out of the NATO air strike anytime in the immediate future, and it buys time for the KLA simply because over the winter - if there are these threats in place - they will have time to regroup and collect new recruits. I fully expect that they will launch an offensive in the spring. I expect that the authorities in Belgrade will crack down, and we will have 2000 unarmed observers caught in the cross-fire. This human trip fire will surely bring in NATO. In effect, this agreement has created a trap. We put ourselves in a trap, and I expect it to snap closed in four or five months.

MARGARET WARNER: A trap?

ROBERT HUNTER, Former U.S. Ambassador, NATO: NATO has no choice but to be involved. This is right next door to where the allies live. It's the result of a series of promises, including we made -the famous Christmas pledge made by President Bush in 1992 - and frankly, the credibility of the alliance has been on the line. If you can't do something this close that's this egregious, then what else are you going to be able to do? Call it success?

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think it was successful? I mean, is the outcome today a good outcome?

Hunter ROBERT HUNTER: The basic thing is Milosevic is now moving in the right direction. Why did it - I suspect people will debate it for a long period of time, particularly since NATO did temporize - did wait month after month while talking brave, did give him an extra 10 days to say pretty please, do it. The real thing is what President Clinton said. We have to stay on case, and make sure that over the next few months the verifiers are in, the surveillance gets done, the movement towards elections, all of these things that have been agreed that Milosevic does, rather than just wait for spring, and then get back in the killing business. The credibility of NATO is going to be judged tomorrow, not today.

MARGARET WARNER: But let me go back to today just for a minute, because the President said, look, this achieved our objectives. We stopped the carnage, and we prevented at least through this winter a humanitarian crisis with all these refugees stuck up in the woods. Do those - were those limited objectives at least reached, Mr. Hooper?

JAMES HOOPER: Well, even that, they haven't prevented the carnage. There was the killing of an 11-year-old boy yesterday, Sunday - reported in yesterday's Washington Post. There was a verifier who was there for the funeral of this. There was additional sniping by Serb snipers at the mourners there at the funeral and the grave diggers. A verifier was called upon to interpose his vehicle between them to allow the funeral to continue. He called headquarters to see if he could get permission. He was not authorized to do so. He drove away. So I think what you see - and this is a cameo - is that the verifiers are not going to provide the kind of security that Kosovo Albanians need to return to their homes. And I think that's going to cause considerable - a continuation of the considerable humanitarian problems that we've seen so far.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree with that? You've been on the ground there.

Dempsey GARY DEMPSEY: Yes. I think that this agreement will simply postpone the conflict. I think that in the spring, as I mentioned before, you will see a resurgent KLA, and I think that the carnage will continue. And at that point I think NATO will be forced to intervene.

MARGARET WARNER: But I mean, for now, do you - do you at least buy what the President said, that it has a verdict - at least a humanitarian crisis for now?

GARY DEMPSEY: In the immediate future, yes.

ROBERT HUNTER: We bought time and the time has to be used wisely, diplomatically, and also getting the allies to the point where they will understand that next year no more temporizing, no more backing and filling. If, indeed, the fighting starts again, and it's Milosevic doing it, then NATO has to be prepared to act. At the same time, they have to try to give enough of a deal to the Albanians so the KLA, the liberation army, doesn't have a chance itself to get the fighting going again.

MARGARET WARNER: What about the KLA? What's to prevent the KLA from moving back into position and reasserting itself in territory that the Serbs abandoned and the Serbs in turn moving back to reassert their position?

GARY DEMPSEY: I think this is happening already, as they mentioned in the setup piece, that the Albanians are retaking a number of police posts, a number of the Serbs are burning them on their way out so that they can't. But I would predict by the spring a lot of the territory will be retaken by the KLA. They will have new recruits, and they'll have plans.

JAMES HOOPER: Margaret, the way to undermine the KLA is to come up with a political settlement to offer the Kosovo Albanians that is strong enough to build a moderate center. That means for a start an interim agreement that at least offers the Kosovo Albanians a return to the autonomy that they enjoyed in 1989 before it was taken away by Mr. Milosevic. The agreement that the United States has offered to them - no Kosovo Albanian leader has accepted. It is far short - far short of the 1989 autonomy agreement. It is going to radicalize Kosovo Albanian society, and it is a gift, in fact, to the KLA. We should be working the other way to build up the moderates in Kosovo.

Negotiations

MARGARET WARNER: Well, now, what about what the President said today, that this is supposed to set the scene for some real negotiations between Milosevic and the Kosovans?

JAMES HOOPER: I don't think there's going to be negotiations that are serious at all. Mr. Milosevic has only shown that he's prepared to negotiate in good faith and constructively if he sees - if he's forced to the negotiating table. Again, what we've seen is because of the lack of NATO - NATO's unwillingness to use force. I think Mr. Milosevic feels that he's taken the measure of NATO. I don't think he's going to negotiate seriously.

Discussion ROBERT HUNTER: I think the jury is still out on that, as Jim is saying. The allies really didn't want to use force here. And part of the success of Amb. Holbrooke was getting enough so the allies could take a formal decision but then not see it happen. Of course, Milosevic made sure that point was made. The real question is what we do now to help make a real deal. And we have to be prepared. It may be a deal in the end in which there is an independent Kosovo. We have to be ready for that.

GARY DEMPSEY: I think that's true, but I think that has ramifications for Bosnia in the sense that you have an enclave of people within a sovereign country wanting to break away. I don't know how that will resonate with the - with the Serbs and the Croats for that matter in Bosnia if they can point to an example in Serbia and say, well, why did the international community let Kosovo go, yet, they are requiring that we stay within Bosnia.

MARGARET WARNER: NATO today made a point of saying that it was keeping the threat of force alive. The activation order has not been rescinded. Do you see that threat as real? Do you think Milosevic sees that threat as real?

Hunter JAMES HOOPER: Of course he doesn't. He said the same thing about the Christmas warning by President Bush. That was in force. It was on the table. It was not removed from the table, and Milosevic launched his - launched this conflict on February 28th of this year. He destroyed several villages. He stopped. He waited to see what Washington was going to do. All they saw was rhetoric - some meetings by the six-nation contact group - but no military action and so he upped the ante and escalated the violence.

Too little talk.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think he sees the threat as real at this point?

ROBERT HUNTER: I don't think so.

MARGARET WARNER: You don't?

ROBERT HUNTER: There's been too much talk and not enough do over time. The real thing is to get to the point where he will understand that, and that means having a credible policy on the ground with the verifiers, with the surveillance. It means having a real negotiating posture, working with Amb. Chris Hill and others, and then our working on the allies, so they'll understand the next time we can't do this kind of back and forth. If NATO is going to go into this again, it has to be ready to do it and show Milosevic. Now, maybe he'll get the message; maybe he won't. So far, I'm afraid, he has judged quite accurately that the alliance really would rather not use force.

GARY DEMPSEY: I think we should address the root of the problem, and that is Slobodan Milosevic. I think that the West should take steps to support the opposition, independent media inside of Serbia, and in Montenegro support -- his rival, Milo Dekonovic, the president of Montenegro Unfortunately, I think that actually launching an air strike, cruise missiles and warplanes against Serbia will have the opposite effect. It will give Milosevic a rationale, a justification to impose martial law, and we won't see a post-Milosevic democratic Yugoslavia for years.

MARGARET WARNER: So you wouldn't want this threat to derail?

GARY DEMPSEY: That's correct.

ROBERT HUNTER: That's been one of the problems. The Russians opposed it. We have a problem. And the allies really didn't like it. It's a question of playing into the hands of the other people, but some time you've got to stand up a show a threat is real because Milosevic only understands force.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Thank you, all three of you very much.
 
Copyright © 1998 MacNeil-Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Daniel Tomasevich <danilo@primenet.com>
Subject: Lehrer, 10/27 Holbrooke odgovara
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 21:52:28 -0800 (PST)
Subject: kosovo_10-27a.html
X-URL: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/july-dec98/kosovo_10-27a.html

                a NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript
                     Online NewsHour Online Focus
                         AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE
                           October 27, 1998
                           Amb. Holbrooke
 
In light of Serbia's troop withdrawals from Kosovo, the United States and its NATO allies called off air strikes against Serbian targets.
Elizabeth Farnsworth discusses the latest events in a Newsmaker interview with Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke.

NewsHour Links

NATO
U.S. Department of State.
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And now to Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy who negotiated the Kosovo troop withdrawal with President Milosevic. Thank you for being with us, Mr. Ambassador.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: My pleasure.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Before we get into some of the questions we just heard raised, what's your reaction to today's events?

Holbrooke RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, I'd like to respond to a couple of things I just heard, but let me start out by trying to explain what really happened today because I think the previous discussion obscured the extraordinary events in the last few weeks. First of all, let me make clear that even my friend and colleague, Bob Hunter, is not correct when he says Milosevic didn't think the threat was real. He not only thought the threat was real, Bob, but the threat was real, and if it hadn't been real, this would not have been achieved. There is no question in his mind, nor is there any in my mind that we were prepared to use force. I went to Brussels on my way to Belgrade with the team, but over the targeting list I left when I arrived in Belgrade, I thought the chance of use of force was at least 70 percent, and it was only because Milosevic met the general who was going to handle the bombing and I went over the bombing with him, that he realized that this was for real. The other thing that made Milosevic realize it was for real was that the allies belatedly and reluctantly finally came around to unified position after a summer of foot-dragging over legalisms and UN resolutions and Bob, as a former ambassador to NATO, was very instrumental in achieving the same result three years ago for Bosnia. When President Clinton met with German new Chancellor Schroeder and got the Germans on board and I went in to see Milosevic the next morning and said and he hoped you have a new German government would hold off the NATO action is over, that had impact.
     The second point I'd like to make is the more fundamental one. What happened in the last few days is that after a decade of subordinating and destroying Albanian rights in Kosovo and saying there was an internal affair, while the rest of the world looked on helplessly, NATO resolve, backed up by American-led diplomacy, forced the Yugoslav leadership into internationalizing Kosovo. Not only do we have this intrusive NATO air surveillance regime, which will fly over Kosovo whenever and wherever we want, while they turn off their radars and put their weapons in cold storage. But we will have a 2,000-person or more civilian army on the ground led by Amb. William Walker, an American diplomat, including people who will run elections and not observe them but run them. I saw in your setup piece, Elizabeth, that you talked about OSCE monitors. But they're not monitors; they're verifiers. And they are going to be there to run the elections. You know, no Albanian would accept an election run by Serbs. We'll have internationally-run elections run in nine months. We're going to start training the local Albanian police, all of you who were interested in Kosovo know that the destruction of the local Albanian police was one of the central tragedies the last decade. We're going to have an international mediator, Chris Hill, the American diplomat, who will handle the political outcome, and Jim Hooper is correct when he says that the political outcome is going to be difficult and critical. But I don't think he gives Chris Hill enough credit for his subtlety and his skills, and his understanding of the problem.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: We're going to have - I want to be clear for your viewers - the enormous concessions - and I use the same word the New York Times, the Economist, the Financial Times have used - the enormous concessions that Belgrade made, which in order to avoid getting bombed while the threat of bombing continues, and finally, Elizabeth, one additional point that no one has yet mentioned, which Secretary Albright outlined today for the first time in public - we're going to put - we, NATO, led by the British and French, not the U.S., will put a force into nearby Macedonia, which will help stabilize the situation and provide us the ability to take care of any emergencies that might happen to the verification force.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Very briefly on that before we go some of these points, how big will that force be?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: That is for the British and French to announce, and I think I would be jumping the gun if I outlined any specific number, but let me say that we'll be - it will be large enough to be sufficient. It will be backed up by Americans on ships in the Adriatic, and additionally backed up by the NATO-led force in Bosnia, and it will be part of the NATO command, and it is, in my view, in a major development something that I personally - as Bob Hunter knows - have been advocating for many years.

                       The verification mission

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Some of the points we just heard - and we don't have a lot of time, so if you could be a little bit brief on this - only -

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I'll try.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Some of the concessions that you said you won, what the prior discussion did was raise some questions about whether those really were such big concessions.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, Mr. Dempsey -

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: For example, James Hooper said that only part of the forces are being withdrawn, that the forces that they were supposed to withdraw aren't all being withdrawn. What about that?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, I think we ought to sit down with the people who know what's going on. There's no point in having a numbers debate here. But Mr. Dempsey made the single most important point. And in this he is entirely correct. If you were to ask what the major problems we face are today, I would say number one, that the Serb security forces will break their word and go back and leave the barracks and start again, and if they do that, NATO will reactivate its actor. Number two, the -

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How can NATO reactivate, though, if there are all these people on the ground? They can't -

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: That is a false issue.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why?

Holbrooke RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Because it's 25 minutes from Pristina to the Cambodian - to the Macedonian border - a little longer to Cambodia. And we have an emergency evacuation planned for every single person, and we're well aware of the problem. But the real problem, and here Mr. Dempsey is entirely correct and it must be stressed is the Kosovo Liberation Army, the KLA. They have the ability to provoke the resumption of fighting now or more likely in the spring, and we are engaged in a full court diplomatic effort, talking to them through confidential direct and indirect channels in Pristina, in Europe, even here in New York City, to make sure that the KLA understands that they must guarantee the safety of the verification force, that they must also observe the cease-fire, but they must not try to turn NATO into their force, and if they do all that, they have a legitimate right to participate in the political process, and that's the key point. The third point, which concerns me, is that we don't ramp up rapidly enough in the verification mission. In Bosnia, our civilian implementation got off to a very slow start, and that was costly. So those are my three concerns tonight. And what otherwise, Elizabeth, has to be judged an extraordinarily positive day, people are coming out of the forests, and going back to their homes today, because the NATO credibility was believed perhaps not by the previous panel but it sure was believed in Belgrade, and that's because it was not a bluff.

                         Serious negotiations

Holbrooke ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And what about the point made, that the negotiations -- to make this peace last, I guess, there has to be a political settlement that is lasting, and the point was made that negotiations won't be serious because the Milosevic government doesn't want them to be serious.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I agree with Jim Hooper that this is going to be "the" key issue, and it's going to be the most difficult issue. What I don't agree with is his macro-his micro-critique of a document that he hasn't seen, because he's operating from drafts that are several editions old. Amb. Hill is in Kosovo tonight. He is meeting with all elements of the political leadership, starting in the morning, and the negotiations are starting not anew, because there's 80 years of history here, but they're starting from a much stronger base. And let me say one thing to everyone. The Albanian leadership, itself, in Kosovo wants the civilian force; they want what we're doing. So let's remember that in the end this is about them. This is about getting them out from under the yoke of a brutal oppression that they've suffered for over a decade, and unimpeded until the last few days.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But do they want what has been outlined for them? The criticism was also made, as you've just heard, that the autonomy that's being offered is not what they had in the past.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, the autonomy - they want - they want a great deal more than Belgrade is now offering, but there's a misunderstanding on the part of some of your previous panel. The U.S. is not imposing anything on the Albanians. In our negotiations in Belgrade we never signed any documents with Milosevic on politics, and in Kosovo, we never asked any Albanians to agree to anything. Why? Because Belgrade is not yet at a point where it's offering sufficient self-governance provisions to the Albanians. Amb. Hill knows that. He's our most seasoned Albanian negotiator, and I can assure you and your previous panel that he is not going to do anything which the Albanians themselves don't want. So the theory that we're cramming something down the Albanian throat is coming from people who either don't know what's going on or haven't talked to the right people. But this is a real issue, but it has been seriously misportrayed by some people who don't really know what has been going on.

                           Verifier safety

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right. And very briefly, before we go, you said that there's a plan for every single person who comes in as a verifier to get them out so that they can't be used as hostages.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: That's right.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How could that work? How can you get somebody in from Macedonia so fast to get them out and they wouldn't be taken hostage? It just seems impossible.

Holbrooke RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, let me be clear on this. First of all, the fact that they're unarmed doesn't make them more vulnerable. Mladic took 550 armed UN peacekeepers hostage because there was no such plan. But Kosovo is a very small place. It's smaller than the state of Connecticut, and by the way not as pretty. And the - and you can get from Pristina, the capital, to the Macedonian border, in 25 minutes. There is no - we will have an individual plan for each person. We'll have collection sites. To be sure, people can get hurt. There's no question about that. But I feel that this issue, while real, should not be considered a constraint. And, above all, let's get out of the bizarre thinking that we're creating 2,000 hostages. It sounds good on the Lehrer NewsHour, but it just isn't true. Anyone who harms an OSCE verifier is going to be risking a great deal more than they're gaining. We are not going to be held hostage the way Mladic held the UN hostage three and a half years ago in Bosnia, an action, which, by the way, led directly to the NATO bombing in Bosnia, bombing which Milosevic knows makes our threats today credible.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Richard Holbrooke, thank you very much for being with us.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Thanks a lot.

Copyright © 1998 MacNeil-Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved.

 Betreff:         Holbrooke briefing 10/28
 Datum:         Wed, 28 Oct 1998 21:46:52 -0800 (PST)
     Von:         Daniel Tomasevich <danilo@primenet.com>

         Copyright 1998 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.
                      FDCH Political Transcripts
 
                          View Related Topics
 
                     October 28, 1998, Wednesday
 
TYPE: NEWS BRIEFING
LENGTH: 7109 words
HEADLINE: HOLDS NEWS BRIEFING ON KOSOVO; WASHINGTON, D.C.
SPEAKER:
RICHARD HOLBROOKE, U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY
BODY:  U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY HOLBROOKE HOLDS A BRIEFING ON THE SITUATION IN KOSOVO
OCTOBER 28, 1998
SPEAKER: RICHARD HOLBROOKE, U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY
JAMES RUBIN, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN
LARRY ROSSIN, OFFICE DIRECTOR FOR SOUTH AND CENTRAL EUROPE
JIM O'BRIEN, SENIOR ADVISER TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
WILLIAM WALKER, HEAD, KOSOVO VERIFICATION MISSION
JAMES PARDEW, U.S. SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR KOSOVO IMPLEMENTATION
*
RUBIN: As you know, the department has been organizing itself and working very, very hard on the subject of Kosovo in recent months. Ambassador Holbrooke did a heroic job in trying to get President Milosevic to do what the international community demanded. That was followed up with a lot of work by people in this room, including the work of NATO generals and including the work of NATO Secretary-General Solana to bring us to a point where we were able to say yesterday that we had achieved substantial compliance.
We have now organized ourselves for the implementation of the agreement, and the promotion of a political settlement and, before turning the podium over to Ambassador Holbrooke, let me just introduce two people -- at least two people -- with him.
First we have Ambassador William Walker, who has the job of holding President Milosevic's feet to the fire in terms of compliance. It is his people who will be doing the verification. As we know, that is no easy task. He will run the Kosovo Verification Mission as soon as the OSCE gets it up and running. He is sitting to Ambassador Holbrooke's left.
His success running the peacekeeping operation in Eastern Slavonia and dealing, at that time, in mano-a-mano discussions with Milosevic and Tudjman making him the right choice to supervise the roughly 2,000 international personnel that will be allowed to verify compliance and security and humanitarian aspects.
In addition, we have Ambassador Pardew sitting to his left. He has been appointed by the secretary as U.S. special representative for Kosovo implementation. Actually, Assistant Secretary Mark Grossman made that appointment specifically. And he will lead a team in the Bureau of European Affairs and will serve as the single point of contact in the department for implementation issues related to Kosovo.
He is currently U.S. special representative for military stabilization in the Balkans, and will continue to carry out those functions while assuming his new responsibilities to Kosovo.
In addition, to his left is Larry Rossin, the office director for Southern and Central Europe. And then, my next door neighbor Jim O'Brien is sitting over there, who is the senior adviser to Secretary Albright, who has been assigned by the secretary with the strong encouragement of Ambassador Holbrooke to go over and spend time with President Milosevic along with Ambassador Hill in trying to pull the necessary teeth to get progress on Kosovo in both the political and other sides.
With that introduction, let me turn the podium over to Ambassador Holbrooke, who will bring others to the floor as appropriate.
HOLBROOKE: Thanks, Jamie. It's good to be back and to see you again, and let me try to give you a couple of brief headlines and then take your questions.
In the last month, we have been conducting this intense negotiation with Belgrade, the outcome of which is now beginning to become apparent.
I will review the details in a minute. But I want to make two overarching points.
First, what has been agreed to represents -- and here I'm not speaking only from my own point of view but quoting such observers as The Financial Times, The Economist, and Roger Cohen in the New York Times -- what has been agreed to by Belgrade represents enormous concessions -- provided, of course, they're carried out.
But I'll get to that in a minute.
I stress this because there seems to be some doubt about that among some observers who talk about NATO blinking or comparing it to other parts of the world.
So let me be clear. Starting in 1989, the authorities in Belgrade began taking the rights of the Albanian people in Kosovo away from them. The world protested. President Bush issued his famous Christmas warning, repeated by this administration. But until the last month, nothing was done about it that was effective.
In fact, Milosevic and his colleagues threw all international presence out of Kosova in the early '90s, took away property rights, broke down the Albanian police, and did immense -- I hope not irreparable -- damage to the Albanian political and social structure, and then this summer launched what can only be described as a rampage through the countryside of Kosovo.
The president of the United States, Secretary Albright, and other American officials made clear starting early this year how strongly they opposed what had happened.
HOLBROOKE: It was not until the last few days and weeks that we were able to achieve the present situation, which is a hell of a lot better than it was.
What has happened, in a nutshell, is that the Kosovo problem has become internationalized -- notwithstanding the fact that, on April 23rd of this year, a referendum was held in Serbia where well over 90 percent of the people voted that there should be no foreign interference, a referendum which Belgrade used as justification for keeping the OSCE and the international community out.
And all of this has now been, I believe, begun to turn the other way. Now, again, I stress -- the proof is in the implementation, and that is why Ambassador Walker, Ambassador Pardew and others have joined me here today because Jamie Rubin and I wanted you to meet the team that's going to do the hard part, which is implementation. And I would remind those of you who were at Dayton on November 21st, 1995, that when we initialed that agreement, I said that day that implementation is going to be the hard part. And as those of you who've read my book -- copies on sale in the lobby...
(LAUGHTER)
... know -- I consider the early implementation phase on the civilian side in Bosnia to have been a failure, with consequences which were not reversed until Madeleine Albright and Jamie made their historic trip -- historic for different reasons -- in the spring of 1997.
(LAUGHTER)
I like to see if we can get Jamie off balance here.
HOLBROOKE: The implementation is the key. But let's focus for a minute on what happened.
We're going to have an air verification mission, which you've been fully briefed on. The radars will be turned off; the anti- aircraft will go into cold storage. We will fly when and where we wish.
We have 2,000 or more OSCE verifiers on the ground. And I want to stress a couple of points about them. First, they're verification people. They're compliance verifiers. I know you're not going to find that phrase in your dictionary. But they are not monitors, they're not observers, they are verifiers. The -- Milosevic wanted the words observer and monitor. Those are bureaucratic babble words.
Verification and compliance are active words.
This is going to be a hands-on, activist mission. And if you read the agreement -- and I hope you all have read the agreement -- I want to highlight a few points on it.
And in a minute or two you will see that there is a significant mission here.
Second thing, I keep reading up to 2,000 or maybe it won't reach 2,000 -- read the agreement. It is 2,000 or more. And Ambassador Walker has the right, under this agreement, to bring in any additional people at any time.
And I quote -- "Two thousand unarmed verifiers from OSCE member states will be permitted, headquarters and support staff included. The mission may be augmented with technical experts provided by OSCE."
Now President Milosevic and I agreed clearly that if Ambassador Walker wants more people to conduct elections -- and I stress the elections will be conducted by OSCE -- or if he wants additional people to train local police -- and that's one of his most important missions -- he will get them.
HOLBROOKE: He doesn't need to apply for permission to go over 2,000. Two thousand is a floor, not a ceiling.
So my first point -- so my second point is we have the ground verification system.
Point number three -- that ground verification system will include some extraordinarily important activities, which I believe will reverse the trend of the last -- next decade if implemented. Again, if implemented.
No. 1, we're going to supervise the elections within nine months. Now, all of you who've been to Kosovo know that the Albanians are not going to trust an election conducted by the Serbs. But an internationally supervised election -- and the word is the word in the Dayton agreement, and any of you who covered the elections in Bosnia know that means it will be run by OSCE -- know that that means internationally run. And that's very important.
And secondly, the police will be -- a local Albanian police will be trained and advised by OSCE. These are major events.
Again, if implemented. But the implementation has to be preceded by agreements, and the agreements, if they work, can retroactively and retrospectively later be regarded as turning points, perhaps arguably historic turning points. We can revisit that in a year or two.
I stood at this podium after Bosnia and heard a lot of doubts about it and predictions that the fighting would resume. Three years later, the fighting hasn't resumed. Let's see how things go in Kosovo.
The fourth thing that has come out of the last few weeks is the explicit public description of Chris Hill and his team as the negotiators or mediators between the Albanian and Serb sides.
A tremendous step forward. Jim O'Brien -- as Jamie said a moment ago, Jim O'Brien is here today. He and Chris Hill are the senior members of the negotiating team. As we speak, Chris is in Pristina, in Kosovo, meeting with leading members of the Albanian factions. Jim is backstopping the offered (ph) here, along with Larry Rossin, who is the head of the office in the European Bureau.
HOLBROOKE: That is without question the most complicated part of this negotiation. And I wish to stress we did not ask any Albanians to sign anything or agree to anything last week or the week before. Nothing.
Nor did we sign or agree to anything with the Serbs. The announcement and the 11 points concerning politics was a unilateral announcement of the Belgrade authorities, far short of what we think is desirable or necessary.
But since it was a unilateral step in the right direction, if an inadequate step, it should be recognized as such.
So those are the main ingredients of the process. I left one out, I should add, and that is Macedonia, FYROM. It is extremely important that there will be a NATO force in the country next door, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Secretary Albright discussed this for the first time in public yesterday. It's something that she and I have long believed, going back at least two or three years, was an essential concomitant of stability in the southern Balkans. The UNPRODEF forces there, including 300 Americans, are very important. An additional NATO force, which will not, repeat not, include American combat troops, but may have a small American liaison cell of some sort for obvious reasons -- because we need uplinks to the NATO planes overhead, and we need to links to the American-led force in Bosnia, and we need links to NATO headquarters elsewhere.
HOLBROOKE: But this force in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is immensely important. Details cannot come from this podium. They must come from NATO headquarters. The British and the French are in extended talks on this now.
Secretary Albright has, if I'm not mistaken, Jamie, been in constant communication with Robin Cook and Hubert Vedrine and Solana on this point for the last week. And I stress the importance of the announcement she made yesterday.
So those are the headlines. One last generic point.
Foreign policy is not architecture, no matter what Dr. Brzezinski and others like to compare it to. In architecture, you make a plan down to the last nut and that bolt, the last stress beam, and then you build the thing.
Foreign policy, in my view, is more like jazz. It's an improvisation on a theme, and you change as you go along. Dean Acheson did not have a clear vision of what is now his legacy when he started out. He created the best he could, taking into account domestic factors, Euro factors, the Russians and so on.
And I want to stress that this is a work in progress, but it is of enormous historic consequence. And it begins with this administration's decisions to make the United States a resurgent presence in Europe; working in partnership in the post-Cold War world so that resurgence should not be misunderstood to mean unilateralism; working in close partnership with our NATO allies in enlarging NATO, in the Bosnia events, the bombing, IFOR, SFOR and so on, and now Kosovo.
HOLBROOKE: History will decide how this movie comes out -- whether it succeeds or fails. But Kosovo and Bosnia, which are totally different in almost every technical detail, are bound together by the commonality of the area of the world they're in, the core problem which emanates from the leadership in Belgrade and always has, and the fact that the crises in Bosnia and Kosovo have required the United States to try to forge new rules and new alliances and new relationships for the post-Cold War world.
And these are of immense importance. And we think that, if implemented successfully, what has happened this week will be of tremendous long-term importance. If it's not implemented successfully -- Barry -- if it's not implemented successfully...
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)...
HOLBROOKE: ... the ACTORD is going to be reactivated. The threats, which were essential to reach this point, are still available. And we have learned a lot in the last few weeks about how to pull together a situation without any precedent in NATO's history. And although there were many bumps along the way, in the end the alliance held together and performed very well.
And let nobody in Belgrade or anywhere else misunderstand us. The coalition which -- whose threat was credible and which will remain viable is ready to be reactivated at any time that the situation on the ground necessitates.
Questions?
QUESTION: I want to invite you to take the A train with us -- the Albania train, speaking of jazz -- and tell us, if you would, where that side of the equation is headed. Now you have -- the U.S. government says they're not in favor of independence. They're in favor of self-rule. But for heaven's sake, only the U.S. was able to stop Milosevic. This has got to have improved the optimism of Albanians that they'll be able to go beyond self-rule to a state.
QUESTION: Isn't that likely to lead to a new flare-up, to new conflict? Nobody likes parallels, because as Albright says, we don't have a cookie-cutter foreign policy.
You've restrained in the Middle East, although we know you're down the road to statehood for the Palestinians. Aren't you down the road to statehood for the Albanians? And do you think Milosevic is going to stand for that, especially if it's anschluss with Albania or federation with Albania?
HOLBROOKE: So is this question about anschluss or the Palestinians...
(LAUGHTER)
QUESTION: The question is about the other side of this diagram which you haven't addressed. What have you done for the Albanians? How can you stop them from pushing for a state, or do you intend to? And if they do, what's about to happen?
HOLBROOKE: Well, first of all, what has been done -- I don't want to use "we," because this was a collective effort that involved not only the United States but our allies, and even the Russians.
But what has been achieved for the Albanians is first of all they're coming home out of the forests and the hills. Jim Pardew talked to Shaun Byrnes this morning again. The returns are continuing. There are some minor incidents along the way, boobytrapped refrigerators, some boobytrapped foxholes.
Jim tells me that some of the Serbs are cooperating in identifying them, but people are coming home. And that's real. That's not an abstraction of foreign policy.
Serb police checkpoints are disappearing, and we're making real progress there.
In regard to the political goals that you're talking about, Barry, I said a minute ago that these are the most difficult. And it is demonstrably true that the core stated objective of most Albanian political leaders in Kosovo is independence, and that is not supported by the European Union, the United States or any other international entity that I'm aware of -- for many different reasons.
That's a longstanding policy.
HOLBROOKE: And therefore, we're going to have to sort this out as we go along. And there's no other way to answer your question except that everyone's aware of the dilemma and the problem.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) flash point? (OFF-MIKE)...
HOLBROOKE: I don't think the flash point is the difference in goals. That's well understood.
I think the flash point, if there were one, would be if either side provoked the other deliberately in a way designed to re-escalate the fighting. Many of you have already written about the danger that fighting could break out again at anytime, and particularly in the spring. We're well aware of that problem. And when I said, if implemented, repeatedly in my opening comments, that's what I was referring to. And that could happen any time.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)...
HOLBROOKE: Excuse me -- it could happen any time. But -- excuse me for interrupting. No, I'm not even going to say it's less likely. It's one of our major concerns. That is why the administration and Madeleine Albright and myself and Marc Grossman, Chris Hill, Jim O'Brien (ph), Larry Rossin have all been engaged along with our colleagues at the NSC in an intense evaluation of how to deal most effectively with people who are members of the Oo-check-a (ph) or the KLA. Shaun Byrnes has been in constant contact at the checkpoints and in the field with KLA commanders, talking to them, making clear to them that it takes two to have a cease-fire, insisting from them on guarantees for the safety of the OSCE verifiers.
Larry Rossin has been having meetings all over Europe and the United States with people who have ties to the KLA to insist to them on the importance of this.
HOLBROOKE: This is a very important part of our policy.
We do not ask people to renounce their dream of independence. But we do insist that they work within the framework of the UN Resolution 1199 for peaceful resolution of it, because if either side provokes the other into breaking down of the cease-fire, we're going to have real problems.
QUESTION: Yesterday, in talking about the force in Macedonia, the secretary talked about the size and the limitations. She didn't talk about the role. It's since been described elsewhere as an extraction force. Is that what it's meant to be?
HOLBROOKE: I'm going to let NATO describe the force -- its mission, its size, its configuration, its leadership. All I want to say is its presence on the Yugoslav border is an enormously important part of stabilizing the region. And what she said yesterday struck me as exactly correct.
QUESTION: On the subject of humanitarian situation, I understand from the experts at the DOD that there are enough shelters for those who are now outdoors, coming back to their villages, to get by the winter, stay warm enough to survive.
There's going to be enough food, I believe, if there isn't already on the ground, enough food.
And my basic question is, was the -- was this agreement, did it come in time really to save the humanitarian disaster that was impending with the oncoming winter?
HOLBROOKE: I think the answer to that is a qualified yes. People -- anyone who is still alive is not in my view in any danger anymore and that couldn't have been said a few weeks ago. Are you comfortable with that, Larry (ph)?
But a lot of people died already, including as recently as two or three days ago, and for them the disaster's already occurred.
HOLBROOKE: And we just feel heartsick that we weren't standing up having this kind of briefing three or four months ago.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
HOLBROOKE: Yes.
QUESTION: They could go back home (ph).
HOLBROOKE: Yes, yes. This is -- this is not Rwanda or -- there's been a tremendous amount of houses damaged, but there's a tremendous resilient spirit in the countryside. And people are rebuilding as fast as they can. There are -- there is material down there.
The UNHCR is out in force without any opposition. And the OSCE document that we negotiated in Belgrade specifically empowers Ambassador Walker's Kosovo Verification Mission to assist the UNHCR and other humanitarian organizations -- a very minor point to all of you but a very big point for anyone who ever was in Bosnia and watched the OSCE people refusing to help the UNHCR people 15 feet away because -- quote -- "It isn't in our mission."
It is in the mission. So any one of the verification mission members can, at Bill Walker's direction, help on this issue.
QUESTION: I just want to understand better the policy now on political recognition of Kosovo independence.
The starting point from the Clinton administration's point of view is that one side wants independence, the other side doesn't want to give it, and they should negotiate from that point then? Correct or... HOLBROOKE: Well, no. It's a little more complicated than that. The international community's position, including our own, is that the boundaries of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as currently shown on the map, are the correct boundaries. And we are not supporting the separatist movement for independence, although I think everyone who knows the Kosovar-Albanians understands their desire for it and has great sympathy for the motivations that led them there.
HOLBROOKE: The ultimate political settlement of the future is for the people themselves to work out. Chris Hill and Jim O'Brien are going to be the leaders of the team, now formally acknowledged. Even though they've been working for months, they'd always worked in a kind of a limbo status. Now they have been explicitly, formally announced toward that resolution.
And it may take a while. It's going to be -- it is far and away the toughest part of this.
I described in my last press meeting, which was in Belgrade, I described the difference between the crisis and an emergency. The crisis is a decade old and hasn't been solved. That's the issue you're talking about -- the question of Kosovo.
The emergency, which was caused by the summer rampage which led us to the brink of war -- now appears -- the resolution of the emergency appears to be within sight.
And by the way, I just want to take a diversion here. I saw the distinguished former ambassador of the United States say on television yesterday that NATO was bluffing. So let me just be very clear on something.
When our team -- Larry Rossin, Jim O'Brien, Chris Hill, General Short (ph), General Thrasher (ph), myself, Dick Miles -- got to Belgrade, all of us thought that bombing was almost certainly going to happen. And the -- we felt -- in the middle of our negotiations, we moved the B-52s forward to the UK, not for theater but to get them ready for six-hour deployment.
And I judged the chances of military action -- that is an aerial war -- as well over 60 percent when we started. That was not a bluff.
And I want to be clear with everybody because it should be understood -- especially in Belgrade.
HOLBROOKE: It was the credible threat of the use of force. The president, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense and NATO were all ready to move. The targets had been picked, and we knew exactly where we were, and we knew exactly how to get everyone out if we needed to. In fact, as you know, we did get everyone out. Tom.
QUESTION: The North Atlantic Council approved the activation order only after you visited the council and briefed them on your deliberations. Some have said, including another former ambassador, that they may not have approved that activation order if you had not been able to give them as optimistic a report -- this is now that Monday -- as you were able to give them.
Are you confident that they would have approved that activation order, even if you'd come back with a, say, a less hopeful assessment?
HOLBROOKE: I'm a little confused by your comment. I think -- Jim, you came up with me to Belgrade -- to Brussels. The way I envisage it -- Jim may have a different view -- I thought that our -- we had only two -- there were only two possible choices that night: an activation order with a suspension or an activation order without a suspension. And it was the, what you call the optimistic report, and I would call a status report, that led the NACC to decide to do the activation order but not -- but tell General Clark to hold off on launching the planes.
If we had given a totally bleak picture, absent the OSCE document, absent the air verification, then the bombing would have been authorized without a pause. And we would now be in the middle of an aerial war. So, that's how I remember it. So whoever's talked to you I think is perhaps a little out of sync.
QUESTION: The idea being...
HOLBROOKE: Is that your memory, Jim?
QUESTION: The idea being that some allies approved that in the belief that they were then -- that they were already convinced it wouldn't be necessary?
HOLBROOKE: Well, that's in their minds. I mean, these are ambassadors in a room with a round table doing what they're instructed.
HOLBROOKE: The real heavy lifting was being done by the secretary of state, and Jim Steinberg, Sandy Berger and others -- even from the Wye Plantation, by the way -- to make sure the key (ph) (OFF- MIKE) were on board. And we had to make sure the Russians understood it was happening, and there was a New York component.
But the only choices that night were to bomb or to authorize bombing and give an additional pause for compliance. There was no third choice. And what you called the optimistic report, which was two pieces of paper -- this is one of them -- and Geremek was there too that night. Remember?
So we briefed Geremek on this for the first time, and he didn't know -- he was stunned by it, but very enthusiastic. And that led immediately to Ambassador Ross' designation by Madeleine as the head of this mission.
All of this created the sense that maybe the credible threat of NATO use of force was going to produce a result. But we weren't quite there yet.
So let's keep the planes aimed at our targets, but not quite have them start down the runways yet. That's what happened.
After the 96 hours ran out, a lot of the people in this room or elsewhere reported that NATO had blinked and made invidious comparisons to other parts of the world and said that we had given them a reprieve. But that was not at all what the administration in NATO thought they were doing.
What the administration and NATO were intending was to keep the pressure on Belgrade. And somehow, it came out quite the opposite.
I remember reading the paper Saturday, a week ago, reading the newspapers and kind of saying this is amazing. The newspaper count is 180 degrees off the intention.
And so we had a bad week with you guys because you thought NATO had blinked.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
HOLBROOKE: Well, that's true. I didn't talk to you Sid. But that's personal so...
(LAUGHTER)
No, I didn't talk to you because I really didn't think it was necessary. I thought what was happening was so clear, and I'd done the media the first day, and then I'd fan off and done other things. But when that happened, we all realized that there had been a miscommunication with the public and with the press. HOLBROOKE: And I hope at least now, retrospectively, you all understand what happened.
The extension after the 96 hours was because there was no way he could get his forces back that quickly. The KLA was still in the field doing a lot of stuff which made it complicated.
Who started this incident in Malisevo? You know, are you going to start bombing because of an argument at a checkpoint that turned into a shooting match when that shooting match may well have been started by an Albanian? You don't know.
We had to sort it out, but we wanted to keep the pressure on. And that's what happened.
QUESTION: You said a few moments ago that you feel heartsick that you weren't here three or four months ago. Why didn't that happen three or four months ago?
HOLBROOKE: That is -- I'm sorry I said that. It's -- "heartsick" because if we had been here three or four months ago we wouldn't have had all that destruction -- that photograph of all those burned out buildings; people who died; a polarization of a society that was already ripped to hell by this thing. And your question is why weren't we here.
QUESTION: Why weren't you here three or four months ago?
HOLBROOKE: You know, now that we're in a position we feel pretty good about, I don't want to go back and do a blame game business. But it was a combination of several factors. I would lump all of them except the Russian factor, which is separate -- and you're all aware of that -- under one general headline, which is called "Democracies Take a While to Get Their Act Together."
HOLBROOKE: But when they get it together, they have more strength and unity and effectiveness than anyone else.
The British and the French and the Germans had a very well publicized view -- and you're all aware of this -- that NATO's action required a prior UN Security Council resolution. That was not our view. That -- we had to work that through, and it took time. And that was I think something that Madeleine Albright spent most of the summer on, and there were other factors. So it took a little while longer than it should have, just as it did in Bosnia.
But in Bosnia it took four years longer than it should have. And in Kosovo, I would put the time delay at something like 12 to 15 weeks.
And if you compare the two crises and the American-led NATO alliance response, I think it's demonstrably true that we're doing better.
And the Russians are working more closely with us; the British and the French are sorting it out. A very key factor was the German election.
But when President Clinton saw Gerhard Schroeder at that decisive meeting on Friday two weeks ago, and the next morning Jim O'Brien and Chris Hill and I went into see Milosevic; and we said, "The Germans are on board. And any residual thought you had that the election in Germany would change the outcome, forget it."
At that point, Prodi's government fell. And other people were saying, "Aha! OK. Now we have a president in Rome." The Italians said it doesn't matter.
All of this takes time. That's what I mean by democracies.
Carol.
QUESTION: When you said that you're not asking people to give up the dream of independence, are you -- it sounds to me like you might be holding the door open a little bit more than you had in the past to perhaps the United States...
HOLBROOKE: No. You misread me. We are not supporting independence. But I'm not going to stand up here and tell people who dream about it that they shouldn't dream that dream.
I'm just making -- I just want to be honest. And Larry Rossin and I and Jim have spent a lot of time with the Albanian-American leadership in the United States in New York and elsewhere.
HOLBROOKE: And they all understand this. They all want independence. They understand our position and within that agreement to disagree, we're trying to work out ways we can all go forward together. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
QUESTION: Yes.
QUESTION: Could I just follow up on that?
HOLBROOKE: Sure.
QUESTION: I'm sorry. If you're going to mediate between the two parties -- if you're not then say so -- then, by definition, you have to into that without a position, in other words, leaving open the possibility that the two parties could agree on independence. How do you...
HOLBROOKE: I would say the chances of that happening range from zero to zero.
QUESTION: With mediation or...
HOLBROOKE: No, that the two parties would agree to independence. There is no possible chance that Belgrade will agree to independence. I'm not speaking on behalf of the Belgrade authorities. I'm just giving you a self-evident fact.
QUESTION: Just to follow up on the point of why something couldn't have been done earlier -- and you said -- you put the timeframe at 12 to 15 weeks. But why couldn't the war have been prevented before it even started back in February when the secretary said that the United States was not going to allow what happened in Bosnia to happen in Kosovo? Why couldn't preventative action been taken?
HOLBROOKE: Well, first of all, let's be clear what the secretary said is not -- it did turn out. What happened in Kosovo is not what happened in Bosnia. Bosnia had 300,000 killed and 2.5 million homeless.
And as a percentage of population, what happened in Kosovo is far, far smaller. Nonetheless, I take your point. And if you want to change my number from 15 weeks and backdate it to February -- I don't know how many additional weeks that is -- I accept it.
HOLBROOKE: Because my own personal concern has run much longer than that.
But in February, the fighting had not yet reached a very significant level. And I was thinking of the -- my first trip out there was in May with Bob Gelbard. And then I went out again in June and I went out in July. And you could just see it coming. And we couldn't stop it.
QUESTION: I mean, I guess my sort of question is why, instead of waiting for the fire to break out, why can't actions be taken to prevent it from breaking out in the first place?
HOLBROOKE: If I answer that question -- I think it was your question -- you're the one who asked why it took us so long. I've answered it already, Michael.
It takes a while for the democracies to get their act together, particularly when you also have to work with the Russians and you have all these different issues -- the UN, NATO and so on. And I'm not defending (OFF-MIKE) delay.
It drove Madeleine Albright and I and the people sitting along that wall who were then involved in policy -- like Jim O'Brien and Larry Rossin when he joined the team, and Jim Pardew, who was watching from his equipment perch from Bosnia -- we were doing everything we could into the fall (OFF-MIKE).
But let me say this: Without yielding to what is sometimes criticizing Europe as American triumphalism, I don't think it's unfair to say that without the leadership of the administration and the United States, we wouldn't be where we are today. And it didn't get within -- there were a lot of factors involved.
By the way, there's another factor we haven't mentioned which is important, which is the congressional factor.
QUESTION: Ambassador Holbrooke, do you believe that you can achieve your goal and get final longstanding, durable solution for Kosovo as long as there is no democracy in Serbia proper?
If your answer, sir, is no -- and I hope it (OFF-MIKE) be no -- could you tell us, is the U.S. government planning to try to do something to start to support democracy alternative in the opposition forces in Serbia?
HOLBROOKE: Well, I thank you for the question. It's a question that we discuss an awful lot.
Let met start with the independent media and put to you an anomaly.
The independent media is now suffering greatly in Belgrade. During our nine-day mission to Belgrade, we were bombarded with faxes and messages -- directly and indirectly -- from the independent media saying: Don't bomb. If you bomb, the independent media will be shut down.
Veren Matich (ph) was sending these faxes to my home each day, because, as many of you know, my wife is the head of ANAN (ph), the international support group for B-92. And if you bomb, it will help Milosevic, it will help Shesha (ph).
So they were the first victims of the agreements. Why? Obviously, because the Belgrade authorities -- and here I would note that the Ministry of Information is in the hands of Shesha (ph) -- did not want the public to understand what had actually happened.
So Chris Hill has spent a great deal of time in the last week meeting with the independent media, and Dick Miles is making it a major issue because you can't have democracy without free media.
Your larger point is critically important. In the end, a democracy in Yugoslavia is essential to stability in the region. It's as simple as that.
I would like very much to see if Ambassador Walker and/or Ambassador Pardew could get a question or two. You ought to get to know them because we're really passing the baton on to them.
HOLBROOKE: And the other thing I'd like to stress is the high importance of the details of this agreement, which -- which are remarkable, unprecedented. So before we adjourn, if you have any questions for Bill or Jim -- and no questions on your favorite subject, though.
QUESTION: On the same subject, how do you assess the role of Greece to defuse (OFF-MIKE)?
HOLBROOKE: Ah, yes, well -- thank you. Finally a question on your subject I will answer.
(LAUGHTER)
I was -- we were very gratified by the -- by the position of the Greek government, very gratified. Prime Minister Pangalos made calls to Belgrade during the crisis making absolutely clear to the Yugoslav authorities that Greece was part of NATO and would support the process, although with certain specific reservations that they had to for their own right.
Because of the special ties between Greece and Serb -- Greeks and Serbs -- the fact that the Greeks were so supportive was something that we deeply appreciated. Ambassador Burns and in fact Ambassador Hill went down to Athens to see -- to see the Greek government in that regard.
QUESTION: Ambassador Walker had a question (OFF-MIKE).
HOLBROOKE: (OFF-MIKE)
RUBIN: (OFF-MIKE) I think Ambassador Holbrooke has done very well in taking your questions for a long time. And let me just say again on behalf of Secretary Albright how proud she is of the work that you and the rest of your team have done, and turn the podium over to Ambassador Walker to respond to this question.
WALKER: Thanks.
QUESTION: Ambassador Walker, your verifiers are unarmed and presumably out among the population. What happens if things go sour? How are you going to protect them?
WALKER: I think Ambassador Holbrooke has mentioned the force that will be in Macedonia next door.
WALKER: I think we're taking a good look at that as to how that might react in terms of an extraction in case things really go wrong or something less than that if it's not quite as serious as I think you're implying.
QUESTION: I'm sorry.
WALKER: No, go ahead.
QUESTION: And will they at any point be accompanied by any armed people?
WALKER: I'm sorry? The verifiers? No. The agreement is that my verifiers will be unarmed.
QUESTION: And they can't be accompanied by paramilitary police or whatever?
QUESTION: Will you depend on the Serb police to protect your people?
WALKER: Let me preface my remarks by saying I have been in the job for exactly nine days, of which five were spent going to some of these places that Ambassador Holbrooke and the other fellows sitting on the wall there have spent the better part of their last year or two in. I spent a couple of hours with President Milosevic and went over this point. He accepts, as he did in the agreement, responsibility for the safety, security, well-being and very lives of the verifiers. So up until we have evidence to the contrary, we will take that assurance. But other people are looking at other options should his compliance not be total.
QUESTION: So everything (OFF-MIKE) emergency evacuation?
WALKER: Yes, exactly.
HOLBROOKE: Let's do the last question.
WALKER: One question. I'm...
HOLBROOKE: Last question right here.
QUESTION: Yes, actually, I'm afraid a very similar question. But do you -- given that one of the important roles that you'll have to play will be to determine what happened when there is trouble, to determine what happened, who was responsible, maybe who even fired first and so forth, how will you be able to operate in conflictive or potentially conflictive situations when you are not armed?
I think there was already an incident where the KDOM group was not able to go in because they decided it was too dangerous.
I mean, will you not be able to go into areas that are considered dangerous?
WALKER: We will be trying to go into every area, every part of the Kosovo region as the situation demands.
WALKER: Obviously, no one is more concerned with the safety and well-being of these verifiers than I am. I feel personally responsible for each and every one of them that we get in there.
But our instructions are to be as robust in terms of verifying what is going on, in terms of compliance with the agreements as we can possibly be.
Obviously, I will not try to put people's lives in danger. But we will mount as robust a verification regime as we possibly can.
RUBIN: Thank you all very much. I'll leave the gentlemen over here perhaps (OFF-MIKE) some of you who might have additional questions.
Thank you very much.
END

NOTES:
???? - Indicates Speaker Unkown
      - Could not make out what was being said.
off mike - Indicates Could not make out what was being said.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: October 28, 1998  UNITED STATES (86%);  WASHINGTON, DC, USA (76%);

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Taken without permission, for fair use only.

New Govt Seen after Macedonia's 2nd-Round Vote
Reuters  29-OCT-98

SKOPJE, Oct 29 (Reuters) - A right-wing government is likely to take power in Macedonia after the second round of general elections on Sunday if an opposition coalition makes good on a lead taken in the first round.
     Macedonia's right-wing opposition bloc VMRO-DPMNE- Democratic Alternative (DA) was ahead in voting on October 18, winning 21 of 58 parliamentary seats available in that round.
     Ethnic Albanian parties took 20 seats, the ruling Social Democrats (SDAM) of Branko Crvenkovski 14, Liberal Democrats two and the Socialists of Ljubisav Ivanov one seat.
     On Sunday, voters will choose from among 124 candidates, mostly from SDAM and VMRO-DPMNE-DA, for the remaining 62 seats. The opposition leads in 41 of the districts that will be contested.
     An opinion poll published in the daily Makedonija Denes on Thursday showed most Macedonians appeared ready to vote for the opposition bloc.
     According to the poll, 40 percent said the VMRO-DPMNE-DA campaign was the best while 25 percent favoured SDAM.
     "I believe there should be changes in Macedonia because I am not satisfied with anything," Dijana Petreska, a physical education student, told Reuters.
     But a pensioner who did not wish to reveal his name said: "The government of SDAM and President Kiro Gligorov have done a lot for Macedonia and preserved peace and stability."
     Analysts say the coalition will have to enter an alliance with some ethnic Albanians to command the minimum of 62 seats needed for a stable government.
     Liberal Democratic leader Petar Goshev said: "...it is our interest that neither party wins an absolute majority, as this leads to political irresponsibility."
     Macedonia is a mountainous, landlocked state that borders on Greece, Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.
     It is one of Europe's poorest countries. One third of its two million population are ethnic Albanians who share separatist ideals with their brethren across the border in Kosovo, a province of Serbia in federal Yugoslavia.
     Macedonia is at odds with Bulgaria over ethnic issues and with Greece over its very name. Greece says the use of the name Macedonia implies territorial ambitions to its own northern Macedonia region.
     With Macedonia's per capita annual income at $1,090, the right-wing coalition promised to organise $1 billion in foreign investments to boost farming and cattle-raising, the main sources of national income.
     Western analysts said that if elected, the coalition would likely push for closer ties with Bulgaria and Greece and less dependence on turbulent, socialist-run Yugoslavia.
     All parties and coalitions running in the elections want to bring Macedonia closer to NATO and the European Union.

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.All rights reserved.

Taken without permission, for fair use only.

Russia Regards Balkans as Area of RUSSIA'S Strategic Interests.
Itar-Tass  28-OCT-98

MOSCOW, October 28 (Itar-Tass) - "The Balkans have always been an area of Russia's strategic interests for quite understandable reasons - territorial proximity and exit into the Mediterranean sea," said Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in an interview published by the "Izvestia" daily on Wednesday.
     In this region, stability and peaceful settlement of the problem meets our interests," Ivanov said. It is from the Balkans that a threat to the European security has been perpetually made and it would be contrary to Russia's interests if an impetus to a new spiral of confrontation came from the Balkans," the minister stressed.
     Objectively, it is not only sentimental feelings, but rather great economic prospects that connect us with this area of the globe, Ivanov said. The fuel and energy sector in the Balkans is fully "tied" to Russia and no alternative decisions exist there. The matter concerns all states which were formed on the territory of former Yugoslavia, this applies to Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia, the minister said.
     "We categorically disagree with assertions made by some activists calling to stake all interests on Belgrade only. This does not meet our interests," Ivanov said.
-=-------

Hill Says Crucial Negotiations on Kosovo to Start Soon
Xinhua  28-OCT-98
By Jiang Yaping

PRISTINA Yugoslavia, (Oct. 28) XINHUA - U.S. ambassador Christopher Hill said on Wednesday it was now coming to a crucial stage to start the negotiation process on Kosovo crisis after situation in the province is getting stable.
     "We are getting a rather crucial phase in this process. We are now beginning to get the conditions on the ground that we've needed for some time to have a successful negotiation," said Hill, the ambassador to Macedonia, at a press briefing in Pristina after meeting leaders of both Albanian and Serb sides.
     He said he talked to local leaders and they had made some progress on the agreement but there was still a long way to go before a settlement was achieved.
     "Things are stabilizing on the ground and this is very helpful to the negotiation and we very much want to move ahead in the days ahead," said the ambassador who is shuttling between Belgrade and Pristina to initiate the negotiations after the withdrawal of Serb troops from Kosovo.
     Talking about the difference between Serbs and Albanians in the upcoming talks, Hill acknowledged that there were still some areas where the Albanians would like some important changes in the political agreement, areas especially relating to the overall question of Kosovo status.
     The Albanians want to enhance their current provincial status to that of a republic, with the same footing of Yugoslavia's two republics -- Serbia and Montenegro. But the Serbian government insists that Kosovo is a province of Serbia and the crisis must be solved within Serbia.
     Hill said the agreement proposed by the United States was designed to work on creating democratic institutions in Kosovo, to restore Kosovo self-government which was taken away some 10 years ago, and to ensure the development of democratic Kosovo.
     He also stressed that "It's the position of the United States that we don't support Kosovo's independence."
     Some radical ethnic Albanians took up arms in March to fight for the independence of Kosovo in which 90 percent are Albanians, thus causing the crisis of Kosovo.
     The Serbian government pulled its forces out of Kosovo or returned to their barracks on Monday, one day before the NATO deadline of military attack expired. NATO has demanded the withdrawal of Serb forces to ensure the safe return of thousands of refugees and displaced persons, or otherwise face air strikes.
------

Clinton Hopeful but Watchful as Serb Forces Withdraw from Kosovo
AP  28-OCT-98

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton administration will keep an eye on Serb actions in Kosovo to make sure withdrawn troops and special police units that tormented ethnic Albanian civilians do not return, U.S. officials said.
     "We will fly there, when and where we want," U.S. negotiator Richard Holbrooke said today.
     Besides the NATO overflights and radar, at least 2,000 people drawn from several countries, will be on the ground, on the lookout for violations of the agreement, Holbrooke said.
     Still, fighting can break out again at any time, added Holbrooke, who negotiated terms of the pullback with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
     President Clinton called what the Pentagon reported to be a sizable withdrawal "a hopeful moment" for the troubled province but not a guarantee of a peaceful settlement with ethnic Albanians.
     "We should be under no illusion," Clinton said Tuesday. "There is still a lot of hard road to walk before hope can triumph over hatred in the Balkans."
     It took months for the United States to persuade some reluctant NATO allies to threaten an air attack, but they are all aboard now, and a decision to use force could be taken quickly, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said.
     "We are maintaining our threat of force and not letting our guard down," she said after NATO decided Tuesday to hold its fire but to keep more than 400 allied warplanes on alert indefinitely for raids on Serb forces.
     A senior Pentagon official said "upwards of 80 percent" of the Serbian army tanks and armored personnel carriers had returned to their garrisons, and about 90 percent of the special police that had gone to Kosovo to suppress Albanian secession had departed.
     But Milosevic, who yielded to a combination of diplomacy by Holbrooke and NATO might, has reversed himself before.
     International diplomats and observers are in Kosovo checking on Serbian compliance with the demands leveled by the U.N. Security Council last month.
     Albright said the NATO allies were preparing to assemble a rapid-reaction force in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia to be ready to intervene if Milosevic sent troops against civilians again.
     Already in Macedonia are some 350 U.S. troops as part of a "tripwire" to guard against the Kosovo turmoil spilling over into other European countries.
     Albright said Macedonia's approval would be required to deploy the force and that United States would not contribute troops but participate in other ways.
     Its main function would be to extract international monitors in the event of an emergency, David Leavy, spokesman for the National Security Council, said.
     Albright said Milosevic's withdrawal of troops and police "should result in a safer and more secure climate" for refugees to return to their homes, and that many have already.
     "The result, if all goes well, will be the prevention of further humanitarian catastrophe," she said.
     The Clinton administration supports a restoration of the Albanian self-rule that Milosevic nullified in 1989. But many Albanians want to go further and separate from the already shattered country.
     U.S. policy opposes independence and attaching Kosovo, where the population is nearly 90 percent ethnic Albanian, to Albania.

Copyright 1998& The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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