Online NewsHour: Clinton on a possible Deal -- March 30, 1999



	PRESIDENT CLINTON ON THE STRIKES

March 30, 1999
		In a series of addresses today, President Clinton called on America to "remain steady and determined" and also called the proposed ceasefire plan "unacceptable".

Crisis in Kosovo Index.

March 26, 1999:
National Security Adviser Berger

March 25, 1999:
Defense Secretary Cohen

March 25, 1999:
Who is Milosevic?

March 24, 1999:
Comparing military capabilities.

March 24, 1999:
Secretary Albright discusses the air strikes.

NATO

US State Department

Serbian Ministry of Information

The NATO military operation is continuing today against an expanded range of targets, including Serbian forces on the ground in Kosovo. The allies are united in our outrage over President Milosevic's atrocities against innocent people. We are determined to stay with our policy. As President Chirac said yesterday, what is happening today must strengthen our resolution.

Countries from throughout the Balkans, from Greece to Turkey to Romania to Bulgaria, are helping us to meet the mounting humanitarian crisis. We are all dealing today with the same horrible pattern of conduct we saw in Bosnia. We saw that conduct resume in 1998 in Kosovo, when a quarter of a million innocent people were driven from their homes. We saw it escalate in January and February of this year, as Serbian forces, in violation of the agreement the President had made last October, moved from village to village and atrocity to atrocity, while their leaders pretended to negotiate for peace in France.

Now it is clear that as the Kosovar leaders were saying yes to peace, Mr. Milosevic was planning a new campaign of expulsions and executions in Kosovo. He started carrying out that plan as the talks ended, increasing our sense of urgency that the air strikes NATO had threatened for some time must begin.

Now, lamentably, we have credible reports that his troops are singling out for murder the moderate Kosovar leaders who supported a peaceful solution. Refugees are streaming out, clearly shaken by what they have seen. Altogether, since the conflict started last year, more than half a million people have been forced from their homes.

If there was ever any doubt about what is at stake in Kosovo, Mr. Milosevic is certainly erasing it by his actions. They are the culmination of more than a decade of using ethnic and religious hatred as a justification for uprooting and murdering completely innocent, peaceful civilians to pave Mr. Milosevic's path to absolute power.

The NATO air campaign is designed to raise the price of that policy. Today, he faces the mounting cost of his continued aggression. For a sustained period, he will see that his military will be seriously diminished, key military infrastructure destroyed, the prospect of international support for Serbia's claim to Kosovo increasingly jeopardized.

We must remain steady and determined, with the will to see this through.

Editor's Note: Later in the day, President Clinton issued the following brief statement about the proposed ceasefire negotiated between Russian Prime Minister Primakov and Yugoslav President Milosevic:

I share the view of Chancellor Schroeder that President Milosevic's proposal is unacceptable. President Milosevic began this brutal campaign: it is his responsibility to bring it to an immediate end and embrace a just peace. There is a strong consensus in NATO that we must press forward with our military action.