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| RETURN TO VIOLENCE | |
 January 18, 1999 
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Serbian forces have resumed their assault on ethnic Albanians, disregarding a ceasefire brokered by NATO last October. Elizabeth Farnsworth and guests discuss the latest round of bloodshed in Kosovo.
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JIM LEHRER: The Kosovo story: Louise Bates of Associated Press Television News reports on the renewed fighting. LOUISE BATES: Gunfire rings out in the have the village of Racak once
more. Serb forces launched their mortars and machine guns from the hillside
overlooking the |
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| Defying NATO. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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The Serbs continue to defy international calls to stop their assault
against ethnic Albanians. The Serb paramilitary police moved into Racak
early on Monday to carry out what they called a search for Kosovo Liberation
Army INTERNATIONAL VERIFICATION OFFICER: They're lobbing shells down here right now. We're hoping they're hitting buildings and making stubble out of stucco. But we don't know how many people are in there. LOUISE BATES: NATO wants the Yugoslavs to allow the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal to investigate the killings in Racak, but on Monday the Serbs further defied the international community by refusing to allow chief U.N. War crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour to enter the country. The Yugoslavs says she hasn't have the correct visa. Arbor says she must be allowed to enter.
JIM LEHRER: And to Elizabeth Farnsworth in San Francisco. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And for some perspective on the events in Kosovo we turn to Robert Hunter, ambassador to NATO from 1993 to 1998, and now a senior adviser at RAND, a national security 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 Nathan Landay, who covers foreign affairs for the Christian Science Monitor. He was in the region last month. James Hooper, the war crimes prosecutor can't get into Kosovo. The government is apparently expelling the head of the international verification mission. Villages are being attacked. A massacre has taken place. What's going on?
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| A weak cease-fire. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So you see this as a direct provocation by Mr. Milosevic? JAMES HOOPER: Certainly it is. And it's because he feels that NATO threats are not credible; that the only thing that is going to stop him is going to be action by NATO, and he does not think that President Clinton is going to be capable of leading the allies into forceful intervention in Kosovo.
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Hunter, do you think that's what's behind these events?
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Remind us just briefly about the agreement, please. ROBERT HUNTER: Well, the agreement called for a cease-fire. It called for the removal of troops and police by the Serbs from Kosovo. It called also for a political process to try to resolve the future of that province. Unfortunately there has not within much attention paid at the highest levels of allied governments, including this government -- kind of routine diplomacy, and no effort at NATO finally to bring the allies together to figure out exactly what their goal should be in Kosovo. Should it be an autonomy regime, sort of the way there was before the Serbs undercut it in 1989, or could we live with an independent Kosovo? Without that, I'm afraid it has been impossible to get a kind of coherence and cohesion at NATO that has to underpin any effort to use force. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Jonathan Landay, -- and let's remind people that Kosovo is a province that is 90 percent ethnic Albanian. What do you think is behind this recent train of -- all these recent events? JONATHAN LANDAY, Christian Science Monitor: There's been an escalating series of confrontations in Kosovo beginning roughly in December starting with individual killings until we got to December 24th when there was a real major battle that lasted for four days around the town of Podujevo. Since then there have been other incidents, individual killings, plus a fairly large ambush of Kosovo Liberation Army rebels up on the Albanian Kosovo border. And I think that Mr. Milosevic was seeing himself not only having an opportunity to take some action, but seeing an opportunity to get tough, an opportunity to show his people who are suffering under unprecedented economic crises right now, an opportunity that he can take matters into his own hands, that he can defy the international community. And when police went in to the small village on Friday, apparently they were looking for the killer of a policeman. Though we saw what the results of that have been, which is another massacre in Kosovo. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Mr. Landay, what are your sources telling you about that massacre? What happened?
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| Kosovo massacre. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now the Serbian government says that these were either -- that these were basically guerrillas that they were fighting against, or they also seem to be saying that this was a massacre set up by the guerrillas to make the Serbs look bad. JONATHAN LANDAY: Yes, indeed. There are a number of different versions coming out of Belgrade, one being that these people were victims of a major battle between the police and the Kosovo Liberation Army. They're also saying that the Kosovo Liberation Army staged this, put their bodies of their own dead there. But I don't think there's any disputing of what the verifiers themselves saw, which was in addition to mostly old men having been killed, there was at least one woman and one small child. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Mr. Hooper, it was for saying that this was an action carried out by Serbian security forces that William Walker, who is an American who is head of an international monitoring mission is apparently about to be kicked out. Is that right? JAMES HOOPER: That's right. He spoke honestly and directly after he went down there. He saw the bodies. He said that this is a Serbian massacre, Serbian-sponsored massacre, and for that, and a week earlier he had also said here at a press conference in Washington that most of the violations are the responsibility of the Serbs. And I think for this -- for telling the truth, for speaking out, he has been removed from this position by Mr. Milosevic. But what Mr. Milosevic is saying is that he is not going to allow the verifiers, the monitors to do their job. And the trouble now is for NATO -- in order for NATO to intervene forcefully, the verifiers have going to have to be removed because otherwise there are going to be six or seven hundred potential hostages out there. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Mr. Hunter, how would they be removed? There are some NATO troops in Macedonia right next to Kosovo who are there to do that. Will they have to come in and get them out? ROBERT HUNTER: Well, if it were a matter of removing the verifiers,
and I think that that's something that should be contemplated this week,
it's not that far for them to get out of country. There is a NATO extraction
force in |
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| Difficult options. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Jonathan Landay, when you look at this situation now, what do you see as the options? JONATHAN LANDAY: I think that it's a very difficult choice, but again, NATO credibility is on the line here. Plus, Mr. Milosevic has been putting in very slowly troops that he was forced to take out under the air strike threat in October. And this itself is a direct -- calling directly NATO's credibility into question. Mr. Milosevic it has long been said only understands one thing, and that's the use of force. He has responded in the past to threats of the use of force and to the use of force by NATO in Bosnia, and perhaps this is another occasion where that is required. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Landay, how strong is the Kosovo Liberation Army right now the K.L.A. -- which we should say is fighting for independence from Serbia and Serbia is the largest part of Yugoslavia. JONATHAN LANDAY: My understanding is that after taking it on the chin
pretty heavily over the summer, that they're in fairly good shape once
again. And when I say ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And James Hooper, given all this, what do you see as the options for ending the fighting and ending the massacres? JAMES HOOPER: Well, it all boils down to a test of presidential leadership here. The president has to be prepared to actually use force, not just threaten it. That's not going to carry any weight any longer. And what he needs to do is aim at getting all of the Serbian police forces out of Kosovo, and most of the military forces -- I think symbolic military forces could be left there - and then impose a political settlement -- an autonomy agreement that would give the Kosovo Albanians, as Ambassador Hunter said, most of what they had in 1989 before Mr. Milosevic took it away. And I think that would for five years, an interim agreement - and I think that would be enough in order to stabilize the region. This is, as I say, this is a real test of American leadership. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, thank you all three very much. |
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Kosovan
village. It's just days after the massacre here of dozens of ethnic
Albanians. The Kosovo verification mission could only look on. They're
in the breakaway province to monitor the fragile U.S.-brokered cease-fire
between Serb government forces and rebels. The deal was agreed to by
Serbs October under threat of NATO air strikes, but it now appears to
have crumbled. 
guerrillas.
They came heavily armed. Fighting had broken out in Racak on Sunday
when Serb experts tried to enter the village with a police escort, despite
the warnings of monitors. The discovery of the mutilated bodies of 45
ethnic Albanians in a gully outside the village has raised tensions
in the region. While Serb forces claim the killings followed a fire
fight with rebels, villagers say the men, women, and a exiled were murdered
cold blood. NATO has led international condemnation, but on Monday Serb
forces moved an antiaircraft gun into position and fired on Racak. The
verification officers said the Serbs seemed determined to attack and
destroy ethnic Albanians villages.
LOUISE
ARBOUR: It is therefore not clear who is responsible for that, but it's
very clear who is preventing us from ascertaining the truth.
JAMES
HOOPER, Balkan Action Council: Well, this strikes at the heart of NATO's
credibility of the standing of the war crimes tribunal, of the cease-fire
agreement negotiated between Mr. Holbrooke and Mr. Milosevic in October,
and of the leadership of the United States. What's going on is that
Mr. Milosevic, Serbia's strong man, believes that with President Clinton
focused on defending his presidency, that he will -- he is distracted
from organizing and leading NATO to implement the threat that NATO has
made to Serbia to stop these kinds of attacks. 
ROBERT
HUNTER, RAND: I don't think it really is connected with what's happening
here in Washington. I do think it is connected to the very weak agreement
that was reached last October on the cease-fire, which was really an
opportunity to buy time. Unfortunately I don't think the time has been
used wisely in the last two-and-a-half months. 
JONATHAN
LANDAY: Apparently, the police went into this village where there was
a stronghold of the Kosovo Liberation Army. They refused to allow the
verifying mission in. They refused to allow journalists in. And as soon
as they were able to get in, they discovered the bodies of the massacre
victims. And there does seems to be a discrepancy on the numbers. Officially
we're hearing 45, but there are some estimates that put it as high as
80. 
Macedonia
that is designed to bring out the verifiers if there were hostile action.
But frankly if there were hostile action, that wouldn't be much comfort.
I think what needs to happen now is two NATO officials are going out
there, the two generals need to give one last warning to Mr. Milosevic
and then sometime very shortly, and I would say about 48 to 72 hours,
if Serbian behavior doesn't change, then NATO needs to implement its
air strike decision. Now I don't think that will happen. I think most
of the allies would rather not do that. A number of them are arguing
that the Kosovo Liberation Army is provoking this kind of matter. Essentially
the problem is that there is no basic understanding in the alliance
of exactly how people want this to come out. Those who worry about the
K.L.A. say we just get an independence. We have a war in nearby Macedonia.
And nobody -- nobody in the alliance is at this point willing to take
the big risks of putting troops on the ground. And I fear that if NATO's
going to redeem its credibility, not only does it have to be prepared
to use air strikes, but possibly also put troops on the ground at some
point in the next several weeks. 
take
it on the chin, I mean that they were forced to pull out of positions,
about 40 percent of Kosovo, that they had controlled. But my understanding
is that they did not suffer that big losses in that offensive that lasted
seven months by the Serbs. In fact, most of the victims seem to have
been civilians. My understanding is that perhaps as many as 120, 130
guerrillas were killed, but since then, they have re-consolidated. My
understanding is they have re-appointed regional commanders, that they
have obtained new weapons, including anti-tank rockets, that they have
mended fences with a rival militia and have joined forces with them.
And I think that you're going to see them fighting more of a classic
guerrilla war than what we saw last summer, which was basically them
plus a large number of their supporters trying to hold territory.