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| AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE | |
 October 14, 1998 
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Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to the Balkans, discusses the recent peace agreement in Kosovo. Also, participate in an Online Forum on the topic.
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JIM LEHRER: The interview with special Kosovo envoy Richard Holbrooke.
I talked with him this afternoon. JIM LEHRER: Mr. Ambassador, welcome. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: It's a pleasure to be here, Jim. JIM LEHRER: Are you optimistic today, 24 hours or so later, about the arrangement you made with President Milosevic? |
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A cause for optimism? |
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That air campaign of non-combat surveillance will be conducted, of course, by NATO, but interestingly enough, Jim, the Russians have asked about the possibility of participating in it. On the ground, over 2000 international verifiers in civilian clothes will be there under the auspices of the OSCE - this 54-nation organization based in Vienna. OSCE has never done anything like this before, but we're going to make sure it's for real. These people will be able to go anywhere they want in the country - in Kosovo. JIM LEHRER: Who are these 2000 people? AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Anyone who wants to sign up should send their application to the OSCE in Vienna. You know, every time I go around this country speaking, every time I appear on your show, I get letters from people who did the same kind of thing in Bosnia and said they'd like to do it again, send their resumes to them. JIM LEHRER: So you don't have to be a trained diplomat or a military person or anything like that, huh?
Today I talked to the French and British foreign ministers and Secretary Albright also did, and we talked to the head of NATO, Solana. They're all -- Solana is getting ready to go to Belgrade within 48 hours to sign the air surveillance agreement. The head of OSCE, Foreign Minister Geremek of Poland, will go there to sign their agreement, and then we want to put these people into Kosovo to verify and comply. Meanwhile, their initial report put them in further drawdowns, so -- JIM LEHRER: Drawdowns by the Serbs of their troops and police, right? AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Yes. So going back to your question about optimism and pessimism, all I can say is that three years ago we ended the war in Bosnia using NATO air power, and I hope that history will record that this week we started the turnaround in Kosovo with the threat but not the use of NATO air power -- but to stress to your viewers, the threat was real, and will remain in force as and if necessary. JIM LEHRER: Give us a feel for what it was like to sit with Milosevic for -- How many hours altogether were you with him over these last nine days? |
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Marathon talks. |
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AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I didn't add it up but on the day before yesterday it was 11 hours alone. Yesterday we had a nice short meeting, only two hours and as I went over the final arrangements for our announcements. But I've spent a lot of time with them. With the exception of the last two days of Dayton, this was far and away the most difficult situation.
AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Yes. That was 21 fun-filled days. JIM LEHRER: Yes. AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: But this one was not. This one was really difficult. It was heated and emotional at times. Kosovo is far more important to President Milosevic than Kosovo - excuse me - let me rephrase --- I'm a little tired here. Kosovo is far more important to Milosevic than Bosnia was, because it's inside Yugoslavia. Bosnia was an adjoining country. It was heated at times, it was emotional at times, but in the end, we made a set of arrangements which I think give us the chance of compliance with these UN resolutions. And then we can turn to the core problem, which is the political situation. JIM LEHRER: Give us a feel for the heat and the emotion that was inside the room at times between the two of you. AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, you know, I'm trying to think of anecdotes. We have a rule not to disclose confidential things, but let me just give you an example. On the third day -- the first three days were unbelievably difficult. And I wasn't sure how we were going to emerge from this. I made it clear that bombing was likely. We moved the B-52's forward from the United States to the United Kingdom, and we moved carriers in the Adriatic.
JIM LEHRER: When was it that you realized that Milosevic realized this was -- this threat of an air strike - of air strikes -- was real? AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I don't know that. You know, my colleagues in Washington - Madeleine Albright - Sandy Berger - others -- Bill Cohen - asked me the same question repeatedly when we had our secure phone conversations. We would go into this little telephone booth with all sorts of detective devices to guard against listening and have these calls to Washington in the middle of the night. Two nights ago we were on the phone with them till 5: 30 in the morning. And then when we got to the hotel, there were 30 journalists waiting for us. And that question was asked. And I don't know the answer. But it was real, and I think that you just put together the package and make sure that it's understood.
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Profile of President Milosevic.
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AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I think power motivates him. He's very smart. He's very tough. I think there's a great deal of cynicism there. I know that many people have described him as an extreme nationalist. That is not my view. I think he's more opportunistic than nationalistic. There are people to the right of him - Seselj -- Karadzic in the region - who are real fascist racists. I think this is a different equation. He's extraordinarily dangerous and will take advantage of any opportunity to gain something. But I also want to say that I'm not into making a moral judgment at this time about somebody with whom I've had to negotiate. My job was to negotiate with them. And I want to just add one more point, Jim, particularly since you know my wife, Kati. She wrote a book, which was very influential in my thinking, about Raul Wallenberg. Wallenberg negotiated with Eichmann to save 300,000 people. Eichmann was surely one of the most evil men, to use your word, ever in Europe in this century, but Wallenberg's theory, which I fully subscribe to, was it's better to negotiate with a person to save lives still alive than to refuse to. And, I therefore have no qualms about doing things which I think will ultimately help the Albanians in Kosovo who have been treated so badly by the Serbs in Belgrade and in Kosovo. JIM LEHRER: Did you leave there feeling that Milosevic did what he did because he was forced to do it, and that had you had not come and essentially threatened him, held a gun to his head, he would not have done this?
JIM LEHRER: The 250,000 people who have been displaced, Albanians, ethnic Albanians have been displaced because of this. AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I think more than that. JIM LEHRER: Is it more than that? At least 250,000, 300,000, whatever. Are those people really going to be allowed now to return to their homes and live in safety and comfort? |
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The Albanian refugees.
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AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Most of them are out of the forests and out of the hills that they went into during the summer because if the weather deteriorated, most of them came back into the lower lands and took up residence. But a lot of them are living with relatives or friends or camping out somewhere; their own houses have been destroyed. The current U.N. estimate is that the number of people still out in the open is between ten and fifty thousand. That's a lot, but it's going down every day, and one of the good news events of today is that the U.N. - based on the suspension of the activation order - the U.N. has gone back in there, is starting the humanitarian supply again. But the key thing is to let the people go back not just to get out of the forest but to get into their original homes. And a lot of these homes have been destroyed. And Milosevic said to me - look -- I said to Milosevic the international community should not pay for this, you should, you caused it. He said, fine. He said, I've sent cement and bricks and mortar around and the Albanians can come pick it up, and I said to Milosevic, but, look, you - you put them at the Serb supply, the Serb checkpoints - so that the Albanians are scared to come and get the bricks and mortar, and if they come in, the Serbs have this paraffin test where they put a paraffin test on your arm to see if you've been near gun powder, and if the paraffin test, which isn't always accurate, tests positive, they pick you up as a terrorist. So -- JIM LEHRER: Is he going to stop that? AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, the paraffin test only is valid for 72 hours, and the fighting has been over now for about eight or ten days, but the paraffin test - you know, it was terrorizing the Albanians. So -
AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: The paraffin test is over -- JIM LEHRER: But what about the rest? AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: The supplies are still in Serb control -- checkpoints, and that's one of the things we want the U.N. and after them the OSCE to work on. JIM LEHRER: So there's a lot to be done? AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Oh, God, I mean, it's immense, but it's not up to us today to know whether this is the turning point, but I'll tell you something - because you and I did the same interviews at the time of Dayton - history will tell whether it works out or not, but I got a feeling that maybe we're seeing the bottoming out of the emergency and the beginning of an attempt to address the crisis. The crisis is the future of Kosovo within Yugoslavia, and we're only scratching the surface of that one today. JIM LEHRER: Okay. Well, thank you very much. Get some rest. You've earned it. AMB. RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Thanks, Jim. |
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AMB.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Optimism is a word I never use in this area. Let
me just be clear on what happened. When we left for the region nine
days ago -- when the President and Sec. Albright asked us to go out
there -- we were on a glide path towards a war, an aerial war to be
sure, but the bombers were getting ready, the fighters were at Aviano
fueling up, and NATO was getting ready to issue an activation order,
and I really thought that the odds were overwhelming that we were going
to have to use force. We gave Milosevic a choice between the use of
force and a very strict compliance and verification regime. And after
nine of the toughest days imaginable, Milosevic agreed to two verification
regimes, a very intrusive aerial surveillance system, which NATO will
conduct; Milosevic's air force will have to turn off its radar. They
will have to put their anti-aircraft in cold storage, and there will
be a safety buffer zone. 
AMB.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: God, I hate to say this in front of my friends in
the State Department who - who were so wonderful in this negotiation,
but, hey, you don't have a diplomat to be a verifier. These are people
who are going to live in towns and villages in Kosovo. They're going
to be guaranteed their safety. But we'll have an emergency extraction
campaign, if necessary, planned, and an over-the-horizon capability.
They're going to be there to verify, to conduct elections, as we move
forward in the political process and so on. But I want to be clear -
Kosovo was and remains a crisis. Inside the crisis we hit an emergency
over the use of force to stop this dreadful thing that had happened
in Kosovo over the summer in which you and I have talked before and
on which you've reported. We can now see a route to end the emergency,
although the activation order was passed two nights ago in Brussels
by NATO, and it's still in effect but suspended while we wait for compliance.
JIM
LEHRER: Dayton is when you were negotiating Bosnia, right? 
On
the third or fourth day my memory is a little vague right now, we added
to our delegation Lt. General Mike Short, the U.S. and NATO commander
of air forces in Southern Europe. General Short, who is a very tough,
no-nonsense airman, with 240 missions in Vietnam under his belt, came
in and I introduced him to Milosevic and Milosevic leaned forward in
characteristic fashion and said - opening line - said, "So, General,
you're the man who's going to bomb us" - was his first line -- and Mike
Short was momentarily taken aback, but he came right back at him and
said, Mr. President, I've got B-52's in one hand, I've got U-2's in
the other - I'm going to be ordered to use one of the two of them, I
hope you make the right choice, but I'll do whatever I'm told. That
kind of leveled the playing field, and Milosevic knew he was up against
the real thing. I think Mike Short's presence in those negotiations
-- General Short's presence was really important.
JIM
LEHRER: Now, you've spent all this time with Milosevic - you've spent
time with him before - it's not the first time you've spent some intense
moments with this. What's he like? Is he an evil man trying to do evil
things? Or is he - do you have any understanding beyond - of him or
understanding of why he feels the way he does and does what he does?
AMB.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, the short answer to your question is yes. But
I don't want to personalize this into the second person singular. It
wasn't me. It was a team in Belgrade, including General Short, including
Amb. Chris Hill, who continues the negotiations now with the Albanians,
which is still the crux of the problem. We have to deal with the realities
of the refugees, of the political debasement of the process, of the
need to hold the elections and get the local Albanian police up and
running and get the Serb security police out of the Albanian hair, and
we were backed up by all of NATO, by the whole contact group, by the
OSCE, even the Russians, and back in Washington the determination of
the president and of his national security team, including Madeleine
Albright, Bill Cohen, Sandy Berger, I mean these guys were around the
clock on the weekend. They were in the office at 6:00 AM for the meeting
with us on the phone - we must have spent almost as much time on the
phone as we did with Milosevic. So it was a team effort, and we were
in constant contact with the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany.
Madeleine Albright and I went to Brussels and London together in the
middle of it, as you reported. So it was an extraordinary effort. 
JIM
LEHRER: That's over now, right? 
