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As ethnic Albanians and Serbs continue to do battle in Kosovo, diplomats from several nations attempt to halt the conflict. U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke told Jim Lehrer that while diplomats remain optimistic, the situation in Kosovo is still "very dangerous."
JIM LEHRER: War and peace in Kosovo as seen by special U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke. I talked with him this afternoon.
A RealAudio version of this segment is available.
NEWSHOUR LINKS:
Online Forum
Read an Online Forum on the crisis in Kosovo.
June 18, 1998
Defense Sec. Cohen discusses the crisis in Kosovo.
June 12, 1998
NATO increases pressure on the Yugoslav government.
June 5, 1998
Albanian Kosovar leaders call off talks with the Serbian government.
March 9, 1998
Fighting between Serbian security forces and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo leaves scores dead.
April 1, 1997
Civil war spreads over Albania
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Bosnia, and Europe.
OUTSIDE LINKS:
NATO.
The U.S. Department of State.
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Web site.
JIM LEHRER: Ambassador Holbrooke, welcome.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: A pleasure to be here, Jim.
JIM LEHRER: Are there any significant developments today on the Kosovo situation?
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Not that would change anything in a fundamental way. I think the big development the last two days was that after years of obstruction, the government in Belgrade agreed to an international diplomatic observer mission, which we organized together with the Russians and the British, and which went out yesterday for the first time flags flying and media trailing them to start visiting the area.
And now they're settling down into a routine, and we're going to have over 100 people on the ground from many different countries within a few days. And I hope that sends a signal of reassurance to the people of Kosovo that the world is not turning its back on them.
A meaningful trip?
JIM LEHRER: We ran some tape from that trip last night in our News Summary. Why is that significant? Why does that matter?
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I don't know if your tape-or your viewers noticed it, but there was a car with the US and Russian flags.
JIM LEHRER: Yes. I saw that.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: It matters because the Albanian leadership has been begging for international attention for years. And the Yugoslav leadership has said no international observers. But Yeltsin and Milosevic worked out a communiqué which agreed to diplomats going down there. We saw a little opening. We expanded it into a large international observer group. I worked directly with the Russian vice foreign minister on this. We went down ourselves two days ago to set this up, and it got going yesterday. And I'm real pleased with it. On the other hand, Jim, I don't want to mislead you-it is not going to solve the problem, but it does show again how deeply concerned the international community is, and we're involved.
The international community "deeply concerned" about Kosovo.
JIM LEHRER: All right. What is going to solve the problem?
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: There are two parameters to this problem, if you'll excuse the dreadful jargon word, parameters. On one hand, Kosovo is not Bosnia. It is not an independent country, and the international community cannot support the desire of the people-no matter how heartfelt-to be independent.
JIM LEHRER: You're talking about the ethnic Albanians who are 90 percent of the population.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: That's right. And they want to be an independent country, perfectly understandably. There are peoples like that all over the world-Timor, Tibet, the Kurds-who seek sovereignty, but history and boundaries have trapped them. And in this case, although I have total sympathy for their goals, if they were to achieve them by force, as they're now seeking to do, they would create a general war in the region. And the international communities won't support them. So that's one side of the equation.
"History and boundaries have trapped them."
JIM LEHRER: Now, have you said that, what you just said, to them, that we cannot support you-
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Yes.
JIM LEHRER: --and if you do that, you're going to cause a larger war?
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Yes. President Clinton said it directly to Dr. Rugiva, the major politician and political leader in Kosovo, when they met on May 29th, at the White House. Everyone said it. The contact group will reaffirm it when they meet in Germany tomorrow. On the other side-that's the Albanian side-now let's talk about the Yugoslav or Serb side--here-I said a moment ago Kosovo isn't Bosnia--but Milosevic is still Milosevic. This problem was caused--
JIM LEHRER: And he's the president of Yugoslavia.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: He still is.
JIM LEHRER: Right.
The root of the problem.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: In my view this problem was caused by over a decade of the Serbs and the Yugoslavs withdrawing the rights and privileges of the Kosovo-Albanian people, the 90 percent of the population, as you correctly said a moment ago. And as a result, the Albanians in Kosovo disenfranchised a rising up. We think it is essential that there be a change in the status of Kosovo within the international boundaries of Yugoslavia.
So to manage this peacefully under the extremely dangerous conditions we're now facing--we're in a crisis on the edge of an emergency, and we are fully engaged--unlike Bosnia, where we kind of turned our back for the first few years. We've got this observer mission. And NATO is making contingency plans. Sanctions are being tightened on the Yugoslavs. But I would be misleading you if I said that anyone should be optimistic right now, because the situation is extremely dangerous.
JIM LEHRER: Taking them one at a time, is Milosevic willing to sit down and talk to the ethnic Albanians about a solution?
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Yes. I saw President Milosevic the day before yesterday, and he reaffirmed his readiness to negotiate with the Albanians. But because Milosevic and the government in Belgrade have degraded the political process in Kosovo for a decade, there's no legitimate Kosovo Albanian leadership anymore in the eyes of many of its own participants.
We work with the support and Dr. Rugiva, Ibraham Rugiva, who supports a peaceful and non-violent solution. But he is not universally accepted as the only leader of the Albanians. And during the last few days in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, I encountered a wide number of Albanian leaders who simply don't want to work in the united front with him. The in-fighting among the Kosovo-Albanians, which is tragic, is a direct function of what they've been through in the last decade, and meanwhile, you have out in the mountains, in the center of Kosovo, you have a military insurrection that is taking shape, backed by the members of the Albania Diaspora in Germany, Switzerland, and right here in New York City, where a lot of Albanians and Albanian-Americans are sending a lot of money and support to Kosovo.
Holbrooke: An independent Kosovo would "unravel Southeastern Europe."
JIM LEHRER: And they want an independent Kosovo ruled by Albanians, right?
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Yes. And more. I met with several Albanian leaders in Kosovo who said their goal is an independent Kosovo, their goal is to recreate the Greater Albania that existed briefly during the 30's and 40's, which includes Albania, Kosovo, and part of Macedonia. That, I can tell you, Jim, would unravel Southeastern Europe and dramatically increase the chances of a general war. And that's why the situation is both not the same as Bosnia and why it's so dangerous.
I really need to stress this point so people do not misunderstand it. The Kosovo Albanians have been very badly treated for over a decade by the Serb minority in Kosovo. Their rights have been denied and the Yugoslav federal constitution was changed to reduce their powers. This was entirely wrong, and it led to the inevitable reaction which we're now seeing. At the same time, the violent solution which is being advocated by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, which is really not an army but a lot of different groups that are gradually forming an infrastructure of resistance, this approach is highly dangerous to stability in the region.
And in the last few days the Kosovo Albanian paramilitary have started to take Serb hostages, including two Serbs who were headed to the American embassy to get their visas to emigrate to the United States. Taking hostages and kidnapping people isn't going to solve this problem.
Comparing the factions.
JIM LEHRER: Help us understand, Mr. Ambassador, what the-how the two forces compare. In other words, what do the Kosovars on the one side have militarily compared with what the Serbs could mount on their side?
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: The Serbs have overwhelming military presence. They have a regular Yugoslav arm and occasionally a very vicious army, which was responsible for and implicated in ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. The Kosovo Albanians are rapidly arming. At the beginning of this year the estimates were only a hundred or two hundred armed men. Now the estimates are three thousand to five thousand and growing rapidly.
But we don't know who their command structure is. We don't know if there's a single leader or multiple leaders. The émigré groups that my colleague, Ambassador Bob Gelbard, met with in Europe a week and a half ago have not proved that they control the men with arms. This is one of the most difficult things. Milosevic, as I said to your earlier question, is ready to negotiate, but who negotiates on the other side? We are having a lot of difficulty finding the right Albanian negotiators on the other side right now, particularly on the military side.
JIM LEHRER: From your perspective-I mean, obviously you would make a recommendation to the contact group, to the President of the United States and others, but do you think this is serious enough that in order to prevent this thing from blowing up out of hand that US troops, and coupled with other NATO troops, might have to go in there?
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Jim, that's an issue that only the President, our commander in chief, can decide for the United States. I have no authority on that issue.
JIM LEHRER: Sure.
Holbrooke's role.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I'm advising them as a private citizen right now, and I'm happy to do so whenever I can help Secretary Albright or the White House. But I would only reiterate what Madeleine Albright has repeatedly said and Sandy Berger, that all options are under consideration in a very dangerous situation; and secondly, what General Clark and Ambassador Gelbard have recently said, which is what the NATO contingency plans, themselves, are being refined and focused and narrowed, and made more precise. But the decisions on actual movement, deployment, use of force, I think it would be very premature to speculate, and only the President can decide.
JIM LEHRER: And meanwhile, you're going to try to resolve it peacefully?
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, wouldn't you?
JIM LEHRER: Sure.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I mean, we don't have a general war here. In Bosnia, the US stood aside and did nothing for three or four years and then gradually got into it, and NATO wasn't involved for four years. Here President Clinton and Secretary Albright have launched a full-scale diplomatic effort. And this is being headed not by me, by the way, but by Chris Hill, American Ambassador to Macedonia, who is tonight in Bonn with Ambassador Bob Gelbard at the contact group meeting. Ambassador Hill is the continuous, on-the-ground negotiator. The rest of us help out--as necessary--as useful.
JIM LEHRER: You said you are now operating as a private citizen. Soon, if the Senate confirms, you will be the US Ambassador to the United Nations. Are you going to continue to do these kinds of missions as the UN ambassador?
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, you know, the rules of the process are such that I really am not supposed to discuss anything to do with my UN role. And, in fact, it's fairly unusual for me to be able to do at all this kind of interview but because I was involved in Kosovo before the President nominated me to the UN, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee agreed I could continue the work, but, if you will forgive me, I just can't address anything to do with the confirmation process. If that question is asked by the committee, then I'll be prepared to answer it.
JIM LEHRER: And I'll be prepared to listen to it.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I'm sorry.
JIM LEHRER: No, I understand. I understand. Ambassador Holbrooke, thanks a lot.
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