AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE

October 27, 1998
		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.

Oct. 27, 1998: A discussion of the latest troop withdrawals from Kosovo. Oct. 27, 1998: Charles Krause's background report on the situation in Kosovo. Oct. 14, 1998: U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke discusses the Kosovo crisis. Oct. 12, 1998: NATO prepares for possible air strikes against Serbian forces. Oct. 7, 1998: NATO threatens air strikes against Serbian forces. Oct. 2, 1998: Natonal Security Adviser Samuel Berger discusses the Kosovo crisis. Oct. 1, 1998: Two senators discuss possible U.S. involvement in Kosovo Sept. 23, 1998: A focus on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic Aug. 5, 1998: Charges of ethnic cleansing surface in Kosovo. July 15, 1998: A look at the Kosovo Liberation Army. July 7, 1998: U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke discusses the situation in Kosovo. June 12, 1998: NATO increases pressure on Yugoslavia over Kosovo Read an Online Fourm on the crisis in Kosovo.     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? 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? 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
	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. 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.

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