ULTIMATUM

October 7, 1998
	NATO is preparing to strike the armed forces of Serbia, the main political unit of Yugoslavia, to stop attacks on Albanian rebels and civilians in Kosovo. Margaret Warner discusses the military showdown and diplomatic efforts to avoid it with Yugoslavia's ambassador to the UN and a Kosovo Albanian leader.

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	JIM LEHRER: Robert Moore of Independent Television News begins the Kosovo story.
	NATO readies military force.
	ROBERT MOORE: On a military level NATO forces are already in position in Italy and in the Mediterranean, ready to launch air strikes on Serb targets. But politically the western alliance is now struggling to overcome internal differences over how best to act. Much depends on the last ditch diplomatic effort by the American envoy Richard Holbrooke, who all afternoon has been meeting with the Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. The atmosphere is said to be grim, but some said forces clearly have pulled back from the battlefield of Kosovo. But as they were filmed leaving, the question remains whether this is enough to satisfy UN demands for a complete withdrawal and cease-fire. The British prime minister, who's visiting China, says the threat of force is essential. TONY BLAIR: People like myself have been saying for a long period of time now if we don't act or threaten to act, then President Milosevic will simply take no notice of us. ROBERT MOORE: The humanitarian situation remains serious. Some 30,000 Kosovan refugees are believed to be living without shelter, as winter approaches and as NATO engages in a last-minute debate on the wisdom of military action. JIM LEHRER: And to Margaret Warner. MARGARET WARNER: Since Correspondent Moore filed that piece, Ambassador Holbrooke ended his negotiations in Belgrade and left for Brussels. He and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright planned to meet there tomorrow with NATO officials. Albright's spokesman said earlier today that there's no final consensus yet among NATO nations on how to proceed. We're joined now by Yugoslavia's ambassador to the United Nations, Vladislav Jovanovic. And welcome, Mr. Ambassador. What can you tell us about the outcome of today's meeting between your president and Ambassador Holbrooke? Did they come to any kind of agreement?
	An willingness to negiotiate.
	VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC, UN Ambassador, Yugoslavia: It's too early for me to learn more about that, but the fact is that we have been very cooperative in relations to the request of the last Security Council resolution. We have complied with practically everything, and there is no, any reason for any action for military threat against Yugoslavia. We also have offered a lot of proof of our goodwill and political readiness to solve the issue of Kosovo peacefully and through dialogue. We have not only ceased any fighting there, which the other side didn't, but we have withdrawn all anti-terrorist forces, called special police. We have withdrawn the army in their barracks. We have increased the number of the humanitarian centers from 12 to 16, and they are very active there. We have offered the full amnesty to all Albanians who have been involved in the terrorist groups, except those who are responsible for the crimes. We have also repeated our call to Mr. Waller and his team to resume talks, but unfortunately, we got the answer that we before resuming talks the air strikes of NATO should be realized. So - MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Ambassador, just to interrupt you, you were referring to the Kosovo-Albanian leadership there, you're saying, that they didn't want to engage in talks. I just wanted to identify that for our viewers. Let me ask you this. Do you take the NATO threat of air strikes seriously? VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: Of course. We do it. Only the sane man can say that he doesn't do it - but we also know very well that there is no, any justified reason for that. There is no - anything which can present us as a guilty side. The opposite us - we have the side which is very cooperative. We are part of the solution, not of the problem. The other side is unfortunately a part of the problem, but it seems that there is no readiness from NATO side to sit and to admit it. MARGARET WARNER: Let me ask you - you said that you had complied with the resolutions. NATO officials and UN officials say you haven't. They say thousands of Yugoslavian troops, the special forces, remain in Kosovo, for instance, and that the military police and others have not been withdrawn to the barracks. Are you saying they're completely wrong on that point? VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: I will say it depends on what is expected from us to do. If it is expected to evacuate that integral part of Serbia from any meaningful security forces, then it is - this is not to be expected to be realized, because we don't want to abdicate from the serenity of the best part of our country. But if it is expected that the special police, the anti-terrorist police, be removed and we can say with absolute certainty that that police was withdrawn, then there is not any other member of that police in Kosovo now. The army pulled back in the barracks, but nobody can expect us to pull the army entirely from the Kosovo region. MARGARET WARNER: Let me ask you a question about - excuse me for a minute - I just lost my train of thought - oh, about - you said that all the operations have ended. Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, said in a report just to the Security Council yesterday they hadn't ended. Again, we have this big gap between what your government says and what the UN has found. He said that the - he called it a campaign of terror and violence against civilians is continuing. VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: The fact is that in the last seven days or eight days there have no - any operation from our side. But the fact also is that there were operations from terrorist side and unfortunately from the side of The Republic of Albania. As a result of that, we suffered some severe cruelties. Seven policemen were killed in the various actions staged by the terrorist groups, and six of our soldiers guarding the frontiers lost their lives as a result of the infiltration of 60 armed terrorists from Albania into Kosovo.
	Charges that Serbia attacked civilians are denied.
	MARGARET WARNER: Can you explain something else, Mr. Ambassador, to our viewers, which is why any military operations have been mounted against civilians. Again, Secretary-General Annan talked about people were burned out of their homes, driven out of their homes, their livestock killed. There are some 250- or 300,000 displaced people now. Why is - why has the civilian population even come under any attack from your forces? VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: First of all, there is not any action or repression against civilians by our forces. Our operation there exclusively centered and concentrated against terrorists and their accomplices - it is possible that some collateral damages could happen, and some civilians could be a reality, but it has never been done intentionally. It has never been part of our policy. On the other side, a number of civilians were killed by the terrorists, themselves -- those who were loyal to Yugoslavia and those who refused to take arms against their own country. On the other side the practice of the terrorists were to deprive all those civilians from their identity cards - to give them arms by force and to put them outside of the villages in order to stage a picture for the foreign media. I would like to cite one very clear example-10 days ago the village - if I remember well - Resnick - was emptied from the people and as a result some thousand of civilians were seen in the woods by one international observer. When others, foreigners were invited to track it, they haven't seen a single civilian in the woods because they all retired back in the village. It has been done purposely for the foreign media. MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Mr. Ambassador, we have a very few - couple of minutes left. I just want to ask you to go back to now Amb. Holbrooke's mission and so on. The proposal he apparently was carrying with him would have you grant limited autonomy to the Kosovo Albanians for a couple of years, a kind of cooling off period for, I don't know, two to five years. No final decision made on the status of Kosovo but meanwhile military operations would cease on both sides. Would you amenable to that? VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: First of all, we have been close for the year of giving autonomy to Albanian countrymen. Even the present constitution offers the opportunity to Kosovo in the [unintelligible] region - as it is the case with an order - a region - but - the Albanians is the only nationality of Yugoslavia which rejected that offer and preferred to play the role of the victim, expecting the sympathy from international community and mobilization of the tension from outside in order to justify their only objective, which is to get independence to destroy Serbia and Yugoslavia. Now we have already offered Serb government an autonomy which means full culture autonomy - which is already the case - full territorial autonomy and full representation of Albanians at all levels, including the level of Republican Federation. We are ready to discuss the statutes of the whole region with representatives of Albanian political parties, but we are not willing to discuss anything, because they know that they cannot get their result - to achieve their results from dialogue. We are not trading it to give them independence - international community is not ready to support them, so they are oriented toward aggravating the situation on the ground toward making matters worse in order to invite and justify one international military intervention. MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much. That's all the time we have.
	A Kosovo Albanian leader responds.
	MARGARET WARNER: With me now is Dr. Bujar Bukoshi, who holds the post of prime minister in the self-declared government of the Republic of Kosovo. He's in Washington meeting with members of Congress and administration officials. Welcome, Dr. Bukoshi. From the body language, from what the ambassador said, and from the news accounts, it appears that there is no agreement between Mr. Holbrooke and President Milosevic. What should happen now? BUJAR BUKOSHI, Kosovo Albanian Leader: I have no idea what will happen now, but I know as long as the Serbian regime is continuing to behave in such way I don't think any perspective and the improvement of the situation - and secondly, I have to stress that at this moment we are facing genocide in Europe in the Balkans and the only thing that is necessary to do is to stop, to finally stop, the Serbian regime. MARGARET WARNER: Do you want to see NATO air strikes? BUJAR BUKOSHI: Yes. And I think this is the only way now to stop genocide. This is one of the biggest challenge after Second World War after three wars in the former Yugoslavia provoked by Serbian regime to stop genocide and to create an atmosphere and climate it to continue with the negotiating process. MARGARET WARNER: What do you think - how would air strikes really prevent or stop the killing? Explain that? BUJAR BUKOSHI: It's - in my opinion - it's very - relatively easy because until now Milosevic manipulated the international community, promising things and continuing to give the same methods by killing Albanians and massacring the defenseless population in Kosovo, and now if NATO acts - and I am glad that the US policy finally accepted that - the only the way to stop Milosevic and the slaughtering in Kosovo is to use the force. MARGARET WARNER: Do you believe that NATO will carry out this threat? BUJAR BUKOSHI: I still don't know, because unfortunately there is still no consensus about this acting now, but I think if the international - the international community don't act now, we will face - with new additive complications and Milosevic will be more stronger and more - more arrogant as we see through his ambassador by manipulating and saying - talking only hypocrisy and, by the way, for Mr. Milosevic, talking is cheap. MARGARET WARNER: You heard the ambassador say that as far as they're concerned, they have complied with the important resolutions. They've withdrawn the special forces, the attacks or operations on civilians have ended. What information do you have about that situation? BUJAR BUKOSHI: During this interview with you we get information that Serbian artillery is shelling Albanian villages in Kosovo today now in this moment, so I have to use this word - lie - is characteristics of Serbians - as all statements - all what Serbian officials state and say is manipulating, hypocrisy, and lying.
	Is a negotiated peace possible?
	MARGARET WARNER: As you know, in the UN resolution it does also call on both your leadership and the Yugoslav leadership to sit down and begin talking. The ambassador said it's the Kosovo leadership that doesn't want to talk and there are many news accounts that say the same thing. Is that the case? Why not? Why not negotiate? BUJAR BUKOSHI: We are ready to negotiate, and we asked during this long nine years and negotiations political solution to talk with Belgrade about the problem of Kosovo but until now Serbia didn't show any interest and rejected everything even to talk about Kosovo and now - during this recent days - Serbia is trying again to manipulate and to postpone using of air strikes and to continue next day or next week with the same things. MARGARET WARNER: Now, you heard the ambassador say that your leadership has tried to manipulate the western press by encouraging some of these refugees to stay in the woods so their pictures can be taken and so on. BUJAR BUKOSHI: I have to say this is also a cynicism. How could Albanians be happy to have destroyed Kosovo more than 400,000 Albanian refugees, more than - more than 500 destroyed Albanian villages have to ask or to play a victim? We would be very happy to - not to do anything with the Serbian regime, and this is the reason why the Albanians cannot imagine to remain under Serbian rule, because we always had the very bad experience with the Serbian regimes, and now we have - we are facing - we have the fascism in Europe and with the genocidal politics, policy and this is why the international community is morally obliged to act to stop this and to make possible negotiations. MARGARET WARNER: If President Milosevic pulls back the forces either because of the threat of strikes or because of strikes, then would the Kosovo leadership commit or promise that the Kosovar military groups, the KLA, would not turn around and attack Serbs in the region? BUJAR BUKOSHI: No. First of all, in Kosovo, there - we have never inter-ethnic conflict. We have no problems with the Serbs, who are living in Kosovo. During centuries we were together we had problems with the Serbian regime conducted by Belgrade and sending special units, and criminals like Arkan and also people from Republika Srbska now - an army killing civilians - so we have no problem with the Serbs, and we are ready to talk about any solution in which Serbian - Serb population in Kosovo will never feel a handicap because it belongs to another nation, because we have - we know what is repression, what is apartheid, and we will not repeat the same game from other side. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Thanks, Dr. Bukoshi. Thanks very much. BUJAR BUKOSHI: Thank you.

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