[Senate Prints 107-4]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
107th Congress S. Prt.
1st Session COMMITTEE PRINT 107-4
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PROGRESS IN THE BALKANS: KOSOVO, SERBIA, AND BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
__________
A REPORT
BY
SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR.
TO THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
FEBRUARY 2001
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
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U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
70-122 CC WASHINGTON : 2001
JESSE HELMS, North Carolina, Chairman
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
BILL FRIST, Tennessee RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia BARBARA BOXER, California
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
BILL NELSON, Florida
Stephen E. Biegun, Staff Director
Edwin K. Hall, Democratic Staff Director
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
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February 9, 2001.
The Honorable Jesse Helms,
Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations.
Dear Mr. Chairman: From January 9 to 15, I traveled to the
Balkans to learn more about the progress of stabilization and
democratization in Kosovo, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina
and to reassess the proper role of the United States in those
developments.
In traveling in the Balkans, I was accompanied by Dr.
Michael Haltzel, Professional Staff Member of the Foreign
Relations Committee, Alan Hoffman, my Chief of Staff, and
Colonel Randy Hutcherson of the U.S. Marine Corps. Our group
was given invaluable assistance by the Embassies of the United
States in Belgrade and Sarajevo, and by the United States
Office in Pristina.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, for several years there has been
spirited debate about our Balkan policy. I return from this
trip convinced that President Bush and Secretary of State
Powell will have to take into consideration three fundamental
facts as they craft U.S. foreign policy toward Southeastern
Europe.
First, the Balkans are not a strategic side-show.
Southeastern Europe remains central to security for the entire
continent and, hence, for the United States.
Second, the kaleidoscope of Balkan peoples with their
distinctive cultures and histories makes it inevitable that
progress toward stable democracies and free-market economies
will be uneven, varying considerably from country to country.
Despite the frustration that many American leaders, with their
penchant for instant solutions, may feel at the gradual pace of
development, we must commit to being engaged for the long haul.
This will require designing and implementing a comprehensive,
activist policy for Southeastern Europe in coordination with
our allies.
Third, such a regional development policy, and continued
U.S. leadership of NATO, both depend upon an American military
presence on the ground in the Stabilization Force (SFOR) in
Bosnia and in the Kosovo Force (KFOR) until the missions are
successfully completed.
President Reagan often spoke of a ``Europe whole and free''
as one of his chief foreign policy goals. This should not be
viewed as merely a slogan. It is simply untenable for Western
Europe to proceed along the path of ever closer union and ever
growing prosperity if Southeastern Europe languishes in
perpetual poverty and ethnic hostility, which periodically
erupts into internecine bloodletting. The massive refugee
movements occasioned by the Balkan wars of the 1990's are only
a prelude to what will happen unless the zone of stability is
extended eastward and southeastward on the continent.
Given the unparalleled web of political, economic, social,
and military ties between the United States and Europe, acute
danger of this spill-over effect is a question of the highest
importance for this country. Critics of Balkan peacekeeping
operations have constructed a false dichotomy between
``humanitarian interventions'' and Realpolitik. In actuality,
the former are relatively low-cost preventative measures, which
if done well, make full-scale military actions, incomparably
more expensive in blood and treasure, unnecessary.
Much media attention has been accorded the ethnic tension
and persistent problems of governance, corruption, and
criminality in Bosnia and Kosovo, and to varying lesser degrees
in other Balkan countries. Even in Kosovo and Bosnia, however,
a new generation of leaders is emerging, which can overcome the
legacy of war crimes, mass murder, and economic catastrophe.
In Pristina and Sarajevo, I met with politicians who
understand that stoking the fires of hatred only mires their
people in misery. They cannot forget the horrors of the 1990's,
but they realize that inter-ethnic cooperation is the sole
viable path to progress. We and our allies must make clear that
our security umbrella and economic assistance will continue to
support Bosnia and Kosovo, but only if they rapidly pick up the
pace of their own domestic reform and, in the case of Bosnia,
the country frees itself from the political and economic
stranglehold of the three nationalist parties.
In formulating its approach to the region, the Bush
Administration also should not neglect significant good news.
The Croatian electorate has decisively repudiated the party of
the late authoritarian President Franjo Tudjman. The new Mesic/
Racan government in Zagreb is courageously confronting the
country's checkered recent history and is attempting to prepare
Croatia for joining democratic Europe.
Last fall the Serbian people rid themselves of the criminal
tyrant Slobodan Milosevic. I met in Belgrade with Yugoslav
President Vojislav Kostunica and Serbian Prime Minister Zoran
Djindjic. We did not agree on every short- or medium-term
tactic that Yugoslavia should pursue, but I came away with the
strong impression that the new government has definitively
rejected the aggressive, xenophobic nationalism of Milosevic,
which brought such ruin to the Serbian people and many of its
neighbors.
My hope--as yet unrealized--is that these two leaders will
begin to educate Serbs about crimes against humanity
perpetrated in their name, an effort that includes cooperating
fully with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia in The Hague.
Mr. Chairman, I believe we should seize the moment to build
upon the important openings in Zagreb and Belgrade by
supporting the new governments with targeted democratization,
technical, and economic assistance as part of, not in
competition with, the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe,
a joint development venture that is more than 95 percent funded
by our Western European allies.
Just as we redouble our efforts in the region's lingering
trouble spots, we should reward national success stories. The
enlargement of NATO in 1999 to include Poland, the Czech
Republic, and Hungary was a critical first step in the process
of extending the zone of stability eastward in Europe. At its
next summit meeting in 2002, NATO should continue the process
by inviting democratic, prosperous Slovenia to become a member.
The peoples of the Balkans must not believe that they are seen
in the West as congenitally incapable of joining the trans-
Atlantic community. If one of their number fulfills the
alliance's stringent requirements for membership, as Slovenia
manifestly has, then it should be welcomed forthwith as a full-
fledged partner.
The southern and eastern Balkans present a different
challenge. Romania, the most strategically important country in
the region, is emerging from last fall's traumatic presidential
choice between a neo-fascist and an ex-communist. It is in our
national interest vigorously to help the Iliescu/Nastase
government in Bucharest reverse the corrupt and anti-reformist
record it compiled in the early 1990's. Under President Petar
Stoyanov and Prime Minister Ivan Kostov, neighboring Bulgaria
has made encouraging political, economic, and social progress,
and it should similarly be assisted in accelerating this trend.
We must also continue to support the impoverished, struggling
democracies in Albania and Macedonia.
None of these measures is possible without the continued
presence of American troops on the ground in SFOR in Bosnia and
KFOR in Kosovo. They are seen by the people in the region as a
litmus test of our genuine commitment to progress in the
Balkans. The two missions together account for little more than
one percent of our defense budget. Moreover, troops of our
European allies already make up approximately four-fifths of
both forces. For our less than one-fifth contribution, we
retain control of both SFOR and KFOR in the person of U.S. Air
Force General Joseph Ralston, Supreme Allied Commander Europe
(SACEUR)--burden-sharing that is highly advantageous to the
United States.
Moreover, at a time when some on the continent are
clamoring to develop the European Union's security and defense
policy independent of NATO, I believe that it would be the
height of folly unilaterally to withdraw our ground troops from
Bosnia or Kosovo. The leading country of NATO cannot just
declare a smorgasbord principle of involvement in alliance
missions already well underway.
Dealing with the Balkans has always been difficult, but the
stakes are too high for us to shy away from the challenge. If
the Bush Administration recognizes the need for continued
engagement in Southeastern Europe, it can expect my support and
the support of many other Members of both parties on Capitol
Hill.
Sincerely,
Joseph R. Biden, Jr.,
Ranking Member.
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Letter of Transmittal............................................ iii
I. Principal Conclusions....................................... 1
II. Observations................................................ 3
III. Roster of Meetings in Kosovo, Serbia, and Bosnia and
Herzegovina.................................................... 12
I. Principal Conclusions
General
1. The Balkans remain central to the security of all of
Europe and, hence, of the United States.
2. Progress toward stable democracies and free-market
economies in the Balkans will be uneven, varying from country
to country. Time is on our side. Within the past year voters in
both Croatia and Serbia have thrown out the parties of their
former authoritarian rulers Franjo Tudjman and Slobodan
Milosevic, democratic and prosperous Slovenia is poised to
enter both NATO and the European Union, and democratic
governments elsewhere in the Balkans have charted reform
courses, which they are trying to carry out.
3. The United States, together with our Western European
allies, must speedily implement the Stability Pact, a
comprehensive development program for Southeastern Europe.
4. This regional development policy, and continued U.S.
leadership of NATO, both depend upon an American military
presence on the ground in the Stabilization Force (SFOR) in
Bosnia and in the Kosovo Force (KFOR) until the missions are
successfully completed.
Kosovo
5. KFOR has done an excellent job at pacifying the
province. Some violence continues, but at a much lower level
than in 1999 and early 2000.
6. It would be a disaster if the U.S. were unilaterally to
pull its troops out of Kosovo or Bosnia. The local populations,
in general, have confidence only in the Americans. Of the
Balkan leaders, only Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica
seems to really trust the West Europeans, and even he is
waiting to see what the U.S. is going to do before he finalizes
his policies.
7. The three leading Albanian Kosovar political figures--
Ibrahim Rugova, Hashim Thaci, and Ramush Haradinaj--have all
called for an end to violence against Kosovo Serbs. Although
they do not have complete control over their people, inter-
ethnic violence has abated.
8. Cooperation between KFOR and UNMIK in Kosovo is far
better than between SFOR and the U.N. Mission in Bosnia.
9. The number of Kosovar police is inadequate. The target
should be closer to 10,000 than to 5,000.
10. There is near-unanimity among Albanian Kosovars that
they want independence, but a decision on the final status of
Kosovo should be postponed until considerably more political
and economic progress is achieved.
11. The Albanian Kosovars are eager for elections at the
provincial level as a chance for them to show that they can
exercise responsibility in government. The elections will
probably be held this fall. The exact timetable may be decided
by Hans Haekkerup, the new Special Representative of the U.N.
Secretary General in Kosovo, who plans to carry out a detailed
process of drafting framework laws as a prerequisite for
holding elections.
Serbia
12. Serbia is currently more concerned with the situation
in Montenegro than with Kosovo. Stopping the ``territorial
dissolution'' of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) is
Belgrade's primary goal at the moment.
13. While Serbia's positions on Montenegro and Kosovo do
not coincide with ours, the Serbian and Yugoslav leaders
(Yugoslav President Kostunica, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran
Djindjic, Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic) ruled out
any use of force to attain their goals.
14. There is a spectrum of views on Kosovo, roughly ranging
from ``Kosovo will remain a part of the FRY'' to ``Kosovo will
remain a de jure part of the FRY, but Belgrade will be unable--
and would not want--to exercise effective control over it.''
15. On the United States, views range from ``we don't like
the U.S. and prefer to deal with Europe, which is prepared to
give us more assistance'' to ``we don't like the U.S. but we're
prepared to work with it'' to ``we are ready to work with the
U.S. and, in particular, we urge Washington to give Kosovo
economic assistance.''
16. The ethnic Albanian guerillas (UCPMB) in the Ground
Security Zone (GSZ) in the Presevo Valley are a serious
irritant, but not a grave military danger to Serbia. The
guerillas are composed of three distinct groups that do not
coordinate policies. Although the groups do receive some
material assistance from within Kosovo, they are not being
directed by elements of the former Kosovo Liberation Army.
17. The practice of Serbian special police of evicting
locals from their houses is alienating the local population in
the Presevo Valley. A political situation there is essential.
The Serbian government is in quiet negotiations with KFOR, and
a compromise may well be possible, which would put heavy
pressure on the UCPMB to come to terms with Belgrade.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
18. Contrary to the initial analysis, last fall's elections
have led to a breakthrough opportunity for democracy. For the
first time, a non-nationalist coalition of ten parties led by
moderate Bosniak socialist Zlatko Lagumdzija now controls the
lower house of the Federation Parliament.
19. In the Republika Srpska (RS), newly elected Prime
Minister Ivanic is attempting to put together an apolitical
``government of experts'' with no cabinet portfolio to be given
to a member of the SDS, the party of Radovan Karadzic, a move
that would cause the U.S. to end most of its assistance to the
RS.
20. There is even a chance that a non-nationalist majority
can be formed in the Bosnia and Herzegovina parliament.
21. The three nationalist parties--the Muslim SDA, the
Croat HDZ, and the Serb SDS--still control many of the
political and economic levers of power. The parliamentary
changes, however, reflect a slow, but steady trend in every
Bosnian election since 1996 in favor of the non-nationalist
parties.
22. If the perception grows that Kosovo will attain
independence, it would put huge pressure on moderate Bosnian
Serbs like Republika Srpska Prime Minister Ivanic to cease
helping to create a unified, multinational Bosnia and
Herzegovina and to yield to nationalist calls to join the RS to
Serbia.
23. Corruption remains the single biggest barrier to both
political and economic development in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
particularly to direct foreign investment. With non-nationalist
coalitions now in control of both the Federation and the
Republika Srpska, for the first time there is hope that the
corruption issue will be effectively addressed.
II. Observations
Kosovo
The indispensable factors in creating the conditions for
the development of free-market democracies in Kosovo and in
Bosnia and Herzegovina are the Kosovo Force (KFOR) and the
Stabilization Force (SFOR). Both forces are led by the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), whose Supreme Commander
Europe (SACEUR) is General Joseph Ralston USAF.
In Kosovo, I stayed at Camp Bondsteel, the sprawling U.S.
military base in the heart of the U.S. Sector, just north of
the border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
(FYROM). At Bondsteel, I had the opportunity for extensive
meetings with officers and enlisted men and women. I also
helicoptered to an Italian KFOR base in Decan in extreme
western Kosovo near the border of Albania. In Bosnia and
Herzegovina, I had meetings at SFOR headquarters near Sarajevo.
My impression is that both missions are going extremely
well and that U.S. military personnel are performing their
duties magnificently.
At the time of my visit Task Force Falcon, which operates
the Multi-National Brigade (East) Area of Responsibility in
southeastern Kosovo, had a total of 8,495 soldiers, including
5,466 U.S. soldiers in Kosovo, another 364 U.S. soldiers in
FYROM, and 2,665 international soldiers in Kosovo. Its mission
is, first, to create a safe and secure environment; second, to
support the U.N. Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK); third, to enforce
the Statement of Principles and the Military Technical
Agreement, which ended the air war in June 1999; and fourth, to
assist the transition authority to a civilian government in
Kosovo.
Largely because of KFOR, the environment in Kosovo has
definitely become safer and more secure. More than one million
individuals have returned to their homes since the end of the
war. The demining of known sites is complete. Although violence
persists in some parts of the province, its incidence is down
considerably, particularly inter-ethnic violence. The Kosovo
Protection Corps is being cooperative, and the new UNMIK police
have proven to be effective. A Kosovo Police Service is going
into the field. No one would assert that Kosovo has returned to
normalcy. The northern town of Mitrovica remains a hotbed of
Serb separatism, and in many other areas of the province Serbs
lead isolated, furtive lives. The trend-lines, however, are in
the right direction.
Cooperation between KFOR and the U.N. appears to be much
smoother than it was for years in Bosnia between IFOR/SFOR and
the U.N. Last fall KFOR assisted in a successful carrying out
of local elections and is involved in ongoing assistance to
UNMIK and to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in providing
support to the needy. Plans call for KFOR to support UNMIK in
carrying out provincial elections, in facilitating the return
of ethnic Serbs, in setting up an ethnically integrated health
care system, and in completing the rehabilitation of schools.
An increasing percentage of Task Force Falcon's efforts is
being devoted to interdicting personnel and supplies flowing
from Kosovo to ethnic Albanian rebels, the so-called Liberation
Army of Presevo, Medveda, and Bujanovac (UCPMB) in the buffer
zone in Serbia's Presevo Valley. American officers report
significant success in the interdiction, although the rugged
terrain makes it impossible to close the border completely.
Especially noteworthy in the Presevo Valley effort is a variety
of joint U.S.-Russian operations. These have involved combined
training, including arms exercises, air assault operations, and
a multinational airborne jump; combined peace support
operations; and joint liaison teams.
The morale of the American men and women in uniform in
Kosovo is extraordinarily high. The ones with whom I spoke all
understood their mission, believed in it, and took pride in the
tangible achievements they could point to. Officers were
unanimous in their belief that the wide variety of tasks the
soldiers carry out, and the opportunities for developing
leadership skills in a field environment made duty in Kosovo
and Bosnia extremely valuable to the U.S. Army. Inevitably some
skills in high intensity conflict may get rusty during
peacekeeping duty, but the army has a detailed plan for quickly
restoring those skills after reassignment. It is no surprise,
then, that the re-enlistment rate in Kosovo and Bosnia is the
highest in the U.S. Army. Last year, for example, Task Force
Falcon achieved 142 percent of its target re-enlistments.
Political life in Kosovo has revived since the war. I met
in Pristina with the three leading Kosovar Albanian figures:
Ibrahim Rugova, President of the LDK; Hashim Thaci, President
of the PDK; and Ramush Haradinaj, President of the AAK. Despite
differences among them, all three are fervent supporters of a
democratic, independent Kosovo. All saw a popularly elected
provincial central government as the precondition for the
development of democratic institutions.
I expressed the fear that a newly elected Kosovo assembly
might issue a unilateral declaration of independence and
explained that this could set off a dangerous chain of events,
beginning with an attempt by the Republika Srpska to secede
from Bosnia and join Serbia. Moreover, a unilateral declaration
of independence would weaken further the already shaky Western
European support for the Kosovar Albanians. All three leaders
disclaimed any intention of issuing a unilateral declaration,
even after a province-wide assembly is elected. Rugova said
that although he favors formal international recognition for
Kosovo at the earliest possible date, he does not want Kosovars
to take actions that might block the establishment of
democratic and economic institutions by the West.
Rugova expressed disappointment that Vojislav Kostunica,
the new President of Yugoslavia, had not come up with any new
ideas regarding Kosovo. He added that most Serbs no longer care
much about Kosovo's fate and that it had essentially become a
concern only of Belgrade intellectuals. Kostunica, Rugova
emphasized, was much more concerned at the moment with
Montenegro (an analysis validated by my meeting in Belgrade
with Kostunica).
Haradinaj, generally seen as the most radical of the three
Kosovar leaders and the only one with a fluent command of
English, went to great pains to emphasize his willingness to
work with Kosovo Serbs as long as they are elected
democratically. Of course, this would mean that the Kosovo
Serbs would have to ``recognize the new reality'' and
participate in Kosovo's political life, something which most of
them as yet have refused to do. Haradinaj echoed Rugova's
assurance that he would not jeopardize international support
for Kosovo's eventual independence by any risky unilateral
steps. He pointed out, though, that Kosovars still lack the
basic symbols connecting them to their own society such as
identification cards or drivers' licenses. Finally, Haradinaj
expressed the opinion that UNMIK should increase the number of
local police officers in the Kosovo Police Service from the
current 2,800 to about 8,000.
Thaci, the former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army
(UCK), also voiced disappointment with Yugoslav President
Kostunica's initial actions toward Kosovo. He was dismayed that
Kostunica has not released all ethnic Albanian political
prisoners, numbering well over 1,000. A highly advertised
amnesty law currently under consideration, he said, would only
release 200 individuals, none of them being held for alleged
political offenses. Thaci also said he had hoped Kostunica
would do more to ease tensions in Mitrovica and in the Presevo
Valley.
The U.S. Mission in Pristina and Hans Haekkerup, the new
Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General, agreed
that through a province-wide election Kosovo's population
should be given a share of the responsibility for their own
development at an early date. He did share my concern about
moving too quickly to elections but drew my attention to a
lengthy process of drafting framework laws, which he envisions
as a prerequisite for elections.
A judicial and legal affairs roundtable with international
officials in which I participated in Pristina graphically
illustrated the long and arduous democracy-building process
ahead in Kosovo. Only a small percentage of the 400 Kosovar
Albanian judges and prosecutors appointed since January 1999 is
effective. The only experience many local judges had was under
an authoritarian communist regime, so they have no familiarity
with the powers of an independent judiciary and, hence, are
often uncomfortable with making decisions. Inadequate pay, job
insecurity, and ethnic bias are typical. The Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is providing basic
training for local judges in Kosovo, and UNMIK is developing a
Judicial Inspection Unit to identify and remove judges who
engage in misconduct. Given this rather bleak short-term local
picture, UNMIK has also reacted by appointing fifteen
international judges and prosecutors and wants to appoint more.
UNMIK has an ombudsman whose office is entrusted with
investigating complaints by Kosovo residents. Unfortunately,
the ombudsman has only six local lawyers on his staff, and none
has the requisite training or experience to do the job
effectively.
In addition, the American Bar Association-Central and East
European Law Initiative (ABA- CEELI) is assisting in drafting a
criminal code and code of criminal procedure and in
establishing a resource center for defense attorneys.
The Kosovo Police Service (KPS) School now conducts a 26-
week program of classroom and field training for local police
recruits. The school intends to train 9,000 officers. Until the
force reaches that level, UNMIK is relying on an international
civilian police force, which includes 500 Americans, to
maintain order and provide the field training for the KPS
students. Already, in several areas KFOR has transferred to the
KPS the responsibility for protecting minorities and
controlling the province's border.
I believe that international judicial and legal assistance
is fundamental to the building of a civil society in Kosovo,
and the effort should continue until this is achieved. I
encouraged international NGOs like ABA-CEELI to provide defense
attorneys and other resources, even as they train local lawyers
to fill these positions. Perhaps could appropriate additional
funds for USAID to disburse to NGOs whose proposals are deemed
worthy.
Although more than ninety-five percent of Kosovo's current
population is ethnic Albanian, I remain hopeful that the
province can regain some of its ethnic heterogeneity. With that
in mind, I met with Serbian Orthodox Father Sava Janjic at the
magnificent fourteenth-century Visoki Decani Monastery in the
shadow of the Albanian Alps. During the 1999 war the monks
offered refuge to both their Albanian and Serbian neighbors.
Nonetheless, they live under constant threat from radical
ethnic Albanians and is spared damage only by the presence of
Italian KFOR troops who are stationed just outside the
monastery's gates. In the 1990's, Father Sava won international
notoriety as the ``cyberpriest'' for his anti-Milosevic
website. The West must do all it can to support Kosovo Serbs
who desire to return and to safeguard all Serbian Orthodox
religious sites.
Serbia
Last fall's popular ouster of Slobodan Milosevic as
President of Yugoslavia after his defeat in the first round of
the elections by Vojislav Kostunica was the single most
important change in the Balkan region in years. In Belgrade, I
met with most of the top officials of the new Yugoslav and
Serbian governments, among them President Kostunica, Yugoslav
Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic, Yugoslav Interior Minister
Zoran Zivkovic, Yugoslav Ambassador-designate to the United
States Milan Protic, Serbian Prime Minister-designate (since
then confirmed) Zoran Djindjic, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister
Nebojsa Covic, Serbian Interior Minister Bozo Prelevic, and
Yugoslav Minister for National and Ethnic Communities Rasim
Ljajic.
The one constant theme in all our discussions was a fervent
desire to maintain what is left of Yugoslavia, or, as several
of my interlocutors put it, to ``halt the further
disintegration in the region.'' President Kostunica, Prime
Minister Djindjic, and Foreign Minister Svilanovic all stressed
that their country's future ``lies in Europe.'' Djindjic set as
a goal Yugoslavia's membership in the European Union within ten
years.
Djindjic and Svilanovic both posited an intimate connection
between this foreign policy goal and domestic conditions.
Djindjic was quick to admit a host of serious domestic
deficiencies that have to be remedied such as corrupt courts,
police, and security police. Fortunately, he added, independent
media already exist. Svilanovic added to the list of challenges
the need to guarantee human rights and the rights of
minorities, a privatization of the state-dominated economy,
attracting direct foreign investment, and destroying the links
between organized crime and the old political structures.
The Yugoslav people, Djindjic explained, have high
expectations for the post-Milosevic government, and the
fundamental transition must be organized without social
discord. Secessionist movements in the Presevo Valley,
Montenegro, and Kosovo can only sap energy from the desperate
need for rapid domestic reform. Svilanovic pleaded for
international support to stabilize the borders of Yugoslavia so
that the necessary domestic reforms can proceed. He did,
however, say that he could live with a Montenegrin decision for
independence if its is taken democratically. President
Kostunica, on the other hand, declared a bit disingenuously
that until recently (when calls for Montenegro's independence
increased) he had thought that he was living in one country.
The Yugoslav President disparagingly remarked that cigarette
smuggling would flourish even more if Montenegro were
independent and thus free from Belgrade's supervision.
Nonetheless, Kostunica, as did all other officials in Belgrade,
ruled out using threats or violence against Montenegro.
Regarding Kosovo, Svilanovic, himself a Kosovo Serb from
Gnjilane in the current U.S. Sector, urged Washington to
provide economic assistance to the province, especially through
NGOs. While he declared a need to discuss links between Kosovo
and Belgrade, Svilanovic said that he was not in favor of
direct control from the Serbian capital. For now he advocated
lower-level dialog and a postponement of a decision on final
status. In the coming months U.S. diplomacy should attempt to
combine Svilanovic's low-key approach with the recognition of
realism shown me by Rugova, Thaci, and Haradinaj in Pristina in
order, at the very least, to buy time to stabilize the
situation further.
With respect to the Presevo secessionist movement, Djindjic
stressed the need to eliminate the causes of the violence and
but wondered whether the risk was not too high of integrating
the moderate Albanians and isolating the extremists. For the
moment, he concluded, this tactic is working. Interior Minister
Zivkovic, however, seemed to disagree somewhat, bemoaning the
fact that Albanians in the Presevo Valley have refused to join
the local police. Kostunica's chief foreign policy advisor
reiterated this, but added that ethnic Albanians do have a
majority in the Presevo municipal assembly.
Deputy Prime Minister Covic, who has been entrusted with
the principal role in dealing with the Presevo insurgency,
evinced a sincere desire to put an end to Serbian abuse of
ethnic Albanians there. Nonetheless, he and his deputies seemed
oblivious to the causal relationship between the forcible
occupation by Serbian police of nearly half the Albanian houses
in a Presevo Valley village and the villagers' hostility
toward, and unwillingness to cooperate with, the police. I
explained similar feelings of Americans two hundred twenty-five
years ago against British troops who insisted upon being
quartered in their homes. None of the Yugoslav leaders
considered the UCPMB insurgency a military threat, but all
underscored the grave political damage it would do to the
Kostunica/Djindjic governments if left unchecked. Kostunica
remarked wryly that if control is not reasserted, many people
would say, ``one way or another Milosevic had this situation
under control, but this government doesn't.''
The question of Serbia's coming to terms with its recent
history was a prominent topic of our discussions. Somewhat to
my surprise, Djindjic, known as a Serbian nationalist, declared
that ``Serbian messianism is a hundred-year-old illness.'' He
saw Milosevic as but the latest political leader to peddle this
vision of a Greater Serbia. Although Djindjic averred that he
wants a thorough airing of this issue and of the resulting
carnage of the 1990s, he said that because Serbs do not feel
defeated in war, a Nuremberg-style Tribunal for Serbs accused
of war crimes is impossible. Djindjic felt that while the
Serbian elite shares American values on humane and equal
treatment of minorities, there is a need to convince the
Serbian populace of this necessity.
Svilanovic stressed that Yugoslavia intended to allow the
Hague Tribunal to open a ``technical office'' in Belgrade,
although negotiations were temporarily stalled. He was
attracted to the idea of a Truth Commission as an introduction
to war-crimes proceedings. Despite the fact that the news media
under Milosevic were not under total government control, most
people remained unaware of Serbian war crimes, Svilanovic
asserted, and after the NATO bombing campaign they simply don't
believe, or don't want to believe, that they actually occurred.
Kostunica expressed similar sentiments, though with
somewhat more distance and less self-criticism. He advocated
``collecting data on the wars in the former Yugoslavia, which
would be of use to all.'' Kostunica saw this exercise, which he
said had actually begun in the early 1990s, as ``enlightening
the public'' and ``motivating the people to tell the truth.''
He added that a certain anti-Western attitude exists in some
circles in Serbia. Djindjic was less circumspect on this point,
asserting that the American ``combination of moralizing and
practicality cause the United States image problems in the
Balkans.''
At times my conversations in Belgrade seemed to take on an
air of shadow-boxing with articulate and clever interlocutors.
The new Yugoslav and Serbian leaders obviously knew the issues
important to Americans and tailored many of their comments to
those concerns, all the while pushing the envelope on their own
agendas. It is important, however, to put the discussions in
perspective. Whatever problems I had with some of the
statements my hosts made, they paled in comparison to the
deception and outright lies made by Slobodan Milosevic in my
discussions with him in Belgrade in 1993. The Kostunica/
Djindjic regime may not be an ideal one for many Americans, but
it is democratic and it eschews the rabid ultra-nationalism of
Milosevic. Despite the current chilly atmosphere in relations
between Washington and Belgrade, I believe that we can do
business with the new Yugoslav and Serbian governments.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina in some ways was the most
frustrating of the three locations I visited. It is the land of
the classical ``yes, but.'' Yes, the country is in far better
physical, and even psychological shape than it was at the
cessation of hostilities in the fall of 1995. But the most
sympathetically inclined observer must admit to a sense of
frustration at the glacial speed of progress in many areas, and
the apparent intractability of some problems.
As in Kosovo, the precondition for any movement forward has
been, and for some time will continue to be the NATO-led
peacekeeping troops on the ground. The Stabilization Force
(SFOR) is obviously so superior, either to the armies of the
Federation or of the Republika Srprska, or to potential
freelance terrorists, that it has remained essentially
unchallenged. Bosnia and Herzegovina today is peaceful, with
ethnic violence and common crime at manageable levels. Thanks
to the introduction of unified automobile license plates by the
international community's High Representative, travel between
the two entities has become commonplace.
At the end of the war there were approximately 2.3 million
persons displaced. Now the total is down to one million, of
which 750,000 are internally displaced within Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and 250,000 are refugees, most of them in
Yugoslavia and Croatia. The number of persons returning to
their homes where they are in an ethnic minority (so-called
``minority returns'') increased 50 percent from 1998 to 1999,
and another 75 percent from 1999 to 2000. Forecasts for 2001
call for 60,000 more minority returns. This summer when more
people try to return there will definitely be a need for an
SFOR presence because of the persistent resort to violence by
ultra- nationalists. The plan calls for maximizing the use of
the so-called ``multinational specialized units'' (MSUs) or
gendarmes under SFOR control to lay the groundwork for the
returns or to react if there is trouble. Unfortunately, three
Argentine MSU platoons have just left the country, and the
total strength is down to approximately 380 men, 95 percent of
them carabinieri from Italy. Their number must quickly be
supplemented.
One glaring omission in the generally positive security
situation is the continued freedom of several individuals
indicted by the Hague Tribunal for alleged war crimes, above
all former Bosnian Serb leader Dr. Radovan Karadzic and former
Bosnian Serb army commander General Ratko Mladic. Until these
fugitives are apprehended and brought to justice there can be
no real stability in the country.
The biggest challenge in Bosnia and Herzegovina is illegal
immigration and organized crime. In 2000, according to
statistics of the State Border Service, a total of 35,793
illegal immigrants entered the country, with 24,285 remaining
unaccounted for by January 2001. Not only is their presence a
destabilizing domestic factor, but Bosnia is gaining a bad name
internationally as a primary springboard for illegal migration
into Western Europe. Bosnia and Herzegovina has an external
border approximately one thousand miles long with about 400
crossing points, forty of them major ones. The Border Service
is seriously underfunded.
Another domestic problem is the growing influence of
Islamic fundamentalist groups, which are a threat to liberal
values. Former mujaheddin living in Central Bosnia have been
engaged in some violent activities.
The economic picture in Bosnia is mixed. To the visitor
returning after little more than a year, Sarajevo looks
brighter and livelier, with much new construction and many
other buildings refurbished. Vehicular traffic is approaching
the level of a Western city, and small businesses of all sorts
seem to be thriving. Unfortunately, however, at the macro level
the picture is not as rosy. Starting from a devastatingly low
level after the war, the annual growth of gross domestic
product averaged about 40 percent. But this figure is
deceptively high, since it was largely based upon foreign
assistance, which is now ending. In May 2000 international
donors pledged the last tranche of a $5.1 billion
reconstruction program for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Large-scale economic development has been prevented by the
tight control of the three main nationalist political parties--
the Bosniak Muslim SDA, the radical Bosnian Serb SDS, and the
hard-line Bosnian Croat branch of the HDZ. The economy was
governed by so-called payments bureaus, a clearing system which
charged a fee on every transaction. The individual payments
bureaus were controlled by the three nationalist parties, which
skimmed off a portion of the collected fees. Tired of this
corruption, the International Monetary Fund made further loans
contingent on the closure of the payments bureaus, which was
accomplished early in January 2001. In their place is a system
of banks, which will be connected to cantonal treasuries in the
Federation and an entity treasury in the Republika Srpska.
Supposedly the three nationalist parties have divested their
extensive economic holdings, although seasoned observers are
skeptical that this has actually occurred.
Bosnia desperately needs direct foreign investment, but
until now it has been nearly non-existent. Because of
government red-tape and corruption, investors view the country
as a high risk without the long-term resource upside of, for
example, a Russia. Setting up an honest, efficient legal and
judicial system is a task of the highest priority.
The most encouraging recent development in Bosnia and
Herzegovina has been the slow but steady growth in popularity
of the non-nationalist parties. The November 2000 elections
produced some setbacks such as the triumph of a nationalist in
the Republika Srpska presidential race. But contrary to the
conventional wisdom of the international press and some NGOs,
the elections also resulted in democratic breakthrough
developments. For the first time a non- nationalist coalition
led by moderate Bosniak socialist Zlatko Lagumdzija commands a
majority in the Federation House of Representatives and has
excluded the SDA, SDS, and HDZ from the government. In the
Republika Srpska, Mladen Ivanic, the leader of the moderate
Party of Democratic Progress (PDP) is forming a government of
experts and similarly is trying to exclude the three
nationalist parties. I had met with Lagumdzija and Ivanic on
earlier visits to Bosnia when they were in the opposition, and
I saw them again on this trip. Both are dedicated, well-
educated, worldly democrats who are superbly equipped to lead
their entities.
At the time of my visit a new government had not yet been
formed at the national level. I had discussions with then-Prime
Minister Martin Raguz and Foreign Minister Jadranko Prlic, both
of whom are Bosnian Croats. Prlic told me, ``the right
discussion is not about the possible withdrawal of the United
States from the Balkans. The right topic is how to integrate
Bosnia and Herzegovina into Europe.'' He added that perception
in Bosnia is more important than reality. Although the number
of American troops has been reduced from 20,000 to about 4,200
the salient fact is that the populace knows that the U.S. is
present.
Prlic and Raguz both felt that last fall's elections had at
the very least created the conditions for a political
breakthrough--definitely at the entity and cantonal levels, and
perhaps at the national level. Despite the heavy Bosnian Croat
vote for the nationalist HDZ, Prime Minister Raguz declared
that ``for a majority of Bosnian Croats, Bosnia and Herzegovina
is the state within which their problems can be solved.''
Important in this context, he said, was the recent decision of
the Constitutional Court that Bosnia's three constituent
peoples must have equal collective and individual rights
throughout the country. Prlic added an international dimension
by noting that it is important to keep Kosovo within the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as long as possible, because its
formal secession would destabilize Bosnia through the Republika
Srpska.
Several of my interlocutors in Bosnia praised the Dayton
Accord as an undeniable success, but called for amending
certain sections of it. With only one exception, however, no
one wanted to reopen the entire treaty or to scrap it entirely
in favor of another document to be worked out by an
international conference. Reform, they believed, could be
effected within Bosnia from the bottom up.
In Sarajevo, I was present at a dinner meeting of moderate
leaders of non-nationalist parties. All three major communities
were represented--Bosniak, Serb, and Croat. Undoubtedly all the
individuals had indescribably bitter memories of the war, and
their approaches to specific problems varied widely. But a
willingness to cooperate, even to compromise, was palpable.
Bosnia is far from having a Westminster-style parliament, but
the progress is noteworthy, and for the first time there is
hope in the air.
III. Roster of Meetings in Kosovo, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina
(Titles as of January 9-15, 2001)
Camp Bondsteel, Decan, and Pristina, Kosovo
Major General George W. Casey, Jr. USA, Commander, 1st Armored
Division
Brigadier General Kenneth J. Quinlan, Jr. USA, Assistant
Commander, 1st Armored Division
Officers and Enlisted Men and Women of the U.S. Army, Camp
Bondsteel
Lieutenant General Carlo Cabigiosu, Italian Army, Commander,
KFOR
Dr. Ibrahim Rugova, President, Democratic League of Kosovo
(LDK)
Hashim Thaci, President, Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK)
Ramush Haradinaj, President, Alliance for the Future of Kosovo
(AAK)
Father Sava Janjic, Visoki Decani Serbian Orthodox Monastery
Hans Haekkerup, Special Representative of the United Nations
Secretary General and Head, United Nations Interim
Administration for Kosovo (UNMIK)
Jock Covey, Principal Deputy Special Representative, UNMIK
Daan Everts, Deputy Special Representative, Institution-
building, UNMIK
Andy Bearpark, Deputy Special Representative, Reconstruction
and Development
Eric Morris, Special Representative, Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Marie Francoise Verdun, Director, Judicial Training Institute
Colette Rausch, Head, OSCE Rule of Law Program
Edwin Vilmoare, Director, American Bar Association/Central and
East European Law Initiative Kosovo Program
Marek Nowicki, UNMIK Ombudsman
Jack Winn, Program Officer, USAID Kosovo Mission
Steven Bennett, Director, Kosovo Police School
Sylvie Pantz, Co-Head, UNMIK Department of Judicial Affairs
Christopher W. Dell, Chief of Mission, U.S. Office Pristina
Theresa Grencik, Political Officer, U.S. Office Pristina
Belgrade, Serbia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Vojislav Kostunica, President of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia
Goran Svilanovic, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia
Zoran Zivkovic, Minister of Internal Affairs of the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia
Rasim Ljajic, Minister of National and Ethnic Communities of
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Milan Protic, Ambassador-designate to the United States of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Zoran Djindjic, Prime Minister-designate of the Republic of
Serbia
Nebojsa Covic, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia
Boza Prelevic, Minister for Internal Affairs of the Republic of
Serbia
William Montgomery, U.S. Ambassador to the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia
Bertram Braun, Political Officer, U.S. Embassy Belgrade
Sarajevo and Butmir, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Martin Raguz, Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Jadranko Prlic, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and
Herzegovina
Zlatko Lagumdzija, Member of Federation House of
Representatives and President, Social Democratic Party
Mladen Ivanic, Prime Minister of the Republika Srpska and
President, Party of Democratic Progress
Milorad Dodik, President, Union of Independent Social Democrats
and former Prime Minister of the Republika Srpska
Kresimir Zubak, President, New Croat Initiative
Haris Silajdzic, former Prime Minister of Bosnia and
Herzegovina and President, Party for Bosnia and
Herzegovina
Lieutenant General Michael L. Dodson USA, Commander, SFOR
Ambassador Wolfgang Petritsch, High Representative for Bosnia
and Herzegovina
Ambassador Robert Barry, Head, OSCE Mission in Bosnia and
Herzegovina
Ambassador Jacques Klein, Special Representative of the U.N.
Secretary General for Bosnia and Herzegovina
Thomas Miller, U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina
Velia DePirro, Political Officer, U.S. Embassy Sarajevo