[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 103 (Monday, August 1, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 1, 1994]
 
                      KOSOVA--PEACE AND DEMOCRACY

                                 ______


                          HON. SUSAN MOLINARI

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, August 1, 1994

  Ms. MOLINARI. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, July 19, several foreign 
policy experts gathered at the American Enterprise Institute, a 
prestigious research organization here in Washington, DC, to discuss 
the topic ``Kosova: The Next Balkan Flashpoint?'' The participants of 
this panel discussion unanimously agreed that in a short time the 
bloodshed in former Yugoslavia would spread to the Republic of Kosova, 
where for the past 5 years Serbian authorities have imposed the 
harshest policies of repression and terror against 2 million 
defenseless Albanians.
  One of the panelists, former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, took 
the United States and the entire world community to task for our 
nonexistent policy in Kosova. According to Ambassador Kirkpatrick, 
``passivity gives consent'' to aggression and conquest. Indeed, we have 
seen the danger of international passivity first hand in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina. The world cannot afford to let Kosova become the next 
victim of brutal Serbian expansionism.
  Last May, Congressman Eliot Engel and I introduced the Kosova Peace 
and Democracy Act whose primary purpose was to prevent a spillover of 
the Balkans conflict until substantial progress toward peace and 
stability have been made there. Serbia cannot be rewarded with the 
lifting of sanctions until there is freedom and an end of repression 
throughout all the Balkan States.
  As Ambassador Kirkpatrick noted, in the Balkans there exists ``a 
highly contagious process of violence.'' Let us act before millions 
more are killed. I commend Ambassador Kirkpatrick's comments to my 
colleagues and urge them to lend their support to the Kosova Peace and 
Democracy Act.

Remarks of Hon. Jeane Kirkpatrick, Former U.S. Ambassador to the United 
                                Nations

       I would just like to emphasize the importance of this 
     process of spreading repression and spreading violence in the 
     entire region. The fact is that there has been spreading 
     violence and repression from beginning of Milosevic's efforts 
     to extend his power, beginning of course, in Kosova.
       I'm certain I'm not the only person in the room who's heard 
     officials of Slovenia and Croatia describe their review that 
     Milosevie's repression of Kosova and his arbitrary unilateral 
     revocation of Kosova's autonomy was probably the single most 
     important factor of their countries' decisions to pursue 
     independence from Serbia.
       Because they could see in Milosevic's policies in Kosova a 
     pattern of repression from the beginning. That pattern of 
     repression that Marshall and Paula have both described, has, 
     of course, continued. And until it has deprived the Albanian 
     population of Kosova, most economic and social and civil and 
     political rights created a large refugee population.
       So let there be no doubt that we are discussing here a 
     highly contagious process of violence. It's as contagious as 
     a pathology as plague or any other deadly disease which has 
     spread from repression in Kosova to repression and violence 
     against Solvenia, then against Bosnia-Hercegovina, then 
     throughout the continuing repression in Kosova, spreading 
     into Macedonia, creating a destabilizing behavior in Albania 
     with large refugee populations and Macedonia.
       This not a single phenomenon except in so far as we 
     describe Milosevic's policies of repression and conquest as a 
     single phenomenon. There is no ``Slovenia problem,'' 
     ``Croatian problem,'' ``Bosnia problem'' ``Kosovo-Albanian-
     Macedonian problem''
       There is a process of highly contagious repression and 
     violence which has already created very great destruction of 
     human lives, security, and happiness and families and 
     property and, of course, of peace in that region. And this 
     process of contagion threatens to continue, quite simply.
       What I would like to emphasize is that it is, in my 
     judgment, a complete mistake to describe these difficulties 
     as difficulties resulting from ethnic diversity or ethnic 
     differences. They are problems that result from repressive 
     policies and violence on the part of the most important 
     military power in the region, namely Serbia. Where there has 
     been an opportunity for people in the region to resist 
     Milosevic force by force, or threat of use of force, to deter 
     the use of force, by the threat of use of force, then there 
     is, in fact, a kind of peace, a cold peace, for example, as 
     in Slovenia.
       When Slovenes were able to surprise Serbian efforts at 
     conquest in Slovenia, demonstrating that they had, in fact, 
     been able to acquire and preserve enough arms in Slovenia to 
     provide the rudiments of self-defense for themselves.
       Croatia was also able to provide the rudiments of self-
     defense for itself, despite the arms embargo, taking 
     advantage of its useful borders. Croatia was able to deter 
     Serbian aggression. Because Bosnia has not been able to 
     defend itself and acquire the rudiments of self-defense 
     because of the extremely unjust and unreasonable arms embargo 
     which penalizes only Bosnians, it has not been able to 
     contain Serbian aggression in Bosnia.
       And because the people of Kosova have been almost entirely 
     helpless, unarmed, defenseless, confronting Serbian policies 
     of conquest and repression, they have been unable to defend 
     themselves, and so the repression spreads.
       I fear that Macedonia is another example of a people unable 
     to deter aggression by a threat to defend itself and its own 
     borders. The problem that should be clear is not the 
     diversity of the people of the region, the problem is the 
     policy of repression and violence. And the solution to the 
     policy of repression and violence is, of course, democracy 
     and pluralism, in fact; it is respect for the rights of all 
     the people in the region.
       We have a very bad habit of looking at diverse people and 
     if they begin to kill each other, to conclude that they are 
     killing each other because they are diverse people. It is not 
     the ethnic diversity that is causing the mass slaughter in 
     Rwanda. It is some very identifiable policies of some very 
     identifiable power groups who manage to achieve the arms to 
     slaughter their neighbors. And it's past time that we 
     identify the problem for what it is, a problem of repression 
     and conquest and violence.
       Once we understand that, then we understand that like all 
     other experiences with violence and repression, this one will 
     have no natural boundaries. It will continue to spread. There 
     isn't an identifiable ethnic group that we could say, ``well, 
     that's the ultimate boundary, they won't move beyond there.''
       I note, personally, with a chill down my spine, the 
     pressures that derive from the flow of huge populations into 
     Albania, into Italy, where, now comes the chill, the first 
     fascist members of parliament and government in post-World 
     War II Italy today sit. That's contagion and violence.
       And I note, too, the unstable borders and the existence of 
     movements and persons with an attraction to violence in other 
     parts of Eastern and Central Europe. And I fear not just for 
     the region, but for Europe, in fact. I note the total failure 
     of European institutions for collective security. Total 
     failure of European institutions for containing conflicts and 
     for adjudicating conflicts of human rights violations, no 
     matter how massive.
       I note the failure of the United Nations machinery for 
     settling conflicts among peoples in Europe. And I note the 
     failure of diplomacy, again and again and again. And I note, 
     finally, that alas, the saddest blow of all, personally, is 
     the failure of NATO. And the fact that NATO has become itself 
     afflicted by the failure of the European and UN institutions 
     for collective security, today suffers from the same 
     paralysis for having today submitted to the complicated 
     operational, hierarchies of control which make effective 
     action possible.
       I think there are many lessons from this experience, all of 
     them grim. One is that for the nations in Central Europe, 
     membership in the United Nations, with all that it implies 
     about legitimacy and recognition by the international 
     community, cannot be regarded as a reliable guarantor of the 
     security of any one of those new nations. And I note also 
     that diplomacy cannot necessarily be relied on to forestall 
     aggression. The peacekeeping cannot necessarily make any 
     positive contribution but can, in fact, serve the purposes of 
     aggressors in the region.
       I, as an American, feel very sad to see the passivity of 
     the Western democracies, particularly of our own country, 
     particularly in the face of repression, aggression, conquest. 
     I note that passivity gives consent. I note also that there 
     is something even worse than being passive in the face of 
     repression and aggression and conquest, and that is actually 
     assisting it, which I very much fear the United States may 
     commit itself to by using American forces to enforce 
     boundaries imposed by aggression in Bosnia-Hercegovina under 
     the existing plan.
       I am reminded, as I'm sure many of us have been, by the 
     comment of Winston Churchill in his last volume on the Second 
     World War. He told the story of how the great Western 
     democracies had triumphed over dictatorship and were again 
     free to repeat their errors.

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