[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 22 (Friday, March 6, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1505-S1506]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE SITUATION IN KOSOVO

  Mr. BIDEN. I rise today to condemn the murderous attacks carried out 
by Serbian paramilitary units against civilians in the province of 
Kosovo.
  Mr. President, the immediate cause of the violence was an attack 
several days ago by units of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, 
which killed four Serbian police. The fundamental cause, however, is 
the Serbian government s brutal repression of the ethnic Albanians, who 
make up more than ninety percent of Kosovo s population.
  In 1989, Slobodan Milosevic, as part of his demogogic policy of 
whipping up Serb ultra-nationalism, abolished the autonomous status of 
Kosovo, granted by the Yugoslav Constitution of 1974.
  Flooding the province with Yugoslav military units, special police 
forces, and nationalist militias, Milosevic set up a police state that 
has prevented the ethnic Albanians from exercising their basic 
political and cultural rights.
  To their credit, Kosovo s Albanian leadership, led by Ibrahim Rugova, 
opted for a non-violent approach in their struggle for independence. 
They established alternative institutions, including a shadow 
parliament with various political parties, independent schools, and 
trade unions.
  For eight years Mr. Rugova was able to keep the lid on a potentially 
explosive situation. Inevitably, however, the weight of Serbian 
repression had its effect, particularly on younger Kosovars, as the 
ethnic Albanians of Kosovo are called.
  A so-called Kosovo Liberation Army was formed, and last year began an 
armed campaign against Serbian officials and ethnic Serb civilians. 
While this development is understandable, Mr. President, it is 
regrettable. Aside from causing casualties and deaths, the armed 
resistance has provided Milosevic the pretext for his brutal crack-
down.
  The violence in Kosovo could provide the spark to ignite the Balkan 
tinderbox into full-scale regional war, which, in the worst case, could 
bring in neighboring Albania, Macedonia--and perhaps even Bulgaria, 
Greece, and Turkey.
  Immediate action is necessary. Already the Administration is 
consulting with our NATO allies about an appropriate response. One 
immediate step should be to extend the mandate of the NATO-led 
UNPREDEP, the U.N. preventive deployment force in neighboring Macedonia 
which includes several

[[Page S1506]]

hundred American troops, beyond its August 1998 termination date.
  The Clinton Administration has already revoked several concessions 
granted to Milosevic as a reward for support of the new Prime Minister 
of the Republika Srpska in Bosnia.
  The Bush Administration s Christmas 1992 warning of military action--
which meant air strikes against targets across Serbia--unless violence 
against the Kosovar Albanians stopped, should be restated.
  We should mobilize international pressure on Milosevic to restore the 
pre-1989 autonomy to Kosovo and to the ethnically heterogeneous 
Vojvodina (voi-voh-DEEN-uh) province in northern Serbia.
  To coordinate our policy, President Clinton should name a high-
profile Special Representative for dealing with the Kosovo Problem. Our 
current Special Representative for the former Yugoslavia, Robert 
Gelbard, is simply stretched too thin to devote adequate time to this 
explosive situation.
  Mr. President, it is difficult to exaggerate the stakes in the 
current Kosovo violence. A continuation of the Serbian repression and 
Kosovar Albanian counter-violence could easily spin out of control and 
endanger the entire Balkan peninsula.
  It could undue the recent progress we have made in Bosnia and 
endanger NATO solidarity.
  We must act at once to prevent these developments.

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