[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 67 (Friday, May 22, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H3967]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE SITUATION IN KOSOVO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. KELLY. Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I received the following 
message from Jason Miko with Mercy Corps International on the situation 
in Kosovo.
  A Mother Theresa Society convoy of food aid was stopped and the aid 
was confiscated by the Yugoslav police forces on a road between 
Prishtina and Schtime. The four-truck convoy, three 10-ton trucks, one 
5-ton truck, and one Range Rover, belonging to Mercy Corps, an 
international relief agency, and driven by Mercy Corps staff, was held 
by the police.
  The convoy was destined for the Mother Theresa Society warehouse in 
Schtime when it was stopped at a police check point, police, called the 
financial/marketing police, which is another branch within the 
government, who came from a nearby town. The convoy was then impounded. 
The police told them to come back next Tuesday and took their 
documents, which were in order, without giving them a receipt for the 
food aid or the documents.
  Mr. Speaker, that food aid is probably lost forever, and, meanwhile, 
the ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo continues to suffer from the 
oppression of Serbian President Milosevic. The incidents I have 
described are but the latest example of that oppression.
  Earlier this week, there were new reports of rapidly escalating acts 
of violence and murder perpetuated by Serbian military and police 
forces in Kosovo against innocent, defenseless civilians, including 
women and children.
  These actions represent a serious setback to achieving a lasting 
peace in Kosovo, as well as a major obstacle to any negotiations on 
easing the sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
  I understand that there are two sides to the dispute in Kosovo, but 
cultural or historic differences should not be an excuse for bombing 
defenseless villages and schools and killing innocent people who want 
nothing more than to live and raise their families in peace and 
security, while having a say in their government.
  Mr. Speaker, Milosevic must stop his military campaign against the 
ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. He must negotiate a lasting and peaceful 
solution that recognizes the rights of all Kosovans.

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