[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 72 (Tuesday, May 18, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E993-E994]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE VIEW FROM ROMANIA

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 18, 1999

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member commends to his colleagues an 
excellent article which appeared in the Los Angeles Times on May 10, 
1999, calling for NATO to halt the bombing of Yugoslavia and to declare 
a cease-fire, lest NATO become its own nemesis.

               [From the Los Angeles Times, May 10, 1999]

                         The View From Romania


 Bombing by NATO, an alliance in which we have so much faith, ensures 
          wrong results while abandoning fundamental precepts

                          (By Adrian Nastase)

       Romanians have a message for NATO--one that is decidedly 
     pro-NATO, but also may be unpleasant. It is a message of 
     ``tough love.''
       Halt the bombing of Yugoslavia and declare a cease-fire. 
     Negotiations must be relaunched without any prior conditions 
     on either side, taking into account the tragic evolution of 
     events that has already occurred on the ground.
       As an applicant for NATO membership and member of the 
     Partnership for Peace, Romania has opened its air space to 
     alliance aircraft. We are fully supportive of an embargo that 
     pressures Belgrade to cease its actions in Kosovo. We are 
     adamant that Kosovar Albanians should be allowed to return to 
     their homes with their rights guaranteed. War crimes should 
     be investigated and prosecuted.
       But, most Romanians now think that the use of force, 
     including the long-term continuation of airstrikes or any 
     forcible ground intervention, will lose everything NATO 
     seeks.
       Kosovo will be destroyed; Slobodan Milosevic will remain in 
     power as a wartime leader reinforced by a siege mentality; 
     Macedonia and Albania will be destabilized by refugees and 
     foreign military presence, and anti-Americanism will rise to 
     fever proportions in Greece, Italy and elsewhere.
       We want NATO to win politically and morally. We want peace 
     to be ensured by a great alliance and its strongest members. 
     We want dictators to be removed by popular action, and 
     minority rights preserved by diplomacy, incentives and law.
       Romanians dream about becoming part of NATO. Our dream has 
     been to enter an alliance that occupies a moral high ground, 
     not one that, by mistake, kills refugees and civilians. We 
     believe that the alliance's principles have mattered. For 
     years during the communist period, Romania rejected 
     intervention in sovereign states and distanced itself from 
     the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact. Now, an alliance in which 
     we have put so much faith has erred by acting in a manner 
     that ensures all the wrong consequences while abandoning 
     fundamental precepts.
       It seems as if NATO now believes that, after destroying 
     Serbian infrastructure, and waiting until all Albanians are 
     expelled from Kosovo, it can recreate order and peace from 
     nothing. Winning militarily from 5,000 meters is being 
     confused tragically with political success.
       Romanians have learned important lessons from our own 
     contributions to peacekeeping missions in Angola, Albania and 
     Bosnia. Among these are that preventing conflict is far 
     easier than stopping it and that recreating a status quo is a 
     Gordian knot. We fear, however, that these lessons are being 
     ignored. NATO's potential to keep the peace and to prevent 
     ethnic cleansing before resorting to war, was belated and 
     half-hearted. We hope for more, and have watched with 
     increasing anxiety as air power is unleashed; destroying 
     without solving anything.
       Regional capacities to reduce the potential for or 
     intensity of conflict have been ignored. Romania's 
     participation in two costly U.N. embargoes against Iraq and 
     Yugoslavia, plus peacekeeping missions in Angola, Somalia, 
     Albania and Bosnia exhibit Romania's awareness of its role 
     and willingness to sacrifice for principles in which it 
     believes.
       Those qualities, however, elicited little interest in 
     Brussels or Washington, where resorting to force seemed 
     preordained.

[[Page E994]]

       NATO appears to have changed into an organization prone to 
     use bombs in lieu of diplomats. And, instead of using 
     expansion to address security needs in Europe's most insecure 
     regions--the Balkans and the Baltics, for example--NATO told 
     such countries to wait for security guarantees until war was 
     at our doorstep.
       We think that many opportunities for mediating roles have 
     been lot. As the only country bordering on the former 
     Yugoslavia without antagonistic relations with Belgrade, 
     Romanian NATO membership could have increased the probability 
     of successful negotiations with the Serbs.
       The denouement of Europe's most recent Balkan was has yet 
     to be scripted. From the neighborhood, however, we can 
     foresee a very discomfiting future: a broken but unrepentant 
     Serbian nationalism, a heavily armed Albanian nation seeking 
     retribution, an embittered Russia harboring imperial memories 
     now convinced of NATO's antipathy, and ample instability.
       To say we don't look forward to such a 21st-century 
     environment is far too mild. We are deeply troubled. We 
     thought we were at the gates of an alliance that would 
     preserve peace in our corner of Europe. And, we never, never 
     imagined that negotiations and peacekeeping efforts would be 
     jettisoned to inaugurate a war of such duration and 
     intensity.
       But, a way out exists. NATO can declare that it has 
     inflicted sufficient punishment, and is prepared to 
     contribute, but not necessarily command, a peacekeeping force 
     in part of Kosovo to which Albanian refugees are returned and 
     from which Serb army and police units are evacuated. 
     Establishing the size and location of the two zones, and the 
     nature of the international force must be negotiated, but 
     such diplomacy, not cruise missiles, are the path away from 
     disaster.
       Romanians are prepared to fulfill useful roles along such a 
     path. But, we must begin to travel down it soon lest NATO 
     becomes its own nemesis.

     

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