[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 79 (Monday, June 7, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1140-E1141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  CRISIS IN KOSOVO (ITEM NO. 7): REMARKS BY LANDRUM BOLLING, HARVARD 
                               UNIVERSITY

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. DENNIS J. KUCINICH

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                          Monday, June 7, 1999

  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, on May 6, 1999, I joined with Rep. John 
Conyers, Rep. Pete Stark, and Rep. Cynthia McKinney to host the third 
in a series of Congressional Teach-In sessions on the Crisis in Kosovo. 
If a peaceful resolution to this conflict is to be found in the coming 
weeks, it is essential that we cultivate a consciousness of peace and 
actively search for creative solutions. We must construct a foundation 
for peace through negotiation, mediation, and diplomacy.
  Part of the dynamic of peace is a willingness to engage in meaningful 
dialogue, to listen to one another openly and to share our views in a 
constructive manner. I hope that these Teach-In sessions will 
contribute to this process by providing a forum for Members of Congress 
and the public to explore alternatives to the bombing and options for a 
peaceful resolution. We will hear from a variety of speakers on 
different sides of the Kosovo situation. I will be introducing into the 
Congressional Record transcripts of their remarks and essays that shed 
light on the many dimensions of the crisis.
  This presentation is by Landrum Bolling, a member of Harvard 
University's Conflict Management Group and a visiting Senior Fellow at 
the Center for International Policy. He was part of Rev. Jesse 
Jackson's delegation that freed the three American soldiers who were 
captured and imprisoned by the Serbs. Mr. Bolling addresses an 
important question: ``Where do we go from here?'' Based upon 
discussions that he and other members of the Jackson delegation had in 
Belgrade, Mr. Bolling predicts that Slobodan Milosevic will be prepared 
to accept a peace settlement that is quite close to NATO's central 
demands. He also emphasizes the critical importance of the refugees 
being able to return to their homes.

   Presentation by Landrum Bolling of Harvard University's Conflict 
                            Management Group

       Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Friends, I'm very pleased to be 
     invited to be here with you and to share some thoughts about 
     our present situation in Kosovo and the outcomes of it. Most 
     of the provocative comments that have just been made by 
     Ambassador Swartz are things that I very much agree with. 
     We'd quarrel a bit about whether a Bosnian nation does, 
     can or could ever exist. But I think that he is absolutely 
     right. We've got to make up our minds whether we're going 
     to win this war. If so, it has to be done quickly, or it 
     will be an absolute disaster, not only for the Serb people 
     and for the state of Yugoslavia, which will be destroyed, 
     but we've also had a great many losses ourselves, and we 
     will be made a kind of moral pariah country in the world. 
     We cannot sustain this level of violence against people, 
     many of whom are totally opposed to Milosevic, many of 
     whom have no support whatsoever for the things the 
     Milosevic government had done. But they're paying the 
     price and we are not protecting any of the Kosovars who we 
     said we were launching this campaign to protect.
       Now, I think the central issue is this one, that the 
     Ambassador has put forth very

[[Page E1141]]

     clearly: Where do we go from here? What next? I think from 
     the general feel of things, the atmosphere that I found in 
     Belgrade, the sort of sotto voce conversations I had with 
     various people there and from what we read in the New York 
     Times and the Washington Post this morning, something is 
     happening, something is about to happen. You won't have all 
     of this flurry of activity without something coming out of 
     it. What it will be is yet to be seen.
       Our talks in Belgrade, beyond those of just getting the 
     soldiers released, were a worthy mission in itself, though 
     some people criticized us very severely for trying and told 
     us quite confidently that we'd never succeed. Well, we did 
     succeed. They told us it was risky and our lives would be in 
     danger, the U.S. government could do nothing to protect us. 
     OK, we said ``fine.'' We went there, we came back. But we had 
     the opportunity to explore ideas among people within the 
     leadership of this Milosevic government. We sampled public 
     opinion from talking to a variety of people there, and I 
     simply want to share with you a few of those impressions.
       Trying to read Mr. Milosevic's mind is an arcane kind of 
     skill that I think none of us have or are likely to acquire. 
     But he's not a stupid man. He's a highly intelligent man, 
     he's a highly manipulative man, and he's done terrible things 
     and is capable of doing more terrible things. But it is 
     perfectly clear that there is going to be a willingness on 
     his part to move towards something very close to what NATO is 
     demanding of him, specifically, he is prepared to agree to 
     the return of all the refugees whom he's driven out. That's 
     going to be a difficult, costly task to carry out. He's going 
     to agree to the return of the relief and development agencies 
     who also were withdrawn from Kosovo, and he'll agree to free 
     access for them to do their job. He wants very much and will 
     certainly agree to a resumption of negotiations on an 
     autonomy agreement. The nature of autonomy he would agree to 
     is of course not totally clear; he does want to make sure 
     that Kosovo would remain within Serbia. That's one of his 
     central demands. Whether he would settle for it simply being 
     a republic within Yugoslavia, I don't know, but that's one of 
     the other options. He will resist tenaciously the idea of an 
     independent Kosovo, and quite honestly, I think we should 
     too. I think that would be a terribly disturbing, 
     destabilizing outcome of this conflict.
       The big sticking points are these: the withdrawal of Serb 
     troops, police forces and special groups from this terrible 
     activities in Kosovo. He knows he will have to withdraw. He 
     will try tenaciously to keep some presense there. He will 
     insist that we've got to have some Serb police as part of 
     this peacekeeping force. And he will have a certain logic to 
     that. But how do you constrain them, control them, I don't 
     know. That's one of the issues. He's going to be very tough 
     in bargaining about total or substantial withdrawal. He's 
     going to fight for some presence to be maintained there.
       The other thing is, of course, the composition of the 
     international peace keeping police service (whatever you call 
     it, semantics do have some place) he wants some kind of fig 
     leaf to cover him. So, that will be one of the things that 
     will be a stumbling block. But I think in the end he will 
     agree to a multinational, armed policing service. Probably he 
     would like, of course, it not to carry the NATO flag and 
     label, but he knows it will have to have a substantial NATO 
     component within it. He will be of course very cagey in how 
     he finalizes his commitments, and he will hope that he will 
     be able to remain in power and be a party to the signing of 
     whatever agreement is finally made. I think that we need to 
     step up our negotiating efforts and indeed I think they are 
     in fact taking place.
       One of the things that bothers me is the fear that a lot of 
     the American public, the American media, some members of the 
     Congress in both parties, will be amused with this need to 
     show how tough and strong we are, and how we must not weaken 
     and we must not give in. We must be careful that we don't be 
     made to seem like fools manipulated by this evil man. We are 
     in danger of taking counsel of our fears instead of mounting 
     courage of our convictions and our hopes for a better world 
     and for a solution.
       I think that a solution that we could accept is possible. 
     It will take hard bargaining, it will take tenacious 
     attention to details, and here's one thing I want to say 
     finally, Mr. Chairman. I think we need to give much more 
     attention to the issue of the process by which we accomplish 
     these things. We have an illusion that somehow if you could 
     get the top leaders together around the table facing each 
     other, they can produce the document which they will then 
     sign that will solve the problem.
       That's one of the troubles with the Dayton agreement. We 
     got the people together, we locked them up for two weeks, we 
     browbeat them into so-called negotiating and gave them a 
     document to sign. The document was enormously complicated and 
     lengthy which outlined a constitution for a state and all the 
     rest of it. We gave it to them and said: ``Now you sign here 
     and we're going out and implementing it.'' The Dayton 
     agreement has flaws but it really isn't as bad as its 
     application has turned out to be. We didn't really enforce it 
     and we didn't carry it out in all kinds of ways.
       I think we need to have a step by step process set in 
     motion in which specialists can come forth with proposals of 
     how these issues can be dealt with and how to involve all of 
     the parties who must be a part of the final framing of that 
     agreement and signing it. The idea that you can make peace by 
     a dicta is not a viable concept of international diplomacy, 
     it simply won't work. That is not real diplomacy nor will it 
     produce peace and stability in the region.
       The final thing is that we've got to ingrain in our policy 
     and in our actions the return of the refugees to their homes. 
     This is the heart of the problem also in Bosnia. It is the 
     heart of the problem if we cannot deliver on this obligation 
     to enable people to go back to where they came from. That 
     above everything else is what they want. Don't let anybody 
     tell you, Henry Kissinger or anyone else, that the refugees 
     don't want to go home, that's nonsense. And if we can't 
     deliver that, we are bankrupt in terms of creative diplomatic 
     ideas, and we expose our posturing of power as a hollow, 
     hollow thing.

     

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