[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 94 (Tuesday, June 29, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H5001]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




AMERICA AND ITS ALLIES SHOULD DO MORE TO PROTECT THE SERBIAN POPULATION 
                               IN KOSOVO

  (Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed at the 
failure of the United States and our allies to do a better job of 
protecting the Serbian population of Kosovo. I think we had a strong 
moral right to go to the aid of the Albanian population of that place. 
We did it because we wanted to protect innocent people from being 
persecuted based on their ethnicity.
  No doubt there are Serbs who deserve to be prosecuted because of 
their actions, but no people deserves to be mistreated because of their 
ethnicity. We took over the province militarily. We did so for good 
reasons. But along with taking it over comes an obligation to protect 
innocent people.
  I understand it is difficult. I understand this is not the primary 
task which military people have been trained for. We will not fully do 
it until we get a police force in there. I understand things happened 
very rapidly before there could be complete preparation.
  The fact is, we have a strong moral obligation. As strong as our 
moral obligation was to protect the Albanian Kosovars, so do we have a 
moral obligation to protect the great mass of Serbian people. We are 
not doing nearly as good a job about that as we should.

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