[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 101 (Friday, July 16, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8707-S8709]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    NOMINATION OF RICHARD HOLBROOKE

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I address the Senate regarding Executive 
Calendar No. 135, the nomination by the President of the United States 
of Richard Holbrooke of New York to be the Representative of the United 
States of America to the sessions of the General Assembly. That was 
presented to the Senate by the distinguished chairman of the Foreign 
Relations Committee, Mr. Helms, on June 30, 1999. Following the 
favorable reporting by the Committee. It is now pending.
  I have been in this magnificent body, privileged by the State of 
Virginia, for 21 years. I fully recognize the rights of Senators to 
place holds on nominations. I respect that right. I respect them for 
the reasons they have done it. I have done it myself, although 
sparingly. But in my judgment, the urgency for the Senate to address 
this nomination is increasing daily. I urge the Senate to proceed to an 
up-or-down vote because the United States of America, in my judgment, 
is increasingly in need of having a very powerful voice at the U.N.
  Ambassador Holbrooke, in my judgment, is eminently qualified. He is 
well experienced with the complex issues in the Balkans.
  I ask unanimous consent that at the end of my remarks there be 
printed an article in today's Washington Post.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is ordered.
  (See Exhibit 1.)
  Mr. WARNER. It covers the following:

       Five weeks after the end of bitter ethnic war and the 
     arrival of NATO troops in Kosovo, growing confusion among 
     Western officials, local politicians and Kosovo's population 
     about who controls the province is hampering efforts to begin 
     rebuilding its tattered economy and political structure and 
     social services.

  The essence of this article captures a concern of this Senator, that 
the men and women in the Armed Forces, be they wearing the uniform of 
the United States or the uniform of our other NATO allies, all under 
the command of an American officer, General Clark, are at increasing 
personal risk because the United Nations is not able, perhaps for valid 
reasons, perhaps for invalid reasons, to take up their allocation of 
responsibilities and relieve the burdens from the troops so they can 
restrict their responsibilities to professional military duties.
  I believe we should proceed with this nomination, have a vote up or 
down. Hopefully, this nomination will be approved by the Senate, and we 
can have a strong voice to enter into this very serious situation in 
Kosovo. We have invested billions of dollars. We have put at risk tens 
of thousands of lives, the men and women of the Armed Forces of this 
country and other countries, to reach the conclusion we now have of 
relative stability, in clear contrast to the cruel ethnic cleansing 
inflicted upon the people of Kosovo.

[[Page S8708]]

  I think the time has come. I ask those who have reasons to be further 
considering this nomination--I am actively working to resolve those 
problems--to weigh the risk to the men and women of the armed forces of 
all nations involved in Kosovo.

                               Exhibit 1

               [From the Washington Post, July 16, 1999]

                   Kosovo's New Adversary: Confusion

                         (By R. Jeffrey Smith)

       Pristina, Yugoslavia, July 15--Five weeks after the end of 
     a bitter ethnic war and the arrival of NATO troops in Kosovo, 
     growing confusion among Western officials, local politicians 
     and Kosovo's population about who controls the province is 
     hampering efforts to begin rebuilding its tattered economy, 
     political structures and social services.
       The Western allies are preparing an ambitious multibillion-
     dollar program to repair war damage and bring stability to 
     Kosovo and the surrounding region for the first time in at 
     least a decade. But the effort has already become bogged down 
     by major disagreements among the rival claimants to power in 
     the Serbian province.
       In the resulting power vacuum, Kosovo's myriad problems are 
     multiplying. Thousands of vacant buildings, homes and 
     businesses are being taken over by squatters, some of whom 
     are investing in new, unlicensed enterprises whose legal 
     basis is unresolved. No one is sure who owns public 
     enterprises or who is to benefit from their revenues now that 
     most Serbian officials have left and hundreds of thousands of 
     ethnic Albanian refugees have returned.
       With municipal offices otherwise unoccupied, former members 
     of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army are taking up positions 
     as local administrators even though they lack any legal 
     authority. Even so, the former rebels are making decisions 
     and issuing edicts whose long-term viability is open to 
     question.
       In the meantime, fire departments have no trucks, hospitals 
     have no ambulances or equipment, gas stations have no fuel. 
     Electricity and water supplies function only intermittently, 
     and telephone service is available only in parts of Pristina, 
     the Kosovo capital, and a few other towns. Without a trained 
     police force, ``the level of lawlessness is stable on the 
     high side,'' one senior Western official said.
       But no one knows who to complain to--or where.
       According to NATO, the United Nations--officially in charge 
     of reestablishing a civilian government--is the top 
     authority. But almost no one here seems to heed, or even 
     recognize, the U.N. presence. Many civilians still regard 
     NATO and its 32,400 troops as the ultimate arbiter on civil 
     matters. Other residents say unelected ethnic Albanian 
     representatives, led by KLA members, are in charge.
       Moreover, the KLA and the United Nations have begun to 
     joust over matters both large and small. In one such 
     encounter, Jay Carter, the senior U.N. official in charge of 
     civilian government here, told a senior KLA official that all 
     state-owned property in Kosovo is now under U.N. control. But 
     Visar Reka, the KLA official, said he responded that ``You're 
     not the owner, you're just the manager; Albanians are the 
     owners.''
       Reka and others who work in the offices of KLA political 
     leader Hashim Thaqi, who has been named prime minister of a 
     provisional government, say they have the authority to run 
     the province until elections next spring. But U.N. officials 
     refuse to recognize this claim. ``To me, [Thaqi] represents 
     the KLA, not the government; we are clear on this,'' said 
     Brazilian diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello, the interim U.N. 
     administrator in Kosovo.
       Even so, the United Nations itself is unsure how far its 
     legal mandate extends and recently asked its lawyers to 
     review what authority its officials are entitled to assert. 
     In particular, the lawyers are looking at whether revenues 
     from state-owned enterprises, such as electric and water 
     utilities, must be placed in escrow until Kosovo's legal 
     status is resolved or can be spent without input from 
     authorities in Belgrade, the capital of both Yugoslavia and 
     its dominant republic, Serbia. Kosovo's final legal status--
     whether it will remain part of Serbia, for example--is likely 
     to take years to resolve.
       For now, no one knows for sure what Yugoslavia--and its 
     Serbian leadership--owns or is entitled to control in Kosovo. 
     ``Ownership is one of the toughest problems we face,'' said 
     de Mello, who is being replaced this week by Bernard Kouchner 
     of France. ``If it is state-owned, it is the U.N.'s, at least 
     during the interim administration. If it's private, we are in 
     serious trouble.''
       Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority is reasserting itself in 
     the wake of the withdrawal of Serb-led forces and the flight 
     of tens of thousands of Serbs from the province. More than 
     660,000--or roughly 85 percent--of the ethnic Albanians who 
     fled or were expelled from the province have now returned, 
     each expecting to have considerably more say in Kosovo's 
     governance.
       Meanwhile, the government in Belgrade has complained 
     repeatedly that provisions in the June 12 cease-fire accord 
     offering Serbia at least a token role in policing borders and 
     monuments in Kosovo have not been respected. It has also 
     denounced talk of creating an independent currency for the 
     province and has claimed rights to revenues from state-owned 
     mines and power plants.
       Much of the confusion stems from the uncertain status of 
     the agreement signed by ethnic Albanian leaders and Western 
     officials in France last March, which set out in dozens of 
     pages what the new government here would look like. But 
     Serbian officials never accepted the document, and nothing 
     was written to replace it when the cease-fire accord was 
     signed. Since then, the United Nations, NATO and local 
     leaders have had to renegotiate which of its provisions will 
     be followed.
       KLA officials, for example, complain that the United 
     Nations got off on the wrong foot by demanding that jobs at 
     city halls, utilities and state-owned media be apportioned 
     equally among Serbs and ethnic Albanians. The intent was to 
     demonstrate even-handedness and to help persuade Kosovo Serbs 
     to stay here. But the plan angered ethnic Albanians, who 
     expected that jobs would be divided according to their 
     proportion of the overall population--now hovering at 95 
     percent.
       ``It means a new slavery,'' said Ram Buje, a KLA political 
     official now employed in Thaqui's office, of the proposed 50-
     50 split. When asked about the split last Friday, de Mello 
     indicated he was unaware of it and called inappropriate. By 
     Sunday, U.N. officials agreed that 330 ethnic Albanians will 
     eventually work alongside just 60 Serbs at the city hall in 
     Pristina, a likely model for other towns. But the city hall 
     was closed Tuesday after the most prominent Serb there was 
     badly beaten by an ethnic Albanian mob, which claimed he had 
     committed atrocities during the war.
       The ethnic Albanian leadership has not been the only source 
     of friction for the U.N. mission. A U.N.-appointed 
     consultative council was to have been established Tuesday, 
     which would have the power to confirm the selection of mayors 
     for each of Kosovo's 29 municipalities. It was supposed to 
     have two representatives from longstanding ethnic Albanian 
     political parties, one from the KLA, two independent ethnic 
     Albanians, two Serbs, a Turk and a Muslim. The Belgrade 
     government's local representative was not invited, de Mello 
     said, ``because the others won't come if he is there.''
       But some KLA officials last week created a new party that 
     will not be represented, and the two Serbs picked by de 
     Mello--Serbian Orthodox Church Bishop Artemije Radosavljevic 
     and Serbian Resistance Movement leader Momcilo Trajkovic--
     announced last weekend they would boycott the commission on 
     grounds that Serbs and Serbian interest are not being 
     adequately protected. As a result the council has yet to get 
     off the ground.
       De Mello acknowledged that it remains to be seen how the 
     council will be replicated ``at the district or . . . 
     municipal level, where democratic institutions will truly be 
     tested.'' Buje, the Thaqi aide, has in the meantime stepped 
     into the vacuum by appointing mayors for 25 municipalities--
     all but the four in which Serbs compose a majority of the 
     local population.
       ``We are the people who know all the business,'' Buje said, 
     but the government ``is a mosaic. We know this is an 
     international protectorate, but it's all mixed.''


                         Who's Running Kosovo?

       The U.N.? Bernard Kouchner, the U.N. administrator in 
     Kosovo, faces a situation in which disputes over control have 
     bogged down reconstruction efforts.
       NATO? Many in Kosovo still regard NATO, commanded by Gen. 
     Wesley K. Clark, as the ultimate arbiter on civic matters, 
     but NATO says it's the United Nations.
       The KLA? Kosovo Liberation Army leader Hashim Thaqi says 
     the rebels have authority over Kosovo for now, but the United 
     Nations refuses to recognize this claim.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I yield to my distinguished colleague, 
Senator Hagel.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.
  Mr. HAGEL. Mr. President, I echo what my friend, the distinguished 
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has said.
  It is not wise policy nor responsible governance for the greatest 
power on earth to hold captive one of the most important and 
responsible positions in this government, a position that has an effect 
and consequence to all of our allies as well as our adversaries. It is 
a constitutional mandate for this body to act with responsibility, 
aside from dispatch, and to move on this. I personally think holds are 
irresponsible. I understand the tradition of this body. I am new to 
this body, but I would go so far as to say, if you wish to hold 
someone, have the courage to take a stand on the floor of the Senate. 
Come before the American public and say why that hold is to be put on 
and why it is so important to hold captive such a critical position for 
this country, for our allies, for the representation of American values 
and standards across the world.
  To put in jeopardy our men and women in uniform who defend this 
Nation, as the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee 
has so directly stated, is irresponsible. I support strongly what the 
senior Senator from Virginia is saying. This body

[[Page S8709]]

should have the courage to bring this nomination up and vote straight 
up or down. Let every Member be recorded.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to continue the remarks so 
forcefully made by our beloved chairman of the Armed Forces Committee, 
the Senator from Virginia, and the Senator from Nebraska, as regards 
the nomination before us on the calendar for the position of permanent 
representative to the United Nations.
  I would like to make the point--and I have served in that role--that 
this is a Cabinet position. It has been from the time of President 
Eisenhower when Henry Cabot Lodge was in the Cabinet. It is one of the 
oldest traditions of this body that a President is entitled to and must 
have his own counselors. Be they right-minded or wrong-minded, they are 
the President's judgment and they are his responsibility.
  This office is a Cabinet office of the highest importance, as the 
Senator from Virginia has said, in mediating urgent international 
issues. But there is an awesome principle. Once, almost a half century 
ago, the Senate did reject a Cabinet nomination of President 
Eisenhower. It was not a proud moment for the Senate. We have not done 
it since, for the good reason that we ought not to do it ever.
  I plead with the Senate to respect this prerogative of the other 
branch. I hope I will not seem mischievous if I repeat the remarks of 
my friend from Nebraska who said the day may come when there is a 
President of the other party. And indeed that could come very shortly. 
I do not predict it, but that is the way we work here. That President 
would want to choose his Cabinet members and would be entitled to do 
so, for all the errors they may make or not. That is the constitutional 
form of government in which we live. Let us, sir, support that regime 
of two centuries, unparalleled in the history of democratic government, 
based upon this principle of the separation of powers and the 
President's right to choose.

  I yield the floor.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues.
  Yesterday, the Armed Services Committee had a briefing on the Balkan 
Task Force from the Department of Defense. I put the question to the 
uniformed officers: Is there a correlation between the absence of 
strong leadership in the U.N. and risk to our troops? Their response 
was a definitive yes.
  I thank the distinguished Senator from Georgia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.

                          ____________________