[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 79 (Wednesday, June 21, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5549-S5550]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     AGAINST AMNESTY FOR MILOSEVIC

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to comment on an opinion piece 
in the June 20 edition of the Washington Post written by Mr. Milan 
Panic, former Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, and an American citizen.
  In this article, Mr. Panic argues for getting Russian President Putin 
to agree to offer Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic asylum, in a 
deal approved by the international community.
  This is an appalling idea whose time, thank heavens, has not come. At 
least it would appear so, since it has been widely reported that at 
their recent summit meeting Putin told President Clinton that Miami 
seemed to be as good a place for Milosevic as Moscow.
  President Putin may not be turning out to be a model democrat, but no 
one has accused him of being dumb. He obviously feels that having 
Milosevic enlivening the Moscow scene would not exactly burnish his own 
credentials.
  All kidding aside, the idea of blithely pronouncing all of our 
efforts in the former Yugoslavia over the last decade a hopeless 
failure and then letting the architect of the carnage skip off with his 
family to exile is both morally reprehensible and politically 
catastrophic.
  The international community has labored long and hard to set up the 
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague, 
and then to get it up and running.
  Over the past year the number of individuals indicted for alleged war 
crimes in custody has risen dramatically. Why should we totally 
undercut the Hague Tribunal, just when it is hitting its stride?
  Why should we undercut the new, reformist government in Croatia, 
which has reversed the obstructionist course of the late strongman 
Tudjman and has begun cooperating with the Hague? If Milosevic is given 
a suspension of prosecution, then why shouldn't all the Croats in 
custody get the same deal?
  In arguing against undercutting the Hague Tribunal, I do not wish to 
imply that it has been a complete success. What is missing from the 
jail cells in the Hague, of course, are the really big fish--the chief 
villains of the massive slaughter in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo.
  I am, of course, talking about Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic, and, 
above all, the boss of all bosses Slobodan Milosevic. That's the point! 
To make this promising international effort work we need to do 
precisely the opposite from granting amnesty to public enemy number-
one. We need to add him to the growing list of indicted suspects in 
detention.
  The Panic op-ed argues that we won't be able to capture Milosevic. In 
the short run, we probably won't. But as

[[Page S5550]]

the vice tightens on Milosevic's cronies and makes it clear to them 
that they will have absolutely no future in a Milosevic-run state, I 
think it may occur to them to serve Slobo up on a platter to the Hague.
  We have all learned not to make rash predictions about when Milosevic 
will fall from power, and I won't fail into that trap today. But the 
signs of increasing discontent are everywhere--from the new student-
run, grassroots resistance movement called Otpor to the rash of 
gangland style assassinations and assassination attempts among 
Milosevic's retinue and allies.
  So while I can't say when Milosevic will fall, fall he will. And it 
will be much better, both for Serbia and for the international 
community, if he falls as a result of pressure from his own people, 
rather than from some sordid deal cooked up abroad.
  In a larger sense, why should we nip a promising international 
judicial effort in the bud in a misguided attempt to relieve the Serbs, 
in the worst possible way, of a problem that they spawned and that they 
have the primary responsibility to rectify?
  Somehow the curse of Milosevic is to be lifted from the Serbian 
people by a foreign deus ex machina, in this case the good Russian 
tsar. And then, in return for having graciously allowed their dictator 
to depart, the Serbian people would receive and end to sanctions from 
the international community.
  Give me a break. Even if we could persuade Putin to go against his 
self-interest--a total impossibility, of course--such a deal would only 
fuel the Serbs' oft-noted passion for blaming others for misfortunes 
that they themselves have created. Why else would the foreigners have 
gotten rid of Milosevic if they hadn't somehow been responsible for him 
in the first place?
  And what are we to make of the article's nice plan that part of the 
deal would be free and fair elections in Serbia under international 
supervision? I can just imagine what the other war criminals in the 
Yugoslav and Serbian governments would think of that idea!
  The most likely result of an arranged Milosevic departure would be 
another set of gangsters, not democrats elected by universal suffrage. 
The Panic op-ed is entitled ``Exit Milosevic.'' It might just as well 
be entitled ``Enter Seselj''--that is, Vojislav Seselj, the fascist 
Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia. Mr. Panic's naivete gives us a pretty 
good clue as to why Milosevic so easily outmaneuvered him in 1993.
  Morality, Serbian politics, and the Hague Tribunal aside, granting 
asylum to Milosevic would be a political disaster for the United States 
and for NATO.
  Last year President Clinton had a difficult time in rounding up 
support within NATO's nineteen members for Operation Allied Force, and 
then sustaining that support until Milosevic's troops and 
paramilitaries were forced out of Kosovo. But he skillfully managed to 
do it, and alliance unity was preserved.
  Then we got our European allies and others to assume 85 percent of 
the burden of KFOR in Kosovo and also to fund the vast majority of the 
cost of the Stability Pact for South East Europe.
  Now, after pardoning Milosevic, I suppose we could turn to our 
European allies and say, ``incidentally, friends, we really didn't need 
to fight that pesky, little air war after all. We could have just 
bought off old Slobo last year and sent him packing. But please don't 
ignore fulfilling the commitments you made to the Defense Capabilities 
Initiative at the Washington NATO Summit. We really do need an alliance 
with teeth, so you still have to spend a lot to upgrade your forces. 
Don't worry, though. The Milosevic buyout was just a one-time event. 
Nothing like that will happen again. NATO is really not in the amnesty 
business. It's just that the Serbs needed us to take the monkey off 
their back, and we're sure that Slobo's successors will now choose to 
cooperate with us.''
  Pardon my sarcasm, Mr. President, but this amnesty idea is just too 
politically naive to believe.
  The Panic article also reveals an impatience as American as apple 
pie. We all want a quick fix. But, my friends, there are few quick 
fixes in life that have any permanence, and trying to set the Balkans 
right by way of shortcuts certainly isn't one of them.
  To have any chance of creating a modicum of stability in the former 
Yugoslavia and elsewhere in the region, solutions must be largely home-
grown, if under the security umbrella provided by NATO.
  So, let's consign the Panic op-ed to sophomore political science 
seminars and think-tank luncheons--but not to serious consideration by 
our Government.
  Let's get on with the vital, if prosaic, business of rebuilding 
Bosnia and Kosovo and supporting the opposition in Serbia through a 
variety of programs, which are in place, ongoing, and which, in time, I 
believe, will succeed.

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