[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 24251-24252]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARDS YUGOSLAVIA

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the volatile 
situation in Yugoslavia. Slobodan Milosevic as Yugoslav dictator is 
history. The long nightmare is over. The Serbian people have spoken 
and, although Milosevic's ultimate fate is still uncertain, Kostunica's 
victory marks a sea change in Serbia's current history, a clear choice 
for democratic change over a stagnant and morally bankrupt 
dictatorship.
  As Kostunica works hard to secure and stabilize his fledgling 
government, the final outcome is not yet certain. The United States 
must not fumble the opportunity to support the new Serbian government 
as it navigates a potentially treacherous transition. With Milosevic's 
party still controlling the Serb parliament and Milosevic himself still 
lurking in the political shadows, we must engage in an open and 
constructive dialogue with Kostunica and his allies.
  To this end, I welcome the recent move by the administration to lift 
some of the sanctions that specifically targeted the Milosevic regime, 
namely the flight ban and the oil embargo, while retaining the so-
called ``outer wall'' of sanctions. I also commend the State 
Department's decision to send a delegation to Belgrade to discuss the 
Kostunica government's assistance needs.
  Mr. President, extending a helping hand does not, however, mean 
giving Kostunica and his new government a free pass when it comes to 
accounting for the terrible crimes of the Milosevic regime. To 
unilaterally lift all sanctions, or to open up the aid spigot fully 
would be both premature and naive. Instead, the United States should 
adopt a more measured response, recognizing as well the fact that a too 
forward-leaning or heavy handed policy could risk undermining Kostunica 
before he is able to consolidate power. The following immediate steps 
would, I believe, help lay the correct groundwork for future 
cooperation.
  First, the United States must maintain its insistence that Milosevic 
be delivered to the Hague to stand trial for war crimes. Anything less 
would fatally undermine the International Tribunal.
  Second, even as we congratulate Mr. Kostunica and recognize him as an 
inestimable improvement over his predecessor, we must emphasize to him 
that his democratic credentials alone will not be a sufficient 
qualification for Serbia to reenter the international community. A 
Kostunica government must fully respect the independence of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina and not undermine the Dayton Accords. Kostunica's recent 
meeting in Sarajevo with the three members of Bosnia's collective 
presidency gives some grounds for optimism. Serbia must also 
unequivocally renounce the use of force in Kosovo and take steps to 
implement policies that reflect a respect for minorities and rule of 
law.
  The foreign operations bill for fiscal year 2001 will, in fact, 
condition U.S. assistance to Serbia on meeting the above benchmarks. I 
support this section of the bill because it is the right thing to do 
and the right message to send. But while we should remain firm in our 
policy, we must also be flexible in our evaluation, recognizing what 
Kostunica is able to do and what he is unable to do while pro-Milosevic 
forces

[[Page 24252]]

still wield considerable power in the Serbian government.
  Third, the Stability Pact for Southeast Europe must be given a jolt. 
Too much time has been wasted on conferences and working groups. 
Assistance must begin to flow in the next few months. A long-needed 
measure to help the front-line states would be a crash-effort to clear 
the Danube River of bombed-out bridges, thereby reopening vital trade 
links from Bulgaria and Romania to Western Europe.
  Finally, we should strongly encourage the European Union to make good 
on this commitment to expand its membership to candidates as soon as 
they meet the qualifications. In Southeastern Europe this means Hungary 
and Slovenia. Brussels must not squander a once-in-a-lifetime 
opportunity.
  Mr. President, there is another reason I wanted to take the floor 
today, one that touches on the future of our commitment to the Balkans 
and, indeed, to a stable and secure Europe.
  As we continue to work towards a Serbia that will meet the necessary 
criteria to rejoin the community of western democracies, it is just as 
important to remember why we are engaged in the Balkans in the first 
place. This is, after all, an election year, a time when Americans 
should rightly question the policies and decisions of the current 
administration when making their decision about the next.
  U.S. military engagement on the European continent since the end of 
World War II has provided the security umbrella under which democracy 
and free-market capitalism have been able to develop and flourish. The 
Balkans, however, are a world away from that reality, the last 
remaining area of instability in Europe. During the last decade several 
hundred thousand people have been killed in three bloody wars there. 
The NATO-led peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Kosovo are designed 
to provide the same kind of umbrella as in post-war Western Europe to 
allow democracy, civil society, and capitalism to take root and 
develop.
  Without American leadership, this region would most likely still be 
mired in civil war, ethnic cleansing, and ultra-nationalist aggression, 
with Milosevic firmly ensconced at the center of it all.
  I remember well when in September 1992, reacting to the mass murders 
an ethnic cleansing that Milosevic directed in Croatia and Bosnia, I 
called for lifting the arms embargo against Bosnia and, six months 
later, for hitting the Bosnian Serbs with air strikes. I was joined by 
Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman, but for three years ours was a lonely 
fight. Finally, after hundreds of thousands killed and massacres in 
Srebrenica and Sarajevo that galvanized public opinion, our government 
undertook a bombing campaign that led to the Dayton Accords.
  Just as that American military action in 1995 served as the catalyst 
for change in Bosnia, so did Operation Allied Force in 1999 dash the 
myth in Serbia of Milosevic's invincibility. If he had gotten away with 
purging Kosovo of most of its ethnic Albanians, those in Serbia who 
found Milosevic to be odious would have had no reason to believe that 
anything could be done to stop his immoral and ruinous policies.
  American leadership has been indispensable for successful military 
action in the Balkans. The bombing campaign our government undertook in 
1995 led to the Dayton Accords for Bosnia. Operation Allied Force in 
1999 forced Milosevic to withdraw his military and paramilitary units 
from Serbia, destroying the myth in Serbia of his invincibility. This 
leadership goes beyond the purely technical military assets that only 
the U.S. can deploy; it also involves intangibles. SFOR in Bosnia and 
KFOR in Kosovo contain thousands of highly qualified soldiers from many 
countries, but the American troop presence on the ground gave the 
mission its ultimate credibility with the Balkan peoples. This fact I 
have witnessed firsthand from my many trips to the region.
  I am, therefore, alarmed by the recent calls for a unilateral 
withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Balkans. Such a radical shift in our 
policy, I believe, would have a catastrophic effect not only on the 
very real progress we have made in stabilizing both Bosnia and Kosovo, 
but on U.S. leadership in Europe and on the Atlantic Alliance as a 
whole. U.S. participation on the ground in the Balkans is essential to 
our overall leadership in NATO, which is an alliance not only of shared 
values, but also of shared risk and responsibility. To begin a 
disengagement from the Balkans would not only guarantee the loss of 
American leadership in NATO, but also, I fear, lead to the premature 
end of Western Europe's commitment to stabilizing the Balkans.
  As my colleagues surely know, the vast majority of the troops in SFOR 
and KFOR--approximately eighty percent--are European. Yet despite this 
minority participation, the United States retains the command of both 
Balkan operations in the person of U.S. General Joseph Ralston, the 
Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).
  Let me be blunt: it is naive to believe that we could retain command 
of these operations--or, more importantly, leadership of NATO itself--
if we would cavalierly inform our allies that we were unilaterally 
pulling out of the Balkans. It just won't work.
  If the U.S. withdrew, like it or not, the future of SFOR and KFOR 
would be in jeopardy, and the likelihood of renewed hostilities and 
instability beyond the borders of Bosnia and Kosovo would greatly 
increase.
  We are entering into a very sensitive period for the Balkans, one 
that could either strengthen or tear apart the fragile peace that KFOR 
and SFOR have helped secure. Local elections will take place in Kosovo 
later this month, in Bosnia in November, and in Serbia in December. The 
anti-democratic, ultra nationalist forces in the region are now no 
doubt biding their time and hoping for a new administration that has 
already laid its withdrawal cards on the table.
  The assertion that our Balkan operations are a heavy drain on our 
resources is also completely off base. Our Bosnia and Kosovo operations 
together amount to little more than one percent of our total defense 
budget. This hardly constitutes a ``hollowing out'' of the military.
  The argument that our commitment to the Balkans is open-ended is 
equally misleading. There are detailed military, political, economic, 
and social benchmarks set in place. Our ``exit strategy'' is crystal 
clear: a secure, stable, democratic Balkans with a free-market economy 
that can join the rest of the continent, a Europe ``whole and free.'' 
These are the ideals for which the greatest generation fought and died. 
We dare not embark upon a policy that fails to recognize the most 
important international lesson of the twentieth century: America's 
national security is inextricably linked to the maintenance of a stable 
and peaceful Europe.
  To pull the plug on a Balkans policy that has finally begun to yield 
real dividends and at the same time to put NATO, the most successful 
alliance in history, at risk would jeopardize America's national 
security.
  It would also betray the brave crowds in Serbia, who have struggled 
to open up great possibilities for their country, the Balkans, and all 
of Europe. This is no time for Americans to retreat from the struggle 
out of ill-conceived, artificially narrow definitions of national 
security. The American people have shown time and again that they lack 
neither vision nor patience when they are convinced of the importance 
of a cause. A Europe unified by democracy is such a cause.

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