[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 5986-5987]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 DECRYING THE ETHNIC VIOLENCE IN KOSOVO

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to condemn in the strongest 
possible terms the violence 2 weeks ago in Kosovo, which claimed the 
lives of 20 persons, injured more than 600 others, displaced more than 
4,000 individuals, destroyed more than 500 homes, and destroyed or 
damaged more than 30 churches and monasteries.
  In a reversal of the brutal murders and ethnic cleansing carried out 
in 1998 and 1999 against Kosovar Albanians by the forces of former 
Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, the perpetrators of this violence 
were the former victims--the ethnic Albanians. Their principal targets 
were Kosovo Serbs, although Ashkali and other minorities in the 
province also suffered.
  There is no way to gloss over or disguise these events: They are a 
disaster of the first magnitude. Five years ago last week, I submitted 
the resolution that was adopted by this body, authorizing military 
action against the Milosevic government in order to rescue the 
persecuted Kosovar Albanians. Over the subsequent eleven weeks the 
United States and its allies successfully waged an air war, which 
resulted in the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo. A United 
Nations Security Council Resolution created a protectorate administered 
by the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo--known popularly 
by its acronym UNMIK--under the military protection of NATO's Kosovo 
Force or KFOR.
  Since the summer of 1999 the international community, working through 
these civilian and military structures, has attempted to pacify and 
stabilize the situation, rebuild the shattered infrastructure, and help 
guide the embittered and traumatized population toward eventual 
democratic self-rule. Resolution of Kosovo's final status was 
understandably deferred until significant progress was achieved.
  From thousands of miles away it is difficult to appreciate the scope 
of the effort that the international community has devoted to Kosovo. I 
might offer a very personal example. My older son, Beau, served for 
nearly a year in UNMIK as a lawyer, helping the Kosovars to build a 
legal system that would impartially dispense justice to all inhabitants 
of the province. Tens of thousands of other Americans, together with 
citizens of dozens of other countries, have similarly worked in 
civilian and military capacities for the last five years.
  Although there has, in fact, been considerable progress in several 
areas, the recent violence graphically demonstrates that, on the whole, 
the effort is in danger of failing. The economy is in sad shape with 
more than half the population unemployed. Kosovar Albanians complain 
that the lack of action on final status has choked off any significant 
direct foreign investment, which is the sine qua non for economic 
development. But it would be irresponsible to move to final status 
before stability and democracy have been achieved--as clearly they have 
not yet been.
  So where do we go from here? Kosovo is a complex problem, for which 
there are no simple answers. In fact, every policy in the short run 
carries significant downside potential. Nonetheless, we must 
immediately take several steps.
  First of all, through KFOR and UNMIK, we must make it unmistakably 
clear to all the citizens of Kosovo that the violence must cease 
completely.
  Second, all citizens of Kosovo must cooperate with KFOR, UNMIK, and 
the Kosovo police in identifying for prosecution the perpetrators of 
violence and the destruction of property.
  Third, all displaced persons and refugees must be returned to their 
former towns and villages, guaranteed their personal safety, and 
granted assistance to rebuild their homes as speedily as possible. In 
this regard, I am encouraged by the commitment made by the Kosovo 
Assembly to establish a fund for the reconstruction of homes, churches, 
and other property destroyed during the March attacks.
  Fourth, the United Nations should undertake a review of the structure 
and organization of UNMIK.
  Fifth, the authorities in Pristina and Belgrade should reinvigorate 
and intensify their dialogue.
  A resolution submitted by my good friend from Ohio, Senator 
Voinovich, and of which I am an original co-sponsor, makes many of 
these points.
  I would add a few more important policy recommendations.
  The so-called ``benchmarks'' established by UNMIK must be reviewed. I 
have supported the policy of ``standards before status'' whereby Kosovo 
must fulfill rigorous goals before the province's final status is 
considered. I still believe that, in general, this is the correct 
course. The precipitous calls by some people for abandonment of the 
benchmarks and rapid independence for Kosovo would, I believe, be a 
cure worse than the disease. The international community simply cannot 
reward murder and violence. ``Riots before status'' is not the answer.
  Nonetheless, I believe that the UNMIK benchmarks have been too 
elaborately constructed. Few countries could completely fulfill their 
requirements. In the wake of the violence, the benchmarks should be 
streamlined and prioritized, with emphasis given to personal security, 
minority rights, and some kind of decentralization of government, 
although not the apartheid-like ``cantonization'' being demanded by 
politicians in Serbia.
  If by the middle of 2005 the benchmarks on personal security and 
minority rights can be completely fulfilled, and significant progress 
made on the other benchmarks, then discussion of final status for 
Kosovo can begin.
  We should do our best to strengthen the moderates in Kosovo and 
Serbia, but there are, unfortunately, very few such ``good guys'' on 
the political scene in Pristina and Belgrade. Short-term political 
expediency seems to trump principle, despite the occasional lofty 
sounding speeches. Most Kosovar Albanian leaders hesitated before 
publicly condemning the ethnic violence, Prime Minister Rexhepi being a 
very positive and conspicuous exception. General Ceku's call for 
restraint on the part of members of the Kosovo Protection Corps was 
also helpful. In the future, all Kosovar leaders must get the message 
that rewards will flow to those who genuinely try to build a peaceful, 
democratic, multi-ethnic society.
  It would be easier to be sympathetic to the cries from Belgrade to 
defend and give special rights to the Kosovo Serbs if Serbian 
politicians had not been so demagogically nationalistic in the weeks 
and months prior to the violence. The new Serbian Government led by 
Prime Minister Kostunica seems hell-bent on insulting the very 
international community that it needs for support in the Kosovo 
question, and in other matters.
  Above all, the Kostunica administration has repeatedly thumbed its 
nose at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. 
In a speech in late February, Kostunica himself candidly explained: 
``This country is not a simple deliverer of human goods to The Hague 
tribunal.'' No political campaign can justify this kind of know-nothing 
jingoism.
  Then just last Tuesday the Serbian Parliament outdid even Kostunica's 
blustering when it voted by a wide margin to pay all Serbian war crimes 
indictees at ICTY ``compensation for lost salaries, plus help for 
spouses, siblings, parents, and children for flight and hotel costs, 
telephone and mail bills, visa fees, and legal charges.'' The measure 
was supported by deputies

[[Page 5987]]

from the parties of ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seselj and of Milosevic. 
Both these gentlemen, of course, are currently residing in prison in 
The Hague. The party of Prime Minister Kostunica joined in voting for 
this measure, which, were it not so grotesque, might almost be labeled 
comic opera.
  As long as up to 16 indictees, including three former Serbian 
generals, are openly living in Serbia, and the ``butcher of Bosnia,'' 
former General Ratko Mladic, is also probably there, the Serbian 
Government cannot expect much international support. The U.S. 
Government has just announced that it is suspending all economic 
assistance not used for democratizing purposes because of Belgrade's 
unsatisfactory level of compliance with ICTY, and until it cooperates 
fully, Serbia will not be allowed to join NATO's Partnership for Peace.
  We can take some solace in the opposition to the Serbian Parliament's 
resolution by a few smaller parties, including that of Defense Minister 
Boris Tadic, a genuine democrat and man of principle. During the Kosovo 
violence, Tadic, who has carried out a vigorous reform of the Serbian 
military and security services, proved that he has instituted civilian 
control by keeping the lid on hotheads calling for intervention, 
reportedly in cooperation with U.S. Admiral Gregory Johnson, NATO's 
AFSOUTH Commander. There is a chance that later this year Mr. Tadic may 
run for President of Serbia against a candidate of Seselj's party.
  In order to get Kosovo back onto the right path, the U.S. Government 
must alter its policy. And make no mistake about it: Kosovo matters. It 
matters to the people of Kosovo. It matters to the people of Serbia. It 
matters to the stability of the entire area of the former Yugoslavia. 
It matters to the Balkans, since Serbia is the key to regional 
stability, and because the fate of Kosovo directly impacts ethnic 
Albanians in neighboring Albania, in the Former Yugoslav Republic of 
Macedonia, in southern Serbia, and in Montenegro. In that context, 
Kosovo matters to the security of all of Europe and, hence, to the 
security of the United States of America.
  One thing is crystal clear: the Bush administration can no longer 
afford to relegate Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro, and Macedonia to the 
back burner of its international concerns. The administration has been 
living in an ideologically driven dreamworld in which victory in the 
Balkans was prematurely declared in order to get on with perceived 
higher priorities like national missile defense.
  Lest anyone think I am criticizing the focus on the war on terrorism 
in Central Asia and the Middle East, I am not. As early as the fall 
2000 election campaign--nearly one year before the terrorist attacks of 
September 11, 2001--Presidential candidate George W. Bush announced 
that he would unilaterally withdraw U.S. ground forces from the NATO-
led peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. His future National 
Security Advisor Dr. Rice echoed this misguided notion in a newspaper 
interview. The following spring, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, flying in 
the face of all objective evidence, declared that the problem of Bosnia 
had been settled three or four years earlier. Even in this body 
resolutions for withdrawal of U.S. forces were periodically submitted, 
but, I am happy to say, rejected.
  Now we are waging war, attempting to quell resistance movements in 
Afghanistan and Iraq. We all know that our armed forces are stretched 
perilously thin, and obviously some troop adjustments have had to be 
made. U.S. forces in Bosnia have been reduced to little more than one 
thousand, or about 5 percent of their initial strength. Later this year 
NATO will turn over command of SFOR to the European Union, although 
some American troops will remain at our base in Tuzla, at the request 
of the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
  Let me repeat that for my colleagues: the Government of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina, with the representatives of all three major groups--the 
Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, and Croats--concurring, requested that American 
troops stay on in Bosnia after the EU takes command of the peacekeeping 
force. The fact is that the United States has stature unequaled in that 
part of the world perhaps even higher in Kosovo than in Bosnia.
  As in SFOR, we have drastically reduced our troop strength in KFOR. 
Given the events of the past few weeks, we dare not reduce it further. 
KFOR troops played a key role in quelling the Kosovo violence. I am 
told that of the various national contingents, American KFOR troops 
especially distinguished themselves.
  Further proof of the Bush administration's downgrading the importance 
of the region was its abolishing the position of Special Coordinator 
for the Balkans. This position should be reinstated and filled by a 
senior career diplomat with extensive experience in Balkan affairs.
  This new Special Coordinator should immediately engage the political 
leadership in Pristina and Belgrade in serious dialogue. I do not want 
to pre-judge what the final international legal status of Kosovo will 
be, although I cannot imagine that Kosovo will ever revert to direct 
control from Belgrade. Whatever the end result, direct negotiations 
between Pristina and Belgrade must be an integral part of the process. 
No other path would stand the test of time.
  The United States was Serbia's ally in two world wars in the first 
half of the twentieth century. The United States is revered by Kosovar 
Albanians as their savior from the recent tyranny of Slobodan 
Milosevic. We have earned a credibility that no other country, or group 
of countries, possesses.
  This administration should utilize this unique position, in 
coordination with other members of the contact group, to jumpstart the 
process of creating a safe, prosperous, democratic, multi-ethnic 
Kosovo.

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