    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
    [May 6, 1999]
    [Pages 706-708]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in a Discussion With Kosovar Refugees in Ingelheim, Germany
    May 6, 1999

        The President. First of all, let me say that I realize that all of
    you have been through incredible times and that it must be even harder
    to talk about. But I want to thank Chancellor Schroeder and the people of Germany for providing a place for
    you to be and for their support for our united action to reverse what
    has happened in Kosovo, so that you can go home again and be safe and
    free.
        Just today my wife met the first
    group of refugees from Kosovo coming to the United States. They will
    stay there, as you are staying in Germany, until we can provide the
    conditions that are necessary for people to go home.
        Most people in the world would have a hard time believing what has
    happened to you and that it has, in fact, happened. So far we have been
    very fortunate, Chancellor Schroeder and I
    and all of our Allies in NATO, in having our people, by and large,
    support what we are doing to try to stop what happened to you and to
    reverse the conditions so that you can go back.
        But it is very important that your stories be told. What Chancellor
    Schroeder said is right. In places where people who have different
    religions and different ethnic groups, different racial groups, where
    they get along together, where they work together, where they help each
    other, people find what has happened to you to be literally almost
    unbelievable. And so the world needs to know the truth of Kosovo. And we
    need to make sure that we are all strong enough to stay with you and to
    support you until you can go home.
        So again I say, I know this must be hard for you to be here talking
    to us and to all of us strangers here. But we appreciate it, and we
    would like to hear from you, to say whatever you wish to say to us about
    where you are now and what happened in Kosovo, any questions you wish to
    ask. We just want to be with you and to hear from you. And we thank you
    for taking the time to be with us.

    [At this point, the discussion proceeded. Several of the Kosovar
    refugees described their experiences, and another asked what NATO was
    doing to help people left behind in Kosovo.]

        The President. It is a very hard problem, helping the people who are
    left behind, because if they send planes in there to drop supplies, they
    could be shot out of the sky. And it's also hard to drop the supplies
    and know that the Kosovar Albanians will get it, instead of having the
    Serb military or the paramilitary pick it up. So it's a problem.
        I can say that we have been working very hard to try to find some
    neutral country that we could get agreement to ship in food and medicine
    and tents, whatever is necessary for people to have some place safe to
    sleep. And we are exploring every conceivable alternative. We're even
    looking at whether we can do some

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    airdrops, even though there may be some risk there, to try to get the
    food there. It is the biggest concern we have.
        Mr. Schroeder and I were just talking
    on the way in. For the refugees that are in Albania, we need to give
    them more money; we need to give the Albanian Government more money. The
    people are welcome there, but it's a poor country, so we have to help
    them. For the refugees in Macedonia, we have to have more money, but
    also we have to help more people get out of Macedonia because of the
    problems within Macedonia. There's a lot of tension there. And so
    there's only so many refugees that the country can take without having
    the democratic government of Macedonia threatened. So we have to work on
    that.
        So we have refugees coming to Germany and coming to the United
    States and elsewhere. But the ones that it's so hard for is the people
    who are still there. Now, in the last couple of days there's been a big
    increase again in the number of people coming out, so it may be that
    more people are more free to come out now. But we--I wish I could give
    you an easy, simple answer, but we are working very hard to get what
    supplies we can get into the country in way that is, A, as safe as
    possible for the people delivering the supplies and, B, is likely to be
    effective, instead of just taken over by the Serb military people on the
    ground there.
        I would like to ask a question. I would like to ask all of you in
    your lives to go back before these last terrible days, before the
    military and the paramilitary started to run you out of your homes and
    turn you out, when you were living before under the tensions and the
    prejudice of normal--more normal existence, but you were subject to this
    feeling that you would never be treated fairly. I would like to know
    more about that period.
        And when we walked in here today, I looked at all of you--there's a
    young woman back there with a shirt on from the Olympics in Atlanta in
    1996--and I could imagine that any of you could be my neighbors in
    America. Or if I visited a German city and I saw you, I would not know
    that you weren't German citizens. And I would like to know how you
    proceed with the prejudice or the hatred of the Serbs toward you. Do you
    think they hated you because you were Albanian? Do you think they hated
    you because you were Muslim, overwhelmingly? Do you think that they
    hated you because they were raised by their parents to hate you? Do you
    think they hated you because Mr. Milosevic was using that as an excuse for power? Do you
    believe what they really want is your land and your wealth, or do they
    really want the pleasure of persecuting you? How do you perceive this?
        This is very important for us because we--you have to understand, we
    spend all of our time fighting against much smaller versions of this in
    our own country. So it's important that we understand how you have
    received this in your life. Would anybody like to talk about this? Go
    ahead.

    [A refugee described the history of Serbian hatred of Albanians.]

        The President. Would you like to say something?
        Q. Mr. President, they were thinking of something else--Kosovo
    supplies Serbia with a lot of agricultural products. Serbia without
    Kosovo cannot exist. The natural resources of Kosovo are very precious,
    and that is the reason why they are trying to hold to Serbia, to Kosovo.
        The President. You think that they have treated you this way because
    they want the wealth of Kosovo?
        Q. Yes, of course. Naturally, yes.
        The President. Well, what about the younger people, how do you feel?

    [Several young refugees commented on their experiences with Serbian
    hatred, and the discussion continued.]

        The President. The Chancellor is
    asking another question. In your whole life did you never have one good,
    positive encounter with a Serb, someone who treated you as a human
    being, someone who was decent to you? Has this ever happened to you?

    [A refugee responded that as a young child it was possible to play with
    Serb children, but later it was difficult to be friends. Others then
    described the ordeal they had experienced in being forced to leave their
    country.]

        The President. I would like to, first of all, say again to
    Chancellor Schroeder how much I appreciate
    Germany's leadership in this whole endeavor and making this place for
    you to live.
        And I would like to again say to all of you, I am very grateful that
    you came here and said what you did today. I know it was hard. But I
    listened very carefully to every one of you.

    [[Page 708]]

    And I wish that I could hear from the small number who have not spoken
    yet. Even the young man here who said he couldn't talk, the way he said
    it spoke a lot, because we could tell when he couldn't talk.
        I think it is very important in these days for us to do everything
    we can to find out what happened to your relatives, if you don't know
    what's happened to other family members. And as you can imagine, this is
    difficult because the camps in Albania and in Macedonia, they're growing
    so fast, so it's very hard to keep up with everyone and then have a
    register. But we will get this done. Eventually, we will have records of
    everyone and where they are, and then we can check on these matters for
    you. And I know that's hard, and we will work on that.
        But I also think it's important for you to do everything you can to
    support each other and to give opportunities to get your feelings out,
    because it is easy for the spirit to be broken in an environment like
    this, after all you've been through. And then, even if you got to go
    home, you would never be the same again, and you would be giving the
    people who have oppressed you a victory.
        And I ask you not to give them that victory. Don't let yourself be
    broken by this. Find a way to be glad that the Sun comes up in the
    morning and that you have the people around you you do. And we'll look
    for your students, and we'll look for your family members. But remember,
    you cannot give a victory to the kind of oppression you have been
    subject to. We cannot see these children robbed of their childhood. And
    the adults, the older among you, you must not let the younger people
    lose heart. And we will stay at it until you can go home again.
        Thank you.

    Note: The discussion began at approximately 12:24 p.m. at the Refugee
    Reception Center. In his remarks, the President referred to President
    Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and
    Montenegro). The transcript released by the Office of the Press
    Secretary also included the remarks of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of
    Germany and the Kosovar refugees. A tape was not available for
    verification of the content of these remarks.