[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
[June 10, 1999]
[Pages 913-916]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Address to the Nation on the Military Technical Agreement on Kosovo
June 10, 1999

    My fellow Americans, tonight for the first time in 79 days, the 
skies over Yugoslavia are silent. The Serb army and police are 
withdrawing from Kosovo. The one million men, women, and children driven 
from their land are preparing to return home. The demands of an outraged 
and united international community have been met.
    I can report to the American people that we have achieved a victory 
for a safer world, for our democratic values, and for a stronger 
America. Our pilots have returned to base. The airstrikes have been 
suspended. Aggression against an innocent people has been contained and 
is being turned back.
    When I ordered our Armed Forces into combat, we had three clear 
goals: to enable the Kosovar people, the victims of some of the most 
vicious atrocities in Europe since the Second World War, to return to 
their homes with safety

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and self-government; to require Serbian forces responsible for those 
atrocities to leave Kosovo; and to deploy an international security 
force, with NATO at its core, to protect all the people of that troubled 
land, Serbs and Albanians, alike. Those goals will be achieved. A 
necessary conflict has been brought to a just and honorable conclusion.
    The result will be security and dignity for the people of Kosovo, 
achieved by an alliance that stood together in purpose and resolve, 
assisted by the diplomatic efforts of Russia. This victory brings a new 
hope that when a people are singled out for destruction because of their 
heritage and religious faith and we can do something about it, the world 
will not look the other way.
    I want to express my profound gratitude to the men and women of our 
Armed Forces and those of our Allies. Day after day, night after night, 
they flew, risking their lives to attack their targets and to avoid 
civilian casualties when they were fired upon from populated areas. I 
ask every American to join me in saying to them, thank you, you've made 
us very proud.
    I'm also grateful to the American people for standing against the 
awful ethnic cleansing, for sending generous assistance to the refugees, 
and for opening your hearts and your homes to the innocent victims who 
came here.
    I want to speak with you for a few moments tonight about why we 
fought, what we achieved, and what we have to do now to advance the 
peace and, together with the people of the Balkans, forge a future of 
freedom, progress, and harmony.
    We should remember that the violence we responded to in Kosovo was 
the culmination of a 10-year campaign by Slobodan Milosevic, the leader of Serbia, to exploit ethnic and 
religious differences in order to impose his will on the lands of the 
former Yugoslavia. That's what he tried to do in Croatia and in Bosnia, 
and now in Kosovo. The world saw the terrifying consequences: 500 
villages burned; men of all ages separated from their loved ones to be 
shot and buried in mass graves; women raped; children made to watch 
their parents die; a whole people forced to abandon, in hours, 
communities their families had spent generations building. For these 
atrocities, Mr. Milosevic and his top 
aides have been indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal for 
war crimes and crimes against humanity.
    I will never forget the Kosovar refugees I recently met. Some of 
them could barely talk about what they had been through. All they had 
left was hope that the world would not turn its back.
    When our diplomatic efforts to avert this horror were rebuffed and 
the violence mounted, we and our Allies chose to act. Mr. 
Milosevic continued to do terrible things 
to the people of Kosovo, but we were determined to turn him back. Our 
firmness finally has brought an end to a vicious campaign of ethnic 
cleansing, and we acted early enough to reverse it, to enable the 
Kosovars to go home.
    When they do, they will be safe. They will be able to reopen their 
schools, speak their language, practice their religion, choose their 
leaders, and shape their destiny. There'll be no more days of foraging 
for food in the cold of mountains and forests, no more nights of hiding 
in cellars, wondering if the next day will bring death or deliverance. 
They will know that Mr. Milosevic's army 
and paramilitary forces will be gone, his 10-year campaign of repression 
finished.
    NATO has achieved this success as a united alliance, ably led by 
Secretary General Solana and General 
Clark. Nineteen democracies came together 
and stayed together through the stiffest military challenge in NATO's 
50-year history.
    We also preserved our critically important partnership with Russia, 
thanks to President Yeltsin, who opposed our 
military effort but supported diplomacy to end the conflict on terms 
that met our conditions. I'm grateful to Russian Envoy 
Chernomyrdin and Finnish President 
Ahtisaari for their work, and to Vice 
President Gore for the key role he played 
in putting their partnership together. Now, I hope Russian troops will 
join us in the force that will keep the peace in Kosovo, just as they 
have in Bosnia.
    Finally, we have averted the wider war this conflict might well have 
sparked. The countries of southeastern Europe backed the NATO campaign, 
helped the refugees, and showed the world there is more compassion than 
cruelty in this troubled region. This victory makes it all the more 
likely that they will choose a future of democracy, fair treatment of 
minorities, and peace.
    Now we're entering a new phase, building that peace, and there are 
formidable challenges. First, we must be sure the Serbian authorities 
meet their commitments. We are prepared to

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resume our military campaign should they fail to do so. Next, we must 
get the Kosovar refugees home safely. Minefields will have to be 
cleared; homes destroyed by Serb forces will have to be rebuilt; 
homeless people in need of food and medicine will have to get them. The 
fate of the missing will have to be determined. The Kosovar Liberation 
Army will have to demilitarize, as it has agreed to do. And we in the 
peacekeeping force will have to ensure that Kosovo is a safe place to 
live for all its citizens, ethnic Serbs as well as ethnic Albanians.
    For these things to happen, security must be established. To that 
end, some 50,000 troops from almost 30 countries will deploy to Kosovo. 
Our European Allies will provide the vast majority of them; America will 
contribute about 7,000. We are grateful that during NATO's air campaign 
we did not lose a single serviceman in combat. But this next phase also 
will be dangerous. Bitter memories will still be fresh, and there may 
well be casualties. So we have made sure that the force going into 
Kosovo will have NATO command and control and rules of engagement set by 
NATO. It will have the means and the mandate to protect itself while 
doing its job.
    In the meantime, the United Nations will organize a civilian 
administration while preparing the Kosovars to govern and police 
themselves. As local institutions take hold, NATO will be able to turn 
over increasing responsibility to them and draw down its forces.
    A third challenge will be to put in place a plan for lasting peace 
and stability in Kosovo and through all the Balkans. For that to happen, 
the European Union and the United States must plan for tomorrow, not 
just today. We must help to give the democracies of southeastern Europe 
a path to a prosperous, shared future, a unifying magnet more powerful 
than the pull of hatred and destruction that has threatened to tear them 
apart. Our European partners must provide most of the resources for this 
effort, but it is in America's interest to do our part, as well.
    A final challenge will be to encourage Serbia to join its neighbors 
in this historic journey to a peaceful, democratic, united Europe.
    I want to say a few words to the Serbian people tonight. I know that 
you, too, have suffered in Mr. Milosevic's wars. You should know that your leaders could have 
kept Kosovo as a part of your country without driving a single Kosovar 
family from its home, without killing a single adult or child, without 
inviting a single NATO bomb to fall on your country. You endured 79 days 
of bombing not to keep Kosovo a province of Serbia but simply because 
Mr. Milosevic was determined to eliminate Kosovar Albanians from Kosovo, 
dead or alive.

    As long as he remains in power, as 
long as your nation is ruled by an indicted war criminal, we will 
provide no support for the reconstruction of Serbia. But we are ready to 
provide humanitarian aid now and to help to build a better future for 
Serbia, too, when its Government represents tolerance and freedom, not 
repression and terror.

    My fellow Americans, all these challenges are substantial, but they 
are far preferable to the challenges of war and continued instability in 
Europe. We have sent a message of determination and hope to all the 
world. Think of all the millions of innocent people who died in this 
bloody century because democracies reacted too late to evil and 
aggression. Because of our resolve, the 20th century is ending not with 
helpless indignation but with a hopeful affirmation of human dignity and 
human rights for the 21st century.

    In a world too divided by fear among people of different racial, 
ethnic, and religious groups, we have given confidence to the friends of 
freedom and pause to those who would exploit human difference for 
inhuman purposes.

    America still faces great challenges in this world, but we look 
forward to meeting them. So, tonight I ask you to be proud of your 
country and very proud of the men and women who serve it in uniform. For 
in Kosovo, we did the right thing; we did it the right way; and we will 
finish the job.

    Good night, and may God bless our wonderful United States of 
America.

Note: The President spoke at 8 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to President Slobodan Milosevic of 
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro); NATO 
Secretary General Javier Solana; Gen. Wesley K. Clark, USA, Supreme 
Allied Commander Europe; President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland; and 
former Prime Minister and Special Envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin and 
President Boris Yeltsin of Russia. The President also

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referred to the Military Technical Agreement Between the International 
Security Force (KFOR) and the Governments of the Federal Republic of 
Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia.