[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 12 (Monday, March 29, 1999)]
[Pages 520-521]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Videotape Address to the Serbian People

March 25, 1999

    As you know, the United States and its NATO allies have begun a 
military campaign to reduce President Milosevic's ability to make war on 
the people of Kosovo. I want to speak candidly to all Serbian people, to 
explain our reasons for this action and how there could be a quick 
resolution of the crisis.
    First, I cannot emphasize too strongly that the United States and 
our European allies have no quarrel with the Serbian people. We respect 
your proud history and culture. We joined together on many occasions, 
including our victory over nazism in World War II. Our own history has 
been honored by the contributions of Serb families who came to America 
to start a new life.
    But our common future has been put in jeopardy by a war that 
threatens the peace of Europe and the lives of thousands of innocent 
people in Kosovo. After exhausting every other option, all 19 members of 
NATO--from France to Poland, from Italy to Greece, from across Europe to 
Canada and the United States in North America--all of us agree that only 
swift action can save peace in the Balkans.
    Let us turn from Serbia's history to the facts of the last 10 years. 
There has been too much propaganda and too little plain truth. President 
Milosevic has spoken often of Serbia's standing in the world, but by his 
every action he has diminished your country's standing, exposed you to 
violence and instability and isolated you from the rest of Europe. He 
waged senseless wars in Bosnia and Croatia, which only ended after 
enormous bloodshed on all sides. And he lost a cruel campaign against 
the Albanian people of Kosovo. It was not simply a war against armed 
Kosovar forces but also a campaign of violence in which tanks and 
artillery were unleashed against unarmed civilians.
    Now, one out of eight people in Kosovo have been driven from their 
homes, entire villages have been burned and cleared of their people. 
Thousands of Serbs also have suffered and been forced from their homes. 
As a result, the bitterness in Kosovo is deeper than ever, and the 
prospect that Kosovars and Serbs will be able to live together in the 
same country has been harmed. No one has benefited from all this, 
certainly not Serbia.
    We understand the region has more than its share of painful history, 
and we know that all peoples of the former Yugoslavia have their 
legitimate grievances. The NATO allies support the desire of the Serbian 
people to maintain Kosovo as part of your country. With our Russian 
partners, we insisted on that in the peace talks in France. The result 
was a fair and balanced agreement that would guarantee the rights of all 
people in Kosovo, ethnic Serbs and Albanians alike, within Serbia.
    The Kosovar leaders accepted that. They agreed to demilitarize their 
forces and to end the paramilitary attacks on Serbs that also have 
contributed to the crisis. At the invitation of Serbs and Kosovars, NATO 
troops, under the agreement, would be deployed in Kosovo as keepers of 
the peace, not as some occupying force.
    Now, I know the Serb Government and many Serbian people may not see 
NATO that way. And it is true that it was the Kosovar Albanians who 
insisted on NATO peacekeeping forces but largely because of President 
Milosevic's violations of his own commitments regarding the use of 
police and military units.
    Nevertheless, I want you to understand that NATO only agreed to be 
peacekeepers on the understanding that its troops would ensure that both 
sides kept their commitments and that terrorism on both sides would be 
brought to an end. They only agreed to serve with the understanding that 
they would protect Serbs as well as ethnic Albanians and that they would 
leave when peace took hold.
    Now, only President Milosevic rejected this agreement. He could have 
kept Kosovo and Serbia and given you peace. But instead, he has 
jeopardized Kosovo's future and brought you more war. Right now he's 
forcing your sons to keep fighting a senseless

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conflict that you did not ask for and that he could have prevented. 
Every time he has summoned Serbia's history as a justification for such 
action, he has imperiled your future. Hopefully, he will realize that 
his present course is unsustainable; ultimately, it is self-destructive.
    The sooner we find a peaceful resolution of this dispute, preserving 
Kosovo within Serbia while guaranteeing the rights of its people under 
your law, the sooner Serbia can join the rest of Europe and build a 
nation that gives all its citizens a voice and a chance at prosperity.
    The NATO nations have tried to avert this conflict through every 
means we knew to be available. Each of us has ties to Serbia. Each 
respects the dignity and the courage of the Serb people. In the end we 
decided that the dangers of acting are outweighed by the dangers of 
allowing this conflict to continue, to worsen, to claim the lives of 
more innocent civilians, including children, to result in tens of 
thousands of more homeless refugees.
    Now all of us--Americans, Europeans, Serbs, Kosovars--must join 
together to stop driving wedges between people simply because they 
belong to different ethnic groups and to start accepting that our 
differences are less important than our common humanity and our common 
aspirations.
    I call on all Serbs and all people of goodwill to join with us in 
seeking an end to this needless and avoidable conflict. Instead, let us 
work together to restore Serbia to its rightful place as a great nation 
of Europe; included, not isolated, by the world community; respected by 
all nations for having the strength to build peace.

Note: The address was videotaped at approximately 7:30 p.m. in the 
Roosevelt Room for later broadcast on the United States Information 
Agency Worldnet. In his remarks, he referred to President Slobodan 
Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro). 
A tape was not available for verification of the content of this 
address.