[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 18 (Monday, May 10, 1999)]
[Pages 781-782]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on Economic Sanctions Against the Federal Republic of 
Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro)

May 1, 1999

    At the NATO Summit, the 19 allied leaders agreed to intensify 
economic pressure on the Belgrade regime, in support of our united 
effort to stand up to ethnic cleansing and restore the people of Kosovo 
to their land with security and self-government. Today I have signed an 
Executive order strengthening economic sanctions against the Federal 
Republic of Yugoslavia.
    The measures included in the Executive order buttress U.S. sanctions 
already in place against the Milosevic regime. Under the expanded 
sanctions, we will, among other things: ban exports and re-exports to 
and imports from the FRY, including petroleum and strategic goods, and 
freeze all property and property interests of the FRY Government in the 
United States or controlled by U.S. entities.
    We will retain the current exemptions for Montenegro, because of our 
strong support for its democratically elected, multiethnic government. 
And we will apply these sanctions with consideration for the 
humanitarian needs of displaced people in Kosovo and other civilians and 
consistent with our new policy of exempting from sanctions commercial 
sales of food and medicine.

[[Page 782]]

    With these strengthened sanctions, we will diminish the Belgrade 
regime's ability to continue its campaign of repression and defiance, 
while allowing needed supplies to reach victims of its reckless and 
brutal conduct, whatever their ethnicity or faith.