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“STATEMENT BY ALBANIAN AMERICAN CIVIC LEAGUE REGARDING SITUATION IN KOSOVO” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E58-E59 on Jan. 7, 1999.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
STATEMENT BY ALBANIAN AMERICAN CIVIC LEAGUE REGARDING SITUATION IN
KOSOVO
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HON. BENJAMIN A. GILMAN
of new york
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, January 6, 1999
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to call the attention of the members of Congress to the following statement by the Albanian American Civil League regarding the current situation in Kosovo. It represents the views of a significant number of Albanian Americans, and I believe is of interest in view of the deteriorating situation in Kosovo:
Statement by the Albanian American Civic League
Independence for Kosovo is the Only Way to Stop Milosevic's War
Recent events in Kosovo only confirm the Albanian American Civic League's prior assessment that the Milosevic-Holbrooke agreement is a death sentence for the Albanian people of Kosovo. How many mistakes and tragedies must the Albanian people bear before the United States realizes that it is being exploited by Slobodan Milosevic as a convenient tool of Slavic expansionism, at the expense of the Albanian people?
The first major mistake occurred in 1990, when Secretary of State James Baker gave Slobodan Milosevic the green light to consolidate his power by stating that the goal of the United States was to keep Yugoslavia together at all costs. Milosevic responded by waging war first in Slovenia in 1990, then in Croatia in 1991, and finally in Bosnia in 1992. (His brutal military occupation of Kosovo in 1989 continues unabated to this day.) In 1995, Richard Holbrooke authored the Dayton Accords, in which a fault-ridden peace was declared in Bosnia after negotiations that excluded the third largest ethnic group in the former Yugoslavia--the Albanians. Then, in February 1998, U.S. Special Envoy to Kosovo Robert Gelbard mistakenly declared the Kosovo Liberation Army a
``terrorist'' group, giving Milosevic the signal he needed to openly wage a one-sided war against the Albanian people of Kosovo. This led to massacres of unarmed and defenseless civilians in Drenice and Dukagjin, leaving over 2,000 dead, 1,000 missing, and 300,000 displaced.
In September 1998, in response to the public outcries around the world about the brutality of the Serbian military campaign against a civilian population, the United States promoted the threat of air strikes against Serbia. But, true to form, Holbrooke crafted an agreement that enabled Milosevic to avert the use of force against him and at every step accepted more of his false promises. One must ask why our State Department is allowing a chauvinistic and dictatorial pan-Slavic Orthodox regime, with direct links to ultranationalists in Russia, to emerge in the Balkans?
The so-called cease-fire of recent weeks never really took place. The Serbs began to move their troops out of Kosovo in October, but then they moved right back. Albanians insist that the brutal and criminal Serbian paramilitary forces staged the killing of six Serbian civilians in Peja this month in order to justify the continuation of Milosevic's ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. (The Kosovo Liberation Army was quick to condemn the killings of the Serbian civilians.)
The events in Podujeva on December 24, in which the Serbian military attacked five villages, killed twelve Albanian civilians, and caused the flight of thousands of others leave no question about Milosevic's real intentions to continue the
``ethnic cleansing'' of the Albanian majority of Kosovo. The Western response to these events also leaves no question about our role in the Balkan conflict--that we never had any intention of stopping Milosevic from using illegal and inhuman methods to destroy the right of Albanians to freedom, democracy, and self-determination.
For the past three weeks, our policy makers and the press have once again attempted to create a false parity between the Serbian military and the Kosovo Liberation Army, and to cast blame on the KLA for breaking the socalled cease-fire. They have promoted Serbia's false statements to the press, including listing names of people supposedly arrested and imprisoned by the KLA but who, according to reliable Albanian sources, do not even exist. Meanwhile 2,000 Albanians are being held and brutally tortured in barbaric Serbian jails. And while this information goes unreported, unconfirmed reports of atrocities committed by the KLA against innocent Serbs living in Kosovo are publicized widely, even though the KLA has repeatedly stated its policy against killing civilians.
As the misrepresentation of the conflict continues apace, so do the ``diplomatic'' initiatives designed to sell out the Albanian people of Kosovo. The French government for example, has been working behind the scenes to persuade Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of the Democratic League of Kosovo, to believe that he can find a solution to the Balkan conflict with Milosevic. Following a recent trip to France, Rugova made a public statement that Milosevic ``was elected by the Serbian people in a legitimate way,'' and that he is the ``only legitimate person'' with whom he can negotiate. More astonishing still, Rugova stated that institutions in Kosovo that he controls
``would do the utmost to persuade the UCK extremists to stop their provocations and attacks on Serbian security forces.'' Incredibly, this is tantamount to Rugova giving another green light to Milosevic to continue his reign of terror and murder against the Albanian people of Kosovo. Are we to assume that some forces inside LDK are being supported by the West to try to eliminate the KLA, and that they are willing to do so in order to retain their political control of Kosovo under any circumstances?
There has been great concern among Western diplomats that war has broken out again in Kosovo, well before the spring thaw. But, it should now be clear to all that as long as the Milosevic regime remains in power, the war will continue. To stop the war, NATO forces led by the United States must be mobilized to wage air strikes against Serbian military targets in Kosovo and Serbia. But, ultimately, the only way to peace and stability in the Balkans is to allow the Albanian people the right to declare their independence under international law, just as we allowed the Slovenes, Croatians, Macedonians, and Bosnians after the demise of the former Yugoslavia.
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