FEUILLETON Rambouillet - ultimatum for the bombing (6): What leads to the use of force

Writing for Kosovo Online: Dragan Bisenic

When it comes to Kosovo, Madeleine Albright begins her new approach by referencing the killing of Adem Jashari and his family in the village of Prekaz. She writes, "Serbian paramilitary units stormed through the villages of ethnic Albanians, killing dozens of people. Entire families were burned alive in their homes. Among the victims were women, children, and the elderly; thousands of people fled. It was the worst violence in the province since World War II".

In her account of the events, Albright doesn't mention who Adem Jashari was, nor that he was the primary target of the military action. It's unlikely that the foremost figure in the US foreign policy didn't know who he was. Even the US press noted this. For example, Chris Hedges mentioned in The New York Times that Prekaz was a stronghold of the banned KLA and that among the victims was the KLA Commander, Adem Jashari. He, of course, also describes the civilian casualties, including the Jashari family. This can be considered an objective portrayal of events, while what Madeleine Albright wrote is a tendentious depiction, which we believe is intended to bolster the persuasiveness of her argument for the engagement of American and NATO forces in this conflict.

It has been stated from various sources that an agreement was reached between Robert Gelbard and Milosevic on the maximum possible restraint of the Yugoslav side's reactions and that the units operating should be police rather than military. "Before the massacre in Prekaz, Yugoslav authorities assured our chief Balkans negotiator, Ambassador Robert Gelbard, that they would respond with restraint to any attacks. Obviously, they lied. Serbian rampage will surely radicalize Albanians, weaken moderates, and strengthen the KLA. Milosevic has already begun three wars in the Balkans (against Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia). It seemed he was ready to start a fourth," Madeleine Albright wrote.

Gelbard referred to the KLA as a terrorist organization on that occasion, leading to the belief that this encouraged the Serbian leadership to act more radically than agreed upon.

Albright reveals that in January 1998, the US received a warning from sources in the region that "Milosevic was preparing a military showdown with the KLA". She says that at that time, she publicly set the limit, "Milosevic must be stopped immediately".

It seems that she had already decided to go to war. "We will not stand by and watch as the Serbian authorities in Kosovo do what they can no longer do in Bosnia," Madeleine Albright concluded. Her negative attitude towards Milosevic quickly began to transform into a desire for military action. This was aided by the statements of the British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, from whom she heard that Milosevic was "uninterested in a political solution", that lessons had to be learned from Bosnia, and that the problem was created by "Milosevic's ruthless ambition". She states that Kosovo "had implications for the entire region" and that she "could not allow the Serbs to make it purely an internal issue".

Ambassador Christopher Hill reasoned that in February 1998, Special Envoy Gelbard, "in a misguided attempt at neutrality, condemned the activities of the Serbian Police in Kosovo, but continued to speak of the KLA as a terrorist group, remarking after meeting with two KLA members, 'I know a terrorist when I see one, and these people are terrorists'".

Hill states that Gelbard's remarks on terrorism "raised tensions in Kosovo" and "caused great concern that the Serbs would see them as a green light to attack the KLA wherever they found them". Hill points out that the Serbian authorities had long considered the KLA a terrorist organization, so he doubts that Gelbard's comments had any impact on the situation, but Hill also provides a comprehensive overview of the events in Prekaz and notes that Serbian forces attacked the "property of the well-known KLA Commander, Adem Jashari", not omitting important details as Madeleine Albright did.

The Serbian action was universally condemned, but Gelbard's vigorous condemnation of the Serbian action, perhaps influenced by his frustration at being accused of contributing to Serbian violence, was particularly sharply directed against Milosevic, Hill commented.

For the structure of the political reasoning and the way of thinking of the US Secretary of State about issues concerning the fate of one or both peoples, it is very illustrative how she rejected arguments that Albanians were using violence and leaned towards the interpretation that "violence began with him" (Milosevic).

She sees the start of violence in the "revocation of autonomy" they had during Tito's time. "There would be no KLA if the rights of the Kosovars had not been taken away," Albright writes. Again, the US Secretary of State could certainly know that autonomy was not "revoked" from Kosovo at all, but that its character was changed entirely in accordance with the then Constitution of the SFRY, which required the consent of all republics for changes to republican and provincial constitutions.

Thus, the Constitution of Serbia was changed, with the consent of all other federal units and with their presence at the solemn session of the Assembly of Serbia. No one was absent.

"We had to approve concrete measures that would expand our influence on Belgrade. That's how Milosevic was brought to the table in Dayton, and that was the only language he would respond to now," she wrote.

And that "only language" was force. Madeleine Albright decided on that already in March 1998. Everything since then, for the next 12 months, was about finding ways to materialize that desire.

For example, at meetings with other ministers, everyone was against further punitive measures: Hubert Vedrine, Lamberto Dini, and Russian representatives. How did the Secretary of State respond to that? "The debate became heated, and as I listened, I scribbled on the notepad vigorously and with great fervor. Coming to the meeting prepared to clearly state my firm views, I was determined not to betray the trust of those who sought leadership from the US. At one point, Jamie Rubin, who was usually a 'hawk', encouraged me to compromise on a certain measure. I looked at him angrily and said, 'Jamie, do you think we're in Munich?'"

Sanctions were adopted, including a moratorium on export credits, an investigation by the War Crimes Tribunal, and the denial of visas for high-ranking Serbian officials while reducing the presence of the Serbian Army and police in Kosovo. Madeleine Albright says that these demands were "raised to a higher level by Europeans", although she does not specify which Europeans, "emphasizing the withdrawal of Serbian forces".

To some, it may seem frustrating how short-sighted all of this was when reading it today, after 25 years and everything that has happened between then and now, especially considering the chain of international events in the meantime that produced such shallow reasoning, but all of this had a short-term and immediate goal that had to be achieved as soon as possible.

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Here is a very striking description of the meeting with Yevgeny Primakov at the second session of the Contact Group in Bonn on March 25, 1998. Primakov believed that the Albanians were actually a destabilizing force in Kosovo and that Kosovo was an internal matter of Serbia. "My personal feeling was that Russia's position was shaped less by solidarity with Slavic compatriots than by the possibility that international action there could serve as a precedent for foreign intervention in Russia, where Chechen separatists regularly clashed with the army". Wouldn't that concern be entirely legitimate and justified?

Since there was no consensus among the other members of the Contact Group, Madeleine Albright decided not to seek it anymore.

"I concluded that we should not be satisfied with just following a consensus on Kosovo; we had to lead it. However, this would only be possible if I managed to achieve consensus within my government – which is no easy task," Albright explained the change in her approach and abandoned the pursuit of consensus with other states. "Leading" means acting unilaterally or imposing policy, while others can only follow.

To be continued tomorrow: The Secretary of State imposes bombing