Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Secretary of bombing

Thursday, Feb. 25, 1999 | 11:56 a.m.

WITH SECRETARY of State Madeleine Albright romping around France in meetings to settle a conflict in the Balkans, almost anything can happen. She told the Serbs to come to an agreement with the Albanians living in the Serbian province of Kosovo or she will unleash NATO airstrikes on them. That's right, Kosovo is a province of Serbia, not Albania. Then when the Kosovo Liberation Army wouldn't come to an agreement, she didn't threaten them with anything other than she was going home, which might have been a good idea. Since then, the KLA guerrillas said they will sign an agreement within two weeks. Now she's back waving her finger at the Serbs.

It's rather easy to tag Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic with the title of "bad guy" because he has proven himself as being both bad and a liar. Being a liar isn't necessarily something unexpected in the world of diplomacy and oftentimes it's considered an asset. The bloody results of Milosevic's lies are what make him an easy target for the rest of the world. The Albanian guerrillas know this international perception of the Serb leader and they are eager to exploit it at every turn in negotiations.

Milosevic is a master at pushing his will as far as he can and then compromising prior to becoming a serious NATO missile and bomb target. He proved this time and again in Croatia and the blood flowed in the streets and in the fields. This has earned him the reputation he carries into any negotiations, but in Kosovo he is facing an enemy with the same skills and bloody hands. Albright and her crew are so blinded with hate for Milosevic that they refuse to see the guerrillas for what they are and will continue to be. Yes, Serb blood also continues to flow in Kosovo and at every opportunity the rebels spill more of it.

I'm in my second year collecting reports on what is happening in Kosovo. What has become obvious to me is that the KLA and other Albanian rebels have been extremely skillful in using the sympathy given them by the international press and politicians in Great Britain and the United States. This results in editorials of major newspapers demanding that U.S. and British bombs and missiles fall on the Serbs.

Just this week, author Ralph Peters wrote in the Wall Street Journal an article entitled "America Must Stop Kosovo's Killers, Not Baby-Sit Them." Peters, a retired Army officer, has the wisdom to see the KLA as a part of the problem when writing "The gunmen have to go. Their weapons must be removed, not just buried or stacked in local armories. The rule of law is the only basis for peace -- especially where hatreds are deep and recently aggravated. Getting intervention right means a higher cost in money, forces and, sometimes, lives."

Almost a year has passed since the Economist magazine editorialized: "Moreover, the Serbs' repression in Kosovo, though terrible, is by no means exceptionally terrible. Some 200-300 people have been killed and perhaps 65,000 have abandoned their homes, 10,000 of them fleeing abroad. The world, it may be remembered, never felt obliged to intervene in Chechnya (50,000-100,000 dead), East Timor (100,000-200,000) or Rwanda (800,000). Is it really wise to start free-lance intervention against such relatively small-time bullies as Mr. Milosevic? Innocents might get killed (always a possibility in military actions).

"The Serbs might refuse to back down, leading to the dangers of more intervention or the embarrassment of less. And the Kosovars, emboldened by Western help, might turn on their oppressors, ethnically cleansing -- maybe cutting the throats of -- the 10 percent Serb minority. Then one day, it could be cited as an awful precedent: How would NATO react were China, say, to carry out airstrikes against an Indian government that was fighting to prevent its majority-Muslim province of Jammu & Kashmir from seceding?"

Without going back more than 600 years to the roots of the problem, allow me to again use Vanderbilt University Professor Alex Dragnich and only go back about 60 years. During World War II, following Italy's defeat, the Kosovo Albanians sent a pro-Nazi regiment to fight on the side of Germany.

Following the war, Dragnich reminds us that Yugoslavia's Tito "had promised the Kosovo Albanians that they could be annexed to Albania, and although he reneged on that promise, he did allow them to form an autonomous province. The Kosovo Albanians lost no time in seeking to make of Kosovo an ethnically pure area. To that end, they engaged in continual and brutal persecution of the Serbs: They raped and pillaged; desecrated Serbian religious institutions, including cemeteries; set Serbian barns and haystacks on fire; cut timber on Serbian lands; and constructed buildings on Serbian property. The purpose, of course, was to force Serbs to flee, and they did so in large numbers."

We now must hope that a peaceful agreement can be worked out for both Serbs and Albanians living in Kosovo. Too many innocent people have been killed and will continue to be killed unless their leaders can, by example, show them that living together in peace is the only way for a decent future. Is Milosevic the Serb example? Are the KLA leaders the Albanian example? The answer to both questions is a resounding no! But neither is the lady issuing one-sided threats of using U.S. bombs and missiles on the Serbs.