Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: More ethnic cleansing

Thursday, Sept. 16, 1999 | 10:17 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

MORE THAN A YEAR ago, Jonathan Clarke, a former British diplomat now with the Cato Institute, warned us in a column about intervening in Kosovo. In the Los Angeles Times newspaper, Clarke wrote, "Other than both being in the Balkans, Bosnia and Kosovo have about as much in common as Argentina and Indonesia. Bosnia was an independent country; everyone realizes that an independent Kosovo would have devastatingly destabilizing regional implications."

Despite such warnings, many good people saw the necessity of preventing genocide and eventually the United States led other nations into bombing the Serbs into submission. Prior to sending in our bombers and during the attacks, U.S. and British leaders assured the world that it wasn't being done to take the province of Kosovo away from Yugoslavia and make it an independent nation. This bit of nonsense wasn't taken seriously by any person knowing the history of the Balkans. Certainly, despite their denials, an independent nation has always been the goal of the Kosovo Liberation Army.

The killing of both Serbs and Albanians has been going on for at least two generations. Actually, the Albanians have, during recent decades, been terrorizing and driving the Serbs from the province. By 1990 Kosovo had 1,630,000 Albanians and only 250,000 Serbs. Following World War II, Yugoslavia's Tito had allowed the Albanians to form an autonomous province. From that time forward, the Albanians engaged in the persecution of Serbs to make it an ethnically pure area. The Serbian response during the 1990s was equally brutal and deserved international condemnation.

The Economist magazine in an editorial early this year told readers "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." This Serbian action only increased as the threat of bombs rained down on Yugoslavia.

So we stopped the killing of Albanians in Kosovo and what did we accomplish? An editorial in USA Today last month tells us: "In the weeks since the Kosovo war ended, ethnic Serbs have been leaving the province by the tens of thousands -- expressing with their feet what they think of NATO's promise to protect them, their churches and homes.

"They have reason to be mistrustful. About 150 Serbian men and women have been killed -- shot, knifed, mutilated in typical Balkan style -- by ethnic Albanians since NATO troops entered Kosovo on June 12. Still more Serbs and Gypsies have been beaten and robbed.

"The largest-scale killings took place three weeks ago, when 14 Serbian farmers were gunned down within earshot of British troops.

"That atrocity serves as a potent microcosm for all of Kosovo: An estimated 150,000 of 200,000 Serbs have fled in fear, despite the watch of 38,000 heavily armed NATO protectors.

"The scale of the problem is such that it is raising doubts about NATO's ability to deliver on the commitments it made before, during and after the Kosovo bombing."

The burning of Serb homes and the killing of the homeless has continued up until today. What we have done is the heavy lifting for the KLA and now the rebels are finishing up the dirty work. Last week Lt. Gen. Sir Mike Jackson, now commanding NATO forces in Kosovo, tells us that his soldiers can't do much more. "I fear that the soldiers are now more and more policemen. They are sticking plaster on a wound that is due to the continuing desire for revenge. And that has to change," Jackson told a group of reporters. He added that we shouldn't expect soldiers to change people's minds.

We have participated in taking the side of one group of killers against another group of killers. We have become willing participants, at great expense to our nation, in the ethnic cleansing of another nation's province.