Where I stand—Mike O’Callaghan: Our mess in Macedonia

Thursday, March 22, 2001 | 9:06 a.m.

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

WE BOMBED HELL OUT of the Serbs and forced them out of their province of Kosovo. Despite our knowledge of that area's history we did the heavy lifting for the extension of a greater Albania. Now diplomats and politicians pretend to be surprised that these same Albanian guerrillas are seeking to take over Macedonia.

Several of these columns written from 1997 to 1999 pointed out exactly what would eventually happen once the Albanians, under the guise of the Kosovo Liberation Army, had the upper hand. It just didn't start the past month or two.

In August of 1999 USA Today newspaper reported:

"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."

This was only a repetition of what happened following World War II when the Albanians helped the Nazis but the Serbs protected and helped our airmen to escape becoming prisoners of war.

Vanderbilt University professor Alex Dragnich recalls that Yugoslavia's leader 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.

"The ethnic Albanians have been lied to by Tito, Mussolini and Hitler. They had good reason to be frustrated, but this has taken them down a road they had previously condemned when a minority. During the past two decades, they have become the abusers of the Serb minorities."

During the 1990s we got involved in a conflict that too few diplomats and politicans understood and helped one bunch of bad guys in their fight with another bunch of bad guys. From my point of view, as expressed more than two years ago, we were doing the dirty work for bad guys who have never been our friends.

So we screwed up and have an expensive international tar baby we don't know how to handle. In the process we have turned old friends into new enemies and have old enemies now laughing after using us to gain additional power.

I would also like to hear former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright tell us how to get out of this mess she eagerly promoted during her time in office.