Interview with European journalists at Rhein Main Air Base, Germany

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, May 10, 1999

May 6, 1999

Objectives in Kosovo

Q. Thank you for coming. It's great to have you here. We understand you do have a very tight schedule. For NATO it is a difficult and challenging time, so we do very much appreciate that you join us and discuss these matters and questions with us, and we share your views on it.

Just last week you said, "We know what the final outcome in Kosovo will be. Serbian forces will leave, and an international security force will be deployed. Refugees will return with security and self-government." Why are you so optimistic? Have we actually come closer to that prospect?

The President. I believe we have. First of all, we still have an Alliance that, if anything, is more united than ever, 'after we met in Washington. I was yesterday in Brussels to get a report from General Naumann and General Clark on the progress of the campaign. I'm convinced that we are making good progress, that we are coming closer to our objectives. I think that Mr. Milosevic's military and economic apparatus of control in Yugoslavia has been weakened.

I believe we're coming closer on the diplomatic front. I met for a long time with Mr. Chernomyrdin, and he met with - several more hours with Vice President Gore in Washington this week. Russia had previously accepted political terms of the agreement in Rambouillet that there ought to be security and autonomy for the people of Kosovo.

So we're not there yet, but I think it's important, too, for the world community, and especially for the people of Europe, to have some perspective here. The campaign that Mr. Milosevic has carried out in Kosovo was meticulously planned many months in advance. It was almost implemented in October last year. He decided not to do it then in the face of the NATO threats, but he had 40,000 troops on the ground and almost 300 tanks. So he could have done what he did at any time.

What we have to do is to reverse the ethnic cleansing, and I believe it can be done. I am absolutely confident that as long as we 'all stay together, which we seem determined to do - I certainly am, and I feel very good about where the other European leaders are - this will prevail. It will happen. And it's just a question of our being patient and persistent and understanding what we're up against and what we have to do.

Responsibility for Ethnic Cleansing

Q. Mr. President, we're going to take it in turn, so it will swing back and forth. My question is about your attitude, your thoughts about President Milosevic in Belgrade, and it's in a couple of parts. My first simple question is, do you believe that Milosevic should be held personally, directly responsible for the ethnic cleansing that you've described many times and for the massacres that you've described many times?

The President. Well, of course, that ultimately is a decision to be made by the war crimes tribunal itself. It's a legal question -

Q. But morally, as well as legally.

The President. But I think, morally, there is no question that, not only here but earlier in Bosnia, what happened was the direct result of a carefully calculated campaign to, first of all, bring Mr. Milosevic to power and then to enhance his power based on an idea of Greater Serbia, which required the dehumanization, the delegitimization of the Muslim people, first of Bosnia and then of Kosovo, and that, following from that, there are lots of records that the International Red Cross and other humanitarian agencies have amassed, that the U.N has amassed about the practices of Serbian troops, of the paramilitaries. Just in Kosovo, we have story after story of horrible stories of people being - men being tied up together and burned alive. And there has also been, beyond the murder and the rape and the dislocation, there's been a determined effort, first in Bosnia, now in Kosovo, to destroy the personal records of people's presence on their land, as well as the historical and cultural records and obviously the religious sites of a people. So I think we have a big record here.

Q. But Mr. President, if that is the record and ultimately it lies at the doorstep of Mr. Milosevic, how can there be even an imagined settlement in which Mr. Milosevic essentially climbs down, accepts the conditions that you've laid out and is still the President of Yugoslavia and, ultimately, still holds sovereignty over Kosovo and the people who will return to Kosovo? Because you say you want them to live with security and dignity, but how is that conceivable?

The President. Well, if there is an international force that has NATO at its core, but also has other countries - I would welcome the Russians' participation there; I think it's important - so that there is genuine protection for the people of Kosovo, and they have the genuine autonomy that they enjoyed under the constitution that Mr. Tito put in and that was taken away by Mr. Milosevic 10 years ago, I think they can plainly do that.

Q. Even with Milosevic in power?

The President. Yes. Now, as long as he and Serbia pursue the course they have pursued and basically assert the right to destroy people's lives and heritage because of their religious and ethnic background, they will never be full partners in Europe. But we can protect the Kosovars, just as we have worked out a solution in Bosnia.