My fellow Americans, today our armed forces joined our NATO allies in airstrikes against Serbian forces responsible for the brutality in Kosovo. We have acted with resolve for several reasons.
We act to protect thousands of innocent people in Kosovo from a mounting military offensive. We act to prevent a wider war, to defuse a powder keg at the heart of Europe that has exploded twice before in this century with catastrophic results. We act to stand united with our allies for peace. By acting now, we are upholding our values, protecting our interests and advancing the cause of peace.
Tonight I want to speak with you about the tragedy in Kosovo and why it matters to America that we work with our allies to end it. First, let me explain what it is we are responding to. Kosovo is a province of Serbia, in the middle of southeastern Europe, about 160 miles east of Italy and only about 70 miles north of Greece. Its people are mostly ethnic Albanian and mostly Muslim.
In 1989, Serbia's leader, Slobodan Milosevic, the same leader who started wars in Bosnia and Croatia and moved against Slovenia in the last decade, stripped Kosovo of the constitutional autonomy its people enjoyed. For years, Kosovars struggled peacefully to get their rights back. When President Milosevic sent his troops and police to crush them, the struggle grew violent.
Last fall, our diplomacy, backed by the threat of force from our NATO alliance, stopped the fighting for a while and rescued tens of thousands of people from freezing and starvation in the hills, where they had fled to save their lives. And last month, with our allies and Russia, we proposed a peace agreement to end the fighting for good. The Kosovar leaders signed that agreement last week. Even though it does not give them all they want, even though their people were still being savaged, they saw that a just peace is better than a long and unwinnable war.
The Serbian leaders, on the other hand, refused even to discuss key elements of the peace agreement. Serbia stationed 40,000 troops in and around Kosovo in preparation for a major offensive, and in clear violation of the commitments they had made. Now they've started moving from village to village, shelling civilians and torching their houses.
We've seen innocent people taken from their homes, forced to kneel in the dirt and sprayed with bullets; Kosovar men dragged from their families, fathers and sons together lined up and shot in cold blood.
Ending this tragedy is a moral imperative. It is also important to America's national interests. Kosovo is a small place, but it sits on a major fault line between Europe, Asia and the Middle East, at the meeting place of Islam and both the western and Orthodox branches of Christianity. To the south are our allies Greece and Turkey; to the north our new democratic allies in Central Europe.
All around Kosovo there are other small countries struggling with their economic and political challenges, countries that could be overwhelmed by a large new wave of refugees from Kosovo. All the ingredients for a major war are there: ancient grievances, struggling democracies, and a dictator in Serbia who has done nothing since the Cold War ended but start new wars .
Sarajevo, the capital of neighboring Bosnia, is where World War I began. World War II and the Holocaust engulfed this region. In both wars, Europe was slow to recognize the dangers, and the United States waited even longer to enter the conflicts. Just imagine if leaders back then had acted wisely and early enough. How many lives could have been saved? How many Americans would not have had to die?
We learned some of the same lessons in Bosnia just a few years ago. The world did not act early enough to stop that war either. And let's not forget what happened: innocent people herded into concentration camps; children gunned down by snipers on their way to school; soccer fields and parks turned into cemeteries; a quarter of a million people killed not because of anything they had done but because of who they were. Two million Bosnians became refugees.
This was genocide in the heart of Europe, not in 1945 but in 1995, not in some grainy newsreel from our parents' and grandparents' time, but in our own time .
When we and our allies joined with courageous Bosnians to stand up to the aggressors, we helped to end the war. We learned that in the Balkans inaction in the face of brutality simply invites more brutality, but firmness can stop armies and save lives. We must apply that lesson in Kosovo, before what happened in Bosnia happens there too.
Over the last few months we have done everything we possibly could to solve this problem peacefully. Secretary [of State Madeleine K.] Albright has worked tirelessly for a negotiated agreement. Mr. Milosevic has refused. On Sunday, I sent Ambassador Dick Holbrooke to Serbia to make clear to him again, on behalf of the United States and our NATO allies, that he must honor his own commitments and stop his repression or face military action. Again he refused.
Today we and our 18 NATO allies agreed to do what we said we would do, what we must do to restore the peace. Our mission is clear: to demonstrate the seriousness of NATO's purpose so that the Serbian leaders understand the imperative of reversing course; to deter an even bloodier offensive against innocent civilians in Kosovo; and, if necessary, to seriously damage the Serbian military's capacity to harm the people of Kosovo. In short, if President Milosevic will not make peace, we will limit his ability to make war.
There are risks in this military action -- risk to our pilots and the people on the ground. Serbia's air defenses are strong. It could decide to intensify its assault on Kosovo, or to seek to harm us or our allies elsewhere. If it does, we will deliver a forceful response. Hopefully Mr. Milosevic will realize his present course is self-destructive and unsustainable.
If he decides to accept the peace agreement and demilitarize Kosovo, NATO has agreed to help to implement it with a peacekeeping force. If NATO is invited to do so, our troops should take part in that mission to keep the peace. But I do not intend to put our troops in Kosovo to fight a war.
Do our interests in Kosovo justify the dangers to our armed forces? I am convinced that the dangers of acting are far outweighed by the dangers of not acting -- dangers to defenseless people and to our national interests. If we and our allies were to allow this war to continue with no response, President Milosevic would read our hesitation as a license to kill. America has a responsibility to stand with our allies when they are trying to save innocent lives and preserve peace, freedom and stability in Europe. That is what we are doing in Kosovo.
If we have learned anything from the century drawing to a close, it is that if America is going to be prosperous and secure we need a Europe that is prosperous, secure, undivided and free.
Now, what are the challenges to that vision of a peaceful, secure, united, stable Europe? The challenge of strengthening a partnership with the democratic Russia, that despite our disagreements is a constructive partner in the work of building peace. The challenge of resolving the tension between Greece and Turkey, and building bridges with the Islamic world. And finally the challenge of ending instability in the Balkans so that these bitter ethnic problems are resolved by the force of argument, not the force of arms, so that future generations of Americans do not have to cross the Atlantic to fight another terrible war.
Our thoughts and prayers tonight must be with the men and women of our armed forces who are undertaking this mission for the sake of our values and our children's future. May God bless them, and may God bless America.
Pub Date: 3/25/99