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| Return to: Left History: a digital archive | Return to: Say no to imperialist wars! | Return to: NATO-Yugoslav War Internet Resources |
NATO's dubious victory in Kosovo would be hollow indeed if, in the end, it succeeds in saving ethnic Albanians but at the cost of driving all Serbs from the region.
No, there's no evil twin of Slobodan Milosevic exhorting Kosovar Albanians to ``ethnically cleanse'' Serbians the way that the Yugoslavian dictator did against the Albanians. Milosevic was barbaric and efficient in his goal of ridding Kosovo of ethnic Albanians during NATO's 78-day bombing campaign. He drove 1.5 million people out of the province, killed 11,000, and sanctioned the rape and torture of others.
Now the tables have been turned. Many returning Kosovar Albanians, though not all, have been on a vicious rampage of revenge and retribution. The violence is sickening: Fourteen farmers massacred as they returned from the field; villages emptied of every able-bodied Serbian; businessmen robbed of their cars, apartments and stripped of their businesses; families terrorized by rapes, kidnappings and tortures.
A report by Human Rights Watch places the blame squarely where it belongs -- on NATO, the United Nations and the international peacekeeping forces, including those from the United States. The allies knew this would happen -- if not the precise detail, then certainly the brutal potential.
Yet, NATO's efforts to stop the carnage have been embarrassingly feeble. Only 50,000 of the 200,000 Serbians in Kosovo before the war are still in the province today. With droves of Serbians leaving each day, Kosovo may well become ``ethnically pure,'' i.e., safe for ethnic Albanians only.
Is this what President Clinton risked American lives for? Absolutely not. Is this the best that the world's strongest military coalition, led by the most powerful countries on the planet, can do?
When President Clinton committed U.S. forces to the Balkans, he justified doing so by saying that the American people cannot stand by idly to witness Milosevic's ethnic cleansing. He was right. But neither should Americans, or Europeans, tolerate ethnic cleansing by ethnic Albanians who do so under NATO's protective umbrella.
NATO knows that the violence isn't random, that most of it is organized and that the Kosovo Liberation Army wields the invisible, bloody truncheon behind it. KLA deceit is plain: The KLA promised to disarm; yet German troops recently uncovered a 10-ton KLA ammunition cache. The KLA said it would cede to United Nations authority; yet it has seized control of most government functions, housing and commerce. When elections are held and a permanent government is established, the KLA promises to be cooperative. Right.
The allies must stop the carnage, establish order, sanction open elections and prepare the way for an autonomous Kosovo that is safe for Serbians and ethnic Albanians alike.