Wesley Clark: Twenty years ago, we stopped ethnic cleansing in Kosovo

Former High Commander NATO, Wesley Clark, who led the NATO bombing campaign against Serbian forces in 1999, said in an interview for the Russian Voice of America's service that the bombings prevented ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and NATO had no other solution.

He said efforts to avoid war in Kosovo had been made since the early 1990s, when the West became aware of the serious situation in Kosovo. Then President George H. Bush warned Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic that he would face serious consequences from the United States if he begins ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians in what was called Christmas warning in December 1992.

He recalled the United States' involvement in Bosnia and their role in achieving the Dayton Agreement that ended the war there, and at that time he said, there have been attempts to talk to Slobodan Milosevic about the Kosovo issue, but he had refused to label it “internal issues”.

General Clark described the serious situation in Kosovo and numerous human rights violations by Serbian authorities. He recalled the attack on the Jashari family in the village of Prekaz in the Skyright municipality in central Kosovo in early 1998, where 54 family members were killed who marked the start of the armed war.

“NATO issued a warning at the ministers' meeting in May and then I took the task of preparing plans in May 1998. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke went to June and met with Slobodan Milosevic and phoned me and told him, please don't do this to Albanians. He told me, General Clark, they are my people and he won't hurt them. But, of course, that was a lie because ethnic cleansing was already happening”.

He said warnings had continued, and in autumn 1998 The United Nations adopted Resolution 1199 strengthened with NATO's action plan. US envoy Christopher Hill's efforts did not yield results, while after the Recak massacre, a village in southern Pristina where 45 Albanian civilians were killed, the negotiation process began in Ramboullete, there Serbia refused to sign the agreement giving Kosovo substantial self-government and envisioned the deployment of NATO troops on the ground to ensure implementation of the agreement. NATO, after the new large-scale ethnic cleansing in March 1999, had no choice but to intervene, he said.

“We only used force as the last, completely solved. But NATO could not allow a new round of ethnic cleansing by Serbs. We had just stopped doing so in Bosnia and could not allow such a thing to happen again in Kosovo, and therefore we responded strongly after trying all other options. And since the Russians refused to help... The Russian view was that this is the Serbian internal issue and if they want to kill a million people, that's their right. But that is not our point of view. We believed in the right of each individual to have freedom and dignity in accordance with the UN's declaration of human rights and could not allow human tragedy to again hit Kosovo”.

When the bombings began on March 24th, he said, no one knew how this would end.

The “could end with full invasion of Yugoslavia and was in Milosevic's hands. And he finally realized you were against it. NATO is fruitless and surrendered”.

General Clark dismissed Russian claims, according to which there were many killed by NATO bombs and its intervention was illegal and unfair. He cited the fact that before Serbia's Radio Television building was hit, Slobodan Milosevic was warned to avoid the victims.

The “Ide was not to kill people but to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, which were carrying out its troops and he could not evade responsibility”.

He cited the hiding of Albanian troops killed, including the discovery of the refrigerator truck with Albanian troops in Serbia. NATO said he did the right thing, stopped ethnic cleansing.

“1.4 million Albanians were expelled from their homes. 900 thousand fled to Albania. Five hundred thousand were hiding in the woods. Serbs were following them and trying to kill them. We end all this and I'm proud of what he did. NATO”

Russia, he said, was on the wrong side of history in the Kosovo case. Recalling the June 12th period of 1999, when his troops were ready to enter Kosovo, he said a Russian troop contingent had been smuggled into Kosovo from Bosnia and was stationed at Pristina airport, complicating NATO's entry. But, he denied to have urged clashes with the Russians by the commander of NATO's peacekeeping troops, British General Mike Jackson. He said General Jackson had refused to send helicopters to Pristina airport, but has never been asked to attack Russian troops.