U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

62–629 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

HEARING ON THE BALKANS:

WHAT ARE U.S. INTERESTS AND THE GOALS

OF U.S. ENGAGEMENT?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

AUGUST 4, 1999

Serial No. 106–77

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

(
(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman

WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ELTON GALLEGLY, California

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California

PETER T. KING, New York

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

MATT SALMON, Arizona

AMO HOUGHTON, New York

TOM CAMPBELL, California

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

KEVIN BRADY, Texas

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio

GEORGE RADANOVICH, California

JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado

SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut

TOM LANTOS, California

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio

CYNTHIA A. MCKINNEY, Georgia

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida

PAT DANNER, Missouri

EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama

BRAD SHERMAN, California

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey

JIM DAVIS, Florida

EARL POMEROY, North Dakota

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York

BARBARA LEE, California

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York

JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania

RICHARD J. GARON, Chief of Staff

KATHLEEN BERTELSEN MOAZED, Democratic Chief of Staff

MARK GAGE, Professional Staff Member

MARILYN C. OWEN, Staff Associate
(III)

C O N T E N T S

WITNESSES

Page

Mr. E. Anthony Wayne, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau for

European and Canadian Affairs, Department of State ..................................... 8

Ambassador Larry C. Napper, Coordinator for East European Assistance,

Department of State ............................................................................................ 13

Ambassador James Pardew, Principal Deputy Special Adviser to the President and the Secretary of State for Kosovo and Dayton Accords Implementation ..................................................................................................................... 14

Mr. Janusz Bugajski, Director, East European Studies, Center for Strategic

and International Studies ................................................................................... 32

Professor Janine Wedel, Associate Research Professor, George Washington

University ............................................................................................................. 34

Dr. Daniel Serwer, Director, Balkans Initiative, United States Institute for

Peace ..................................................................................................................... 38

APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:

The Honorable Benjamin A. Gilman, a Representative in Congress from New

York and Chairman, Committee on International Relations ........................... 48

E. Anthony Wayne, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs .......................................................................................................... 52

Ambassador Larry C. Napper, Coordinator for East European Assistance ........ 66

Ambassador James W. Pardew, Jr., Principal Deputy Special Adviser to the

President and Secretary of State for Kosovo and Dayton Implementation ..... 76

Janusz Bugajski, Director, East European Studies, Center for Strategic and

International Studies: Problems of Balkan Reconstruction .............................. 84

Janine R. Wedel, Associate Research Professor and Research Fellow, The

George Washington University: U.S. Aid to Kosovo: Lessons From Past

Experience ............................................................................................................ 89

Dr. Daniel Serwer, Director, Balkans Initiative, United States Institute of

Peace ..................................................................................................................... 95

Additional material submitted for the record:

Responses to Questions for the Record submitted to E. Anthony Wayne by

Chairman Benjamin Gilman ............................................................................... 98

Newsbyte released June 21, 1999, by the United State Institute of Peace

entitled: ‘‘Moving Serbia Toward Democracy,’’ submitted by Dr. Daniel

Serwer ................................................................................................................... 129
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HEARING ON THE BALKANS:

WHAT ARE U.S. INTERESTS AND THE GOALS

OF U.S. ENGAGEMENT?

Wednesday, August 4, 1999

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,

Washington, D.C.

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in room 2172

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Benjamin A. Gilman (Chairman of the Committee) presiding.

Chairman GILMAN. The Committee will come to order. This

morning’s hearing will help our Committee and its Members to better understand what America’s future role will be in the Balkans.

As the United States enters its second peacekeeping mission in

the Balkans, with no end to those peacekeeping commitments yet

in sight, that question is going to have to be addressed. Just last

week, the President participated in a summit meeting on the region to show American commitment to a regional assistance initiative for Southeast Europe. We need to understand what that new

commitment will entail.

Let me quote an editorial about the meeting from yesterday’s

Washington Post: ‘‘Mr. Clinton came to the conference armed with

some concrete promises. The Europeans who have promised to take

the lead in Balkan reconstruction offered no such specifics. If the

Stability Pact is to have any meaning, Europe will have to ante up

and do it soon.’’

Since the end of the cold war, our Nation has provided roughly $7 billion in foreign aid and debt forgiveness to the 15 states of

Eastern Europe, plus another $14 billion or more to the 12 states

of the former Soviet Union. That figure does not include the billions of dollars in peacekeeping costs that our Nation has incurred

and will now continue to incur in the Balkans. But when we add

in these costs, we realize that we will soon reach and rapidly surpass an expenditure of $20 billion in aid and military costs in Eastern Europe alone, plus another $15 billion in the former Soviet

Union.

The point I am making is that America has done and is doing

its share. Announcements of new American aid for the states of

Southeastern Europe are in fact now made on an almost weekly

basis. We must keep that in mind.

I expect that our official witnesses today will give us a good estimate of what our Nation will commit to spend as a participant in

the new Southeastern Europe Regional Assistance Initiative to
2

which the President has pledged our support. News reports place

the cost of the entire Southeastern European Assistance Initiative

at $30 billion over a 5-year period. If our Nation were to finance

only 20 percent of that total, it would equal $1.2 billion in U.S. aid

alone for that region each year.

I intend to join with my colleagues from New Jersey and elsewhere, Congressman Smith in particular, in introducing a bill that

would authorize assistance specifically for the countries of Southeastern Europe, but that would lay out two important guidelines

for our foreign aid to that region.

First, a special authorization would be provided for funding to

help the democratic opposition in Serbia. It is apparent that without democracy in Serbia there will be no stability in the Balkans.

Second, that measure will underline the point that the European

Union will have to take the lead in financing the regional assistance initiative by placing a cap on the U.S. financial participation

in such an initiative. Democratization in Serbia and the European

Union’s lead on aid to Southeast Europe are both things that the

President and officials of his Administration have said they fully

support. I hope such legislation will have the President’s support

as well.

We have a good roster of witnesses today to help us begin our

review of our role in the Balkans. Our witnesses on behalf of the

Administration include Mr. Anthony Wayne, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe; Ambassador Larry Napper,

State Department Coordinator for Assistance in Eastern Europe;

and Ambassador James Pardew, Principal Deputy Special Advisor

to the President and Secretary of State for Kosovo and the Dayton

Accords Implementation.

Our second panel will include Janusz Bugajski, Director of East

European Studies at the Center for Strategic and International

Studies; Professor Janine Wedel, Associate Professor at George

Washington University; and Dr. Dan Serwer, Director of the Balkans Initiative, at the United States Institute for Peace.

Before we begin with our first panel, let me ask our Ranking Minority Member, Mr. Gejdenson, if he would care to make any opening remarks.

Mr. GEJDENSON. Thank you. I just want to say that I generally

agree with the Chairman’s approach. I think that the United

States, because of the assets that we have and the systems that

were in place, played the leading role in the conflict. We expended

the most significant portion of the cost of the war, and I do think

the Europeans have to ante up, as will others in the world.

We have, time and time again, taken the responsibility as the

world leader. We like leading the world. We are ready to pay the

price for that, but we don’t want to end up being the sole economic

supporter of these recoveries. I think it is clear that in putting together strategies in this region, we need strategies based on regional solutions, not country by country. Trying to do economic development in this region is almost, I believe, impossible if we take

a nation-by-nation approach.

When you look at the populations in these countries, you find

that they are in the millions, not in the tens of millions. Occasionally you have a country that has a population of 10 million.
3

I am going to look at my notes here.

Kosovo has 2 million. What’s left of Yugoslavia has about 11 million. Montenegro has just under 700,000; Bosnia, 3 million; Macedonia, 2 million; even Bulgaria, 8 million; Romania, 22 million;

Slovenia almost 2 million.

We need to have a policy that starts forcing the region to work

together economically. There is nothing that binds the peace process like an economic relationship, and I know that in some ways

the most difficult challenges are ahead. A military victory is a concrete and rather simple goal. To make sure that we are not in this

situation 10 or 50 years from now, we really need to promote economic development in the region.

I commend the Chairman for holding this hearing.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Gejdenson.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Smith.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I believe that the issues we are addressing in our

hearing today are of critical importance.

Obviously, the troubles of Southeastern Europe have had a tremendous impact on the development of U.S. foreign policy in the

1990’s, following the cold war. While we do have strong regional interests, the Yugoslav conflict has put us face-to-face with how seriously we take human rights and humanitarian issues as part of our

foreign policy, even when national interests may not be otherwise

so apparent. Indeed, we hopefully have learned from the tragedy

of the Balkans in the 1990’s, what those involved in the Helsinki

process have known for a long time, namely that there is no true

peace without human rights and there is no long-term stability

without democratic government.

In Bosnia and in Kosovo, what we saw was genocide, and there

is no greater moral imperative than to prevent genocide from taking place. There may also be no greater challenge. Our challenge

now in the region is to bring democracy to places where it did not

previously exist, at least in any durable form.

In Southeastern Europe, decades of Communist rule have been

followed by an intense, direct and violent assault by extreme nationalists on innocent civilian populations. The effects of endless

propaganda are hard to reverse. The effects of witnessing family

members being slaughtered are even harder.

However, Mr. Chairman, if we are committed in the long term

to assisting democratic forces in the region and promoting social

tolerance, we can and we will make a difference. That is why I

have been a strong supporter of efforts to support democratic development in the region. We simply must understand that some

changes could be quick; but not all of those changes can be quick,

and we must remain committed to supporting democracy for as

long as it takes.

Mr. Chairman, as you know, the Helsinki Commission, which I

chair, has for a full decade encouraged democratic development in

each of the republics and provinces of the former Yugoslavia.

Through election monitoring, Congressional visits, public hearings

and briefings and proposed legislation, the Commission has persistently brought close scrutiny to the halting transition before, during

and after the eruption of violent conflict.
4

As you know, Mr. Chairman, early in this Congress, I introduced

both H.R. 1064, the Serbia and Montenegro Democracy Act and H.

Con. Res. 118 regarding the culpability of Slobodan Milosevic for

war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. I view both

bills as critical and related to each other.

The problems which led to the former Yugoslavia’s violent demise

may have historical roots and the region’s contemporary leaders, as

well as society as a whole, may all share some responsibility for

perpetuating these problems. However, if it were not for the presence of Slobodan Milosevic and the complete absence of even one

ounce of goodwill in that man, these problems certainly would have

been resolved without violence on the scale that we have seen, if

at all.

I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing these two pieces

of legislation to move forward. I believe that our witnesses are familiar with the language of these bills and I trust that they will

comment on these bills. As you know, Mr. Chairman, tomorrow we

plan to introduce a new bill, addressing a number of issues in

Southeast Europe. I support your notion that H.R. 1064 and H.

Con. Res. 118 should move forward in a more comprehensive way,

combined with other regional efforts.

I also wish to thank you for holding this hearing in which we will

hear from Administration views on efforts to promote democracy in

the region, as well as insight from the panel of experts and I particularly want to acknowledge Janusz Bugajski and Daniel Serwer,

who are each going to be on panels. They have testified before our

Commission twice, Mr. Chairman, and they do provide excellent insights.

Dr. Serwer, in fact, presented a paper to the Helsinki Commission last December, which was the inspiration for H.R. 1064. The

paper became famous when Serb nationalists in Belgrade sought to

present it as a covert CIA document designed to overthrow the

Yugoslav and Serbian regimes. So I want to thank Dr. Serwer

again for his very fine insights that helped us draft that bill.

I look forward to our hearing and thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Smith.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Payne.

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me also

say it is very important that we have this hearing at this time.

What are the U.S. Interests and goals of U.S. Engagement? I

think that is a very comprehensive question, and I look forward to

hearing testimony from our witnesses.

I think that we certainly won the war in Kosovo. The question

is, can we win the peace? That is going to perhaps be much more

difficult than winning the war.

Under the iron fist of Marshal Tito for 40 years, it appeared as

though ethnic tensions were nonexistent, because the state became

so overpowering there was very little expression overtly of the difficulties and tensions that have gone on for decades, for centuries,

in that region.

With the breakup of the Warsaw Pact and the passing on of people like Marshal Tito and other tyrants who, I think, did more

damage than good; although the ethnic tensions were sort of subliminal, there was no work done at educating and breaking down
5

these decades or these centuries of ethnic tension. With the new

wave of democracy—you know, democracy means a lot of things to

different people—these tensions tend to have surfaced again. So we

certainly have a lot of work to do.

I had the opportunity to visit most of those countries in the

1960’s and very early in the 1970’s—Russia, Romania, Hungary,

Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, Austria—and the repression of the

government there, as I indicated, kept these differences from surfacing. But I think we have a challenge ahead of us.

I think it is in our interest. I think it was the right decision for

President Clinton to take the bold step. War is always unpopular

and it takes courage to do the right thing. I think the President

did the right thing. Now we have to complete the task.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance

of my time.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Payne.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Rohrabacher.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, the jury is still out on whether or not

we did the right thing in the Balkans, and we will find out when

we examine exactly what the cost of that operation was to the people of the United States.

I mean, after all, we have a President now who says we can’t afford tax cuts, which means giving billions of dollars back to the

American people; and we have debates as to how much money we

can spend on Social Security, how much money we can spend on

various other things that are important to the quality of life and

to the health and safety of our own people. And we will do that

within the context of having spent whatever we did spend—and I

hope to get into that with you today—as to what the costs and ongoing costs of the Balkan operation were all about.

We need to know what has already happened, the short-term

costs, as well as the long-term costs. We also should know whether

or not this has created some type of dependency attitude by our

European allies on the United States of America.

The armed forces of the United States of America, should not be

looked at as a foreign legion, as a resource for Europeans who

should be shouldering more of the responsibility for their own stability and peace. And if we have now created a situation where our

European allies don’t think they have to spend more for their own

defense and they can rely on the United States, then the costs will

be much higher than what we have ever imagined for this operation.

Oversight hearings like this will help us determine what policies

our government is following, know what those policies actually are

and what policies we should be following.

I would like to congratulate Chairman Gilman on the leadership

that he has provided during this entire crisis.

One last note: When we talk about oversight—I will make this

very short because we have Administration officials here—this is

one Member of Congress who has tried to have an oversight over

our policy in Afghanistan. For over a year I have been requesting

documents, and the Members of this Committee understand that.

I am a Member of this Committee who has a special interest in Afghanistan.
6

At long last, I would like to inform the Members of our Committee that documents that we requested about diplomatic decisionmaking about Afghanistan were sent to us and let you know

most of them were newspaper clippings. In other words, the State

Department thumbed its nose at this Committee, thumbed its nose

at our oversight responsibility and has insulted us after a year-long

stonewalling and putting up roadblocks for us to get the information about what our policy is concerning Afghanistan and the

Taliban.

So with that, I will thank the Chairman for calling this oversight

hearing so we can at least understand what the Administration’s

policy is here, even though they are engaged in a policy of deception in terms of a covert policy of supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

I yield back the balance of my time. Thank you very much, Mr.

Chairman.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Hastings.

Mr. HASTINGS. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing.

I appreciate very much the witnesses that have assembled. I am

sure that the information they impart will be of immense benefit

to all of us.

My good friend, Dana Rohrabacher—and he is my good friend—

continues to amaze me. He and I enjoy a good debate. I heard you

say, my dear colleague, and I agree, that we should be concerned

about the short-term costs and the long-term costs. There also is

a correlative, and that is the short-term benefits and the long-term

benefits. This should not be looked at just as a cost factor when,

in fact, stability in Europe benefits America immensely. And I can’t

understand how everybody does not understand that.

Mr. Chairman, the crisis in Kosovo must lead all of us to reexamine how we view our place not only in Europe but in the world. As

the world has changed, many of the key institutions, particularly

European institutions, the European Union, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, NATO, and indeed the United Nations have changed. Even though we are an ocean away, Americans

know that in today’s world of fungible borders and, Mr. Rohrabacher, the world is in interconnected conflicts, gross violations of

human rights have become everyone’s business.

Having achieved our short-term goals in Kosovo, we must now

establish a set of long-term goals for Southeastern Europe. Indeed,

what we do now will seal the fate of Europe for the next century.

Will there be stability? Will the rule of law be followed? Will there

be peace? Will the waters be clean, the air breathable, and the rivers passable for commerce? Will ethnic and religious tensions

erode? Will it be possible to attract investment? Our goals are simple, and I believe the Administration and others will put forward

many of the terms of those goals: to alleviate tensions, prevent conflicts, promote the development of stronger civil societies which follow the rule of law and respect human rights, encourage the

growth of strong and stable economies, raise the living standard for

all Europeans and indeed by that raise our own living standards,
7

assist economic and environmental regeneration and establish regional cooperation in the battle against corruption and crime.

The people of the Balkans have known centuries of war and fear.

This simply cannot continue. We cannot allow insecurity in Kosovo

to engulf her neighbors. Montenegro, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria,

indeed Hungary and others—they are all threatened by the civil

and economic instability which has enveloped Kosovo. If we do

nothing, they may also be consumed. By working together, we can

transform the Balkans from a historic site of conflict and instability

into the fabric of a stable and successful Europe.

America can and should be a part of that transformation. And I

agree with my colleagues who say that the Europeans should take

not only the lead but the lion’s share, and I know of no Europeans

who have said anything any different. When visiting the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, when I was with Amo

Houghton in Ireland, everywhere we went, in London, we find the

Europeans say they understand that they have that responsibility.

I applaud President Clinton for his efforts to bring about a resolution to the crisis in the Balkans, and for his leadership in instigating the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe, but the larger

burden, obviously, must be carried by Europe.

All of us abhor violence. The violence must stop, no matter who

the perpetrators are. Our resolve, America’s resolve, our commitment, America’s commitment, should not be diminished at this

time. It is time for us to insist that the United Nations move expeditiously to establish peacekeeping forces on the ground in Kosovo

and appropriate training to establish a system of justice.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Judge Hastings.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Delahunt.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I think Mr. Pomeroy is next.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Pomeroy.

Mr. POMEROY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Very briefly, I think

the jury is definitely in on the Balkans conflict relative to Kosovo.

Milosevic lost. NATO won. Nothing could be more clear.

The sharp partisan tone of the debate relative to the Kosovo conflict that unfolded during the months of the conflict in the House

of Representatives did not distinguish this body. It is my hope that

beginning right now, beginning with this hearing, we can move into

the post-conflict debate in a much more reasoned, sensible way.

There is nothing Republican or nothing Democrat about that—instinctively or naturally arising from the difficult questions of winning the peace in Kosovo and the Balkans generally.

We are going to have to work together and fashion reasonable,

thoughtful policy. The American people deserve no less, and I hope

that we can move to a higher plane than the discussions during the

conflict itself. I yield back.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Pomeroy.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Delahunt.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would associate myself with the remarks by Mr. Pomeroy. I would just make

one observation. I would submit that the costs of instability in the

region would simply be too high, and I would note that this government and this nation for some period of time has, in the Middle
8

East, supported stability in the form of assistance to both Israel

and to Egypt, and I think the cost has been well worth it. It is my

understanding, and maybe a colleague could help me, that on an

annual basis it amounts to somewhere in excess of $6 billion.

Mr. Payne indicates yes. And I dare say that nobody on this

panel would say that the costs of stability in the Middle East is too

high, because the perils and the dangers both in the Middle East

and in the Balkans are truly unacceptable. So I think it is important we have a perspective here. Yes, the war was costly and the

peace will be costly, and again as Judge Hastings indicated it

ought to be—the lion’s share ought to be absorbed by the Europeans, but at the same time we have a vital interest. And I yield

back.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Delahunt. We will now take

testimony from our witnesses.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Anthony Wayne had wide-ranging experience with our Department of State. Before assuming his current

position as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs, he served as the Deputy Chief of Mission to the European Union. We welcome Mr. Wayne.

Before that, Mr. Wayne served over many years at our National

Security Council, the Office of the Ambassador at Large for

Counterterrorism and as Special Assistant to the Secretary of State

at our embassies in France, Morocco, and at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. During a leave of absence, Mr. Wayne

worked as a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor.

Mr. Wayne, you may summarize your written statement. It shall

be placed in the record. Please proceed.

STATEMENT OF MR. E. ANTHONY WAYNE, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY

ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU FOR EUROPEAN AND CANADIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. WAYNE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a privilege to be here today, and I thank you and the Members of the

Committee for this opportunity to discuss in some detail the basis

for and the elements of our policy toward Southeast Europe. I am

very happy to have with me Ambassador James Pardew, our Deputy Special Advisor for Bosnia and Kosovo, and Ambassador Larry

Napper, the Coordinator for East European assistance. Each of

them will discuss in some more detail, following my remarks, what

our policy is in their area of responsibility.

But what I would like to try to do is talk a little bit about the

overarching policy and programs, the U.S. Interests at stake, our

objectives and the approaches and tools that we are trying to use

to achieve those objectives and to indeed achieve maximization of

our interests.

I thought what I might do, to open with, is give a succinct statement of our policy, which came from a speech which President

Clinton gave in San Francisco on April 15, and I will just quote

from that, because I think this is a good clear overview of what we

are trying to do. ‘‘Because stability in Europe is important to our

own security, we want to build a Europe that is peaceful, undivided

and free. We should try to do for Southeastern Europe what we

helped to do for Western Europe after World War II and for Cen-
9

tral Europe after the cold war; to help its people build a region of

multiethnic democracies, a community that upholds common standards for human rights, a community in which borders are open to

people and trade, where nations cooperate to make war unthinkable . . . the best solution for Kosovo, for Serbia, for Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and all the countries of Southeast Europe is . . .

greater integration into. . .Europe. . . .’’

I will discuss a bit later this past week’s Stability Pact Summit

meeting in Sarajevo. That summit demonstrated our commitment

and the commitment of the leaders of the region and indeed of the

broader international community to make this integration into a

reality.

There are three goals which we are pursuing in Southeastern

Europe: The stabilization of the region; its transformation into a

community of thriving democratic polities and vibrant market

economies; and the integration of the region into the broader European transatlantic and global, political, and economic structures.

We are pursuing these objectives in a broad range of institutions

and programs, and let me just briefly list them because there are

a number here: The Dayton implementation process; the Kosovo

peace process; the support for east European democracy or SEED

program, which Ambassador Napper administers; the Southeast

European Cooperative Initiative known as SECI; NATO’s Partnership for Peace and Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council; the

Royaumont Process; the EC/World Bank donor coordination process; the Southeast Europe Defense Ministers group; and several

others.

Finally, and most importantly for the medium and long-term

prospects in the region, we have established with our partners, as

has been mentioned, a Stability Pact for Southeast Europe. This

pact has the promise of providing a unifying framework to achieve

the broad political and economic reform and the greater integration

of the region into Europe, which so many of us seek.

I would like to present our approach to Southeast Europe, first

by discussing the programs and approaches that are most geographically focused, and then talking a bit about the broader and

the longer term efforts that are underway; particularly in that

sense, the Stability Pact being the broadest of these.

First, there are the Kosovo and Bosnia elements which Ambassador Pardew will address in more detail. Kosovo clearly presents

an immediate security, political, economic and humanitarian challenge for all of us. KFOR’s deployment has improved the security

environment dramatically, but we need to sharpen our focus on improving internal security.

We must also establish the political mechanisms called for in the

peace agreement and make the transition from meeting urgent humanitarian needs to laying out the basis for a self-sustaining and

productive market economy.

In Bosnia, local governmental and police institutions are beginning to gain authority and popular legitimacy, which they need to

ensure domestic security. But the economy still has a long way to

go, and there is much that needs to be done there.
10

I want to stress the importance of getting the Dayton and Kosovo

process right. These are intensive tests of the international community’s willingness to see peace take hold.

Second, a word about Serbia. It is clear that Serbia continues to

pose a serious challenge to regional stability, including the democratic government in Montenegro. The loss of Kosovo to KFOR and

the U.N. Civil Administration has left President Milosevic weakened and discredited domestically. Milosevic is an international pariah and an indicted war criminal. As long as he and his regime

remain in power in Belgrade, Serbia and the FRY cannot take their

place among the community of democratic nations, a message that

was made very clear at the summit in Sarajevo last week.

President Clinton has clearly stated our policy. As long as the

Milosevic regime is in place, the United States will consider providing humanitarian assistance through international organizations but not reconstruction assistance to Serbia.

Helping to rebuild Serbia’s roads and bridges would funnel

money directly into the pockets of Milosevic and his friends, prolong the current regime, and deny Serbia the hope of a brighter future. We are working very closely with our friends and allies in Europe to coordinate our activities on Serbia and to forestall any

weakening of the existing sanctions regime against the FRY.

A key aspect of our policy on Serbia is indeed support for democratic change. We want to support those forces in Serbian society

working to this end. We want to nurture the struggle for democracy, but at the same time I do not want to overemphasize our ability to effect change within Serbia. Milosevic maintains a firm grip

on the main levers of power and the Serbian opposition remains far

from united. But regardless, our support for democratic forces is an

investment in Serbia’s future. We look forward to working together

with Congress to bring democracy to Serbia and restore real stability in the region.

Albania, too, in the region, is a potential source of regional instability, as was demonstrated by its near collapse in March 1998. Although we have been obliged to reduce our presence in Albania for

security reasons, we are continuing to work to address the security

concerns and support political stabilization, economic reform and

development in that country. We are now increasing our presence

and our programmatic support. We are particularly encouraged by

the responsible and restrained approach taken by the Albanian authorities during the Kosovo conflict and the reception accorded to

the hundreds of thousands of Kosovar refugees. Albania was instrumental to our success in Kosovo. We feel strongly that its role

should not be forgotten. We are restarting several of our bilateral

assistance programs, largely focusing on combatting corruption and

restoring public order.

We participate actively in the Friends of Albania Organization,

with many of our European allies and partners. Through that organization, we have established benchmarks for progress in Albania.

We support the actions recently taken by the prime minister of Albania and the government to establish an effective rule of law.

Progress has been slow, and, due to the nature of Albania’s problems, we are going to have to show patience and persistence in

order to bring about the long-term change that is desired.
11

Third, for several years we have sought to address the problems

of Southeast Europe in a broader context. Looking at the region as

a whole, and increasingly since early this year, we have focused on

a post-conflict strategy for renewal of the entire region. This strategy has many different elements, but the focus most broadly, of

course, is on the three key project areas: Security, economic development, democracy and human rights.

First, on the security side, we are working bilaterally with many

of the countries in the region, but we are also concentrating our

work through the NATO framework. At the April summit here in

Washington, the Alliance established a special consultive forum for

the members of the alliance plus the seven countries of the region

on security that has begun to review regional proposals on crisis

management, military-to-military cooperation, infrastructure ideas,

and promotion of a democratic media. We have also agreed that the

summit could develop mechanisms to better coordinate the security

assistance to the region from the various allies. And we are working with the allies to implement this and other decisions on a rapid

basis.

The EAPC, that is, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, which

functions within the NATO structure, also created a working group

on regional cooperation for Southeast Europe, which is going to

look at defense planning, crisis management, and regional air

space management.

We are also supporting the efforts in the region, and particularly

of note here is the Southeast Europe defense ministerial process

that is really something built from the region up, bringing defense

ministers together to look at regional cooperation, efforts that they

can take together to promote peace, security and military reform.

To encourage democratization, we have worked for many years

now on a variety of programs, including the SEED program, and

with a variety of groups and institutions, including the National

Endowment for Democracy, to promote democracy. That also has

included cooperation with the OSCE and with the European Union.

Economic reform and development, of course, have also been a

long, standard priority of what we have been trying to do, with the

SEED program providing funding to support policy and administrative reform as well as infrastructure development.

An important aspect of our post-World War II reconstruction efforts in Europe was our encouragement of regional cooperation.

The states of Southeast Europe, with U.S. support, have built this

regional cooperation in a number of different fora. I would like to

highlight one, the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative,

where we worked with states in the region really to have the first

overarching coordinated regional approach to many of the economic

troubles which plague the region. Eleven states have come together

with the U.S. and other partners to pursue cooperative efforts,

looking, for example, at cross-border crime and corruption. The

FRY is not a member of this but Montenegro has attended on a

regular basis now the SECI meetings as an observer. SECI participants have committed to join in measures to encourage trade and

commerce and to make the region more attractive to private investors. The first two agreements, which they recently signed, have to
12

do with harmonizing road transport and providing a sharing of information to combat cross-border crime.

Mr. SMITH.—[Presiding.] Mr. Wayne, sorry to interrupt. We have

about five minutesremaining before we have to report to the floor.

Mr. WAYNE. OK.

Mr. SMITH. I apologize to our other witnesses as well. There are

two votes and then the Chairman and many others will return to

hear the conclusion of your testimony. So I do apologize.

The Committee stands in recess until the votes are over.

[Recess.]

Mr. HOUGHTON.—[Presiding.] All right. Gentlemen, thanks for

your patience. We would like to reopen the hearing.

And maybe you would like to finish up your statement, Mr.

Wayne.

Mr. WAYNE. Yes. Let me quickly finish up the basic point I wanted to make about the SECI organization that this is largely a selfhelp program and has not cost the U.S. taxpayer more than very

modest amounts, but is producing very concrete results.

Let me just say a little bit about the Stability Pact and the summit which took place in Sarajevo last Friday. The Pact itself is a

mechanism or, if you will, a process to bring together all of the

many ideas, the many organizations, the many actors, at work to

help integrate Southeast Europe into the transatlantic and European mainstreams. And so, what we are really talking about here

is a forum to facilitate that can provide political coordination and

a degree of comparative analysis for these ideas.

We hope it is a process that can make more efficient, more effective, and more coherent all of the international and regional efforts

that are going underway. The Pact is not a funding or an implementing agency; indeed it is a fairly lean international structure.

So any proposals that are developed in the Pact would actually

have to be carried out and implemented by other agencies. We foresee no large bureaucracy being developed in this context.

The Pact proposals in the economic field requiring funding would

go to the EC/World Bank chaired process, donors process, where

they would be analyzed and assessed there, and we, of course, are

a member of the high-level steering group guiding that process.

Last week in Sarajevo, if I might go on, President Clinton and

other leaders offered their comments on the future of Southeast

Europe. The President took the opportunity to put forward several

initiatives which we can talk about in more detail; these included

$10 million to aid the efforts for democracy in Serbia.

They included a proposed investment compact to spur investment

in the region, a number of ideas associated with that, and the trade

expansion initiative. Now on all of these, of course, as the President made clear, we look very much forward to working with Congress as we develop these ideas and as they go forward.

But Sarajevo itself wasn’t just about what people were offering

or putting on the table. What was very significant was the clear

commitment of everybody there to work together as partners to

make this long-term process of integration a success. The clear

message from leaders of the region that they knew they shared responsibility to work among themselves to undertake reform; the

clear message from those outside the region that they had to re-
13

spond concretely to those steps by the regional leaders. This was

very important.

In sum, I might just say that few of us could have foreseen or

would have foreseen the depth of our engagement in Southeast Europe today. But I think few would deny that to engage in the region, to bring the states of Southeast Europe into the Euro-Atlantic

community of prosperous, secure, and democratic nations is a task

and, indeed, an opportunity that must not find us wanting.

Thank you.

Mr. HOUGHTON. Thanks very much, Mr. Wayne.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wayne appears in the appendix.]

Mr. HOUGHTON. The next witness is Ambassador Larry Napper,

who serves as Coordinator of Assistance to East Europe after a

long career with the State Department. After service with the

United States Army, Ambassador Napper joined the Foreign Service and rose to a number of important positions in our diplomatic

core including key positions at the Embassy in Moscow, Deputy

Chief of Mission at the Embassy in Romania and Director of Department’s Office of Soviet Affairs and Ambassador to Latvia.

So, Ambassador Napper, we are delighted to have you here.

Would you please proceed.

STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR LARRY C. NAPPER, COORDINATOR FOR EAST EUROPEAN ASSISTANCE, DEPARTMENT

OF STATE

Mr. NAPPER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Given Mr. Wayne’s detailed statement and our desire to get to

your questions, I just want to make three points really about the

SEED program and the role that it plays in our overall strategy in

Southeastern Europe.

First of all, SEED works; it is a demonstrated performer. If you

look at the program over the past 10 years, we have graduated

eight countries from the SEED assistance program. That means

eight countries that were, at one point, recipients of our bilateral

assistance have now progressed to the point where they no longer

need direct U.S. bilateral assistance.

In fact, SEED graduates are members of NATO and partners of

NATO and aspiring companies for the European Union, so this is

a program with a demonstrated track record. Elsewhere in the region, in Central and Northern Europe and, if we continue and if

we persevere, in Southeastern Europe, we can achieve the same results because we can show a demonstrated track record.

The second point I would make is that SEED is flexible. It allows

us to do activities across a range from technical assistance to support for peace implementation in Bosnia and Kosovo, to the promotion of regional projects. Mr. Gejdenson’s point about supporting

development of the Southeastern Europe as a region—we can do

that through SEED, and we are doing it.

And finally, with small amounts of SEED assistance to these

countries, we can help them create a climate to promote trade and

investment, because the private sector is really the engine that is

going to transform Southeastern Europe. So SEED works; it is

flexible.
14

My third point is, it is a bargain. Our SEED assistance program this year for all of Central and Eastern Europe began at $430 million, 370 of which was dedicated to Southeastern Europe. With the

budget supplemental that the Congress passed and the President

signed in May, we now have a total of $490 million in SEED assistance going to Southeast European countries.

Mr. Chairman, that is 3 percent of the 150 Account, the total 150

Account. So it is a minuscule part really of what we are doing overall in foreign affairs; and if you compare that to the overall Federal

budget at large, you can see what we are doing here is a program

that is modest in size, cost effective, and I say again it works.

So with that, Mr. Chairman, I would like to conclude and be glad

to take your questions. Thank you.

Chairman GILMAN.—[Presiding.] We regret the interruption for

voting.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Napper appears in the appendix.]

Chairman GILMAN. Our next official witness, Ambassador James

Pardew, was appointed to his current position in March of this year

after being appointed to the rank of Ambassador in 1997. Ambassador Pardew has a long record of service with our military from

which he has a number of decorations. Among other positions, Ambassador Pardew served with the staff of the Joint Chiefs in the

Army General Staff and completed a number of foreign tours of

service. Entering into the risky field of foreign policy, after that

military career, the Ambassador served as Representative of the

Secretary of Defense at the 1995 negotiations on the Dayton Accords for Bosnia and then as Director of the ‘‘Military Train and

Equip Program’’ in Bosnia from 1996 to 1999.

Mr. Ambassador, we welcome you. You may summarize your

written statement and put the full statement into the record as you

may deem appropriate. Please proceed.

STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR JAMES PARDEW, PRINCIPAL

DEPUTY SPECIAL ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT AND THE

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR KOSOVO AND DAYTON ACCORDS

IMPLEMENTATION

Mr. PARDEW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will submit a statement for the record. And I will just highlight its points, keying on

some points that the Members made in their opening statements.

First of all, throughout this century the stability of Europe has

been of vital interest to the United States; and ethnic conflict in

Southeastern Europe clearly is a direct threat to European stability

and, therefore, is a threat to the U.S. National interests.

That is why we have invested so much time, energy, and resources in former Yugoslavia over the past 10 years. That is why

American troops have been in Macedonia since 1993, in Bosnia as

part of a NATO-led force since 1995, and now in Kosovo as part

of the NATO-led force implementing the agreement that followed

the successful air campaign.

These military deployments are not a permanent solution, however. Long-term regional stability requires active and robust political and economic development. I will talk about primarily Kosovo

and Serbia and skip over the Bosnian peace. But in Kosovo, we
15

have to rebuild civil society from the ruins of the savage campaign

which Milosevic waged against the population.

Our immediate steps to create an autonomous democratic society

were successful in the successful air campaign and the return of

over 700,000 of the 800,000 refugees expelled from Kosovo. Currently, more than 37,000 troops from 21 nations are deployed

there, including 5,500–5,600 U.S. forces. K–4 is rapidly establishing a secure environment.

Separately, the U.N. Administration for Kosovo, UNMIK, is making steady progress in deploying civil administrators, civilian police

and judicial authorities to the field under extremely difficult circumstances. UNMIK has a very powerful mandate sufficient to create the foundations of a democratic society.

And while it is deploying, it still has a very long way to go. We

are doing everything that we can to urge contributing companies

and the U.N. to deploy as soon as possible.

I want to highlight last Wednesday’s immediate needs conference

in Brussels, which focused on humanitarian requirements and

where donors pledged to provide nearly $2.1 billion in humanitarian assistance. The United States pledged $556 million in assistance for urgent humanitarian needs, subject to clear assessment of

the need and a confirmation that other donors will do their part.

This money comes from the budget supplemental passed by the

Congress and signed by the President on May 21st of this year.

None of this funding will go for reconstruction in Kosovo or longterm development in Southeastern Europe. The follow-on donors

conference in the fall will concentrate on assistance for reconstruction for which the Europeans will bear the bulk of the burden.

An urgent item on UNMIK’s agenda is the creation of a civilian

police force. The U.N. plans to deploy 3,100 international police;

they will be armed and have arrest authority. This is a new development for the U.N. We intend to provide 450 of these police. This

is an interim step until we can train 3,000 indigenous police, and

the U.S. is playing a leading role in that effort in training local police as well.

Further down the road, democratization will require active and

pluralistic political life. Our goal is to hold elections in Kosovo as

soon as feasible. I will skip over the Bosnian peace only to say that

we have obviously had significant success there, but we still have

a way to go on such things as refugee returns, economic restructuring, and the strength of state institutions.

Finally, let me speak a moment about democratization in Serbia,

because long-term stability in the region requires Serbian leadership committed to democracy and the rule of law. President Clinton

has made clear that there will be no reconstruction assistance to

Serbia as long as the Milosevic regime is in place.

Over the past several weeks, Serbia citizens have shown their

disgust for Milosevic and their hunger for democratic change

through spontaneous demonstrations in the streets and cities

throughout the country. These are positive developments, and we

should nurture them. At the same time, I don’t want to raise expectations that the Milosevic regime will fall easily or soon.

Over the past two years, the U.S. Government has—and NGO’s

like NDR, IRI and NED have spent $16.5 million on democratiza-
16

tion projects. In Sarajevo last Friday, the President announced he

will work with the Congress to provide 10 million this year and

more over the next 2 years to strengthen independent media,

NGO’s, independent trade unions, democratic opposition. And we

look forward to working with this Committee, Mr. Chairman, in

that regard.

Our democratization programs focus in three areas: first is assistance to opposition parties; second, in promoting independent

media and the free flow of information; and third, we give special

importance to support for Montenegro. President Djukanovic and

the multiethnic democratic government in Montenegro have demonstrated courage and determination, and we want to support them

as a model for change in the FOY.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes the summary of my points. I will

be open to any questions you may have.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pardew appears in the appendix.]

Chairman GILMAN. We will proceed with questions for the entire

panel. Our nation has appropriated about $400 million annually in recent years for our SEED Act assistance program, the major U.S.

aid program for Eastern Europe, and, combined with other forms

of aid, U.S. assistance in the entire region has probably exceeded

$500 million per year.

Can our panelists tell us what the Administration will now be

seeking for aid to Southeast Europe in fiscal year 2000 and what

the Administration will commit to provide annually in such aid to

Southeast Europe under a regional assistance initiative? And will

that amount be larger than the current aid provided annually in

Eastern Europe and, if so, by how much? I would welcome any of

our panelists’ response.

Chairman GILMAN. Ambassador Napper.

Mr. NAPPER. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I have got it turned on now.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The President’s current budget requests for the SEED assistance program for 2000 is $393 million.

In the context of consideration of that on the Hill, the director of

OMB has said that there will be a budget amendment submitted

by the Administration, and we believe that, in fact, a budget

amendment will be required.

Now, I am not in a position today to say exactly what the level

is that we will be recommending. That is still being developed

within the Administration, and we want to work with you up here

on the Hill, this Committee and others, to come to an appropriate

level for seed assistance in 2000.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you. James Wolfensohn, the President

of the World Bank, has stated his fears that aid to the Balkans

may siphon off aid needed to respond to the humanitarian crises

in Africa and Asia, and he specifically cited the hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons who were forced

from their homes by the conflict over the region of NagornoKarabakh in Azerbaijan earlier in the decade and who have been

living in abysmal conditions ever since. How do we respond to that

concern?
17

I welcome a response by any of the panelists.

Mr. NAPPER. Well, certainly, Mr. Chairman, we recognize that

there are requirements everywhere in the world which do require

our attention. One fact, though, that I mentioned, if you look at the

size of the SEED assistance program, in the context of the entire

150 Account, the entire foreign affairs account, which is about 3

percent of the 150 Account, I would not say that historically our

SEED assistance program has been particularly large—has loomed

particularly large in our overall assistance programs worldwide.

I would anticipate what we are talking about, I would describe,

is fairly modest increases in order to deal with the situation that

we found there and to try to bring stability to an area which has

after all cost us a number of millions of dollars in terms of fighting

military campaigns and conflicts. We would like to avoid that by

a reasonable and modest investment of assistance funds.

Chairman GILMAN. Would any of our other panelists want to join

in answering?

Mr. Wayne.

Mr. WAYNE. Just to add that, as you well know, Mr. Chairman,

historically this region has been the source of much conflict during

this past century, and now there is indeed a strong consensus, as

evidenced by the Stability Pact Summit, of the need for a long-term

effort to really integrate this region so that will not be the case in

the future. And certainly we believe that is worth the investment

of time and effort to do so.

Just to note, Mr. Wolfensohn was present at the summit and

that the World Bank is intimately involved in the thinking and

planning that is going to go on for both Kosovo reconstruction and

the broader reconstruction in the region. Indeed, the World Bank

is one of the co-chairs of the donor coordination process. We have

counted heavily already on their expertise and their guidance in

developing the thoughts that we have so far, and as we look at the

needs for the region, they will be a key player in pulling that

needs-assessment together.

Chairman GILMAN. Ambassador Pardew?

Mr. PARDEW. I have nothing to add, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman GILMAN. Let me move on to another issue. In June, a

spokesman for Carlos Westendorf, the head of the international effort in Bosnia, stated that corruption there involves hundreds of

millions of dollars annually. Westendorf’s deputy, Jacques Klein,

had stated earlier that corruption in Bosnia was the largest single

obstacle to that country’s ever becoming independent of aid programs.

Can you tell us what is being done to halt such corruption, what

plans been made to eliminate that kind of corruption in Kosovo,

and what planning will be undertaken to eliminate such corruption

throughout Southeastern Europe as the new regional assistance

initiative takes hold?

Mr. PARDEW. Mr. Chairman, let me speak of Bosnia.

Chairman GILMAN. Ambassador Pardew.

Mr. PARDEW. We are very much concerned about the issue of corruption in Bosnia and the potential, for that matter, of corruption

in Kosovo. As I have said in my written statement to the Committee, we are not yet happy with the level of economic reform in
18

Bosnia. We have put forth to the government, both the entities and

the state government, proposals which would reduce the potential

dramatically for corruption in that area. We are also working with

the police and the international institutions to tackle this problem.

But this is a long-term problem, and it requires structural reform

in Bosnia.

In Kosovo, we are working with the United Nations, the World

Bank, and others to provide the immediate technical assistance to

create the proper institutions that would reduce the potential for

corruption there.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Pomeroy.

Mr. POMEROY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And first of all, I want

to commend you for holding this very important hearing, clearly

the complexities of what we are addressing require this Committee

to learn everything we can and monitor the situation closely for the

foreseeable future.

My first question would be to Ambassador Napper and would involve your expertise with the former Soviet Union. What are the

ongoing ramifications of the Kosovo conflict for our relationship

with Russia?

Mr. NAPPER. Well, Mr. Pomeroy, I am not working on Russia

right now, but let me just answer your question the best way I can.

Certainly, the issues surrounding this conflict have been at the

center of much of our dialogue with Russia over the past few weeks

and months. We have not always agreed at every point during the

conflict about what should be done at the time. But I think at the

end of the day, we have been able to cooperate with the Russians

at very important points in the conflict.

Mr. POMEROY. Do you have a sense in terms of the lingering

ramifications, whether the nationalists are still very much fueled

by our involvement in the conflict? It seems to me that it is dying

down very quickly.

Mr. NAPPER. I think there is always a range of political opinions

and viewpoints in Russia, that has always been my experience; and

I don’t think things have changed since then. Russia is now a

democratic country and there are a lot of voices that get expressed.

But, I think what is important for us is the policy that is followed

by Russia. And at the end of the day, after a lot of back and forth

and pulling and hauling, in fact, the Russians at key points have

been helpful in trying to find a way to resolve the military aspect

of the conflict and to bring the peace on the ground.

And maybe Ambassador Pardew would like to add to that.

Mr. POMEROY. I think that answers my question adequately. I

have a question though for Ambassador Pardew. It relates to the

suggestion, and it is an important point, does this make Europe

more dependent upon United States military intervention or does

it indeed humble them and make them rededicated to developing

a more effective European defense force to develop—to deal with

European security matters? It seems to me that the comments—in

particular, Prime Minister Tony Blair, would support the latter

conclusion that, if anything, the aftermath in Europe in terms of

this conflict is that they have got to do a better job of developing

a coordinated military capability and execution.
19

Mr. PARDEW. I think there are two elements to your question, sir.

First is a technical military one, and you really need to ask the

Pentagon, because I think there is a difference in basic capabilities

that this war may have been between the forces, and I am really

not the right person to address that.

But I think the United States and our European partners have

reached a conclusion through this entire process, this decade of the

breakdown of the former Yugoslavia, that the United States cannot

go too far away from European responsibilities and the Europeans

realize that they need our help.

So I think we have developed an effective partnership that was

borne out in this particular conflict in which we worked very, very

closely from the beginning with our European partners on how we

could reach an effective political solution. Unfortunately, it required the use of military force. But, again, this was the culmination of 19 different countries focused on the single objective, which

is really a remarkable achievement.

Mr. POMEROY. It was a remarkable achievement. Mr. Wayne, do

you have a comment?

Mr. WAYNE. Just to add that I think you are correct in your observations about the remarks that Prime Minister Blair has made,

that clearly he and I think several others in Europe (of course, we

don’t know how many yet) have drawn the conclusion that there

has to be a focus on developing defense capability in Europe. And

that is one of the lessons that came out of Kosovo: the unity of purpose and the importance of the alliance was one lesson; another

one was that there does need to be work on developing the defense

capability in Europe. And he certainly has been vigorously pursuing that.

Mr. POMEROY. I hope he is reflective of the alliance. My time is

up, but I have got another question.

Chairman GILMAN. Go ahead.

Mr. POMEROY. Thank you. It relates to housing stock. I represent

North Dakota; we know about winter. And it looked to me, especially at the onset of the conflict, that they have a pretty severe

winter there. How are we coming in terms of dealing with people

who have lost their housing being able to survive a winter, for the

hundreds of thousands of impacted families?

Mr. PARDEW. Well, first of all, this is a very resourceful population, and this whole situation has placed UNHCR under tremendous stress. If you look at what has happened here, first of all, you

had the dislocation of 250,000 people inside of Kosovo and spilling

over into the borders. Then almost a million people migrated out

of the country, and now a million people have migrated back into

the country, so the task for UNHCR has been enormous. And while

there have been fits and starts, I think we have got to conclude

that they have been able to deal with that great tragedy.

It is our understanding now, and we have something like 90

NGO’s in Kosovo at this point in time, that basic humanitarian requirements are being met: medical, food, and shelter. UNHCR recognizes that they have a limited amount of time, as we do, to get

people ready for the winter. But between the population and the

self-help program and people sharing their own homes, buildings

that have not been destroyed, and materials that are being pro-
20

vided by the international community, we believe right now that

basic shelter needs will be met and that we will be able to deal

with it.

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Ambassador, that is music to my ears.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Pomeroy.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Bereuter.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador, thank you very much for your testimony. I wanted

to call to your attention legislation I introduced on July 30, the

Kosovo Burden Sharing Resolution, which was cosponsored by Mr.

Lantos and other original cosponsors, Mr. Cox, Mr. Ewing, Mr.

Green of Wisconsin, and Mr. Toomey. I had some encouragement

from Republican House leadership in preparing this legislation. I

held it several weeks, almost a month, while we tried to get more

information about the cost of the air war.

It still is sketchy, but we provided most of the aircraft. We flew

most of the sorties; we provided most of the munitions, by far the

majority: logistical planes, about 79 percent. What this resolution

does is say that the U.S. should not pay more than 18 percent of

the aggregate costs associated with military, air operations, reconstruction of Kosovo, and in other parts of the Southern Balkans.

That 18 percent figure came from the President in his personal remarks to the Speaker, but he did not clarify what 18 percent was

going to cover.

I took the hard-line approach at a beginning of the negotiations

and covered air war and so on; and in reality, I think what we

spent on air war will be more than 18 percent of totals, but we can

begin the negotiations at that point. It is my intention not to let

the Administration permit European and other allies pay less than

the majority costs for reconstruction in that area. And by majority,

I am talking about a supermajority. It is important we don’t begin

to spread money around in that region.

So this will be my effort to make a statement—get other people

to support it, and then police the appropriation process hereafter,

because Europeans have no history of the United States really coming down and asking them to follow through on promises and to

pick up the majority of the costs.

The second thing that it does in the way of guidance in the sense

of the Congress element is to suggest that Macedonia and Albania

deserve high priority for the costs—humanitarian, economic costs

that they bore during this period of time in preparation for the air

war, during the air war, and subsequent to the air war. I wanted

to call that to your attention, gentlemen, and we will see how we

progress at this point. But we are watching very carefully to make

sure that the President doesn’t continue to announce large expenditures without consulting Congress.

I do have a question. I hope you can be candid, Ambassador Napper, in particular, with me on this. Is it true that you are having

difficulty in the Administration getting approval of appropriations

for Macedonia? What is the situation in that respect? Is there one

Senator, or one Senate staffer, who is holding up the progress in

getting money for Macedonia? If so, what are the cited reasons that

you hear? Why are they holding up money for Macedonia when

they have borne all of those costs and when they are potentially
21

destabilizable as a result of the Balkans war, a very fragile democracy in its early stages in the first place.

Mr. NAPPER. Mr. Bereuter, thank you very much for your question. I agree with you, we certainly do—in the Administration—

Macedonia and Albania deserve priority attention and, in fact, they

have received that. In our SEED assistance program, for instance,

the original allocation for Macedonia in 1996 was $16 million. That

has more than doubled to $32.5 as a result of the supplemental appropriation and other increments that we have been able to bring

to the account.

In addition, out of the roughly 100 million in ESF (Economic

Support Funds) that was appropriated for budget support and balanced payments support, 28, 29 million—22 million of that 100 million went to Macedonia, and then another six that we found in an

existing account. So, as you can see, we tried to do everything we

can possibly do to assist Macedonia and Albania in these circumstances.

We have had dialogue with a number of Members and staff concerning Macedonia. There is at present no impediment to providing

the assistance to Macedonia. Whatever questions did exist, and

there were some at one point, have been answered so that the assistance is able to flow. There were some questions, frankly, about

how the Macedonians and the Macedonia security forces handled

the influx of the Kosovar Albanian refugees when they first came

into Macedonia.

There were some reported instances in which the security forces

were not perhaps as welcoming as might have been hoped, but we

did work with the Macedonian authorities, we believe we saw a significant improvement. And as I say, we have been able to resolve

virtually all of the questions that involve technical assistance and

balanced payment assistance.

There is one remaining outstanding question concerning foreign

military assistance, but by and large all of the assistance to Macedonia is flowing.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Bereuter.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Delahunt.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Questions have been

posed relative to burden sharing, and the disproportionate share in

terms of the military action that was undertaken. Clearly there is

a growing consensus, within this Committee and in Congress and

within the Administration, that the Europeans, our NATO allies,

should step up in terms of economic assistance and development at

this point. But in the course of the exchange, I think it was you,

Mr. Wayne, who talked about Prime Minister Blair in a recognition

that they have to increase their burden when it comes to the security, security capacity.

But if we are successful, if the United States, our NATO allies

are successful in nurturing true democracy in this region, one can’t

always foresee the future, but I would suggest that a viable dynamic democracy within the region would really, to a substantial

degree, obviously obviate the need of the concern about these security issues.
22

Any comment? Again, that is why I would say that a priority at

this point has to be examining this question in a regional context

and making the kind of investment, whether it be substantial or

not, that will save us in the long run.

Mr. WAYNE. Congressman, if I might take a crack at least at a

initial response.

We agree fully with you that we need to take a regional view of

this situation. That means, of course, sometimes we will act in individual countries, because they have their individual needs. We also

agree fully, as you indicated, that the lion’s share of the reconstruction and development costs should be provided by the Europeans.

And with every European that I have talked to, they agree with

that and indeed say that it is their intention, to do so, and that

is what they will do. Ambassador Napper can give some specific figures in the technical assistance area, to show that in talking about

reconstruction and development, they, indeed, even before the conflict, were providing the lion’s share. And they know now that they

need to provide more.

The European Union is revising its different types of contractual

relations to have more trade access available for the countries of

the region, particularly for Macedonia, Albania, and Bosnia, where

there were different kinds of trade and commericial regimes. They

are looking at all of their relations to indeed provide more assistance, to have more trade access, to encourage investment, and this

is very important.

Indeed, what you said about democracy, supporting democracy, it

is vital. We need to do that. Democracy has taken good root in a

number of the countries of the region. There are other places clearly where it needs help, and there is Serbia, which is a large hole.

We need to work on all of those. And indeed, we can’t separate the

work on democracy from the work on the economy, from the work

on security. We have to pursue all three of those baskets, if I could

put it that way, together.

Mr. DELAHUNT. If I may, Mr. Chairman, my time is almost up,

just an observation. In any society or in region, there are symbols,

I do concur, and really support the Administration’s position vis-avis aid to Serbia, as long as Milosevic is still in power, because I

think he has become such a symbol. I think some of us overestimated his ability to survive. Early on, it was stated that he would

never withdraw without the intervention of U.S. ground troops; yet

he did, and his efforts to divide the alliance obviously failed.

I think it is fascinating to see the demonstrations break out in

such short order after the conclusion of the conflict. But I was

heartened today to read that an indicted war criminal, a Bosnian

Serb general, was arrested. It is important to maintain that course,

because I think people in the region are looking toward that end.

I think it carries such symbolism in terms of why we were there

in the first place, in terms of the moral imperative of saving lives

and in being there for the right reasons in terms of defending

human rights everywhere.

Mr. WAYNE. We agree.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Delahunt.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Rohrabacher.
23

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Gentlemen, when I was a young reporter, I

used to ask two questions, and actually I just asked these two

questions over and over and over again of whoever I was interviewing. People used to think that I knew a lot more than I knew,

because everyone always seemed to be stymied a bit by these two

questions. I think I will just ask you fellows the same questions,

and I am sorry if you may have already answered them while we

were gone for the vote.

The two questions I always asked were, how much is it going to

cost and who is going to pay for it? So maybe you can tell us specifically how much the Balkan operation has cost us so far? How

much will it cost by the time we have reached a conclusion? And

just who is going to pay for it? Do we have any specifics for that?

I mean, you are here to give us a little insight on these things.

Mr. NAPPER. I would like to try to address the nonmilitary costs.

I know you probably are very interested in the military side of it.

But that is something that we——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Does the State Department have any overall

figure for us?

Mr. NAPPER. If you look at the supplemental appropriation that

Congress passed and the President signed for the Kosovo Conflict,

that gives you a pretty good thumbnail sketch of what we are intending on doing, and that is roughly just about a little bit more

than a billion dollars in terms of nonmilitary costs for the Kosovo

conflict, which includes a 120 million in SEED funds, 105 million

in economic support funds for a balanced payments assistance to

the front line states and investigation of war crimes, and the vast

bulk—the remainder of that 1.3 million—is fundamentally humanitarian.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. The trouble about analyzing a supplemental

is that we know that funds have been poured in from other accounts into this specific commitment, because the Administration,

you know, saw this as an emergency situation.

Mr. NAPPER. Yes.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Would I be wrong in suggesting that after 10

years, we may look back and find that $30 billion have been spent

by the United States both in the military as well as the civilian end

of this project?

Mr. NAPPER. In my view, that figure is probably far too large,

but, you know, it is difficult to sit here and give you an estimate

of what the next few years are going to bring. Certainly, there is

no plan for a $30 billion commitment over the coming years of that

kind.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Do I have any other overall idea of estimate?

Let me ask, please, the next time we have some type of a briefing

on this or some other type of a hearing, that we have a figure, because I think that it is important for the American people to understand the costs. And we all know who is going to pay for it—we

are going to pay for it—old Uncle Sam and then all the rest of the

taxpayers.

One thing that has disturbed me over the years is that ever since

World War II, it seems when we have had the upper hand we have

been unwillingly to take those final tough steps that will end a situation and correct it. For example, here it is, 10 years later with
24

Saddam Hussein, we are still in Kuwait and we are fighting Saddam Hussein today. My father fought in Korea and 50 years later,

one-fourth of the history of our country, we are still occupying

Korea.

Concerning what we are doing in Kosovo, have we at least decided that Kosovo will have its right to independence and freedom?

By the way, I personally believe that the Kosovars and all people

should have their right of self-determination. Are we going through

all of this cost but still trying to maintain this charade that Kosovo

is part of Serbia and thus leaving the door open 10 years from now

for the Serbs to do exactly what they just did?

Mr. NAPPER. First of all let me say something about who pays.

Again, I can’t speak as to the military costs, but I can say that we

just had a donor’s conference on the immediate humanitarian

needs in which the United States pledged roughly one-fourth of

those costs. The Administration has been on record over and over

and over again that the vast majority of reconstruction cost is a

cost that will be borne, in the large part, by the Europeans.

The European Union has stepped up to that responsibility and

stated that they will take a leadership role and has taken over the

reconstruction piece of the U.N. force or the U.N. civil

aministration force that is in Kosovo.

So the United States will pay particularly in the humanitarian

area. Right now, that figure is about 25 percent of the anticipated

funding that is going to come in there. We will participate very little in the reconstruction cost. It will largely be a European matter.

On the issue of Kosovo, we haven’t ruled out independence in the

sense that the long-term status of Kosovo has not been decided. It

is something that should be decided as the civil society is reconstituted, as people have governments that are put in place, and that

just hasn’t happened yet.

We have a situation over there now in which, first of all, NATO

is basically in charge. The U.N. will assume responsibility for civil

aministration, and in that process, we will develop local institutions, police, local governance and so forth toward democracy. Once

we have a structure in place that can deal with the long-term issue

of Kosovo status, it can deal with that. But it is premature now to

determine the long-term status of Kosovo.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. It would probably be better to determine that

while we have the upper hand, you might say, I did notice that you

were training 33,000 policemen.

Mr. PARDEW. If I said that I am wrong.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. What was that, then?

Mr. PARDEW. It is about 3,000 local police.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I was trying to clarify that.

Mr. PARDEW. We are going to have about 3,100 national police

on the interim basis until we can get the police force built.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. I do believe, again

just for the record, if we have gone through all this and the people

of Kosovo have gone through this, the Kosovars do deserve their

own independence, which would be the long-term solution. Thank

you.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.

Chairman GILMAN. Ms. Lee.
25

Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me just follow up on Mr. Rohrabacher’s question with regard

to the costs. I would like to know when or if we will ever receive

these figures, in terms of the costs. In terms of the nonmilitary

costs, I would like to know the accounts that this billion is coming

out of; because from what I remember during the supplemental appropriation process, we had some numbers in terms of offsets to

food stamps and section eight housing and community development

block grants.

I say that because right now we are facing huge cuts in the VAHUD budget, and this impacts senior citizens and low-income individuals in terms of housing in their communities and in terms of

just their ability to eat. So I would like to know when we receive

those costs, if we will know where those costs are coming from.

Whether we agreed with the war or not—I certainly did not

agree with it—I think it is our obligation to provide the support for

the Administration in terms of its rationale to not support reconstruction assistance until Milosevic is out of the picture. But I

guess the question I have is, at what point do we evaluate this position and look at what impact it is having or, if it is having no

impact on the people of Serbia, regardless of whatever humanitarian assistance that we are contributing.

Is there a dropdead point, do we go back and evaluate it? Do we

say to Congress, the lack of our participation in reconstruction efforts has impacted the people in this way?

Mr. NAPPER. First, with regard to your first question, the Kosovo

supplemental was passed under emergency designation. It was not

offset, so that there is not a tradeoff between the moneys that were

included in the Kosovo supplemental and the other program accounts that you are discussing.

With regard to the people of Serbia, we have made it clear from

the beginning that we don’t have anything against the people of

Serbia. What we have as a problem is their leadership at this

point. We have not ruled out the possibility of humanitarian assistance to the people of Serbia; and, indeed, we have continued to contribute to international organizations on the ground in Serbia that

are providing that kind of humanitarian assistance. Here I am

talking about food and medicine—that kind of thing.

But we do draw the line at reconstruction and the President has

made that very clear this is our position. And I don’t anticipate

that changing until there is a change in the leadership.

Ms. LEE. I understand that. And I agree, but I am just saying

at what point? For instance, if people need bridges to go to work

and can’t go to their jobs because they can’t get there and there is

no reconstruction assistance in the mix, do we ever evaluate what

that means in terms of the people? I fully agree with what you are

doing—I am just saying how do we know its impacts or will we

ever know, or does it really matter until Milosevic is out of the picture?

Mr. PARDEW. This is a tough question, because some of the restrictions—the sanctions regime, and we hold a complete sanctions

regime still in place, new bridges and those kinds of questions do

have an impact on the population. But the basic rule we are apply-
26

ing at this point is that anything which strengthens the regime is

off limits.

We are willing to contribute to international organizations that

would meet the basic needs of the population, food, shelter, medicine, those kinds of things; but if it goes into accounts which then

can go to Milosevic or his cronies or strengthen the regime, even

though it may have some impact on the population, we are, at this

point, unwillingly to do it. And, you know, we can assess that.

Ms. LEE. Are we assessing the impact or will we?

Mr. PARDEW. What we are trying to do is work with the democratic opposition. As you know, the President has sent 10 million

this year. We are assessing the needs for the future on how we can

improve the potential to change the regime here in a way that

would be more democratic. I think that is the real solution here.

And then the restrictions which are in place at this point in time

would be reconsidered.

Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Ms. Lee.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Chabot.

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have two questions. How much is it going to cost and who is going to pay for it?

No, I guess that has already been asked.

Seriously, relative to Bosnia, in particular, as you all remember,

this House was led to believe that our troops would be there for

one year and it was going to cost somewhere in the range of $2 billion or so. It has gone up now, I understand, to eight or nine or

$10 billion, and we have been there for four years now with no end

in sight. I was just wondering what the latest thinking is, and if

you have already covered this in your testimony, I apologize. We

have about three Committee hearings that we are kind of bouncing

around on—most of the Members. What is the best thinking at this

point in time concerning how long our troops are going to be in

Bosnia?

Mr. PARDEW. Well, I think that the lesson was learned in the

original projection on giving a specific timeline, that was probably

a mistake.

Having to go back on that, reassessment has been done in which

we are looking for an end state as our way out, not an end date.

So there is no willingness at this point to put any kind of timeline

on this. I would simply point out that when we went into Bosnia,

there were 60,000 U.S. troops. We have set benchmarks on things

that need to be done in order to provide long-term stability, and

that is our interest and objective here.

As the situation there has improved, we have been able to reduce

the force commitment now down to about half, less than half of

what we had in there to start with, so the troop contribution or

troop levels have gone way down. As other areas are improving, we

can see the international community cutting back as well.

But there is a set of clear benchmarks that we are looking at,

the President has set 10 of those, and our presence there will be

measured against the benchmarks seeking to achieve long-term

stability.

Mr. CHABOT. OK. I appreciate your response. But in essence, you

have said that, yeah, it was one year and that was probably a mis-
27

take to tell us that. It has now been four and there is no end in

sight at this point.

Relative to our commitment in Kosovo, I know that there was no

commitment, and I would assume that the Administration would

not really find it wise to even venture a guess as to how long the

troops might be there either. Is that correct?

Mr. PARDEW. Again, the presence there is based on the goals of

the Security Council Resolution 1244, which gives a powerful mandate to the civil Administration and to the military presence headed by NATO. As the tasks that are identified in the Security Counsel Resolution and the objectives are met, those numbers—that

commitment should be reduced.

So we are hopeful Kosovo is a significantly different situation

than we had in Bosnia. We are hopeful that the presence there can

be reduced more rapidly. But, again, Congressman, you cannot put

a specific time or date on that.

Mr. CHABOT. OK. Thank you very much.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chabot.

Chairman GILMAN. Dr. Cooksey.

Mr. COOKSEY. Thank you, and thank you gentlemen for being

here.

You know, I was over there in May and visited some of the

camps. My question is, were the camps kept open? Because it

seems that the peace is failing, and you have just got a different

group of refugees. One group has now gone into the country and

another group is coming out.

So are you keeping the camps intact to take care of those refugees—the new group, the Serbs that are coming out? There is an

infrastructure there now, or has it all been dismantled?

Mr. PARDEW. It is considerably different, Congressman. First of

all, the numbers are vastly different.

Mr. COOKSEY. Ten percent, I would assume.

Mr. PARDEW. The number of Serb refugees, I think, is somewhere

on the order of less than 200,000, whereas in Kosovo, we had over

a million refugees and displaced persons. Some Serb refugees are

going to Macedonia where camps were established; they are not

going, for obvious reasons, to Albania. There were large camps, so

there is no application to Albania.

It is my understanding that most of them, those who have gone

to Macedonia are simply going back, going to Serbia. Our goal is

to have a multicultural society in Kosovo. We are extremely concerned about the departure of the Serbs; and we are concerned

about attacks on the Serbs, just as we were concerned about the

terrible tragedies that occurred to the Kosovar Albanians.

Mr. COOKSEY. I would hope you are because they are people, too.

You know, another question, and I don’t know who should answer

this, because I assume none of you have a military background, but

is it true that the NATO commander who is an American general

requested the British to intercede as the Russians were heading toward the airport at Pristina? Was that command given and is it

true that General Jackson failed to respond to that command?

Mr. PARDEW. Congressman, I don’t know the answer to that.

Mr. COOKSEY. It is a question that should be answered to find

out how strong NATO is and what the command structure is. I
28

know it is probably not relevant to people that have no military

background, but...

Mr. PARDEW. I have that, it is somewhat dated. But I honestly

can’t give you the factual answers to that question, because I simply don’t know the facts.

Mr. COOKSEY. Tell me about Thaci.

Mr. WAYNE. Thaci.

Mr. COOKSEY. Thaci, Thaci, short A. Does he have the potential

to be a reasonable leader of Kosovo?

Mr. PARDEW. It remains to be seen. He stepped forward at Rambouillet. He clearly has leadership, natural leadership ability. He

has sort of come up out of the ranks of the KLA. He has represented them.

Mr. COOKSEY. What was his background? What did he do before?

Mr. PARDEW. He was in the KLA, in the military—I don’t know.

Mr. COOKSEY. Educational background, professional business?

Mr. PARDEW. I can get you that.

Mr. COOKSEY. I would like to know, I would be interested in seeing that.

Mr. PARDEW. All right.

Mr. COOKSEY. You know the thing that has created a problem for

victims on both sides of the issue, both sides of the front is that—

and this is a general statement with its potential shortcomings—

is in this day and time, if you look across the full panorama, we

have had a lot of leaders in this country and Canada and Europe

and NATO and Yugoslavia that are narcissistic, that are people

who are skilled communicators, take advantage of television, and

they don’t always do what is best for their people.

And Milosevic, if you really look into his background, fits into

that mode. He did a lot of what is good for them at the time, what

made them feel good at the time; Milosevic actually lived in this

country—he worked on Wall Street, as you know, and is well educated. He is a lawyer, whether that is such a good education, but

anyway it is an education. A lot of people have fallen victim to

these flawed personalities with all the frailties that go with them.

I hope that we get some real leaders like Churchill and Thatcher,

not to mention any of our great leaders. But are there any of those

on the forefront in the Balkans?

Mr. PARDEW. I think there are people with that kind of potential,

but they haven’t appeared yet.

Mr. COOKSEY. Thank you. Would you like to comment?

Mr. WAYNE. I was just going to say, of course, this is one of the

reasons why we have tried to support free media development in

Serbia and the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere—because it is so

important to give news access to people, so that there is not only

one media outlet that can be dominated by a regime or a magnetic

personality.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Dr. Cooksey.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Burr.

Mr. BURR OF NORTH CAROLINA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I

have to make a statement at the beginning. Ever since the issue

of our policy there has come up, I envision those who deal with policy, with this big kaleidoscope, and every time they look in it they
29

see the pretty colors. It is always the same, unfortunately, nothing

outside of the kaleidoscope ever affects the inside of what you see.

I have a real question as to whether we are being realistic in

what can be achieved, or whether our goals are limited to what we

see in that kaleidoscope when I hear the perfectly multicultural

area that we would like to have. I won’t get into the realities of

whether we can get there or what the cost is, both financial or

human. Let me just ask, and I will address it to anybody who

would like to answer, did Kosovo come up in the Dayton talks?

Mr. PARDEW. Not in a significant way.

I can speak of that because I was there.

Mr. BURR OF NORTH CAROLINA. Why don’t you speak of it ?

Mr. PARDEW. OK. There may have been some discussions of

Kosovo, but it was not a major objective in the Dayton talks, because the Dayton talks were focused on the tragedy in Bosnia that

had caused two and a half million refugees and 250,000 dead.

Kosovo was, at that time, relatively quiet. In the meantime, Bosnia

was on fire and it was the requirement and the belief at that time

that what had to be focused on was the immediate fire that needed

to be put out, and that if we got into larger issues at that point

in time, more distant issues, that it would detract from our ability

to bring the Bosnian conflict to a close.

Mr. BURR OF NORTH CAROLINA. Dayton was not about stability

in Bosnia?

Mr. PARDEW. Dayton absolutely was, absolutely about stability;

but it was focused on Bosnia, and we did not feel as though we

could weaken our effort on Bosnia by taking on any number of

other issues. I mean, there is also Montenegro. There is Vojvodina.

There are any number of issues.

Mr. BURR OF NORTH CAROLINA. When did this dissolution of

Yugoslavia start?

Mr. PARDEW. Eighty—well, you could probably trace it back to

Tito’s death, but it started to come apart in——

Mr. BURR OF NORTH CAROLINA. Certainly in the late eighties,

would you agree?

Mr. PARDEW. Late eighties. Whenever Slovenia——

Mr. WAYNE. 1992?

Mr. PARDEW. No, it actually—I believe it started in--.

Mr. BURR OF NORTH CAROLINA. So we had concerns about not

only the stability of Bosnia at the time of the conflict, but we knew

then that we had a much bigger stability question, didn’t we?

Mr. PARDEW. Well, when Yugoslavia started to come apart, it, of

course, raised stability concerns, that is right.

Mr. BURR OF NORTH CAROLINA. Did anybody at Dayton say,

gosh, we don’t have to address Kosovo because that won’t be a

problem?

Mr. PARDEW. No.

Mr. BURR OF NORTH CAROLINA. In hindsight, do you think we

should have addressed Kosovo?

Mr. PARDEW. No. I think it took all the energy that we could

muster to end the war in Bosnia at Dayton. I personally believe

that had we decided to take on other issues at that time, it would—

it may have caused that very difficult negotiation to fail.
30

Mr. BURR OF NORTH CAROLINA. The Administration officials have

said they prefer Montenegro to remain with a restructured Yugoslavia. Can a restructured Yugoslavia work?

Mr. PARDEW. With proper leadership, it can.

Mr. BURR OF NORTH CAROLINA. Describe leadership. Is that——

Mr. PARDEW. Something different than what we have right now.

I don’t want to be glib, Congressman. It is very difficult to deal

with the impulses of independence in Kosovo or Montenegro or perhaps other places with Slobodan Milosevic leading the government

in Belgrade, because of the repressive measures and the anti-democratic policies of that government.

I believe that over time, with the change of leadership, with the

hope of economic development and democracy, that the populations

there can look at their situation and make more rational judgments

than perhaps we would make at this point in time with the terrible

leadership that they have in Belgrade. That is what I believe.

Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. Thank

you, Mr. Burr.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Bereuter.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know we are anxious to go, but one question for the good of the world order. I guess

I would address this to you, Mr. Wayne. The Montenegrins indicate

they are going to try to conduct negotiation with Serbia about new

constitutional arrangements for a looser Federal system. If those

negotiations fail—and as they want the deadline in September, it

seems to be likely—and they take unilateral action to change their

status or role within the federation, the Federal Republic, is the

U.S. prepared for an outbreak of violence in Montenegro?

What specific steps have the U.S. and NATO taken to prepare

for humanitarian assistance and for military intervention in Montenegro? Why is it, in your judgment, that NATO and the U.N.

have not accepted the Montenegrins’ offer to base their operations

for Kosovo in Montenegro in order to establish a U.N. and a NATO

presence in Montenegro, in light of what seems to be about to happen in September?

Mr. WAYNE. Well, let me make a couple of initial comments, Congressman, and then ask Ambassador Pardew to continue on.

One is that we have worked very hard, indeed, to support the

democratically elected regime in Montenegro as have our friends

and allies in Europe. As you may know, the prime minister was

present in Sarajevo at the Stability Pact summit, and the President

met with him in Sarajevo. He has visited and been received in a

wide range of European capitals, and I think he is even in Moscow

today—and yesterday—being received at a very high level.

As you also know, NATO issued a policy statement on Montenegro very clearly saying that any move by Milosevic to undermine

that democratically elected government would—to get it right—be

considered provocative and would be dealt with appropriately.

Of course—excuse me, I meant President Djukanovic, not the

prime minister, earlier.

So we have all tried to send a very clear message of support and

to make clear that if there were any moves against that government it would have very, very serious consequences.
31

Similarly, we have acted concretely to support that government

financially and with technical assistance; and Ambassador Napper

can say more about that.

Right now, we certainly do support the democratic leadership in

Montenegro, which still prefers to seek a modus vivendi within the

FRY. So we are supportive of their efforts to have these talks. I

think we, you know, will continue to express our support for their

efforts to that regard.

As far as looking ahead, I guess I would say, I don’t think right

now it would be productive to address the hypothetical that you

posed. But let me ask Ambassador Pardew if he wants to comment.

Mr. PARDEW. Well, just to reinforce the point that NATO has

been very firm on Montenegro; in fact, in their summit statement

in April they said we affirm our strong support for democratically

elected government in Montenegro. Any move by Belgrade to undermine the government of Djukanovic will be met with grave consequences.

So NATO is on record as taking Montenegro very seriously. We

have supported and will continue to support Djukanovic as the

democratically elected head of that government, and we want to

work with him as a model for change in Serbia.

As to whether we have NATO there or not, that is a difficult

question. We don’t want to put NATO in an awkward position relative to the FRY and so forth.

We are looking at that, just as we are looking at ways that we

can remove some of the sanctions restrictions on Montenegro without benefiting Belgrade.

These are important points. They are delicate, however, in terms

of putting NATO or passing NATO through Montenegro, but we

are looking at it.

Mr. BEREUTER. Gentlemen, my leading question is your Capitol

Hill warning to be prepared to avert or fight a new Balkan conflict

sometime after December, at the wrong time of the year.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Bereuter.

Again, we want to thank our panelists for being with us. We regret the interruptions that delayed your testimony.

Without objection, the Chair will submit questions in writing on

behalf of Members of the Committee concerning issues reviewed in

this hearing for an expeditious response in writing by the Department of State, and there will be three additional days for Members

to submit additional material for the record.

Once again, our thanks go to our official witnesses for their testimony today.

We will now proceed with our second panel.

Mr. BEREUTER.—[Presiding.] As the next panel comes forward, I

would like to introduce them and say a word or two about them.

First, Mr. Janusz Bugajski is Director of the East European Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies here in

Washington, D.C. He has previously worked with Radio Free Europe in Munich and has served as a consultant to the U.S. Agency

for International Development, the Defense Department, the Rand

Corporation, BBC Television, and other organizations. He has lec-
32

tured at several universities and institutes and has published numerous books and articles on East Europe.

Professor Janine Wedel is an Associate Research Professor at

George Washington University and a Research Fellow at the University’s Institute of European Russian and Eurasian studies. She

has received a number of awards from organizations, such as the

National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the

Woodrow Wilson International Center, the National Council for

Eurasian and East European Research. She is a three-time Fulbright fellow. Her latest book, ‘‘Collision and Collusion: The

Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe,’’ was published

just last year.

Our final witness of the three, Dr. Daniel Serwer, is Director of

the Balkans Initiative at the United States Institute for Peace here

in the Nation’s Capital. Dr. Serwer has received a Ph.D. from

Princeton University, served at the Department of State as Deputy

Chief of Mission and Charge’d’affairs at the Embassy in Rome, as

a United States special envoy and coordinator for the Bosnian Federation—director of European and Canadian Analysis, and finally

as Minister Counselor at the Department of the State. At the Institute of Peace, he has co-authored a number of studies on the Balkans States and worked on regional security issues in the Balkans.

Mr. BEREUTER. Panelists, we are very pleased to have you here

to share your wisdom with us on the important subject of the hearings today. I just would note that all of your statements will be

made a part of the record and you may summarize your written

statements.

Mr. Bugajski, we will start with you and welcome.

STATEMENT OF MR. JANUSZ BUGAJSKI, DIRECTOR, EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

Mr. BUGAJSKI. Thank you very much and good afternoon, Mr.

Chairman. Thank you for including me in this important hearing.

I think it is very important for Southeast Europe and I hope it

will enhance the U.S. agenda at this very critical period in Balkan

history.

I would like just to summarize my written statement in a few

comments. I believe that the post-war commitment of NATO, the

United Nations, and the EU to Balkan reconstruction does offer a

unique opportunity to build stable institutions and market economies throughout Southeast Europe. However, to ensure success, I

think consistent progress must be made in six key areas. Otherwise, resources will be squandered, and the region will continue to

drift toward isolation from Europe.

These are the six that I would like to outline.

First, political stability. Long-term governmental stability will remain an essential prerequisite for pursuing any kind of economic

and institutional reforms. Each Balkan government, I think, needs

to ensure programmatic continuity between different Administrations so that the reform process does not veer between periods of

progress and reversal. Hence, I would say all Balkan countries require a cross-party commitment to the goals of economic trans-
33

formation and institutional reform, much as we have seen in Central Europe in the past 10 years.

Second, institution building. Successful political stabilization requires the consolidation of authoritative democratic institutions

based on firm constitutional principles. The organs of government

need to have public confidence and the commitment of all major political players. In this context, extremist parties advocating authoritarian solutions must be marginalized so that they do not undermine the Nation’s party politic.

Third, civic society development. Each Balkan country must develop a more effective alternative media and a range of citizens’ interest groups that will significantly enhance the democratization

process. In the area of minority rights, each Balkan state must

pursue policies that comply with international obligations. Furthermore, development of a multifaceted civil society will undercut the

focus on exclusive ethnic questions that undermine democratic development.

Fourth, economic progress. A priority for each Balkan government is the consolidation of a credible market reform program. All

too often in the past, vested interest groups have stalled this process to their advantage or politicians have compromised on many essential market components, for example, by maintaining large scale

state subsidies to unprofitable industries or failing to ensure transparency in privatization. A serious and far-reaching reform program cannot be held hostage by any political party or economic

lobby.

Fifth, organized crime fighting. Public security organs must be

empowered to deal with organized crime and corruption. Both an

internal but also an international strategy must be pursued by

each Balkan state working in tandem with neighbors. The pervasiveness of politically connected criminality threatens to obstruct

the region’s reform process. It consolidates the control of special interest groups, encourages radicalism, dissipates public confidence

in the transformation process and jeopardizes economic progress.

And sixth, regional cooperation. Regional cooperation, I think,

can be buttressed through a range of institutions and a whole

array of arrangements: governmental, military, parliamentary, political party, local government, as well as the NGO sector. Economic transformation must also be a region-wide priority, as the

failure of economic reform will directly challenge all nearby states.

More emphasis also needs to be placed on building economic networks that enhance the reform process in each country. In sum, I

would say the Balkan countries must take a much more active role

in promoting regional stability and regional development and not

focus only on their domestic concerns.

In conclusion, I would just like to say, reconstruction not only

provides the opportunity for material development, economic development, but also for representative democracy. The commitment to

reconstruct must be matched by a commitment to reform. The ultimate objective for all these states must be inclusion and integration in the major European and transatlantic institutions based on

solid democratic and capitalist foundations, and I believe the U.S.

can clearly assist in this process. Thank you.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Bugajski.
34

Mr. BEREUTER. We would now like to hear from Dr. Wedel. You

may proceed as you wish. Your entire statement is a part of the

record.

STATEMENT OF PROFESSOR JANINE WEDEL, ASSOCIATE

RESEARCH PROFESSOR, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

Ms. WEDEL. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak

with you today. My comments today are based on an extensive

study of U.S. assistance to Central and Eastern Europe, Russia

and Ukraine over the past 10 years.

I am not an expert on the Balkans, but my research on U.S. assistance programs has given me an acute awareness of the promises and pitfalls of aid to Eastern Europe, many of which are discussed in my recent book, ‘‘Collision and Collusion: The Strange

Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe,’’ and in previous testimony

before this Committee and others.

The following six cautionary lessons arise from my research:

First, we need to constantly remind ourselves that aid is by no

means just a technical matter. It is not just about getting the economic prescriptions right. Aid is a complex task of societal, political

and social challenges that must be taken into account if it is to

have the desired stated goals. It must be well conceived, well

planned and implemented systematically, in accordance with those

challenges.

It is important that the beneficiaries of the aid are not just western consulting firms looking for fat contracts but also the people

and the communities that we want to help.

It would be elusive to think that our aid programs alone could

build democracies and market economies. On the other hand, poorly conceived and administered aid certainly can do damage, both to

the region and to the image of the United States there. As Joseph

Stiglitz, chief economist at the World Bank, once suggested, we

should adopt, ‘‘a greater degree of humility . . . and acknowledgement of the fact that we do not have all of the answers.’’

Second, we should avoid the so-called ‘‘Marriott Brigade’’ syndrome. The Marriott Brigade was a term the Polish press coined

in 1990–1991 for the short-term ‘‘fly in, fly out’’ consultants who

were paid to deliver technical assistance to Eastern European governments and officials. The consultants stayed at Warsaw’s pricey

Marriott and hurtled among five-star hotels across the region, collecting data and advising on economic and political reform.

Recipient officials, many of whom were new at their jobs, welcomed the consultants at first but after hundreds of fact-finding

and first meetings with an endless array of consultants from donor

organizations and international financial institutions, many officials were disillusioned and frustrated. We must avoid that situation in the current effort. Bringing in team after team of highpriced consultants, many of whom will never return, creates a burden for local officials and stirs resentments against the consultants

and the donors.

It is important not to duplicate fact-finding and to keep ‘‘first visits’’ to a minimum. As we have seen in Eastern Europe, local perceptions of aid on the part of officials, politicians, and citizens matter and sometimes even shape aid outcomes.
35

Third, it is crucial to carefully and prudently select our prospective partners and representatives. We must be careful not to play

favorites among competing local interests and beneficiaries. The

record of U.S. aid to Russia in particular shows that selecting specific groups or individuals as the recipients of uncritical support

both corrupts our favorites and delegitimizes them in the eyes of

their fellow citizens. Given the discretion that political functionaries in the region have to appropriate large portions of state

resources and budget to themselves and to their cronies and the

considerable corruption on all sides, there is an ever-present danger of diversion of foreign aid. We must also be aware of potential

collusion among consultants and local elites toward that end.

As we have learned, or should have learned in Russia, putting

aid in the hands of just one political-economic group or clan creates

opportunities for the misappropriation of moneys to private and/or

political purposes and very quickly undermines donor efforts at democracy building.

Further, experience shows that it is simply wrong to think that

institutions can be built by supporting specific individuals instead

of helping to facilitate processes and the rule of law. Many reforms

advocated by the international aid community, including privatization and economic restructuring, depend on changes in law, public

Administration and mindsets and require working with the full

spectrum of legislative and market participants, not just one group

or clan.

Fourth, we should help to build administrative and legal structures at the level of cities, regions, and towns. In general, the lower

the administrative level of our efforts, the better. Any donor efforts

must depend on not just speaking with politicians at the top but

on working with an array of local people and communities. U.S. officials and advisors need to establish contacts with a wide crosssection of the regional and local leadership—politicians, social and

political activists, and community workers. For example, some aidfunded programs to develop the economy from the bottom up have

been useful and have created goodwill.

Fifth, we should be clear-eyed about the real potential of the socalled ‘‘independent sector’’ and nongovernmental organizations or

NGO’s. Donors often invest high hopes in the ability of NGO’s to

build democracy. They often assume that NGO’s are similar to

their western counterparts, despite the very different conditions

under which they developed and operate. But in Eastern Europe,

the officials, the individuals and groups charged by the west with

public outreach—often the most vocal local players—were not always equipped for that role. At least in the early years of the aid

effort, NGO’s often distributed western perks to themselves and

their peers on the basis of favoritism rather than merit. Here

again, there can be no substitute for donor knowledge of local politics, conditions, and culture. The challenge for the donors is in enlisting the expertise of people sufficiently informed, intuitive, and

committed to aid efforts in the new environment and in designing

assistance to foster those efforts.

Mr. BEREUTER. Dr. Wedel, I am sorry I am going to have to interrupt you because I have just a couple of minutes to get to the

vote. I know we haven’t come to your last concluding remarks and
36

we will pick that up when we come back. One of my colleagues may

take the Chair in five minutes or so. If not, we will be back at it

in about ten. So at this point, hold your thought for the final conclusion, and the Committee stands in recess.

[Recess.]

Mr. COOKSEY.—[Presiding.] Professor Wedel, if you would proceed, we are passing the baton.

Ms. WEDEL. Thank you. I won’t reiterate my first five points.

My sixth and final point is that the United States should embark

on a broad-based policy to encourage governance and the rule of

law. To foster reform, I have learned from my study in Eastern Europe that donors need to work with a broad base of recipients and

support structures that all relevant parties can participate in and

effectively own, not just one political group or clan or faction.

This is, admittedly, not an easy task. The major challenge is how

to help build bridges in a conflicted environment with historical

distrust and many competing groups and very few cross-cutting

ties among them.

Although by no means easy, the task of aid workers is precisely

to build contacts and to work with all relevant groups toward the

creation of transparent, nonexclusive institutions and against the

concentration of influence and aid in just a few hands.

Thank you very much.

Mr. COOKSEY. Just before we move to the next witness, you are

an anthropologist by education, are you not?

Ms. WEDEL. I am.

Mr. COOKSEY. In ten words or less, what do you think of the

prospects of achieving this last, this sixth goal, about the broadbased policies and about the aid workers being able to accomplish

it, viewed in light of the history that has occurred in this area?

Ms. WEDEL. I began my statement by saying that I am not an

expert on the Balkans, but my experience in looking at aid programs in Central Europe, Russia and Ukraine is that there are

competing political, economic, financial groups at the very local

level. Russia by the way, is a very difficult environment to work

in even though the historical animosities aren’t nearly as much at

the forefront and the country has not been wrecked by war as have

been the Balkans. The task is to begin to create incentives for diverse groups to work with each other. It is critical not to play favorites by giving one group aid resources over others—that is a

very destructive aid policy.

My experience is that can be done. It is not easy to do. It requires a lot of local knowledge, but money can provide an incentive,

and if you find experts who know the local situation, they can help

put together programs that will provide incentives for people to do

reasonable projects. It can be done but it is not easy. It requires

a lot of local knowledge.

Mr. COOKSEY. And this gets back to your third point about prudent selection of the partners that you would be doing this with?

Ms. WEDEL. Absolutely.

Mr. COOKSEY. What model do you think exists for this having

been done successfully? Where in Europe or any other part of the

world? Can you think of a particular place?
37

Ms. WEDEL. Yes. I would point to several kinds of programs. One

that I looked at very closely was a program that was in part sponsored by the Congressional Research Services and some of the congressional Committees, and that operated effectively in Poland and,

I believe, in some countries further east.

That program was to build an institution to provide information

and infrastructural support to the Polish Parliament—to everybody

in the parliaments. At first, in 1990, 1991, 1992, this was an absolutely revolutionary idea. ‘‘You mean you are going to work with

those guys, not just us? ’’ That was a revolutionary idea. But eventually people saw that it made sense. They saw that independent

information, that an infrastructure, a system could be built that everyone could use; that it wasn’t just about politics—just for me and

my group—but that the benefit would go to all groups.

We eventually saw in Poland the value of having such an independent institution modeled after the Congressional Research Services, and aid from the United States played a major role in helping

to create that.

As I said, it was really a different concept at the beginning because people were not interested and certainly not accustomed to

sharing information with a different political-economic group. It

was a foreign idea, but it could be done if you had the right people

on the ground who understood the problems and had the right resources.

Mr. COOKSEY. Can you come up with another example? Because

really Poland is a rather homogenous group with one religion and

they have done very well there, but the Polish people have a lot

more structure than anyone in the Balkans, it seems.

Ms. WEDEL. Well, that is what it may look like from the outside,

but, in fact, there were many groups that were competing on the

ground for resources. And when you come in with foreign aid,

quickly you find that you have a lot of competitors for that money.

I think in that respect, the Balkans will be very similar. The animosities may be longer lasting, deeper.

Mr. COOKSEY. From an economic standpoint?

Ms. WEDEL. Sorry?

Mr. COOKSEY. From an economic standpoint? From the fact that

they are all looking for this aid, this economic aid, and you think

they can overcome their ethnic, religious, racial diversity then?

Ms. WEDEL. As I stated in my fourth point, I think that it is very

important to emphasize local administration and legal structure

and to help to build those infrastructures. Without those infrastructures in place, there is probably not much hope of overcoming

those animosities. The only choice we have is to help develop those

infrastructures. That is the only choice we have. If we come in and

say we are going to support this group or another, we are, at the

outset, doomed to failure.

Mr. COOKSEY. Thank you.

The Chairman is back.

Mr. BEREUTER.—[Presiding.] Dr. Cooksey, thank you for filling

in; and, Dr. Wedel, for concluding your testimony.

We would like to go back, though, to hear from Dr. Serwer to

make his presentation. Your entire statement will be made a part
38

of the record. You may proceed as you wish, and then we will open

it up for questions for all three of you.

STATEMENT OF DANIEL SERWER, DIRECTOR, BALKANS

INITIATIVE, UNITED STATES INSTITUTE FOR PEACE

Dr. SERWER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to start by

thanking Mr. Smith for his kind opening remarks about previous

testimony before the Helsinki Commission.

My name is Daniel Serwer. I direct the Balkans initiative at the

U.S. Institute of Peace, which takes no positions on policy issues.

The views I express here are my own. But the Institute is wellknown for its efforts to promote democracy in Serbia, reconciliation

in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a regional approach to the Balkans, one that emphasizes preventive diplomacy and peaceful conflict resolution.

The main U.S. Interest in the Balkans is stability. Instability

there cannot be ignored, because of its effect on our European allies

and on American public opinion. There are no vital resources at

risk. Transportation routes through and near the Balkans are not

critical to the United States and no Balkan country threatens U.S.

or Allied territory.

The United States has nevertheless found itself leading the

NATO alliance twice into air wars in the Balkans, followed by expensive ground interventions.

Why? What we have seen in Bosnia and in Kosovo is the failure

of preventive diplomacy. By not undertaking early and relatively

cheap efforts to prevent conflict, we have been forced to intervene

after conflict has begun at far greater cost. The exception proves

the rule: in Macedonia, early deployment of a small U.N. peacekeeping force and an energetic mission from the Organization for

Security and Cooperation in Europe has so far allowed a healthy

democracy to develop in that ethnically divided country, preventing

a conflict that many thought inevitable.

Are there other predictable conflicts that could break out in the

Balkans? Yes, is my answer. Are we and our allies doing what is

necessary to prevent them? ‘‘No.’’ There are a number of laudable

efforts under way, but we need to be doing more.

The main threat to Balkans stability today is the same as 10

years ago: The Milosevic regime in Belgrade, which has used conflict against non-Serbs as a means of staying in power. Milosevic

will strike again, perhaps in Montenegro or in Sandjak, an area almost evenly divided between Muslim and Orthodox Slavs, or in

Vojvodina, where there are Hungarian and Croat minorities. In

each of these areas, the international community should be undertaking preventive efforts aimed at promoting inter-communal understanding and ensuring that Belgrade cannot exploit ethnic

strife.

The regime may also strike next against discontented Serbs, who

are today the most serious threat to Milosevic’s hold on power.

Courageous people have been demonstrating against the regime

throughout Serbia since the end of the war, but until last week

U.S. assistance for democratization there was frozen. There is still

an urgent, immediate need for small amounts of money to support

those seeking democratic change in Serbia.
39

Friday in Sarajevo, the President announced a $10 million program for Serbian democratization, doubling the pre-war amount.

This is a step in the right direction, but still short of the resources

the Institute’s Balkans working group has recommended and far

less than the amount Senator Helms has advocated. The President’s program is a good first step, but a major increase will be

needed next fiscal year.

Mr. Chairman, conditions in Serbia do not favor the development

of democracy. Poverty, disillusion, and resentment could create a

volatile situation this winter. I believe it is important for the West

to provide humanitarian assistance to Serbs and even to repair essential humanitarian infrastructure, provided the resources and

credit cannot be diverted to the Milosevic regime. This would mean

providing assistance through opposition-controlled municipalities,

nongovernmental organizations, and the Church.

At this point, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for the

record an institute paper called Moving Serbia Toward Democracy,

which includes a number of ideas along these lines.

Mr. BEREUTER. Without objection, that will be the order.

[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]

Dr. SERWER. Thank you. We should also be supporting fragile democracies in Albania and Macedonia that could collapse under

pressure of their own internal problems. The main issue in Albania

is security. A small NATO presence could go a long way toward

helping Albania buildup its own security forces. I have been informed this morning, Mr. Chairman, that the North Atlantic Council on Friday has approved the continuation of a small NATO force

in Albania.

In Macedonia, the issues are both economic and inter-ethnic.

Small resources invested now could prevent future interventions a

thousand times more costly.

Bosnia and Kosovo will, of course, continue to attract the bulk

of U.S. and Allied resources. Failure of either intervention would

not only destabilize the Balkans but also create big problems elsewhere. But in the rush to intervene, we have all too often failed

to exploit indigenous capacities. This is especially damaging in

Kosovo, where before the war an extensive civil society existed. Indigenous Kosovar institutions should be empowered rather than

swamped.

In Bosnia, the missing ingredient is reconciliation, which is impossible so long as indicted war criminals are at large and their associates occupy positions of power. NATO should arrest Radovan

Karadzic and any other indictees still at large in Bosnia and

Herzegovina. It will then be possible to mount a serious effort to

enable people who want to do so to return to their homes.

No less important is the right of Serbs to return home, especially

in Croatia and in Kosovo. Neither should enjoy the full benefits the

United States and its allies have to offer until they are prepared

to establish a rule of law that protects all people, as well as the

open media and transparent election processes required in a democracy.

Mr. Chairman, the President went to Sarajevo last week to

launch a Stability Pact that should give a sense of direction and

commitment to all allies and to the democracies in the region. That
40

pact must now fill its political, economic, and security baskets.

Empty promises will not do the trick. It is especially important

that the European Union accelerate its opening toward the Balkans, forming a customs union and encouraging monetary stabilization through the use of the Euro. Europe, because of its proximity, is vulnerable to Balkans instability and should bear most of

the burden of bringing peace and prosperity to the region.

But without U.S. Commitment and leadership, the task will not

get done. As we enter the 21st Century, the Balkans must not be

allowed to generate the kinds of conflict and instability that have

marred their history in the 20th.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you very much, Dr. Serwer.

Mr. BEREUTER. I would like to begin with a few questions. I will

turn to Mr. Cooksey then.

Mr. Bugajski, you talk about the institutions of the civil society

as a part of your statement. I am wondering if you would tell me

what your thoughts are about us overcoming the ethnic/religious

hatreds that have existed in so many parts of Yugoslavia and have

been reignited in Bosnia, in Kosovo. Is it possible, in the shorter

term for the next generation or two, for these people who have seen

atrocities committed against each other, renewing memories of the

atrocities committed in World War II by one group against another

and in some cases by both sides, is it possible for these people to

live together and to begin to restore in the short term the elements

of a civil society?

Mr. BUGAJSKI. Thank you. Well, let’s put it this way: Inter-ethnic

reconciliation is a long-term process, but I think very concrete steps

in that direction can be made; first of all, by the ouster or replacement of the very political forces that have promoted ethnic division,

ethnic conflict. Ethnic conflict was not inevitable in the Balkans,

just as it isn’t anywhere in Europe. It was deliberately promoted

by communist politicians in order to stay in power.

Second, I think justice needs to seem to be done. That is why I

completely agree that war criminals such as Karadzic, Mladic, as

well as Milosevic and his people need to be arrested, need to be

tried. Justice needs to be shown to be done as well as being done.

Third, I do think there needs to be much more work at a local

level. I think this has been part of the problem in Bosnia, why refugees haven’t returned, because some of the nationalists who promoted the war are still in power. They still control the local economy; they control the local political system.

So I think a lot more work needs to be done at the local level

to build the very institutions that can promote at least ethnic coexistence, if not ethnic harmony, but it will be a long-term process.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you.

Mr. BEREUTER. Professor Wedel, I was very pleased to hear some

of your categorization of the mistakes that had taken place in our

assistance programs and other international assistance programs

for eastern and parts of Central Europe. Not to belittle your research, but some of them seem too self-evident and predictable, but

I like the way that you apparently have categorized them. I want

to read your book.
41

The Marriott Brigade syndrome, for example, caught my attention. It seemed to me, from the beginning, that there was kind of

an executive branch pork barrel that took place with incestuous relationships between people in government: in AID, above AID in

State, with the people that they knew and had worked with in

other institutions here and in other kinds of elite educational institutions, with people in the beltway bandit organizations today. Just

an incredible amount of money spent, as you said, making firsttime visits all the time with great resentment.

We knew that wouldn’t work. We knew that was a waste of resources. We knew it wasn’t the best use of resources in any case,

but how do we keep people who make those decisions from engaging in this kind of pork barrel activity?

That is really what it is. Not by the legislative branch but by the

executive branch. There was very little earmarking of money for

particular programs or institutions by Congress in this time that

went by, but that was not the case in the executive branch. How

do we avoid doing something that is obviously not the most efficient use of our resources?

Ms. WEDEL. What you are describing is at least in part a symptom of the fact that the aid effort was very scattershot, not very

well planned, and not exactly high level. Rhetorically, it was always compared to the Marshall Plan, but that was a fallacious

comparison, not only because there was so little capital assistance

available in comparison but also because it was not a particularly

high level effort and it was constructed so that lots of different

groups got a piece of the pie. Once you have that setup you are naturally going to have many people who are going to be vying for contracts.

So the first thing is to have a very well-planned, well-conceived

aid effort, which isn’t set up so that everybody gets something. It

must have a higher level of leadership so it can have a higher

promise and potential.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you. I would ask Dr. Serwer a question or

two and then turn to my colleague.

As you point out, the emphasis of the United States should be

on stability in this region. You talked about the need for preventive

action; and I think you are absolutely right, that it is self-evidently

important. I know there was a high official ministry in the Federal

Republic of Germany who looked at the situation, eventually resigning because he felt so guilty about the decision that had been

made to recognize the independence of Slovenia, knowing full well

what that would lead to in Croatia. Despite all of the advice from

other countries to the contrary, Germany took a very unconventional step for them in going out front on something. One of the

lessons I draw from this, which is tough for an American to conclude, is that there are some things more important than self-determination and one of them was to focus on stability for the region. Perhaps you heard my comments about Montenegro and the

invitation to the U.N. and NATO and the kind of talks in which

they hope to be engaged in September with Belgrade relating to a

looser Federal structure in Yugoslavia, and the likelihood of the

lack of success for that effort.
42

What do you think we should be doing now, speaking of preventive action, in Montenegro to keep that from degenerating into the

next Balkan conflict? And, what do you think perhaps we could

have done when we had the first engagement of Croatian and Serbian troops in eastern Croatia?

Was that a time when we could have militarily engaged if the

U.N.—excuse me, if NATO was ready in this post-cold war era?

Dr. SERWER. It is difficult, Mr. Chairman, to second-guess people

about things that happened in Croatia that long ago, but your

question about Montenegro is a very current and difficult one, I

will say that.

I believe that we should be establishing as much of an international presence in Montenegro as we possibly can at this point,

and I find ambiguous—dangerously ambiguous—the Administration’s statements about what it will do if Montenegro is attacked.

I think we know from the past that ambiguity with Mr. Milosevic

leads to a continuous raising of the threshold for action; and raising the threshold for action leads to the need for greater and greater responses.

One British magazine has counted 44 final warnings to Mr.

Milosevic since 1991. I am not advocating one more final warning

about Montenegro, but I do believe that the Administration has to

think hard about what it will do if Montenegro is attacked. I think

they have to recognize that within the Alliance there is not a great

deal of support for going to war again over Montenegro. They also

have to realize that the best prevention is deterrence in this case;

the Montenegrins are going to have to be strong and the international presence in Montenegro should be strong.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Dr. Serwer.

I would like now to turn to Dr. Cooksey for questions he may

have.

Mr. COOKSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I don’t know whether you heard my comments on my impression

that most of the world leaders of this generation are narcissistic

whimpy-type guys; and Milosevic was that way in his youth in his

high school—poor health. And yet once they gain some position of

power, they suddenly become warriors. Maybe they are too young

to be cold war warriors, but warriors they are in their own mind,

and so forth.

What lessons do you think that we should have learned in Bosnia that we can translate into avoiding mistakes in this area in

Kosovo and dealing with what remains of Yugoslavia, Dr. Serwer?

Dr. SERWER. My view, Mr. Cooksey, is that there are several lessons that should be learned. The first lesson is that in these international interventions, we can’t afford a divided command. We

need a unified command, not only of the military but of the civilians as well.

Mr. COOKSEY. Can I ask a question? Would you elaborate on the

question that I asked in the first meeting about stopping the Russians on their way to the airport? Was that a manifestation of what

you are talking about?

Dr. SERWER. It was a manifestation on the military side of a lack

of unity of command, both in Bosnia and in Kosovo; and I think
43

it was a dangerous moment and an edifying moment. But I was referring to something different.

I believe that the pattern we followed in Bosnia of dividing the

military from the civilian command and having a military commander who is not responsible for civilian implementation and a civilian commander who can’t command military forces was a mistake in Bosnia. It was done to satisfy the United States, which

wanted to maintain intact the NATO chain of command.

Mr. COOKSEY. You are referring to Bosnia now?

Dr. SERWER. Yes, I am referring to Bosnia now.

Now, in Kosovo, in theory, the civilian and military commands

have, again, been separated, and I think that was a mistake. In

practice, however, as somebody indicated already this morning, the

military is in charge in Kosovo at this moment.

Why is that? The reason is that there is no preparedness on the

civilian side. The military worries when its preparedness falls a

couple of percentage points off 100 percent, as rightly it should.

There is no concept of preparedness on the civilian side, except perhaps among the NGO’s who do humanitarian relief work, but the

U.N. essentially has to go out and hire all of these folks every time

there is an intervention. There is very, very little sense of preparedness. I think we are seeing some of the negative consequences

of that in Kosovo today in the truly tragic treatment of the Kosovar

Serbs.

So I believe in unity of command. I believe the command should

have been unified in Kosovo under the military commander, a

NATO military commander, at least for the first six to eight

months of the intervention. I think the ambiguity about who is

really in charge is most unfortunate in Kosovo.

I think there are other things we should have learned from Bosnia, including that there are indigenous organizations that can be

used in the peace process. And in Kosovo you had a very extensive

array of nongovernmental organizations, including a whole educational system which was nongovernmental because it existed

independently of the Serbian educational system.

One of the incredible things about Kosovo today is that the kids

are back in school; that alternative educational system has enabled

children to go back to school almost immediately. Yet the international community is depending very little on these indigenous capacities and has to some degree even avoided allowing them access

to the U.N. and to the international structure being created. This

is clearly an error. Kosovo is liberated territory. It is not conquered

territory. It should be treated the way liberated territory is treated,

which includes the most rapid turnover possible of functions to

local organizations.

Now, there is a big problem, because those local organizations

are, of course, ethnically based for the most part, and that is where

the U.N. and the NATO forces have to play a role in insisting on

the ethnic integration of those institutions. You cannot have, in

Kosovo, a true democracy that treats Serbs as badly as they are

being treated today.

Mr. COOKSEY. When you referred to these indigenous organizations in the education system, you are telling me there is an edu-
44

cational system outside of the government’s educational system; it

is like private schools or parochial schools?

Dr. SERWER. They were schools that were created, Mr. Cooksey,

by the Albanians when they were excluded from the Serbian educational system.

Mr. COOKSEY. From the public education system?

Dr. SERWER. Yes. So they are private in a sense. They were run

mostly in people’s homes. They weren’t run in school buildings, and

they have been reopened almost immediately with the return of the

refugees and displaced people.

Mr. COOKSEY. Sounds similar to some of the debates we have

had in this body.

Thank you, Dr. Serwer.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you very much, Dr. Cooksey.

I would like to announce and introduce Elmer Brok, who is the

new Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the European

Parliament, an old friend of this Member and many Members of

the House of Representatives.

Great to have you here, Elmer.

Dr. Cooksey, would you see if Mr. Engel has any questions, and

then would you conclude the hearing for me so that I can proceed

with Mr. Brok?

I want to thank all of our witnesses for their effort today. It was

very helpful to us.

Dr. Cooksey, I turn it over to you so that you may close out the

hearing.

Mr. COOKSEY.—[Presiding.] Mr. Engel.

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you.

I just want to ask a couple of, I think, relatively quick questions.

I have been perhaps the leading advocate in the House for independence for Kosova. The reason I have done it, and I am more

convinced than ever that nothing else long range will work, is because I think that, first of all, the Belgrade regime has lost any

kind of right that it ever had to govern in Kosova because of the

ethnic cleansing that went on and all the other horrible things. I

think that if NATO wants to treat Kosova as a protectorate forever

and occupy it forever, then we can continue to do that. But, I think

if we don’t want to do that, we don’t want U.S. troops on the

ground forever, then independence is the only solution. I have often

said that when the former Yugoslavia broke up, the other citizens

of the former Yugoslavia, the Bosnians and the Croats and the Slovenians and the—who am I leaving out?

Mr. BUGAJSKI. Macedonia.

Mr. ENGEL. The Macedonians, all had the right to self-determination. I believe that the Kosovar people should have the same

right, as well. I would like to hear what the panel thinks about

that.

I want to also add that as someone who, again, is very sympathetic to what the Kosovar Albanians have gone through for many,

many years, I, as strongly as anyone else, condemn atrocities committed on both sides. I think that the killing of the 14 Serbian

farmers was unfortunate, as the killing of any innocent civilian is

unfortunate. One of the things that I think we have to resist,
45

though, is to put them both on a moral equivalency as if somehow

the atrocities have been equal on both sides.

While we must condemn them on all sides, and I condemn every

atrocity, be it committed by a Serb or an Albanian, I think that we

have to understand that the ethnic cleansing that went on—I

heard one of my colleagues on the floor the other day say, well, it

wasn’t 100,000 ethnic Albanians that were killed during the NATO

bombing campaign; it was only 10,000—and I thought, well, you

know, if I had a family member who was one of the 10,000, that

is no solace to me that it wasn’t 100,000. So, I think we need to

be careful about putting the atrocities on a moral equivalency. But,

I am convinced more than ever that independence is the only solution.

So I would like to hear some of the comments. I know, Mr.

Bugajski, we have had some discussion about this in the past. I

would be interested in hearing what you have to say about this and

the other Members as well.

Mr. BUGAJSKI. Thank you. I completely agree that without independence for both Kosovo and Montenegro, we are going to be faced

with continuing instability, because Milosevic will continue to manipulate those differences, both ethnic and republican, within the

remaining Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia is finished, and if we do not take

appropriate action, if we do not have a clear objective, two or three

years down the road we will be faced with a major policy problem,

how to deal with a semi-independent Kosovo Administration and a

Serbia that demands Kosovo back.

I think now is the time to decide on Kosovo’s future status, not

in two years, not in three years’ time, and the only people who can

decide are the population of Kosovo.

The other question as far as expulsion of Serbs or the fleeing of

Serbs, I don’t think there is any equivalence. The attacks on the

Albanian population were government ordered, systematic, orchestrated, and planned well in advance and carried out with incredible

brutality. What we are now witnessing in Kosovo is somewhat different. Quite frankly, I am surprised at the low level of revenge of

a lot of returning Albanians. The number of deaths, I think, are

under 100, on both the Albanian and Serbian side.

It is terrible, of course, that Serbs are fleeing, particularly the innocent ones, but I don’t think it is systematic, this is not ordered

by any Albanian organization. These are local, sporadic revenge attacks. All the more reason that we need a systematic system of justice in Kosovo, both to try the war criminals that are present, but

also to prevent new crimes.

And, third, there is a third wave of expulsions which has not

really been reported in the press, which is a continuing expulsion

of Albanians from Serbia proper into Kosovo. Between 5,000 and

10,000 have already been forced out of their homes. We have been

focusing on the Serbs that are leaving Kosovo. There is also a huge

Albanian community within Serbia proper that is currently experiencing what is probably similar to what some of the Kosovo Albanians faced just a few weeks ago. Thank you.

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Bugajski. Dr. Serwer.

Mr. SERWER. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I could also respond because I disagree with Mr. Bugajski on this point. I think, yes, that
46

the question of Kosovo’s future status will have to be taken up. I

don’t believe for a moment that there is an equivalency between

the dimensions of the horrors that were committed against the Albanians and what is going on with the Serbs today.

But I also believe that no people can claim independence under

the circumstances that exist in Kosovo today. It is absolutely critical that we not embark on independence for states that do not

have a rule of law, that do not have a democratic system in place.

There is no question, quite apart from the question of equivalency,

that the current vendetta against the Serbs in Kosovo is going to

set back the cause of those who seek self-determination for Kosovo.

Mr. ENGEL. I understand my colleague has to go. So I will accede

to that, and I thank him.

Mr. COOKSEY. Go ahead. Do you have another question?

Mr. ENGEL. I want to talk about the prisoners, the Albanian prisoners that were taken out of Kosovo into Serbia. We understand

there are many, many Albanians, ethnic Albanians from Kosovo

now in jails in Belgrade and in Serbia. I think that that is an issue

that the West needs to raise. We, unfortunately, did not raise that

issue when we negotiated the withdrawal of the Serbian forces.

And I just wonder if anybody has any comments on that.

Mr. COOKSEY. Yes, Dr. Serwer.

Dr. SERWER. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Engel, I think this is really a

disaster story. I think we need to raise the diplomatic level of our

protests on this issue. I was informed yesterday that Professor

Bardhyl Caushi, whom I know personally from some Institute activities, was among those arrested and is now in prison in Serbia.

I find it outrageous that more has not been done on this issue,

and I think we simply have to raise our voices and insist that these

people be released.

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. I will turn back the chair. I just wanted

to say that I had an amendment which was passed unanimously

by the House in a recorded vote, there wasn’t one negative vote,

demanding the release of these prisoners and the accounting for

them.

I thank my colleague for his time.

Mr. COOKSEY. Surely. We want to thank our witnesses for coming today for their testimony, and, most importantly, for their patience with interruptions that we have. We still have to vote

casionally, you know.

The Committee may followup with additional hearings on this

subject. This, I am sure, will be an ongoing issue and subject of discussion, and yet I feel that your testimony gave us and provided

a really good foundation for where we need to go. Giving us good

background and you have impeccable credentials, we are glad to

have people of your caliber here. The Committee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:33 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
(47)

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