U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

87–200PDF 2003

THE FUTURE OF KOSOVO

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 21, 2003

Serial No. 108–36

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman 

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa 

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, 

Vice Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

PETER T. KING, New York 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

AMO HOUGHTON, New York 

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado 

RON PAUL, Texas 

NICK SMITH, Michigan 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

JERRY WELLER, Illinois 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

THADDEUS G. MCCOTTER, Michigan 

WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

TOM LANTOS, California 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

BARBARA LEE, California 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

CHRIS BELL, Texas 

THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel 

ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director 

PATRICK PRISCO, Professional Staff Member, Subcommittee on Europe 

LIBERTY DUNN, Staff Associate 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Janet L. Bogue, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, U.S. Department of State ............................................................ 8

The Honorable Joseph J. DioGuardi, President, Albanian American Civic 

League, former Member of Congress .................................................................. 26

Daniel Serwer, Director, Balkans Initiative, U.S. Institute of Peace .................. 41

James O’Brien, The Albright Group, former Special Presidential Envoy for 

the Balkans and Senior Advisor to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright .... 45

Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, Balkan Affairs Adviser, Albanian American Civic 

League ................................................................................................................... 50

The Honorable William Walker, former Ambassador and former Director, 

OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission ..................................................................... 60

Martin Vulaj, Executive Director, National Albanian American Council ........... 65

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Henry J. Hyde, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Illinois, and Chairman, Committee on International Relations: Prepared 

statement .............................................................................................................. 2

The Honorable Tom Lantos, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California: Prepared statement ...................................................................... 4

Janet L. Bogue: Prepared statement ..................................................................... 11

The Honorable Dan Burton, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Indiana: Letter addressed to the Committee on International Relations 

from Michael Djordjevich, President, Studencia Foundation, dated May 19, 

2003 ....................................................................................................................... 20

The Honorable Joseph J. DioGuardi: Prepared statement .................................. 35

Excerpts from ‘‘The Expulsion of the Albanians,’’ by Vaso Cubulovic ............. 28

Introduction to Rescue in Albania, by Harvey Sarner, written by the Honorable Tom Lantos and the Honorable Benjamin A. Gilman, a former Representative in Congress from the State of New York .................................... 33

Daniel Serwer: Prepared statement ....................................................................... 42

James O’Brien: Prepared statement ...................................................................... 47

Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi: Prepared statement .................................................... 56

‘‘The Solution for Kosova: Independence,’’ by R.A. Churcher, Southern Balkan Consultants ................................................................................................ 53

The Honorable William Walker: Prepared statement .......................................... 62

Martin Vulaj: Prepared statement ......................................................................... 67

APPENDIX 

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of New Jersey: Prepared statement ................................................... 75

The Honorable Nick Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Michigan: Prepared statement ........................................................................ 76

The Honorable Betty McCollum, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Minnesota: Question submitted to Janet L. Bogue ....................................... 76

(1)

THE FUTURE OF KOSOVO 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 2003

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, 

Washington, DC.Wednesday, May 21, 2003House of 

Representatives,Committee on International 

Relations,Washington, D.C. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:47 p.m., Room 2172, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Henry J. Hyde (Chairman of 

the Committee) presiding. 

Chairman HYDE. The Committee will come to order. 

Today, the Committee on International Relations holds a hearing 

on the future of Kosovo. Southeast Europe has been a region of tremendous geopolitical significance and concern over the past decade, 

and since 1991, the Balkans region has emerged as the defining security challenge in Europe in the post-Cold War era. 

Today, although the attention of the United States has recently 

been focused on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war 

against terrorism, the future of the Balkans remains a critical 

issue for both Europe and the United States. 

United States officials have outlined three main objectives for 

United States policy in southeastern Europe: One, integrating the 

region into a Europe whole and free; two, creating a self-sustaining 

peace so that NATO can withdraw its forces from Bosnia and 

Kosovo; and three, ensuring that the region does not become a safe 

haven for global terrorism. 

European objectives in southeastern Europe are similar to those 

of the United States. European leaders recognize and accept that 

Europe should play a leading role in the region. They emphasize 

they already supply most of the financial aid and peacekeeping 

troops in the Balkans. They also agree that the European Union 

should be the main engine of the region’s integration into Europe. 

Much has been achieved in the Balkans in recent years; however, 

much remains to be done. Sadly, the assassination of the Prime 

Minister of Serbia on March 12th of this year demonstrates how 

fragile the situation is in the Balkans. We are sensitive to the situation on the ground in the Balkans, and we must consider how actions of the United States Congress are perceived in the region. 

However, we must continue to ask the ultimate questions about the 

Balkans if we are to achieve the ultimate goal, which is a region 

that is free and safe and democratic and prosperous. 

One of those ultimate questions is the future of Kosovo. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244, adopted June 10, 1999, created a 

framework within which the future status of Kosovo will be adVerDate Mar 21 2002 14:27 Sep 04, 2003 Jkt 087088 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\052103\87200 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
2

dressed in a political process facilitated by the U.N. Mission in 

Kosovo, led by the Secretary General’s Special Representative. Essentially, this resolution left the final status of Kosovo unresolved. 

Today, the Committee considers the question of final status. Is 

independence the way forward? Does an overwhelming majority of 

the population have the right to self-determination? Is final status 

determination the only way to overcome an extremely critical economic situation? How can an economy and the rule of law develop 

if there is no certainty about final status? If there is no certainty 

about status, how can there be certainty about future laws on taxation or business regulation? And how can there be any investor 

confidence or economic development? 

What is the U.S. Administration’s position on final status and 

independence? Does the European approach to final status and 

independence differ from the United States approach? What are 

the consequences for the region? 

These are questions that the Committee will consider today. I am 

pleased to recognize the former Congressman, Joe DioGuardi, who 

will be testifying today. Joe has done much work on this issue and 

was instrumental in the development of H. Res. 28, which Mr. Lantos, the Ranking Democrat, and I introduced. We have distinguished panels of witnesses who will be presenting a variety of 

views on this issue, and we look forward to this discussion. 

And with great pleasure, I recognize our distinguished Ranking 

Democratic Member, Mr. Lantos. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hyde follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE HENRY J. HYDE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, AND CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INTER- NATIONAL RELATIONS

Today, the Committee on International Relations holds a hearing on ‘‘The Future 

of Kosovo.’’ Southeast Europe has been a region of tremendous geopolitical significance and concern over the past decade. Since 1991, the Balkans region has 

emerged as the defining security challenge in Europe in the post-Cold War era. 

Today, although the attention of the United States has recently been focused on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the war against terrorism, the future of the 

Balkans remains a critical issue for both Europe and the United States. 

U.S. officials have outlined three main objectives for U.S. policy in southeastern 

Europe: (1) integrating the region into a Europe whole and free; (2) creating a selfsustaining peace so that NATO can withdraw its forces from Bosnia and Kosovo; 

and (3) ensuring that the region does not become a safe haven for global terrorism. 

European objectives in southeastern Europe are similar to those of the United 

States. European leaders recognize and accept that Europe should play a leading 

role in the region. They emphasize that they already supply most of the financial 

aid and peacekeeping troops in the Balkans. They also agree that the European 

Union should be the main engine of the region’s integration into Europe. 

Much has been achieved in the Balkans in recent years; however, much remains 

to be done. (Sadly, the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic of Serbia on 

March 12th of this year demonstrates how fragile the situation in the Balkans is.) 

We are sensitive to the situation on the ground in the Balkans, and we must consider how actions of the U.S. Congress are perceived in the region. However, we 

must continue to ask the ultimate questions about the Balkans if we are to achieve 

the ultimate goal—which is a region that is free, and safe, and democratic, and 

prosperous. 

One of these ultimate questions is the future of Kosovo. UN Security Council Resolution 1244, adopted on June 10, 1999, created a framework within which the future status of Kosovo will be addressed in a political process facilitated by the UN 

Mission in Kosovo, led by the Secretary General’s Special Representative. Essentially, this resolution left the final status of Kosovo unresolved. 

Today, the Committee considers the question of final status. Is independence the 

way forward? Does an overwhelming majority of the population have the right to 

3

self-determination? Is final status determination the only way to overcome an extremely critical economic situation? How can an economy and the rule of law develop if there is no certainty about final status? If there is no certainty about status, 

how can there be certainty about future laws on taxation or business regulation, 

and how can there be any investor confidence or economic development? What is 

the U.S. Administration’s position on final status and independence? Does the European approach to final status and independence differ from the U.S. approach? 

What are the consequences for the region? 

These are the questions that the Committee will consider today. I am pleased to 

recognize that former Congressman Joe DioGuardi will be testifying today. Joe has 

done so much work on this issue and was instrumental in the development of 

H. Res. 28, which Mr. Lantos and I introduced. We have distinguished panels of 

witnesses who will be presenting a variety of views on this issue. I look forward to 

this discussion.

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

Before we deal with Kosova, let me publicly pay tribute to you 

for your leadership on the $15 billion AIDS bill that earlier today 

the House passed. This is milestone legislation which will save the 

lives of untold millions and which, without your leadership, would 

never have been possible. And I want to publicly recognize your 

principled and effective leadership on that issue. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling today’s very important hearing, our first on Kosova in a number of years. I just want to say 

a few words because we have an illustrious list of witnesses and 

I am anxious to give all of them ample opportunity to present their 

views. 

It was 13 years ago, Mr. Chairman, that my wife and I traveled 

to Pristina where we were greeted by tens of thousands of Kosovars 

in the center of the city as we focused attention on serious human 

rights violations. We went on to visit Albania, where we were the 

first official United States delegation to visit that country since the 

end of the Second World War in 1945. 

Mr. Chairman, you and I are the authors of House Resolution 28 

along with 14 of our colleagues. Our resolution expresses the sense 

of the House that the United States should declare its support for 

the independence of Kosova. I am convinced that the only way to 

address the problem of the political, economic and social instability 

that plagues the Balkans is to resolve the issue of Kosova’s final 

status without further delay. 

Since our military victory against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, the international community joined the Kosovars in 

rebuilding their country, revitalizing their economy, assisting them 

in establishing democratic institutions of self-government, and 

healing the scars of war. 

However, progress in Kosova currently, a United Nations protectorate, is being held up by its inability to determine its own fate. 

Under Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav Government dismantled 

Kosova’s political structures, replaced ethnic Albanians with Serbs 

in most good jobs, enabled Serb-owned firms to take over Albanianowned companies, and forbade Albanians from purchasing or improving property in their own land. I have traveled to Kosova numerous times and personally witnessed that travesty. 

As a result of the systematic persecution and discrimination 

against ethnic Albanians by the Milosevic government, today, the 

unemployment rate in Kosova is still over 60 percent, increasing 

the likelihood that Kosovars, 50 percent of whom are under the age 

4

of 25, must find employment abroad or engage in other activities 

in order to survive. 

The perpetuation of these economic difficulties heighten the potential for continued instability in the region. And it is detrimental 

to our national interests in the Balkans. Achieving genuine longterm political and economic stability in Kosova and in the Balkans 

requires much more than reconstruction assistance. It demands the 

resolution of the final status of the area and that means independence for the Kosovars. 

Under the Yugoslav constitution of 1974, Kosova was equivalent 

in most ways to Slovenia, Croatia and the other republics of the 

former Yugoslavia. As an autonomous province, Kosova, in practice, 

exercised the same powers as a republic. It had its own parliament, 

it had its own high courts, it had its own central bank, police service, and defense force. Through its definition in 1968 as a part of 

the Yugoslav Federal system, it gained representation at the Federal level. 

When Slovenia and Croatia demanded independence, similar arguments were made by Western governments against recognizing 

the right of those countries to self-determination. Eventually, however, the same Western governments recognized not only the independence of Slovenia and Croatia, but Bosnia-Herzegovina and 

Macedonia as well, having discovered that independence for those 

nations involved not so much a change of borders as a change in 

the status of existing borders. The lines on the map remain the 

same, but the status was upgraded from republican to national. 

I am convinced, Mr. Chairman, that Kosova is entitled to precisely the same treatment. Those who argue that we must put 

standards before status in the case of Kosova are themselves applying a double standard. Kosova deserves independence for the same 

reasons as did the other constituent autonomous parts of the 

former Yugoslav Republic. Security, democracy, and pure justice 

demand it. 

Persistent tensions in the Balkans cannot be resolved if we continue to procrastinate on Kosova’s final status. To achieve a just 

and lasting peace in southeast Europe, a turbulent region if ever 

there was one, we must give Kosova its independence, and we 

should do it now. 

I strongly urge all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to 

join us in cosponsoring the legislation. And I look forward to the 

day, not in the distant future, when Kosova will gain its full independence. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lantos follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE TOM LANTOS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling today’s important hearing—our first on 

Kosova in a few years. I want to say just a few words because we have an illustrious 

list of witnesses and I am anxious to give all of them an ample opportunity to 

present their views. 

Thirteen years ago, my wife and I traveled to Pristina, and were greeted by tens 

of thousands of Kosovars in the center of the city as we focused attention on serious 

human rights violations. We went on to visit Albania, where we were the first official United States delegation to visit that country since 1945. 

5

Mr. Chairman, you and I are the authors of House Resolution 28—which 14 of 

our colleagues have cosponsored. Our resolution expresses the sense of the House 

of Representatives that the United States should declare its support for the independence of Kosova. I am convinced that the only way to address the problem of 

the political, economic, and social instability that plagues the Balkans is to resolve 

the issue of Kosova’s final status now. 

Since our military victory against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, the 

international community joined the Kosovars in rebuilding their country, revitalizing their economy, assisting them in establishing democratic institutions of selfgovernment, and healing the scars of war. However, progress in Kosova—currently 

a United Nations protectorate—is being held up by its inability to determine its own 

fate. 

Under Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav government dismantled Kosova’s political 

structures, replaced ethnic Albanians with Serbs in most jobs, enabled Serb-owned 

firms to take over Albanian-owned companies, and forbade Albanians from purchasing or improving property in their own land. I have traveled to Kosova numerous times and personally witnessed that travesty. 

As a result of this systematic persecution and discrimination against ethnic Albanians by the Milosevic government, today the unemployment rate in Kosova is over 

60 percent, increasing the likelihood that Kosovars (fifty percent of whom are under 

the age of twenty-five) must find employment abroad or engage in other activities 

in order to survive. The perpetuation of these economic difficulties heightens the potential for continued instability in the region and is detrimental to U.S. objectives 

and interests there. 

Achieving genuine, long-term political and economic stability in Kosova and in the 

Balkans requires more than reconstruction assistance. It also demands the resolution of the final status of the area, and that means independence for the Kosovars. 

Under the Yugoslav constitution of 1974, Kosova was equivalent in most ways to 

Slovenia, Croatia, and the other republics of the former Yugoslavia. As an ‘‘autonomous province,’’ Kosova, in practice, exercised the same powers as a republic. It had 

its own parliament, high courts, central bank, police service, and defense force. 

Through its definition in 1968 as a part of the Yugoslav Federal System, it gained 

representation at the federal level. 

When Slovenia and Croatia demanded independence, similar arguments were 

made by Western governments against recognizing the right of those countries to 

self-determination. However, eventually the same Western governments recognized 

not only the independence of Slovenia and Croatia, but Bosnia-Herzegovina and 

Macedonia as well, having discovered that independence for those nations involved 

not so much a change of borders as a change in the status of existing borders. The 

lines on the map remained the same, but their status was upgraded from republican 

to national. 

Kosova is entitled to the same treatment. Those that argue we must put ‘‘standards before status’’ in the case of Kosova are themselves applying a double standard. 

Kosova deserves independence for the same reasons as did the other constituent, autonomous parts of the former Yugoslav republic. Security, democracy, and pure justice demand it. 

Persistent tensions in the Balkans cannot be resolved if we continue to procrastinate on Kosovo’s final status. To achieve a just and lasting peace in Southeast Europe, a turbulent region if there ever were one, we must give Kosova its independence and we should do it now.

Chairman HYDE. Thank you Mr. Lantos. 

And as to your remarks about the AIDS legislation, the Republicans control this place, you are in the minority, and it wouldn’t 

happen without you. It couldn’t happen without your support, and 

I thank you for that. 

Normally, in hearings we don’t—we try to limit the opening 

statements because they can consume a lot of time, and the witnesses don’t get the opportunity they should have. So I am going 

to ask the Members up here who have an opening statement if they 

would confine it to about 3 minutes. 

And with that admonition, I am pleased to recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for that courtesy. Thank you for convening this very imporVerDate Mar 21 2002 14:27 Sep 04, 2003 Jkt 087088 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\052103\87200 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
6

tant hearing on Kosovo. As Co-Chair of the Helsinki Commission, 

I was very aware of the great human suffering, as were members 

of our commission and the Members of this Committee, which took 

place there during Milosevic’s brutal regime, as well as the humanitarian crisis which arose during the Kosovo conflict and war 

crimes which occurred at that time. 

Through hearings and other initiatives, the Commission helped 

document the atrocities and debate policy options, including steadfast efforts to have Milosevic and all of his henchmen account for 

their crimes in The Hague. As members of the Commission, other 

Members joined me in consistently pressing for the release of 

Kosovar Albanians who are wrongfully languishing in Serbian prisons long after the conflict and Milosevic’s ouster. I would also point 

out, we joined the chorus of criticism of local Serbs responsible for 

the continued division of the city of Mitrovica. 

As far as Kosovo’s future, first and foremost, our focus should be 

on developing a process for the people of Kosovo, and that is all of 

the people, to find their own consensus and to make it work. Rather than being strong advocates for one particular result or another, 

I believe we should be encouraging the crafting of a strategy which 

allows for a sustained stability in the region and gradual international disengagement. 

We must also not overlook the absolutely horrendous treatment 

of the Serb Roma and other minorities struggling to survive in enclaves or in displaced communities, unable to return home. Less 

than 2 weeks ago, for example, the Serbian Orthodox Church of St. 

Nicolas in Pristina was stoned again by unknown attackers. Many 

windows were broken. This church, like so many others, has received no police or KFOR protection this year. While the police may 

come and take a report, like in dozens of other incidents, nobody 

cooperates with the investigation. ‘‘No wonder extremists are 

encouraged . . .’’ the local priest said, ‘‘to visit local villagers.’’

He adds,

‘‘I make the sign of the cross, sit in my car and drive as fast 

as I can at my own risk.’’

I would appreciate our Deputy Assistant Secretary Bogue addressing this inadequate protection of Orthodox churches in Kosovo 

since 1979. During the questioning, I will be asking you some questions along those line. 

I do thank the Chairman for yielding this time to me. 

Chairman HYDE. I thank the gentleman. 

The distinguished gentleman from New York, whose interest in 

Kosovo has been intense and passionate, and a very valued Member of our Committee, Mr. Engel. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking 

Member. It is very good to be here to talk about the very important 

issue of Kosovo independence. 

I want to particularly thank you, Mr. Chairman, for working 

with me to add Martin Vulaj of the National Albanian American 

Council and former Ambassador Walker to the panel. As you know, 

I chair the Albanian Caucus here in the Congress; my Co-Chair is 

Congresswoman Sue Kelly, and we have worked very hard with the 

Albanian American community to highlight some of these issues. 

7

I have been to Kosovo many, many times. I intend to go again 

this year. 

I have said this many, many times: Of all the people all around 

the world that I have come in contact with, there are no people 

that are more pro-American than the Albanian people. And that is 

true whether it is Albanian people in Kosovo or Albania, Montenegro or Macedonia. 

I think that it is so important to debate H. Res. 28. I certainly 

agree with the sentiments of the resolution. I have some reservations about the timing and some of the other things, but certainly 

when it comes to talking about independence for Kosovo, if one 

goes to Kosovo, everybody there is for independence. Everyone believes, all the Albanians in Kosovo believe that independence is the 

right thing to do. And while they may have differences of political 

opinion, everyone knows that independence is the only option. 

I have often said that there are really three options, if you look 

at it, and two of them are not really options at all. One would be 

for a continuing presence, international presence, in Kosovo lasting 

many, many, many years, essentially occupation and running 

Kosovo by the international community. That certainly is unacceptable because it is not a viable solution over the long run. 

Another potential that some people have floated, which I believe 

is also not acceptable, is somehow making Kosovo a third republic 

within what is today called Yugoslavia, but really isn’t Yugoslavia 

anymore, it is simply a Serbia and a Montenegro. That is not acceptable, given the atrocities that happened against the Albanians 

in Kosovo. No Albanian would want to be any part of any regime 

or country led by Belgrade. That is just ridiculous. 

So the third option, which is really the only viable option, is 

independence for Kosovo; and that should happen sooner rather 

than later. 

As Mr. Lantos pointed out—and I want to compliment him for 

all the hard work that he has done, as well. And he told me the 

first time he went to Kosovo, it was way before I had ever been 

there—and I was one of the first people to go, so I think it is a tribute to Mr. Lantos that his interest in this region is really—has 

been legendary. 

Let me say that when you look at the issue, you understand that 

the people of Kosovo have the absolute right to self-determination. 

And when you look at the international community and the European Community, dragging its feet again and again and again, it 

is so important that the United States remains active there and 

speaks forcefully and talks about independence. When we talk 

about independence, we mean all of Kosovo. 

Mr. Smith pointed out about the continued division of Mitrovica, 

which is unacceptable. Kosovo is Kosovo. It includes all of 

Mitrovica, it includes the Trepca mines, and everything else. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. ENGEL. If I can sum up in 10 seconds, Mr. Chairman, I want 

to thank you for making this possible. I look forward to working 

with you to achieve an independent and free Kosovo. 

Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Rohrabacher. 

8

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I 

would like to express my appreciation to you, Mr. Chairman, to Mr. 

Lantos and to Elliot as well. He has been a champion over the 

years. I remember the many, many meetings he had with the people from Kosovo and the Kosovars who came there. He really has 

done so much. 

Thank you, Elliot, for the lives have you saved with your activism. 

U.S. policy has been held captive for these last few years, Mr. 

Chairman, and it has been held captive at the expense of the people of Kosovo. What we have got is an over-sensitivity and an overconcern for what the Serbians feel, an over-sensitivity for our European allies who will never be able to make up their minds on anything unless we provide the leadership. 

What, instead, we should be doing is going back to fundamentals 

of what we believe in as Americans. And that is the right of all people everywhere to determine their own destiny through the ballot 

box, the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and, 

yes, independence. Those are the rights of people everywhere. 

And we should be siding with the people of Kosovo, and unfortunately, our State Department seems to have gotten off track. They 

are concerned with people they shouldn’t be concerned with. They 

are concerned about the oppressors, they are concerned about the 

people who would put their thumb down on other people and deny 

them their rights. It is time for us to stand up. It is long overdue. 

By recognizing the independence of Kosovo, we will bring about 

more stability in the region and peace in the region. 

Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. Mrs. Davis has been generous 

enough to waive her opening statement, for which the Chair 

thanks her. 

And having put that pressure on Ms. McCollum, I now recognize 

her for an opening statement. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, I just informed staff I would like to 

waive also. 

Chairman HYDE. Great, also. 

Mr. Weller, are you going to be nice and waive as well? Thank 

you very much. 

Our first witness is Ms. Janet Bogue, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department. 

She joined the foreign service in 1982 and has served in United 

States diplomatic missions in the United Kingdom, Yugoslavia, 

Austria, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Nepal. In Washington, she has 

previously served as Senior Desk Officer for the former Yugoslavia 

and as a speech writer for Secretary of State Warren Christopher. 

We are very glad you are here, Ms. Bogue. Please tell us what 

you want to tell us. 

STATEMENT OF JANET L. BOGUE, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF EUROPEAN AND EURASIAN AFFAIRS, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Ms. BOGUE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Members 

of the Committee. And mindful of the many witnesses today, I will 

9

also—I won’t go so far as to waive my statement, but I will make 

a very short statement and——

Chairman HYDE. Without objection, the full statement will be 

made a part of the record. 

Ms. BOGUE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am grateful. 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, early next month 

it will be 4 years since the end of the Kosovo conflict. With strong 

support from the United States, Kosovo has steadily emerged from 

the devastation of war and has taken important steps toward becoming a democratic, multiethnic society. Kosovo has made real 

progress in governance, law and order, ethnic relations and the 

economy, although challenges remain in all these areas. 

Provisional institutions of self-government have been created. 

The multiethnic Kosovo police service is quickly approaching its 

full capacity of 6,500 personnel. Crime is down, although organized 

crime remains a challenge. The United States is working very hard 

together with UNMIK and our partners in Kosovo. 

Ethnic relations in Kosovo are improving. There is significant 

Serbian and minority representation in the Kosovo Assembly. 

There are several municipalities with significant minority participation. And that, not parallel institutions, is the proper way for 

Serbs and other minorities to participate in governance in Kosovo. 

However, there is still violence against Serbs and Serbian property, 

and there are remaining constraints on freedom of movement in 

some areas. 

The United States continues to support the right of all refugees 

and internally displaced persons to return to their homes. We expect significant returns this year. And in order to encourage that 

development, the United States is increasing its contribution for 

Kosovo regional refugee returns to $14.4 million in new assistance 

for 2003. 

Mr. Chairman, the NATO-led Kosovo force, or KFOR, has been 

invaluable in establishing a safe and secure environment within 

which U.N. SCR 1244 can be implemented. KFOR currently consists of 25,000 troops, down from about 60,000 at the height of its 

deployment. The United States provides 2,250 of those troops. 

We are very closely focused on the problem of Kosovo’s economy, 

especially the very critical issue of unemployment, which is about 

50 percent throughout Kosovo and spikes to 70 percent in some 

areas. 

We have provided significant support to establish sound policies 

for economic recovery. Gross domestic product grew by 7 percent in 

2002, while inflation dropped to about 7 percent. Privatization is at 

least beginning to move forward. We think this will be the real engine of economic growth. 

The United States is also pushing for Kosovo’s inclusion in regional state structures through the Stability Pact’s Trade Working 

Group. We are seeking access for Kosovo to lending from international financial institutions, without prejudicing a status outcome. 

This brings me to the important issue of Kosovo’s final status, 

the focus of your hearing today. As you said, Mr. Chairman, President Bush has a vision of a Europe that is whole, free, and at 

peace. In south central Europe, including Kosovo, this means 

10

peaceful, prosperous democracies on good terms with their neighbors, in which everyone enjoys fundamental human rights and freedom. The President’s vision includes the integration of south central Europe into European and Euro-Atlantic institutions, particularly the European Union and NATO. 

While the United States remains strongly involved with Kosovo 

diplomatically, financially and militarily, we welcome the European 

Union’s strong financial assistance and involvement in Kosovo and 

throughout the region. 

The United States supports the approach of the U.N. Secretary 

General’s Special representative in Kosovo, Michael Steiner, who 

laid out in April, 2002, eight benchmarks that should be achieved 

before the question of final status is addressed. This approach is 

called ‘‘standards before status.’’

Regardless of the outcome of final status, Kosovo needs to meet 

the benchmarks if it is to be a functioning democracy with an operating economy. Kosovo needs to meet the benchmarks so that its 

institutions have the ability to deal with the challenges posed by 

unemployment and by organized crime. Kosovo needs to meet the 

benchmarks to be in a cooperative relationship with others in the 

region. And Kosovo needs to meet the benchmarks to participate in 

European integration. 

In other words, Mr. Chairman, Kosovo needs to meet the benchmarks for its own sake. Many of Kosovo’s elected leaders acknowledge that. 

How long will it take to achieve the benchmarks? That depends 

largely on the success of Kosovo’s institutions and on the determination of Kosovo’s leaders and people to do so. It also depends 

on the international community’s support, our support. 

Mr. Chairman, the United States is strongly committed to helping Kosovo achieve the benchmarks. Our assistance is aimed at 

those benchmarks. In addition, we support transferring to Kosovo’s 

institutions of self-government, by the end of this year, all remaining governing competencies not specially reserved to the U.N. and 

UNMIK. These will also help Kosovo to fulfill the benchmarks. 

Mr. Chairman, there are those in Kosovo who seek immediate 

independence; there are those in Serbia who seek immediate partition. We oppose both moves. We believe that a decision today on 

final status would destabilize Kosovo in the broader region, which 

has only now emerged from a decade of crippling conflicts. An immediate decision on final status would inflame those in the region 

who seek violent solutions. This could lead to resumed fighting in 

Kosovo to renewed fighting in southern Serbia and Macedonia. 

Clearly this would be devastating to the region and to U.S. interests. 

Final status for Kosovo should be a stabilizing factor in south 

central Europe. We believe it can be and will be, provided the 

benchmarks are achieved. But the benchmarks will not be achieved 

in the midst of a decision of final status. That subject brings to a 

halt discussion of anything else. 

For these reasons, the Administration opposes the resolution before the Committee that calls for Kosovo’s independence. Such a 

resolution could lead to confusion about the position of the United 

11

States and could detract from the work of institution-building and 

ethnic reconciliation that still needs to be done. 

Thank you again for your patience, Mr. Chairman. I would be 

happy to hear your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bogue follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JANET L. BOGUE, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU

OF EUROPEAN AND EURASIAN AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I am pleased to meet with you to 

discuss the Administration’s policy towards Kosovo and, in particular, the question 

of final status. 

Early next month it will be four years since the end of the Kosovo conflict and 

the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1244. That created the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR). Since 

then, with strong support from the United States and others in the international 

community, Kosovo has steadily emerged from the devastation of a brutal, ethnically-driven war, and has taken important steps toward becoming a democratic, 

multi-ethnic society. However, significant challenges remain. Kosovo’s journey is not 

complete. 

Mr. Chairman, Kosovo has made real progress in governance, law and order, ethnic relations, security, and the economy. Challenges remain in all these areas as 

well. 

After three successful elections, including the Kosovo-wide elections in November 

2001 that created of the Provisional Institutions of Self-government (PISG), Kosovo 

has a government and developing democratic institutions. This is a major achievement. Understandably, the performance of the young institutions has been uneven. 

It will take additional time and training before the quality of Kosovo’s civil service 

reaches a satisfactory plateau. Providing equal opportunities for minorities in the 

administrative structures of government is another challenge for Kosovo. 

There is considerable progress in the establishment of law and order. Since June 

1999, we have seen a steady drop in most major crime categories. The Kosovo Police 

Service (KPS) is assuming most police functions and is quickly approaching its full 

capacity of 6,500 personnel. At the same time, the number of UNMIK international 

civilian police is dropping. Approximately 10 percent of the Kosovo Police Service’s 

officers and rank-and-file are ethnic Serbs, a composition well received by the force 

and the communities it patrols. 

Unfortunately, there is less progress in establishing the rule of law, particularly 

in creating an integrated judiciary and closing the Belgrade-supported parallel 

courts that continue to exist in predominantly Serbian municipalities. The United 

States provides training to strengthen Kosovo’s judiciary. Another challenge is organized crime. Kosovo needs greater capacity to tackle this problem, including in witness security. The United States contributes to the resolution of this problem financially. The head of UNMIK’s Department of Legal Affairs, Paul Coffey, formerly 

headed the Department of Justice’s organized crime efforts, bringing important expertise to this battle. 

Ethnic relations in Kosovo are improving slowly but unevenly. The most positive 

development is the participation of Kosovo Serbs and other minorities in elections. 

This has resulted in significant Serbian and minority representation in the Kosovo 

Assembly. There are several municipalities in Kosovo with Serbian majority councils 

or significant Serbian participation. Tensions continue in many areas however, and 

while the number of incidents is down, there is still violence against Serbs and Serbian property. There are also remaining constraints on freedom of movement in 

some areas of Kosovo, alongside marked improvements in others. 

We, together with the international community, continue to support the right of 

all refugees and internally displaced persons to return to their homes. Kosovo’s security and political climate has improved and we expect significant minority returns 

this year. To support that, the United States is increasing its contribution for 

Kosovo regional returns to $14.4 million in new assistance for ’03. This is 30 percent 

more than last year’s contribution. An improved partnership on the ground between 

UNMIK, NGOs and Kosovo governmental entities on returns is encouraging as well. 

Work remains, however, and we continue to urge Kosovo’s political leadership to 

help create an environment in which returns are sustainable. 

Mr. Chairman, the NATO-led KFOR has helped facilitate refugee returns and 

freedom of movement. Although the security situation remains fragile in Kosovo, 

KFOR’s presence has been invaluable to establishing an overall safe and secure environment within which UNSCR 1244 implementation can occur. KFOR currently 

12

consists of 25,000 troops from 36 nations. The U.S. provides 2,250 of those troops. 

Total troop levels in Kosovo are assessed every six months through NATO’s periodic 

mission review (PMR) process. This includes a full review of NATO’s military tasks 

and the security situation on the ground, and makes recommendations accordingly. 

NATO is currently completing a review that will lead to a formal decision by NATO 

ministers when they meet in early June. While I cannot speak for NATO, we expect 

that this review will recommend a further reduction in KFOR’s troop level by year’s 

end, reflecting improved security on the ground and a shift in the structure of 

KFOR’s forces. 

We are closely focused on Kosovo’s economy. Unemployment remains at up to 50 

percent throughout Kosovo and spikes to 70 percent in some areas. To address this 

and other serious economic problems, the U.S. has provided significant support to 

establish a sound macroeconomic and structural policies for economic recovery. This, 

combined with donor support and a high volume of contributions from the Kosovo 

Albanian diaspora, allowed gross domestic product to grow by 11 percent in 2001 

and 7 percent in 2002. Inflation has also dropped in this same time period to roughly 7 percent. Agricultural production is approaching pre-war levels. Kosovo’s governing institutions and UNMIK recently passed a series of laws that should pave 

the way for more foreign investment in Kosovo. Privatization is also beginning to 

move forward. We are encouraged by the enactment of telecommunications and 

land-use regulations. The latter was the last important piece of legislation necessary 

to launch privatization of Kosovo’s former socially-owned enterprises. Tendering of 

the first six companies is slated to begin this month and an additional six have been 

identified for near-term privatization. 

To spur economic growth, the United States has also encouraged Kosovo’s inclusion in regional trading structures through the Stability Pact’s Trade Working 

Group, which has been effective in linking South Central Europe together through 

a network of bilateral free-trade agreements. We are also seeking a creative solution 

for Kosovo to access lending from international financial institutions, such as the 

World Bank and the European Investment Bank, without prejudicing a status outcome. The International Financial Institutions are unable to extend credit to Kosovo 

because neither the UN administration in Kosovo nor the Kosovo institutions are 

able to provide a sovereign guarantee. 

This brings me to the important issue of Kosovo’s final status, the focus of the 

Committee’s hearing today. Mr. Chairman, the President has a vision of a Europe 

that is whole, free, and at peace. We have all seen the consequences—including for 

the United States—when that is not so. In South Central Europe—including 

Kosovo—this means peaceful, prosperous democracies on good terms with their 

neighbors, in which everyone enjoys fundamental human rights and freedoms. The 

President’s vision includes the integration of South Central Europe into European 

and Euro-Atlantic institutions, particularly the European Union and NATO. 

While the United States remains strongly involved with Kosovo—diplomatically, 

financially, and militarily—we welcome the European Union’s strong financial assistance and close involvement in Kosovo and throughout the region. 

Mr. Chairman, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 created Kosovo’s 

special circumstances, including its own institutions of government, UNMIK, and 

KFOR. Resolution 1244 also says that there will be a political process for determining Kosovo’s future status that takes into account the Rambouillet accords. 

The United States supports the approach of the UN Secretary General’s Special 

Representative in Kosovo, Michael Steiner, who laid out in April 2002 eight benchmarks that should be achieved before the question of final status is addressed. This 

approach is called ‘‘standards before status.’’ The eight benchmarks are:

• Functioning Democratic Institutions

• Rule of Law (Police/Judiciary)

• Freedom of Movement

• Returns and Integration

• Economy: Legislation, Balanced Budget, Privatization

• Respect for Property Rights (Clear Title, Restitution)

• Dialogue with Belgrade

• Kosovo Protection Corps (Size, Compliance with Mandate, Minority Participation)

Regardless of final status outcomes, Kosovo needs to meet the benchmarks if it 

is to be a functioning, multi-ethnic democracy with an operating economy. Kosovo 

needs to meet the benchmarks so that its institutions have the ability to deal with 

the challenges posed by unemployment and organized crime. Kosovo needs to meet 

13

the benchmarks to be in a cooperative relationship with others in the region. And 

Kosovo needs to meet the benchmarks to participate in European integration. In 

other words, Mr. Chairman, Kosovo needs to meet the benchmarks for its own 

sake—and many of Kosovo’s elected leaders acknowledge that. 

How long will it take to achieve the benchmarks? That depends largely on the 

success of Kosovo’s institutions and on the determination of Kosovo’s leaders and 

people to do so. It also depends on the international community’s support. Mr. 

Chairman, the United States is strongly committed to helping Kosovo achieve the 

benchmarks; we support refugee returns, economic development, training in governance, development of an independent media and an independent judiciary; equal opportunities for minorities and women in Kosovo’s political and economic life; and the 

development, within Kosovo, of institutions that protect international recognized 

human rights. 

In addition, we support transferring to Kosovo’s institutions by the end of 2003 

all remaining governing competencies under Chapter V of the Constitutional Framework Document; these will help Kosovo fulfill the benchmarks. (Competencies under 

Chapter VIII are vested exclusively in the Special Representative and UNMIK, and 

cannot be transferred.) 

Mr. Chairman, there are those in Kosovo who seek immediate independence. 

There are those in Serbia who seek immediate partition. We oppose both moves. We 

believe that a decision today on final status would risk destabilizing Kosovo and the 

broader region, which has only now emerged from a decade of crippling conflicts. 

An immediate decision on final status would inflame those in the region who seek 

violent solutions. That could lead to resumed fighting in Kosovo, and to renewed 

fighting in Southern Serbia and Macedonia. Clearly, this would be devastating to 

the region and to the President’s vision of the future. 

Why would this be any different through the process of ‘‘standards before status?’’ 

Mr. Chairman, the standards, or benchmarks, deal with many of the issues that at 

present are major sources of political volatility and regional instability—like refugee 

return, unemployment, and lack of functioning institutions of local government. 

Final status for Kosovo should be a stabilizing factor in South Central Europe; it 

can be, provided the benchmarks are achieved. 

But the benchmarks will not be achieved in the midst of a discussion of final status. That subject brings to a halt discussion of anything else. 

For these reasons, the Administration opposes the Resolution before the Committee that calls for Kosovo’s independence. Such a resolution could lead to confusion about the position of the United States; and could detract from the work of institution-building and ethnic reconciliation that needs to be done. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman HYDE. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Lantos any questions? 

Mr. LANTOS. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. I want 

to thank the witness for her testimony, which I read in its full 

version. 

Let me just say at the outset that, in my judgment, no parent 

was ever ready for parenthood and no nation was ever ready for 

nationhood, and Kosova is no exception. So it seems to me we have 

to go beyond the artificial criteria of establishing a perfect set of 

standards and measurements that we expect Kosova to reach before the Administration will support nationhood for Kosova. 

Now, I made a quick review of some of the smaller members of 

the United Nations. These are full-fledged members of the United 

Nations. They have a vote in the General Assembly. They function 

as independent countries. Let me give you a quick list of 12 countries: Andorra, Dominica, Kiribati, Lichtenstein, the Marshall Islands, Monaco, Nauru, Palau, Saint Kitts and Nevis, San Marino, 

the Seychelles Islands, and Tuvalu. 

Now, this is not a quiz, but let me ask you, Ms. Bogue, what, in 

your judgment, do these 12 countries have in common? 

Ms. BOGUE. I will defer to you for the answer to that. 

Mr. LANTOS. Let me tell you what the answer is. Every single 

one of these full-fledged nations, members of the United Nations, 

14

have a population of less than 100,000. Less than 100,000. Kosova, 

as you well know, has a population of well over a million and a 

half. It has a clear-cut geographic profile. It has a long, proud, historic tradition. And I am really disappointed in your statement of 

the Administration’s policy, particularly at a time when in a number of parts of the world today and in the recent past we moved 

for national independence. 

So let me ask just one question. As one who held the first hearing in this body on the persecution of Catholics in East Timor, do 

you believe East Timor is better equipped to function as an independent nation than Kosova? 

Ms. BOGUE. Mr. Congressman, if I may, I am—certainly, my colleagues who work on East Timor would be horrified if I even began 

to speak about something I know nothing about. 

What I would like to do is turn back to Kosovo, if I may, for a 

moment and say that the——

Mr. LANTOS. But, you see, Kosova does not exist in a vacuum. 

We are dealing in a world society of almost 200 autonomous countries. I just gave you a list of 12 members of the United Nations, 

each with a population of less than 100,000. 

I strongly favored East Timor’s establishment as an independent 

country. As a matter of fact, my good friend from New Jersey, Mr. 

Chris Smith, had a very able staffer who is currently our Ambassador to East Timor. This is a very small, very poor, very tiny, 

wholly noncomparable entity to Kosova. And yet, we have a United 

States Embassy there, we have an Ambassador who is doing a fine 

job. And we view it as a country. 

So I am merely asking for an equity of treatment by this Administration vis-a-vis these other tiny, insignificant countries which we 

designate as nation-states, countries with U.N. membership, while 

establishing utterly unreasonable criteria for Kosova. 

Ms. BOGUE. I take your point, Mr. Congressman. I would like to 

come back to your statement of Kosovo not existing in a vacuum; 

and I think that is exactly what we have to work with. 

There is a unique set of circumstances resulting from the intervention of the international community in Kosovo. That unique set 

of circumstances resulted in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244, 

which sets out that there will be a process for deciding the final 

status of Kosovo. And that process says that it will take account 

of the Rambouillet accords, but otherwise does not specify what 

that process will be. 

And I think that we all—the Administration very strongly supports the approach of Mr. Steiner, which says that the way to 

launch that process to work on these eight benchmarks or standards in order to get that process started. And the benchmarks and 

standards will do a number of things. One is that they will provide 

some stability and solutions to some of the difficult issues surrounding Kosovo today. And in our view, that would make the process of final status, and final status itself, a stabilizing thing rather 

than a destabilizing thing, which potentially could result in more 

violence. 

And those benchmarks also are in cases of—in many cases, have 

to do with institution-building, institutions that had not existed 

and are only now just being formed, and in many cases, have to 

15

do with reaching what are not to say ‘‘perfect standards,’’ because 

I don’t know that any country would have met perfect standards, 

but are international standards, internationally held standards, on 

issues such as human rights. 

Mr. LANTOS. I hope you will be forthcoming in giving us an approximate time line that would reflect the position of the Department of State. I really wouldn’t like you to respond that you have 

no idea how long in the Department’s judgment these eight criteria 

will have been completed. 

But can you give us a ballpark estimate of what we are dealing 

with—1 year? 5 years? 10 years? More? 

Ms. BOGUE. I am afraid I will disappoint you again, Congressman. 

Mr. LANTOS. Don’t disappoint me. 

Ms. BOGUE. I can’t give you an exact time line and neither can 

Mr. Steiner, the Special Representative. As I mentioned in my oral 

testimony, as well as in the written statement, a lot of this depends 

on the speed with which Kosovar leaders and public can move on 

these and a lot depends on how much we can help them to move 

quickly on those. That is one of the reasons that so much of our 

assistance, our bilateral assistance is really keyed to achieving the 

standards and achieving the benchmarks. 

I don’t think that any of us wants to see a lengthy, indefinite period. The Chairman, Congressman Hyde, referred to the President’s 

goal that sufficient stability be established in the region that would 

enable NATO-led forces to leave the region entirely. That is certainly a part of the President’s firm position and goal; and that 

means that we are not looking for an indefinite period. 

But I cannot give you an exact time line for that. 

Mr. LANTOS. I am not asking for an exact time line. I am asking 

you for a ballpark figure. 

Ms. BOGUE. I am afraid I don’t have a ballpark figure. 

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Lantos. 

The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And just a couple of questions, and let me just preface it by saying that I believe that violence or cruelty against any ethnic 

group—I know you share this, Madam Secretary—is absolutely unacceptable. And I have been concerned, and I spoke out and continue to speak out whenever ethnic Albanians are put at risk. 

And Joe DioGuardi will remember that we had hearings, and he 

was a very prominent and a very effective spokesman on behalf of 

those who were being attacked and discriminated against. 

But I would like to ask, and I said it in my opening comments, 

about these Orthodox churches that are being attacked. There are 

estimates of upwards of 100 churches. We in the Commission have 

repeatedly asked, where is KFOR, where is the police, why is there 

not sufficient protection for them? 

We had, last week, a meeting, not a hearing, but a meeting with 

Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, who told our commission that 

her work investigating crimes by interviewing victims and witnesses is hampered by fear of retaliation in Kosovo. You might 

want to respond to that. 

16

Finally, at the OSCE meeting on Roma issues that was held in 

Vienna last month, a number of participants, mostly human rights 

leaders, asserted that it is not safe for Roma to return to Kosovo. 

If you could respond to those three, I would appreciate it. 

Ms. BOGUE. On the first point, I think one of the great tragedies 

of the Balkan region in the last decade has been the attacks on cultural properties of all sides. These are part of not only a particular 

culture’s heritage and, often, faith, but of the world’s cultural heritage, wherever they are. And we certainly condemn any attacks on 

cultural and historic properties and sites. 

In the case of Kosovo, KFOR does provide security as best it can 

throughout the region; obviously, they can’t be everywhere at every 

moment. KFOR has been able to withdraw a number of its static 

posts in favor of mobile patrolling. In many cases, that has been 

extremely successful. In some places where there have been acts of 

vandalism or violence against cultural properties, KFOR has reinstituted static positions at those places in order to protect them. 

Both the CIVPOL, the international police force there, and the 

Kosovo police service, the indigenous service, are also now beginning to play a greater role in protection of those kinds of sites. It 

is an issue that we are very alert to and talk to KFOR and UNMIK 

about all the time. 

If I could talk about the question of witness security that Mrs. 

Del Ponte raised with you, this is again a problem in the entire region, as well as Kosovo. It is—one of the hardest problems in terms 

of getting at organized crime throughout the region is the lack of 

witness security or witness—what we would call ‘‘witness protection programs.’’ We have been working on that quite a bit with 

UNMIK and with the Europeans in order to try to find ways in 

which there can be, for instance, reciprocal witness protection arrangements. 

Since many of the places in the Balkans are so small, there is 

no way a witness can be successfully relocated from their home territory. We provide a lot of support to UNMIK’s effort and—together 

with KFOR and the KPS and CIVPOL, against organized crime, including financial assistance, assistance in developing witness security. And the UNMIK’s head of the organized crime unit is actually 

an American, Paul Coffey, who used to be the head of the Justice 

Department’s Organized Crime Division here in the United States. 

So he is bringing tremendous expertise and background to that 

issue. 

The situation of the Roma is also one that is very important. And 

I want to emphasize that, in my statement, when I referred to minorities, we really mean all minorities in Kosovo, not just Serbs but 

also Roma, Ashkali, Egyptians and others who are there. We have 

actually seen among the 6,500, 6,700 or so minority refugee or IDP 

returnees to Kosovo, about a third of those have been made up of 

non-Serbs, that is, of Roma, Ashkali and others. 

So we have seen successful examples of Roma returning to 

Kosovo. In some cases, Roma are seeking to be integrated locally 

where they went to when they became refugees or were displaced; 

in other cases, they seek to return. And the UNHCR is working 

closely with them and with us. 

17

As I said, we have some of our own programs that are specifically targeted on these groups—Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian populations in order to make it possible for them to return. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Engel. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Bogue, I listened to your testimony where you talked 

about ‘‘benchmarks’’ and ‘‘standards before status.’’ My problem 

with that, and I think Mr. Lantos pointed it out, is that we are 

asking the Kosovars to do far more than we asked many other 

countries, which are already independent or aspire to independence, throughout the world. 

What bothers me about it—in a vacuum it sounds great, but first 

of all, if we focus on benchmarks and say ‘‘standards before status,’’ 

we can be saying the same thing 2 years from now, 3 years from 

now, 5 years from now; and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy 

whereby the people of Kosovo never get independence because we 

are raising the bar too high. 

There has also been a lot of criticism, and I have been one of 

those, of UNMIK for not turning over to the local and national 

Kosovar authorities enough powers or competencies to meet the 

standards demanded before discussions of status can proceed. So 

we are almost caught up in a web, and again, it becomes a selffulfilling prophecy. 

So I think that UNMIK has to move forward and turn over more 

authority to the Kosovars to govern themselves. And, again, I am 

deeply concerned that the overreaching focus on achieving benchmarks is causing the Kosovars to lose hope that there is an end 

point and that the end point is anywhere in their immediate future. I think it is a serious mistake to leave people without any 

hope, so I would like you to comment on that. 

My third question is that the Kosovar Assembly passed a resolution which commended the KLA for its role in kicking out 

Milosevic. Mr. Steiner strongly condemned the resolution and removed the Kosovars from participating in several international 

meetings in Brussels. I believe that his reaction was far too strong. 

However, with the resolution out of the way, again there is hope 

that the Kosovar Assembly will move on to many of the substantive 

issues it needs to address. 

But again, we need to have an end game, and the end game, in 

my estimation, is independence. If you can comment on all that, I 

would appreciate it. 

Ms. BOGUE. Thank you, Congressman. I will try to comment on 

all of it. First of all, as I mentioned in my testimony, we also support the turnover of the nonreserved powers, the remaining nonreserved powers, to the provisional institutions of self-government 

by the end of this year, by the end of 2003. I am confident that that 

will take place. We very much want to see the institutions of local 

self-government operating in all of those areas except those few 

which are reserved to—under Resolution 1244, which are reserved 

to the U.N. Special Representative. 

The benchmarking process—and I suppose we are in a little bit 

of a chicken-and-egg discussion with each other, sir. I suppose that 

you—I understand your concern that this might cause people to 

18

lose hope about the future or to be nervous about what the future 

brings. 

At the same time, I think—and I believe this was very much Mr. 

Steiner’s goal in establishing the ‘‘standards before status’’ process—was, in fact, to give people hope that there was a path, a 

‘‘road map,’’ if you let me use that expression, to begin a process 

that would lead to a final status for Kosovo; and that the way to 

do it was by making progress on the eight benchmarks which he 

had laid out. 

And the elected leadership, again, in Kosovo, has welcomed this 

kind of route, which is, I think, different from what it had before, 

which was the formulation that was in 1244. But this gave an actual process that would lead to the start of that determination. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Burton. 

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Rather than ask questions, I have a letter here from Michael 

Djordjevich, who is the President of the Studenica Foundation; and 

Mr. Djordjevich asked that I read this into the record. I am going 

to read a portion of it and the rest I will submit for the record. 

He was very upset at the tone of the hearing. He feels like it is 

very biased and heavily skewed toward a pro-Albanian, pro-Kosovo 

independence stance. He wanted me to read a little bit of this. And 

as a friend of mine, I told him I would. 

I do have a good friend in Joe DioGuardi out there, so I read this 

with trepidation; but nevertheless, I think it is something that 

needs to be said. 

He says,

‘‘To declare Kosovo an independent state would be incompatible with U.N. Resolution 1244. For Serbs, an outright grant 

of independence to Kosovo by the international community 

would establish an irredentist claim that would haunt the region for decades. It would also signal to Serbs and Croats in 

Bosnia that their demands for separate, ethically based 

sovereignties should be honored as well, thus putting further 

pressure on an already fragile situation in Bosnia. 

‘‘Regarding the Albanians, independence for Kosovo would 

suggest international endorsement of their long-held ambition, 

ambition of a greater Albania comprising Kosovo, parts of Serbia proper, Albania and parts of Macedonia, the southeastern 

parts of Montenegro and possibly Greece. The risks to regional 

stability are manifest. 

‘‘In addition, the province is riddled with crime and corruption and terrorism; extremists of all sorts freely roam and intimidate or kill their opponents, as they have ethnically and 

culturally cleansed Kosovo of non-Albanians; Kosovo Albanians 

have no democratic tradition nor institutions so indispensable 

for democracy to take hold and grow. Thus, Kosovo is far from 

being ready for independence. Aware of this, the United Nations and the international community have set forth two requirements which must be met before the matter of final status of Kosovo can be addressed. These are embodied in U.N. 

Resolution 1244 as a set of standards promulgated by Mr. Michael Steiner, head of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. 

19

‘‘In the past 2 years, by UNMIK official numbers, there were 

6,360 terrorist attacks in Kosovo. Not a fraction of the 250,000 

Serbs, Romas and other minorities expelled and cleansed was 

allowed to return to their lands. Over 100 Christian churches 

and medieval monasteries have been destroyed. Even the nonAlbanian dead were not left alone as cemeteries have been 

vandalized or wiped out.’’

I quote:

‘‘The fact that Serb return is being hampered by extremism, 

and in some cases, by attack on international security forces, 

illustrates that a number of Kosovo Albanians and their political representatives didn’t realize two facts—that UNMIK 

didn’t arrive in the province to give them independence and 

that there was a change of government in Belgrade requiring 

the opening of a new dialogue.’’

This is from the UNMIK United Nations interim administration 

mission in Kosovo in August 2002.

‘‘Indeed, the Clinton Administration left a host of intricate, 

but unresolved issues in the Balkans. Today, I believe, new circumstances in the region, together with a 10-year perspective 

of events and experience, offer promising prospects of self-sustaining democratization and reform. Nonetheless, the region is 

still in flux. Any support for independence of Kosovo, no matter 

how well disguised and sugar-coated, is a huge step backwards 

into the Balkan morass of yesteryear.’’

That is signed Michael Djordjevich, who is the President of the 

Studenica Foundation. And he is a very fine Serbian American, 

who has been very conversant with what is going on over there. 

And I submit the rest of his statement for the record. 

[The information referred to follows:]

20


87200d.eps
21


87200e.eps
22


87200f.eps
23


87200g.eps
24

Chairman HYDE. Without objection, it will be made a part of the 

record. 

Do you invite comment? 

Mr. BURTON. If Ms. Bogue has any comments, I would be happy. 

Ms. BOGUE. No. 

Chairman HYDE. We will put the letter writer down as leaning 

against independence. 

Mr. Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. I am sure the gentleman who wrote that letter is a fine man, but sometimes very 

good people have very strong prejudices. 

I am not sure, did he ever write you a letter to complain about 

or to discuss the many violations of human rights conducted by the 

Serbs again the Kosovars and other people in that area? 

Mr. BURTON. I think he commented there were enough violations 

of human rights on both sides to make——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That is as close as he came to any condemnation of the Serbs. 

Let me just note there are good people in this area; we understand that. It is a volatile area. That does not mean that a huge 

number of people who are in a given area of land, namely in 

Kosovo, a large majority of those people want to be free and independent, and their rights need to be respected. One of their rights 

is to organize a government as expressed in our own declaration of 

independence and to control their own destiny. 

In terms of our State Department witness, if I could ask her, I 

have noticed your eight benchmarks here. How many of these 

benchmarks did the United States accomplish at the time of its 

independence? 

Ms. BOGUE. As I mentioned before, we are in a very different situation, very unique situation, with the international community 

having intervened in this case. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So it is not a consideration for the international community, not a basis of moral standards? So these 

benchmarks are political, not moral or otherwise legalistic? 

Ms. BOGUE. Well, I think the benchmarks represent a number of 

things. Part of them are institution—the creation of institutions, 

democratic institutions; but part of them do reflect things that we 

might describe as moral in terms of human rights——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. But the United States doesn’t, you know, 

meet your criteria. We shouldn’t be independent of the British if 

we were waiting for us to meet these benchmarks. 

Let me note that again, as I said in my opening statement, what 

we have is a government policy of the United States that reflects 

an overconcern for Serbia and for our European allies and not for 

the rights of these people who have every right like the rest of us 

to organize and have their own government and control their own 

destiny through the ballot box. 

And how long has it been since—it has been 4 years. How many 

troops do we have in Kosovo? 

Ms. BOGUE. We have the—the United States has about 2,250. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Our European allies? 

Ms. BOGUE. Our European allies make up about most—85 percent of the force there. 

25

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So how many do they have? 

Ms. BOGUE. You will see why I am not an economics officer here. 

But the total of——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So we have? 

Ms. BOGUE. They have about 24,000, then, or 23,000 and some. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. 

So we are occupying this country, and we have not been able to 

prevent any of these violations of human rights—again, the minorities there—with all of these thousands and thousands of troops? 

You expect us to believe that that is the case? 

I mean, this is a large number of troops from outside. These reports of vast human rights violations on the minorities are just 

happening under the nose of all of these people? 

Ms. BOGUE. I think the presence of KFOR has done a huge 

amount to help bring about a much more secure and stable environment for everyone in Kosovo. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me note there is no excuse whatsoever 

for the violation of anybody’s human rights, whether there are 

Kosovars on Serbs, or Kosovars on gypsies or whoever they are, 

there is no excuse for that. 

But there also is no excuse, then, for not permitting people to 

then organize their own government and control their own destinies and to have to continue to be occupied. Because people are 

concerned not just about those human rights violations, but about 

the sensitivity of other people in the region. And again our position 

seems to be based on overconsideration for whether this will drive 

the Serbs mad—or maybe just be angry. 

Ms. BOGUE. If I may respond to that, sir. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Sure. 

Ms. BOGUE. I would argue that our position, the position of President Bush, is not based on whether it will make someone in the 

region angry or upset on that, but strictly on the basis of what the 

U.S. interest is there. And the United States interest—as elaborated by the Chairman earlier, one of those interests is to have a 

stable region that is no longer in conflict and that is on its way to 

European integration, and another is to be able to bring to an end 

to the deployment of U.S.- and NATO-led forces. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Stability comes with freedom. We have 

learned that. If we have learned anything, you have to make a decision, and it should be a decision based on the principles of liberty 

and justice that we believe in as Americans and that will bring stability. 

Now, I realize our European allies don’t believe in that, I realize 

that our Serbian friends don’t believe in that. But we believe in 

that, and that is what has worked throughout the world. When we 

don’t do it, it just elongates the conflict, and that is what we are 

doing right now is keeping this thing going. 

It is time for a decision and to come to a conclusion, and it 

should be based on the principles that our founding fathers told us 

were important. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentleman’s time has expired in the nick 

of time, Ms. Bogue. We want to—Ms. Davis, do you have any questions or not? 

26

Mrs. DAVIS. I will be glad to waive it for the next panel if you 

like. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you very much. Ms. Bogue, thank you. 

You have been instructive helpful and cooperative and we will get 

back to you in writing if we have any more questions.

Chairman HYDE. Now we will have our next panel consisting of 

former Congressman Joe DioGuardi, who was the first Member to 

bring the Kosova issue to the attention of Congress in 1987 and 

was responsible for the first legislation on behalf of Albanian rights 

in the Balkans and freeing Kosova from Serbian occupation. He 

has made more than 25 trips to the Balkans since 1989 in his capacity as the founding volunteer President of the Albanian American Civic League. The Civic League is registered as a grassroots 

lobby with the Federal Government representing the concerns of 

more than half a million Albanian Americans. Mr. DioGuardi, welcome and please tell us what you have to tell us. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOSEPH J. DIOGUARDI, 

PRESIDENT, ALBANIAN AMERICAN CIVIC LEAGUE, FORMER 

MEMBER OF CONGRESS 

Mr. DIOGUARDI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of freedom 

loving people everywhere, certainly those Albanians in America 

numbering about 500,000 and those in the Balkans numbering 7 

million, of whom 2 million live in Kosova. Let me thank you for introducing H. Res. 28, so we can put on the table the most important issue for peace and stability in the Balkans, and therefore in 

Europe, and that is the status of Kosova. You know, in 1986, we 

introduced the first resolution for Kosova. It had one name on it 

in the House, Joe DioGuardi, on June 16, 1986. It had one name 

in the Senate, Senator Bob Dole. No one understood this issue back 

then. 

I had just brought it to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus 

and Congressman Lantos had told me he knew about it because he 

was born in Hungary. He knew the history of the Albanian people 

and he was able to bring a lot of attention to this issue through 

that Caucus. In 1987, we managed to get 57 sponsors on the next 

bill. That was about the time that Slobodan Milosevic came into 

power. He has been there since 1987. No one knew who he was 

then. But I was informed by my Albanian friends, lobbied heavily, 

as to who this demon really was and tried to convince our State 

Department many times that there was going to be big trouble in 

the Balkans. You were on that resolution on 1987, Mr. Chairman. 

Congressman Lantos, you were also on that resolution. And so 

was Congressman Gilman whose picture is up on the wall here. 

But there were 57. And that was the first resolution on human 

rights in Yugoslavia. By 1987, we realized the problem was going 

to be Kosova. Let me say, by the way, who I am. Not only am I 

a former Member, I am an ethnic Albanian. My father was born 

in Italy. He came here speaking Italian and Albanian. I am a volunteer. I have no interest that is financial with respect to anything 

Albanian. Neither do I have Albanian partners here or business interests there. I do not get any compensation. And there are no 

grants that I get from the State Department or anyone else. So 

what I say is coming from my experience, from my heart and from 

27

the knowledge that I have gotten from the Albanian American community. 

A lot has happened since that resolution in 1987. Milosevic 

waged four wars. We have had three Presidents. We have had 

seven Congresses convened. And in 1987 when the then Chairman 

Dante Fascell decided after I pleaded with him (on my mother’s 

Italian side, I had worked with him in that community as well), he 

finally said, against State Department wishes, that we are going to 

have a hearing. And he got Subcommittee Chairman, Gus Yatron, 

to agree with it. So the first hearing was held in 1987. Now, here 

is the letter from the State Department, three pages, lobbying 

Yatron and Fascell not to support the resolution at that time. And 

if you read it, it is like you heard today from Janet Bogue. All 

these things have changed since 1987 except the State Department. 

The State Department back then was saying we need to preserve 

peace and stability in the Balkans. Their position was: Don’t, Mr. 

Chairman, support this resolution from DioGuardi because he 

doesn’t understand what is really going on; and if we show any favoritism to the Albanians and, yes, there are human rights violations, we are going to offend our good friend Yugoslavia who has 

been with us for 50 years. Little did I know at that time the money 

that was made by Mr. Kissinger, Mr. Eagleburger on the Yugo Car 

company and on the Yugoslav bank Lubonsca, where they served—

at least one of them did—with Mr. Milosevic himself. Little did I 

know as a junior Congressman that we had State Department 

operatives, friends of State Department operatives heavily involved 

making money with Serbs. And if you don’t believe me, check some 

of the testimony by Mr. Eagleburger to Mr. Helms during the 

former’s confirmation hearing when Helms relentlessly went after 

him to try to get him to show what he was making in Yugoslavia 

at that time. 

Why do you think Mr. Kissinger didn’t take this presidential 

commission? Because he would have to disclose many of these conflicts. Yes, Serbia has friends. Many have left the State Department and we have to look at that. Albanians don’t have those kinds 

of friends. Here we have the State Department after all these years 

saying the same thing. Have they forgotten what Milosevic tried to 

do to the Albanian people? We are trying to create parity for 

human rights violations on both sides, Mr. Smith, Mr. Burton? It 

sounds good, but there is no parity here. The Albanian people were 

almost exterminated. They were subject to genocide. That is why 

Mr. Milosevic is in the Hague today. The charges are genocide! Are 

you going to try to tell me that a few isolated human rights violations by Albanians who felt victimized by their Serb neighbors are 

now going to be brought up to be compared with genocide? 

Mr. Chairman, let me put on the record this statement, ‘‘The Expulsion of the Albanians,’’ by Vaso Cubrilovic. This is a statement 

that shows where the Serbs got the brazen nerve to do what they 

did in Kosova and why today the Albanian people cannot still trust 

Serbian leaders. I have nothing against the Serbian people. They 

are very good people. Albanian people are good. But the Serbs have 

not been blessed with good leadership. In 1937, a rabid ultra nationalist academician, politician called Vaso Cubrilovic presented 

28

this paper in Belgrade on March, 7, 1937. (Fifteen years ago we 

had this translated from the Cyrillic.) 

Mr. Chairman, I am not going to read it all, but I would like to 

put on the record two sections of it. One is called the ‘‘Mode of Removal’’ of the Albanian people. And the other is ‘‘Organization of 

the Removal’’ of the Albanian people. 

Chairman HYDE. Without objection, it will be made part of the 

record. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

EXCERPTS FROM ‘‘THE EXPULSION OF THE ALBANIANS,’’ BY VASO CUBULOVIC


87200h.eps
29


87200i.eps
30


87200j.eps
31

Mr. DIOGUARDI. I would also like to submit my entire written 

testimony for the record as well. 

Chairman HYDE. Your full statement will be made part of the 

record without objection. 

Mr. DIOGUARDI. Look at what Cubrilovic said in 1937 and remember, Mr. Lantos, this was 2 years ago before Hitler wrote the 

final solution of the Jewish people. I am just going to read from one 

page, page 7, where he is telling his compatriots in Belgrade that:

‘‘We must create a suitable psychosis among the Albanian 

people to relocate the whole population; we must use money or 

threats to win over their clergy and men of influence; we must 

also employ agitators, especially from Turkey, to trick Albanians about the benefits of moving to Turkey; and, if this 

doesn’t work, we must use the State apparatus to coerce Albanians so that staying will be intolerable for them and we must 

employ ruthless application of all police tactics at our disposal. 

‘‘And if this doesn’t work we must distribute weapons to our 

colonists from Montenegrin clans and Chetniks, not our Army 

(that would be too obvious), to incite local riots and suppress 

them brutally and bloodily. 

‘‘And, finally, if none of this works to drive out all the Albanian people from Yugoslavia, there remains one more means 

that Serbia and Montenegro employed with great practical effect after 1878 that is by secretly burning down Albanian villages and city quarters.’’

Now, Mr. Chairman, this document survived 50 years. This is 

the mentor of Slobodan Milosevic. Two ultranationalist demons 

were spawned by this paper, Aleksandar Rankovic who killed 

many, many Albanians in the 1950s and 1960s, and the other, 

Milosevic. Mr. Milosevic had this memo, I’m sure, in his desk when 

he occupied Kosova in 1989. And from 1989 to 1999 up to the 

NATO bombing, this is exactly what he did. And our State Department worked against our resolutions in 1986, 1987, 1989, 1992 and 

now, saying that we have to keep peace in the Balkans. They said 

that we can’t even discuss rights for the Albanian people since that 

would offend our ‘‘friends’’ in Belgrade. And what a green light this 

was for Milosevic to March into Slovenia in 1990, to march into 

Croatia in 1991, and Bosnia in 1992. 


87200k.eps
32

And then came the biggest prize of all, Kosova. And we had Secretaries of State, like Jim Baker (by the way this is not a Democratic or Republican issue) saying, ‘‘We have no dog in that fight. 

We have to keep Yugoslavia together at all costs.’’ Then Eagleburger comes on the scene. (He almost didn’t get confirmed because of 

the questions on his financial conflicts.) And he says that Yugoslavia is very important and we need to work with Mr. Milosevic. 

All kinds of waffling led to nothing but trouble. And then we get 

Mr. Holbrooke, the Special Balkan Envoy under President Clinton, 

who writes a book to end a war that he started himself by coddling 

Mr. Milosevic. He has the nerve to again bow to Mr. Milosevic in 

1995 when Milosevic said if you want me at the Dayton Peace Accords to solve the problem, don’t dare bring any Albanians to the 

table. 

So because of Holbrooke, the third largest group in the Balkans, 

the seven million Albanian people, didn’t have any representative 

at the peace talks in Dayton. 

Chairman HYDE. Can you come to a summation, Joe. 

Mr. DIOGUARDI. Mr. Chairman, I just want to put something else 

on the record. In this small book is a good description of who the 

Albanian people are. I just described the Serbian communist regime. This is a book that shows the tolerance, Mr. Chairman, of the 

Albanian people. Every Jew who was in Albania or the Albanian 

lands and every Jew who was lucky enough to escape to there in 

World War II was saved. Albania and Kosova were the only places 

in Europe that had more Jews after the war than before. And it 

is this book, Rescue in Albania, that has an introduction written 

by Congressman Gilman and Congressman Lantos, two prominent 

Jewish Americans, and I would like to put this introduction on the 

record, not the entire book. But I would like to present the book 

to you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Without objection. 

[The information referred to follows:]

33


87200l.eps
34


87200m.eps
35

Mr. DIOGUARDI. I will finalize my comments. Where do we stand 

today? What do the Albanian people want? That is easy! They want 

freedom. They want independence. You talk about benchmarks. 

How are they going to achieve benchmarks when the electricity is 

on 2 hours off for 4 hours. And when the U.N. set up an electric 

agency, one of their German U.N. officials stole $4.5 million. They 

only recently got him and are retrieving the money. The living conditions are so bad in Kosova, yet we talk about U.N. Resolution 

1244. Why don’t we talk about the violation of 1244 and that we 

allowed France to occupy Mitrovica and move all the Albanians out 

of their houses north of the Ebar River, so that today, in violation 

of 1244, you have Albanians sitting there in the southern part of 

Mitrovica looking at their houses in the north. Nobody talks about 

this. 

Nobody talks about the three Albanian American brothers who 

were executed by the Serb police after the war in 1999. And thank 

you Mr. Lantos for having sent a letter to Colin Powell on this. 

Hopefully we will find the perpetrators of their execution. And we 

have here with us today their fellow Albanian American volunteer 

soldiers from the Kosovo Liberation Army. But to go back to their 

story—after the war 3 Albanian Americans, Mehmet, Agron and 

Ylli Bytyqi took a Roma neighbor (because they realized there 

might be some danger for that Roma neighbor), to safety, and they 

strayed across the Serbian border. They were picked up by the Serbian police. They were jailed. A Serbian court gave them a 15-day 

sentence. For some unknown reason, they were let out 5 days 

early, given to special police, and disappeared. It was only because 

their father Ahmet came to me, and I went to General Wesley 

Clark, that somebody leaked that they found a mass grave and the 

three brothers were in it. 

Why were they killed? They were Albanian and they were American. Don’t forget what happened on September 11, 2001. The people dancing with joy in the streets were in Belgrade, Athens and 

Moscow. If you went to all the places where Albanians were, 

Kosova, Skopje in Macedonia, and in Albania, they were crying. 

There were candlelight vigils all night long. Sympathetic posters 

were put up. Mr. Chairman, Albanians are the best friends that 

the United States has right now in the Balkans, maybe in all of 

Europe. 

And we should make them our partner. We should give them the 

ability to become a state so they can join with Serbia as an equal. 

Let them work together as equals to become a part of an integrated 

European community. They are ready for it. They understand the 

work ethic. Look at what 500,000 Albanians have done in America 

with their families as refugees for the last 30 years. Let us give 

them that chance. They need it now. Let them become our full 

partner in bringing real peace and stability to the Balkans. Thank 

you Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. DioGuardi follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOSEPH J. DIOGUARDI, PRESIDENT, 

ALBANIAN AMERICAN CIVIC LEAGUE, FORMER MEMBER OF CONGRESS

Mr. Chairman, Congressman Lantos, on behalf of all Albanians here and in the 

Balkans, and for freedom-loving people everywhere, a heartfelt thank you for introducing H.Res. 28 in support of statehood for Kosova and for following through with 

36

this important hearing. As a former colleague who first brought the issue of Albanian repression in the former Yugoslavia and egregious human rights violations in 

Kosova to Congress’s attention in 1986 as a new Member, I am especially grateful 

for this opportunity to once again make the case for Kosova’s independence. And, 

I want to remind the Chairman and Congressman Lantos that they were among the 

first to cosponsor a resolution that I introduced for Albanian rights in the former 

Yugoslavia in July 1987, with more than fifty of our House colleagues joining us 

as cosponsors. Also, let me say at the start that I have no financial interest whatsoever in any outcome in Kosova or any other Albanian area of the Balkans or with 

Albanians in America. I am an unpaid volunteer with my wife, Shirley. We have 

no investments with any Albanians here or in Europe. We have no political ambitions in Kosova, Albania, or elsewhere in the Balkans. And, we have not applied 

for governmental grants to subsidize any of our activities or pay salaries. In short, 

we are not conflicted in any way. We are merely seeking peace with justice for the 

long-suffering Albanians of Kosova. 

Since leaving Congress in 1989, I have been making the case here in Washington, 

in the Balkans, and around the world for freedom and self-determination for the two 

million Albanians in Kosova. I particularly remember the Congressional Human 

Rights Caucus hearing on Kosova chaired by you, Congressman Lantos, and Congressman John Porter on April 24, 1990 in the large Hart Senate Hearing Room, 

at which Senators Pell, Dole, and Pressler also participated in support of Albanian 

freedom in Kosova. It has been more than thirteen years since that historic hearing 

for the Albanian people at which our Civic League brought twelve leaders from 

Kosova to make their case against Serbia for all the valid reasons that many questioned then, but now looking back have been revealed as factual truths with the advent of four Balkan wars and the indictment, incarceration, and trial of the Serbian 

leader Slobodan Milosevic since then. In these thirteen years, much has changed in 

the Balkans since Serbia invaded Slovenia in 1990, Croatia in 1991, Bosnia in 1992, 

and then tried to ethnically cleanse Kosova en masse in 1999. We have elected three 

presidents, convened seven Congresses, saw more than 300,000 innocent people 

killed in Bosnia, at least 10,000 in Kosova, and witnessed millions being expelled 

from their homes merely for their ethnicity or religion. On the broader scene, this 

period began with a war in Iraq and ended with another one in Iraq just recently. 

Saddam Hussein is now out, perhaps even dead. Milosevic is on trial in The Hague, 

and September 11, 2002, has changed our worldview as well as our personal attitudes about many things. 

But, Mr. Chairman, one thing has not changed, and that is our State Department’s steadfast policy of keeping Yugoslavia together in one form or another. I still 

have the three-page letter sent by the State Department in 1987 to then Chairman 

Dante Fascell, trying to convince him and Subcommittee Chairman Gus Yatron not 

to hold a hearing on the resolution you signed back in 1987 for many of the same 

reasons you have heard from the State Department and their surrogates today. That 

hearing was held in October 1987, and many were informed, as they will be today, 

on the desperate plight of the Albanian people and about the odds, once again, being 

stacked against them. And, if keeping some part of Yugoslavia together is not bad 

enough based on all that we have witnessed from Serbian and other Slavic Communist leaders over the past thirteen years, the State Department seems inclined 

to follow ‘‘Old Europe’’ voices in wanting to preserve some rump Slavic regime, 

again on the backs of the Albanian people. And, in particular, our diplomats at 

State seems to be listening to our dubious friends in France, Russia, Serbia, and 

Greece (not exactly four paragons of U.S. democratic values) and seem to be supporting a new incarnation of Yugoslavia called Serbia and Montenegro. Incredibly, 

they seem to be holding out hope that Kosovars will agree to be part of it, even 

though the Montenegrin people, who are blood brothers to the Serbs, are sending 

us every signal that they have no intention of joining their Slavic brothers and sisters in a new state. (They even recently elected a pro-independence president, who 

emphasized the point, as has Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic.) So why would anyone think that Albanians from Kosova, who have been battered by Serbs and 

Montenegrins for generations, would willingly agree to become part of Serbia again 

when even fellow Slavs are opting out? 

Mr. Chairman, it took thirteen years and another war to correct a failed foreign 

policy in Iraq. During that time, hundreds of thousands of innocent people there 

were killed, tortured, maimed, or forced to flee for their lives. How many more years 

will it take for our State Department to realize that the independence of Kosova is 

the only way to peace and stability in the Balkans and, therefore, in Europe, which 

is in our vital national interests? 

Let’s look at the bleak record of Albanian and Serbian relations for a moment. 

I could go back five hundred years and amply demonstrate the Serbian betrayal 

37

that left their fellow Christian Albanians (all Christian then) bearing the brunt of 

the Ottoman Turkish occupation for more than 400 years. But I won’t take time to 

explore this somewhat ancient history. Instead, let’s start with March 7, 1937, when 

the rabid ultranationalist Serbian academic and political leader Dr. Vaso Cubrilovic, 

whose evil philosophy and deeds spawned the likes of the satanic Aleksandar 

Rankovic and Slobodan Milosevic, presented his written plan in Belgrade to rid 

Yugoslavia, especially Kosova, of all Albanians. His paper was entitled ‘‘The Expulsion of the Albanians.’’ Here it is, and I ask permission to put only two sections on 

the Record: ‘‘The Mode of Removal’’ and ‘‘The Organization of the Removal.’’ Let me 

just turn to one page, page 7, entitled the ‘‘Mode of Removal,’’ to demonstrate where 

Milosevic and his Serbian Communist compatriots, many of whom are still in Serbia 

and Montenegro today, got their wild ideas to ethnically cleanse Yugoslavia and 

push for a Greater Serbia. Without reading the entire text, let me just list a few 

of the ungodly, terrorist tactics proposed by Dr. Cubrilovic from his podium in Belgrade in 1937:

• We must create a suitable psychosis among the Albanian people to relocate 

a whole population.

• We must use money or threats to win over their clergy and men of influence.

• We must also employ agitators, especially from Turkey, to trick Albanians 

about the benefits of moving to Turkey.

• If this doesn’t work, we must use the state apparatus to coerce Albanians so 

that staying will be intolerable for them, and use the ruthless application of 

all police tactics at our disposal.

• If this doesn’t work, we must distribute weapons to our colonists from Montenegrin clans and Chetniks, not our army, to incite local riots and suppress 

them brutally and bloodily.

• And if none of this works to drive out all of the Albanians, ‘‘there remains 

one more means that Serbia (and Montenegro) employed with great practical 

effect after 1878, that is, by secretly burning down Albanian villages and city 

quarters’’ (something they did again in Kosova in 1999).

Mr. Chairman, it is hard to believe that this plan survives in writing today. We 

had it translated from the original Serbian Cyrillic script fifteen years ago and have 

distributed it widely, especially to the leaders of the Jewish community, which suffered unspeakably at the hands of another dictator we tried to appease, and the 

press after the failed Dayton Accords in 1995, in order to finally get the United 

States and NATO to understand that Milosevic was hell-bent on implementing, finally, the plan of his mentor, Vaso Cubrilovic. Incredibly, the plan preceded Hitler’s 

written plan for the ‘‘final solution’’ of the Jewish people of Europe by two years. 

The Cubrilovic plan survived for fifty more years, and when Milosevic came to 

power in 1987, he immediately set his sights on implementing it in Kosova. His 

ultranationalist and Communist regime initiated massive police action against Albanian civilians in 1987 and 1988, total military occupation and police state repression 

of Kosova from 1989 to 1998 (creating another Warsaw Ghetto in the middle of Europe), and ethnic cleansing and genocide in 1999, for which he and his brutal regime 

are now on trial in The Hague. Because of the hard and effective work of our grassroots lobby, the Albanian American Civic League, and with the help of the Jewish 

community in the United States spearheaded by Congressmen Lantos and Gilman 

here in Washington, our State Department finally pushed NATO to do the right 

thing after ten years of coddling Milosevic—and that was to bomb Serbia into submission as we did with Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler. 

But, Mr. Chairman, let us not forget that until the Rambouillet (France) process 

began in early 1999, in our desperation to avoid another Balkan war, this time in 

Kosova, our then-U.S. Balkan Envoy Richard Holbrooke and the State Department 

were doing everything possible to make Slobodan Milosevic our partner in peace, 

even after he caused three wars, killed 300,000 innocent Bosnians, and was threatening to implement the medieval Serbian dream of a Greater Serbia, connecting all 

Serbian populations in the Balkans into one state. I think, at the least, that this 

showed our poor judgment then and allows us to question any new deals with Serbia and other undemocratic Slavic regimes that could be put in a position, once 

again, to dominate the Albanian people and cause another war, which only U.S. 

troops and money would be able to stop, based on past experience with the Europeans. 

A recent, tragic example of Serbian police and paramilitary brutality happened 

after the NATO conflict in July 1999, when three young Albanian Americans, the 

Bytyqi brothers (whose father, Ahmet Bytyqi, is with us today still looking for justice), were executed and thrown into a mass grave for merely straying across the 

38

Serbian border by accident while helping a few ethnic Roma neighbors to safety. 

They were executed by special police operatives in Serbia just for being Albanian 

and American after serving their court-imposed term in a Serbian jail. This example 

clearly shows the ingrained racism that exists against the Albanian people and the 

animosity towards America for leading the NATO war there. (Let me take this opportunity to once again thank you, Congressman Lantos, for helping us pursue and 

bring to justice the murderers of Agron, Mehmet, and Ylli Bytyqi.) 

Mr. Chairman, you might ask how our State Department could be seduced so 

readily by such brutal Serbian dictators from Rankovic to Milosevic and now, in 

Western garb, tone and style, by Vojislav Kostunica and Nebojsa Covic. For one, 

these ‘‘masters of deceit’’ and their predecessors used the controlled press in Belgrade to their advantage for fifty years, rewriting the history and image of the Albanian people, who were suppressed by the worst forms of totalitarian Communism 

since World War II in Albania and in Belgrade. For another, these new ‘‘masters 

of deceit’’ used monetary rewards for Western diplomats and politicians like Henry 

Kissinger and Lawrence Eagleburger, who worked with them as bankers, served on 

their government-owned corporate boards as paid outside directors and got huge 

consulting fees-still undisclosed as we have recently seen from Mr. Kissinger’s demurral to head a national Presidential Commission once he realized that he would 

have to disclose his finances, which would, many believe, shed light on many past 

conflicts of interest involving government contracts steered to his patrons. Mr. 

Eagleburger, a former U.S. ambassador in Belgrade and partner of Henry Kissinger, 

played a major role in Global Motors, the company that made the Yugo car, served 

on at least one bank Board with Milsoevic, and still became Secretary of State in 

1992 after dodging relentless questioning by Senator Jesse Helms about his past financial dealings with Yugoslavia and Milosevic. No wonder there was a Serbian tilt 

in our State Department policy in the early 1990s,when then Secretary of State 

James Baker declared that we had to keep Yugoslavia together at all costs and that 

‘‘we didn’t have a dog in that fight,’’ giving the green light to Milosevic to continue 

his wars and carry on with the brutal occupation of Kosova. That Serbian tilt 

showed itself again when Richard Holbrooke bowed once more to Milosevic in 1995 

and allowed no Albanian leader to sit at the table at the Dayton Peace Accords, 

even though Albanians represent the third largest ethnic group in the Balkans 

(after Serbs and Croats), giving Milosevic another green light to continue his brutality. The final insult was delivered by Special Balkan Envoy, Ambassador Richard 

Gelbard, when he deliberately called the Albanian citizen army known as the 

Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) a ‘‘terrorist group,’’ when they were merely trying 

to defend their families and property from the marauding Serb paramilitaries (many 

of whom were criminals let out of jail and put in uniform for the occasion) and when 

nowhere was the KLA listed as a terrorist group. This gave Milosevic exactly what 

he wanted and needed to march into Drenica in early 1998 and execute many innocent men, women, and children as terrorists, or for ‘‘hiding or supporting terrorists,’’ 

as we looked the other way. 

So, Mr. Chairman, with this short history of manifest hostile racism by Slavs 

against the Albanian people and our State Department’s exceedingly bad judgment 

favoring the Serbs until it was almost too late, how can anyone expect the Albanian 

people of Kosova, which is comprised of two million people, 95 percent of whom are 

Albanian, to ever deal with Serbia unless it is as a partnership of independent 

states looking to work together for mutual benefit, leading to European integration? 

Mr. Chairman, now that I have presented a gruesome picture of collective antiAlbanian behavior of the Serbian Communist regimes since World War II, let’s talk 

about the Albanian people for a moment. Who are they? And what are they asking 

for today? 

I believe that our deceased colleague, then Senate Foreign Relations Committee 

Chairman Claiborne Pell (whose first assignment as a young U.S. foreign service officer was to Albania in 1939), aptly described the Albanian people at a hearing in 

1990 when he said:

‘‘Albanians have a proud tradition of resisting foreign oppression. Their 

Illyrian ancestors were never fully incorporated into the Roman Empire, and 

the Turkish sultans were not more successful in subjugating the Albanian 

Ghegs and Tosks. In both cases, the nominal rulers of today’s Albanian lands 

preferred to leave well enough alone and to accommodate a good deal of Albanian self-rule in those lands. The Romans and Turks learned a valuable lessondon’t stir up the Albanians; it doesn’t pay. 

‘‘Today, however, the leaders of another multiethnic state have ignored that 

lesson. 

39

The leaders of Yugoslavia—but particularly those of Serbia—have launched 

a brutal campaign of repression against the Albanians in Kosova. Mass arrests 

have taken place, killings and beatings have occurred, and the province’s autonomous status has been revoked. 

‘‘It cannot be in Yugoslavia’s or Serbia’s or U.S. interests to deny in Kosova 

what is being exercised all over Eastern Europe. ...Albanians are a fiercely independent people, and they will resist repression with every ounce of their 

strength. But they need help and encouragement from other free societies, particularly from the United States. I want you to know that I will do what I can 

to support the just cause of the Albanians in Kosova.’’

(Claiborne Pell made this statement thirteen years ago, and yet it is still very much 

on point.) 

And, Mr. Chairman, no statement can substitute for the historical fact that Albanians who share three religions—Catholicism, Islam, and Orthodox Christianity 

have shown great tolerance and understanding for others, especially for the oppressed Jews of the Nazi era, many of whom made it to Albania and Kosova, knowing that they would be protected by Albanian tradition from their Nazi tormentors. 

The great stories of Albanian heroism in the face of death are described in Rescue 

in Albania. Incredibly, every Jew already living in the Albanian lands and every 

Jew fortunate enough to escape to there was saved. These Albanian lands, in and 

around Albania and Kosova, were the only ones in Europe to have more Jews after 

World War II than before the war started. I would like to put on the Record the 

Congressional Foreword to Rescue in Albania by Congressman Lantos and former 

Congressman Ben Gilman, two prominent Jewish Americans, and give a copy of this 

wonderful book to you, Mr. Chairman. 

One final point about the Albanian people—they are America’s best friends in the 

Balkans. When the tragedy of 9/11 occurred, Albanians lit candles, held nightly vigils, displayed supportive posters and cried openly on TV in support of America and 

its 3,000+ victims of terror, while the Slavs of Belgrade and Skopje and their Orthodox brothers and sisters in Greece and Russia danced with joy in the streets over 

our tragic loss for all to see. Albanian soldiers in the KLA fought on the ground 

in Kosova during the NATO war and guided our pilots to their targets so that not 

one U.S. soldier or airman was killed during the NATO bombing of Serbia. (Many 

of them were Albanian Americans who joined the Atlantic Brigade to go to Kosova 

to save their families and neighbors, and are with us today.) And Albanian Americans proudly served our country during the recent Iraqi War, where one Albanian 

American in a recent interview said that he volunteered to go fight in Iraq because 

of what America did for Albanians in Kosova. Albania even sent a contingent of one 

hundred special forces to actively support our armed forces in Iraq. 

Mr. Chairman, it is time for our State Department to realize who our friends are 

and to join them in building an independent state now so that Kosova can attract 

investment, secure loans, and employ its people. There are so many young people 

in Kosova (Kosova has the youngest population in Europe) and more than sixty percent of them are unemployed. Kosova needs its independence so that it can create 

jobs and build capital, as Kosovars have done so convincingly in America and in 

Western Europe in the last two decades. 

So, Mr. Chairman, as to what the Albanian people of Kosova want. That’s easy! 

It is complete freedom from those who have sought to exterminate them, expel 

them, and who until today, almost three years after the brutal Serbian war in 

Kosova which killed 10,000 innocent Albanians and maimed, raped, and tortured 

tens of thousands more, have not apologized for the horrible crimes that are being 

disclosed at the Milosevic trial in The Hague as we speak. Complete freedom for 

the Albanians of Kosova means independence from Serbia. Albanians have earned 

it with their blood, their friendship and loyalty to us, and their love of western 

democratic values. They have gone through three democratic and peaceful elections 

since the NATO war ended in 1999, have established a coalition government under 

UN authority and, in general, have shown their ability to live and work with others. 

The lack of final status is even preventing small, but important, things necessary 

to create a civil society. As you know, Mr. Chairman, an official Rotary Chapter in 

Gjakova, Kosova, was not authorized, even after you wrote a compelling letter because the district Governor of Rotary in Athens felt that Belgrade still had standing 

in this and they ruled against a Rotary chapter in Kosova so as not to offend Belgrade. What an insult this is to the Albanian people in Gjakova who are continuing 

to act as a Rotary club, helping their needy neighbors, but without an official charter or recognition. 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, Albanians need investment, loans, and the freedom 

to engage in civic activities that will only come from final status as an independent 

40

state. Jobs will then be created from the resulting investment and international 

loans to fuel the incredible work ethnic of the Albanian people. Our choice is to develop a productive European partner in Kosova through investment and self-sufficiency, or to let Serbia, still an undemocratic state, whose reformist Prime Minister 

was recently assassinated, once again have its way. Choosing the latter will most 

surely lead, in my opinion, to another Balkan conflict, which clearly is not in the 

national interests of the United States. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. DioGuardi. If you don’t mind, 

we will have the other panels and then when we are all finished, 

we will take questions so we can expedite the matter. 

The next panel begins with Dr. Daniel Serwer. He is the Director 

of the Balkans Institute and Director of Peace Operations at the 

U.S. Institute of Peace. He has worked extensively on democratization in Serbia and has been deeply engaged in facilitating dialog 

between Kosovo Serbs and Albanians. Before working for the U.S. 

Institute of Peace, he served a number of years in the State Department. From 1994 to 1996, he served as U.S. Special Envoy and 

Coordinator for the Bosnian Federation mediating between Croats 

and Bosnians and negotiating the first agreement reached at the 

Dayton peace talks. 

Mr. Jim O’Brien is a Principal of the Albright Group. He was 

Special Presidential Envoy for the Balkans in the Clinton Administration and was previously Principal Deputy Director of the State 

Department’s Office of Policy Planning. He participated in numerous high profile international negotiations, including leading roles 

in shaping the Dayton agreement for peace in Bosnia and in attempting to avert war in Kosovo. 

Ms. Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi is the Balkan’s Affairs Advisor to 

Albanian American Civic League. She is the author of numerous 

articles on the Balkan conflict. Has made 19 trips to the region 

since 1995. She has testified before this Committee on two previous 

occasions, in 1996 regarding the State of Albania and in 1998 expressing support for United States troop deployment to Kosovo. 

Ambassador William Walker was a career Foreign Service Officer 

with the Department of State for 39 years. He completed a distinguished career serving as head of OSCE Kosovo verification mission, the first international presence placed between Milosevic’s security forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army. Prior to this appointment in 1998, he served as the Secretary General’s Special 

Representative and Head of Mission of the United Nations transitional administration in Eastern Slovenia, Croatia. Ambassador 

Walker retired in January, 2001 and presently is the honorary 

board member of the National Albanian American Council. 

Mr. Martin Vulaj is the Executive Director of the National Albanian American Council. He was born in Montenegro and migrated 

to the United States with his family in 1971. He joined the National Albanian American Council in 1998 and has held positions 

as Secretary and Vice-Chairman of the organization. He is a lawyer 

by profession and practiced law in New York until August, 2002 

when he assumed the Executive Directorship of the NAAC. 

So we will start from this side, Mr. Serwer, and I would ask you 

folks, if you can, to try to limit your main statement to 5 minutes 

give or take. We won’t have a heavy hand. And your full statements will be made a part of the record by unanimous consent. 

41

And then we will question you and we will get Mr. DioGuardi back 

at the table. Thank you. 

Mr. Serwer. 

STATEMENT OF DANIEL SERWER, DIRECTOR, BALKANS 

INITIATIVE, U.S. INSTITUTE OF PEACE 

Mr. SERWER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I am delighted to be 

here. USIP has expended a good deal of energy on the question of 

Kosovo in the last year-and-a-half. And I would like to submit for 

the record not only my written testimony, but also three reports 

that we have prepared on that subject. 

Chairman HYDE. Without objection. 

Mr. SERWER. My personal bottom lines on Kosovo final status are 

these. First there is no alternative to a negotiated solution. Belgrade and Prishtina are going to have to agree because it is only 

by their agreeing that U.N. Security Council will be able to agree 

to pass a new resolution that will replace 1244. Second, a negotiated solution is going to be complicated. I don’t think anyone’s 

maximum demands will be met. Third, a negotiated solution is 

going to require careful preparation. Talks on practical issues are 

part of that preparation. Consultations between the U.S. and the 

EU are as well. Fourth, final status talks should be sponsored by 

the U.S. and EU jointly no later than 2005. And fifth, the United 

States is an indispensable partner in the process of deciding 

Kosovo final status and should spark the beginning of preparations 

by nominating an American as head of the U.N. Mission in Kosovo 

starting this summer. 

Let me comment briefly on a few of these points. The opening positions in the negotiations are going to be incompatible. Belgrade 

is going to seek sovereignty, Prishtina independence. But underlying these opening positions are more complicated interests. Belgrade seems to have decided that it doesn’t want to govern the Albanians but does want protection for Serbs and maybe some governing authority over them. Prishtina needs to figure out how the 

independent Kosovo that the Albanians want would ensure its own 

security with Serbia as its largest neighbor and trading partner. 

So the results will be complicated, with all sorts of cross border 

arrangements made in advance not only between Kosovo and Serbia, but between Kosovo and Albania, and between Kosovo and 

Macedonia. They are going to have to resolve human and property 

rights questions, debt and compensation issues. There may be a 

need for a residual international presence in the courts of Kosovo 

and on the borders. 

Preparation should begin now. It is going to take at least a year, 

I would say, maybe a bit longer. But in a year’s time and certainly 

by the beginning of 2005, the U.S. and EU should be in a position 

to sponsor final status negotiations. This sponsorship would follow 

the successful pattern that was used to reach a peace agreement 

in Macedonia in the summer of 2001. 

By 2005, Belgrade will have a new constitution, new parliament, 

and a new President. And Prishtina will have a new assembly and 

a new President. So it seems to me at that point the timing will 

be right. Though some people in the Administration would want to 

42

put off this process indefinitely or even transfer the burden to Europe, that can’t be done. 

The United States has an indispensable role because of its role 

in the Yugoslavian war, because of its relationship with both Serbs 

and Albanians. Europe lacks the credibility and unity to carry this 

process forward. The Europeans are waiting for a signal that the 

United States is ready to do it. 

We can send that signal by putting forward a United States candidate to lead the U.N. Mission in Kosovo. It is an anomaly that 

the Europeans have had the top jobs there for the last 4 years. The 

right American could convince Albanians to treat Serbs and other 

minorities correctly. The United States also needs to be involved in 

order to protect Macedonia and Bosnia. There should be no compensation in those two countries for anything people feel they lost 

in the negotiations over Kosovo. Once decided, we can consider 

what to do about further draw-down of our troops. 

I would like to make some specific recommendations. The State 

Department should consult with Europe and outline a negotiating 

process by the fall. It should also put forward a United States candidate to head the U.N. Mission in Kosovo. Prishtina needs to 

begin its preparations by forming a coordinating center for dealing 

with Belgrade and ending hostility toward the Serbs. Belgrade 

needs to end hostility toward the U.N. and improve Serb involvement in the Kosovo assembly and end the division of Kosovo. And 

the U.N. should revive talks on practical issues by this summer. 

I would like to add a word about the role of the U.S. Congress. 

The signals you send are heard loudly but not clearly in the region. 

I think it would have been useful to have a Serb perspective at this 

hearing, otherwise the Congress, or at least some of its Members 

may be misunderstood. And I think the Congress should clarify 

that status—Kosovo final status will not be decided on Capitol Hill, 

but by Belgrade and Prishtina, who need to accept their responsibilities to move toward Europe. 

Mr. Chairman, some would say that Serbs and Albanians can’t 

even talk with each other, much less negotiate, even with U.S. and 

EU support. My experience is different. The multi-ethnic group we 

trained 3 years in Kosovo has now formed a professional organization that is very active there in promoting multi ethnic activities. 

We have had 130 young Serbs and Albanians working together 

over the last year and a half in joint efforts: In getting out the vote, 

anticrime efforts and breaking the isolation of Serb enclaves. These 

young people, not their belligerent elders, are the future of Kosovo 

and the region. They merit our support and encouragement. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Serwer. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Serwer follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DANIEL SERWER, DIRECTOR, BALKANS INITIATIVE, U.S. 

INSTITUTE OF PEACE

*The views expressed here are those of the author, not the US Institute of Peace, 

which does not take positions on policy issues.

It is a pleasure for me to testify today on the future of Kosovo, a topic that the 

United States Institute of Peace has focused on a good deal for more than a year. 

In addition to my written testimony, I would like to submit for the record three 

USIP reports on the subject: Kosovo Final Status: Options and Cross-Border ArVerDate Mar 21 2002 14:27 Sep 04, 2003 Jkt 087088 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\FULL\052103\87200 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
43

rangements, Simulating Kosovo, and Kosovo Decision Time. These papers are based 

on extensive activities at USIP with a wide range of participants. I am pleased that 

Janet Bogue, Joe Dioguardi, Jim O’Brien, Martin Vulaj and Shirley Cloyes, who are 

appearing here today, have all been participants in USIP discussions, though our 

views on Kosovo are diverse. 

My personal bottom lines on Kosovo final status are these:

• There is no alternative to a negotiated solution, one to which the authorities 

in both Belgrade and Pristina agree prior to UN Security Council approval.

• A negotiated solution will not correspond to the maximum demands of either 

Belgrade or Pristina and will include complicated conditions on both parties.

• Negotiations on final status require preparation, including talks on practical 

issues between Pristina and Belgrade and consultations between Europe and 

the US.

• Talks on final status should start under joint EU and US sponsorship by 

2005, with a goal of completing them within two years.

• The United States is an indispensable participant in the decision on Kosovo 

final status and needs to begin preparing for its role now.

I would like to discuss each of these points briefly. 

A NEGOTIATED SOLUTION

The day has clearly passed when either Serbs or Albanians could hope to force 

a solution in Kosovo by military means. Neither the increasingly democratic regime 

in Belgrade nor the UN-founded Provisional Institutions of Self-Governance in 

Pristina would want to endanger their own futures by threatening or using force. 

The NATO troops on the ground ensure continuing self-restraint and counter extremist activities. NATO will not be able to leave until Kosovo’s final status is decided. 

This can only be done with a new Security Council resolution, one that replaces 

Resolution 1244, which ended the NATO/Yugoslavia war in June 1999. For a new 

Security Council resolution to pass, Russia and China will at least have to abstain. 

Both of these permanent members have their own reasons not to want a province 

of Serbia to gain independence: it could be viewed as a precedent for Chechnya or 

Tibet. Only if Belgrade agrees will Russia and China allow a new Security Council 

resolution to pass. Only if Pristina agrees will the United States allow it. 

NO ONE WILL BE COMPLETELY SATISFIED

Thus Belgrade and Pristina each holds a key to the future status of Kosovo. Their 

initial negotiating positions will be incompatible: Belgrade will claim sovereignty 

and Pristina will want independence. 

Underlying these opening positions will be a more complicated set of interests. 

Belgrade shows no signs of wanting to govern the Kosovo Albanian population but 

does clearly want protection for the Serb population and monuments in Kosovo as 

well as some degree of governing authority over the Serbs living there. Pristina 

needs to figure out how the independent Kosovo it wants would ensure its own security with Serbia as its nearest and most powerful neighbor as well as its most important trading partner. 

A solution to Kosovo final status needs to be constructed on the basis of these underlying interests. I do not know what that solution will be, but it will not be simple. There will need to be cross-border arrangements made in advance of any final 

status decision to fix the relationships not only between Serbia and Kosovo but also 

between Kosovo and Albania and between Kosovo and Macedonia. The human and 

property rights of Serbs and other minorities will need to be guaranteed and debt 

and compensation issues resolved. A residual international presence may be required, especially in the court system and possibly along Kosovo’s borders. 

CAREFUL PREPARATION SHOULD BEGIN NOW

Complicated arrangements of this sort require careful preparation. Immediate 

talks on Kosovo final status are not in my view possible or desirable. First all the 

main parties concerned need at least a year of hard work. For Pristina and Belgrade, the hard work needs to be accomplished in talks on practical issues hosted 

by the UN. While their postponement after Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic’s assassination was entirely understandable, these confidence-building talks should begin 

by this summer. 

Belgrade seems largely ready. The Serbs will come to the talks politically unified 

and technically prepared. Belgrade has been resolving difficult issues in the Presevo 

44

area of southern Serbia, where Albanians are a large percentage of the population, 

but it has not established constructive relations with the UN Mission in Kosovo. 

Specific problems include failure of the Serbs to participate consistently in the 

Kosovo Assembly and continuing Serb control in the north. 

The bigger problem at the moment is lack of Albanian preparation. Pristina still 

suffers from sharp divisions among the main Albanian political parties. It remains 

dangerous for a politician to meet with Serbs. Moreover, the Kosovo Albanians have 

done little technical preparation for talks with Belgrade, and the mistreatment of 

Serbs in Kosovo will put the Albanians at a serious negotiating disadvantage. The 

international community needs to help Pristina get ready—USIP intends to be active in offering negotiation training and other assistance. 

The international community also needs to prepare itself. While the UN may be 

ready for talks on practical issues, the US and the EU continue to try to put off 

all discussion of Kosovo final status. This is a mistake, one that encourages the Albanians to think they need do nothing to prepare. The US and the EU should decide 

their own positions, talk with each other about how their interests can be protected, 

and design a negotiating process that will lead to an acceptable decision. 

THE US AND EU SHOULD SPONSOR FINAL STATUS NEGOTIATIONS BY 2005

I will leave it to government officials to design the process in detail, but it seems 

to me that the US and EU should jointly sponsor Kosovo final status negotiations, 

following the successful pattern that led to the Ohrid framework agreement in Macedonia in the summer of 2001. While the Special Representative of the Secretary 

General who leads the UN effort in Kosovo—today Michael Steiner—can and should 

sponsor talks on practical issues between Belgrade and Pristina, he should not be 

alone in sponsoring final status talks. The US and the EU must be involved. Kosovo 

will eventually find its way into the EU, which will therefore need to be satisfied 

with the outcome. The US, having gone to war over Kosovo, will likewise need to 

be satisfied, especially as the precedent set there may find application elsewhere. 

While there has been some slippage due to Djindjic’s assassination, there are good 

reasons to begin final status negotiations by 2005. Belgrade by then should have 

a new Serbian constitution, a new president and a new parliament. Pristina will 

likewise have elected a new Assembly and President. It will then be important to 

show progress on final status in order to avoid unrest and open the road to Europe. 

No moratorium on discussing final status, as proposed recently in Pristina, can last 

past 2005. 

THE US IS INDISPENSABLE

With all the issues the US confronts today, some would argue that Kosovo final 

status should be put off indefinitely, or the burden transferred to Europe. Neither 

proposition is viable. Because of its role in the NATO/Yugoslavia war and its relationship with both Serbs and Albanians, the United States is a vital participant in 

any decision on Kosovo final status. Europe lacks the credibility and unity to handle 

Kosovo on its own. My European friends do not disagree with this assessment—to 

the contrary, they are awaiting a signal that the US is ready to engage. 

This signal could come with appointment of the next head of the UN Mission in 

Kosovo, a job held since 1999 by a European. If the US is serious about getting 

Kosovo ready for final status negotiations, it should put forward a US candidate to 

head the mission starting this summer. It is an anomaly that Europeans have held 

the top jobs in both the military and civilian operations in Kosovo. The right American chief of mission would be able to do what the Europeans have not done: convince the Kosovar Albanians that the only way to final status is by correct treatment of Serbs and other minorities. 

The Americans are also needed to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity 

of Bosnia and Macedonia from the consequences of a decision on Kosovo final status. 

We should allow no compensation in other countries for anything ‘‘lost’’ in Kosovo 

final status negotiations. 

There is a silver lining for those who want US resources redeployed to regions 

where US national security is more directly at risk. With a solution for Kosovo will 

come an opportunity to draw down US troops and leave Balkans military tasks to 

Europe. 

CONCLUSIONS

To those with responsibility for Kosovo, I would offer four suggestions:

45

• The State Department should begin consulting with Europe on Kosovo final 

status, with a view to outlining by the fall a process that the EU and US will 

lead.

• Pristina should prepare for final status talks, forming a coordinating center 

to deal with Belgrade and ending hostility towards Serbs and other minorities.

• Belgrade should end its hostility to the UN authorities in Kosovo and establish constructive relations, including in northern Kosovo and in the Kosovo 

Assembly.

• The UN should revive its proposal for talks on practical issues, with a view 

to opening them this summer.

Let me offer a word on the role of the US Congress. The signals you send—by 

holding this hearing or by introducing H. Res. 11 and H. Res. 28—are heard loudly, 

but not always clearly, in Belgrade and Pristina. It would have been useful to have 

a Serb perspective at this hearing, because otherwise the intent of Congress—or at 

least of some members—may be misunderstood. I would urge you to clarify that 

Kosovo final status will not be decided on Capitol Hill but rather by the authorities 

in Pristina and Belgrade, who need to accept their responsibility to negotiate a solution that will enable both Albanians and Serbs to look forward to a much better future within Europe. 

Some will say I am unrealistic, that Albanians and Serbs cannot even talk with 

one other, much less negotiate their own future, even with US and EU support. My 

experience says they can. I recently heard from a multiethnic group we trained in 

Kosovo three years ago at the request of the US Army—they have founded a professional organization and initiated an impressive range of multiethnic activities. USIP 

has conducted for more than a year and a half, with State Department support, dialogues among more than 100 young Serb and Kosovo Albanian political and civil society leaders. In addition to gaining better mutual understanding, they have embarked on joint efforts to encourage voting, counter organized crime and break the 

isolation of Serb enclaves in Kosovo. These young people—not the belligerent voices 

of their elders—are the future of Kosovo and the region. They merit our support and 

encouragement as we move ahead.

Chairman HYDE. Mr. O’Brien. 

STATEMENT OF JAMES O’BRIEN, THE ALBRIGHT GROUP, 

FORMER SPECIAL PRESIDENTIAL ENVOY FOR THE BALKANS 

AND SENIOR ADVISOR TO SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT 

Mr. O’BRIEN. Thank you Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lantos and the 

Committee for inviting me here and calling this hearing. I would 

like to extend my thanks to all of you for your work on the HIV, 

AIDS bill that will soon be signed into law. I think it is a great 

accomplishment, and I am proud to see America taking leadership 

on this important issue. I spent much of the summer of 1998 in 

Kosovo working to avert a war. My car would often have to pull 

to the side of the road as the Serb military sent more troops and 

paramilitary units throughout Kosovo. 

We weren’t able to stop that war, but we were able to see that 

the people of Kosovo were able to return to their homes in safety, 

to live under a government that they control and today they remain staunch friends of the United States and Milosevic is where 

he belongs, in prison in the Hague. 

Now I want to offer some perspective from 1999 of what we 

thought we were doing and how. In 1999, the core of our policy was 

we were trying to promote America’s security, prosperity and values. By having NATO forces throughout the Balkans, we prevented 

the region from becoming a staging ground for terrorists and organized criminals who could affect our allies. But that by itself wasn’t 

enough, and so we sought to take a few additional steps. First we 

46

wanted the people of Kosovo to be able to return home in safety 

and with basic human rights protected. A million Albanians from 

Kosovo were able to return home because of our intervention. 

Secondly, we wanted to have Kosovars develop democratic selfgovernment. Since that time, there have been a series of successful 

elections. The Kosovo government this year will get increasing control of governmental powers and by the end of the year, three quarters of the budget in Kosovo will be under the control of democratically elected officials. The institutions are becoming more and 

more effective. 

Also, we wanted to make sure that the people of Kosovo had confidence that the gains they had made would not be taken away 

when U.S. Administrations changed. They need the confidence to 

know that America will stand by them. One of the ways we did 

that was by securing agreement by the European Union that this 

region would have a future as a part of Europe, that it would no 

longer be considered a hinterland on the margins of Europe. 

We also locked in Security Council Resolution 1244, the guarantee that the people of Kosovo would have democratic self-government and that there would be a process that would lead to resolving a final status—a process that couldn’t take away those core 

guarantees. That by itself set an important ratchet up from where 

the process was when this Congress began considering this issue 

in the late 1980s. 

What is happening today, I think today people are asking the 

question of Kosovo that they ask of any other state when it comes 

time for it to consider its independence, a question of not only of 

the technical legal issues of its ability to govern itself, but also how 

sustainable and stable is its independence in its region. 

To be honest, Mr. Chairman, the negotiations on Kosovo’s final 

status have already begun. All sides are indicating that they are 

unhappy with the current situation. They are all staking maximalist positions for the start of negotiations. And they are all hoping to prod the other interested parties into making some early 

concessions as a premium for rapid action on the issue. 

Now in this negotiating environment, the international community has actually done a smart thing. It has realized that it gains 

leverage from the timing of when we formally discuss the issue of 

Kosovo’s final status. What Michael Steiner, who is a very talented 

diplomat, has done, is say I want to use that leverage. I want to 

see improvements on the ground in Kosovo before I am going to formally put this issue on the table. That is his leverage. We can debate whether that leverage is effective or whether it belongs there, 

but certainly it is the tool that he has got. And I think an issue 

for the Committee is whether to pursue right now with essentially 

removing that leverage by deciding that there is a deadline by 

which an issue is going to be decided or there is a particular result 

we want. 

A major mistake we in the international community made 

through the 1990s was that we handicapped ourselves. We set 

deadlines or standards, then changed them as reward to those who 

were just trying to wait us out. And I think it is something we 

should not be doing to ourselves now. A particularly important 

issue in all this is that there be improvement in the treatment of 

47

the non-Albanian population of Kosovo. I think the crimes against 

the Serbs, the inability of the Roma, the Egyptians, the Turks, others to return home are a real stain on what is otherwise a tremendous record of the people of Kosovo. That is an area where I would 

like to see improvement over the next year. 

So this negotiation that we are discussing has already begun. We 

will see negotiation intensify as the institutions of Kosovo take on 

more responsibility over the next months. How do we get ready for 

the next stage? And here, Mr. Chairman, I think the important 

points are to lay out a few procedural steps forward. The first thing 

is the people of Kosovo, all the people of Kosovo need to know that 

it is their voice that will matter as they go forward, that their decisions won’t be vetoed by some decision made at a great remove 

from them. 

I urge the Committee, as Dan Serwer did, to be sure to hear from 

all the peoples of Kosovo, from every group as you go forward. I 

think it is also important to speak with the people of Serbia and 

Montenegro and the government there. If they see the final status 

of Kosovo decided by a process in which multiple voices are heard 

and in which there has been progress on the ground, then the issue 

of Kosovo’s status will be a sustainable one, not one seen as a defeat for the people who pursue reform in Serbia. 

Mr. Chairman, I will close with this point. The human drive for 

freedom, for the ability to declare one’s own government, is something that doesn’t yield nicely to diplomatic talk about leverage, 

perspective or balance in the region. There is a basic demand for 

human dignity by all the people who want to live in Kosovo today. 

What we are seeing in the next month are the opening stages of 

a delicate negotiation that will see that we are able to have this 

drive for freedom and a drive for dignity coexist in a region that 

has been hostile to one or the other for too long. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Ms. DioGuardi. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. O’Brien follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES O’BRIEN, THE ALBRIGHT GROUP, FORMER SPECIAL

PRESIDENTIAL ENVOY FOR THE BALKANS AND SENIOR ADVISOR TO SECRETARY OF

STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT

Mr. Chairman, Representative Lantos, thank you very much for the opportunity 

to testify today concerning Kosovo. 

I understand that others on the panel are focusing their remarks on the situation 

in Kosovo and the region today. My purpose is to offer perspective from the standpoint of one who participated in the making of US policy when the UN Security 

Council adopted Resolution 1244 in 1999. 

At the time of the war over Kosovo I was a career civil servant and the Principal 

Deputy in the Office of Policy Planning at the State Department. I participated in 

shuttle diplomacy concerning Kosovo throughout 1998 and 1999. I was in the chateau at Rambouillet, where Kosovo’s Albanians for the first time were given the opportunity to represent themselves in a negotiation about their future. I was one of 

the last American officials to leave Belgrade after a final round of peace talks failed 

in March 1999. 

We sought to promote America’s security, prosperity, and values. To do that, we 

believed—as every Administration since 1945 believed—that a Europe whole and 

free provided the best security, the best multiplier for our efforts, and the best promoter of our values. 

UN Security Council Resolution 1244, adopted at the end of the war in Kosovo, 

was an important milestone on the journey to a Europe whole and free. NATO 

forces helped ensure the safety of our allies and Europe from a vacuum that could 

48

have become a terrorist base in Europe. But we set broader goals for Kosovo as well, 

to lock in the gains. What were those goals ? 

First, of course, we sought to ensure basic human rights for all. Negotiations to 

achieve that goal failed, so we ended Milosevic’s oppression militarily. The war over 

Kosovo happened because Slobodan Milosevic chose atrocities rather than democracy. He prepared and launched a major campaign of ethnic cleansing in March 

1999 rather than peacefully answer the legitimate grievances of the Kosovo Albanians. 

Throughout Milosevic’s ascendancy the people of Kosovo, especially the majority 

Albanian population, showed courage and tenacity. In the decade of Milosevic’s oppression, they had built their own parallel government. They expressed themselves 

in elections they organized themselves, and they repeatedly spoke of their desire for 

democracy. This is a testament to their perseverance, bravery, and commitment to 

values shared with the United States. 

The war in 1999 demonstrated America’s power, both in terms of our military and 

our values. For the first time a war was won from the air alone. Almost one million 

Kosovar Albanians returned home. Milosevic’s security forces withdrew. 

Second, we sought democratic self-government for all the people of Kosovo. From 

the start of the shuttle diplomacy in the summer of 1998, American policy pursued 

an overriding aim: the people of Kosovo must be able to govern themselves in peace 

and in a democratic manner that respected the rights of each person who wished 

to live in Kosovo. 

Third, we hoped to lay the foundations for regional stability by establishing a future for the region in Europe. In Kosovo, Resolution 1244 offered peace, self-government, and stability to a region long torn by the crash of empires, domination, and 

political oppression. By the summer of 1999, the European Union had acknowledged 

that Balkans had a future in Europe. 

This was an historic moment, the scale of which may not be measured accurately 

until we have more distance. Until then, too often European statesmen treated the 

Balkans as an area on the periphery of Europe, as hinterlands just remote enough 

to be romantic but too distant to be neighbors. Seen that way, the Balkans could 

become a source of crime, even terrorism for all of Europe. 

Today, however, the entire region is on a path that can lead it to membership 

in the EU and NATO, the institutions that define post-World War II Europe. This 

has unleashed European resources and leadership on a scale unimaginable when we 

negotiated the Dayton Agreement on Bosnia in 1995. Our European allies accounted 

for more than 80% of the military and civilian contributions in Kosovo. 

We continued our work throughout the region. In 2000, democratic governments 

took office in Zagreb and Belgrade, ending regimes that threatened security 

throughout the region. 

Fourth, we sought to give confidence to the Kosovo Albanians that the gains of 

1999 could not be taken away from them. The people of Kosovo have deep historical 

experience of promises made and broken, of new issues seizing international attention, and of changes in governments elsewhere affecting their fate. 

We did this with a UN Security Council Resolution. Resolution 1244 was personally crafted by foreign ministers, and the NATO-led military structure in Kosovo 

was assembled by defense ministers. These understandings are reflected in decisions of the UN Security Council. 

This has been especially important in Kosovo. Since September 2001, America’s 

attention has properly turned to direct threats against us. But the people of Kosovo 

know that the institutions and standards applied to them derive from an agreement 

among all interested countries and leaders. The standards applied in Kosovo have 

not changed as Administrations change or as new issues rose to the fore. 

Resolution 1244 was not, however, intended to be the final word on Kosovo. It requires that the people of Kosovo assume control of their own government. It calls 

for further consideration of Kosovo’s status. 

The goal of encouraging democratic self-government in Kosovo is being met. 

Kosovo has had a series of successful, peaceful elections. It has democratic governments at the local and Kosovo-wide levels that are taking on more and more responsibilities of government. 2003 will be critical in this process. Kosovo has a large and 

ever more effective policy force that, for example, solves more than two-thirds of all 

murders. 

But we have to acknowledge that the work in Kosovo is not done. Economic 

growth is slow. Cross-border, organized crime threatens all institutions. Kosovo’s political parties seem stuck and have not developed a competition of ideas and policies. 

This creates a politic that is diverse but too often it is the thin whistling of slogans 

and posturing rather than substantive debate. 

49

Above all, Kosovo under Resolution 1244 has failed to deliver the basic goal of 

safety for all people who want to live in Kosovo. Kosovo’s Serbs in particular are 

subjected to cantonment, harassment, and violence. The murder of a Serb teacher 

by the so-called Albanian National Army is a disgrace and insults all who hold civilized standards. It is, sadly, only one of too many examples. 

It is increasingly difficult to see that the question of Kosovo’s status can remain 

unsettled. Kosovo Albanians, on the streets and among the leaders, favor independence almost to a person. Belgrade’s political leaders argue that Kosovo has become 

a handy tool to whip up support for Serbian nationalists. Reformers in Belgrade 

argue that they cannot deliver reforms at home—while meeting strict international 

scrutiny on human rights—when the international community cannot provide basic 

human rights in Kosovo. Many are also aware that Kosovo is an economic burden. 

But it is equally hard to see that Kosovo’s status can be resolved well now. The 

options today are poor. A return to the past would inflame popular opinion and is 

simply inconceivable. Some urge a simple, quick severing of ties—independence for 

Kosovo, independence for Serbia. Today in Belgrade this would be seen as a defeat 

that would weaken Serbian leaders who have supported reform. 

Others urge a grand bargain, but today this would leave those who make the deal 

open to charges of coercion or bribery. And some, following Milosevic, urge partition 

in Kosovo—but Kosovo would bleed at the torn edge. 

We need, Mr. Chairman, to create a wider set of options and greater comfort 

among those who will live with the consequence of this decision. That process is underway, and it should not be tied to specific deadlines; nor can the precise outcome 

or process be decided now. There is real work to be done in the region, and it will 

require hard choices by political leaders willing, in many cases, to deliver tough 

messages to their own constituencies. The international community will have a crucial role to play in clarifying which issues must be addressed—in the case of Kosovo, 

especially the ability of Serbs to live there safely and freely—and in supporting leaders willing to make hard choices. 

What we know about processes like these is that deadlines or premature decisions 

strip the international community of leverage. When the international community 

sets a time it is leaving or defines the outcome it will accept, hardliners on all sides 

prop the exit door open and wait to usher us out. Constructive voices are drowned 

out and driven from the debate. 

What can happen now are talks that will shape the decisions on status. Michael 

Steiner, the talented German diplomat who serves at the head of the UN Mission 

has called for talks between Pristina and Belgrade this year on issues other than 

status. These practical issues, of travel, governmental cooperation, and other issues, 

will shape the agenda for status discussions. 

Also, there must be discussions among all those with an interest in Kosovo. First 

and foremost, the people of Kosovo themselves of course must be able to speak. 

There should be an assurance that their voice will not be vetoed by decisions elsewhere, but there cannot be a guarantee that only one voice will be heard. The dialogue must include all the people who want to live in Kosovo, and I hope the Committee, as it considers this issue, will hear from representatives of all communities 

in Kosovo, including Serbs, Roma, Turks, Egyptians, and others. 

The people of Serbia and Montenegro will ask for the opportunity to speak about 

a territory that the Security Council has said is part of their country. The governments of Kosovo’s neighbors need to participate in a process. The non-status discussions encouraged by the UN Mission are a good start in those discussions. If the 

citizens of Serbia and Montenegro feel that an agreement is achieved through talks 

and negotiations—not outside pressure—that may help lay the ground for popular 

acceptance of a solution. This, in turn, will be a sharp departure with the past. 

Perhaps more importantly, the European Union will have an ever louder voice 

about governing arrangements throughout the Balkans. The future of the Balkans 

hinges on its becoming a part of Europe’s economic network. As the EU looks at 

the Balkans, some competencies will be sent to the local governments, others raised 

to regional or European jurisdictions. Europe’s own internal governing arrangements are evolving, and Europe’s voice will change over time. 

At Rambouillet, the Kosovo Albanians acknowledged the complexities of the process by which Kosovo’s future would be decided. They demanded that the ‘‘will of the 

people’’ be considered but agreed that it would not be the sole factor. In other words, 

they wanted a referendum but agreed that the referendum would be only one factor 

in an international process that be shaped over several years. 

This provision of Rambouillet, referred to in paragraph 11(e) of Resolution 1244, 

does not give the answer. It does, however, lay out the range of elements that need 

to be part of any answer. We are entering a period in which the international community and the people of Kosovo can shape the process that will decide Kosovo’s 

50

final status. It is important that those responsible for it use the non-status discussions to build confidence between the parties and open space in which Kosovo’s status can be resolved. 

Mr. Chairman, the human drive for freedom, fueled by fear for security, is too 

strong to be denied by abstractions and too important to be put off by diplomatic 

appeals to security, balance, and perspective. Our respect for human dignity also 

compels the international community to remain engaged in Kosovo so that everyone 

who wants to live there will be able to live in a democracy that respects their rights. 

Four years ago the international community made a promise, in the form of Security Council Resolution 1244, that the people of Kosovo would be able to govern 

themselves in safety and with respect for all their rights. The people of Kosovo who 

want more have the security of knowing that the ratchet will not turn back, that 

they will not lose those basic rights. But the international community has not yet 

kept its promise. Some who want to live in Kosovo cannot do so safely, and the region is starting an historic journey toward Europe. The international community 

must stay engaged, with every tool it has, to encourage the right result.

STATEMENT OF SHIRLEY CLOYES DIOGUARDI, BALKAN 

AFFAIRS ADVISER, ALBANIAN AMERICAN CIVIC LEAGUE 

Ms. CLOYES DIOGUARDI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to 

thank Chairman Hyde and Congressman Lantos for your leadership in calling this hearing and both of you for introducing H. Res. 

28. I address this body today with the same convictions I had 10 

years ago when I decided to devote myself to helping to resolve the 

Balkan conflict; namely that the United States shares a moral imperative with the world after the Nazi Holocaust to prevent the resurgence of fascism and ultranationalism in the heart of Europe, 

and that it is in the vital interest of the United States to further 

peace and democracy in the context of a united Europe. 

My position and the position of the Albanian American Civic 

League is that there will be no lasting peace and stability in the 

Balkans until the Albanian dimension of the conflict is resolved, 

and that begins, first and foremost, with recognizing the independence of Kosova. Until that happens, I believe that we are going to 

continue to recycle the failed foreign policy of the past—risking renewed conflict in the region at a time when we can least afford to 

face it—with a full blown crisis in the Middle East, the turmoil in 

Iraq and Afghanistan, etcetera. 

My point of departure for evaluating United States foreign policy 

in the Balkans is its impact on the reality that Albanians have 

faced for 125 years, and that reality is arrest, torture, imprisonment, occupation, ethnic cleansing, forced expulsion and genocide. 

This is the reality that has been repeatedly obscured and concealed 

first when the Great Powers carved up Albanian lands after the 

Balkan wars in 1913, then through 4 decades of communism, finally leading to the rise of Slobodan Milosevic, who, we all know, 

rose to power on the backs of Albanians and Bosnians through racism. When all is said and done, the United States and Europe 

stood and sat by and watched while Milosevic occupied Kosova and 

waged 4 years of aggression in the Balkans and committed genocide, slaughtering more than 300,000 people, displacing 4 million. 

And I believe the United States never intended to intervene in 

Kosova. It was finally forced to, in one year when the Kosova Liberation Army rose up to defend the innocent citizens of Kosova and 

our own diplomatic maneuverings failed. Once the Clinton Administration decided to lead NATO against the Serbian military and 

paramilitary death squads, we proclaimed the doctrine of humaniVerDate Mar 21 2002 14:27 Sep 04, 2003 Jkt 087088 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\052103\87200 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
51

tarian intervention. And for a short period of time, as the world 

watched Albanians shot, put on cattle cars and thrown out of their 

homeland and packed into squalid refugee camps, the century-long 

reality of Albanians came into the international spotlight. 

But the spotlight has dimmed, and it dimmed right after the war 

ended when the Serbian propaganda machine kicked in, and 

Kosova as a not-yet-sovereign entity under the control of the U.N. 

Security Council had no control over the process. I believe that Albanians in post-war Kosova are back to exactly where they were 

in 1913, at the mercy of external powers, this time the United 

States, as well as Russia and Europe, and they are wrongly being 

depicted by Serbia, the originator of the genocide, as the principal 

source of violence in the Balkans and wrongly as a threat to regional stability. 

I hope that your Committee will ask the main question which, 

for me (and which Dana Rohrabacher raised), is: Why is U.S. foreign policy focused on the oppressors? Why is it so Belgrade centered? And why are we refusing to confront what I believe is the 

main issue, which is the need to de-Nazify and democratize Serbia? 

I am aware that there were many Serbs that were part of an opposition, an opposition that we did not help for a long time, and who 

are anti-racist, but this has been the issue since Milosevic came to 

power. And it can no longer be concealed in the wake of Zoran 

Djindjic’s assassination, which was the result of a massive and 

longstanding collusion in Serbia between war criminals, organized 

crime and the ruling establishment. 

I believe this is the main question. And there are others that I 

set forth in my statement for the record. But there is one underlying answer to all of these questions that I think we should also 

look at, and that is that the United States and Europe have continued to operate according to Belgrade-engineered myths about the 

Serbian-Albanian conflict that serve to demonize Albanians and rationalize their destruction. 

The primary myth is that Albanians are a violent, potentially 

fundamentalist Muslim force in the heart of Europe. This myth enabled Europe to stay neutral during the Milosevic wars. It has enabled us to take a back seat to Europe, which doesn’t want to take 

responsibility for complicity in Milosevic’s wars. That is why we are 

constantly hearing about parity between the victims and the perpetrators. I think the U.S. Government has found it all too easy to 

accept this myth and not look at the legacy of Serbs, Macedonians 

and Montenegrins in the region and Albanians who never waged 

wars of aggression. 

And I think the tragedy now in post-war Kosova is that the antiAlbanian propaganda machine is, to some extent, succeeding in establishing a false parity between state-sponsored terrorism by Serbia and individual acts by psychologically shattered Albanians after 

the war and a few who have entered some of the shadowy extremist groups. The reality is that Albanians fear being put back under 

Serbian domination. They fear being killed again. 

Now we have all talked a lot today about standards before status. This is the mantra of the State Department. It is the mantra 

of almost every government and multilateral institution. I believe 

that this mantra perpetrates the myth in a new guise. It has less 

52

to do with democracy building than it does with Europe’s desire to 

postpone final status. 

I agree with Congressman Lantos’ statement on this point and 

with Chairman Hyde, who on December 20 said that,

‘‘Standards before status is a cart-before-the-horse approach. 

That with 70 percent of the people in Kosova under the age of 

30, and at least 60 percent unemployed, you will have another 

Gaza Strip, this time in the heart of Europe. There will be no 

jobs without peace and stability, but there will be no peace and 

stability without independence.’’

If Kosova is to thrive, it has to be part of the Stability Pact. It 

has to have International Monetary Fund and World Bank lending. 

So if we delay this, we are only undermining our own interests, the 

political and economic viability and stability of the region. Kosova, 

in fact, will be turned into a dumping ground for organized crime. 

And then there are two other mantras I won’t go into at length, 

but they are related. Kosova is a multiethnic society and we must 

have the return of a substantial number of Serbs. Kosova is not a 

multiethnic society. It is 95 percent Albanian with minority 

groups—Serbs, Bosniaks, Turks, Roma, Ashkali. By the way, I 

want to add, many of whom are integrated into the society. And 

what we should be focusing on is the respect for the rule of law 

and protection and respect for minority rights. But too often the cry 

for multiethnicity has nothing to do with concern about these 

rights. It has to do with blocking—Belgrade’s blocking—the integration of Kosovar Serbs into Kosova and also in the final instance 

calling for, wanting partition, wanting a rationalization for partition or the return of Serbs—I mean, of Kosovar Albanians under 

Serbian domination. 

And by the way for the record, with your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit a statement from Bob Churcher who 

works for the British Foreign Ministry, formerly head of the International Crisis Group in Prishtina on this very issue. His contention is that most Serbs will actually not return except to sell their 

homes and leave, and that there is no discussion of, I would add, 

the reciprocal return of Albanians to their homes in the north and 

Serbs to their homes in the south. 

Chairman HYDE. Without objection the letter will be received 

and made a part of the record. 

[The information referred to follows:]

53


87200n.eps
54


87200o.eps
55


87200p.eps
56

Ms. CLOYES DIOGUARDI. There is a reason we don’t have that 

discussion because of the concern that all Albanians have which is 

that Albanians need the U.S. Government—yes, they need a clear 

signal, but that clear signal to me and to the Civic League is that 

they need to know that they will be granted independence, that 

their legitimate fears of genocide will be put to an end. And contrary to what the State Department has said today, I believe the 

American endgame is not that, and I wish they would come out 

and say it. It is granting Kosova ‘‘substantial autonomy’’ under Serbia, an act that would simply reinforce the Western European economic and political ties to Belgrade that have been cemented for 

more than a century in anti-Albanian racism and with anti-Albanian blood. 

Chairman HYDE. Could you conclude? 

Ms. CLOYES DIOGUARDI. I will conclude my remarks. The strategy of continuing to prolong the life of a doomed Yugoslav federation will not work. Montenegro, as we know, is going to go independent. The key to lasting peace and stability in Southeast Europe is an independent Kosova secure in its own borders and able 

to accept its minority groups without viewing them as some kind 

of Trojan horse. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. DioGuardi follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SHIRLEY CLOYES DIOGUARDI, BALKAN AFFAIRS ADVISER, ALBANIAN AMERICAN CIVIC LEAGUE

Mr. Chairman, I want to begin by thanking you and Congressman Lantos for your 

leadership in holding this hearing and for the opportunity to speak here today. 

I address this body as I am about to make to my tenth trip to postwar Kosova 

and with the same convictions that led me almost a decade ago to devote myself 

to working to resolve the Balkan conflict; namely that the United States shares a 

moral imperative with the world after the Nazi Holocaust to prevent the resurgence 

of fascism and ultranationalism in the heart of Europe, and that it is in the vital 

interests of the United States to further peace and democracy in the context of a 

united Europe. As Senator Joe Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign 

Relations Committee, stated in a speech to the Albanian American Civic League’s 

Illinois Chapter last September, ‘‘the naked self-interest of the United States rests 

on the 21st century beginning with a whole, undivided, and unified, Europe,’’ because every time Europe plunges into chaos ‘‘our sons and daughters die, our economy falters, and we pay the price.’’ He added that the fate of seven million Albanians in the Balkans is also ‘‘critical to our naked self-interest. If the ‘‘ethnic legitimacy of the Albanian people is not recognized and protected,’’ Biden said, ‘‘all of 

the pieces in the region will fall apart, and if we do not stabilize the Balkans, we 

will pay dearly.’’

I believe that there will be no lasting peace and stability in Southeast Europe 

apart from resolving the Albanian dimension of the Balkan conflict, which begins 

first and foremost with recognizing the independence of Kosova. Until such time as 

our government affirms Kosova’s right to self-determination and independence, I believe that we will continue to recycle the failed foreign policy of the past at our 

peril—risking renewed conflict in the Balkans at a time when we can least afford 

such an outcome amid a full-blown crisis in the Middle East, dangerous instability 

in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the threat of a nuclear North Korea. 

My point of departure for evaluating U.S. foreign policy in the Balkans is its impact on the reality that Albanians have faced for 125 years—namely, arrest, torture, 

imprisonment, occupation, ethnic cleansing, mass expulsion, and genocide at the 

hands of hostile Slavic regimes. This reality was obscured and concealed by the 

socalled ‘‘Great Powers’’ of Austria-Hungary, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and 

Russia, when they began carving up Albanian lands at the Conference of London 

in December 1912—a process that was formalized at the end of the Balkans wars 

in 1913 and left the Albanians artificially divided in six jurisdictions. 

This reality was completely submerged through four decades of Communist rule 

in the post-World War II era, which subsequently led to the reign of Serbian dictator, now indicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic. As we know, Milosevic rose to 

57

power on the backs of anti-Albanian and anti-Bosnian Muslim racism. Although 

President George Herbert Walker Bush stands out for sending his famous ‘‘Christmas warning’’ letter to Milosevic in December 1992, admonishing him that the 

United States would use military force against Serbia in the event that it produced 

a conflict in Kosova,’’ Milosevic was allowed to wield state-sponsored terrorism 

against non-Serbs for a decade because the U.S. government pursued a policy of appeasement and containment through the Bush and Clinton administrations. 

Both the war in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995 and the occupation of Kosova from 

1989 to 1999 were met with much diplomatic hand-wringing, finger-wagging, and 

shuttle diplomacy on the part of the U.S. government and the European Union. 

When all is said and done, the West essentially watched and waited while Milosevic 

occupied Kosova, waged four wars of aggression in the Balkans, and committed 

genocide against Bosnian Muslims and Albanians, slaughtering more than 300,000 

men, women, and children in the Balkans and displacing four million before NATO 

finally intervened in March 1999. 

I believe that the U.S. government never intended to intervene in Kosova. It was 

simply forced to in the space of one year after the Kosova Liberation Army rose up 

to defend the Albanian people from persecution and death at the hands of the Serbian military, after the bogus October agreement between Slobodan Milosevic and 

then U.S. Balkans Envoy Richard Holbrooke gave way to the Racak massacre of innocent Albanian civilians that shocked the world, and after the subsequent Rambouillet peace talks collapsed because Milosevic, unsurprisingly to any Albanian or 

Bosnian, opted for war over peace. 

However, once the Clinton administration decided that it would launch NATO airstrikes against the Serbian military and paramilitary death squads in Kosova, a 

new doctrine of ‘‘humanitarian intervention’’ was proclaimed. For a short period of 

time—while the world witnessed Kosovar Albanians shot to death, forcibly deported 

from their homeland in cattle cars, and packed into squalid refugee camps by the 

thousands on the Macedonian and Albanian borders—the century-long Albanian reality of arrest, torture, imprisonment, occupation, ethnic cleansing, mass expulsion, 

and genocide in the heart of Europe was catapulted into the international spotlight. 

But the spotlight dimmed soon after the war ended, when the Serbian propaganda 

machine kicked in, with its huge advantage over a not-yet-sovereign Kosova, a 

Kosova under the control of the UN Security Council, which includes three staunchly pro-Serb nations (France, Russia, and China) among its permanent members. Albanians in postwar Kosova are now back to where they were in 1913, at the mercy 

of external powers, this time the United States as well as Europe and Russia, and 

wrongly depicted by Serbia, the originator of the genocide, as the principal source 

of violence in the Balkans and threat to regional stability. I think that this hearing 

is the appropriate place to ask ourselves why—after Serbia brutally and illegally occupied Kosova for a decade, exterminated thousands of Bosnians and Kosovar Albanians, and forcibly expelled millions more—is U.S. foreign policy still Belgrade-centered? Why are we refusing to confront the main issue—which is the need to deNazify and democratize Serbia? This has been the issue ever since Milosevic came 

to power, and it can no longer be concealed in the wake of the tragic assassination 

of former Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, which was the result of a massive and 

longstanding collusion in Serbia between war criminals, organized crime, and the 

ruling establishment. 

I believe that this hearing is also the appropriate place to ask a number of other 

interrelated questions: Why did the United States allow Milosevic to occupy Kosova 

and then try to kill and expel the Albanian majority there in the first place, a population that was committed to nonviolence until it was forced to defend itself and remains to this day deeply pro-American? Why did we make Milosevic, one of the 

worst war criminals in the modern era, into a peacemaker at the Dayton Accords 

in 1995, assenting to his wish to keep the Albanian issue out of the negotiations 

and awarding him a near-sovereign territory in the form of Republika Srpska in exchange for his signature to end the war in Bosnia? Why did we support the Kosova 

Liberation Army during the war in 1999 and then in the postwar period join Western Europe in branding the liberators as ‘‘terrorists?’’ And, finally, why, after acknowledging the lessons that we had supposedly learned from our deadly waiting 

game in Bosnia and our near-fatal delay Kosova, are we endangering the postwar 

reconstruction of Kosova? By our actions and our inaction, why are we leaving 

Kosova in a social, economic, and political limbo and risking war in the process? 

I believe that there is one, underlying answer to all of the questions that we 

should ask ourselves today—namely, that the United States and Europe have operated and continue to operate according to Belgrade-engineered myths about the Serbian-Albanian conflict that serve to demonize Albanians and rationalize their destruction. The primary myth—that Albanians are a violent, potentially fundamenVerDate Mar 21 2002 14:27 Sep 04, 2003 Jkt 087088 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\FULL\052103\87200 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
58

talist, Muslim force in the heart of Europe-enabled Europe to remain ‘‘neutral’’ during the Milosevic’s genocidal wars. This myth allowed the United States to write off 

the Balkans for years as unimportant to our vital interests so that we would not 

have to put American lives at risk. This myth now enables us to justify taking a 

backseat to Europe in the region’s future—a Europe that does not want to take responsibility for its complicity in Milosevic’s wars against Bosnians and Kosovar Albanians, a Europe that erroneously thinks that Serbia holds out the promise of 

riches (when the breakup of the former Yugoslavia was triggered by its financial 

collapse), a Europe that fears the specter of a ‘‘Greater Albania,’’ when the only hegemonic force in the Balkans has been the quest for ‘‘Greater Serbia,’’ and a Europe 

that believes that completing the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia through an 

independent Kosova will somehow set a precedent for other self-determination 

movements that it is not prepared to recognize. 

The U.S. government has found it all too easy to accept the myth that Albanians, 

not Serbs and Macedonians, are the perpetrators of violence in Southeast Europe, 

even though Albanians have never waged wars of aggression in Europe. Sadly, part 

of the Bush administration has accepted the myth that the Kosova Liberation Army 

is a terrorist group. In reality, UCK was a people’s defense force that rose up to 

defend innocent Albanian civilians against the Serbian army, the largest military 

power next to Russia in the former East Bloc. The greatest tragedy now, in postwar 

Kosova is that the anti-Albanian propaganda machine, led by Serbian Deputy President Nebojsa Covic is succeeding in creating a false parity between Serbian statesponsored terrorism, which left thousands of Albanians dead and millions displaced, 

and individual acts of revenge by psychologically shattered Albanians after the war, 

as well as acts of violence by some Albanians who have joined the ranks of organized criminal syndicates and shadowy extremist groups. In reality, you will be hard 

pressed to hear Kosovar Albanians talking about wanting to kill Serbs. But you will

hear Kosovar Albanians talking about Serbs wanting to kill them. You will find an 

Albanian population filled with fear about being placed back under Serbian domination. You will also hear Kosovar Albanians, as well as Albanians around the world, 

asserting correctly that Slobodan Milosevic is in The Hague today not because he 

tried to exterminate Albanians and Bosnians, but because he failed to do so, and 

hence was rejected by his people. 

Sadly, part of our government has found it all too easy to accept the myth that 

Albanians are Muslims, even fundamentalists, who pose a threat to Christian Europe. In reality, they are secular Muslims, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox Christians who have lived together harmoniously for centuries. Finally, part of our government has been all too willing to embrace the myth that Serbia is a democratic 

society. But, as we now know, Belgrade was for months busy selling weapons to 

Iraq, has refused for years to turn over indicted war criminals to The Hague, was 

jubilant on 9/11, and is closer to a gangster society than a newly minted democracy. 

By the way, I say this in full awareness that there is a courageous, anti-racist and 

anti-war opposition in Serbia that the West failed to support for years until it was 

convenient to do so. Nevertheless, progressive Serbs are currently in the minority, 

and it is time for the U.S. government to recognize that Albanians in the aggregate 

are the western-oriented, democratic force in Central Europe. 

In response to Kosova’s call for independence, the UN Security Council has called 

for ‘‘standards before status.’’ ‘‘Standards before status’’ has become the mantra of 

almost every government, every multilateral institution, and every international 

NGO. It has even become the mantra of one of Kosova’s leading political parties. 

But this mantra simply perpetuates the myth in a new guise. It has less to do with 

democracy building than it does with Europe’s desire to postpone final status resolution in Kosova Biden said in introducing his resolution on ‘‘Self-Determination for 

Kosova’’ floor on May 15 that, ‘‘Some argue that foreign capital is hesitant to invest 

in Kosova as long as its future political status remains undefined.’’ He believes, 

however, that ‘‘this line of argument confuses cause and effect’’ and that ‘‘Kosova’s 

final status remains in limbo because conditions on the ground there do not yet 

allow the international community to allow a final status to be chosen.’’

I respectfully disagree with the esteemed Senator from Delaware and concur instead with you, Mr. Chairman, when you stated on December 20 that, ‘‘The ’standards before status’ approach of our State Department and of UNMIK is a cart-before-the-horse attitude’’ and that, with 70 percent of the population under the age 

of thirty and more than 60 percent unemployed, ‘‘we are paving the way for another 

Gaza Strip, this time in the middle of Europe.’’ You rightly concluded, in my opinion, that ‘‘there will be no jobs without peace and stability, but there will be no 

peace and stability without an independent Kosova.’’

It is becoming increasingly impossible to meet most of the ‘‘standards’’ that the 

UN Security Council has set forth for Kosova without a resolution of final status. 

59

Foreign investors simply will not bring their businesses to Kosova (which has a 

young, highly educated, and motivated workforce) if, in the absence of sovereignty, 

no one can legally buy or sell ‘‘state property’’ and if, as a result, corruption and 

organized crime are allowed to flourish. If you go to postwar Kosova today, you will 

also find a society that is in the main highly educated, multilingual, hard-working, 

entrepreneurial, and motivated by a strong cultural identity and hope for the future 

in spite of the wounds of war. Kosovar Albanians do not want to remain dependent 

on foreign aid, which is quickly dwindling in any case. But if Kosova is to thrive, 

it must be integrated into the Stability Pact and given access to the World Bank 

and the International Monetary Fund. There will be no large injections of capital 

from Europe and the United States until Kosova is a sovereign state. Therefore, delaying final status is a recipe for undermining the economic and political viability 

of the region. It will turn Kosova into a dumping ground for organized crime and 

inferior products emanating from other states. 

In addition to ‘‘standards before status, there are two other mantras that the 

international community has used to postpone final status resolution. These are the 

demand that Kosova must first become a ‘‘multiethnic state’’ and that it must guarantee the return of substantial number of Serbs who fled or were driven out at the 

end of the war. Kosova is not a multiethnic society; it is close to 95 percent Albanian 

with minority populations of Serbs, Bosniaks, Roma, Ashkali, and Turks. The international community should be focused on establishing the rule of law and respect 

for and protection of minority rights. To some extent it has succeeded, through admirable work by local NGOs such as the Council for the Defense of Human Rights 

and Freedoms and U.S. government agencies, such as USAID. 

But the cry for ‘‘multiethnicity’’ and ‘‘Serb returns’’ has too often been a propaganda tool used by Serbia to block the integration of the Kosovar Serb minority into 

a majority Kosovar Albanian state. Nebojsa Covic gave an interview in Serbia’s Beta

in the fall of 2001, in which he said that there ‘‘could be no solution until the international community deals with the issue of the violence, terrorism, and ethnic 

cleansing visited on the Serb community in Kosova.’’ In casting the Kosova Serbs 

primarily as victims of Albanians violence, he asks the world to forget what Serbia 

did in Kosova, to look the other way as he and his colleagues in Belgrade work to 

destabilize Kosova and to make the de facto partition of Mitrovice and northern 

Kosova a permanent reality. 

Belgrade continues to inflate the number of Serbs who were in Kosova to begin 

with and who now want to return. Most of young and able-bodied Kosovar Serbs 

do not want to return except to get grants to rebuild their houses, sell them, and 

then leave for good. On this point, I am submitting, for the Record, with your permission, Mr. Chairman, an excellent statement from Bob Churcher, former head of 

the International Crisis Group Office in Prishtina and currently a consultant to the 

British Foreign Office. Meanwhile Belgrade and its allies are mute on the need for 

reciprocal returns of Serbs to their homes in the south and Albanians to their homes 

in the north of Mitrovice. There is a reason for this. The ultimate goal of those who 

make Kosova’s future contingent on the return of Serb refugees is not making respect for the human and civil rights of Serbs and for the rule of law the order of 

the day, but in partitioning Kosova along ethnic lines or giving it ‘‘substantial autonomy’’ under ‘‘Serbia and Montenegro.’’

The Kosova parliament and the Albanian people are not against the return of 

Serbs, but they need assurance from the international community, led by the United 

States, that independence will be granted in order to surmount their legitimate 

fears of the renewal of Serbian state-sponsored terrorism. But I do not believe that 

the Bush administration is prepared to give their assurance. On the contrary, I believe that the American endgame is ‘‘granting’’ Kosova ‘‘substantial autonomy’’ 

under Serbia, an act that would simply reinforce Western European economic and 

political ties to Belgrade that have been cemented with more than a century of antiAlbanian racism and with Albanian blood. 

Mr. Chairman, this strategy of continuing to prolong the life a doomed Yugoslav 

federation, will not work. Now that Montenegro (with only 650,000 people compared 

to Kosova’s two million) has announced its intention to vote for independence in a 

national referendum in 2005, and the international community has accepted this, 

the argument that granting Kosova its independence will lead to chaos in the Balkans will not hold up. The key to lasting peace and stability in Southeast Europe 

is an independent Kosova, secure within its own borders, and able to accept its minority groups—without viewing them as some sort of Trojan horse. Mr. Chairman, 

the key to accomplishing this is sustained American engagement in the Balkans and 

willingness to make clear to Western Europe that Kosova’s independence is the only 

way to prevent renewed war in the region.

60

Chairman HYDE. Ambassador Walker. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE WILLIAM WALKER, FORMER 

AMBASSADOR AND FORMER DIRECTOR, OSCE KOSOVO 

VERIFICATION MISSION 

Mr. WALKER. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lantos many thanks for the opportunity to appear before the Committee this afternoon. I want to 

stress at the outside that despite the title up in front of me here, 

I appear as a private citizen, but one with perhaps the unique experience of having led two international missions in the Balkans 

just prior to my 2001 retirement from that much maligned institution this afternoon, the State Department. 

The question before us is the future status of Kosovo. I am a firm 

advocate of full independence now or as soon as humanly possible 

to attain. I realize this is easy to say, much less possible to accomplish, but let me state my case. First to continue to view Kosovo 

as a nondetachable part of what little remains of the former Yugoslavia, however that relationship might be constructed in terms of 

local autonomy is, in my opinion, a recipe for disaster. The citizens 

of Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia all wanted out from 

under the Belgrade dominance and they achieved it. Why not the 

citizens of Kosovo? 

Belgrade, in my opinion had more than ample opportunity during 

the 1990s and for many decades before to demonstrate by its methods of governance what the Albanian Muslim majority population 

in Kosovo could expect under its control. And Belgrade totally 

missed its chance. As head of the OSCE’s Kosovo verification mission from 1998 to 1999 which, as was mentioned earlier, was the 

first international presence that Milosevic allowed to enter and observe in Kosovo, I and 1,400 other international observers witnessed the final 8 months of Belgrade’s governance. And that governance consisted of brutal repression, of unadulterated racism, a 

denial of the most basic civil and human rights to the Albanian 

majority. 

It fostered hatred, ethnic strife and violence whenever that suited the regime’s needs. As I testified as recently as a few months 

ago before the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague, I would state 

as a witness for the prosecution, that was precisely the policy that 

was carried out by Milosevic and his henchmen. And sad to say, 

I believe it is an attitude that still resonates and has advocates in 

today’s Belgrade. I for one am not confident that the present Serb 

leadership fully learned the lessons of the Milosevic years, that is, 

if you wanted people to belong to your nation, you do not do everything possible to humiliate, to repress and to exterminate them. 

In my opinion, any attempt by the international community to 

reconnect Kosovo with Serbia, however thin that connection, however loose the federation, however ample the conditions of autonomy, stands no chance of success. And to do so would only bring 

far greater risk of renewed ethnic conflict. Three years of working 

with Kosovars convinced me that the vast majority of the values, 

the aspirations and the attitudes expressed here this afternoon in 

this Chamber are shared by them. They want employment; they 

want decent living conditions; they want freedom from crime and 

violence; they want the rule of law and opportunities for their chilVerDate Mar 21 2002 14:27 Sep 04, 2003 Jkt 087088 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\052103\87200 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
61

dren and they want that all in a Democratic western style, open 

and tolerant society. 

I personally believe that the Clinton Administration made a mistake in the aftermath of NATO’s liberation of Kosovo by ceding to 

the United Nations the pro consul role in Kosovo. Being the pro 

consul is an intoxicating role to play. I know. I was the American 

pro consul in El Salvador for 31⁄2 years as the United States tried 

to mentor to push the government of another small war-torn nation 

toward peace, democracy and reconciliation. 

As you mentioned, I was later a U.N. proconsul in Eastern 

Slavonia, Croatia as the Special Representative of the Secretary 

General administering a large United Nations peacekeeping mission, protecting, in that case, a Serb enclave from Zagreb. Believe 

me, once that sort of power is obtained, once that authority is put 

in your hands, it is extremely hard to relinquish. For some it is intoxicating, for others, I am afraid, it is lucrative. There are four 

possible paths or strategies that might be pursued to move Kosovo 

toward final status. 

Congressman Engel mentioned three. I vote four. The first would 

be reintegration with Serbia-Montenegro. The second would be continuation of UNMIK administration with no timetable or discussions of final status until certain standards are met. The third 

would be partition with the Serb majority portion sliced off and 

joined to Serbia. And the fourth which I have said I support is 

independence. I think I have described why that first, reintegration 

with Serbia Montenegro is unworkable. The second, continuation of 

the present UNMIK occupation with no clear indication of what 

comes next, when or how only prolongs the uncertainty that has 

led to no investment either domestic or foreign, no building of a political class with experience in decision making and governance, 

and the risk of yet another entity forever dependent on the whims 

and the follies of the international donor community. The third 

path, partition, is perhaps the most insidious of all for it would put 

international blessing on the concept of redrawing national borders 

based solely on ethnicity and such would have immediate negative 

impact, I believe, on Bosnia and perhaps lend encouragement to 

those seeking to carve out a greater Albania and Serbia and might 

even stimulate a host of others with similar ethnic dreams. Only 

the fourth path offers the possibility and I repeat only the possibility, not the certainty of a Balkans moving away from the tragic 

ethnic religious, linguistic legacies of the past. I have confidence 

that the aspirations, the talents and the will of the people of 

Kosovo, Albanians, Serbs, Romas and all, once unleashed, once unfettered, stands the best chance of bringing peace and stability to 

a region where all too little of these have been evident in the recent 

past. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Walker follows:]

62

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE WILLIAM WALKER, FORMER AMBASSADOR

AND FORMER DIRECTOR, OSCE KOSOVO VERIFICATION MISSION


87200a.eps
63


87200b.eps
64


87200c.eps
65

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Vulaj. 

STATEMENT OF MARTIN VULAJ, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

NATIONAL ALBANIAN AMERICAN COUNCIL 

Mr. VULAJ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for 

the opportunity to testify before you and this fine Committee on 

this distinguished panel. I want to also thank Congressman Lantos, who has been a staunch supporter of the long suffering people 

of Kosovo. Congressman Lantos, you have the gratitude, respect 

and support of not only all the people of Kosovo, but the entire Albanian American community and for this we are eternally grateful. 

Finally, I want to thank Congressman Engel, whose tireless work 

on this issue is not just a credit to himself and this Committee, but 

has elevated the stature of the United States in the eyes minds and 

heart of millions in the region. 

Mr. Chairman, you opened today’s session with a series of questions. Very valid questions. Amongst other questions that we have 

and we are talking about today are what is Kosovo’s past? What 

should its future be? Whether benchmarks should be required as 

a precondition to final status talks and if so, what they should consist of? Who will judge them and based on what standard. What 

is irrefutable however is that Kosovo is an unqualified success of 

United States foreign policy. Just 3 years ago, Kosovo has been 

subjected to the most brutal form of repression witnessed on the 

European continent in half a century. The, by then, well-honed 

weapons of murder, rape, pillage and terror were being executed 

with chilling efficiency as a means of effecting political change 

through an engineered shift in demographics. The ruthlessness 

with which this was executed transformed a decade long, peaceful 

resistance movement of the Kosovars into an armed struggle for 

survival and liberation. 

The depraved indifference to human life and civility meted out 

by Milosevic’s killing machine so shocked the conscience of the 

United States, that it mobilized its nation and allies to stop the 

genocide and reverse ethnic cleansing. This alone, Mr. Chairman, 

would qualify as a resounding success for the United States and 

their foreign policy, but the success goes much further and is indeed more profound. The true success of the United States in the 

region is that the seeds of the very ideals upon which this country 

was founded, built upon is defined and guided by were planted and 

have taken root in Kosovo. The ballot in the promise of tomorrow 

have replaced the dark abyss of hopelessness and oppression. 

While Kosovo’s state, political, economic and societal development remains short of western standards, we need only look back 

to the summer of 1999 to realize how far Kosovo has come. In looking at Kosovo today, we see that she has a government and institutions albeit still in the early stages of development. We see the rule 

of law steadily being established, civil society structures coalescing 

and we have seen the best series of free and fair democratic elections held anywhere in the Balkans since the fall of communism in 

the eastern block. On the other hand, we have continued to witness 

elements of instability, both indigenous and artificial, a stagnant 

economy, unemployment in the mid-double digits, sharp decreases 

66

in aid, slow progress on ethnic relations and waning political will 

and international circles to tackle these tough issues. 

Having seen where Kosovo came from and where it is today, the 

question then remains what is Kosovo’s future? The lack of final 

status has been a principal source of instability in Kosovo. It fosters fear and distrust on the part of Albanians and false hope on 

the part of Serbs. It discourages foreign investment and provides 

oxygen to the simmering embers of nationalism. To put many of 

these issues to rest, Kosovo must move on to final status. The question then remains what should that status be? The national Albanian American Council resolutely believes that the only option that 

will enable Kosovo to capitalize on its progress, face its challenges, 

overcome its obstacles and not only enjoy stability, but become a 

factor of regional stability, is to become an independent state that 

will be integrated into Europe and Euro-Atlantic structures. 

While an independent Kosovo will continue to present challenges, 

any other option will surely result in continued internal and regional instability. In terms of economic progress, a Kosovar state 

would be eligible for access to international monetary institutions 

such as the World Bank and the IMF. 

Currently, Kosovo is denied the privilege of such access by these 

institutions charters that limit access to their own members. An 

independent Kosovo would eliminate the reservations that foreign 

investors have regarding many issues involving future status and 

enable the Kosovars to concentrate on fostering an attractive, internal environment for investors. An independent Kosovo would foster 

an environment for improved ethnic relations. The International 

Crisis Group released a report last year where they cited Mitrovica 

in northern Kosovo to be one of the single greatest sources of instability due to the ethnic division of the city and the parallel structures that exist in the Serbian community there. 

The report went on to state that Belgrade was continuing to fund 

and promote these destabilizing elements. A sovereign Kosovo state 

would terminate this. Not only would the Kosovars be in full control of their own borders, but actions of this sort would have more 

profound ramifications if perpetrated against a sovereign state. 

And the likelihood that Belgrade’s interests would remain at this 

level would be low. Additionally, the level of fear and mistrust by 

Albanians would diminish. Finally Kosovar Serbs would have to be 

looking toward Prishtina rather than Belgrade and a steady process of meaningful integration would result. An independent Kosovo 

would be a factor of stability. Such a result would put to rest much 

of the nationalism that exists in the region. Kosovo would have a 

stabilizing effect on Albanian issues in the surrounding areas and 

would be a key partner in any discussions involving issues in the 

region. 

Additionally, Kosovo, with its complete and unwavering support 

for the United States, would be a key regional ally on the war 

against terrorism. 

Mr. Chairman, the United States must take the lead on resolving 

the final status of Kosovo. The United States has a strategic interest in Balkan security as well as maintaining regional influence as 

the Balkans move ever closer to Brussels’ orbit. Additionally we 

have most recently witnessed with the war on the Iraqi regime that 

67

Europe lacks the will and ability to bring leadership to difficult 

questions. 

One immediate step that can be taken in this direction is to have 

an American appointed to head the U.N. Mission. This would better enable the United States, who is the largest single donor nation, to drive the agenda forward by providing an opportunity for 

the Europeans, particularly France and Germany, who have had 

mission heads to continue to demonstrate their continued friendship with the United States. For all of these reasons and others 

that we will be discussing, Kosovo must become an independent 

state. Any other option would only be an invitation to continued regional instability. 

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit into the record 

a document that is a product of a conference that was held between 

ourselves, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and 

the Dayton Peace Accords Project. This document is a scholarly 

product that lays out a road map with concrete steps on how to go 

about achieving Kosovo’s independence. 

Chairman HYDE. Without objection, it shall be made a part of the 

record. 

Mr. VULAJ. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I look forward to answering any questions that you or the Committee may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Vulaj follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARTIN VULAJ, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL

ALBANIAN AMERICAN COUNCIL

THE FUTURE OF KOSOVA

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify before you 

and the fine members of this committee on this crucial issue. I would also like to 

thank Congressman Lantos who has been a staunch supporter of the long-suffering 

people of Kosova. Congressman Lantos you have the gratitude, respect and support 

of not only all of the people of Kosova but also the entire Albanian-American community. Finally I would like to thank Congressman Engel who’s tireless work on 

this issue has elevated not only his name but also the stature of the United States 

in the eye, mind and heart of millions in the region. 

Mr. Chairman there are a myriad of differing opinions on Kosova. What is it’s 

past?. What should it’s future be? Whether ‘‘benchmarks’’ should be required as a 

precondition to final status talks, and if so what they should consist of and who will 

judge them? What is irrefutable however is that Kosova is an unqualified success 

of U.S. foreign policy. 

Just three years ago, Kosova was being subjected to the most brutal form of repression witnessed on the European continent in half a century. The, by then, well 

honed weapons of murder, rape, pillage and terror were being executed with chilling 

efficiency as a means of affecting political change through an engineered shift in demographics. 

The ruthlessness with which this was executed transformed the decade long 

peaceful resistance movement of the Kosovars into an armed struggle for survival 

and liberation. The depraved indifference to human life and civility meted out by 

Milosevic’s killing machine so shocked the conscience of the United States that it 

mobilized its nation and it’s allies to stop the genocide and reverse ethnic cleansing. 

This alone would qualify as a resounding success for U.S. foreign policy but the success goes much further and is much more profound. 

The true success of the United States is that the seeds of the very ideals upon 

which this country was founded, build upon, is defined and guided by, were planted 

and have taken root in Kosova. The ballot and the promise of tomorrow have replaced the dark abyss of hopelessness and oppression. While Kosova’s state of political, economic and societal development remains short of western standards, we only 

need to look back to the summer of 1999 to realize indeed how far Kosova has come. 

In looking at Kosova today we see that she has a government and institutions albeit still in the early stages of development. We see the rule of law steadily being 

established, civil society structures coalescing and we have seen the best series of 

68

free and fair democratic elections held anywhere in the Balkans since the fall of 

communism in the eastern block. On the other hand we continue to witness elements of instability both indigenous and artificial, a stagnant economy, unemployment in the mid double digits, sharp decreases in aid, slow progress on ethnic relations and waning political will in international circles to tackle the tough issues. 

Having seen where Kosova came from and where it is today, the question that 

remains is what is Kosova’s future? The lack of final status has been a principle 

source of instability in Kosova. It fosters fear and distrust on the part of Albanians 

and false hope on the part of Serbs. It discourages foreign investment and provides 

oxygen to the simmering ambers of Nationalism. To put many of these issues to rest 

Kosova must move on to final status. The question then remains, what should that 

status be? 

The National Albanian American Council resolutely believes that the only option 

that will enable Kosova to capitalize on its’ progress, face its’ challenges, overcome 

it’s obstacles and not only enjoy stability but be a factor of regional stability is to 

become an independent state that will be integrated into Europe and Euro-Atlantic 

structures. While an independent Kosova will present challenges, any other option 

will surely result in continued internal and regional instability. 

In terms of economic progress, a Kosovar state would be eligible for access to 

international monetary institutions such as the World Bank and IMF. Currently 

Kosova is denied the privilege of such access by these institution’s charters that 

limit access to their members. An independent Kosova would eliminate the reservations foreign investors have regarding many issues involving future status and enable the Kosovars to concentrate on fostering an attractive internal environment for 

investors. 

An independent Kosova would foster an environment for improved ethnic relations. The International Crisis Group released a report last year where they cited 

Mitrovica in northern Kosova to be one of the single greatest sources of instability 

due to the ethnic division of the city and the parallel structures that exist in the 

Serbian community there. The report went on to state that Belgrade was funding 

and promoting these destabilizing elements. A sovereign Kosovar state would be in 

a position to terminate this. Not only would the Kosovars be in full control over 

their own borders but actions of this sort would have more profound ramifications 

if perpetrated against a sovereign state and the likelihood that Belgrade would 

maintain this level of interest would be low. Additionally, the level of fear and mistrust by Albanians would diminish. Finally, Kosovar Serbs would have to begin 

looking toward Prishtina rather than Belgrade and a steady process of meaningful 

integration would result. 

An independent Kosova would be a factor of stability. Such a result would put 

to rest much of the Nationalism that exists in the region. Kosova would have a stabilizing effect on Albanian issues in the surrounding areas and would be a key partner in any discussions involving issues in the region. Additionally, Kosova, with its 

complete and unwavering support for the United States would be a key regional ally 

in the war against terrorism. 

The United States must take the lead on resolving the final status of Kosova. The 

U.S. has a strategic interest in Balkan security as well as in maintaining regional 

influence as the Balkans move ever closer to Brussels’ orbit. Additionally, as we 

have most recently witnessed with the war on the Iraqi regime, Europe lacks the 

will and ability to bring leadership to difficult questions. One immediate step that 

can be taken in this direction is to have an American appointed to head the U.N. 

Mission in Kosova. This would better enable the United States, who is the largest 

single donor nation, to drive the agenda forward while providing an opportunity for 

the Europeans, particularly France and Germany who have had Mission heads, to 

demonstrate their continued friendship with the United States. 

For all of these reasons and others that we will be discussing today, Kosova must 

become an independent sovereign state. Any other option will only be an invitation 

to continued regional instability. 

In closing Mr. Chairman, I would like to have submitted into the record this document that is a result of a conference we co-hosted with the CSIS and DPAP outlining a roadmap for resolving the final status of Kosova. I thank you and all of 

the members of this Committee and look forward to answering any questions you 

may have.

Chairman HYDE. Thank you very much. I am delighted we got 

through all the testimony before we were interrupted by a vote. So 

that is a stroke of great luck. Mr. Lantos. 

69

Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Chairman, I don’t have any questions but I 

want to commend all of our witnesses. This is a singularly enlightening and thoughtful and serious panel as well as the previous 

panel with Congressman DioGuardi, and I want to express my personal appreciation to all six of our witnesses. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you very much. Mr. Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. We need to take seriously the charges in Kosovo that there has been violations of 

human rights among the Serb population and the Romas. If we do, 

would incentives after independence be as effective as laying down 

a demand for a prerequisite for independence for a change in behavior? Do we have to say that this has to be a perfect situation 

or a near perfect situation as a prerequisite to independence or can 

we provide pressures afterwards to provide incentives that those 

violations not—. 

Ms. CLOYES DIOGUARDI. Congressman Rohrabacher, even before 

we do that, I think the U.N. (you stated it before) has thousands 

of troops there. Why is it we can’t seem to find the perpetrators in 

most instances? So we need to ask that question, and we need to 

do something about it. I would argue that the international community has set up a situation where we have enclaves when we 

shouldn’t have them. It is the international community (and 

French KFOR, although we shouldn’t just gang up on them, since 

no one else wanted the job) that allowed the north to go under de 

facto partition. If they want to talk about support for 1244, it isn’t 

there. So we need to go to our own law enforcement apparatus from 

the international side first and correct what is happening. 

Secondly, if you look at the reports, Amnesty International came 

out with a report saying that most of the violence against minority 

groups and crime in general had dropped dramatically. 

I believe that, yes, we should go ahead and declare at least that 

we are going to be having an independent Kosova. And once that 

happens, and the fear of being killed (which is the reality of the 

Albanian population, it is not the desire to kill minority groups) is 

driven away, the fear of being killed has to be taken away. And 

also the transfer of ‘‘competencies,’’ not the unreserved ones, the reserved powers too. Once you do that and allow the Kosovars to be 

involved in law enforcement, you will see a completely different 

shift inside the community to handle that. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me ask this question. The crimes that are 

being committed, these acts of violence that are committed against 

Serbian citizens of Kosovo, are these—are the allegations that 

these are crimes that are committed by the government, by the 

leadership approved of the Kosovar’s leadership, or are these just 

acts of violence that are people becoming angry and just individual 

acts of violence? What do we have here? Honestly I don’t know. 

Someone in the panel understand that? Are there charges that this 

is an organized, systematic thing by the leadership of the Kosovars 

against the Serbian people? 

Mr. DIOGUARDI. This is what is referred to as the Serbian propaganda machine. And the Greek lobby, along with the Serbian lobby, 

has done a great job in now equating 13 years of ethnic cleansing 

and genocide—against Albanians with isolated crimes against 

70

Serbs—to now create this parity. Where is the documentation for 

their allegations against Albanians? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So the answer is, yes, there are some charges 

that are coming down in an organized fashion from Kosovo leadership. Do we have any reports from our troops or from the United 

Nations, from our State Department that this is happening? 

Mr. VULAJ. If I could just jump in. To answer your questions, the 

charges are not specifically levied against the government. They 

are levied against the Albanian population in an effort to demonstrate that this is a lawless land. But just to put these things 

in perspective, as Secretary Bogue indicated, that crime has been 

on a steady down trend since 1999. To put it even further into perspective, there are reports that there has only been one Serb killed 

this year in Kosovo, one. Just to put things in perspective. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So we have had more people killed in Orange 

County then. All right. So the most important thing that we have 

to make sure we understand is that the civil rights and human 

rights of all people of a new country would need to be respected. 

And that would be—right now, they are talking about a prerequisite of having a certain level of activity. Perhaps there would 

be instead incentives for people after independence to make sure 

those rights are protected. 

If I could very quickly ask this, if those people’s rights aren’t protected—and a group of people who live next to a border of another 

country by large majority would like to be part of that other country, meaning if these Serbs would like to be part of Serbia, by the 

same principles they should be able to vote to be part of Serbia, 

if after independence they decide they no longer want to be part 

of this new country. So just a thought. 

Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Engel. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to follow what Mr. 

Rohrabacher was asking. I wanted to ask Ambassador Walker, 

your service as head of the Kosovar Verification Mission gave you 

an excellent window on how Milosevic governed Kosovo. I have 

often said there should be no reprisals against Serbs because the 

Albanians have a higher moral ground. And Albanians should not 

treat Serbs the way Serbs treated Albanians. Can you contrast 

what went on during the Milosevic era in terms of what happened 

against the Albanians, and contrast that with what is going on 

now? I think it is night and day, but you have a better, you perhaps can give us some enlightenment on that. 

Mr. WALKER. I would say in one or two words that there is really 

no equivalence between the two situations. In the first case, under 

Milosevic’s governance, you had a government with all the forces 

in its command, security forces, the courts, the regulatory agencies, 

everybody doing everything they could to deprive the Albanian population of their livelihood, of their ability to get education, of their 

very lives. In the final instance, trying to push all the Albanians 

out of Kosovo. You had a concerted effort by a sovereign government to use all its powers to do very, very bad things to the Albanian community. 

On the other hand, with what is happening for the last 3 years, 

this sporadic violence that, you know, to answer your question, Mr. 

71

Congressman, I don’t think anyone knows exactly who is doing 

what to whom. Yes, there are allegations that some of this is organized by the Kosovar officials, there are also allegations that some 

of it is caused by agents of Belgrade who are in there trying to stir 

things up and make the Albanian community look as bad as they 

possibly can make them look. I don’t know what the truth is behind 

either of those allegations, but I would say the following: I think 

the international community, the United Nations, with all the 

countries that participate going in and the aftermath of the bombing campaign, certainly, in my opinion, did not pay attention to a 

fundamental process, which is the rule of law. 

At the very beginning and for an awful long time after the international community took over, there was no real knowledge as to 

what the rule of law meant in Kosovo. It did not surprise me that 

individuals in the Kosovo community, Albanian community coming 

back and seeing their villages burned, their parents disappear, 

other things happening to them that maybe individuals unable to 

go to a policeman or to a soldier and ask for justice, unable to get 

justice under the system, resorted to sort of a private justice system. I think that has greatly declined, if it ever happened in the 

first place. But it would be understandable if some of them coming 

back took the law into their own hands. That is nothing like what 

was happening under Mr. Milosevic and the regime in Belgrade. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. Mr. Vulaj, in my estimation, the excellent work of your organization, NAAC, is well known in the Albanian-American community in the United States and throughout the 

Balkans. You mentioned the road map for the future of Kosovo. We 

entered it into the record, that NAAC work done with CSIS and 

the Dayton Peace Accord project. I wonder if, very quickly if, you 

could summarize what is in that report in about a minute? 

Mr. VULAJ. It is effectively a 2-year process that would begin by 

the end of this year. The process would effectively finish by the end 

of next year with a declaration of independence in early 2005. But 

it would take Kosovo through stages of political integration, if you 

will, in dealing with regional neighbors, developing relationships, 

making assurances, border assurances to neighbors, for example, to 

Macedonia that Kosovo is looking only to its own existing borders 

and no others. It does not support border changes anywhere else. 

These are assurances that are made both to the region and to the 

international community that Kosovo can play a mature role as a 

regional ally toward stability. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. 

I have one quick question for Mr. Serwer. 

USIP has run several important programs where it has brought 

together Serbs, Albanians and other Kosovars to promote interethnic dialogue. I think they are very important programs. But I 

have noticed that the United States Government resources for the 

Balkans are dropping. My question is will you have enough funding 

from AID or elsewhere to continue this wonderful program and 

other USIP programs in the region? 

Mr. SERWER. Mr. Congressman, the State Department has been 

quite generous with us in the past and provided extensive support 

for Serb-Albanian dialogue projects. We have, however, received no 

72

funding this fiscal year. We are anticipating funding of about 

$150,000. We have been told that we can expect none next year. 

So I think the answer is that there has been a good deal of support in the past, but I don’t see that emerging in the future. 

I wonder if I could add a remark about this question of mistreatment of Serbs in Kosovo. I think the Committee should be under 

no illusions. There is mistreatment of Serbs in Kosovo. The important thing about it, from the Albanian perspective I think is this: 

That they can’t get to final status with that mistreatment continuing. It is hindering their progress toward final status. It really 

ought to stop. As I see it, final status can only be decided in the 

Security Council. I don’t see how you can convince the Russians to 

allow a new Security Council resolution to pass if Serbs are being 

mistreated in Kosovo. It is just not going to happen. So it seems 

to me that Albanians have to realize that they are hindering their 

own goals with this mistreatment of Serbs. 

Chairman HYDE. It is your time. Your time has expired. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Nick Smith is next. 

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. Thank you very much, and thank the 

witnesses for being here to join us. 

It is sort of interesting that last week we were talking about 

some of the problems and failures of the United States in the rebuilding of Iraq after about 3 weeks after the war, and now, we are 

talking about some of the problems of the U.N. after 4 years. I 

think, probably, the message that at least conveys to me is that nation rebuilding is a very difficult task. When you come out from 

under a strong dictator that organizes by force and you try to implement some form of democracy, it is difficult. 

Now, of course, we are faced with the decision of how much of 

the U.N. to use in the rebuilding of Iraq. 

Let me ask a question, if anybody wants to comment on that I 

would appreciate it, how does most of Europe react to the possibility of Kosovo being independent? 

Mr. DIOGUARDI. The tradition in Europe has been to work 

against the self-determination of the Albanian people. This is how 

the State of Albania, that came out of Turkish occupation on November the 28th, 1912, got carved up into six different jurisdictions. Europe, led by France, Russia, Greece and Serbia, has always done whatever it could do to divide the Albanian people. And 

that is why you have today seven million Albanians divided into six 

jurisdictions, but all living contiguous, believe it or not. If you drew 

a line around the seven million Albanians, you will have the original country of Albania that was declared as an independent state 

in 1913, the last country to come out of the Turkish Ottoman Empire before it collapsed. Today you have the same inclinations by 

Russia, Greece and Serbia. In fact, the racism that I pointed out 

from the memo of Vaso Cubrilovic continues today. Today 4 years 

after the NATO war and the genocide, not one Serb in authority 

has said, I am sorry. Now, it did take the German people 11 years 

to apologize to the Jews but not one Serb has said, I am sorry for 

10,000 Albanians being killed in their homes. These were not the 

KLA soldiers. I am talking about innocent civilians. 

73

So you have today this anti-Albanian attitude in Europe. That is 

one of the reasons we are here today. We are trying to convince 

this body to push our State Department to take the lead as they 

did in Iraq. Did we go to the U.N. on Iraq? We tried. But did we 

stop there? No. We did the right thing. We need to do the right 

thing again. Peace and stability in Europe depends on the United 

States taking the lead. 

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. I don’t want you to go into too much 

of a speech, Joe. You know, our problem here is like it is the rest 

of the world. But what I would be interested in, is the comparison 

or any suggestions based on some of the mistakes that the U.N. 

might have made over the last 4 years that we can apply some of 

that experience to maybe where we are going in Iraq today? And 

how do you make the transition from a militant powerful dictator 

to what we think should be the way people should live with freedom and some kind of democracy? So what you have sort of said, 

some of the mistakes we have made, would any of you be willing 

to suggest how we might make some decisions about Iraq that 

might make it easier in that transition? Mr. Serwer. 

Mr. SERWER. Mr. Smith, the U.S. Institute of Peace has spent a 

good deal of time looking at this question, so I dare attempt an answer. 

I think the first answer is, rule of law is job one. You can’t do 

anything without it. You simply have got to establish rule of law. 

It should have come in with the troops. It didn’t come in with the 

troops. It should come in now with Jerry Bremer, I guess. I hope 

it will come in with Jerry Bremer. 

Governance is job two, but you don’t get to governance unless 

you have law and order on the streets of Baghdad, it seems to me. 

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. Are you comfortable with the law and 

order that came in Kosovo? 

Mr. SERWER. Absolutely not. I think that in this case one can 

blame, if you like, the United Nations, because the United Nations 

was given the responsibility for putting together police in Kosovo, 

and, frankly, they didn’t assemble a significant police force for almost a year after the Nato troops had deployed. I am afraid we are 

in that same situation in Iraq, but with an absolute need this time 

for the troops to take on the responsibility. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentleman’s time has expired, and all time 

has expired. 

Mr. DIOGUARDI. May I make one comment, Mr. Chairman, because we have a father here who lost three sons. If those sons who 

were U.S. citizens were Serbian, you would never hear the end of 

it. We talked about crime, Serb and Albanian. But what about 

three U.S. citizens who went to Kosova? The war was over when 

they were helping a Roma neighbor, and they were executed after 

serving their time and found in a ditch with blindfolds and hands 

tied behind their backs, and our State Department has yet to push 

to find the perpetrators. Don’t you think it is time justice is served? 

I would like you, Mr. Chairman, to join with Congressman Lantos in some kind of a push to get our State Department to bring 

justice to this family. 

Chairman HYDE. Well, now we are not ending our hearing, we 

are continuing. Mr. O’Brien. 

74

Mr. O’BRIEN. I would like to second the request for an investigation. I was the U.S. Presidential Envoy, the most senior official into 

Belgrade immediately after the fall of Milosevic. This was one of 

the first two issues I raised with the new democratic leaders, the 

need to determine the fate of these U.S. citizens. I think it is vital 

that we find out what happened to them. 

Chairman HYDE. I will ask our staff to take cognizance of that 

and take appropriate action. 

I want to thank every one of you. Every one of you has been excellent and has added to the sum knowledge, the sum total of 

knowledge of this very complicated and volatile situation. 

We had this hearing at Mr. DioGuardi’s insistence because he 

said there isn’t adequate focus on this part of the world, and he is 

right. You have educated us to the criticality of what is going on 

there and the problems and how precious independence is. I am 

convinced we have to have independence first. We try to move the 

immovable if we can, but I think these have been successful hearings, and you are all to be congratulated for your time and your 

input. 

Thank you very much. Thank you gentlemen. The Committee 

stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:05 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(75)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, A

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY

Mr. Chairman, thank you for convening this hearing on Kosovo. As Co-Chairman 

of the Helsinki Commission, I was very aware of the great human suffering which 

took place there during Milosevic’s brutal regime, as well as the humanitarian crisis 

which arose during the Kosovo conflict and the war crimes which occurred at that 

time. Through hearings and other initiatives, the Commission helped document the 

atrocities and debate policy options, including steadfast efforts to have Milosevic 

and all his henchmen account for their crimes in The Hague. As members of the 

Commission, other Members joined me in consistently pressing for the release of 

Kosovar Albanians who wrongfully languished in Serbian prisons long after the conflict and Milosevic’s ouster. Members of the Commission also joined criticism of local 

Serbs responsible for the continued division of the city of Mitrovica. 

As far as Kosovo’s future, first and foremost, our focus should be on developing 

a process for the peoples of Kosovo—all the peoples—to find their own consensus 

and make it work. Rather than being strong advocates for one particular result or 

another, I believe we should encourage the crafting of a strategy which allows for 

sustained stability in the region and gradual international disengagement. 

Second, just as we called for action to stop Milosevic’s nationalist rampage of hatred in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo throughout the 1990s, we must not overlook the 

absolutely horrendous treatment—at the hands of Kosovar Albanians—of the Serb 

and other minorities struggling to survive in enclaves or as displaced communities 

unable to return home. We must stand firm against those who violate the rights 

of others. 

Less than two weeks ago, on May 10, the Serbian Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas in Pristina was stoned again by unknown attackers. Many windows were broken. This church, like so many others, has received no police or KFOR protection 

this year. While the police may come and take a report, like in dozens of other incidents, nobody cooperates with the investigation. ‘‘No wonder extremists are encouraged,’’ the local priest has said. To visit local villagers, he adds, ‘‘I make the sign 

of the cross, sit in my car and drive fast at my own risk.’’

Last November, a church near Istok was blown up after KFOR protection was removed. 

The State Department’s Human Rights Report states that, in 2002, ‘‘Kosovo 

Serbs, Roma, and other minorities were victims of murder, kidnaping, assault, and 

property crimes, particularly arson.’’ Ethnically-motivated violent crime has 

dropped, but even as the report seeks to highlight the positive effects of international control and engagement, it must honestly admit that part of the reason for 

this is ‘‘the fact that Kosovo Serbs and Roma drastically restricted their movements. . . . Kosovo Serbs and Roma continued to report that they were afraid to 

leave their enclaves due to fear of intimidation and attack by ethnic Albanians.’’ At 

an OSCE meeting on Roma issues held last month, a number of participants continued to assert it is not safe for Roma to return to Kosovo. 

This year, certain Kosovar Albanian militants indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia were apprehended and transferred to The 

Hague. Last week, Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte told the Helsinki Commission 

that her work investigating crimes by interviewing victims and witnesses is hampered by fears of retaliation in Kosovo. Some Kosovar leaders have said what needs 

to be said: that justice should be allowed to take its course. Mr. Chairman, atrocities 

against Serbs can under no circumstances be justified. 

76

In a Helsinki Commission hearing on the prospects for ethnic harmony in Kosovo 

which I chaired last year, I recognized the repression and hardship which the 

Kosovar Albanians had faced. Their best response—for themselves as well as for the 

many innocent Serbs, Roma and others in Kosovo—would be to demonstrate in word 

and deed that they refuse to employ the tactics of Milosevic’s murderous minions. 

Vandalizing or bombing churches is wrong. Revenge is not justice. The ethnic diversity of Kosovo must be respected. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE NICK SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

Mr. Chairman, it has been almost 4 years since the end of Operation Allied Force 

to remove Serbian forces bent on genocide from the province of Kosovo. Since that 

time, massive amounts of European, American, and international aid have been 

poured into a UN-led effort to rebuild Kosovo and give it a stable, viable political 

system. Those four years give us an excellent indication of how this international 

bureaucracy addresses the needs and interests of liberated peoples entrusted to its 

care. Of course, we have heard enthusiastic support for a central UN role in administering Iraq as well. I have serious reservations about giving an organization that 

so actively obstructed efforts to liberate the people of Iraq a leadership role in rebuilding their institutions, but perhaps the example of Kosovo can better illustrate 

what is to be gained or lost. The degree of enthusiasm and intensity of lobbying on 

behalf of a central role for the UN in Iraq would seem to hinge on the institution’s 

track record in situations like Kosovo. Unfortunately, the reports I’ve seen do not 

seem that exemplary. Four years and $2.4 billion dollars into the UN administered recovery, unemployment still stands at 60%, electrical power is still frequently interrupted, and violence against minorities—including drive-by shootings and grenade attacks—is still 

common. School children must still be escorted by peace-keepers to school, corruption and prostitution are rampant, and the province is still used as a base for 

human trafficking, money laundering, drug and weapon smuggling, and other criminal operations. 

I realize that progress has been made in structuring provincial government, rebuilding homes, and imposing an artificial stability, but do these accomplishments 

rise to the level we would expect from a force of 6,000 bureaucrats and 4,000 international police officers, all under the protection of a 30,000 troop NATO force? 

Mr. Chairman, last week, this committee explored missteps and inadequacies in 

the US and Britain’s process of rebuilding Iraq though the endeavor was just three 

weeks old. Today, however, we get to explore accomplishments of the United Nations Mission to Kosovo after 4 years. I thank the witnesses for coming today and 

I look forward to weighing the experiences they relate with criteria every bit as 

stringent as those applied to our budding operations in Iraq in last week’s hearing. 

In the end, I suspect the case study of Kosovo illustrates the burden, the expense, 

and other problems inherent to the UN’s ability to manage the rebuilding of a nation. I urge the administration and this committee to keep this in mind as operations in Iraq continue to take shape. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance of my time. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD TO JANET L. BOGUE, DEPUTY ASSISTANT

SECRETARY, BUREAU OF EUROPEAN AND EURASIAN AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF

STATE, BY THE HONORABLE BETTY MCCOLLUM, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS

FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

Any nation that seeks to create a successful, democratic government protective of 

all its citizens must address the issue of human rights. Rule of law, religious freedom and an independent media, among others, cannot be successfully achieved unless the people of any given nation feel secure that their human rights will not be 

violated. 

As you are aware, in Kosova, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in 

Europe (OSCE) has taken the lead role in addressing human rights violations, and 

they are making progress. They have provided assistance and support to victims of 

high-risk crimes, reduced discriminatory practices, served as a policing force and 

raised awareness of human rights throughout this region. It is important that their 

mission continue. 

Despite OSCE’s progress, however, significant human rights violations in Kosova 

continue. According to the U.S. State Department’s Country Report for 2003 on the 

77

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, violence against women and children in Kosova remains a serious problem. Kosova serves increasingly as a transit point and destination for trafficking in women for the purpose of prostitution, and traditional gender 

roles continue to subject women to discrimination. 

The rights of the disabled also remain a significant challenge in Kosova. In August of 2002, the NGO Mental Disability Rights International published a report 

based on a two-year investigation of the treatment of persons with mental disabilities in Kosova. The report found extensive evidence of neglect, physical violence, 

sexual assault and arbitrary detention at the main mental health care facilities in 

Kosova. According to the State Department, at the end of 2002, ‘‘there had been no 

improvement in treatment options and physical protection of residential patients 

was still inadequate.’’ These are only a few of the many human rights violations 

that continue today in Kosova. 

Can you please explain to the committee what steps the United States is taking, 

working in conjunction with the United Nations Mission in Kosova, to address these 

and other human rights violations? In addition, can you please explain what additional efforts are needed from the United States, the United Nations and the international community to ensure the human rights of the Kosova people are protected?

Æ