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Time: Saturday, 02/26/2005, 09:21:23 AM
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Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd
Street
New York, NY 10036
Dear Editor:
Frank Carlucci's op-ed "The War We Have Not Finished" (2/22/05) is entirely misleading. First, there are errors in the basic facts - e.g., the alleged 700,000 people said to have fled primarily did so after NATO started the air campaign, not as a result of Belgrade's prior action. But the greatest problem lies with his faulty conclusions.
In the 21st Century, Albanian extremists in Kosovo simply cannot be awarded independence through threats of violence. Even prior to their March 2004 racist rampage - termed "Kristallnacht" by UN officials on the ground - Senator Brownback wrote to President Bush, concluding, "We should not consider advancing the cause of independence of a people whose first act when liberated was to ethnically cleanse a quarter of a million of their fellow citizens and destroy over a hundred of their holy sites." Following March, NATO Secretary General Scheffer plainly said: " I don’t believe that the unresolved status has anything to do with this. This has to do with people who think wrongly, who have illusions that by carrying out these criminal acts of ethnic violence they get closer to their ambitions but they must understand that the international community will never accept this". Succumbing to blackmail and granting such anomalous independence would only hurt stability in the region, while sending the wrong message to extremists everywhere.
Mr. Carlucci mentions that the Albanian population would sooner go to war than submit to Belgrade's rule. Does that mean the Serb, Roma, and other minorities who were victims of Albanian reprisals should submit to an Albanian-dominated government led by a prime minister who is an indicted war criminal in his native country, with documented Al-Qaeda ties?
Legitimate grievances of the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia were tied to a regime that was voted out more than four years ago. Today Serbia is a democratic country and the most multiethnic of all former Yugoslav states. Perhaps Mr. Carlucci should visit the region. He would find Serbia's capital city Belgrade to be a vibrant, multiethnic and cosmopolitan city. On the other hand, Kosovo's capital Pristina is today a monoethnic Albanian city, fully cleansed of its other ethnicities and rampant with drugs, human trafficking and mob rule.
It is true that Kosovo has been left hanging long enough and needs to be addressed - for the sake of regional stability, as well as our moral investment. The first step is refugee return and basic human rights. If NATO could facilitate the return of those 700,000 Albanian refugees five years ago in weeks, surely it can do so with half that many non-Albanian ones, still displaced five years later. However, that requires enforcing security, and in turn accountability. As for the longer term - once the misguided independence option is taken off the table, negotiations can focus on workable solutions of substantial autonomy, as envisioned both by UN SC Resolution 1244 and accepted European standards.
Sincerely,
Andy Verich
Director, Washington Office
