Albanian American Civic League

April 4, 1999

President Bill Clinton
The White House
Washington, DC 20515

 

 

Dear President Clinton:

 

 

First, let me take this opportunity to tell you how much the Civic League and the 500.000 Albanian Americans deeply appreciate your decision to use military force to stop the genocide of the Albanians of Kosova. Your moral leadership in resolving the Balkan Crisis will be remembered for many years to come.

 

Mr. President, I have just learned from press accounts that our government has announced its intention to accept upwards of 20.000 Kosovar Albanian Refugees and that other members of the NATO alliance will accept 100.000 more. Even though the mass extermination and expulsion of the Albanians of Kosova is, by all accounts, the worst crime against humanity in the heart of Europe since the Nazi era, The Albanian American Civic League believes that any attempt to remove the Albanians from their ancestral homelands – where they have lived since the Illyrian times – will be another crime against humanity. Moreover, we believe that such attempt would prevent the resolution of the Balkan conflict for years to come.

 

A much more just, sensible, and economic alternative would be to build large refugee villages in northern Albania and perhaps in other neighboring areas so that the refugees can be repatriated as quickly as possible. The homes and other facilities constructed could later be used by host countries, especially Albania, which is the poorest nation in Europe.

 

On Friday, April 2, Vice President Al Gore stated on “Larry King Live” that “we understand the history” in the region, and that is why we will accept only Autonomy under Serbia, and not Independence, for Kosova. The reality is that Al Gore does not understand the History of the Balkans. Or perhaps, instead, his words confirm a rumored, unholy collusion by Holbrooke and other U.S. officials with Slobodan Milosevic in the effort to expel enough Albanians from Kosova to help Serbia redraw the borders of Kosova. We have seen Milosevic do this in 1990s in Bosnia, and we have seen the Serbs do this to Albanians for the past one hundred years.

 

When will our intelligence community understand how to deal with Milosevic? It is time to end Holbrooke strategy of elevating a war criminal to the status of peacemaker and propping him up as an essential player in the resolution of the conflict that he create ever since he invaded and brutally occupied Kosova in 1989 and then went to go on to wage war against Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia now again in Kosova.

 

Mr. President, Albanians over the last ten years have suffered greatly from our foreign policy mistakes. In 1989, we said nothing when Milosevic occupied Kosova, even though our State Department’s Country Reports every year spelled out the most egregious human right violations in Europe since the Nazi era. In 1991, Milosevic occupied Slovenia, and Slovenes managed to declare their independence and to repulse the Serbian Army before then Secretary of State, James Baker went to Belgrade to throw his support behind a unified Yugoslavia, and hence, behind Milosevic. Then, in 1995, Richard Holbrooke secured Milosevic’s cooperation at Dayton by agreeing to exclude from the negotiations the Albanians, the third largest ethnic group in the Balkans, and to keep the status of Kosova off the table.

 

Today, in 1999, we hear that NATO may not be willing to take the steps necessary to stop the genocide against Kosovar Albanians, while there are disquieting indications that we are doing exactly what Slobodan Milosevic wants. We not only told Milosevic that we would not deploy ground troops, enabling him to conduct the “ethnic cleansing” of Kosova with impunity, but we have gone so far as to legitimate his destruction of Kosova by saying that we will absorb into their countries almost half of the 300.000 Albanian refugees who have thus far been forced to flee to the borders of Albania and Macedonia.

 

Mr. President, how many Albanians must die before we do the right thing – namely arm the KLA, as we did Croats in Bosnia – and commiting NATO ground troops to stop the genocide and finish the job we started? We must win this conflict and remove Milosevic’s hard-line and brutal Communist Regime in order to create, in your words to the American People, “a united, free, and prosperous Europe” as we enter the 21^st century.

 

 

 

Sincerely,
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Joseph J. DioGuardi
Former U.S. Congressman (1985-1989)