Role of Albanian American Civic League

 

**** IMPORTANT NOTICE ****
TO:Members of the Board of Directors

FROM:Joseph J. DioGuardi
DATE:October 31 1990

SUBJECT:The Albanian American Civic Leaaue Proves Again to Be IM Most Effective Voice for Kosova!!

What I am about to write will hopefully prove to all that the Albanian American Civic League is the most effective voice Kosova here in America and abroad (as Dr. Ibrahim Rugova, our leader, has said on many occasions). By now the Albanian community should realize that my work and that of the Albanian American Civic League is first and foremost for the benefit of Kosova. Everything we do is carefully calculated to help Kosova in every and any way we can. C I wish I could say that for everyone else?s efforts.j I hope the events of last week have set the record straight on who is really helping Kosova: the ALBANIAN AMERICAN CIVIC LEAGUE!!

The past week will go down as one of the most important and historic weeks for Kosova. But, let me go back a bit. A couple of weeks ago, I knew that we were going to have to change our strategy at passing meaningful legislation for Kosova. We had only a few weeks left in this year?s Congressional session and a free standing Congressional Resolution would only indicate the ?sense? of Congress and would not do enough to help Kosova. With the impending conflict in Iraq and my friends in Israel telling me there was great turmoil expected, I knew this year?s Foreign Aid Appropriations Bill was one that would have to pass Congress and the President would have to sign. So, we converted our tough Resolution for Kosova to an Amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill.

At our request, our friends in the Senate transformed our resolution into an Amendment which would prohibit all aid to Yugoslavia. I was careful not to advertise the Amendment, since I did not want the Serbs finding out and lobbying against it. While the Foreign Aid Bill was to pass the Senate on Tuesday, on Monday Congressman Broomfield brought a ?watered? down Resolution to the Floor of the House and the Resolution was overwhelmingly defeated by the Serbs. This defeat put our Amendment in direct jeopardy.

On Tuesday I called all our Senate friends and staff to protect our Amendment. It remained on track and was passed through the entire Senate on Wednesday. The next step was for the entire Bill to come up before a Joint House/ Senate Conference Committee. Here is where the untiring work of the Albanian American Civic League came into play. Our friends, Senator Dole and his staff, Senators Nickles and Lautenberg and Congressman Porter and his staff came through for us during a 16 hour conference and stood firm in spite of the personal lobbying of Congresswoman Bentley in the room. The end result was our amendment passed by a four to two vote (with many democrats abstaining because of our intensive lobbying that day) at 3:00 a.m. on Friday morning. It was emotional and historic moment!!

The Foreign Aid Bill with our Amendment to stop aid to Yugoslavia should be signed by President Bush shortly. After our Amendment becomes law, the Civic League must then play the role of ?watchdog? on the State Department to be sure that any aid does not reach Serbia until free elections are held and gross human rights abuses against Albanians in Kosova are eliminated. We will do this with Congressional Committee hearings including, this time, the powerful Banking Committee.

The difficult events of the past week, beginning with the defeat of the Broomfield Resolution and ending with the close call in passing our tough Amendment, should have taught us all a lesson - we should never underestimate the difficult Congressional process by which Resolutions and Bills are passed. I know and understand this process personally since, as a Congressman, my Resolutions for Kosova passed the House twice and again last year after leaving the Congress. We won because we were prepared!! I personally got over 150 Congressmen to Co-Sponsor our Resolutions before bringing them to the Floor of the House. Thank God the Civic League had prepared our Senate and House Conference Committee friends so. well that the Serbs were not able to use the disastrous 362 to 55 vote against the Broomfield Resolution in the House on Tuesday to defeat our Amendment on Thursday. We won in spite of the last minute crusade by the Serbs in Congress because we did it by working very hard and working very smart and being there on the scene, sixteen hours straight.

Joseph J. DioGuardi