“Given that democratic countries have free and
independent media, President Clinton’s visit to Kosovo on
November 23, would be a golden opportunity to take stock of
the US-lead Western policies to bring peace to the region.
Here is a selection of questions with some media advisory.
In other words, if I imagine I had been granted an interview
as a journalist, this is what I would focus on,” says TFF
director Jan Oberg.

(1) Mr. President, US warplanes bombed Yugoslavia and the
Kosovo province with you as the Chief Commander of US
forces. Does it worry you that the whole campaign was
justified and conducted on the basis of what has turned out
to be grossly mistaken or falsified information about a
genocide planned by Belgrade?

[During the campaign, President Clinton, Secretary
Cohen, and Secretary Albright are on record with figures of
between 10.000 and 100.000 missing and probably killed in
consequence of the alleged plan by Milosevic, Operation
Horseshoe. However, the Hague Tribunal has recently revealed
that, so far, 2.108 bodies have been identified – of more
than one ethnicity and dead from different causes; in short,
not all Albanians massacred by Serbs. From a human
point, of course, this is a great relief. But it raises
serious issues as to of the information and intelligence
basis on which decisions with far-reaching consequences are
made. And it begs the question: what is world public opinion
informed about and what not, and who produces information
for what purposes].

(2) What are your thoughts by the fact that NATO, with
your country in the lead, killed at least 2.000 innocent
civilians in Serbia due to stray missiles and bombs? You
have apologised to the Chinese people for bombing their
embassy. Did you consider the possibility personally to
apologise to the relatives or, for instance, pay a
compensation of some kind? And how do you feel about the
indictment of you, your Secretaries and all other NATO
leaders to the Hague War Crimes Tribunal?

[Click here for the indictment
of NATO leaders Click here for the indictment
of Slobodan Milosevic for, among other things, being
responsible for the death of more than 300 people during the
Kosovo war] .

(3) Mr. President, the American Camp Bondsteel here at
which you celebrate Thanksgiving Day with your soldiers, is
said to be the largest US military facility the US has built
from the ground-up since Vietnam. I have three questions
about it: a) what long term strategic aims does this huge
investment serve, and b) how is it possible to build such a
facility on territory which, according to concurrent legal
judgment – and all UN resolutions – belongs to the
sovereign, recognised state of Yugoslavia whose integrity
you are also obliged to respect? And c) are you not sending
a very strong signal that Kosovo’s future status is somehow
already settled by fait accompli?

[Camp Bondsteel is described in a November 22
Christian
Science Monitor article. The base is gigantic, 775
acres, costs US $ 36.6 million, has every convenience and
facility needed for its 6.300 US soldiers, including two
chapels and a mobile Burger King; the way it is constructed
is said to be indicative of a multi-year engagement and
wider-than-Kosovo aims].

(4) It is hardly wrong to say that the US was sympathetic
to the plight of the Albanians and cultivated the leaders of
the Kosovo Liberation Army, LDK/UCK, such as the present
self-appointed prime minister of this province, Mr. Hacim
Thaci. Are you disappointed by the fact that these allies of
yours – I think we can call them that since KLA and NATO
helped each other – are also responsible for an ethnic
cleansing policy that has driven 234.000 legitimate
non-Albanian citizens out of the province, according to
UNHCR figures? If so, what do you do now during your
visit to put enough pressure on Hacim Thaci and his military
and civilian colleagues to ensure that you can say what you
said about the Albanian refugees in Macedonia and Kosovo: we
are going to bring them back to a safe environment.

(5) I have a follow-up to that with a somewhat
different angle: according to the UN mandate that KFOR,
UNMIK, OSCE operate on, Kosovo’s citizens and their
multi-ethnic composition should be protected. However, the
234.000 have left under the very eyes of these missions
being present on the ground. I am sure that you, as the
single most responsible leader, regret this failure, given
that this is the biggest and most heavily armed peacekeeping
mission ever – and the ultimate test of NATO in that role.
In which ways does America and its NATO and UN allies intend
to change the structure and function of the entire Kosovo
operation before it decays beyond repair?

(6) Mr. President, in every speech you have held also on
this tour, you emphasise human rights, general humanitarian
concerns and freedom. Now, there are almost 1 million
refugees in Serbia – many more in fact than there were
Kosovo-Albanian refugees in Macedonia and Albania. They have
fled from Croatia, Bosnia and now Kosovo, driven away for
exactly the same reasons you stated repeatedly at the time
about the Albanian victims: “not because of anything they
have done, but because of who they are.” Yugoslavia and
Serbia is in deep crisis because of political blunders and
economic mismanagement, that is true, but also because of
NATO’s destruction and many years of sanctions and exclusion
from the international community. A humanitarian catastrophe
cannot be excluded this winter. How do you reconcile your
personal commitment to humanism and moral leadership with
actively preventing that THESE human beings are helped? Do
you see any historical evidence that this is the way to
overthrow authoritarian leaders?

(7) In your own speeches before the bombing campaign, you
emphasised that a major goal apart from stopping a genocide
was to create stability in the Balkan region. I think quite
a few diplomats and security experts would agree that
neither Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, nor Bosnia
and Croatia for that matter, are more secure now than before
March 24. Rather, less so. I think many would be grateful
for your guidance as to where and when the Balkan situation
has improved in any proportion to the political, moral,
military and economic investment we have made here?

(8) Do you intend to compensate, one way or another,
Macedonia and Albania for America’s/NATO’s use of their
territory and facilities? I mean in more substantial terms
than “keeping the door open” for later – much later –
membership of NATO?

(9) You have stated time and again, Mr. President, that
you are proud that America intervened both in Bosnia and
here. And it did so, for sure, forcefully and with
determination – so much so, it seems, that EU countries are
now starting a ‘turbo-militarization’ with aims such as
military-industrial and -political integration, common
policies, EU-WEU fusion – in short, big steps towards a
European army. The reason? They think they looked timid
compared with America! They want to be able to fix problems
in their own backyard. Now, I think I am not offending
anyone by saying that the United States of America has
antagonised the Chinese and the Russians a bit – NATO
expansion, the Ballistic Missile Defence plans, the Test Ban
policy, bombing of Yugoslavia, the failed economic aid, the
oil pipeline agreement you just signed in Istanbul,
Georgia’s future NATO membership, the ‘noise’ about
Chechenya… – well, you know the list much better, of
course. Do you also sometimes feel that the US has taken the
lead to such an extent that it has antagonised its European
friends and that this could backfire, that they are now
somehow turning away from the Atlantic dimension. Even Tony
Blair’s UK seems to want Europe to become more and more of a
super power and less dependent on the US?

(10) Finally – and you have been extremely generous with
your time – I would like to ask you a question that has only
indirect bearings on the Balkans. Wherever you go you
promote human rights, freedom and democracy. I am sure that
the right to privacy and freedom of speech is absolutely
essential central in your thinking. Therefore, I can’t help
asking you: how come the US has developed technology that
permits it to listen and automatically register not only
e-mail and fax traffic worldwide but also – now – the human
voice as we speak on phones with each other. It is done by
your National Security Agency, but – sorry if you think this
is a naive question – does the United States HAVE to
feel so insecure? I relate it also to the fact that US
defence for the year 2000 will be more than three times
greater than the combined military spending of China,
Russia, and the rogue states Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, North
Korea and Cuba?

[The tapping of communication was reported recently
by The
Independent. The military expenditure figures were
reported by The
Christian Science Monitor]

“Well, only carefully chosen people get the
opportunity to ask the President of the United States
questions. But we can ask ourselves questions and ponder the
answers such as: why on earth are questions like these not
asked by those who do get the chance? And why are they
not analysed and debated MUCH MORE in our local and global
media?

Philip Knightly has stated that war’s first victim is
truth. Peace researcher Johan Galtung maintains that complex
understanding is its second victim. It seems to me that
war’s third victim is self-criticism – and thus we prevent
ourselves from learning about the real motives behind wars
as well as the alternatives to war,” ends TFF’s director.

© TFF 1999

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