NATO HQ 21 Mar. 2000

Remarks by Lord Robertson, NATO Secretary General, at the press conference to mark the first anniversary of the Kosovo air campaign Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, One year ago this week, NATO launched Operation Allied Force against Yugoslavia. It was a just and necessary decision. It demonstrated this Alliance's ability to unite and to stay united even in the toughest times. The worst ethnic cleansing that we have seen in Europe in half a century was stopped and reversed. A year on, that remains the bottom line. Today, to those who find it fashionable to question NATO's success and to doubt what the air campaign achieved, I say this. Consider for a moment what would have happened had NATO not acted. Milosevic would have concluded his policy of violent expulsion, systematically organised and ruthlessly executed. Hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians would today be stranded in refugee camps throughout the region with no hope of return. An already unstable region would have been thrown into further massive political and economic turmoil. The barbaric policy of Belgrade would have succeeded and the credibility not only of NATO but of Western democracy and its values would have been seriously damaged. Is that how we would have wished to enter the 21st century? It is of course much too early to claim complete success in Kosovo; but it is equally wrong to conclude that we have failed. In the rush to reinterpret the past or pass judgement on the present, many facts and many truths have been forgotten. For this reason I have chosen to mark this first anniversary by issuing my own reflection on Kosovo, one year on. It will remind you of the circumstances in which NATO acted and why we had to. First the air campaign. It worked. It achieved the three essential conditions: a stop to all military organised violence and the withdrawal of the Serb forces; the deployment of a NATO-led international peacekeeping presence; the full and safe return of all the expelled Kosovar Albanian refugees. Our aim was not to wage war against Yugoslavia or to bring about the fall of Milosevic and his regime. The air campaign set out to disrupt the violence against the Kosovars and to weaken Serb military capabilities in a carefully controlled way. And that is what we did. We did not set out to play any numbers game. The answer to the question: "how many tanks did we destroy" is "enough". NATO not only acted to uphold international law in Kosovo but we also conducted our air campaign in accordance with international law. In marked contrast Milosevic violated virtually every provision of international law. We were able to achieve our humanitarian objective against a ruthless, unprincipled cynical opponent while remaining true to our values and standards. Massive and detailed efforts were made to minimise the impact of the air campaign on the Serbian civilian population. We attacked only targets directly related to the Yugoslav military effort. And the selection of targets was always subject to legal advice. NATO paid unprecedented attention to preventing accidental harm to civilians. Many legitimate military targets were taken off our list because of the possible risk to non-combatants. Of course some incidents occurred where there were unintended civilian casualties. NATO regrets these civilian deaths. But they cannot be viewed in isolation. NATO was now acting to stop deliberately inflicted human suffering, perpetrated on a massive scale. Using precision attacks we stopped that humanitarian tragedy. NATO has now been in Kosovo for nine months. We have not yet been able to quell all the violence, subdue all the anger and achieve complete ethnic co-existence. Yet recall what we inherited last June: a province suffering half a century of communist stagnation and mismanagement, 10 years of apartheid and then the brutal legacy of Milosevic's repression. We entered not a province but a vacuum. Given this history, the UN and KFOR, working closely together, have made significant progress. Of course, nobody can be satisfied with the situation in Kosovo today. But it is wrong to say nothing is going right. In difficult and testing circumstances KFOR and the UN have produced some remarkable achievements: 1,300,000 refugees and displaced persons have returned to their homes - faster and more completely than such returns have ever happened before. the murder rate has gone down from fifty a week to five. we have disbanded and demilitarised the Kosovo Liberation Army who gave up 10,000 weapons. A further 3,800 illicit small arms have been seized and destroyed. we have established the Kosovo Protection Corps as a civil emergency organisation. a new local multi ethnic Kosovo Police Service has been formed, with the first two classes already graduated. we have begun to reconstruct the civil society in Kosovo. Schools have reopened and Kosovar children are being taught in their own language for the first time in 10 years. We have begun to rebuild the infrastructure of Kosovo. Power stations and over 200 km of railway track have been repaired, as well as 2,000 km of roads cleared of mines and ordnance. Rebuilding and winterisation was so successful that there is not one report of death from a very cold winter. There are many other examples. You will find them in this document. They may not get much media coverage, but on the ground they are making a real difference to the lives of the people of Kosovo. I salute all those who are helping to build the basis for a better Kosovo. Soldiers, civilians, police officers, aid workers and many, many others from across the world. We have made a good start, but we have to do even better. The international community cannot leave the Kosovo job half done. This is "Mission Possible". Very much possible, but it will call for patience, perseverance and resources. We, the members of the international community, have clear responsibilities: to keep KFOR at full strength in the months ahead until the security environment is stable. to send enough civilian police, with judges and prosecutors, to establish even-handed order and to make sure that lawbreakers are not only arrested but brought to justice. to protect the Serb and other minorities so that they remain in Kosovo, making it clear to everyone that we will not abandon our goal of a multi-ethnic democracy. Finally, we must provide the necessary financial resources for reconstruction. But the international community is only one part of the equation. We intervened to protect the lives and the human rights of the Kosovar Albanians and we did so successfully. They must now demonstrate that they too are committed to a democratic and multiethnic Kosovo. There are understandably strong feelings and some desire for vengeance. Those who lead the Kosovar Albanian people have a responsibility to show how destructive and counterproductive those emotions are. We will not tolerate troublemakers and extremists spreading disorder and violence inside Kosovo. We will not allow ethnic extremists from whatever community to divide cities like Mitrovica in the hope that they can divide Kosovo itself. Our intervention one year ago gave the Kosovars a unique opportunity. To build a future in peace and freedom. It is an opportunity to be grabbed. So today I call on all Kosovars to use this anniversary to stand back from the passions of the moment and set about building that tolerant, multi-ethnic society which will be the ultimate answer to the world's ethnic cleansers. Link to the full document: Kosovo one year on