POLITICS-UN: Inching Towards Action on Kosovo

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 1 1998 (IPS) - The latest allegations of massacres in Kosovo prompted the United Nations and Western states Thursday to consider military action against Yugoslavia – but member nations remained at odds about whether to carry out air strikes.

Britain took the lead in U.N. Security Council debate pushing for a statement that would give North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) forces the authority to use force if atrocities continue against Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority.

But Council members remained divided on sending any unambiguous message for military action, with France and Russia wary of attacks on Belgrade.

The current Council president, Jeremy Greenstock of Britain, said the Council was concerned about the continuing fighting in Kosovo, and added, “members strongly condemn those responsible for these atrocities.” He said that the body called on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to investigate and punish abuses committed by forces stationed in Kosovo.

Although U.S. Ambassador Peter Burleigh called the statement “a very clear, direct message to the government in Belgrade that it has to be responsible for the actions of its security forces,” the Council stopped short of calling for any specific responses to the bloodshed.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright insisted as well that “we believe that the best solution continues to be a diplomatic solution” even as she noted that NATO forces are being readied for action. “As we’ve seen in other areas, the combination of the threat of the use of force and diplomacy is the best way to keep proceeding here,” Albright argued.

The 15-nation Council was looking ahead to a U.N. report on the situation in Kosovo next Monday before taking further action, U.N. sources told IPS.

Regardless of the Council’s stance, some key Western governments were clearly anxious for military strikes amid reports that hundreds of Albanians have been massacred – and as many as 200,000 have fled from their homes – after the latest Yugoslav offensive against the separatist Kosovar Liberation Army.

“It is clear that the diplomatic solution alone will not work,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair told a Labour Party conference in Blackpool, England. “We have to send the strongest possible message to Milosevic that we will not tolerate any of these atrocities.”

“We have always said that we thought NATO could act without a U.N. Security Council resolution,” U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin said in Washington Thursday. “And I think the combination of an initial Security Council action some days ago and the credible reports of atrocities in recent days has made some who were perhaps less clear on the importance of threatening the use of force to come closer to our position.”

NATO appeared more ready for air strikes against Yugoslav forces than before, and its secretary-general, Javier Solana, said that he was waiting for a clear Security Council statement for such an action.

A clear message, however, may be a long time in coming. Last week, when the Council asked Milosevic to clamp down on atrocities by Yugoslav security forces in Kosovo, it did so under Chapter Seven of the U.N. Charter, which Washington interprets as sufficient authority for any subsequent use of force. But Russia and France dispute that claim, arguing that the Council would have to call for action directly – which it has not yet done.

China, meanwhile, refused even to vote in favour of last week’s resolution, deeming the Kosovo conflict an internal matter for Yugoslavia. Prospects for Council unity in voting for force against Belgrade remain slim.

Nevertheless, the latest atrocity reports helped bolster the case against Belgrade. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was “outraged” by the accounts of atrocities in Kosovo.

“It is the duty of security forces to protect citizens, not to intimidate them,” U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters. “The secretary-general utterly condemns these actions, and renews his strong representations to the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia … to desist from repeating them.”

“The Yugoslav authorities are carrying out an unrestrained campaign of terror against a civilian population,” argued Holly Cartner, executive director of Human Rights Watch-Europe and Central Asia. “The atrocities committed by the Serbian police and the Yugoslav army are at the core of the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo and must be stopped immediately.”

The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees told the Council that more than 200,000 Albanians were in dire need of assistance, facing homelessness amid ongoing fighting and freezing rains. Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy urged the Council not only to consider military action, but also to provide direct humanitarian treatment and security for refugees.

So far, no government has said it would send troops to take on the Yugoslav forces, which faced few direct repercussions for their involvement in wars in the breakaway republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina from 1991 to 1995. Kosovo, a province of Yugoslavia, is even more controversial as a potential battleground against the predominantly Serb forces linked to ethnic-based violence than the two newly-declared republics were.

Rubin warned, however, that “President Milosevic has chosen not to respond to the requirements of the international community, and NATO is considering, as we’ve indicated on several occasions, the possibility of further action.”