1.
Goodman: [inaudible] extensively about, well,
the background to all of this, but with the 200,000, perhaps a half-a-million,
protesters rallying against Kosovo’s declaration of independence, can you
explain what you feel is going on here?
2.
Power: Well, Kosovo’s status has been frozen for
the last nine years. It hasn’t gotten sufficient international attention. The
world is polarized — it’s no secret — and to some degree, the polarization
between the United States, on the one hand, or perhaps the West and the rest,
you might even say, is playing itself out here. I think
while you would certainly see protest in Serbia, what has given fuel to those
protests is the knowledge that Russia stands behind them from afar, that Greece
even stands behind them from afar. I was just watching the footage, and
there were the flags of both Serbia, Russia and Greece. That is going to
embolden people there. And I’m not sure Putin is serious. I don’t think he’s
going to put anything where his mouth is at present. He’s threatening to
recognize all kinds of other autonomous movements around the world in
retaliation. But there’s no question that it’s both incredibly important for the
fate of Serbs living within Kosovo that minority rights are protected, that we
actually start to focus on the welfare of people who live in Kosovo, that the
protests are diffused and somehow the Serbian people are given a path to some
kind of integration into the West to end this kind of isolation and
exclusionism that’s been going on, because it’s just — there’s so
many people left out in Serbia, but moreover that we get to the structural
issues in the international system, such that people don’t start threatening to
recognize secession movements all over the world.
3.
Goodman: You’re an adviser to Barack Obama, in
addition to having just published another book, but I wanted to play for you
Hillary Clinton’s comments last night in the debate, at the Democratic
presidential debate in Austin, when she brought up the issue of Kosovo. This is
what she had to say.
4.
Clinton: I’ve supported the independence of
Kosovo, because I think it is imperative that in the heart of Europe we
continue to promote independence and democracy, and I would be moving very
aggressively to hold the Serbian government responsible with their security
forces to protect our embassy. Under international law, they should be doing
that.
5.
Goodman: Samantha Power, your response?
6.
Power: Well, I just think it’s one thing — I
mean, on some level, I agree. I think that if there
wasn’t violence in Serbia today because of the declaration of independence,
there would be violence in Kosovo today because the Albanians were literally
just recoiling under international occupation, I mean, ultimately. So we
were sort of in a lose-lose situation once it got to this point. And the
tragedy is that the nine years weren’t used to do more to actually sort of
deepen the economic ties and deepen the minority rights protections and so
forth in Kosovo and that it has come to this. But I think that one has to be
very careful not to think about Kosovo a la carte, and, to some degree, this
sort of “I’m going to stampede ahead” and “We’re going to recognize this” and,
you know, “The Serbs are responsible yet again” — I mean, that kind of
implication probably isn’t going to do the people of Serbia any favors in the
long term. We’ve really got to start to think about integration and not simply
denunciation.
7.
González: Jeremy, I’d like to ask you, you
covered the original US-led NATO bombings in that region years ago, and it was
raised then as sort of an example of humanitarian intervention that worked. And
here we are a decade later, and we still have major, major divisions and
problems in the region. Your perspective, as you look at this new upsurge of
problems?
8.
Scahill: I find it very interesting that the
Bush administration is talking about international law and how international
law needs to be upheld for the protection of the US embassy. That certainly is
true, but notice the selectivity of when the Bush administration chooses to
recognize that there actually is international law. I mean, this is an administration
that refuses to support any kind of an effective and independent international
criminal court, preferring to support these sort of ad hoc tribunals, which have been used against Yugoslavia and
certainly with Rwanda. In the case of Hillary Clinton, what’s
particularly interesting is that she and her advisers, which include many of
the key figures involved with the original bombing of Yugoslavia and, in fact,
the architects of much of US policy in the 1990s toward Yugoslavia, people like
Madeleine Albright and Richard Holbrooke, that Clinton holds this up as a sort
of successful US foreign policy or international action. And I think it’s important to remember that this declaration
of independence from Kosovo was immediately supported by the Bush
administration and many powerful countries in the world. I was recalling during the 2000 elections in the United
States, being in Serbia and people joking that the worst thing that could
happen to us is that Al Gore would be president, because then we’ll have the
Democrats continuing to focus on us, and if Bush is president, he’ll ignore us.
And,
well, of course, Bush immediately recognized Kosovo, and that sort of seals the
deal, in a sense. But it’s important to remember how we got to this point. I
mean, Samantha was talking a little bit about the broader context here. The
fact is that this was sort of Clinton’s Iraq, in a way. He bombed Yugoslavia
for seventy-eight days with no United Nations mandate. I was at the UN the night that it began, and Kofi Annan was
sort of beside himself that the action had
been taken so swiftly, this military action, seventy-eight days of bombing of
Yugoslavia under the auspices of NATO. Wesley Clark was the commander of those operations, the
Supreme Allied Commander. They bombed a Serbian
television station, killing sixteen media workers; some of them were media
workers, some of them were makeup artists, others were engineers. They directly
targeted passenger trains and then fabricated a video afterwards to make it
seem as though it was a split-second decision. They killed thousands of
civilians. And the fact was that the exaggerations of what was happening in
Kosovo by William
Cohen, the Defense Secretary at the time, who talked about a million
missing people — then it was scaled back to 100,000, then 50,000, then 10,000,
and now the official number is that there were 2,700 people that were killed,
and there’s been no determination of their ethnicity. Now, I can tell you from being on the ground in Kosovo that
some of the worst violence that occurred, slaughtering of Albanians, happened
after the NATO bombing began. And the
fact was that the US sabotaged the work of the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe in the weeks leading up to the NATO bombing of
Yugoslavia. And I think that what we have to understand here is that this is
where the sort of liberals, like Hillary Clinton, come together with the
neocons, because there are a lot of similarities between what happened in
Yugoslavia and what happened in Iraq, with the lead-up to the war, the
disregard for international law or international consensus, and then the
outright killing of civilians under the auspices of a humanitarian
intervention.
9.
Goodman: Samantha Power, your response? And
you’re saying Barack Obama isn’t that different on this issue than Hillary
Clinton in his attitude to what has happened.
10.
Power: Well, I think he feels like it has come
to this point, and, as I said, there was going to be major violence in Kosovo
if the status of the province was left untended to. I do have a different
perspective from Jeremy from that period, as one who spent time in Kosovo in
advance of the NATO bombing and wondered what on earth was going to be the fate
of those people if the Serbian regime remained in power, and disagree with some
of the specific facts of what he said about what actually happened during the
bombing. But I think the important fact is that we reveal, over time — in
academia, one talks about revealed preferences, revealed agendas. If we could put the people of Kosovo finally at the
centerpiece of our thinking about what to do about the region, or the people of
Serbia, for that matter, I mean, whatever the motives are for getting involved,
whatever happened back in 1999 — and I’m not saying we should brush it
under the rug, by any means — but what
is revealed again and again is when we pay attention to these kind of places,
it’s a spasm, and it’s usually for some combination of national — something
to do with national interest. At that time, it was probably NATO
credibility. But I have to say, if
it weren’t for the atrocities against the Kosovo Albanians, there would not
have been an intervention. It wasn’t merely about NATO credibility. You don’t
just go bomb gratuitously — and I recognize that I’m probably in the minority at this table
in believing this to be true. But having gone in, you had a responsibility to the province, you
had a responsibility to the Serbian minority. And what happened is we got
involved and then turned our attention elsewhere. And Bush, in coming into
office, pulled US troops out of Kosovo, basically said, “This isn’t my problem,”
and then started to pay attention at the moment we recognized Kosovo’s
independence. That’s not the way you go. You don’t sort of spasm here, spasm
there. It’s going to produce this kind of turbulence and this kind of violence.
11.
Scahill: What the United States did, though,
right after NATO forces entered Yugoslavia is they brought in some high-profile
thugs and criminals, people like Agim Ceku, who became the commander, the
military commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army. This
was a man who was a war criminal from the war in Bosnia when he served in the
Croatian military. He was trained by a US mercenary company called Military
Professional Resources Incorporated. He was the guy that the United
States was basically bolstering to become the new head of the Kosovo army, and
it’s quite interesting that that man is a war criminal. And the fact is that
Camp Bondsteel is of tremendous, significant importance, significance, to the
United States for geopolitical reasons, and I think that’s one of the reasons
why Bush moved so swiftly to support the independence of Kosovo, is that the
government in Pristina is very easy to manipulate. The government in Belgrade,
that’s a tougher story. Vojislav
Kostunica, who’s one of the main political figures, the prime minister
of the country, is a fairly rightwing isolationist and I don’t think would be
too happy about a US military base operating on Serbian soil. But, you know, in
response to some of what Samantha was saying, in the 1990s, the worst
humanitarian crises in the world, certainly Rwanda and other African nations,
certainly in Europe, but Iraq — I mean, where is the
label of genocide for the US policy toward Iraq? It was Bill
Clinton who initiated the longest sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam
against Iraq under the guise of humanitarian intervention in the north and
south of that country, the sanctions killing hundreds of thousands of people. I
mean, we have had one of the greatest mass slaughters in history, in modern
history, in Iraq, going from 1990 to the present, and yet everyone talks about
this as though it’s not genocide, as though it’s not part of that bigger
picture. Clinton
selling weapons to the Turks to slaughter the Kurds — I mean, there were all
sorts of horrific things happening in the world. And it’s the
selectivity of US foreign policy that I think is really outrageous. It’s
not that no one should do anything about it; it’s that the Iraqis — it’s sort
of, you know, good victims, bad victims.
12.
Goodman: Samantha Power?
13.
Power: Where does one start? I mean, I would
just like to know — I guess Jeremy just asked — the question is, since you’ve
spent so much time there, at the moment that we’re at now, what do we do, in fact? I mean,
are you suggesting that then basically the Serbian — the Kosovars should become
part of Serbia? I mean, I felt like we hit a stalemate, and something had to
budge. There was going to be violence in Kosovo. And I, again, don’t mean to
brush all the crimes of American foreign policy under the rug, and I’ve
written extensively also about sanctions and the toll of sanctions and so forth
in Iraq. But just to stick to this moment —
14.
Scahill: But is that genocide, according to you?
15.
Power: No, but we can talk about that.
I don’t
think the Clinton administration set out to deliberately destroy the Iraqi
people as such.
16.
Scahill: Oh, I totally disagree. But what
Madeleine Albright said, it was worth the price, the hundreds of thousands
of Iraqi victims of US policy.
17.
Power: So can I just ask: so what exactly do we do now in terms of Kosovo, as one who
has spent a lot of time there?
18.
Scahill: Well, now, I
think we have a very serious problem, because I think, and as Professor Robert
Hayden from the University of Pittsburgh pointed
out last night, who of course is fluent in Serbian, spent a lot of time there
and is a specialist in international law, there could have been some kind of a
negotiated border agreement, I think, where the Serbs would have been
guaranteed protection. I mean, I was talking to sources in Serbia last
night who said that now the Serbian military is actually engaging in incursions
into the northern part of Kosovo. This could potentially be a very serious
issue. And I think that even if we look at it from the most mainstream
political perspective, it was unwise for the US to come in so swiftly without
giving the Serbian government an opportunity to deal with the safety of the
Serbs in Mitrovica and in some of those border areas. And I think, internally
in Serbia now, one of the reasons we’re seeing so much protest is that the
Milosevic government had a despicable policy toward refugees from all of the
various former Yugoslav republics who found themselves in Serbia. And you have
literally hundreds of thousands of Serbs who are sort of left without a place
to go and don’t have full rights in Serbia. I just think it was very poor
diplomacy on the part of the Bush administration to do this so swiftly, and I
think it raises serious questions about what the US agenda there is. So we have
a very serious international crisis there right now.
19.
Power: I just think to call it “swift,” when for
nine years Kosovo’s status has been hanging in limbo, is not right. And part of the
issue is what — even stipulating everything you said about NATO bombing, what
exactly do you do then about a province that is hanging by a thread where you
have a Serbian minority? I mean, one of the things that I think we don’t talk
near enough about is that there are no takers for the demand that monitors be
put into Kosovo. You don’t see European governments, you don’t see other
international governments around, you don’t see people stepping up to say, you
know, “I prefer to do more than simply denounce George Bush; I’d actually like
to help the Serbian minority in Kosovo.” Those minority rights protections have
been in play for two years. The Serbian government wasn’t interested in
negotiating and being a part of anything that would constitute a compromise in
terms of Kosovo’s future.
20.
González: Is your sense that the rush or the
quick movement of the Bush administration to support this independence is in
some way effected also by the continuing tensions between the United States and
the rest of the Muslim world, that this is a — because I would assume that in
other parts of the Muslim world, there’s support for this — for Kosovo
independence?
21.
Power: Can we just push back a little on this
idea of swiftness, again, as I wasn’t very articulate just now? But there has been a process overseen by the United Nations
by Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish prime minister [president], for I think
now going on three years, as basically an effort to do this peaceably. I don’t
see how there was ever going to be a way to get out of this bind without
offending either Serbia or the ethnic Albanians and either stemming violence in
Serbia or stemming violence in Kosovo. But whether there could have been
a compromise or not, it was an international diplomat, who has the respect —
allegedly, anyway — of both sides, who tried try to come up with a solution
which would have protected the Serbian minority and would have protected
hopefully ethnic Albanians, as well. That was rejected. There were no
negotiations that were accepted by Serbia. Then, at a certain point, the Albanians
said, OK, after three years, we’re going to declare independence, or we’re
going — this is going to explode. Now, they don’t care about the Serbian
minority at all. They’d just assume the Serbs be cleansed, I couldn’t agree
with Jeremy more. But the idea that this is swift, what
it is is a swift response to the declaration of independence in the hopes,
almost, that it will just go away, that if you could just get enough countries
within the UN to recognize this independence, then maybe that will — cooler
heads will prevail. And the irony of what happened yesterday in Belgrade
is there’s some chance that perhaps the perverse counter-effect to the violence
is that maybe in Serbia this will actually — because of the fear of thuggery
and so forth, that tempers will abate. But I’m just trying to think about how to
go forward in an impossible situation where Kosovo is also now sadly the
playground for great powers, as it has been arguably for a very long time,
rather than a place where people are actually focusing on the welfare of the
people in peril.
22.
Scahill: I mean, but what I do think is of
particular concern to people in this country is when Hillary Clinton holds this
up as a success. I mean, did you support, you know, the
total sabotage of diplomacy at Rambouillet, when the United States put forward
an occupation agreement that said that NATO ships and vessels and troops would
enjoy free and unrestricted access throughout all of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, not just Kosovo, and then said, “Oh, Milosevic rejected peace”? The reality was
that Albright and Holbrooke delivered basically a document that no sovereign
country on earth would
have signed, and it was a setup. It was an occupation agreement that said
immunity for US troops traveling around. I mean, this is how the Democrats and Republicans come
together in their foreign policy. I
mean, this is the Hillary Clinton-George Bush alliance. This is how
international diplomacy is waged: through bombs.
23.
Power: So Kofi Annan, who you invoked
earlier, gave a very good speech in the middle of the NATO war, which was: I
don’t want to live in a world where countries like the United States can just
trample over the UN Security Council, as you alluded to earlier in terms of
both Kosovo and Iraq. I also don’t want to live in a world where a government
can commit massacres with impunity. Kofi Annan was much more torn —-
24.
Scahill: As Clinton did in Iraq —
25.
Power: If I may —
26.
Scahill: — and Bush is doing in Iraq.
27.
Power: If I may — Kofi Annan was hugely torn
about the Kosovo intervention. He didn’t want to see the UN Security Council trampled, you’re right. There
wasn’t adequate international legal authorization for that, by any means. But
he also didn’t want to live in a situation where the Serbs could massacre the
ethnic Albanians at will. Sergio Vieria de Mello, who
at some point we will maybe talk about, was also somebody totally loyal to the
UN Charter, totally loyal to the idea of civilian protection. He also supported
the war in Kosovo. So, yes, in fact, I did support the Rambouillet negotiations. I don’t
see it at all the way that you did. And, again, I haven’t heard a scenario by
which ethnic Albanians would actually have been free of massacres and free of
fear in the scenario which would have left the province alone in a way that you
suggest.
28.
Goodman: I want to thank you both on this
subject. Samantha, when we come back from our break, we’re going to talk about
Chasing the Flame. We’re going to talk about Sergio de Mello. This is Democracy
Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. Jeremy Scahill, a Democracy
Now! correspondent, author of the bestselling book Blackwater: The Rise of the
World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. It was just announced this week that he
won a Polk Award for that book. Samantha Power, with us, her new book is called
Chasing the Flame. We’ll talk about it in a minute.
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