Fwd) Human rights monitor with the OSCE Ko

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Date sent:      	Mon, 17 May 1999 11:57:23 -0700
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Subject:        	Human rights monitor with the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission
 	(KVM) offers a view from the ground in Kosovo

The Democrat  					May 1999

FAILURE OF DIPLOMACY

	Returning human rights monitor with the OSCE Kosovo 
	Verification Mission (KVM) offers a view from the ground 
	in Kosovo

	by Rollie Keith

Canada is currently participating in the NATO coalition air bombardment 
of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, ostensibly to force compliance 
with the terms of the Rambouillet and subsequent Paris "Interim 
Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo". The justification 
for this aggressive action was to force Yugoslavian compliance and 
acceptance to the so-called "agreement" and to end the alleged 
humanitarian and human rights abuses being perpetrated on the ethnic 
majority Kosovar Albanian residents of the Serbian province of Kosovo. 
The bombardment then is rationalized on the basis of the UN Declaration 
of Human Rights taking precedence over the UN Charter that states the 
inviolability of national sovereignty. While I am concerned with human 
rights abuse, I also believe many nations, if not all, would clearly be 
vulnerable to this criticism; therefore, we require a better mechanism to 
counter national human rights violations than bombing.

What, however, was the situation within Kosovo before March 20, and 
are we now being misled with biased media information? Is this aggressive 
war really justified to counter alleged humanitarian violations, or are there 
problematical premises being applied to justify the hostilities? Either way, 
diplomacy has failed and the ongoing air bombardment has greatly 
exacerbated an internal humanitarian problem into a disaster. There were 
no international refugees over the last five months of the Organization for 
Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) presence within Kosovo 
and Internal Displaced Persons only numbered a few thousand in the 
weeks before the air bombardment commenced.

As an OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) monitor during 
February and March of this year, I was assigned as the Director of the 
Kosovo Polje Field Office, just west of the provincial capital of Pristina. 
The role of the 1380 monitors of the KVM, from some 38 of the OSCE's 
55 nations, including 64 Canadians, was authorized under UN Security 
Council Resolution 1199 to monitor and verify cease-fire compliance, or 
non-compliance, investigate cease-fire violations and unwarranted road 
blocks, assist humanitarian agencies in facilitating the resettlement of 
displaced persons and assist in democratization measures eventually 
leading to elections. The agreement which was the basis of the KVM (I 
refer to it as the "Holbrooke-Milosevic agreement") was signed on 
October 16, 1998, ending the previous eight months of internal conflict. 
Given its international composition, the KVM was organized and 
deployed quite slowly and was not fully operational on a partial basis until 
early in 1999. By the time I arrived, vehicles and other resources along 
with the majority of international monitors were arriving, but the cease-
fire situation was deteriorating with an increasing incidence of Kosovo 
Liberation Army (KLA) provocative attacks on the Yugoslavian security 
forces. In response the security forces of the Ministry of Internal Security 
police supported by the army were establishing random roadblocks that 
resulted in some harassment of movement of the majority Albanian 
Kosovars. The general situation was, though, that the bulk of the 
population had settled down after the previous year's hostilities, but the 
KLA was building its strength and was attempting to reorganize in 
preparation for a military solution, hopeful of NATO or western military 
support. Consequently the October Holbrooke-Milosevic agreement 
restraining the Internal Security police and army was not strictly adhered 
to, as unauthorized forces were deployed to maintain security within the 
major communities and internal lines of communication. In my estimation, 
however, the KLA was left in control of much of the hinterland 
unchallenged, comprising at least some fifty per cent of the province. In 
addition the parallel Albanian government of the Kosovo Democratic 
League (KDL) continued to provide some leadership to the majority of the 
Albanian Kosovars.

This low intensity war since the end of 1998 had resulted in a series of 
incidents against the security forces, which in turn led to some heavy-
handed security operations, one being the alleged "massacre" at Racak of 
some 45 Albanian Kosovars in mid-January.  [NOTE: the "Racak 
massacre" was so identified by William Walker, an American diplomat 
leading an OSCE war crimes verification team. Walker's sordid career, 
described in the APPENDIX to the present article, throws considerable 
doubt on the veracity of his account of this event, which Javier Solana 
himself identifies as a turning point in the  development of the Kosovo 
crisis.]

Upon my arrival the war increasingly evolved into a mid intensity conflict 
as ambushes, the encroachment of critical lines of communication and the 
kidnapping of security forces resulted in a significant increase in 
government casualties which in turn led to major Yugoslavian reprisal 
security operations that included armour, mechanized forces and artillery 
to secure there same lines of communication. By the beginning of March 
these terror and counter-terror operations led to the inhabitants of 
numerous villages fleeing, or being dispersed to either other villages,
cities 
or the hills to seek refuge. As monitors we attempted to follow and report 
on these cease-fire violations, but I and my fellow monitors also continued 
to work with both Kosovo factions and the internally-displaced population 
to promote the other aspects of our mission. In particular within our field 
office area of responsibility, we were making progress to facilitate the 
resettlement of an unoccupied village from the previous summer, while six 
other villages were about to be abandoned due to the increasing hostilities. 
As an example of this humanitarian work, we had conducted some dozen 
negotiating sessions with both belligerents as well as displaced villagers. 
Our objective was to create conditions of confidence and stability and 
commence the resettlement of the village of Donje Grabovac. This village 
of some 700 former inhabitants sits next to a major coal mine guarded by 
security forces, which fuels an adjacent thermal generating plant. On the 
other side of the village, less than a kilometre away, the KLA also 
occupied another village. Donje Grobovac was the scene of daily shooting 
incidents and in this case most were probably initiated by the mine guards. 
Regardless, tensions were high and fatal casualties and kidnapping of 
mine and security forces by the KLA had occurred prior to our arrival. 
After our lengthy series of negotiations, all participants agreed not to 
provoke their opponents and we were about to escort former village 
delegations back to commence resettlement. If this kind of program could 
have been expanded and built upon throughout Kosovo, perhaps 
supported by an enlarged international monitoring mission to better reduce 
the cease-fire violations, I believe both the international air bombardment 
and intensified civil war would have been avoided. But western diplomacy 
would have to be more flexible for this to occur.

The situation was clearly that KLA provocations, as personally witnessed 
in ambushes of security patrols which inflicted fatal and other casualties, 
were clear violations of the previous October's agreement. The security 
forces responded and the consequent security harassment and counter-
operations led to an intensified insurrectionary war, but as I have stated 
elsewhere, I did not witness, nor did I have knowledge of any incidents of 
so-called "ethnic cleansing" and there certainly were no occurrences of 
"genocidal policies" while I was with the KVM in Kosovo. What has 
transpired since the OSCE monitors were evacuated on March 20, in 
order to deliver the penultimate warning to force Yugoslavian compliance 
with the Rambouillet and subsequent Paris documents and the 
commencement of the NATO air bombardment of March 24, obviously 
has resulted in human rights abuses and a very significant humanitarian 
disaster as some 600,000 Albanian Kosovars have fled or been expelled 
from the province. This did not occur, though, before March 20, so I 
would attribute the humanitarian disaster directly or indirectly to the 
NATO air bombardment and resulting anti-terrorist campaign.

So what led to this breakdown of the peace process and the air 
bombardment? The Rambouillet and subsequent amended Paris ultimatum 
"Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo" was 
divided into both political and military implementation accords. The 
political accord called for a return of political, cultural and judicial 
autonomy for Kosovo Province as previously provided in the 1974 
constitution and was generally acceptable to both factions. The stumbling 
block was that the Serbian delegation insisted on the long-term territorial 
integrity of Yugoslavia and the supremacy of federal law. With the KLA 
desiring total independence, however, and American compliance, the 
Albanian Kosovars were given the incentive of a referendum in three years 
time to determine the ultimate political future of Yugoslavia. On the 
military accord, the Contact Group, less Russia, and the Ambassador 
Chris Hill's demand that a NATO force be employed to secure the Kosovo 
Implementation Mission of the proposed plan was also completely 
unacceptable to Yugoslavia, since it constituted foreign occupation of 
their sovereign territory by the western alliance. In turn, the acceptance by 
the KLA of their supervised disarmament was only accepted after 
American political inducements of obvious independence were offered. 
The result then is that proposed agreements were in fact ultimatums, 
unacceptable to Russia as well as Yugoslavia, as they left that nation with 
the clear alternative of surrender or bombardment.

Was there a diplomatic alternative? I believe there always has to be 
political alternatives to war, although I an not a pacifist and I do believe 
that defensive hostilities may be justifiable for the right cause. The 
western members of the Contact Group, the European Union and the 
United States and the Russian Federation could have worked within the 
United Nations and kept the Russians on side. As an inducement to an 
enhanced OSCE or UN monitoring presence within Kosovo, Yugoslavia 
could have had its 1991 economic sanctions cancelled and economic 
restructuring funds offered to promote its integration within the new 
Europe, with a guarantee, in return, to eliminate human rights concerns 
within Kosovo. This proposed enhanced OSCE presence, perhaps 
supported by a limited armed UN presence, may well have been 
acceptable to the western power, in order to monitor a fair and genuine 
Kosovo agreement. However, the NATO bombardment has been 
counterproductive, as it has created a significant European humanitarian 
problem of more than 600,000 external refugees that threaten to destablize 
the surrounding vulnerable nations, exacerbating regional security. 
Another estimated 600,000 plus internally-displaced Kosovars are also 
being subjected to the deprivations of the full-scale civil war. Then in the 
end the international community will also have to rebuild not only 
Kosovo, but the rest of Yugoslavian to ensure their future participation in 
the new Europe of the 21st century, This is what the failure of diplomacy 
with its consequent ill-prepared and ill-conceived air bombardment has 
accomplished.

What is crucial to have happen then, is that the unjustified moral certitude 
that that has resulted in the demonization and vilification of Yugoslavia 
and its nationalist President Milosevic cease, and be replaced by a rational 
discourse to enable a fair and just solution to be agreed to.

NATO has gone to war to prevent the humanitarian expulsion of an ethnic 
minority and has caused the catastrophic Kosovo population displacement 
to occur. The western government, led by inept diplomats and politicians, 
have failed to provide a rational and diplomatic alternative, and instead 
have incited an irresponsible public opinion, whose conscience has led it 
to demand actions to solve problems that it does not comprehend. NATO 
is now in a war that it cannot win. Its objective of liberating the Kosovo 
Albanians from Serbian misrule has been counterproductive, and has 
resulted in their expulsion. The war has broken international law, 
disregarded the UN Charter, and violated the NATO mandate. This has 
arguably irrevocably damaged the dreams and aspirations for rational 
diplomacy and the rule of law, meant to establish an international system 
with limits on great power ambitions.

There were political alternatives to this war, but we also should have 
known what would happen. And it did happen. The pointless and 
degrading bombing must stop and rational international negotiations must 
commence. The alternative is incomprehensible.

Rollie Keith lives in Chilliwack. 
=================================================

APPENDIX: William Walker's Background

According to various newspaper reports, Walker began his diplomatic 
career in 1961 in Peru. He then reportedly spent most of his long career in 
the foreign service in Central and South America, including a highly 
controversial posting as Deputy Chief of Mission in Honduras in the early 
1980s, exactly the time and place where the Contra rebel force was 
formed. The Contra force was the cornerstone of then-CIA Director 
William Casey's hardline anti-Communist directive, and Honduras was 
considered, along with El Salvador, the front line in the war with the 
Soviet Union. From there, Walker was promoted, in 1985, to the post of 
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central America. This promotion 
made him a special assistant to Assistant Secretary of State Elliot 
Abrams, a figure whose name would soon be making its way into the 
headlines on a daily basis in connection with a new scandal the press was 
calling the "Iran-Contra" affair.

Walker would soon briefly join his boss under the public microscope. 
According to information contained in Independent Counsel Lawrence 
Walsh's lengthy indictment of Abrams and Oliver North, Walker was 
responsible for setting up a phony humanitarian operation at an airbase in 
Ilopango, El Salvador. This shell organization was used to funnel guns, 
ammunition and supplies to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

Despite having been named in Walsh's indictment (although he was never 
charged himself) and outed in the international press as a gunrunner, 
Walker's diplomatic career did not, as one might have expected, take a 
turn for the worse. Oddly enough, it kept on advancing. In 1988, he was 
named ambassador to El Salvador, a state which at the time was still in 
the grip of U.S.-sponsored state terror.

Walker's record as Ambassador to El Salvador is startling upon review 
today, in  light of his recent re-emergence into the world spotlight as an 
outraged documenter of racist hate-crimes. His current posture of moral 
disgust toward Serbian ethnic cleansing may seem convincing today, but it 
is hard to square with the almost comically callous indifference he 
consistently exhibited toward exactly the same kinds of hate crimes while 
serving in El Salvador.

In late 1989, when Salvadoran soldiers executed six Jesuit priests, their 
housekeeper, and her 15 year-old daughter, blowing their heads off with 
shotguns, Walker scarcely batted an eyelid. When asked at a press 
conference about evidence linking the killings to the Salvadoran High 
Command, he went out of his way to apologize for chief of staff Rene 
Emilio Ponce, dismissing the murders as a sort of forgivable corporate 
glitch, like running out of Xerox toner. "Management control problems 
can exist in these kinds of situations," he said.

In discussing the wider problem of state violence and repression --which 
in El Salvador then was at least no less widespread than in the Serbia he 
monitored from October of last year until March of this year --Walker 
was remarkably circumspect. "I'm not condoning it, but in times like this 
of great emotion and great anger, things like this happen," he said, 
apparently having not yet decided to audition for the OSCE job.

Finally, in what may be the most amazing statement of all, given his 
current occupation, Walker questioned the ability of any person or 
organization to assign blame in hate crime cases. Shrugging off news of 
eyewitness reports that the Jesuit murders had been committed by men in 
Salvadoran army uniforms, Walker told Massachusetts congressman Joe 
Moakley that "anyone can get uniforms. The fact that they were dressed in 
military uniforms was not proof that they were military."

Later, Walker would recommend to Secretary of State James Baker that 
the United States "not jeopardize" its relationship with El Salvador by 
investigating "past deaths, however heinous."

This is certainly an ironic comment, coming from a man who would later 
recommend that the United States go to war over...heinous deaths.

One final intriguing biographical note: Walker in 1996 hosted a ceremony 
in Washington held in honor of 5,000 American soldiers who fought 
secretly in El Salvador. While Walker was Ambassador of El Salvador, 
the U.S. government's official story was that there were only 50 military 
advisors in the country (Washington Post, May 6, 1996).

A Spooky Choice

With a background like this, it seems implausible that Walker would be 
chosen by the United States to head the Kosovar verification team on the 
basis of any established commitment to the cause of human rights. What 
seems more likely, given Walker's background, is that he was chosen 
because of his proven willingness to say whatever his government wants 
him to say, and to keep quiet when he is told to keep quiet-- about things 
like a gunrunning operation, or the presence of 4,950 undercover 
mercenaries (whose existence he regularly denied with a straight face) in 
the banana republic where you are Ambassador.

The Iran-Contra incident isn't the only thing in Walker's background 
which gives reason for pause. Another is his curious ability to remain in 
Central and South America throughout virtually his entire diplomatic 
career.

Not since before the fall of China has the State Department allowed its 
career people to remain in one place for any significant length of time.

After the Chinese Revolution, the State Department enacted what has 
come to be known as the Wriston reform, which dictated that Department 
employees be rotated out of their posts every few years. With this reform, 
the government was hoping to put an end to a problem which they termed 
"quiet-itis"--the development of "excessive" sympathies towards the 
culture of one's host countries.

With the Wriston act, the U.S. government eventually got exactly what it 
wanted--a State Department characterized by fortress-like embassy 
compounds, in or around which Americans live amongst themselves in 
monolingual, isolationist bliss, counting the hours until they're rotated out 
to their next job in Liberia, or Peru, or wherever. As a result, most State 
employees see three or four different posts in different corners of he world 
every ten years. It is well-known among career foreign service people, 
though, that one of the few exceptions to this rule are the CIA agents in 
the embassies. Our intelligence people take longer to develop their 
contacts, and in order to preserve these "personal relationships" (bribe-
takers don't like to change bagmen), they tend to hang around longer.

Walker was in Latin America virtually throughout his entire career, until 
he arrived in Kosovo. He had no experience in the region which qualified 
him to head the verification team in Yugoslavia. Furthermore, he spent the 
entire 1980s occupying high-level State positions in Central America, 
under the Reagan and Bush White Houses, when the region was the 
source of more East-West tension than in any other place in the world, 
and Central American embassies were the most notoriously CIA-
penetrated embassies we had. You can draw your own conclusions.

Nonetheless, one need not prove that Walker is a CIA agent to make the 
case that the United States made a serious error in judgement in 
appointing him. Whether or not he was sent to Kosovo to guarantee that 
evidence of ethnic cleansing would be "discovered", and whether there 
even exists a covert plan, of which Walker might be part, to install a semi-
permanent U.S. military force in the Balkans, it is bad enough that other 
countries might identify Walker according to their own criteria and 
assume the worst. And assume they will, according to political analysts 
familiar with the story.

"Ambassador Walker's record in El Salvador does not a priori invalidate 
his testimony on the massacres in Kosovo, but it certainly does 
compromise his reliability as an objective witness," said James Morrell, 
research director for the Washington-based Center for International 
Policy. 

There is a widespread belief not only in Russia, but in other countries, 
that Walker's role in Racak was to assist the KLA in fabricating a Serb 
massacre that could be used as an excuse for military action. Already, two 
major mainstream French newspapers--Le Monde and Le Figaro-- as well 
as French national television have run exposes on the Racak incident. 
These stories cited a number of inconsistencies in Walker's version of 
events, including an absence of shell casings and blood in the trench where 
the bodies were found, and the absence of eyewitnesses despite the 
presence of journalists and observers in the town during the KLA-Serb 
fighting.

Eventually, even the Los Angeles Times joined in, running a story entitled 
"Racak Massacre Questions: Were Atrocities Faked?" The theory behind 
all these exposes was that the KLA had gathered their own dead after the 
battle, removed their uniforms, put them in civilian clothes, and then 
called in the observers. Walker, significantly, did not see the bodies until 
12 hours after Serb police had left the town. As Walker knows, not only 
can "anybody have uniforms", but anyone can have them taken off, too.