November 12, 2001

 

 

Congressman Henry Hyde

Chairman

International Relations Committee

U.S. House of Representatives

2110 Rayburn HOB

Washington, DC 20510

Re: Aid to Serbia

Dear Congressman Hyde:

In your meeting with Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic on November 7, he appealed for more U.S. government funds—$115 million in assistance and $40 million in debt reduction—on the basis of promises that were made last spring to the Bush administration and the Congress but have yet to be kept.

In spite of opposition from many members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, human rights organizations, and nongovernmental organizations involved in the Balkans (including the Albanian American Civic League), on March 31, 2001, Serbia received U.S. government certification, which led to the release of $100 million in American aid and, later, access to loans from the IMF and the World Bank. In exchange, and only in the final hours leading up to the deadline for certification, former Serbian dictator and now indicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic was arrested and, three months later, transferred to the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.

The Bush administration had dropped its previous commitment to make certification contingent not only on the arrest of Milosevic, but on Belgrade’s complete cooperation with the International War Crimes Tribunal, its release of all Kosovar Albanian prisoners of war from Serbian jails, its full compliance with the Dayton accords, including termination of support for Serbian separatists in Bosnia, and its implementation of a program to educate the Serbian people about the crimes against humanity that were committed in their name in Bosnia, Kosova, and Croatia. Zoran Djindjic, who faced off President Vojislav Kostunica in extraditing Milosevic to The Hague, persuaded the Bush administration that Serbia would eventually make good on its promises, once purported threats to the new democracy in Belgrade subsided.

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The Albanian American Civic League strongly opposes the awarding of additional American aid to Belgrade unless the Serbian government meets the conditions previously set forth by the U.S. Congress. In particular, further support should hinge on Prime Minister Djindjic’s fulfillment of three promises that he made on November 7.

  1. Djindjic promised that Serbia would meet the conditions set forth by the International War Crimes Tribunal:

    2. On the very day that Zoran Djindjic assured you that his government would meet the conditions set by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, the New York Times reported that Serbia’s Constitutional Court had "scrapped a government decree that would have allowed the government to hand over suspects" to the tribunal. In response, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, rightly insisted that surrendering Milosevic was not enough and that Belgrade needed no special legal provision to hand over documents, witnesses, and suspects. If the United States is serious about reinforcing the rule of law, then it should withhold aid until Serbia extradites to The Hague the thirty-seven other people wanted for committing atrocities during the Balkan wars, most of whom are still at large in Serbia and Republika Srpska, including the notorious Bosnian Serb commanders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

  2. Djindjic promised that Serbia would agree to "an exchange" of prisoners:

    3. As KFOR and the NATO command can attest, there are no Serbian prisoners of war, only forty Serbian prisoners charged with war crimes. However, there are at least 220 Albanian POWs, who were illegally taken from Kosova in June 1999, and who are dying from malnutrition, disease, and torture in Serbian jails and prisons. The 2002 Foreign Appropriations Bill passed by the U.S. Senate on October 24 stipulates that the release of $115 million in new aid to Serbia is contingent on the release of all Kosovar Albanian POWs by March 31. Any attempt by Belgrade to tie the release of Albanian political prisoners to the return of war criminals should be roundly rejected.

  3. Djindjic agreed to a referendum in Montenegro:

Both Belgrade and the United States should acknowledge the right of Montenegro to opt for independence, and both should cease pressuring Montenegro to postpone the referendum scheduled for spring 2002 until some mythical, more favorable time.

Since the United States released $100 million to Serbia last spring and lifted the arms embargo against Serbia in the summer, the Serbian government has repeatedly violated, rather than fulfilled, the peace agreement that it signed with the Albanian leadership in the

Presheva Valley and has failed to correct human rights abuses there. In Kosova, northern Mitrovice still remains under the control of Belgrade in violation of UN Resolution 1244, and Deputy President Nebojsa Covic has launched an international propaganda campaign to place all of Kosova back under Serbian rule. Until these and other dimensions of the

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Serbian-Albanian conflict are resolved, the world faces the prospect of renewed war in the Balkans. Before we give more money to Belgrade, the Bush administration needs to examine what we have gained by continuing to aid the Kostunica government, while accepting the pretense, not the reality, of democracy and the rule of law in Serbia. Especially in light of the September 11th catastrophe, the Civic League believes that the administration and the Congress need to weigh the short-term advantages of shoring up the Kostunica government without building in benchmarks of accountability against the longterm prospects of another Balkan war.

Sincerely,

 

Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi

Balkan Affairs Adviser

 

cc: Congressman Benjamin A. Gilman

cc: Senator Joe Biden