Brussels, 27 July 1999

Article by the Secretary General of NATO, Dr. Javier Solana For the past months, Kosovo has dominated the evening news and the front pages of the world's newspapers. Now, other stories are dominating the media's attention and Kosovo is moving off the front page. This is as it should be -- because the Kosovo conflict is over. The determination of the international community and the resolute actions of NATO have stopped and reversed the ethnic cleansing carried out by Yugoslavia. Over ninety percent of the refugees have returned home. The Kosovo Implementation Force (KFOR) and the UN Mission in Kosovo are restoring stability, order and basic services to this beleaguered province of Yugoslavia. We are achieving our objectives. We are doing so because, in Kosovo, the international community said "enough". Enough of the ethnic cleansing, enough of the forced deportations, the summary executions, the repressive policies of Milosevic and his entourage. We did not avert our eyes from the humanitarian emergency unfolding in Kosovo. The United Nations, the OSCE, the Contact Group and the G-8 all took diplomatic action. And when Yugoslavia rejected a reasonable, balanced diplomatic solution, NATO took military action, to compel Belgrade to agree to the demands set out by the international community. Now we are tackling the next phase: to start the process of building a Kosovo where all its residents share security, democracy, economic opportunity and justice. Getting this phase off to the right start is vital. In particular, three objectives must be achieved before we can begin to address stability over the longer term in the Balkans. First, a secure environment must be established. KFOR, under NATO leadership, has already deployed over 30,000 soldiers to keep the peace in Kosovo, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1244. This is much more than just a NATO operation. Many other Partner countries have indicated their desire to participate in KFOR, as a contribution to peace and stability in South-Eastern Europe. We very much welcome the prominent role that Russian forces will play in KFOR and expect to cooperate closely with them in our common endeavour of peace implementation. This is a good sign that NATO-Russia cooperation is getting back on track, and we welcome the recent resumption of our consultations with the meeting of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council at NATO headquarters last Friday. Second, the UN, the EU, the OSCE and other international bodies must be ready and able to begin their work in assisting the reconstruction of the province and thus laying the groundwork for political stability and economic prosperity. Here we are seeing good progress. The UN is already implementing its plan to assume interim civilian authority in Kosovo now, before progressively delegating authority back to a local, multi-ethnic civilian administration. Third, we must continue our efforts to support justice for all Kosovo citizens. This society cannot regain its health until those who have perpetrated war crimes against innocent civilians are identified and brought to justice. Evidence of atrocities is being uncovered every day. Conservative estimates suggest that over 10,000 Kosovar Albanians were killed by Serb security forces, and some 500 villages put to the torch. Careful gathering of evidence by teams of experts is vital so that the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which has already indicted Mr. Milosevic and four members of his Government for war crimes, will be able to prosecute the perpetrators of such atrocities. KFOR will provide all necessary support for the Tribunal's work in Kosovo. Taken together, these steps are the key to a successful start to building long-term peace and stability in Kosovo. But to ensure success, we cannot look at Kosovo in isolation. The entire Balkan region has suffered too long from instability and violence. If the international community is to help stabilise this region, then we must both broaden and lengthen our perspective. We must broaden it to include other countries of South-Eastern Europe. And we must lengthen our perspective to include longer term goals - such as greater economic prosperity, greater political and security cooperation, and greater integration among the countries of this region. This week will witness two landmark events in the international community's offer to rebuild South Eastern Europe. First there will be the Donors Conference in Brussels on 28 July. It will put the international financing on the table to cover the immediate reconstruction needs in Kosovo and to draw up medium to longer-term assistance requirements. This effort will complement the recent decision of the EU to establish a reconstruction agency for the region in Thessaloniki with an office also in Pristina. Two days later, on 30 July there will be a Summit in Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina, which will launch the EU-led Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe. This Stability Pact will have an important economic dimension in which the EU and the international financial institutions will play the leading roles. It will also involve the building of democratic institutions where the OSCE will be in the head. Security will be no less important and here NATO has much to contribute. First by its military presence in Kosovo and well as in the Stabilisation Force in Bosnia as well as force deployments linked to Kosovo in other countries of the region. Second by the intensification of our cooperative activities with the majority of the countries of South Eastern Europe within the Partnership for Peace. We are currently looking at ways to hold more of our PfP activities in the region itself to help our Partners with their defence reform, force planning and modernisation and civilian control of their armed forces. Third, by proceeding with the Membership Action Plan that was unveiled at the Washington Summit and which offer those countries seeking NATO membership a more regular and detailed assessment of their progress in achieving the crucial milestones. But these are not NATO's only means of offering support. We have already created a consultative forum on security matters with seven nations of South-Eastern Europe as a means of promoting regional security cooperation and building confidence. Two countries which are not in the Partnership for Peace, Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina, are part of this forum. It has met three times since late April. But for there to be real peace in the region, Serbia must be part of it. This will require a dramatic political transformation. Over the last decade, the Serbian people have increasingly been the victims of the ideologies and mismanagement of their government -- ideologies of exclusion, of nursing historical grievances. They have become prisoners of the past when instead they have so much to contribute to the region and to a united Europe. For Serbia to rejoin the European family, it must embrace modern values -- peace, tolerance, and integration. I am confident that this will happen soon, as more and more Serbians open their eyes, look at what has been done in their name, and rightly demand better a deal from their leaders. The Serbian people as they look across their border can see already democratisation and reforms moving ahead in their region and this demonstrates how much, and how quickly, the political landscape of the Balkans is changing. I firmly believe that a new era is also dawning for South-Eastern Europe -- an era of lasting peace, economic opportunity and deeper integration into the European family. We in the international community must persevere in making this a reality. We cannot do it, though, without the political will and determination of the democratic forces in the region and the support of the peoples of South-Eastern Europe. But at least we can promise that, if they shoulder their part of the burden of political and social reconstruction and reconciliation, they will have the support, assistance and encouragement of the rest of Europe. Such a bargain is possible; it is do-able; and it would bring fresh cause for hope at the opening of a new century.