Dr. Gazmend Pula: "We, the Albanians pay the price so that NATO may salvage its power"

[Interview in the French weekly "Marianne" (26/4/99), translated by GHM]

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Marianne: Are you supporitng NATO air strikes?

Dr. Gasmend Pula: We appreciate the fact that Western democracies engaged the lives of their soldiers for Kosovo. (…) The operation had three objectives:

1. Stop violence in Kosovo. But it was transformed into a humanitarian catastrophe in retaliation to the NATO air strikes, which the Serbs carried out with medieval brutality.

2. Prevent the destabilization of the region. Destabilization is widespread in Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro and indirectly in Bosnia, while tension rises between the USA, Russia and the European Union.

3. Diminish Milosevic's war capacity. It was diminished, but at an intolerable price. Half of Kosovo's population was driven away without knowing when its return will be possible (…). I hate to see the Albanians paying the price so that NATO to salvage its power. I am afraid that the worst is yet to come, since Kosovars are held hostages.

Marianne: What should be done? Negotiations with Milosevic?

G.P.: Anyway, everywhere in the world negotiations have never stopped with dictators and criminals. It is necessary to stop the genocide that is going on through all means - military, political and diplomatic. Before NATO air strikes, all efforts should have been exhausted to organize a serious peace conference. Today, only a conference about the whole region could help solve the crisis. (…) An international protectorate is needed to assure the return and the security of the population. I am against the partition of Kosovo, which will an unbearable attack to its integrity. Today we cannot avoid negotiating with the Russians because NATO, though its crazy operation, ended up imposing them.

Marianne: The Albanian leaders who signed the Rambouillet agreement and called for a NATO intervention were they wrong?

G.P.: Many of the Albanian leaders are neophytes in politics, without any experience in international politics, and partially they are responsible for this tragedy which they should have anticipated, knowing the nature of the Serbian regime. (…)

Marianne: How do you see a ground intervention of NATO?

G.P.: All possibilities must be considered taking into account the potential risks for the population held hostage. If a terrestrial intervention must take place, let's hope it will be better prepared than the air strikes.

Anne Dastakian took the interview.

(…) signify passages not clear in the photocopy GHM received.

Gazmend Pula is an academic and President of the Kosovo Helsinki Committee for Human Rights.