ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...

on the table in Dayton because this was a meeting about the war in Bosnia but I assured
them that the U.S. had not forgotten Kosovo and would deal with the issue at the right
time. They were disappointed, of course, but seemed to accept the argument.
It was true that we had not forgotten the issue but there was just too much on the
Yugoslav agenda at the time. Back in Belgrade, however, I raised Kosovo regularly in
my meetings with Milosevic. I tried to convince him that Belgrade’s policy would lead to
another explosion and violent conflict in the region if it remained unchanged. His
standard response was that we were taken in by Kosovar Albanian propaganda, that most
Albanians in Kosovo were quite happy, and that only a few troublemakers were
fomenting discontent. I am not certain if he really believed this and was so totally
misinformed about the situation in Kosovo, or if he just believed that he could keep a lid
on the problem indefinitely. I suspect it was a combination of both.
Q: But it was also a nationalistic issue throughout Serb society.
PERINA: Absolutely. Even the pro-Western, pro-democracy Serbs we knew had very
little sympathy for the Kosovar Albanians. There were a few exceptions to this but they
were very rare. The gulf even between moderate and reasonable Serbs and Albanians was
enormous. To me it was clear that the situation was untenable and would lead to a crisis
at some point. What we tried to do in the interim was to urge both sides toward
moderation and non-violence. In the case of the Albanians, we had Embassy officers
specifically assigned to visit Kosovo on a weekly basis to maintain contact with the
Albanians and show them that their plight had not been forgotten by the United States.
These officers stayed in local hotels and spent a lot of time going back and forth. After
the Holbrooke visits to Belgrade started and Milosevic was trying to demonstrate what a
reasonable person he was, I had the idea of asking him whether the Embassy could open
a permanent office in Pristina, the Kosovo capital, as a permanent base for our visits. This
was actually a big request since everyone knew the sensitivity of Kosovo, and we still
lacked formal diplomatic relations for even an Embassy, much less an Embassy branch
office. But I persuaded Holbrooke to ask the question, which was one of the few times he
agreed to engage on Kosovo. Milosevic was caught off guard and responded in a cavalier
way “ Sure. If you want to do this, why not.” I think he regretted this answer the minute
he gave it, and the Foreign Ministry certainly regretted it when it came to working out the
details. But we did open an office in Pristina, and I think it was one of the more
significant accomplishments of my tour. The Kosovar Albanians were so delighted that
they actually found a building for us to use free of charge. They saw it as a big step
forward in getting international recognition for the entire Kosovo problem. It was also
seen as a victory for Rugova and his non-violent policies. It helped defuse the tension, at
least for a while.
Q: We have people who were brought out of retirement to go to Kosovo. I recently
interviewed one of them.
PERINA: During my time, we sent people from the Embassy but alternated them. One of
our political officers, Liz Bonkowski, spent a lot of time in Kosovo. The Kosovar
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