International Experts Explain Kosovo Crisis at Study Group

To the delight of the folks at Pinocchio's, last night's Pizza and Politics drew almost triple its normal 45-person audience, precipitating a move from a Kennedy School conference room to a nearby lecture hall.

About 120 members of the Harvard community came to discuss the basics of the Kosovo crisis at an event entitled "Kosovo 101," sponsored by the Institute of Politics, according to event coordinator Preston B. Golson '02.

Audience members said the event was especially useful for those who did not completely understand the Kosovo crisis.

"I really didn't know much about the conflict before this," said David M. Nicoll '02. "It gave a good historical background as well as an analysis of current events."

The evening began with two 20-minute speeches by Charles Crawford, a Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WFCIA) fellow and former British ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Col. Michael W. Alvis, another WFCIA fellow and former military assistant to the Assistant Secretary of the Army.

"It's a sad measure of things down there that so many of you are willing to come hear Mike and me talk about things," Crawford began.

After giving the audience a brief history of the Kosovo region from 1389 to the present, Crawford identified two points that he said have not been clear in the media coverage.

"The first thing I want you to understand is that Albanians are not Slavs," he said, emphasizing that ethnic differences are the cause of the conflict.

Crawford explained that the differences between the Serbians and the ethnic Albanians are more deeply rooted than differences between other groups in the region, all of which are of Slavic origin.

"I don't think this is about territory," Crawford said. "What it is about is numbers."

According to Crawford, by the early 1980s, Serbs realized that they would soon be an ethnic minority in Kosovo, and throughout Serbia. The shift would have been the result of the growing ethnic Albanian population.

The Yugoslav leadership has largely tried to repress the ethnic Albanians, but, according to Crawford, when the Kosovar Liberation Army arose a year ago, it gave Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic an excuse to use actual ethnic cleansing campaigns.

Crawford said the NATO bombing has given Milosevic an excuse for his refusal to cooperate with the West.

"Now he can go for broke," he said.

Alvis' remarks focused on why NATO, a defensive alliance, has entered the conflict and possible outcomes of the fighting.

"This is an out-of-area operation," he said, referring to the NATO alliance. "Recently, there was a lot of momentum to expand out-of-area to include the Middle East and Africa. I think that after this, that will be pulled back."

Alvis attributed NATO's willingness to act in Kosovo to its strategic location and proximity to member nations.

"Kosovo is wedged in an area where stability starts to come into play," he said. "It's also an embarrassment for atrocities to occur in modern, high-tech Europe."

Alvis also noted problems with intervention by coalition. The 19 NATO nations directing the conflict all have veto power, leading to indecisiveness.

"Milosevic knows how fragile the coalition is," he said.

According to Alvis, NATO will win if it has the resolve, but the only sure way to win is to occupy Kosovo and lay out conditions for the return of refugees. However, he is not sure that NATO has the resolve to send in ground troops.

"Clinton doesn't need combat during a presidential election," Alvis said.

A 40-minute question-and-answer period followed the presentations. Topics of discussion included the U.S. hesitance to call the conflict a war.

"As [Sen.] John McCain [R-Ariz.] said, `We're trying to win war without waging one,"' Alvis said. "We're willing to throw our treasures at it, but we're not willing to throw our blood at it."

However, one audience member, Asti Pilika '99, an ethnic Albanian from Albania, offered enthusiastic support for the U.S. effort.

"It is my opinion that America had to take a leadership role in this situation," he said. "The European leadership [in past Balkan conflicts] became tools in the hands of Serbian propaganda. Europe is just too much in the possession of nationalism to make rational decisions in this conflict."