She backed Operation Storm, NATO bombing, called Serbs disgusting: Albrigth's incendiary statements

Photo: Profimedia/MANOOCHER DEGHATI/AFP

America must show what its expectations are when it comes to Serbian-US relations, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said on Tuesday at the end of so-called hearings in the Foreign Policy Committee of the House of Representatives and "recalled" that America has the economic and diplomatic instruments to influence it, while Eliot Engel called on Serbia to recognize Kosovo, which has been "independent for ten years" and said it was time for Serbia to move on.

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She reminded the Serbian public why they remember her only after the evil - during the 1990s, she had a serious influence on the course of events in our country, from the war years to the post-war events in Kosovo and Metohija.

Since the war in Croatia and her support for Operation Storm, negotiations in Rambouillet, bombing of FR Yugoslavia and post-war events in Kosovo and Metohija, Albright has held the same position in every event - the opposite of that of official Belgrade, and each was explained with not so nice words about our people.

"Kosovo must develop its statehood, Serbia is halting that process"

Addressing the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Albright said Kosovo should develop its statehood while Serbia should not stop the process. She referred to the performance during the 1990s and assessed that today the Balkans are calmer than 25 years ago and that countries have not disintegrated.

"We must understand that there are forces in Serbia that want better relations with the United States. Not everything in Serbia is negative. They want to be treated differently, and we have the economic and diplomatic instruments to influence that," Albright said.

She expressed similar views 25 years ago when she supported (Croatia's) Operation Storm, ardently advocating in favor of aggression against Serbia (in 1999), justifying it as a "humanitarian mission."

This is evidenced by confidential US documents, which were recently declassified, from the period several months before the agreement was reached in Dayton in 1995. They testify about her view of a possible conflict between Serbs and Croats, because everything looked like Croats would decide on military action against Serbs in  then Republic of Serb Krajina.

Photo: Wikimedia/Flickr/U.S. Institute of Peace

"The Croatian army has been strengthened and it was a question of what role it could play in a regional conflict. When we talked about that with the president (Clinton), I was of the opinion that Croats do what they want and that they cannot be stopped. There were also those who were very nervous about the fact that Croats and Serbs could enter into a conflict, and thus give us the beginning of the Third World War. I didn't think it would happen. I thought it was worth the risk. I was worried about how to approach human rights, and it was okay to be worried about that. But I did not see it as something apocalyptic," the confidential documents testify, Blic recalled.

She played a key role in the 1999 Rambouillet peace talks on Kosovo and Metohija. At the time she effectively stopped the negotiations, promising the Albanians a referendum in three years, and the Serbs the famous Annex B, which even foreign politicians said foresaw an occupation status for Yugoslavia. Shortly afterwards, the (NATO) bombing ensued.

Buying a Kosovo operator

During her tenure, Albright also demanded that the Hague Tribunal not give up, because "victims of atrocities deserve justice." In one of the documents, dated May 25, 1995, she wrote to then American official Tony Lake and advocated that the United States should not give up on the lifting of external sanctions against Serbia, that is, the ban on borrowing from the IMF, being linked cooperation with The Hague Tribunal.

The agreement in Dayton was approaching, the Tribunal was formed 18 months earlier, but President Slobodan Milosevic did not show that he was ready to cooperate.

Photo: Tanjug/Kristina Maslarevic

"I continue to believe that cooperation with the Tribunal as a condition for removing the 'outer wall of sanctions' is the right thing to do. The victims of atrocities deserve justice. Removing those who incited violence will remove possible causes of conflict in the future," Albright stated.

The Prague portal Parlamentni Listy reported last year that Albright was guided exclusively by personal reasons in her commitment to the bombing of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) in 1999, as well as to the creation of a so-called independent Kosovo. They said that, thanks to her close ties with the leaders of the terrorist KLA ("Kosovo Liberation Army") primarily with Hashim Thaci, after the arrival of the international administration in Kosovo and Metohija, she privatized the Kosovo telephone operator Ipko, which her company later sold to the Slovenian operator Telekom Slovenija.

It turned out that $20 million had been overpaid, and when asked directly by the Czech media whether, after 20 years, she thought it was right for NATO forces to bomb Serbia and kill thousands of people, many women and children among them, Albright showed no remorse.

"It happened that in Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Kosovo many people died and I must say that it was a tragedy, as well as that we tried for a long time to find a diplomatic solution. We didn't want to use bombs, but really, Serbs in Kosovo were killing people there. How many times have we conducted diplomatic negotiations, we did our best, but Serbs killed people only because they were Muslims...," said Albright.

Later, she wanted to buy Kosovo telecommunications company PTK, entered the race to do this, but her company announced that she gave up because they had "other plans."

"Disgusting Serbs"

And that she really hates Serbs she demonstrated again in 2019 while promoting her autobiography "Prague Spring" in the Czech Republic. The event was interrupted after protesters in the audience shouted that the author was a war criminal, displaying posters with similar messages. According to the media, and a video posted on YouTube, a group of pro-Serbian Czechs provoked Albright and at one point she shouted: "Get out, get out," and, "Disgusting Serbs".

(Telegraf.rs)