Beth Roberts, editor of Columns, University of Georgia's faculty / staff newsaper, recently sat down with Gary Bertsch, director of UGA's Center for International Trade and Security, and prevailed upon him to discuss NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo and Serbia.
By Beth Roberts
Columns: Let's start with your background in the area.
Bertsch: My wife and children and I went to Yugoslavia for a year in 1969, where I was doing my Ph.D. work. We bought a Volkswagen and traveled through every corner of the country, because my research was based upon interviews in 24 communes. We spent a lot of time in Kosovo, in Macedonia, in Montenegro and Serbia. It was fascinating-we say it was the most enlightening year of our lives. The people were just wonderful to us. Yugoslavia looked like a success story in '69-'70. Today's tragedy didn't have to turn out this way. With leadership and diplomacy, this could have been avoided.
Columns: How did [former Yugoslav dictator] Tito keep ethnic unrest under control?
Bertsch: I think Tito was a great leader-with all of his shortcomings, he gave the people a higher objective: to create a peaceful multi-national country. There was some coercion involved, but the quality of life was much superior.
Columns: And that just fell apart?
Bertsch: When Tito died, and the economy soured, people like Milosevic came along and inflamed these latent nationalistic feelings for their political advantage. I blame the leaders of these new states-particularly Milosevic.
In addition, there are powerful historical forces that explain what is happening there today. For example, Kosovo-this small territory within the sovereign state of Serbia-has been the cradle of Serbian nationhood. When the Ottoman Turks came in and defeated the Serbs in Kosovo in 1389, and took over this land, the Serbs lost a lot. They have vowed to avenge this defeat over the last 600 years. They finally got this land back in the Balkan Wars of 1912, and when they saw in recent years that the Albanians-the Kosovo Liberation Army-wanted autonomy, and wanted to take this ancestral homeland away from Serbia, they said, "No, we're not going to permit this."
I'm afraid the Serbs would be prepared to fight to the last person to keep this territory. We haven't really appreciated how strongly the Serbs feel about their right to their homeland.
Columns: So what do we do now?
Bertsch: We can't overstate the importance of what's happening. This is the sort of thing from which world wars are created. Russia is deeply concerned about what's going on there-Russia's on the brink of disaster, and a Russian nationalist leader might think this is a way to rally the Russian people, by a war with NATO. It's a very explosive situation.
The leaders of NATO want to do the right thing and certainly do not want World War III-but the bombing has been a disaster. It's strengthened Milosevic; it's complicated the refugee problem. So much more could have been achieved if we had continued the negotiations.
These threats that we made about bombing-and then finally felt compelled to carry out-put us in a terrible predicament, and now it's much more difficult to go back to the negotiating table. But I think we have to do that. I think we should stop the bombing and work through the NATO Council and the [U.N.] Security Council to negotiate some kind of agreement.
We have to have a long-term plan for the refugees. The best thing would be to bring some peace to the region so the refugees could go back home. The longer they're away, the more serious the problem. These other countries can't absorb them and don't want them because it upsets the political balance there. If we don't find a way to return them to their homeland then Milosevic is the winner.
Columns: How can we negotiate under these circumstances?
Bertsch: That's the difficulty, because Milosevic is very powerful now. The Serbian people have rallied around him. He is the leader of Serbia but he's also a war criminal. How we work through this is extraordinarily difficult. I think we might have to deal with Milosevic in the early period, and subsequently the War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has to decide independently whether he should be brought to trial.
But in the immediate period, President Clinton is the leader of this country, Tony Blair is the leader of Britain, Slobodan Milosevic is the leader of Serbia-and they have to talk.
Columns: And that's possible?
Bertsch: It has to be possible. Otherwise, we are teetering on the brink of a major war in Europe, and these things can get out of hand very quickly. Two world wars started in this part of Europe, and we never expected a third-and now that does not seem impossible.
But there are political solutions. Ultimately we have to do this-every war has to conclude with a peace plan-and the sooner the better.
If we get involved with ground troops in the Balkans, it could go on for years. My wife and I traveled through Kosovo with a retired Serbian Army officer-this was in the spring of 1970-and he was still passionate about the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 and fighting the Nazis. These Serbs are fighters. This will be guerrilla warfare-it means sending American troops into the Serbian heartland, and there will be a lot of casualties.
Columns: Is this a chance for Russia to play a role?
Bertsch: I think so. We cannot lose sight in this current mess of the importance of Russia, both as part of a solution and also as a much bigger problem if events unravel in Russia. We have to be imaginative to realize this historic opportunity for creating a partner, a more democratic country. I think there's a part for Russia that could be good for them politically and economically-and good for the Western alliance.
Columns: How about NATO's role?
Bertsch: They need to get to work to involve our most creative thinkers in putting together an imaginative plan that makes NATO a positive force, that can restore peace and stability to Europe and serve as a model for the rest of the world.
I'm not going to throw up my hands and say there's no way out, but I think we have to have better leadership coming out of Washington and out of the NATO capitals.
Bertsch can be reached at 760-542-2985 (o), 706/549-5198 (h) or [email protected].
For further information visit http://www.uga.edu/cits or http://www.uga.edu/columns/current/voices.html
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