Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-07-04-Speech-3-070"
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"en.20010704.2.3-070"2
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"Mr President, it is particularly worrying to see armed conflict persisting in a country which borders my own country at a time when intensive negotiations are under way for the sole purpose of settling once and for all the differences which gave rise to the conflict in the first place. Ethnic segregation, penning nations in after a war or uprising behind fortified borders which no-one considers definitive and which in turn become a new source of conflict is, unfortunately, the pattern which has been repeated throughout the history of this region in the Balkans. And for centuries, ethnic cleansing has been the method used to impose these solutions.
What we see in our neighbouring country is a repetition of the time-honoured pattern. This time the main perpetrators are organised armed Albanian extremists taking advantage of what is often justified ethnic discontent on the part of their many, unarmed, fellow countrymen, as is always the case, in order to incite them to wage war on other ethnic groups. The European Union was, historically speaking, the last factor to appear in the area, advocating certain principles which, if they really could have been imposed, would have released the area from the nightmare of its history.
But if modern European solutions are to apply, nations with different ethnic groups need to be persuaded to abandon segregation behind closed borders and agree to cohabit under one state roof. This enlightened solution is currently being tested in two countries in the wider area: the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Cyprus. The benefits to the people of a European type solution would be incalculable, but they presuppose abandoning armed violence as a method of forcing historical development and, on this point, the European Union has not excelled either in the case of Cyprus or in the case of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. It has not acted forcefully towards those engaged in violence or it has only done so unilaterally. Violence will not be abandoned as the result of conferences, talks and visits, especially when international obligations are breached in the process, nor will it be abandoned by giving into the temptation of the old colonising forces and granting armed forces from any one ethnic group favoured status. One gets the impression that ΝΑΤΟ is reacting as if the armed Albanians were going to turn into the region’s Ghurkhas.
It was the responsibility of the forces which intervened in Kosovo to disarm the KLA. They failed to do so. It was their responsibility to impose a security zone around Kosovo. They failed to do so or they did so unilaterally, against the Serbs, while allowing the KLA to come and go as it pleased. It is a well-known fact that the KLA is backed by drug dealing and by contributions which originate in our countries. According to one newspaper article, the US administration has frozen Albanian accounts which were funding the KLA. Europe has done no such thing. How can we expect armed violence to end, to lose its reputation in people’s eyes, if we grant favoured status to armed forces such as those in Yugoslavia or 30-year occupying armies as in Cyprus?
As long as we fail to act decisively where decisive action is required, it is hypocritical to say to nations clashing on the ground that they are responsible for the tragedies which befall them. They are responsible, but we too are jointly responsible, Commissioner, for the recurring nightmare which is the history of the Balkans."@en1
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