Bill Clinton: “----the anti-American feeling, and then my personal impressions of Mr. Milosevic. The international community has taken…”

“----the anti-American feeling, and then my personal impressions of Mr. Milosevic. The international community has taken the position that we would support humanitarian assistance to the Serbian people, because we realize that we have very badly damaged Serbia, economically, and stretched the social fabric in this conflict. We would like very much to--the United States, in particular, would like to participate in the rebuilding of Serbia, because we have many Americans of Serbian heritage and because we want to make it clear that we're not anti-Serb; we were against Mr. Milosevic's policies. But we do not believe at this moment we can or should go beyond the humanitarian aid, for the simple reason that if we do, it will strengthen Mr. Milosevic's hold on power. So it's a terrible dilemma. But the people of Serbia need to find some way to change their government. He has been charged by the War Crimes Tribunal. The evidence is overwhelming. The reason we acted so quickly in the case of Kosovo was because of the horrible experience we had in Bosnia, and I was President for 2 of those years. It was a nightmare, and we only got the international community galvanized to take action after Srebrenica. So I think that, if the people of Serbia want us to be involved beyond humanitarian aid, then there needs to be a change in the government. Now, in terms of anti-American feeling, I can only say I understand it, even though we didn't act alone and all of our European allies agreed with us. We have the largest military, and we dropped the most bombs. And unfortunately, there were some innocent civilians killed in the bombs, and I feel terrible about it, and I understand it. But I just would ask the people to consider the position I was in. When I first became President, I tried talking with Mr. Milosevic for 2\1/2\ years. And tens of thousands of people died in Bosnia. Here, we knew they had a plan. We knew that the Milosevic government had a plan to systematically uproot the Kosovars, to kill, to loot, to destroy the property records in a very systematic way. And we did not want to wait another year or 2 and let all these people die and all these refugees be created and then not come home. If you look in Bosnia, here, we're sitting here in Sarajevo, and over a million people have still not come back. In Kosovo, because we moved immediately, 90 percent of the refugees have already gone home. So if the Serbs are mad at me, I understand that, and I accept it as part of the inevitable consequences of a terrible conflict. But I want them to know they can continue to be mad at me, but the United States does not hate Serbia. We do not have anything against the Serbian people. Our country is a better country because we have so many Serbs in America. And I want to be involved in the reconstruction of Serbia, and I want Serbia to have a leading role in southeastern Europe in the future. But we have got to put an end to ethnic cleansing. The politics that have driven Mr. Milosevic's government and power for the last 12 years have got to be put aside. The idea of racial or religious superiority has got to go into the dustbin of history. And I'm very sympathetic with it. It had a big hold on America--you know, the idea that whites were superior to blacks had a big hold on America. We didn't elect a Catholic President until 1960 in the United States. I understand these things. But you can't--we've reached a point now where we can no longer sanction this sort of slaughter. And I think it's a good thing for the world. So the people can be mad at me, but they need to know Americans have nothing against Serbs. We opposed what Mr. Milosevic did. And the third question you asked me was about my impressions of Mr. Milosevic. I am reluctant to say much, you know, because at home people are always psychoanalyzing me. You know, they meet President Clinton, ``Why was your President, President Clinton?'' I think he is a very intelligent man. I think that he can be charming. But I think there are two problems that he has, that have proved fatal. Number one, he has built his political power on the idea of the religious and ethnic superiority of Serbs and their inherent right not only to be a part of but to completely dominate whatever he decides is Greater Serbia. He thought it was what is generally the Republic Srpska, now, in Bosnia. He took the autonomy away from Kosovo, which it once had. Now you have Hungarians in Vojvodina, and you have the Montenegrins worried, because he basically has created this fear, this paranoia, in the Serbian population, and then he fed it, like a fire, with the bodies and lives of others. Now, you know, there were other excesses in this region. The others are not pure. But he created this whole thing, and he drove it home in Bosnia, and then he drove it home in Kosovo. And I think he had--in other words, I think he had a dark and terrible idea. The other thing I observed from watching him is, perhaps because of the tragedies of his own life--he had terrible tragedies, you know, as a child, with his parents and all--I feel very badly about it, but I don't think he feels the way normal people would feel when they make decisions that cost people their lives. I know, you see, I know when I ordered those airplanes to fly over Serbia, I knew innocent people would die, and I hated it. And the only reason I did it was because I knew I was saving many, many tens of thousands of people's lives, more than would die. I think to him it doesn't matter. That's the only thing I can conclude. After watching 250,000 people die in Bosnia and seeing these stories of these children raped and these children--they were draft-age boys--killed en masse, and these people wrapped up in a circle and burned alive, and it happens over and over and over again--I can only conclude that he has no--for whatever reason, he doesn't have normal feelings. So those are my two problems with Mr. Milosevic. I think this idea of ethnic and religious superiority is the biggest threat to civilization in the world today, not just in the Balkans--Northern Ireland, the Middle East, Africa, you just go right down the line, everywhere in the world. In the United States--we had a guy go crazy the other day and kill a bunch of people of different races in the United-- did you see it? In two States?”