During a Round Table program aired on Cuban
television on April 25, 2003, I pointed out that the then
Spanish President José María Aznar, an ally of the world's
leader in genocides and massacres, had met with President
William Clinton on April 13, 1999, at an uncertain juncture
of the war in Yugoslavia, and had told him, verbatim:
"If we’re at war, let’s make it an all-out war,
in order to win, to achieve more than a partial victory.
Even if the war must last a month, three months, let's wage
it. I don't understand why we have not yet bombed Serbian
radio and television".
Aznar and US government spokespeople have kept
silence about this. The text that follows has never before
been published. I will use other materials, both public and
confidential, in reflections to come.
[...]
"AZNAR: I will speak frankly. As I've already
told President Clinton, the one thing that cannot happen is
for NATO to be defeated now. Not only NATO's credibility,
but its very existence as well, is now at stake. Had this
conflict taken place 30 years ago, we would not have
intervened. Europe has always been plagued by ethnic
cleansings, confrontations between minorities and
majorities, religious conflicts. Today, this is no longer
tolerable. From the political point of view, we will never
be in favor of Kosovo's independence, because of what we
said before".
Referring to Chirac, the French president, he
said: "I will speak with him tomorrow in Brussels. When I
want to have a good time with Chirac, I start by saying to
him that 'these Americans are truly horrible’. I had dinner
with him at the Elysium three weeks ago. I don’t know what
had happened between you, but he was saying terrible things
about you. I told him that was all fine and good, but that I
wasn't there to discuss that.
"My idea is that, in order to win the war, the
lines of communication between the Belgrade government and
the people must be cut off. All of Serbia's lines of
communication, its radio, television and phones, must be put
out.
“In addition to this, we must restructure our
information policy. NATO's information policy is disastrous.
We're giving people the impression we've set out on an
adventure, not that we're waging a war. There are real
communication gaps. We have to go as far as we can on this,
patiently cut off all supplies and lines of communication.
“We have to be careful with Italy and Greece.
Air traffic and tourism in Italy are being severely
affected. D'Alema is doing a good job, given the
circumstances. We must not let him arrive at facile
solutions.
"We must step up humanitarian aid efforts. Our
citizens must see the efficacy of our humanitarian work as
the other side of the bombings.
"It would be senseless to change positions now.
I spoke with Annan yesterday. I saw that he had a firm
stance on the matter. I stressed this to Annan. We can be
flexible, but we cannot give people the impression that NATO
is withdrawing.
"We can be flexible with respect to whether NATO
would lead this force or not, but we cannot content
ourselves with having OSCE (Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe) observers return. In addition to
transparency, we must have a guarantee.
"We must continue to pursue this strategy, to
see if it possible for him to be overthrown internally" (He
is referring to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic).
"If a number of his generals fear that they can
be accused before the Hague Tribunal, they may cooperate.
Milosevic will likely try and come to an agreement. We must
attempt to have that agreement reduce and not increase his
power.
"We need not even touch on the matter of the
land operation.
"Everyone understands that plans are in the
making, anything else would be illogical. If our current
strategy isn't working, we have to explore other options. It
must be put on the table for consideration. If everything
we're doing leads us nowhere, we'll have to intervene in the
coming months. But our actions could not be limited to
Kosovo. Rather, they would include other areas of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, going through Bosnia and
Hungary, even. The Hungarian president is a young and
intelligent leader, he told me that we will never be
successful unless the following happens: Milosevic out of
office, Kosovo split into two and a reformulation of the
policy towards Bosnia-Herzegovina, to be divided as follows:
a united Serbian Republic for Serbia, the Croatian part for
Croatia and an independent Muslim part. I don't agree with
this idea, but I believe it is gaining ground in countries
in the region. It will be very hard for Serbs and Albanians
to go back to living together again. We must continue to do
what we've been doing, but we've been in Bosnia for many
years now and we don't know when we will be able to get out
of there. The Albanians may accept the idea of a
confederation, but this will not be possible if Milosevic
remains in power.
"If they have no guarantee of a Serbian presence
in the regions that symbolize the birth of their
civilization for them, they won't accept it. The feeling
that native soil has been lost, that this soil must be
"liberated", will arise.
"Our priority is to win the war; we'll see what
happens afterwards".
[…]
I ask
Mr. Aznar to tell us whether it is true or not that, on
April 13, 1999, he advised President Clinton to bomb Serbian
radio and television.
Fidel
Castro Ruz
September 29, 2007
8:36
p.m.
